Steel Trap (2007) – Ep 328

Episode 328, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. Happy New year Craig. Happy New Year. Again, here we are. 2023. It is. What’s the point anymore? These years . I think they’re getting better for you. I think so somehow. For me it’s just like more of the same BS, although Since Covid.

yeah. Started. It’s been 

Craig: a rough few years, but I, I do think things are getting better. I, at least I, I certainly hope so. It feels better. 

Todd: Yeah, it, it feels better in the us. You know, I’ve had this time in the us uh, here to spend the holidays. Uh, coincidentally enough. Uh, when I came here, I missed all the craziness in China where everybody kind of had enough of it.

And, uh, there were some protests. And then, you know, I, I escaped this place where it was just total lockdown all the time. It was getting really annoying and really was enjoying my time here and now over there it seems like they’ve opened up again, but opened up just suddenly. So it’s just mass chaos and there’s run on runs on the hospitals and Wow.

Shortages of medicine. And everyone is messaging me like, don’t come back yet. , . I might, I may extend my stage just a little bit longer. And they’re like, bring ibuprofen,

So depending on how things work out, I might get a nice little black market going in ibuprofen when I return. Who knows? We’ll see. Couldn’t, could turn out to be a good year after all, . But it has been nice and it’s been, uh, it’s been a good year for the podcast. I think we’ve had a lot of fun here. It was really great this year to come back during the Christmas holiday and be able to sit in person with you.

It’s been a while and it was, that was a blast. That, that episode, I think you can tell there’s an energy there that just comes through. I think sometimes when we’re, uh, chatting face to face as opposed to patiently waiting for each other to finish our sentences over the phone. , , 

Craig: or just talking over one another, either one.

Todd: Right. A lot of that does get edited out , but, but if you’re a patron, you can hear the entire phone call and all of it’s gory, nonsensical detail. Well, we’re dorks and we’re always trying to find movies that match a particular holiday. And for the last several years, we’ve been looking for New Year’s Eve themed horror movies.

I don’t know if this works against us more than for us. More often than not, you know, it does tend to get us to seek out movies we might not otherwise choose. Uh, and sometimes they’re real turkeys and sometimes they’re real surprises. This movie, um, Well, we had two. I had one I proposed and Craig had one he proposed and uh, well you watched the one you proposed first.

Yeah, . 

Craig: And then I said, that was shitty. Let’s try the one you picked. . 

Todd: So I was like, oh good, because I was excited about the one I picked and then we watched it and like, oh, this is shitty too.

Which to be fair, I mean this is a movie I would’ve chosen anyway because it was very intriguing to me. It popped up, I think the poster popped up on, on Facebook in one of these horror movie groups that I’m in, and it’s a dimension extreme Uhhuh, you know, which is usually really brutally gory, kind of like edgy type stuff that never made it to theaters.

Sometimes it’s foreign, and I think this movie was, it was German produced German. And it’s called Steel Trap, and it’s got this picture of this woman who looks like she’s kind of trapped in a metal box or something. And yeah, there are these blades coming out at her and it says, surviving each floor is the name of the game.

Yeah. And I’m like, oh yeah. That sounds good, and if you read the blurb on the back, which I sent to you in my defense, a New Year’s bash in an abandoned, high-rise building turns into a grizzly bud bath. When five guests receive a mysterious text invite to a V I P party on the 27th floor joined by two Crashers, the strangers soon realized they’re trapped, and the only way out is through the twisted clues of a murderous psychopath.

the catch. Each game leads to one of their own gruesome deaths with a series of shocking twists. Steel trap holds you in its grip all the way through to its mind blowing ending. I don’t know 

Craig: what movie they’re talking about. . 

Todd: I’m, me neither. I wanna see that movie. Yeah. , 

Craig: first of all, the uh, poster or the box cover or whatever it is has nothing to do with this movie.

Yeah. . I don’t know who that chick is. She’s not even in it. I don’t know where she is in this like saw trap that surviving each floor is the name of the game. No. Nope. Like , there’s like one floor or maybe like two. And then you talk about, you know, these like crazy games or whatever, they’re just nursery rhymes.

Like . 

Todd: Yeah. There’s no game to be played in any of these. No. Even one thing is set up as a game and it’s not, it’s like , one woman at one point ends up strapped to a giant wheel. Yeah. Which starts spinning and you’re like, okay, this. At least kind of interesting. What’s he gonna do with this wheel? What game is this gonna be?

No. He stops the wheel and axes are in the face. Yeah. . That’s the game. , these games suck. . Oh, man. 

Craig: Yeah, it, it was disappointing. I knew because before, all right, so you picked one and then I was like, eh. Because you said it kind of looks like saw, and I’m not into saw the way that you are, but you know, I thought, okay, whatever.

So I, I, I started looking at some user reviews and the u or, or like viewer reviews and, uh, they were bad. They’re like, don’t fall for it. It’s nothing like what it’s promised it’s not good. And so that’s why I was like, well, maybe let’s. Something else. And, and the one that I picked had really good user reviews and I was like, okay, awesome.

Uh, they were both disappointing. Um, I, I, I honestly don’t know which one was more disappointing, but I thought that it had premise, like promise, not premise. I thought that it had promise initially. Mm-hmm. just based on the concept, even the real concept. Cuz the real concept is, you know, these like five stranger.

Uh, are all at this New Year’s Eve party, and that’s how it starts out. It starts out as a New Year’s Eve party, and it’s very New Year’s Eve and Oh yeah, there’s a, and there’s a, you know, there’s decorations and everybody’s having a great time, and there’s a band and there’s the New Year’s Eve countdown and the band sings this, uh, rock version of Al Dang Zion, which I actually.

Enjoyed 

Todd: like, yeah, me too.

Craig: I was like, woo, yay. This is gonna be fun. New Year’s eve time. And so then of those people at the party, like these five random people, get these invites that say something like, this party is lame. The real party is downstairs on the 27th floor. Come 

Todd: down there. Yeah. Enter this code into the elevator. Yeah.

