"Devil Claws" (MST3K Comics)

Issue Number:  6
Release Date:  May 29th, 2019
Adapted From:  Johnny Jason, Teen Reporter #2; Black Cat Comics #1; Horrific #2
Original Publication Dates:  July/August 1962, June/July 1946, November 1952

It's time to conclude this miniseries!  Does Mystery Science Comic Book 3000 stick the landing?

Not really.

This final issue is probably the biggest disappointment of the run so far, as none of the stories are standouts, and the two I was anticipating most are merely slivers.  The longest portion of the book is spent with Jonah in Black Cat...or maybe it feels like the longest.  I'm not sure.  But Black Cat catches one more bad guy and saves her father from bleeding to death.  Jonah is still her quippy little assistant, and like all of the Black Cat segments, the humor is cute but it rarely lands.  Jonah's entire storyline was pretty much a bust in this series.

After that, we at long last conclude Tom Servo's run as Johnny Jason, Teen Reporter, but it feels like there is barely anything left to cover.  Servo and his rich girl companion escape from the bad guys, return home, where Servo reveals the culprit in a genuine Perry Mason moment.  Before any sort of humor gets rolling, we're turning the page again.  Servo's storyline does provide my favorite line of the issue, as a red haired character punches the villain and quips "This is for calling me 'Store-Brand Archie!'"

What these two segments of the issue have in common is that they're both tying loose ends in a hurry and just jumping to the next story.  I guess I'm getting a conclusion, but the laugh rhythm is off because they're so quick, which is why I'm buying the book in the first place.  If MST gets picked up for another volume, I would hope that they would try to do whole stories at once instead of chopping them up across six issues.

Another Crow Horrific tale could save the day, but it never gets a chance to start rolling either.  It feels like it's trying to start, but then the comic gets in a hurry to finish itself and Kinga and Max interfere with Crow's storyline, much to Crow's chagrin.  To be fair, this sets up a pretty good Matrix joke, as Crow alters the "reality" of the comic himself and declares himself "The One," but that's really only the second big laugh I got from the issue.

Then it's all over, and Kinga abandons the experiment, and gush over the new comic books they made in a cute bit of meta narcissism.  The issue ends on a maybe cliffhanger (I think), that confused me a little bit.  I don't know if it was just an excuse to include Crow's old catchphrase "You Know You Want Me, Baby!" into the comic or if this is a legitimate plot thread they're considering running with for a second volume, but the end is pretty odd.

I'm glad the MST comic series exists, and I got some solid laughs out of it, but it really ended on a whimper for me.  I'll probably revisit it once the trade paperback comes out and assess how the entire series works as a whole, but as individual issues, some worked better than others.  Unfortunately their last impression was also their weakest.

Average

Game of Thrones - "The Rains of Castermere" (Rifftrax)

Episode Year:  2013
Genre:  Soap opera, fantasy
Director:  David Nutter
Starring:  A bunch of people that died...spoiler alert
Rifftrax Year:  2017
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

The Episode

Previously on Game of Thrones...stuff happened.  I don't know what, because I don't watch this show.

I'd like to preface this by saying most of this is just me spitballing, because I had the grim realization while watching this of "Oh crap, I have to talk about a serialized episode without proper context, so now I'm really fucked."  Oh well.

But, it's another happy-go-lucky episode of Game of Thrones!  But this one had less nudity and less Peter Dinklage, so I didn't care for it.

"But moron-with-a-blog," I hear you saying, "You skipped ahead a bunch of episodes and ruined one of the biggest surprise endings of the series!"

Like, motherfucker, the internet long since ruined this ending for everyone who will ever attempt to watch Game of Thrones.  There is not a single person alive who hasn't heard of the fucking Red Wedding.  Even if I had attempted a proper watch of the series, I had already known this moment was coming.  Thank you very much, social media!

One thing that I will concede is that I have no clue who any of these characters are nor do I have any sort of attachment to them, which is a result of having skipped ahead.  BUT, I must admit that after watching the first season of Game of Thrones I couldn't tell you any of the characters' names nor did I have any sort of attachment to them either.  I recognized Emilia Clarke here in a relatively small role, playing Dragon Lady With a Funny Name.  I also recognized a couple of Harry Potter actors who weren't in that first season either.

The primary storyline of this episode has to do with a wedding at one of the fantasy towns of the series.  Most of the episode builds up to a wedding between two characters, but in the finale, the ceremony sees the father of the bride betrays a group of invited guests and just has his guards kill everyone.

The question is that now that I've seen the most notorious episode of Game of Thrones, am I more interested in the series?  Not really.  I found the Red Wedding pretty hilarious, honestly, what with the random stabbity-stabbity-stab-stab-stab of just everyone in sight.  Then it ends with a dramatic "FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION" pleading by wife of now-dead-Sean Bean (SEE, I KNOW SOMETHING ABOUT THE SERIES), an ac-TING moment of a wail of sorrow, then she slits some pre-teen girl's throat because "Why not?" just as some dude just casually strolls up behind her and slits her throat too.  Maybe if I actually gave a damn this scene would play out stronger, but just the DRAMA of it was so overdone that I just found it amusing.

But please, don't take this as an actual opinion of merit on the episode.  I've already gone on record stating that I don't care for the series, nor did I give this episode a genuine shot, because I didn't care.  If I ever watch it properly in context of the series, I'll amend a real review at the bottom.  Just please, don't hurt me.

