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As many of our long time listeners know, we do a horror-thon every Halloween. We usually have a child or 2 in attendance and sometimes a few others. We pick about 3 or 4 movies we’d like to see for one reason or another and have a go. This year was a great line up:
First up was the new Salem’s Lot. this was released on Max and we had seen the original and remakes before, so we were interested in seeing how this new treatment of one of King’s most popular books came together.
Next up was Talk to Me from 2023. If you like Ouija, you should enjoy this one. Overall, everyone liked this, even those that had seen it before.
The overall favorite by everyone. A great time period piece. Like talk to me, not a lot of special effects, but the ones they had were good. More about the buildup and atmosphere.
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Transcript
Stephen: [00:00:00] Hey so bonus episode, a bonus episode is not even counted in our seasons. We do this every year. We’ve got our yearly horror thought. I don’t even know. It’s been five or six years. We’ve done it straight now. Maybe it’s been a while. Yeah, it’s been a while. And this one was like always, we tried to choose movies.
That was a mixture, a little different. Originally, I thought oh, we don’t have as many indie type of movies, but we really did. We did have more streaming movies this time. We got together, had some kids there. Everybody had a great time. We ate pizza, our usual work. Yeah, pretty much.
So the first one was interesting choice. It was the new version of Salem’s lot. And you actually chose that one. We threw that one out first. And what was your thinking on that one there is so it had
Rhys: a couple of strikes against it from the start. First it was a vampire movie, right? First, it was a vampire movie.
Second, it was based [00:01:00] off of, and I know this is a controversial take my, one of my least favorite Stephen King novels. And then third, it’s the fourth and it’s not even like Salem’s lot for, it’s this is the fourth time they’ve redone it. And it’s got a lot to be compared to overall, I thought it, oh, and it was also it was a big box office.
It was like a big film.
Stephen: It was, this was
Rhys: a big studio film.
Stephen: And that was one of the controversial things about it was at the last moment, they decided not to release it in the theater and put it straight to streaming instead of a theater release.
Rhys: Kind of. It still went into theaters in Europe and in England, and its box office pool was about 850, 000.
Stephen: Okay, so it was just America that we did. It
Rhys: was just America that went straight to streaming. Yeah.
Stephen: And watching the whole movie, we talked about that, that it seemed like it really Fit better as a streaming movie. It wasn’t necessarily the best [00:02:00] streaming movie we’ve ever seen
Rhys: Yeah, it was written and directed by gary doberman.
Who is really I mean he worked on it So kudos that it was a good, but he’s also heavily tied into the conjuring universe. He did Annabelle creation. He did the nun too. So he’s got a lot of kind of questionable stuff on his resume and it’s not even like Colin Hardy when he did the nun where you could say the direction was good and that’s what he did.
Because Gary Doberman wrote all of those as well. So like he was really responsible for the lame ass movies they were. Overall, I would say the movie was like, so like looking at my notes, it’s some nice, creepy, atmospheric stuff, but it seemed disjointed. There was a lot of like weird time things, like the very opening scene looks like it was shot in the 1860s and it’s supposed to be 1970, whatever, just like what’s going on here, right?
Stephen: And we discussed that a little [00:03:00] bit that it felt a little. Rushed and like you said disjointed. That we talked about the old 79 version. That was a tv two night miniseries Which doesn’t hold up well as far as special effects and looks go But it really hits it out of the park with staying true to the story and really hitting the high points of the story My favorite is the 2004 miniseries with rob lowe in it.
I still think that’s my favorite out of all of them this one it just it could have been longer. I think if they would have added 20 minutes to it, put in a few more scenes of a few things, it would have felt more cohesive.
Rhys: You got to be a little careful though, because it was already clocking in at an hour and 54 minutes.
Yeah,
Stephen: we’d hate to violate the rule. I, yeah, I
Rhys: mean, rules are made to be broken, but I think one of the other things was. And this is a problem with the book too, in my opinion, we were 50 minutes in before you knew who the main characters of the movie were, because [00:04:00] there’s so many people involved, it’s just really hard to say Oh, wait is that the main character?
No. Is that the main, is that the main character? And, you’re almost an hour in before you’re like, Oh, okay. I see. There’s this team forming here.