Enter 

Craig: this code into the elevator, you know, to come down and, um, everybody assumes that it’s like this v i p party. And then they get down there and that’s when like there are clues and stuff and they start, they think it’s a treasure hunt at first. Okay. So all of that said, I thought this could be an interesting premise.

Yeah, but it’s not. As it turns out, it’s just another one of those movies where five asshole. Go to a place. Yeah. To get picked off one by one by some guy in a mask. And that like, there’s really nothing interesting about it. And then the end, the end is so stupid that I wanted to cut my face off , like it was one of the dumbest.

it was because you knew. You knew you. So there’s a killer. So you know that there has to be some kind of motivation, even though you can’t figure it out, because these people, if they’re related in any way, it’s totally trans gently, like mm-hmm. , one of them is like a famous, uh, TV cook, and one of them is like a.

Former team heartthrob or something. And one of them works in the TV industry as a producer. So there’s maybe like these tenuous connections between people, but they don’t know each other. But you assume that there’s gonna be some motive for the killer, which ultimately there is. But it is the dumbest motive.

Yeah, it’s the 

Todd: stupidest, yeah, . It’s really stupid. It’s really stupid. And, and you know, there’s no, there’s nothing clever about it because there’s no. that this would have been, no, 

Craig: there’s no hint to it. And it’s also ridiculous because as it turns out, these people are connected in a way, that’s what the motive is, but none of them realize it, which is absolutely nonsensical.

Todd: Yeah, exactly. I mean, All right. We’ll talk about it when we get to it, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah. We’ll, we’ll keep some mystery, at least in the podcast. , , 

Craig: like, I mean, there is mystery in the movie, but ultimately when it gets explained, it’s so dumb. You don’t care and it, the movie’s only what, like an hour and a half?

Long, an hour and 32 minutes. Mm. It got like in my notes, it got to like the 45 minute mark, and I’m like, this is only half over. I know. I thought that it would never end. It felt so 

Todd: long I was so ready for it to be done. I had so many wines in me and I had, uh, I, I, you know, it was like midnight and I’m just like, oh God, please be done.

Like, I’m like slapping my face trying to get, you know, to be, again, in my defense, I didn’t read up as much about it as you did. I saw this posted, somebody posted, said, Hey, I thought it was cool. What did you think? And the first comment on there was, oh, the, there’s this twist ending that’s really cool. And so as soon as I saw that, I stopped reading mm-hmm.

because I didn’t want to encounter. Spoilers or anything like that. So my impression of this movie as it was presented to me was, Hey, it was cool and it had a cool twist and it’s not, and it doesn’t have a cool twist, but uh, you are right. It did start out with some promise. There’s this guy, Adam, he’s. Got this girl, Nicole.

There’s these pickup lines. You know it’s really sad at the New Year’s Eve party, you don’t have anyone to kiss at midnight. That is so sad. I can only 

Craig: imagine. 

Todd: In fact, I didn’t have anyone to kiss at midnight. Poor you. How do you find the strength to carry on? Oh, it’s hard. Let me tell you, . So is that guy your boyfriend?

Is that any of your business? Yes. Oh, how’s that? Well, I need to know how he’s gonna. When I lean in and get myself a New Year’s kiss from the prettiest girl at the party, uh, there’s this dude at the bar named Robert, who it turns out is Nicole’s boyfriend. And they have a fricking weird relationship. Yeah.

And he’s gonna propose to her, you can see, because he’s got a ring. But then he sees her kissing Adam, so he kind of like, you know, tucks it away. They come over there, Adam kind of wanders. With this girl who’s the party? Crasher Melanie, and she’s a 

Craig: self-proclaimed slut. Like, yeah. They go off and he gives her some coke, and then she blows him in the stairwell like

That’s how they introduce these characters. 

Todd: It’s all stuff like this, and it’s really it. The dialogue thinks it’s witty, right? But it’s not. It’s like if you gave an. And then actually AI’s even better than this, but if you gave an AI, the instruction, you know, if you set up this scenario for them and said before, as we introduce the characters, do some witty, teen style, edgy kind of dialogue for these people to say to each other, then this is what it would be.

But it comes off as stupid, even stilted, like the acting is all. I don’t know how to describe it. Well, they’re, 

Craig: they, they’re all assholes. Like there’s, there’s nobody, like, like the, the couple, like you said, they have some weird relationship where she just will make out with any guy that comes up to her and he’s supposed to be okay with that.

And then she’s like, well, you can go make out with somebody, I guess. And so he tries to like, it’s weird. Yeah. And Melanie, again, you know, if you wanna be promis. That’s fine. I don’t care. But like, it’s just such a flat, it’s over the top characterization and it, it is just dumb. And then, um, Wade, he’s the 

Todd: singer, 

Craig: right?

He’s the singer. He’s just like washed up. I mean, he’s a nice looking guy and there’s nothing wrong with him or whatever. But again, they just, none of them have endearing qualities. Kathy is like this, uh, celebrity. And I don’t know. I mean, she’s, it’s hard to say what they’re like in real life because they all just seem really pretentious and Yeah, like, like you said, the, the dialogue is so stilted, like they’re just trying to be so cool.

Yeah. Like everything they say is so, Sharp and and edgy. And then Pamela is this cartoon character. Yeah, this blonde Bobblehead who’s like this head of programming at some station. Who is kissing Kathy’s ass. 

Todd: Kathy, hi. It’s great to see you. Isn’t this a screen, a party on top of an abandoned building? It’s so, I don’t know.

Postapocalyptic, right? God, I hope they haven’t decided to blow it up. Sorry, do I know you? Pamela Reynolds, head of programming at tcb. Kathy, I have to tell you, I am your number one fan. Well, I don’t know Pam. I, uh, I hear that quite a lot and I’ve got some pretty loyal fans. Of course you do and you deserve even more.