::GOT fan sneaks up on blogger, slits his throat::

The Trax

"Remember when this series was fun?"
"No."
"Me neither."

I'll admit that I preferred the previous riff of "Winter is Coming" over "The Rains of Castermere."  It's strange to just jump over an entire section of a story as the riffers hit the ground running.  People who are invested in Game of Thrones lore may get a lot out of the experience, as the episode presumes familiarity with events of the previous seasons.  It's not a whole lot of fun trying to keep in pace with where we're at.

"Not a Game of Thrones superfan, are you Mike?"
"I can hold my own!  That's Percy Jackson right there, right?"

Luckily the riffing doesn't quite rely on a knowledge of Game of Thrones's story to get through.  Mike, Kevin, and Bill mostly just throw jokes at it, possibly out of fear of losing Rifftrax fans who aren't familiar with the series.  The only issue is that the riff lacks a certain intimacy.  That may sound dumb in concept, but it always feels as if they're keeping the episode at arms length and not really going for the gold.  If they could dig in some deeper cuts, this could be a bit funnier.

"Anybody who caters a wedding has probably dreamed of this."

When the Red Wedding occurs, the riffs start flying.  The unabridged, kinetic violence of the episode gives the room some energy, and they're the biggest laughs of the episode.  Of course, that might be bias from myself since I'm not emotionally connected to the show.  If you have that emotional connection, you may be desiring Mike, Kevin, and Bill to shut up and show some goddamn respect for the fallen.  But taking the visuals of the sequence and the jokes of the trax, I can assure you that it's A-game we're seeing.

But it's that pesky issue of being a random episode of a serialized show that always feels like is holding this Rifftrax back.  It can be lukewarm at times, but I laughed.  A piece of me suspects this won't be the final Game of Thrones riff either.  When you consider just how many people hated the recently aired series finale, I theorize that our boys at Rifftrax will propose a riff of it as a stretch goal in next year's Kickstarter.  Given the laughs I did get from riffing Game of Thrones so far, I'd welcome it with open arms.

Good

Ten Long Minutes (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2013
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

"Ten Long Minutes!  Peter Jackson's adaptation of the book 'Two Minutes!'"

This safety short features a man at work as his family goes out on a vacation, but receives a phone call from the police about an "accident."  Concerned about the well-being of his family, the man goes through a stack of scenarios in his head that might have happened to his wife and children, as he grows more anxious about his safety.

Turns out they had a flat tire because he sent them out after neglecting to replace a worn one.  Moral of the story is that good tires repress those feelings that your family has burned to death.  BUY TIRES!

To be fair, Ten Long Minutes is a fair representation of how anxiety runs scenarios through one's head, allowing you to question your own choices and have a phobia of almost everything around you being a potential threat.  The short's capitalist ending almost cheapens it, where if you paid more money to your mechanic this anxiety could have been prevented, but being prepared and keeping your car in top condition isn't an poor conclusion to come to.  I think its methods of teaching that moral are a bit extreme when there are consequences more related to the situation itself that could have been explored.  Instead, this short about having trustworthy tires gets to that point with false scenarios of faulty electrical outlets and loose boards as tripping hazards and the like, which have nothing to do with it.  I haven't really learned much of a lesson here.

"How did he, in good consciousness, send his family here!  Evidently death lurks around every corner!"

Most of the time I like these accident shorts, because the brazen showcase of stupidity offers a lot of riffing opportunity, and the consequences offer some wonderful setups for dark humor.  Ten Long minutes doesn't really offer up a lot of this, since it's pretty tame as far as safety shorts go, and the point of the short is fairly removed from the safety scenarios it presents.  The short is a bit aimless, and the riffing can't really pin it down as a result.  They attempt to play it goofy to counteract it's stoic nature, though it only takes them so far.  There are a few knocks about that "deathtrap" of a vacation home that are fun, but most of the short has us watching a pacing guy with a cigarette that doesn't really offer much room for comedy.

I laughed a few times, but think there are more shorts of this type out there that do this better.  Ten Long Minutes feels its length, and just isn't as fun as the best.

Thumbs Down

👎

Game of Thrones - "Winter is Coming" (Rifftrax)

Episode Year:  2011
Genre:  Soap opera, fantasy
Director:  Tim Van Patten
Starring:  Sean Bean, Emilia Clarke, Lena Headey, Peter Dinklage, Jason Momoa, Mark Addy, Kit Harrington, Mark Addy, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Iain Glen, Harry Lloyd, Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams, Richard Madden, Alfie Allen, Issac Hempstead Wright, Jack Gleeson, Rory McCann, Aiden Gillen...THAT'S IT, I'M NOT TYPING OUT ANY MORE
Rifftrax Year:  2016
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

The Episode

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS EPISODE UNRIFFED*

I'm probably going to rustle some jimmies with this one, so I hope everyone braces themselves for my Game of Thrones hot take.  For those who are preparing retaliation:  yes, I am a moron; I deserve to die; I'm not smartest enough to watch a show as brilliant as this; I should eat shit, shove it up my ass, fuck off, and a bunch of other colorful expletives; and any other insult or threat you might throw my way.  I agree with all of this.  After all, Game of Thrones is 4eva, and I'm just a nobody with a blog about bad movies and a puppet show (and yes, I fully realize that puppet show has far less viewers than Game of Thrones, so thank you for pointing that out).