Stephen: And We know that Stephen King has said he thought of Salem’s lot as our town with vampires and out of all the versions, this one, I felt was more like an our town scenario.
It made you feel the whole community for good or bad, which I think if they would have had those extra 20 to 30 minutes. They could have brought that out even more. They could have made you feel closer to small groups of people as they get turned and you see the whole town disintegrating.
Rhys: Yeah. And I think I really did enjoy the drive in, which was the
Stephen: twist of, yeah, the drive in twist was really nice.
Rhys: Yeah. And I also liked the fact that you could take anybody, even some baddie old lady. If you put a shotgun in her hands, [00:05:00] she’s scary. Yeah, it makes no difference at all.
Stephen: Yeah. And then the one problem with the twist being at the drive in though, was it made the Marston house almost unnecessary. It’s
Rhys: true.
Stephen: It took out a lot of that. So they could have changed it from that too. But then people would have complained they didn’t have the Marston house at all.
Rhys: Yeah. And in the book, like it’s almost Gaio esque where the Marston house itself is a character. Yes. And you really didn’t get that with this.
This was more like. Almost like fright night where it’s yeah, there’s this creepy house, but that’s just where they happen to live. And
Stephen: I will say in the Castle Rock Hulu series the second season takes place a lot with the Marston house and it has to do with young Annie Wilkes. So it’s an interesting double crossover there.
Rhys: Yeah.
Stephen: Okay. Salem’s lot. It’s okay. Neither up nor down. Yeah. Yeah, it was pretty meh. Yeah, if I don’t watch it again, I won’t feel too [00:06:00] bad, right?
Rhys: All right. So this year we did something new. We asked for suggestions from other members who were there.
Stephen: Yes.
Rhys: And so they were both my kids suggested the next two films.
And the first one was from my daughter and it was talked to me.
Stephen: A newer film and we
Rhys: 2022.
Stephen: Yeah, we mix it up to get, a big variety, not just our whore a thon, but everything. So talk to me. So what was your and this definitely fit Rhiannon picking this movie. It definitely felt like it was aimed at the younger generation or movie for them.
It was a new version. You could say of Ouija or something like that that type of movie,
Rhys: but I think done better. This is, this has been a big thing for me of late, like bodies came across my radar recently. Talk to me, came across my radar recently, and they both look like teen date night horror films, but they’re eight 24.
And I’m like, why in the world is eight [00:07:00] 24 carrying this movie? And in both cases, what I found was you watch it and it actually, me. Digs deep into the subject matter and has something to say. It’s not just some fluff eats your popcorn kind of thing while you’re watching it. And in fact, it’s not just me.
This movie was nominated for 64 awards and won 20 of them.
Stephen: Yeah, it’s a pretty big one. And it’s, it was Australian. It’s got an Australian cast filmed there as far as I know. And it had spooky ghosts and psychological kind of all mixed up. So it definitely hit a lot of good points.
Rhys: It did. And it’s reflected in the box office.
It made 140 million. Worldwide, which makes it the second highest grossing a 24 film of all time.
Stephen: That’s about how much all 10 movies in one season of our show usually makes. That’s right. That’s right.
Rhys: It is the directorial debut of Danny and Michael Philipp. How I apologize for mispronouncing that, but they’re [00:08:00] twins.
And it’s really ironic because as I was doing a deep dive on our next film, that was also written and directed by two Australian brothers. So apparently, Australian pairs were the theme for this year. If we could only somehow tie that into Salem’s lot, but
Stephen: yeah. Reset it in the outbacks.
Rhys: Yeah. They had tried to they had floated this script around to Hollywood studios and Hollywood studios. We’re like, yeah, this sounds great, but we want to show how this thing works. Or we want to do this. We want to do this. And they’re like, no, we’re not going to change our vision for you. And so they ended up taking it back to Australia and making it a pure Australian independent film.
Stephen: How often do we discuss Hey, look, American movie executives ruined another movie trying to make it the best ever.
Rhys: And thank God these guys were like, no, you’re not doing it to this one. So
Stephen: imagine if Peter Jackson with Lord of the Rings, fell in line with that, [00:09:00] how Lord of the Ring, we wouldn’t be talking about it anymore.
