Blood Fest (2018)

Episode 316, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, Craig, it’s that time of year again, the the time we love the most, . Yep. Halloween time, special time for our podcast. As many of our long time listeners know, we are coming at you this month with four Halloween-themed horror movie.

And, uh, we still have a lot to choose from. Starting this off was a movie that Craig selected. It is 2000 eighteens Blood Fest directed and written by Owen Eron, who also has a, a bit of a part in it. He’s more or less the villain. And I had never heard of this before. I’m kind of surprised because I think the concept of the movie, uh, is really, really cool.

Owen, as a writer and director, has not done much. He’s really just done a film called Follow in 2015, which I’m. Not familiar with, but seems to get some decent reviews. Uh, this movie and then something else called Mercy Black that followed it up. A couple things he’s written right now are in pre-production, but, uh, yeah, so, uh, but the cast, oh my God, the cast is just full of recognizable faces, especially now in the Marvel era.

So, yeah. Thank you for suggesting this. This is the first time I had seen it. What, what clued you into this 

Craig: title? I don’t know. I stumbled on it when I was looking around at stuff on streaming services and I watched it and that’s when I said We, we should do this . It’s a kind of a Halloween focus, but yeah, it’s, I mean, it mentions that it’s Halloween at the very beginning and at the very end, so Right.

Todd: It counts. Close enough. 

Craig: Yeah. I just thought that it was a cool concept and really kind of a love letter to horror fans. Oh yeah. 

Todd: And not just for horror. Well, generally speaking, if you’re a horror fan and you live in, in the United States, you’re probably a bit of a Halloween fan too. Yeah. And if you’re like a me, depending on where you live, they’re usually haunted houses going on, uh, at this time of year.

Um, I know that. In Kansas City, which was not too far from, uh, where I was living for quite a while. And you too, Craig. There are huge warehouses that are just professional haunted houses that, uh, Yeah. Spend all year kind of renovating and putting in new bits and pieces and animatronics and whatnot so that they can open up, um, in the middle of September through the end of October and make a boatload of cash.

And they’re so much fun to go through. And there was one, I, I took a trip with a friend of mine out to St. Louis. Um, which is, uh, not far from Kansas. I mean, they’re basically opposite sides of the state. And St. Louis has a place that kind of reminded me of the, of the blood festival. In this movie, it’s a haunted attraction that actually is, is outdoors and it’s set up more of like a, an experience like a theme park.

There are three or four different haunted houses. There’s a haunted hay ride kind of in the middle. Uh, to, to take you between them. It was almost like a Renaissance festival, , but for horror. And I thought that as I was watching this movie, I was thinking, God, at first, anyway, this looks like the coolest place ever.

Like it would be perfect to go, uh, to something like this, this time of year. Um, you know, except you don’t wanna get murdered. Uh, for real, right? But , even Florida, Halloween Horror Nights is very similar to this too, where they clear out the park Universal Studios, and that’s a blast too. So these kind of like attractions, you know, if you’re not in the US they might seem odd to you or, or you might not have this in your own country, but, This kind of attraction is definitely around this time of year, and that’s what this movie focuses on.

And so I thought it was a perfect choice for this time. Yeah, me 

Craig: too. And like you said, of course, you know, despite like the murdering part, Yeah. This, this festival, uh, looks like it would be so much fun because it’s. And homage to horror cinema. I, I mean, it’s, it’s called Blood Fest and, and it is a, a festival, of course, you know, we’ll introduce the characters and, and whatnot coming up, but it’s just a huge outdoor festival that’s divided into different areas that are all.

Themed 

Todd: Clown Town and like some kind of horror torture. Bill . It’s like Disneyland Adventure Land or something like that. Fantasy Land. 

Craig: Yeah. VA Camp Asylum, living dead land. Uh, and it’s just set out over this big outdoor area and, uh, it, it looks amazing. I mean, if you, the opening credits are over. A map of blood fest and it’s set up like Disneyland.

Just like Disneyland is set up in different themed areas. That’s what this is like. And it’s massive and there’s tons of people there and there’s tons of stuff going on and, and music and food, main states, all these different attractions. Yeah. I mean, it, it just, it looks, uh, amazing. But the concept of the movie, uh, well, and these different themed areas.

Are are just barely masked , you know, they right because of copyright. It can’t be something real and specific, but it’s obvious what they are. Like Hotter 10 is obviously like the teenage slasher Halloween type place and torture villa is, you know, the saw attraction. And it’s just a, a lot of fun. I mean, it’s.

It had me smiling and giddy throughout, even as these young people are being chased by murderous monsters and killers of different types. I was like, Oh man, this is so cool. Right, . 

Todd: Well, It starts off with a mom, Andous and, uh, son watching a, a horror movie. An old Bell Lago see black and white horror movie, and he’s clearly Halloween.

He’s dressed in a costume, They’re eating popcorn. They’re just really enjoying it. I, I just thought this was a beautiful family picture. Really? It was sweet. Really sweet. The dad pops in, says, I’m gonna duck out. You guys okay. Yeah. He leaves and then they have this nice little talk and, you know, this is something that we’ve touched.

Because it does come up in, I think most recently, I think our discussion on Salem’s Lot where there’s a kid who’s really into horror and horror movies, and the movie itself sort of addresses that. Like, why are you into this? You know, Should we be worried? This might be the first time that I’ve seen. You know, a parent and their child actively sitting down, enjoying horror together, and the mom explaining to the kid, Mom, 

Craig: why do we watch these movies?

Maybe because we’re not supposed to, and they’re fun. I thought these movies were scary. They are. It’s so scary that most people would close their eyes or 

Todd: run 

Craig: away, but we 

Todd: don’t. 