You know, the cooking’s great. It’s fantastic, but I see you with more a whole 

Craig: lifestyle. They’re just characters. They, they don’t feel like real people at all. Yeah. You can’t tell at all who, if anybody, you’re supposed to be rooting for, and it doesn’t seem like you’re supposed to be rooting for anybody because they’re all assholes.

Yeah. There’s, there’s no nice sweet. Girl or guy or sweet innocent couple or, or anything like that. They’re all jerks and they’re not like, you could maybe excuse it if they were teenagers or 20 somethings, but they’re not. They’re, they seem like they’re supposed to be like grown ass adults. Successful, successful adults.

Yeah. But they’re just petty and stupid. Yeah. Um, and they make. Decisions throughout. I mean, they , they, so they, they go down to this floor 27 4 27 or whatever and what is the god? What? So the, they, they all get a text. I wrote the whole thing down, so you have to listen to it. Oh, girls and boys come out to play.

This smiley face will lead the way. This party is so over. Come join the real party downstairs, 27th floor elevator five punch in the code 1 0 1. Question Mark . So stupid . So they all go down there? They do. There’s name cards on the table, but all of them have some bad trait associated with them. Like, and it looks like it’s written in crayon by like a four year old.

I don’t know what aesthetic they were going for here. It looks like a birthday party set up for a seven year old. It does. It’s, and they think, they’re like, oh, we’re at the cool v i p. 

Todd: What? Look, if these were real people, the minute any one of them stepped outta the elevator and saw a long card table set up with kids birthday favors and things on it would’ve just turned around and walked back upstairs.

Exactly. There’s a pile of cupcakes on there that say, eat me on them. Each of their little placards, like you said, looks like they’re written in crayon, like one of them is heartless. Another one, lover Boy. Another one, pig. This one. Two Toothface. I 

Craig: know. And I wrote them down and I’m like, in my notes, I have, you know, in parentheses in case it’s important, which of course it is.

uh, all of these things. So Kathy is the loser. Adam is the pig. Pamela is two-faced, Nicole is heartless, Wade is lover boy. Mm-hmm. . And then two people. Melanie and Nicole’s boyfriend weren’t invited, so they don’t. Name cards at the beginning, but don’t worry the. Involves them later. . So they’re So they’re not left 

Todd: out , right?

They all do some coke . Yeah. There’s a bunch of killer p o V, this guy lurking in the shadows, wearing a mask, and then they decide stupidly to eat all these cupcakes that say Eat me. Right? And there’s a, this little piggy rhyme, uh, under. Don’t tell me you wrote that down too. Oh God. 

Craig: I probably did it . I had like a page and a half.

Oh, I did. Here it is. This little piggy fountain silver, this little piggy found gold. This little piggy ate my cake. This little piggy had none. And this little piggy cried wee wee wee all the way to 27, 21 . And that’s what the whole thing is, like this whole thing. Is like a treasure hunt for five year olds using nursery rhymes to lead them to different locales.

Yeah. And that happens two or three times before anything interesting happens. And then even, it’s not really that interesting , 

Todd: it’s going to a place where they find something and another nursery rhyme like there’s nothing. Uh, inside room 27 21 is a pig head. It’s kind of stuck on a steak Al almost looks like it’s floating like a balloon.

Yeah. Yeah. Like the rest of them wearing a crown. Uh, and Pam reads the note and it’s another rhyme about going where the water flows. Yeah. So they’re all like, oh, could that be the bathroom? Oh, I don’t know. And then they just kind of split up like. Like they are acting like this is engaging . Like I don’t get it.

They all think, I guess, that they’re gonna find something cool at the end, and so they sort of are together, but they also sort of split up. We’re 20 minutes into the movie. I already want all these people to die. Uhhuh, . Quickly, Adam hears some child voices it, and it’s random too, right? It’s like they’ve got this whole floor, presumably to explore, and so they kind of end up stumbling into these different areas that they’re supposed to go to, right?

Like this killer can read minds or something. Adam hears, some child voices goes into a dark room for some reason. Decides to hang out in the dark room and light up a cigarette for some reason. Gets pretty brutally hooked with a, the Killer’s got a hook with him and that was, I don’t know, it was filmed.

Okay. I mean, it seemed brutal. It’s a lot of cuts, a lot of real quick closeups. And this was 

Craig: the most interesting of the kills after this. They just happened very quickly and it’s nothing to write home about. At least this guy gets, he gets stabbed with a hook and then he gets, something gets injected into his neck.

Yeah. I assumed it was gonna be a sed. And not something to kill him, cuz why wouldn’t he just kill him with the hook? Uh, and as it turns out, it is a sedative. So Adam’s like paralyzed. While this killer, whoever it is, sows his mouth shut. While he’s conscious, which I thought was actually a really good shot.

Mm-hmm. maybe the only good shot in the whole movie because it’s a closeup on this guy’s face and he’s paralyzed. He can’t move, but his eyes are open. And this other, you know, mask glove person is, uh, sewing up his lips and it’s all in closeup and you just see one tear fall out of, uh, the guy’s eye.

Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Um, which, which was really. Gross and disturbing and scary. Yep. And that was the only moment, , 

Todd: that would be a clip like perfect for the trailer. Right. Uhhuh, to trick you into thinking this movie’s clever and smart and fun. Right. But yeah, no, uh, but yeah, you’re right. It is, it is that way. But at the end of the day, I’m kind of wondering why, because he sows him up while he’s alive.

and then the next time we see him, he’s just dead. So if the killer did some other torture with him or something like that, you know, we’re, we’re really not aware. Right. I love it because they’re, they’re trying this kind of creepy thing where he, he was slowly crawling towards this door as sedative was taking effect that was open that, uh, Robert and Melanie were walking past and just as they’re about to get past it, they stop and have some argument.

Like she’s trying to get him to, she’s like literally just asking him to bang her. And he’s like, no offense, but I’ve enough skanks for a lifetime. , 

Craig: yeah. And she’s like, I haven’t , . 