We’d still talk about the seventies rotoscoped movies.
Rhys: Yeah, the cast. Mostly unknowns because they’re young Australian actors. There’s an Australian films and again, here I am generalizing, but Australian films, especially films with kids, the kids are something to be scared of. And that’s a common thread and there’s one out there.
Another independent out there. It’s really good. It’s called rabbit. And two of the kids from this movie were both in rabbit. Joe bird who played Riley, the kid who gets beat up. He was in rabbit and Sophie wild who played Mia, who I think is the older sister.
Stephen: Right.
Rhys: She was also in rabbit, but Miranda auto is like the big name star.
And kudos to them. They did not give her a big name role. She was there to be the mom and she played that to the hilt. And, she’s Lord of the Rings, she’s Eowyn from Lord of the Rings people. So she doesn’t have to be doing [00:10:00] this movie, she was, must’ve been doing this. Cause she wanted to.
Stephen: Yeah. And we love when that happens. Somebody that really could just sit back and say, Oh no, I want more money. She didn’t get paid as much as she did for Lord of the Rings. Hope
Rhys: not. Yeah, that’s, there goes all that money that they made, but I just kept thinking as I was watching it, like the range of acting was so impressive because the general gist is there’s this thing that will allow you to be possessed voluntarily by the spirits of the dead and kids are like, it’s a hit of adrenaline.
Kids are loving it. They’re doing it. Acting like you’re possessed over that whole cast so many times, they did a great job at no point was I like, oh, this is just hokey or they’re just, this is just obviously they’re just messing around. It was all like, Eyes rolled back in their heads and jerky movements and stuff.
It was really well done.
Stephen: And I thought the characters themselves were a big variety. It really had [00:11:00] kids in different thinking and ways they acted and stuff. Overall good movie worth watching. I thought
Rhys: for sure. And, we’ve talked a lot about how you’ll have horror movies that actually have some sort of message thrown on top of the horror movie.
And if this is not like the clearest analogy for addiction, where it’s, Awesome. While you’re doing it, when you abuse it, bad things happen. And like it’s going to whisper to you and lie to you all the time to get you to do what it wants.
Stephen: Right.
Rhys: And it wasn’t heavy handed. No, it was just there.
You couldn’t miss it, but it wasn’t like they were smacking you in the head with it.
Stephen: It wasn’t ghosts and gore and stuff every other second.
Rhys: Absolutely.
Stephen: All right. And then our last one, this was the one I was most excited about personally. A late night with the devil. It was a shutter streaming.
And it had the main guy I recognized as Matt. Matt, the bad guy from MacGyver. So [00:12:00] it was an interesting film. I’m glad we watched this one.
Rhys: Yeah. David does. Yeah. David does. There
Stephen: we go.
Rhys: Late night with the devil. It was an IFC film. And there are always the quality levels there that.
They’re a proven entity. And this was a partnership with the U S Australia and the United Arab Emirates, which is not something that you see pop up very often when you’re looking at movies. Probably the
Stephen: only instance we’ll see of the United Arab Emirates, Australia and U S working together.
Rhys: That’s true.
I had 14 nominations and six wins. It had a 25. 5 million worldwide gross, which isn’t bad for an IFC film. And this is funny on now they reported this and remember that. In fiscal reportings, they can move 5 percent and need a direction. But on March 24th of this year, the movie grossed 666, 666 at the box office.
So I don’t know. It’s that was [00:13:00] clever accounting they had going on there. Here, send your nephew, go buy that one last ticket we need. Yeah. Stephen King was given an early stringer of this film and he loved it. And it really brings to mind that there was a BBC program. It’s infamous called ghost watch.
I don’t know if you’ve, yeah, came out in 1992. It was infamous because they didn’t tell anyone that it was staged and it just looked like a news program on Halloween. And one guy actually committed suicide afterwards because he had mental issues and he thought that the banging on the pipes from the show were actual ghosts and they were in his house.
And so he like, Killed himself.
Stephen: Isn’t that what Stephen King always says jokingly I want to write something that scares somebody to death and I really hope he’s joking. Seriously.