Craig: When the shadows are dark and the music is creepy. You know, you should close your eyes. Wait, take a peek

and laugh because now you know, you know what? Since you’re stronger than anything you’re 

Todd: afraid of, I, This might have been the first time I’ve ever seen. This kind of dynamic in a horror movie. Usually it’s the parents. I don’t understand why you’re into this garbage uhhuh, . Um, in this case it was really sweet, uh, supportive.

Like my parents were almost reluctantly at times, supportive of my, of my horror habit when I was a kid. So, uh, it, it really sets set up well. Dad leaves and, uh, mom goes to the kitchen for a glass of chocolate milk. But then we see this figure behind her who’s. You know, it’s, it’s your classic, almost to cliche.

There’s a lot of cliche moments in this film and it’s, Yeah, it’s a parody, you know, it’s a comedy as well. So, you know, this, this, this figure that kind of has a hooded, hooded, uh, rain slicker on or something and is holding a knife and has a mask and immediately. The kid hears some noise and he walks into the kitchen and sees mom’s legs, you know, behind the island, like she’s dead on the floor.

Mm-hmm. this killer is, is standing over her and, oh my God. I mean, my heart broke for this child immediately and then suddenly the dad jumps in with a gun and takes the kill her down in 10, in two seconds after that, we catch up with a kid as a teenager, and uh, interestingly, He’s in a room filled with horror stuff, like horror movie posters on the wall and masks and things like that.

And so he’s really, in a way, really taken his mom’s advice or feelings or whatever you wanna say, like that idea to heart where instead of this traumatizing him from horror movies or horror or anything like that whatsoever. Yeah, it seems to have horror, Seems to have been maybe a coping mechanism for him to face this, this childhood trauma that he, Yeah, and 

Craig: he’s a cute kid.

His name’s Dax. He’s played by a kid named Robbie K, who was really recognizable to me, the only, he’s been in quite a lot of stuff. Uh, I recognized him that Disney soap opera show once upon a time. Yeah, he played Peter Pan. He played Peter Pan on that. I watched that for a while and it was all right. And.

Kind of started to get silly, so I, uh, stopped. But he was on that. And you, like you said, he’s obsessed with who, He’s particularly obsessed with this fictional franchise, the Arbor Day franchise, which is hilarious. There really should be an Arbor Day franchise. I mean, why not? Right? ? 

Todd: It’s about the only holiday we haven’t covered.

You know, , right? 

Craig: His sister Jamie, you know. Gives him crap about wanting to go to this blood fest. Says it’s lame. And his dad, uh, his name is Dr. Conway. He’s played by Tate Donovan, who he, he’s pretty famous. He did a lot of stuff, uh, in the eighties 

Todd: and nineties. He was the voice of Hercules in the Disney cartoon.

Craig: Oh yeah. Uh, he did a stint on friends. He was around quite a bit in the eighties and nineties. You’ll recognize him, but his dad forbids him from going to Blood Fest and, and actually has found his wristband, which is like your ticket or what. And, and he, and he cuts it and, and his dad explains that he hates horror.

He’s like, These kinds of movies Drove my patient to kill your mother. Blood Fest is just a bunch of freaks, degenerate, celebrating mindless violence and Gore . And then it cuts to the ad for, uh, Blood F Blood Fest. Blood Fest is a gathering of freaks and degenerate, celebrating mindless violence and go

Todd: I I I I laugh so hard that bit . It’s Oh, in the eye of the beholder, right? , Yeah. Yeah. 

Craig: It was funny. And like in the ad says that at Blood Fest they’re gonna have the, the actor who played the. Arborist and they’re gonna have the cast of this new horror movie. Hell’s Nest and there’s gonna be Gamekeeper Karaoke, or no, there’s gonna be Karaoke with Zachary Levi, which is hilarious.

Zachary Levi has nothing to do with horror as far as I know, but, But fun, funny, None. And then we catch up with Dax, uh, you know, talking to his friends. He works at a video store, which I don’t know where this kid lives, right? I haven’t actually seen a video store in existence in probably 10, 15 years. I know, I know.

Which is sad. I love them. I would’ve loved to have worked in a video store as a 

Todd: teenager. I was really surprised to see him in a video store. To be honest. He’s hanging 

Craig: out there with, uh, his two friends, Crill, played by Jacob Balon, who is in all of the Marvel Spider-Man movies. And really any, any movie that Spider-Man is in, he’s usually in it because he is like Spider-Man’s best friend.

Yeah. And then, uh, girl friend Sam, uh, played by Elle, uh, Gabriel, who I didn’t recognize. She was in the last Airbender. I don’t know if she was in the live action one or a voice act. I don’t, I think she was in the 

Todd: live action one and then, and then most recently, the Tomorrow war, which I haven’t seen, but it it me there.

It’s got, what’s his name in it? Chris Pratt. Oh, right. 

Craig: And so he’s sad that he can’t go. And so they tell him that, uh, he should call their friend Ashley. Apparently their friend Ashley is an actress. Mm-hmm. , and she is in that movie that I mentioned before, like Hell’s Nest or whatever, and she’s gonna be at.

Blood fest. So maybe she can get Daks a ticket, any calls, any bags. And uh, she agrees. And on their way there they talk about horror rules. I mean, in a lot of ways it’s really formulaic. We, you know, in, in any movie that’s self-referential about horror, we always get this talk about rules, obviously. So it can be set up.

That either the horror movie that we’re watching is going to abide by those rules or they’re going to bend them in some way. Yeah, 

Todd: or, or following or being aware of the, The rules becomes intricate to the plot. Right? Like if they follow them, right. If they’re gonna be safe or something. And you get kind of tired of this after a while, I was kind of rolling my eyes 

Craig: at that.