Okay, now that that's out of the way...Game of Thrones kind of sucks.

Granted, I haven't watched the whole series.  I may try and finish it one day, but I've watched the entirety of the first season and for the life of me I just did not give a shit.  Every character that was introduced, I didn't give a shit.  Every plot twist, I didn't give a shit.  Every swing of graphic violence thrown at the viewer, I didn't give a shit.  I like boobs and blood as much as the next guy, but this show is a goddamn chore to sit through.  I understand this series is a slow burn, and the characters are supposed to be intricately detailed, but with every piece of of the puzzle that comes into place, I found myself not wishing to follow these characters at all.

I'm not going to review the entire season, because we only have the first episode here, so I might as well stick to that.  Plus I last watched all of this years ago, and I barely remember anything that came after it.  I do remember watching it way back when and thinking to myself about how much it didn't grab me.  It bored me for about an hour, then rewarded me with the "twist" of incest and pushing a little boy out the window, as if I was supposed to care when the episode itself didn't make me care that any of this was going on.  When it finished I thought to myself "This is what everyone is obsessed with?"  It seemed to me that it was a barely anything showcase of sex and violence that just shouted "PLOT TWIST" in my face at the end.  When I finish the first episode of any series I ask myself if I want to watch the next one.  With Game of Thrones, the answer I gave myself was a resounding "No," but I plowed through it anyway to see if once characterizations started to become familiar then maybe I'd be taken by it.  That never happened.

What is Game of Thrones about?  Judging it on this first episode, it isn't really about anything (a premise goes into motion later on).  It's a fantasy story about kings and stuff.  Sean Bean is here as the obvious celebrity who is cast because he's going to die before the end of the season (I'm not posting spoiler alert, because I fucking called this the minute I saw him onscreen), and he's a king.  Former Fred Flintstone Mark Addy is here too, and he's a king.  Pre-Aquaman Jason Momoa is a king too.  They do king things, like raise wolves and set up arranged marriages and hump Emilia Clarke and stuff.  That's pretty much the entire episode.  There's a slight storyline of a king's hand being murdered, but we follow very little on it by the hour's end.  There's so much going on, but I literally feel like I'm watching nothing.

Watching this again all these years later, I feel a tad softer on it.  It might be because I watched it through the Rifftrax lens, which gave it more entertainment value than I initially gave it credit for, but for the most part this isn't a great pilot.  It introduces too many characters and throws me into too many things, and I'm a bit lost in the shuffle.  I'm a firm believer that television episodes should stand on their own, which is something that happens less and less as television becomes more serialized.  In the case of "Winter is Coming," there are a lot of plot threads that just...start.  The episode itself is not a whole entity, as it's just introduction, introduction, and more introduction.  That doesn't win me over.  If you're sucked into the generic fantasy world it tries to build, then you'll enjoy this more than I did, but it just collapses under its own weight for me because it's doing too much and forgetting it has to tell a story too.

The opinion I find myself having of watching a Game of Thrones episode, and I can say it for this first episode in particular, is that it's drama doesn't gel with me because it's basically a fantasy themed soap opera, as it's a lot of uninteresting melodrama of a bunch of dickhead characters that I dislike.  The only real difference is that the backstabbing is literal as opposed to figurative and we get to see the boning instead of implications.  Oh, and there are dragons, I guess (eventually).

I can't judge the series because I haven't seen the whole series, so I can only speak for what I've seen.  Maybe the show got better, I don't know.  I've been told it does.  But If I'm going to watch a seventy hour movie, be underwhelmed by the first ten hours, then ask someone "when does it stop sucking?," and they respond "Hour twenty-three...then it starts sucking again around hour sixty-five," why should I bother?  Personally, I'd rather pop in an episode of Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul if I want compelling serialized television.  And if we're talking HBO shows, Westworld can suffer a few of the same faults that Game of Thrones does, but at least its story elements, characters, and themes are far more interesting and pronounced than this.  Game of Thrones may have been groundbreaking in it's own way, but it never earned my love nor my respect.

Minor Note:  This episode was directed by Tim Van Patton.  If he sounds familiar, that's because he's good ol' Max Keller from the Master Ninja series.  Since Master Ninja he became a TV director, and he landed the gig of launching this popular series.  Max Keller movin' up in the world!

The Trax

"Cinemax is so sleazy."

"Uh, this is HBO."

"WHAT ARTISTIC BRAVERY!"

When Rifftrax first started they tried to do some riffs of early episodes of popular TV series like Lost, Heroes, and Grey's Anatomy.  They drifted away from that, though I'm not sure it was a conscious decision.  But TV show riffs have made something of a comeback as Kickstarter rewards, which is leading them into watching latest flavor of the month shows like The Walking Dead, Daredevil, Westworld, and Stranger Things (and if you're fanraging about my Game of Thrones thoughts, just talk to me for five minutes about Stranger Things, then you'll be really angry).  But, unlike previous TV riffs, these are only one episode and an hour in length.  Which is a shame, since this riff is consistently funny.  If they had gone on to episode two, I'd probably have watched it.

"Too soon to know who's a major character and who's just an extra, so she plays it safe and avoids eye contact with everyone."