Todd: Right. This is the dialogue and the killer closes the door quietly just before they start back up again and walk right past it so they never notice him.

You know? Meanwhile, everybody else is just kind of split up into random rooms and we’re just bouncing back and. Between them, we really have no idea like where they are. Any sense of the layout of this place. Pamela is running wandering by herself. She runs into Kathy and, and then they’re kind of teamed up and Kathy gets this weird idea to look for a fire hose.

Oh, I think I saw fire hose back here. They run there and they unspool it and it also has. You know, a Georgie Porgy rhyme written on it as you pull it out. 

Craig: Mm-hmm. and the clue ends up being X marks the spot. Right. Another thing that was fr I don’t know, it wasn’t really frustrating. I didn’t worry about it that much, but, um, I think that this movie was filmed all on like the eighth floor of some building.

Mm-hmm. . Um, and the filmmakers try to make you believe, It’s like this labyrinth of corridors and stuff. No way. No. Like this is just like an office building. Yeah. There’s no way there’s this many twists and turns and 

Todd: Oh my God. Not just that, but like, they’ll pop into a room and suddenly it’s just like full of pipes and things, or like another room and it looks like a jail cell.

Like what? What kind of office building is this? 

Craig: or like a, I don’t know, like an industrial shower or something like weird. I don’t. 

Todd: It’s stupid. Yeah. it doesn’t, it doesn’t make sense. And they, they try 

Craig: to build atmosphere with lighting, like lighting it and like the red emergency lights and stuff and it just doesn’t work.

Like, yeah, there was no tension in it for me. But anyway, they X marks the spot. They figure out that that’s the x in a, a broken exit sign. Only the X is flashing. They realize that Adam is missing and then they, uh, go into this stairwell where the exit is and they find Adam hung upside down, dead in the stairwell with his lip zone shut.

And, uh, He like a pig snout on his face or something. 

Todd: Yeah. Huh. . I, the, some of the lines in here are just truly mind blowing. I, I, at some point, one of the characters just turns to everybody else and says, does anyone else feel like this is just some elaborate prank ? Yeah. And, and they’re talking to Melanie about Adam.

He, he was your boyfriend, something like that. And she goes, he’s not my boyfriend. He is just a guy. I blew . Yeah. . I don’t know why some chick goes off by herself. Um, you know, they just like wander away from each other. 

Craig: They keep doing that. Well, I mean, and like, there’s silly stuff like, I don’t know, like, it’s kind of like there’s traps.

Like they touch Adam hanging up, which like triggers, uh, Carrie. Pig blood bucket to spill on Melanie for no reason. Mm-hmm. and, and then so she freaks out and starts screaming and runs into an elevator and the door closes and then they just hear her screaming from inside. And when they finally get it open, she is like, her face is all burned up.

Or I, maybe it’s just the blood that fell on her. I don’t know. 

Todd: No, I think she’s, Electrocuted. Yeah. 

Craig: Cuz she’s hanging by these, uh, electrical wires. And Kathy has a seizure for no apparent reason. I, yeah. God, I don’t 

Todd: know. Robert I think tries to run in to grab Melanie, but somebody else says, no, it’s a trap and pulls him away just in time for them to see some blades stick out from the door as it was closing.

Uh, I don’t know, like, what did this killer know Melanie was gonna run into this particular. 

Craig: Place. Right. Apparently the whole place is rigged, which is another thing that I didn’t buy. Now they did establish that the original New Year’s Eve party was being thrown on the top floor of an abandoned building.

Mm-hmm. That was gonna be demolished. Yeah. Um, so I’ll, I’ll roll with the fact that there was nobody else around and maybe just kind of in disrepair, whatever. That’s fine. However, unless this killer, whoever it is, is some sort. Engineering genius. There are dozens of ways to get off of a floor of a building.

Yes. You know what I mean? Like 

Todd: the whole time I was going, why doesn’t anyone try the fire escape for 

Craig: the fire? Escape The, there have to be multiple stairwells elevators. Uh, and to be fair, I mean they do, but every time they check any of these pla like the elevators aren’t working, okay, fine. It’s an abandoned building, I’ll buy that.

Um, but then they go in the stairwell and they run down the stairs for a while and they end up coming to an electrical fence, that’s all, you know, sealed up the entire stairwell. Yeah. So they’re like, oh, darn, it can’t go that way. So they turn around to run back up, and then they’re closed off on the other way too.

Like it seemed to me like the killer. Another fence behind them while they were gone for 30 seconds. 

Todd: Right. I know, right? Like, or just get off on that floor. Yeah. Go down one 

Craig: level, find another stairwell. 

Todd: You know, like, come on. There’s not, yeah, it’s, it’s stupid. Or find a way to. Pry the electoral fence away.

I think you could do it. There’s a lot of random shit kicking around there, right? At one point the killer gives him a, I don’t think it’s yet, but at one point they get a crowbar Robert, unhooks Adam, so he can get a hook, the hook that he’s hanging from to to run around as a weapon. Then there’s a package back at the party table that they stumble upon that says, Simon says, try this and it’s a crowbar.

So Wade goes and tries it on. Steel door that he was trying to open, and when he opens it, there’s just a brick wall behind it. Like, yeah, what? What? First of all, this doesn’t make any sense that there would be a steel door with a brick wall behind it unless the killer bricked it up. And number two, Of all of the doors on that entire floor that they’ve been exploring, why was Wade trying to open that one and why did the killer know that that would be the door?

There’s nothing written on it or anything. Mm-hmm. , there’s nothing leading them to that particular door, but when they do open it and find this brick wall, there’s another thing written on it, another poem. Mary 

Craig: Mary, quite contrary something, it, it ends up saying something like, you can’t leave until I say so, 

Todd: or, or something like that.