It’s, Yeah, I mean, it’s kind of conventional. We’ve seen it done before. Mm-hmm. , uh, obviously probably most prominently in screen, but we’ve seen it done, uh, a bunch of times. But it’s not like they dwell on it for a long time. No, it is, you know, kind of casually talk about it for a little while and then they go to the festival and I have in my notes, the festival looks Awesome.

right. And Dax is like, this is gonna be the best night of my life. And they go in and, and, and the doors close behind them, like the gates, uh, close and lock, uh, behind them, which maybe should be a clue that this isn’t all on the up and up. Yeah. But it’s, They get in there. They will, they, Yeah. Sorry, I, I’m, I’m rushing cause I’m trying to get to the, like the exciting part.

What happens, they get in there and they almost immediately meet, um, Well they meet up. Ashley, the actress and her lame ass director friend Lyman Kane . He’s funny. He’s a, He’s like the Hollywood stereotype. 

Todd: He really is so full of himself, but probably, But the movie that he’s made is probably nothing. Yeah.

Oh, 

Craig: right, right. No, he’s a nobody. Which Ashley 

Todd: was like topless girl number. Five in , but she was really hoping to be topless girl. Number three. . Yeah. 

Craig: She’s funny. She’s, I did not recognize her at all, but the production company that made this movie, apparently it’s like a fledgling company. You know, these people built it up, you know, from the ground up and, and she has been a part of it from the beginning.

And I think that she’s been involved in every production they’ve 

Todd: done. Yeah. The production company’s Rooster Teeth and, um, I think some of our listeners might know exactly who they are. I was surprised to see the name come up on the screen cuz I didn’t really realize they were involved in movie production.

I think this is only their third one, but they’ve been around since the early two thousands with red versus blue. , are you familiar with that? It was one of the earlier internet kind of web series. No, I, I’m not, It wasn’t even on YouTube for a while. I mean, it was, it almost predates YouTube. They had taken Halo, the Game Halo and they used the game Halo.

They actually used like game footage and, you know, would position their own characters in the game, so they looked like they were talking to each other. Anyway, kind of do screen recording. Of Halo in order to, uh, tell the story. It’s called Mocking Mock, where you kind of use the video game in order to, you know, for cheap animation basically.

Sure. And that was a huge hit. And they did another thing, I think called. Laser team or laser something. And then now, like, I was surprised to see they’ve got a huge podcast like Network and they’ve got multiple shows and you know, this is one of the third movies that they’ve produced as well. So I was pretty shocked to see that there.

But yeah, you’re right. This woman, Ashley, like she’s, she’s, she’s been involved in a lot of their productions. I think I read, uh, that when she went to, went to college as a fan of theirs. And then when she graduated, just moved to. Headquarters and started working for them. It’s kind of cool . Yeah, 

Craig: it is. It is.

They meet the, uh, actor who, who played the arborist Daks approaches him and his name’s, uh, Roger Hinkley, and he’s a douche . He’s He’s disgruntled, Yeah. He’s so funny. Like, because he’s a, he’s a real. Actor. And it just so happens that his first gig was this horror movie, and then it became a successful franchise that he was like bound to, but like he , he hates it.

And he, he, he says he’s never even seen any of the movies he hates horror, makes him. Throw 

Todd: up and he thinks everyone’s stupid. Who watches it. I mean, he’s really quite disparaging for a guy who’s at this horror fest and we learned, you know, goes to comic book conventions and horror conventions and things.

Oh, I mean, right. 

Craig: He he must just be in it for the money. Yeah. Cuz he’s clearly not having any fun. Mm-hmm. . And then we get the big kickoff party, which looks amazing. There’s a huge stage. Um, and the stage is lined with these guys in these Cool. Pig masks and they’ve got chainsaws. And this game master who looks like a, like a ringleader, like a circus ringleader comes out

Yeah. And he’s, he’s loud and bombastic and he’s really getting the crowd pumped. But he talks about how. Horror has been neuter. Children, we have a problem. Horror is dead. We look around you. Our vampires, glitter. Our zombies have become soap up. Bra stars. Our slashers have grown doll and old. We put Freddy on a lunchbox.

We put Lovecraft in a collaring book. We have over consumed and overproduced, and we have taken what was forbidden, what was dangerous, and we have made it common. And so tonight they’re gonna make the horror movie. End all horror movies and he introduces this masked character to the stage, completely masked and like in red, leather comes out, you know, all back lit, looking like a rock star and, and the game.

Keeper says this is red. And he asks for volunteers and says, Uh, if you’re gonna volunteer so he can kill you. And the crowd cheers and they bring up these two beautiful girls and red just like slaughters them right there in front of everybody, cuts one of their throats cuts, the other ones abdomen open.

So their guts like fall out and then all hell breaks loose the pigs with the chainsaws. Attacking the crowd. Yeah. And at first people. At first people don’t know what’s going on. Like they think it’s part of the show, as I probably would to, Oh yeah. I wouldn’t know how they were doing it, but I, my gut would tell me, Oh, it’s part of the show.

That’s awesome. Until then, you take a chainsaw of the face. Yeah. . 

Todd: Then you’re distinctly. Becomes real 

Craig: and Yeah, and, and there’s lots, there’s lots of gore. There’s lots of kills right here in the beginning. Yeah. The, the effects are pretty good. I mean, there’s some pretty obvious cgi, but it’s not bad and it’s fun.

Um, so you forgive the quality a little bit because it’s so much fun. Yeah. But of course then people start to realize, you know, what’s really going on and everybody takes off running and that’s kind of where. You know that, that that’s basically then at that point, what the movie is, it’s our main character is trying to make their way, the front entrance is closed.