Rhys: Yeah, because this show ghostwatch is never shown in great Britain ever again.
Stephen: Yeah. I think we hunted it down a couple of years ago.
It was difficult for us to, it was like [00:14:00] VHS copy of exactly.
Rhys: Yeah. It looks, it has that tie West look to it because it is that kind of tie West thing where it’s just, yes. This is directed by Cameron and Colin Carnes. They are also brothers from Australia who wrote it. And they said that they thought there was something, they always thought there was something slightly dangerous about late night TV in the seventies and eighties, and I agree with them.
Because the delay was what? Six seconds tops, people could say or do whatever. And there wasn’t much, the networks could do to stop them. And that’s what this show plays on.
Stephen: Yeah. And it looked great. It was like a found footage documentary. It was, just we’re sitting in the audience watching all this happened is what it was.
Rhys: I wish I had it pulled up. They had a production guy on set who had worked in late night television in Australia in the eighties. And he was like one of the main producers on the floor. And so he was like, this is just [00:15:00] Tuesday for me. The picking the colors and everything that was just the kind of stuff that he used to do back in the day.
Which gave it a super authentic feel.
Stephen: Yeah. And it did. And we kept telling the kids this is what late night was like without the scene behind the scenes during commercials the way it looked at the small set and what they did to push, to get the ratings. And it’s interesting. They try and do that.
This was real because he was competing against Johnny and he kept wanting to beat Carson and be better and more numbers and was the whole thing.
Rhys: It, if you’re a conspiracy theorist, they bring up the Bohemian Grove. And, like this guy went there and, One of the things I was reading about it, they point out that, traditionally, after you make a deal with the devil, seven years later, he collects.
Well, seven years after he joins the grove, his wife passes away. And, this is the following year. I don’t know, I said, and I’ve said this before, I think it was with behind the mask, they do different formats. So it [00:16:00] starts out with Michael Ironside narrating what’s happening and then they moved to found footage and then they just do an actual narrative play out and then go back to found footage, which typically I hate, but the story was so intriguing.
I wanted to see what came next. And in order to do that, they had to break the frame that they had already set up.
Stephen: Yeah, and they did it. It didn’t feel good to join it. It could have flopped. But yeah It was my favorite of the night. I must say though to be fair I had already seen talk to me and knew it was good.
It was stupid the second time but this was the one that I looked forward to because I hadn’t seen it and it looked interesting.
Rhys: Yeah I had been looking forward to this because I love david dosman to small chin.
Stephen: Yeah
Rhys: And I like this fits that limited set thing, which I’m a big fan of.
I love movies with a very limited set and this definitely hit that. And all those things clicking, I was really looking forward to this too.
Stephen: So there we go. Great year [00:17:00] for our horror fest. Not that we’ve ever had really a flop. We always watch interesting movies and they’re always interesting for one reason or another.
Even if it wouldn’t be a movie, people would choose Oh, I’m going to definitely get to watch that. We get them for reasons because of like when we watch fan of the paradise that was recommended to us because of the town in Canada that does it every year as a festival. That, that sounds like something we’d be interested in.
Let’s watch the movie,
Rhys: some, Of the three we saw, I would definitely highly recommend you seeing at least the last two. Yeah. If you’ve got two hours to kill and you’ve got to do dishes or something, you could put on Salem’s lot, if you don’t, you’re not missing much.
Stephen: No I’d still say go watch the 2004 Rob Lowe version.
If you’re on me, if you got four choices, go watch, you’ll watch the one that’s the good one. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. There’s only so much time for bad horror movies. That’s right. We watch them because we enjoy just having bad horror movies. So there we [00:18:00] go. 2024 Horror a thon. Over. And just as a slight preview, I am working on a post I’m gonna put up on our website where I’m watching because I now, in November, I usually watch Christmas horror movies and I’ve really cut some horrible ones out and watch some good ones, try and find new ones.
But I’m doing a whole thing on the different versions of a Christmas Carol. Good, bad things on that. So that’ll be coming out here pretty soon. I’ve already started watching. Various versions, diving deep. All right, there was the Horathon. All right. Up to you.