Yeah. It’s not another clue. So they 

Craig: try, they probably open an elevator door, and again, there are more blades in it, but they prop it open with a table and they all start climbing down the shaft and they actually all do. But while Pamela is going down, she somehow gets nabbed out of the shaft. . How did that work with no that, no, like, they’re between two floors, but somehow, In between those two floors, she gets nabb.

I don’t know. It’s dumb. And then this, at this point in my, in my notes, it’s only half over. I know . 

Todd: Oh my 

Craig: God. So the loudspeaker announces a game and they see, because there are random monitors set up around, they know they’re being videotaped, they’ve. Figured that out already. Uh, but they see on one of these monitors that Pam is on a giant wheel and there’s a countdown.

Yes. What was this? They have to find her, but that’s the other frustrating thing, like they keep splitting up for no reason. Like one person will just run off like Yeah. With no motive, nothing. Just bye. Like mm-hmm. , where are you going? What are you doing? And so they keep ending up, you know, by themselves or in pairs or, or whatever.

God, I don’t know what, what happens. I don’t know. They’re 

Todd: looking for the studios cuz they figure she’s in the television studios or whatever, and I guess they’re, one of them happens to know there’s a studio on this floor, so they gotta find the right one. So one of them wanders into one room and there’s a, there’s a TV in they’re playing that has.

Kathy’s cooking show, and it says the next course, and another guy runs into another empty studio, but picks up a newspaper in it that has somebody else’s name written on it or something that I, you know, we’re supposed to maybe be some kind of clues, but they weren’t. It’s just nothing. Mm-hmm. . And then, uh, finally the countdown ends and they see on the screen that Pam’s wheel has stopped and the killer goes right up to her with an ax and access her right in the middle of the face because her 

Craig: name, under her name was two-Face.

Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah. It’s about as clever as this show gets . God. I 

Craig: know. And so then Wade and Nick, I don’t know Nicole, whatever her name is, they, they go in there and they find her, and Kathy’s already in there and says, the only way out is to kill the killer. Yeah. God, I don’t know. Like, I don’t even remember. And then that’s when they find the electric fences and yeah, there’s a little bit of, they’re supposed to go to a different floor 

Todd: and, uh, there’s some byplay because they look, they see on the tv, one of the TV screens somehow Robert’s not there for some reason, and they see on the TV screen that Robert is, is struggling with this killer.

He’s like, because killer. In the hallway with him, got a knife up to his throat and so now they run down to try to find him. But uh, like you said, there’s things being blocked and whatnot. And then they manage once again on the second floor, on this other floor, wherever they are now, they manage to stumble into this room.

Mm-hmm. , which is the classic killer room with the pictures and printouts of them on the wall and stuff written on it and files. Stuff and, and you know, it’s obvious he’s been planning this for years, you know, cuz they’ve got pictures from years ago. Like he’s been surveilling them and they find a, then they just randomly, one of them finds a G P S 

Craig: that looks like a.

A game boy from the eighties it did. 

Todd: Or, or an an iPod. I thought it was an iPod with sticker stuck to, it looks stupid. , which is just like a picture of the map and the big smiley face where they’re located and they see this flashing green light, you know, coming down the hall towards them so they all get ready cuz they think that’s the killer and he’s gonna come in.

But it’s. And now you know, Robert is suspicious because they don’t understand how he got away, right? Like, we just saw you struggling with this guy. Now you just kind of wander in here like, like nothing happened. And he is like, yeah, well I don’t know either. And he’s definitely suspicious, but I don’t understand how this g p s with the.works, or they’re reasoning behind the reason for it.

I, I just didn’t get this whole g p s thing at all. But anyway. No, cuz there’s 

Craig: no payoff, right? Like they, they make him take off all his clothes cuz they assume that there must be a tracker on him because that’s what they were seeing on the g p s. So they make him take off all his clothes, but they don’t find the tracker.

So he says to his girlfriend, unless you stuck it up my butt this morning, I get, I don’t know where it is. Oh my 

Todd: God. Yeah. Then they’re like, well, maybe it was in the cupcake you ate and they, oh yeah, maybe. And then they just kind of leave that thing. But that’s it. Nothing ever comes of it. Right. It’s like, what’s the point of the Jeep?

Why would one of them have a tracker on it? Like what, what? No, 

Craig: nothing else 

Todd: ever comes. And why the killer left the GPS in the room for them to find? Uh, I don’t know. It’s hard to say, but, um, they mentioned something about her, his name not being on the list, which I do not remember, but then they find files with his name on it.

So he is like, well, I guess I’ve been on the list anyway. And then, you know, I think they go through a second round of trying to figure out how they’re all connected. Three sentences, but they don’t figure anything out. And then the , I think it is Robert or somebody picks up the G p s again, and now the screen looks different.

And he says, oh, the G P S seems to be displaying elevator codes. Yeah. What so. So they go to the stairwell and they trip a lay mass trap, , oh God. It looked like a home alone trap, . Oh, it’s so stupid. And, and I thought the stairwell, they weren’t able to use, so I couldn’t figure out why. Suddenly the stairwell was clear.

Again, I 

Craig: don’t know. But they, they, so they, so they call an elevator and they end up getting the one that has Melanie’s dead body in it. But they type in a code to go down to the lobby and they’re so excited cuz it’s going down. , I actually like 

Todd: that bit where they open the elevator, open some Melanie’s in there and one of ’em says, Oh, I forgot about her.

Yeah. And they walk in just awkwardly have to stand with her dead body as they tra in Traver travel in the elevator. Oh, that was kind of funny though. But it 

Craig: was kind of funny. The elevator ends up going past the lobby down into the sublevels, and so they start freaking out and finally when the door opens, I guess the killer’s right there, and he shoots Wade with a crossbo.

Todd: Yes. And then like what? They just kind of run past him. Uhhuh, , Nicole and Robert run out and I’m like, oh, they’re gonna run out and tackle that guy. No, no. They just like run, and I don’t even know where the killer is at this point. Like I don’t, he was right there in front of them anyway. Wade and Kathy are stuck in the elevator.