Do they know? So they’re gonna try to make their way to the back entrance. Ashley says she got lost coming in and came in through the back and somebody gave her a key card for the back door. Um, so they have to, you know, make their way through this whole. Festival, including getting through all of the different areas to get to the back to try to get out, and that’s what the movie is about.

Yeah, that’s 

Todd: basically it. I mean, for better or for worse, it escalates very quickly. You know? Yeah. It, the movie does not waste a lot of time in setup. You know, We get the backstory with the boy, We get. Okay. His dad, who’s this expert on horror now, and, and by the way, I don’t know if we mentioned this, but he was a, he’s a psychologist and like you said, it was his patient that killed the mom.

And, uh, it seems like he has built a bit of a career since that murder of, you know, releasing books. About this sort of thing. Anyway. Yeah, so, so we had the backstory with the dad and with the mom and the kid, and then he goes to the horror fest against his dad’s wishes, and then boom, everyone starts to get slaughtered, which is like a ridiculous concept.

I mean, it’s pretty out there. And I, I was definitely getting. Shades of cabin in the woods throughout this. I mean, I think absolutely. The movie was clearly inspired by it, uh, because, you know, at the end of the day, it’s this ringleader. He has a whole production team. There’s a tower. Yeah. Uh, there at the center of the park.

And up at the very top, he has two very nerdy and very, you know, straight faced, almost bored and joke. Assistants who are, you know, one’s, one’s looking at all the cameras and activating effects and things, and the other guy is editing footage together. So this, this guy’s actually making a movie. Out of all this.

Yeah, I mean it’s all, it’s, it’s pretty silly, but yeah. We’ll go with it. And, uh, and it’s also really horrifying. Well, right, 

Craig: And, and it, the, like you said, that tower is like the control center and they’re controlling these. People, I guess. Yeah. Uh, not, not the guests, but the people in their employee, like through electronic pulses and different weird stuff.

Like, so we’ve got Dax and his two friends, Sam and Crill, and then there’s Ashley and the douchey director, and they’re all together and the first place they end up is, uh, to the. Room or something. Uh, yeah, a storage room where they, you know, they talk, that’s when they figure out what they need to do to get to the back or whatever.

Yeah. But then when they leave, they end up in basically the night of the living dead. Right. Uh, 

Todd: cemetery. And so, you know, there’s a lot of questions going through your head and I think that the movie tries to sort of, uh, put those aside even though it’s quite silly as well, just before they end up there.

I think one of his assistants. The, the, the main producer, Anthony Walsh is his name. Yeah. Who also happens to be the writer director of the movie. The director, Uhhuh . He says one of, I don’t know, one of his assistants or his maintenance guy or somebody asked him, Where do you, where do you find people who are willing to just go out and murder all these others?

And he said, I make them. Well, basically it’s like a clockwork orange type, reverse clockwork orange type scenario where he takes people who are already broken. Like already mental patients or something, and then plays them the same movie for hours and hours and hours and hours. And he says, it turns out that with somebody whose mind is so susceptible that you play that for them and then that becomes their reality and they, they become that character or something in the movie.

And so apparently he’s been working for years gathering all this up and then in the night of living dead situation, There’s a funny scene where the douchey director guy, you know, is like, Guys, come on. We’ll cut through the cemetery. What do you really think that this guy put all these fake tombstones here?

Didn’t even put real tombstones. And what do you think? He buried a whole bunch of corpses. He’s gonna magically reanimate back to life, blah, blah, blah. And of course, as he says that a hand shoots up to the ground and grabs him in the crotch. Yeah. And by the way, he has taken the key card from Ashley. Yeah.

He decided he didn’t want these bozos to have it. Uh, he’ll keep it on himself. And so he’s pulled into the ground and sort of like, I don’t know, big blood bubble comes up. So I guess he’s dead. Uh, and with him the key card, but which Ashley doesn’t point out to anybody right away. Right. Uh, and so yeah, they cut through there and then they run to a cabin in the woods, Uhhuh, where they find.

The arborist. The 

Craig: arborist, his name is 

Todd: Hinkley Hinkley. It’s, it’s your classic, like evil dead cabin in the woods. But then, uh, they, they kind of confer in there and they realize, so I think one or two of those breaks in and they have to dispatch it. And when it falls, they notice that not only do they have, um, GoPros strapped to their chests, but there are electrodes attached to the hands and arms and legs.

And so that these are actual corpses. That through the use of electrical impulses. They’re controlling, which is a huge stretch. , she’s sure. I don’t know how you explain how these things are, like biting people and eating them. Like it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s rather silly. It is silly. What makes it even silly here is that he’s got a room full of gamers.

Who are controlling these people, , who they don’t realize that they think they’re just in a game with really, really great graphics and so, Right. You know, they’re seeing the footage from the cameras and thinking it’s part of the game and they’re controlling these zombies and one of them turns around and says, Hey, when do we get to control the victim?

Like soon enough. Okay. the movies. I don’t know if this. It’s not really social commentary, but it kind of is. Um, there’s something to be said here about desen, our desensitization, our sort of blase treatment of all this kind of stuff. Right. 

Craig: Well, I I, I don’t know if it’s so much social commentary as it is tongue in cheek ironic commentary, like, you make people watch enough horror movies.

Eventually they’ll. Track of reality and they’ll become psychotic themselves. Right? Like obviously that’s not true. Ah, the same thing, You know, the same thing with, uh, video games. You, you, you become so desensitized that somebody could have you killing real people and you wouldn’t even really notice it.