My main concern would have been the chaotic narrative and the slow pace of the episode might weigh them down.  However, the fact that this is only a single episode of the series, in-and-out, really keeps them from following it too closely.  The fact that there is very little happening is almost a virtue, because it comes off as a series of character and aesthetic riffs.  The episode is about nothing, so they can turn it into whatever they want.  They'll see a knight in a wolf type armor and quip "Furries were scarier back then!" and it just fits this silly world.  It's like molding clay into whatever form you want.

Of course, the fact that the series is so damn stoic makes the jokes just a little bit funnier.  I always feel the perfect straight man for the Rifftrax crew is a film/series that takes itself so deadly seriously, and Game of Thrones thinks it's real serious business.  Unless you take the show so seriously that you wouldn't dare watch a parody of it, I wholeheartedly recommend this riff.  It's light, but efficient and effective.  Something that the series itself isn't.

"He's stalling for time, struggling to remember who any of these people are."

 Me too.

Good

Aesop's Sound Fables: Frozen Frolics (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2011
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

This early 1930's cartoon came at a point where synchronized sound cartoons were still going, yet transitioning to having actual voices being featured.  This particular one is a part of the early cartoon series Aesop's Fables (at this point Aesop's Sound Fables, to advertise that this cartoon wasn't silent), a series of films based on the moralistic stories of Aesop, such as The Tortoise and the Hare, The Ant and the Grasshopper, and The Boy Who Cried Wolf.  This particular story is an adaptation of the Aesop's legendary tale of Frozen Frolics, where a bunch of animals run around in the arctic and bob up and down.

The moral of the story is:  Always make sure that your comrade is dead before you loot him.  And don't piss off a bear.

Okay, so this has little to nothing to do with Aesop, and really isn't a story in general.  A lot of cartoons from the synchronized sound era rarely were, as they abandoned the pantomime expressions of the silent era and with their new sound tools mostly just created a bunch of cartoons where the characters danced around to the music and noises that were accompanying them.  It wasn't a very prosperous time for storytelling in this medium, as most stories just had to do with dodging something and running away, that's if there were a story at all.  When cartoons like these started using voice acting, it would continue for a bit as a song and dance number with funny visuals, but would eventually evolve into something more creative and fun.

Frozen Frolics is probably fairly standard, but there is nothing remotely interesting about it.  Here we have a film that is a part of an Aesop film series that has nothing to do with Aesop, but more or less is just a silly image generator of animals doing wacky things.  It's not the first to do this, nor would it be the last.  It can be argued that it doesn't do it particularly well either, as some of these visual jokes play a bit trite.  Some of the dark humor touches are a tad interesting, but since Frozen Frolics doesn't really go anywhere and seems to be torturing its characters for no reason, it can come off a bit mean spirited.

This cartoon was originally riffed in front of an audience at the Reefer Madness Live show, where it played like gangbusters.  As usual, a studio riff without the audience is a bit of a step back, but the humor is still funny.  Since there is no real story to speak of, the riffs present themselves mostly as captions, as they quip against surreal imagery.  It makes one wish they riffed animation more, because there is a lot to comment on, such as the anthropomorphic animals vs. traditional animals idea.  Early on Kevin notes that the animals pulling the sleigh and riding it were one and the same, claiming the short to take place in a world of slavery.

Some of the funniest quips come at the expense of the "main" (I guess) story featuring two cat/dog people (I'll be damned if I know which) who are trapped in the arctic, which takes some strange and dark turns.  The riffing stays in stride with how dark it is and plays it up, leaving the audience to laugh at just how bizarre cartoons like this were.  They breathe new life into this forgotten toon, and give it more laughs than it was probably worth.

Thumbs Up

👍

Street Trash (The Last Drive-In)

Film Year:  1987
Genre:  Comedy
Director:  Jim Muro
Starring:  Chicken down the pants

The Movie

Joe Bob, what the FUCK did you just make me watch?

I usually start out with a mini-premise summary, but, as far as I can tell, this movie is about very little.  It's about homeless people doing random homeless things.  They'll argue, squeegee windows for spare change, rape drunk women, stuff chicken down their pants, toss a mutilated penis around...you know, homeless stuff.  There's some story about a batch of bad alcohol called Viper that is going around and melting the hobos, but it largely doesn't go anywhere and only exists as an excuse for colorful (and I mean colorful) gore.  Also a former Vietnam vet has taken over the dump as the champion of the Garbage Pail Game of Thrones or something.

This movie, probably not surprisingly for a film called Street Trash, is garbage.  The only thing about it that I can definitively state that it's trying to be is that it wants to be funny.  And it really isn't funny.  It's labored humor, and about as funny listening to an eccentric uncle tell a fart joke he's told a hundred times before.

You know how random Family Guy is accused of being even though it's honestly hyperbole?  That's how random this movie is.  Nothing seems to happen for rhyme or reason, things just happen and they unfold so more things can happen.  Street Trash has no purpose or destination, and is just an excuse to be offensive.  Personally I can't be offended at a mentally challenged person yelling "POOP!" at me, so why should I be offended by this movie?  I mean, sure, it tries to get us to have a laugh at rape, necrophilia, and other taboo topics, but I'm not so much offended as I am puzzled by the film's bizarre bad taste.

I can see that maybe there's a sense of a Sam Raimi indie-spirit of trying to storm into filmmaking with your guns blazing here, but the film is less like Raimi's Evil Dead and more like Raimi's largely messy follow-up Crimewave.  Crimewave is a much better movie than Street Trash, but they both feel as if they have a confidence in being something different but an uncertainty in what they're trying to achieve.  There's one thing I can say for certain about Street Trash and that is that I thoroughly did not enjoy it.