Wade has an arrow in his leg and they’ve got this . They’ve got this difficult scene where he’s like, it seems to think that he really needs to get that air out of his leg. He wants her to take it out of his leg. She’s like, I can’t. I can’t. He says, you can baby. You can. She says, okay. 

Craig: Oh yeah, I know. Why did he call her baby?

That was weird. You don’t call random strangers, baby . I don’t know. Maybe if you’re like a former famous person, it’s a thing. I 

Todd: guess. I dunno. Everything. Everybody’s, Hey man, when you’re, you know, a musician and then you’re rock star up on stage, everybody’s baby. 

Craig: Yeah. He just need, yeah, he just needed to get like that Austin.

Accent going, you would’ve to 

Todd: pull . Hi baby . I do think that most of the actors in this movie were British, affecting an American accent and doing quite well of it. But, but 

Craig: am I wrong in thinking that this movie was filmed in English? , but then also dubbed in English. 

Todd: It seems like a lot of it was dubbed.

Yeah, especially, um, Nicole, she especially seemed to be dubbed a lot. I I, I, I felt like maybe there was a different actress’s voice coming outta her mouth. I wasn’t 

Craig: surprised by the dubbing because I knew it was a German film, but then I was watching, I’m like, they are speaking English, like, oh yeah, for sure.

I can read their lips. They’re speaking English. The dub doesn’t match up perfectly, but I can tell that I don’t know it. It was 

Todd: weird. . Well, there’s an implication. There’s some gas coming into the elevator cuz it just shows a closeup of the grate in there. And then Nicole and Robert end up in a pink room and he’s messing around some stuff.

I don’t know why. He’s just like probing and opening tiny little things and whatnot. The puff of something knocks him out. Mm-hmm. . So they’ve been fighting this whole time. It’s not very convincing. Fighting like, I don’t understand why they’re going off on each other so much, but you know, there’s all this stuff we’re.

Earlier, he kind of lets, lets it known that he was going to, I guess they find the ring on him when they’re arguing and you know, with him and think he might be a, a killer. And then he kind of says, yeah, well that was, you know, that was a mistake that thankfully I never made or whatever. Uhhuh, . And then after this little gas or whatever, knocks him out, he falls down and she’s, Nicole stands over him and says, I would’ve said yes.

So stupid know. Was that supposed to be a moment ? 

Craig: Well, see the thing was like in the beginning I thought that he was kind of supposed to be the sad sack put upon kind of guy. Like she was kind of the bitch who you know, was treating this nice guy badly and kissing other guys behind his back. No, he’s a dick too.

So he’s 

Todd: a total dick. He’s like the Dickies of all of ’em, right? 

Craig: So who cares? Who 

Todd: cares? Yeah. . . She runs out and finds Kathy and Wade like they’re sleeping in some bed. So they’ve been propped together away. Yeah. I had no idea what that 

Craig: was about because the last time we saw them, they were both fully conscious and fine.

Todd: Yeah. I think they were gassed in the 

Craig: elevator. Okay. , right? So they’re like, you know, snuggling like, like they’re not spooning, but they may as well be in a bed just laying there. Uhhuh . And so the killer chases her for a while and she has the genius idea to break open a glow stick and splash it on his face.

It does, does absolutely nothing. I Is that possible? Well, I think it is possible. Really? No, I, I, no, I know it’s possible cuz fun fact, fun fact about me when I was in college, I. Frequented raves and, uh, , no kidding. People would put those, uh, glow stick things in their mouths and they would break, and, uh, so the whole inside of their mouths would glow it, which is incredibly toxic young.

Yeah. Don’t do that. People out there don’t do that. It may look cool for a second, but you could get really sick. 

Todd: great. Craig’s like, I know , but 

Craig: it serves no purpose other than it kind of looks cool on his. Shiny chrome mask. Like, yeah, like they just kind of wanted that cool look. Look. . 

Todd: Yeah, that’s about it really.

It like gets in his eye for like a half a second. Then this is the most cat and mouse the movie has gotten so far because there’s actually some scenes where she’s hiding and then she’s, you know, he’s walking nearby. You know, it’s that classic right killer is stalking the girl who’s trying to hide from him.

And this happens for like five minutes and then it cuts away from it and Wade wakes up on the floor. And he is like, where’s Kathy? And it turns out Robert is sitting up against a wall. I don’t know. How about Nicole? She’s gone. Like, he’s just being weird. And why are they in this big room? It looks like a sewer or something.

Oh yeah. It’s like a dirt 

Craig: floor or something. I have no idea what’s going on. 

Todd: It’s bizarre. And then it turns out Kathy is in some prison cell or something right next 

Craig: door? No, she’s like in a, she’s like in an adjacent room or something, but she’s on the other side of like a metal screen or fence or 

Todd: something.

And they’re like yelling at each other. I go, can you get to me? No. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then like she just kind of opens a door and gets out. Yeah. Some other direction, not to them. I, I mean, you know, this is just a problem. Like we have no sense of this, this place, this no. Where they are, what it is, and it, you know, it’s not confusing in a cool way.

It’s just confusing in a way that you don’t understand the significance or you don’t understand, you know, where they should be going to. It’s just tiresome, right? Like, what 

Craig: is this building? Because Kathy finds Nicole tied to a table in some big, like kitchen, kitchen. I don’t know. It’s like all white tiled and there’s.

Uh, like half walls, you know, coming up out of the floor randomly in their sinks and stuff. And I, there’s a big, oh yeah, there’s like a platform that Nick, like, Nick is like tied down to a table and Kathy finds her and then the killer comes up behind Kathy and then it cuts back to Wade and Rob and they argue and Rob drops a key and Wade’s like, where’d you get that?

And Rob’s like, I swear to God, I’ve never seen it before. . So they both I think go for the key and Wade ends up bashing Rob’s head on the ground and killing him. Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah, that was crazy. He just full on out kills him. And he seems a little distraught by it, but I 

Craig: think I, I think that he thought that Rob was the killer or was in on it.