Mm-hmm. , I mean, these are the, these are the types of criticism. Horror movies and violent video games face in real life. And I think that the movie is very tongue and cheek kind of saying, Ha ha, ha. Yeah. Yeah. What if that really 

Todd: were true? Right. It’s that kind of commentary. It’s like a response to that, like, Yeah.

Right. Like you really think this would be is the case taking to its extreme. Yeah. 

Craig: Right here. Let me present it to you and show you how ridiculous that notion actually is. Mm-hmm. like this wouldn’t, It’s stupid. Yeah. But it’s funny in the movie, and there’s just lots, There’s lots of like self, I don’t know, not self-referential, but just like referential lines, like when they’re running towards the cabin, somebody says, George Romero, if you’re out there, save us

And somebody asks if you know about the zombies and asks if there are any. Walkers and he, he references the, the directors that, uh, you know, have directed the fast walking zombie movies. This movie is obviously made by people who know horror and who love horror. Yeah. And, and it, it’s made for us, you know, somebody like, My partner or my mom, they wouldn’t get all this.

They wouldn’t get it. They wouldn’t get all these references and that’s fine. I’m not that, I’m not disparaging them, it’s just not their cup of tea. But I get all of these references and I eat ’em up like it. It’s. It’s funny and clever, uh, to me, even the set pieces, the set piece of the cemetery looks great and you know exactly what it is and you know exactly what’s gonna happen.

Yeah. And then I, you know, the next place they go, uh, after they get away from the zombies, they go to Hotter high, which is, you know, It could be any high school from one of these teen slasher types of movies, but I know it’s familiar. Mm-hmm. , And they’re being chased by the arborist, which is hilarious.

Todd: Like . Oh, it gets really funny because. Cuz they’re with, right? The actor playing the arborist who apparently has never seen the movies. So they’re shouting stuff to him and he’s like, No help. So there’s a point at which they’re, they’re bar barricaded themselves into a classroom waiting for the arborist to come down the halls and Daks has to tell him his backstory cuz he’s got a plan.

He’s like, All right, so here’s the backstory in your movie. Like, here is what it is because the arborist is killing in revenge for his father’s murder. And so, His whole plan is that he’s going to get this actor to then play his father and approach the arborist and try to talk him down, say thank you so much, which, which he does.

It’s 

Craig: a direct rip off of, uh, Friday the 13th. It’s not even so much a rip off as it is homage. I don’t even remember which one it was, but there’s second one, second one. I don’t, There’s one where the final girl find. Uh, Mrs. Vor, he’s head mm-hmm. and Sweater, and she puts on Mrs. Vor, he’s sweater and pretends to be Pamela Vorge.

Mm-hmm. . And it works for a while. Just as it works here. They distract the arborist long enough to get what they need. And then, uh, 

Todd: The, the dad accidentally calls him by the wrong name, calls him Tommy instead of Timmy or something like that. And that, that’s what breaks the spell. And first of all, 

Craig: the movie is also really funny when they first get into the high school.

The only person in there is Zachary Levi playing himself . Like that’s, I’m not even Zachary Levi, like, I don’t even know. I don’t know. He was on some TV show for a while, I think. But he was also the voice of the male romantic lead in Disney’s. Rapunzel. Mm-hmm. or whatever that movie was called, the Rapunzel movie.

So it’s Tangled, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Tangled. And it’s so funny because Ashley is like obsessed with him and she can’t stop talking about it. They tracked us down. They, they hunted us. They were killing and eating my friends, like, I think about Flyn writer a lot. I mean a lot. It was the saddest, most terrifying thing I’ve ever witnessed.

Like, I couldn’t believe when Flinn Smolders at Rapunzel. I felt, I don’t know, humid. There’s this one girl. There was a girl that I loved. I actually was the love of my life and I didn’t have any, had a chance to tell her because we were trying to run to the school right before we got in the door. They grabbed her and they started to tear apart my hair’s.

Magical school, well sometimes magical. Okay, let’s focus. It made me laugh. I thought it was hilarious. I thought that was hilarious. I thought it was hilarious. That was hilarious. Somehow Crill. The fat kid gets separated from them while they’re in the high school and he ends up at this campfire in the woods, which is almost identical to that scene from Trick Art.

Treat another hall. Yes. Trick or Treat? Yes. Almost identical with these beautiful, uh, like Eastern European women seducing these guys. And obviously they’re vampires. And there’s some really funny dialogue there too, where the, the, the vampire who’s trying to seduce Crill explains how the game master would’ve gotten vampires, which is rural girls from Eastern Europe with promises of visas and.

High paying American jobs. Uh, yeah. I mean, America’s great for that. I, And then you would surgically sharpen their teeth and you would chemically stimulate their adrenal glands. So they produce abnormal amounts of thes. Mm-hmm. making them sexually iist. Gave them some virus that made them insatiable for blood

And meanwhile, you know, the other guys in the background are being slaughtered. Andry has no idea what’s going on. And eventually it comes up that he’s a virgin and, and she’s so. I don’t know. I’m not 

Todd: sure what I, I honestly don’t understand this dynamic. I think it’s that she’s 

Craig: so enchanted by his purity that she doesn’t want to corrupt him or something.

Oh. So he, he just leaves, um, and comes back to the high school and it’s actually him that kills the arborist with like a big flaming Oh, yes. Spike. Spike or something. That’s huh. So, okay. So then they’re through the slasher one. So they go downstairs and they end up in this creepy theater full of dolls, and then they end up in Ville, which is ob, which looks like the set or the back lot of saw.