The Drive-In

Joe Bob decides to do a double feature of substance addiction with a side of goop this week.  The first film, The Stuff, wasn't great but it had it's charms.  Street Trash, however, has no charm to it.  Joe Bob doesn't even like it that much, but he's got a mischievous glint to his eye that says "Hey, check this shit out!"  He at one point lists off things in this film you won't see anywhere else, and it's one hell of a list.

He has a fair bit to share about the film's director, Jim Muro, who went on to work in cinematography, being the director of photography for films such as Rush Hour 3 and the controversial Oscar winner Crash.  Not a lot of castmembers worked on other projects, though he notes one became a comic book writer, another became a cop, and one joined the navy.  He also relates that the woman in the rape scene unfortunately suffered PTSD from an assault earlier in her life, and was triggered during filming the scene, but hey, anything for a laugh, right?

One neat detail Joe Bob shares is that a production assistant on this film was a very young Bryan Singer, who went on to direct The Usual Suspects and four X-Men films.  He's had some shady allegations come forward lately, so it might not come as a complete surprise that he worked on a tasteless movie that laughs at rape.

Oh, and he melts people in his movies too!

The big cap on this episode is a phone call to Sleepaway Camp's Felissa Rose, the show's official Mutilated Dick expert, as they have a colorful conversation about the penis tossing sequence.  It's a fun moment that is worth watching, as are most of Joe Bob's segments, as usual.  It's just that movie, man...

Joe Bob's Rating

⭐⭐

The Stuff (The Last Drive-In)

Film Year:  1985
Genre:  Horror, Science Fiction, Comedy
Director:  Larry Cohen
Starring:  Michael Moriarty, Andrea Marcovicci, Garrett Morris, Paul Sorvino

The Movie

You ever find a white sludge on the ground and decide to eat it?  Don't we all!  Neveryoumind that it's probably bird shit, let's just shove that stuff right into our mouths!

This is the origin of "The Stuff," a new product on the market that's supposedly a creamy dessert of some kind.  But people love eating it.  Like, they won't eat anything else.  And they'll just keep eating it and eating it until they turn into crazed creatures and puke out white vomit goo that will leave your body a husk.  "The Stuff" is actually a sentient creature that will control a person and eventually kill it.  But few will listen, because it's so delicious!

When I reflect upon this movie I feel that there is a bit of influence on it by George A. Romero's Dead series, which mixes horror with social satire.  Sometimes Romero's satire can be as subtle as a scalpel, while in other moments (often in the same film) it can be as blunt as a sledgehammer.  The Stuff feels more toward the latter, as it's commentary toward consumerism, the marketing machine, and corporate greed and apathy is noted, but holy shit do they drive it into your skull.

As a story, it's fair.  The idea of rebelling against a junk food consumable is interesting, though I feel there is nothing very interesting done with it.  The Stuff itself is reminiscent of The Blob (which was actually just a few years away from getting its own 80's makeover), but this white glop doesn't always feel intimidating.  I get that the idea of what it can do is scary, but it feels a tad boring and unimaginative in execution.  It feels like there is something here, but it needs to be refined and passed through people who maybe have different ideas on how to make it more exciting.

Sometimes the film's sense of humor can be a bit uneven, as it sways back and forth between trying to be goofy and trying to be biting.  It never quite succeeds at either, so even if it had picked a style it probably wouldn't have fixed the flaws in the film.  The Stuff can be unique at the best of times, though it probably would have been stronger had it leaned further into horror and less into underlining its satire.

The Drive-In

Darcy's very fond of this film, though Joe Bob feels it's Larry Cohen's worst.  But he'll concede that Larry Cohen at his worst is still "Better than 50% of the movies we show on this show."  Joe Bob feels "The Stuff" isn't that scary and the ideas of the film are unfinished (I agree) and that the film lacks a villain.  I'm not sure I can side with him on that last one, as The Stuff itself counts as a villain, as do corporations in general.  Joe Bob even feels the need to lash out at a corporation himself, as he objects to Kimberly Clark's Man-Sized Kleenex being renamed to "Extra-Large" in a hilarious rant.

Trivia includes more Larry Cohen tidbits, after going into detail on the director during Q - The Winged Serpent.  Joe Bob has already gone in detail over Cohen's film career, so he decides to talk about his TV work.  He covers episodes of random anthology shows he had written for and has a bit to say on Branded, starring Joe Bob favorite Chuck Connors (from Tourist Trap).  He also mentions that he feels Cohen's casts are always too good for the budget, and it's hard to debate with him there.

But Joe Bob spends a lot of time questioning the movie, and what he feels are inconsistencies and leaps in logic.  He's not wrong most of the time, though The Stuff sometimes feels like it's feeding more into a satirical joke more than the logic of its story so it feels like complaining about it is a lost cause.  But whether or not you have issues with the film itself, you'll forget them all the minute Darcy becomes a spokeswoman for "The Stuff" at the end of the episode, and you'll want to go out and buy some.  I'm sure it's almost as addictive as The Last Drive-In.  I GOTTA HAVE MORE!