And to be fair, there had been some shady stuff like, you know, Rob had been attacked, but then he had gotten away unscathed and now he’s got this key and the Rob’s being 

Todd: has been set up, I guess, by the killer, this killer who really just goes around and kills people. Does this to Rob. I, I just assuming that that key will eventually fall out or right of his sleeve or wherever he put it.

I don’t know, like in a place where it’s gonna be helpful because then Wade just like opens a door and leaves. So I guess he used the key on a door that was in that room, 

Craig: but it just leads him, it just leads him into, oh wait. No. Well, first we see the killer. cutting Nicole’s heart out. It said heartless underneath her name, on her name plate.

But he cuts her heart out with a circular saw. Yeah. And, and like pulls it out and like it’s still beating and, and its hand in his hand. Uh, it was 

Todd: very unconvincing effect also. How would you do that with a circular saw and Right. It was weird, but at this point I was like, oh, okay. I know who it is because we had just seen Kathy in that room and the killer’s standing behind.

And then without anything, it just cuts back to that scene and we’re focused on Nicole getting her heart cut out, like, what the hell happened to Kathy? Well, 

Craig: the very next scene, Wade finds her and she’s tied up in a chair. I didn’t know who it was, but at this point I was getting frustrated because I was thinking at this point, it has to be somebody that we don’t know because we have seen the killer with everybody else.

So, It can’t be one of our people. It’s gotta be somebody we don’t know, or maybe somebody that we saw very briefly at the party. That was the only thing that I could. Think, and either way I’m like, that pisses me 

Todd: off. Like I had accomplice idea in my mind. I did 

Craig: not. Now you see, you’re not smarter than me, but I’m 

Todd: two steps ahead of you in this crazy cat and mouse game where there’s traps everywhere and twists and turns.

Yeah, God. 

Craig: He, okay, so, so Wade finds Kathy. She’s tied up, so he unties her and she tells or he tells her that Rob is dead, that he doesn’t mention the fact that he killed him, and then they find a menu. Like a, like a, a dining menu with all of their names on it. And it says that, that Kathy is the main course, like, it, it lists all the people who are already dead.

Like one of them was the appetizer, whatever. And then Kathy is the main course and he’s the dessert. He’s like, I don’t wanna be the dessert . Like, 

Todd: like he’s, I also love how there’s just a bunch of random food. It doesn’t even look good, that’s sitting out on, on, on dishes. He takes one glance at it. It goes, Hey, these are all dishes you’ve cooked on your.

Yeah. What? 

Craig: She’s like, how do you know he’s, I told you I’m a fan. . 

Todd: Come on. It’s like a plate of green beans, a salad, . Yeah, it’s really 

Craig: stupid. So he ties her back up, like he just untied her. Now he ties her back up as bait. Um, and the killer comes. And Wade’s like behind him, and he goes to stab the killer, but his knife turns out to be a retractable prop knife.

What, 

Todd: where, where did he get the knife from? How did he not notice? It was re retract? I just had so many questions at this point. 

Craig: I know it doesn’t, it doesn’t make any sense. Uh, and then he gets stabbed and hung. And then Kathy starts to cut him down, but she hears a noise and she goes to investigate that and the killer is coming.

So Kathy stabs the killer and then takes off the killer’s mask and she says, oh my God, he’s my number one fan. Had we seen this guy before? 

Todd: No, we hadn’t. No, I I thought maybe 

Craig: he had been at the party and I had forgotten. Nope. And she, she cuts wade down and she’s like, this guy always shows up anywhere I am.

And he, he always says, he’s my number one fan. But then she cuts him down and just starts talking. Yeah. And totally reveals her motive and her whole motive. Is that she used to be fat and people made fun of her for it, and she’s mad. That’s it. Like, yes, . It’s the stupidest fucking motive ever in any movie, ever.

It’s so dumb. Like she got made fun of for being fat when she was a kid, so she’s gonna kill everybody who ever. Slighted her and all of these people knew her in some capacity, yes. When she was fat. But don’t recognize her now because when you lose weight, you become an entirely unrecognizable person.

Right. 

Todd: Of course, in n nevermind, you become a celebrity chef , and nobody puts together the fact that they knew you. When there’s like a jilted boyfriend, , you know, there’s like the one. Teased her, like she just, there’s this long protracted ending where she just goes one by one through each of the people.

And the horrible thing that they did to her when she was in high school, I mean the implication is also that maybe at least a few of them all went to the same high school. Like they couldn’t put that together. I know you. Sure you do. I’m Kathy King. Can’t walk down the street without seeing my face on a billboard or the side of a bus.

No. Feel that girl feel more high. Your name’s not Kathy. What’s your name? You don’t remember. I can’t tell you how much that hurts my feelings, but then again, why would you, in high school you never even looked at me. It was as though I. Exist. And when I finally worked up the courage to tell you how much I loved you, you laughed in my face.

Of course you don’t remember my name. You never called me by my name. What did you call me? You must remember that lady, Lord ass lady. Lord ass. Now I’m getting rid of the dead weight. Oh, just really stupid. 

Craig: It’s really stupid. Uh, like she’s mad because he laughed. She had a crush on him and he laughed at her advances and called her lady lard ass.

And yeah. Um, he’s like trying to talk to her. He is like, well, isn’t living. He’s like, you’re doing great now. Isn’t living well? The best revenge? And she says, she’s like, nah, killing people.

And then she does this. Set like a cooking demonstration set where she lays out her recipes for revenge and, and lays out the whole menu, including the, you know, the bodies and in trails of all of these people that she, she’s killed. And it’s long, like when, when I was first listening to it, I’m like, oh, he’s gonna have to play a clip of this.