Mm. Sam finds a, she had, she had kind of had this flirty moment with a gate worker when she first came in and she sees him in a saw trap. He’s got his hands, uh, stuck in these boxes and like, he’s like chained up, uh, sprawled up against a wall. Um, and he tricks her. Into taking his place, and then he takes 

Todd: off and in the meanwhile there’s a, there’s like a dummy and a wheelchair.

It’s like weird al’s parody of saw. It’s so funny, this dummy in this wheelchair that’s speaking in rhyme about the game and about the time and all that stuff. Uh, I laughed out loud at that bit too just because it was. It was so on the nose, . 

Craig: Yeah. I think it’s the same, uh, puppet from dead silence. Yeah.

That, that ventriloquist, uh, puppet. But yeah, I mean, I don’t know. They talk like it’s the, the clock is counting down eventually off camera Hinkley. takes her spot. That’s right. And he gets ripped apart, but not before he, He says his catch phrase that Dax has been begging him to say, but he’s refused to say all along.

Mm. Uh and Ashley, this, this part I thought was stupid, but Ashley and CRI end up locked in a shower room where she decides that it would be a good idea to take a shower. She’s 

Todd: like, I can’t die. Covered Infil. Yeah. And I thought that they were going somewhere cooler with this because. Like the idea is, is maybe if they resist the horror tropes that they’ll survive.

Right, Right. Yeah. And so like the notion that she was gonna take a shower, I’m thinking, Oh, now she’s gonna get murdered. You know? Right. Cuz she’s taking a shower, but it, it doesn’t kind of work that way. And it’s kind of oddly sappy. Yeah. And then she comes on to him because he, he admits that he just came to get laid because he’s a virgin and she’s like, Well, maybe I can make your dream come true.

And then we cut away from that. It was just really outta place. 

Craig: Yeah. I like, it. Seemed like they were going for something sweet. She’s been kind of the dumb bimbo up until this point. And it seemed like they were trying to make her a little bit, they were trying to flush out her character a little bit, I think.

Mm-hmm. . Um, but it just didn’t really work. Yeah. It was kind of cute that they had this little sweet moment, I guess, and, and, It’s heavily implied. I mean, implied doesn’t even cover. I cut away. They do have sex. They they have sex. We just don’t see it happen. We 

Todd: don’t see anything. We don’t even see him hastily buttoning up his pants or anything.

It’s like the next scene is just, now they’re there, fully closed, joined up with the other party. Right? So they have sex. So he’s no longer a virgin. In the meantime, the, the father, there’s a cut scene away to the dad all of a sudden who’s on his TV interview that he had talked about earlier, that the Dax, his father, and he’s having this, this conversation with them and he’s, again, he’s talking about how bad poor is and about how this blood fest, for example, is terrible.

And then, and then the interviewer says something that makes him think of his kids and somehow he gets uncomfortable. And I think he just sort of senses that maybe his son went after all and he just up and leaves a live interview. Right. And it looks like he’s gonna go to the park to try to find him.

And then they end up in clown town. Uh, I think they go up through a panel in the ceiling and they end up in the middle of like a ring, like a circus ring. And all of a sudden these creepy clowns. Peeking out over standup things that are surrounding them and hay bales and stuff like that. And they’re pretty freaky clowns.

Freaky They are. . It’s really funny. I mean, the tone of the movie is humorous. So when these clowns come in, yeah, they’re freaky looking, but you just have to laugh at just so many creepy clowns and. So many different ways coming up, but then something happens up in the 

Craig: tower, the containment system 

Todd: fails.

Yeah, it’s like Jurassic Park right now. They’re all loose, mixing up together, and so the director’s like, Well, that’s okay. Just let’s, let’s see where it goes. You know, if it was a zombie running through Clown town, then no big deal. He’s like, I 

Craig: love a ga genre, mash . So right before these clowns can attack the kids, these zombies bust in and start killing all the clowns.

Mm-hmm. And the, the zombies are still being controlled by the gamers. And, uh, the game master goes into the game room where all these gamers are playing. He’s like, You’re killing all my clowns. So, and he throws a grenade in there and blows up all the gamers. Oh 

Todd: God. Crazy. But I love that this bit where the Legman was a zombie and he was just as douchy as a zombie as he was in real life.

He’s got, he’s 

Craig: like, he’s vaping. He’s like a vaping zombie. It’s hilarious. It’s so 

Todd: funny. But at least he’s there. Yeah. And Ashley gets 

Craig: the key card from him. Yeah, 

Todd: exactly. But 

Craig: then he kills her. And I was, I was, I don’t know, I was kind of bummed. I guess I shouldn’t have expected that all of our main characters would make it, but um, as kind of ditzy as she was, I actually kind of liked her and so I was, I was kind of bummed that she got killed, but.

Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. What? I don’t know. What happens next? Then they make it, They, Oh, they, they get to the, they get to the 

Todd: door. Yeah. They’re there and Carell’s gonna start hacking the door. I love hacking in movies where he suddenly got some wires. He can just ally attach to this thing and Right. Stand there with his phone and press a bunch of buttons for a while, and then the Vampire girl shows up and that.

Distracts him. Uhhuh. . Suddenly he drops what he’s doing and he walks towards her for reasons I don’t quite understand. I guess he’s just supposed to be enamored with her or something. He just stupidly stands there and lets her talk to him for a while and then he lets it slip that he’s not a virgin anymore.

She says something about how, you know, SHEEO kind of admired his purity and whatever, and he is like, Oh, uh, um, about that. And he gets bit by her. And now the other guy, apparently the maintenance guy who kind of joined back up with them but is now, I guess, on their side. Mm-hmm. , he, I guess, can also hack a door , apparently he picks up the phone and starts hacking too.