Joe Bob's Rating

⭐⭐1/2

Pieces (The Last Drive-In)

Film Year:  1982
Genre:  Horror
Director:  Juan Piquer Simon
Starring:  Christopher George, Paul Smith, Edmund Purdom, Linda Day

The Movie

Originally titled The Night Has 1,000 Screams in Mexico, or, as I would like to call it, I Have Issues With Women:  The Motion Picture, Pieces is about a guy who dismembered his mother when he was a lad growing up to wear the Rat Fink costume from Wild, Wild World of Batwoman.  Inspired by a jigsaw puzzle of a naked woman, he goes around a college campus and murders coeds with a chainsaw, taking body parts home to stitch together.

This film is from Juan Piquer Simon, who MSTies will recognize as the director of Pod People, which he actually directed just after this.  Pieces is a more consistent piece, as unlike Pod People it doesn't try to juggle being a horror film and an E.T. knock-off at the same time.  Though, once you see the stiff acting with an overdub, you will definitely recognize the stamp of Juan Piquer Simon.

Unless you hear the title "Pieces" and you think it's going to be an art drama about putting one's life together after tragedy (which is definitely not what this movie is), Pieces is exactly what you would assume it would be about.  It has chainsaws, dismemberment, lots of blood, and body parts hitting the floor.  Lots of graphic violence, and not much of a story.  There is an attempt to flesh it out with a detective storyline of the trail of the killer, but for the most part this movie is all about the gore, with a dash of nudity thrown in (very rarely is a woman killed in this movie without flashing their breasts at the camera first).  This is the main focus of the movie, mutilation of women, and there is really no arguing against that.

That's something of a theme to the movie:  a hatred for women.  The movie starts with a boy who clearly has an abusive relationship with his mother, which reaches the point where he just kills her outright.  He then grows up and has those killer tendencies again, murdering promiscuous girls left and right.  A lot of horror films in the 80's were about the murder of promiscuous girls, yet this is one that's ballsy enough to make it the point of its own movie.  Whether this movie is fetishistic of this theme might be up to the viewer, though it feels to me that they might be closer to just jumping on what was popular and taking it to an extreme level to sell tickets.  It's exactly what sells, in one bloody package.

Because of that, people may either love or hate Pieces.  It's for the extreme gore hounds who search endlessly for the bloodiest movie ever made, and those who aren't in that same ballpark wandered into the wrong movie.  I admired it's extremity, if nothing else.  And you can't say it's not upfront about itself when its very first scene features a child killing his mother with an ax and then sawing her into pieces.  The movie is interesting and somewhat engaging for being what it is, even if it is the most vile thing people any human being can think of.

And this movie has a KUNG FU PROFESSOR!  That gives it cool points right there.

The Drive-In

"The Drive-In will never die."

Joe Bob is right.  Even though he has been saying repeatedly that this marathon is his farewell to horror hosting, the demand for Joe Bob was too great.  People were flooding Shudder's live stream to see our hero back, cracking open a beer, and rambling about these movies, and it got to the point where Shudder's servers crashed.  That's love, right there!  And we love Joe Bob!  We loved him so much that Shudder decided to order more!  I'm so proud of the fans!

But Joe Bob thinks this will be his final movie that he will ever show as a horror host, and he chooses a movie that almost got him fired.  His four star review of Pieces got feminists and conservatives on Joe Bob's case as he was recommending a disgusting murder film in which all the victims were women who are killed in graphic fashions.  Joe Bob claims he knew better examples of films featuring what they were protesting, but Pieces was the one that hit mainstream, and Joe Bob got dragged through the mud with it.  But he stands by his four star rating thirty-five years later!  "I am violently opposed to the random killing and mutilation of women unless it's necessary to the plot."

Trivia about Pieces has a lot to do with the setting of the film, as Juan Piquer Simon had never been to America but insisted on setting the film in Boston so he could portray a more wild and promiscuous take on college girls ("The most beautiful thing in the world is smoking pot and fucking on a waterbed at the same time!").  This amuses Joe Bob a great deal.  He also talks a bit about the cast, which he insists is talented but Simon doesn't let them act, as they give flat performances that are overdubbed.  He also gets into a digression about Bruce Lee knock-off Bruce Le, who has a random cameo in the film, and other Bruce Lee knock-offs.  There are some filming tidbits, including the interesting bit of trivia that one of the film's victims peed her pants on film because the chainsaw got too close to her and the director kept it in the movie and the climactic "ball buster" actually scratched the actor's groin (though not as badly as it is in the movie).

But I have a large fondness for the opening of this episode over all the movie related stuff, because Joe Bob decides to mark his "last" (lol) horror hosting gig by going over a history of horror hosts, which is more or less a tribute to the late John Zacherle.  He gives Zacherle credit for being the first horror host, dismissing Vampira because she hosted the movie through comedy sketches and never talked about the movie.  He lists off more than his fair share of the hosts throughout the years, but always comes back to Zacherle.  At the end of his monologue, Joe Bob gets a little choked up.  He continues through it, but you can hear it in his voice.  He dedicates this episode to Zacherle.

If this were Joe Bob's last hosting gig, then it would have been a fitting way to go out, with an extreme and controversial movie that Joe Bob himself has a link to.  But fate is on our side and Joe Bob came back a few months later with his Thanksgiving marathon Dinners of Death, so instead Pieces is just another must-see Joe Bob episode on the road to many more.