And then it kept going on and on and on, and it went on for like five minutes. Yeah. During the whole thing. The killer. I guess wasn’t totally dead. And so he attacks her, but she kills him. And while she’s doing that, Wade tries to escape, but he can only like drag himself along. So she gets on top of his back and is talking to him and cuts his throat and then turns and says something directly to camera.

I don’t remember what she says. It doesn’t matter cause it was so stupid. And then that’s the end. Yeah. The end. Yeah. God, it was just so, so 

Todd: bad. It was bad. And to 

Craig: be fair, like it’s a pretty typical slasher. Yeah. But, but the characters are so unlikeable. , and I don’t even know if the acting is that bad or if it’s just that the writing is so bad that there’s really nothing that they could do with 

Todd: it.

It’s both. I couldn’t figure out Pamela’s character, you know, was so unconvincing. I thought, my God, this woman is a terrible actress. Like she is just as wooden as can be, just delivering these lines. And then I go to her IMDB profile and she’s the most prolific of all. Oh, she’s like working all the time and in big stuff, small roles, but in big stuff like Bridger 10.

And so, you know, either she’s improved or it is truly just the writing or maybe the director. I mean, I always give the actors a little bit of a pass when it comes to the acting thinking that maybe the directing was poor. Yeah. And they were put in bad hands and they were made to. Do something, the director convinced them looked good, but in turns out they look silly.

I, I mean, what you say is true and that makes it very hard to get into this movie, even with a dumb premise, even with a lot of plot holes. It’s not like we’ve haven’t seen movies that are nonsensical and don’t make sense. Right. And, but you know, you just, you don’t care about any of these people. You don’t, you’re not even convinced.

They’re real people. They’re all just saying stupid things all the time. They’re all assholes. And what it says on the cover of this, surviving each floor is the name of the game. No, like just. Wandering around empty hallways in the dark was the name of the game. Uhhuh Uhhuh . It’s impossible to believe that this killer set this all up elaborately and, and pushed everything to go according to plan because so much of it was random.

Somebody randomly runs into an elevator, somebody randomly tr decides this is the door they’re gonna try. Yeah. There’s nothing saw like about it where they’re being led through a series of things, right? So, oh. Just stupid. Yeah. 

Craig: And, and the guy, like, I didn’t recognize any of these people either, but I just, I don’t know.

I think that he had an interesting, uh, IMDB profile picture that I couldn’t figure out. So I clicked on the guy who played Robert, and he was just in a movie that I recently saw called See for Me. and I liked that movie. It was about a, it was a home invasion movie, but, um, the girl who, you know, was in the house when it was invaded is blind.

Uhhuh . So she has to call this like, service that’s called see for me. And, uh, you know, somebody on the other end of the line using the phone on her camera, like leads her around through things. And she has to do that for this, uh, to. To survive this home invasion or whatever. And I actually liked that movie

Um, and I don’t, I don’t remember him specifically in it, but it was a really, really small cast. So I assume that he was good 

Todd: in it. I noticed that he was in, um, several video game, heavy rain and, uh, of. A few of the Assassins Creed ones, the latest Farc cry. I mean, I was kind of impressed with his resume, but not this movie, but he’s busy.

He’s the other person who’s super busy. Everybody else hasn’t been, as far as I could tell, has hardly been in anything else, if anything else besides this movie. And the same thing with the director and writer. They’ve barely done anything besides this movie. And this movie was done in 2007. . Mm-hmm. , you know, if that gives you any indication.

This movie 

Craig: is just typically bad. Like I feel like we are being maybe a little bit too harsh on it. Yeah. There are lots of direct, there are lots of direct to D V D movies or direct to streaming or whatever. Now they’re like this, that are like this, that aren’t very good that, you know, a few years ago you would’ve stumbled on on.

some cable channel in the middle of the afternoon. You’re not expecting super high quality, so that’s fine. I don’t know, I just, I, I was just disappointed. I, you know, it’s our New Year’s episode. I wanted it to be something good. I watched two different movies, you know, to try to find something good for us, and they both ended up being, Terrible.

And, uh, I, I just, I wish we had something better to recommend to you, you know, watch New Year’s Evil, if you haven’t seen, seen it yet. That was fun. Yeah. I mean, it’s a bad movie too, but at least it was fun and funny and fun to watch. This movie just wasn’t even any fun. Like it wasn’t, it wasn’t. Funny, evil, the, the, yeah, I am evil.

That’s one of my, that’s one of my favorites, . But this one, it’s not even, you know, you don’t care for any of the characters. It’s not, there’s no humor to it at all. It’s played totally straight and serious. Um, ultimately the plot is just, Dumb. The, the, the end is unsatisfying and stupid. Like, I just don’t have, it’s boring.

God. It’s the even, it’s, it is, it’s boring and it drags on forever. Ugh. I, I, I can’t, I, I can’t in any kind of good faith recommend this movie on any sort of merit. I, I just didn’t like it. Avoid it. Watch something else. . 

Todd: It’s a waste of time. . Yeah. Absolute waste of. Well, on that note, happy New Year everybody.

Happy New Year. We could only go up from here. I think with our selections, , it’s gonna be, I mean, we will go lower. Don’t worry. We’ll find much worse, . We’ll find more fun, worse movies as well, I think this year. Thank you so much for sticking with us for another year, for our patrons out there. Thank you so much for your support.

We’re getting new patrons every day, and it’s just a heartening to see if you would like to support us and keep us going. Uh, we would really appreciate it. Just go to patreon.com/chainsaw podcast for just a few bucks a month. You can get access to special features Mini sos an exclusive interview with us, the entire unedited phone call that we do, including our chat before and after, uh, the podcast recording.

Check it out. Uh, also we want to hear more requests. Shoot us some better movies to do, especially if you know a good New Year’s one . 

Craig: Yeah, we’ll need something 

Todd: for next year. We sure do. You can find our webpage, two guys dot redford net.com. Post something there, or, uh, you know, go on our Facebook page. I think that’s where most of our chatter is.

All you have to do is Google Two Guys and a Chainsaw and you’ll get there. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.