Sam 

Craig: kills the vampire chick, and, and then the gate guy gets the door open and as soon as he opens the door, Dr. Con. Comes in and, and he, and he has a gun and the killer Red is there and has, Sam is like holding Sam and then out of nowhere they’re all just kind of standing there. And then Conway shoots.

The gate guy. Mm-hmm. Red removes their mask and it’s D’s sister Jamie. As it turns out, it’s Dr. Dr. Conway is the one behind all of this. I I, in a blink and you’d miss it. Conversation one of the people in the control tower had said to the Gamekeeper something about his partner. Yeah. If you were paying attention, you would know that there was somebody else, uh, behind all of this.

It turns out it’s Dr. Conway and he explains that the whole purpose of this, um, he’s killing horror to avenge his wife’s death. And he’s been planning it for years and he’s been planning it with, uh, Jamie. Jamie’s a part of it, the sister, and so he leaves and goes off to the control tower and Jamie tells Dax and Sam.

To get out because everybody there will die and they kind of are debating about whether or not they’re gonna leave. Well, in the meantime, um, somebody in the control tower realizes that the door is open and, and closes and locks it again, so they’re kind of stuck in there. And Dax gets kind of all sad sack and is resigned to die.

And, um, talks, you know, he is, you know, feeling sorry for himself about, you know, his mom and all that. Sam, who is his friend, just says,

What you and your dead.

And she basically says, We’ve come all this way and we’ve made it this far. If anybody can do this, we can do this, and we can get out of here alive. And so they’re all pumped up and Sam gets a chainsaw and they, you know, Get in this great big old truck and, uh, they, they head towards the control tower, huh?

Yeah. And that’s kind of where I guess, the final showdown takes place. It’s, it’s a little bit protracted. Yeah, it is. But whatever. It’s 

Todd: fine. Yeah. I mean, uh, there’s, there’s, there’s another wrinkle introduced by the time the dad gets up to the top. It has been revealed that everything’s kind of wired with explosives and they’re going to blow the whole place up kind of at the end.

But Walsh, the producer guy, mentioned something about the pulse. Well, we can do the pulse and. What is the pulse? The pulse turns out to be, uh, something attached to everybody’s wristband. Uh, to where he says, it turns out that if you send a certain electrical signal, whatever, through the body, it can send vibrations up into your brain and make you, I thought we were getting into scanners territory here.

I thought it was gonna make everybody’s head explode. But no, it just seems to make people go crazy like a rage 

Craig: virus. Turns them. Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah. And also the ability to just vomit incredible amounts of black bile out of their mouths. Uhhuh . 

Craig: So, well, the other thing that I thought was funny about this was this is actually Dr.

Conway’s experimental procedure that he had intended to use on his patients to calm their nerves. And he was like, Uh, but it, but it didn’t work. , like, he’s, he’s a terrible psychologist. . 

Todd: That’s an easy statement. Yeah. . 

Craig: But so they do it, they set off the pulse and it, it’s funny. You know, it does, it, it turns everybody into like these rage zombies, um, including the control tower workers.

Right. And Sam in the truck. It’s, it’s also even before that happens, you know, they’re, they’re driving this truck through, um, blood fest or whatever, and they see. All these different other conventions, like they see a scary nun and they see 

Todd: like a SoCo, kind of the ring 

Craig: kind of uhhuh, the Asian long black hair over their face, girls.

And it’s just funny that they, you know, squeezed all this stuff in. Yeah, every one is like an Easter egg, so every time you see one, or for me, every time I saw one it, it kind of brought a smile to my face just to see how many of ’em they could 

Todd: squeeze in the movie’s cram full of it and. This kind of cute moment where, you know, this thing pops up in on the passenger side.

And so Sam happens to have a chainsaw with her, which she like cuts the, the head off out the window and then another guy jumps up on the roof and Ds happens to have a machete with him. So he stabs it through the roof and kills it and they kind of look at each other and there’s almost a, a moment where it’s just like, Hey, this is actually pretty cool,

But you know, this also reminds me how this movie’s not gonna be for every. Because it is so chockful of references that I think a lot of the fun of the movie comes from that. Like if you’re not super familiar with horror or the horror conventions or all these other things, I mean, you’ll get what’s going on, but you might not get as much enjoyment out of it.

I made the mistake of watching Cabin in the Woods with my dad. Yeah. And my dad was just pissed off by the end of the movie. He was like, You just showed me the kind of movie I hate. It’s this horrible movie about people who just systematically murdering people. And then that’s when I realized like he doesn’t know the conventions, you know?

Right. All of the parity of this movie is lost. This one’s a lot sillier. Pink Cabin in the Woods is, But I think it’s gonna be very similar thing for people. Like, unless you really know or passingly familiar with a number of these genre conventions, you’re probably not gonna get as much out of it as the fan boys that we are.

Craig: Right. Then, Why would you even be watching this movie? Like ? 

Todd: There’s no other reason to watch this movie, honestly, . 

Craig: You’re right. Unless your stupid son made you watch it . Um, but yeah. Anyway, so, So Sam, Is also wearing the wristband. So she goes all ragy and tries to attack Ds, but she’s in her seatbelt, so she’s, she can’t get to him, which is funny.

Um, he crashes the truck into the control tower and knocks her out. But she, uh, wakes up and she attacks him and pukes black crap all over his face. 

Todd: But like projectile, vomits black crap all over his face from like inches away from his face. It’s, it’s like a total evil. reference. Real? Yeah. Oh, it’s 

Craig: funny.

I mean, we’ve seen, Yeah, we’ve seen it before. I mean, it, it’s, it’s typical of this type of thing, but he gets away, he gets upstairs, he confronts his dad, um, his dad says that, You know, we’re gonna get outta here. And d is like, What do you mean everybody’s gonna know you were behind this? He’s like, No, the game master guy has been filming everything and everybody thinks he’s behind it, so we’re just gonna blame it all on him.