Joe Bob's Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Hellraiser (The Last Drive-In)

Film Year:  1987
Genre:  Horror
Director:  Clive Barker
Starring:  Doug Bradley, Andrew Robinson, Claire Higgins, Ashley Lawrence

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE WITHOUT JOE BOB*

Based on the novella The Hellbound Heart written by Clive Barker (who directed this movie), Hellraiser is the story of Frank Cotton who buys a puzzle box that opens a gateway to Hell and subjects him to the horrors of the Cenobites, extradimensional beings of torture.  Later, Frank's brother Rory and his wife Julia, who had been having an affair with Frank, move into the house where Frank was taken by the Cenobites, and due to a drop of blood Frank started to resurrect.  Now a skinless creature, Frank begs Julia for more blood sacrifices to restore him to normal.  She then lures unsuspecting men into the house under the presumption of sex, only to have Frank feed on them.

It's actually a pretty complicated story now that I type it out, and that's not even all of it.  Hellraiser is a crazy experience that is always doing something gory, interesting, and sometimes both.  It's really a shame that when I watch the movie I never find myself swept up in the experience.  I admire the craft, the boldness, and lack of restraint, but I'm not too into the characters on display, nor does the sadomasochism aspect of the film really entice me.  I find myself distant from it while watching it, with a very unique feeling of admiration yet apathy.  It's kind of a sensory overload.  Too many horrific things, and I can't really focus on any of them.

It's strange, because the movie is seductive because it finds eroticism in the taboo, but this taboo subject has to do with pain, ripping flesh off, and lots of other gory details.  Hellraiser is a movie that is aimed at the most extreme of horrorphiles, who seek out the bloodiest of the bloody because they are attracted to the most extreme.  Extreme or not, I'm attracted to style and storytelling, preferably both at the same time, but if I can only have one I'd prefer storytelling.  The one exception to this is if the style of the film is really quirky and fun, such as an Evil Dead II or a Bride of Chucky.  Hellraiser is stylish, but it's not fun.  It's story isn't bad at all, but it doesn't really push itself far enough for me to be engaged.  So in the end, Hellraiser's seduction technique fails on me.  That doesn't necessarily mean it will fail for everyone, though.

If I'm in the mood for a horror film, Hellraiser usually isn't very high on my list of ones to pop in.  It's not a casual movie, because when you watch Hellraiser it demands you watch the fuck out of it and glory in it's gory splendor.  I can not claim it's a bad movie on the basis of it lacking rewatchability, though I'm hesitant to ever call it a good one because I can't honestly say I enjoy it if I ever do find it in front of me.

The Drive-In

It's time for a classic, and Joe Bob is excited to introduce Hellraiser, though he is not entirely sure what to say about it since it's been discussed to death.  Can Joe Bob say anything new about it?  I'm not entirely up to scratch on my Hellraiser trivia, so a lot of what Joe Bob discusses is news to me.  I think he has a lot of juicy details here, especially in relation to Clive Barker, who I know next to nothing about.  He discusses the story's origins in Barker's enjoyment of S&M clubs, and points out that Doug Bradley was a childhood friend who originally wanted to play one of the movers at the beginning of the film, but was talked into playing Pinhead.

Joe Bob also says at Barker's S&M club he was rated a "6."  Joe Bob then jokes that if the guy who made Hellraiser is a "6," he doesn't want to meet a "10."

There are also some rejected titles to the movie offered, including the novella's title of The Hellbound Heart, which was rejected for sounding too romantic.  Joe Bob lists off joke titles of Sadomasochist from Beyond the Grave and What a Woman Would Do For a Good Fuck.  He roasts the late Roger Ebert for his bad review of the film, while also wondering who the protagonist of the film is (he claims it's Frank).

More humorous digression sketches include his trademark opening rant that has nothing to do with anything, which this time is about the "Taking a knee" trend and how he doesn't know what it means.  This rant is glorious, because he goes so deep and detailed into history and when he finished I had no choice but to applaud.  He also lists off a list of sex clubs that were around the area that Clive Barker frequented, stopping on one named "Keller's" and pondering who would open a blandly named sex club like that?  My observation:  Obviously someone named Keller.

Joe Bob adores Hellraiser because of course he would.  I imagine most Joe Bob fans will also.  For that alone I'd consider this a must-see episode, though I'm not too into the movie presented, myself.

Joe Bob's Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Demons (The Last Drive-In)

Onscreen Title:  "Demoni"
Film Year:  1985
Genre:  Horror
Director:  Lamberto Bava
Starring:  Urbano Barbarini, Natasha Hovey

The Movie

Kano from Mortal Kombat hands out free tickets to a movie screening, to which several citizens respond enthusiastically.  They attend a screening of a new horror movie about a group of teens that discover a mask that turns the wearer into a demon, who then kills everyone.  While at the screening, a prostitute puts on the identical mask on display and turns into a demon herself, then turning other patrons into demons and wrecking havoc.

It's easy to have low expectations for this film since it's directed by Lamberto Bava, who directed the lackluster and clunky Devil Fish.  Demons is almost an entirely different breed of horror movie, one that most might have suspected Bava was incapable of based on his previous film.  The film is stylish and energetic, full of piss and vinegar and relates an unapologetic need to just be as nasty as possible.  In that aspect, the film is about as successful as you could hope for, spewing blood and vomit a mile a minute, to a point that even Evil Dead would be envious.