So then he shoots the Game. Master Daks is standing up to him and, His dad can’t bring himself to kill Dax, but he thinks that it will be poetic if he blows them all up together. So like he’s gonna, you know, detonate these bombs that are gonna blow up the whole festival, including the tower, and they’ll all die together.

But before he can do that, Jamie, who is the red killer, spears him with one of her gnarly weapons, uh, and he falls out of the tower. This tower, by the way, is. 15 stories I like. It’s, it’s, it’s ridiculously 

Todd: tower. Yeah. . Yeah, . Really? 

Craig: I, And so he falls out and then zombie Sam comes up the elevator, elevator and attacks Dax And Jamie just very casually says, um, Why don’t you try the wristband

So he does, he, he cuts it, which apparently then she’s fine. And even though he’s covered in black vomit, they kiss. And this for, it’s silly, but I still thought it was funny. Uh, Dax says something to Jamie, like, Uh, you murdered a whole bunch of people tonight. And she’s like, Yeah, but I’m pretty sure I’ve learned my lesson

And then she says, Happy Halloween Big. Brother and rappels down the tower and drives away. Oh, hilarious. And like that’s, that’s the end. And then there’s this great credit song, which I don’t even remember how it goes, but it’s really funny. And then there, there’s a mid credit scene and an in credit scene.

In the mid credit scene, Dax and Sam are walking outside of the festival and they look back from the outside and they, they, I think, uh, Sam asks aloud, Do you think there are any survivors? And Dax is like, Well, there are probably some people who, who made it. And then the whole place blows up , and they’re like, Well, maybe not.

Guess not. . . And then there are more credits. And then the end credit scene is just the rubble, the gamekeeper’s hand emerges out of the rubble. Yeah. And uh, that’s the end. This is a silly movie. I don’t want anybody going in thinking that this is gonna be some kind of amazing horror masterpiece. Um, it’s not, but I thought it was.

Fun, and I’ve, I’ve watched it twice at this point and I pro, I’m not gonna watch it again this season, but come next Halloween season, uh, I think it’s a fun Halloween movie. Uh, it’s, it’s got. You know, really great homages. I, you know, you said you thought the humor fell a little flat in some places. I really didn’t.

I mean, it wasn’t all laugh out loud, but I was tickled by most of the humor, whether it be the references or the dialogue or whatever. And you know, it was, Just a good time. It’s not a masterpiece, but it was a good time to 

Todd: watch. Yeah. I mean, and it’s kind of a perfect Halloween movie really, because it’s just a tour to force of all of our favorite horror icons and Yeah.

And um, uh, tropes and things like that. So it’s, it’s fun in that way. And, and it’s a comedy a hundred percent. But yeah, I mean, for me as a, as a movie watching it, I was just a little disappointed at, I thought it was maybe, Maybe I sound like an old man when I say this, but sometimes movies can just get a little too silly for me when the comedy’s not that clever, that sophisticated.

It seems like there’s just a lot of really cheap and obvious jokes getting thrown in. It’s like watching, you know, it’s like the difference, It’s like watching Austin Powers. Yeah. You know, you’re getting in for it. It’s just gonna be a sight gag of minute. It’s just gonna be a bunch of super obvious kind of silly jokes, and that’s what most of this movie is.

But there were moments where I did, I like laughed out loud. There were other moments where I thought it was kind of going on for so long that I was a little ready for it to be. So, yeah, I mean, I, I, I feel a little more mixed about it as a whole just because we’ve seen some really clever horror comedies that just had me glued to the screen and had me really engaged and I just thought were clever and funny.

This movie, you know, it’s funny, it’s full of jokes and things. I just didn’t think it was as clever as a lot of the other stuff we’ve seen and. I think that made me lose a little bit of patience for it , you know, but, And also like there’s a difference between homage and just blatant ripping off. I loved all the homages.

I thought that the whole movie. In general was a pretty big rip off of, of Cabin In the Woods, which was a movie I didn’t really think you could really rip off because it’s just so, it’s just so unique, you know, and clever in its concept. It’s like a one and done kind of concept, but no, I guess you can do it again.

and this movie kind of did it in a, in a much, much sillier and goer way and also, Again, I don’t wanna pile criticisms on the movie, but I did feel like it, it felt a little cheap at times. Yeah, it, it’s got this big budget aspirations because it’s just taking us through this whirlwind of stuff and special effects.

But there are times in the special effects and even the sets, they look cheap. Uh, especially the end sequence with the dad in front of that window and the glass window. You don’t even really. See the dad fall out the window. It’s like they were purposely cutting around, having to actually just have a scene of him falling backwards through this silly looking window.

Yeah. So, you know, there, there were things like that, that I thought were, um, a little distracting. But overall, I mean, nothing, nothing else really wrong with this movie. It was a lot of fun, a lot of great homages, great Halloween film and, uh, yeah, full of some big stars. Big, big-ish stars. Uh, so. It’s not bad.

All right, well, uh, that is the first of our month of Halloween movies that we have coming for you this month. Uh, happy early Halloween to everyone. I hope you’re finding your own way to celebrate this special season. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend and if you, uh, are, are so inclined to check out our Patreon page, patreon.com/chainsaw podcast where you can support our podcast on a monthly basis and get access to a lot of really cool things.

Find us online, wherever we are. Just search two guys and a Chainsaw podcast, our Facebook page, the Twitter pages. I’ll leave us a message, let us know other Halloween movies we can put on our list. And until next time, I am Todd. And I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.