If Demons has one thing going against it then it's that it grows noisier and more incoherent the longer it goes on.  The movie chooses to be vague as to what exactly is happening, though there seem to be implications made without really addressing the bigger picture.  One could argue this is realistic of being trapped in a situation far bigger than one's self, but there comes a point where the movie pretty much admits to the audience that it's not telling a story but just throwing gore at the screen.  The only context the film has is "Demons kill people," which is fine for the gorehound, though building a movie on this simple premise is a flawed notion.

But I'd be lying if I said I didn't love it.  The crazy romp of nothing but death and destruction fed the creature feature fan inside of me.  There is not a lot of meat on Demons bones, but it will feed the right audience member.

The Drive-In

Joe Bob has a lot of pent-up info dumps about Italian cinema, and you get to hear a lot of it.  On the subject of the film, he talks a bit about how it was really just a group of six Italian guys coming up with gross ideas and making a movie.  He says it's not a Lamberto Bava film, as stated in the credits, nor a Mario Argento film, which most like to lump it as.  He decides to give the most credit to one of the four screenwriters, Dardano Sacchetti, who came of with the concept of the movie and Joe Bob refers to as a "one-man script machine."  Joe Bob refers to the filmmaking process as "slapping credits all over the place."

What he's really doing is using Demons as an example of some of the countries biggest genre movie quirks.  At one point he rants about Italy's unofficial sequel complex, and uses Demons' many own adopted sequels as a prime example, of which there are many.  Joe Bob's explanation for all of this:  "Because they're Italian!"  Considering this is far from the only example of this, it's hard to argue with him.

Demons was apparently banned from American television and edited to remove a scene where cocaine is spilled from a Coke can (get it) and cleaned off of a woman's breast, because that's obviously the most offensive thing about the movie.  Methinks Joe Bob is thankful for this new streaming show because it finally allows him to show movies that he couldn't show before for bullshit reasons.  Maybe Demons is a poster boy for this aspect, though he claims it's best enjoyed if you don't think too hard about it (I agree).  Of course, he might have just shown it because it set him up for a rant about (of all things) Donald Trump and The Handmaid's Tale.  Whatever the reason it's shown, this is worth a watch.

Joe Bob's Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (The Last Drive-In)

Film Year:  2014
Genre:  Romance, Horror
Director:  Ana Lily Amirpour
Starring:  Sheila Vand, Arash Mirandi, Mozhan Marno, Marshall Manesh, Dominic Rains

The Movie

I don't get to review many art films on this blog.  I probably shouldn't, because I'm nowhere near smart enough to comment on them.  It's that old saying:  "I may not know art, but I know what I like."  A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a more abstract and expressive than your average monster movie, but I'm mainly watching it because it's a monster movie.

But hey, it's a well made vampire romance story.  Who'd have thought that could have been done?

Ignoring the elephant in the room, if you know what I mean and I think you do...MOVING ON!

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is the story of a vampire girl who haunts the streets at night and preys upon bad people or just people who piss her off in general.  She finds herself attracted to a boy and resists the temptation to feast upon him, and begins to feed on those who wrong him.

This movie was apparently funded through Indiegogo on a budget of $56,000, it was filmed in the US, but takes place in Iran and it's spoken language is Persian.  Filmed in glorious black and white (how I love black and white!), I actually enjoyed taking the time to watch this film.  It's slower and more thoughtful than your traditional vampire flick, but it's sort of unspoken romantic tension will glue certain viewer to their seats, while those with a love for creature features will be pleased with how well done, moody, and tense the vampire sequences are.

If I were to say something against it, I feel sometimes the movie lingers too long after the audience has already let a sequence's point sink in.  Scenes can sometimes drag because I suspect the director wants to revel in them even more and assumes the audience does as well.  I've always preferred more efficiency in films I watch, but that's not to say that those won't admire what's being done here.  It's just a tad too meandering for my taste, even if it is well done.

And then there is the balloon scene.  I...don't...get it.

But for those looking for a different kind of vampire movie, closer to Let the Right One In than Salem's Lot, could do a lot worse than A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night.  You just might find yourself sucked into it.

The Drive-In

"How do you know when a vampire is in love?  When she has a whole neck handed to her on a platter and she just wants to snuggle."

I imagine there are some out there who don't want to see Joe Bob showing art films without exploding heads, but if you can accept that A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is being featured on this week's The Last Drive-In, you may find that Joe Bob has some great material for it.  These are probably some of the best bumpers Joe Bob has provided the show yet!

Joe Bob in particular has a fascination with director Ana Lily Amirpour, and enjoys sharing her quirky personality.  One of the best segments of this episode is just Joe Bob reading a list of quotes by Amirpour on her film, and each is weirder and more mind-boggling than the last.  He talks about her claims of "living like Bruce Lee" and having said she leaned directing by watching the music video to Thriller.  It's like she's this enigma that he's trying to figure out.

He has a few cast notes, but he mostly likes to comment on the film itself, with little "only Joe Bob" notes on how the vampire love story plays out, including pondering whether vampires can have sex.  He also gives little noted details, such as the pimp in the film having a face tattoo that says "Pussy Stretcher," which Joe Bob then tests Shudder's censors by repeating as much as possible, then stating he's probably going to get in trouble for it.  Luckily he doesn't work for TNT anymore.  Of course, all Joe Bob fans on social media exploded with #PussyStretcher in the aftermath of this segment.  It was worth it.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night may not be a typical Joe Bob offering, but it's one that I think I'll find myself revisiting down the road because it features Joe Bob at his most hysterical.  From rants on nunchaku to trying to address the balloon scene, but giving up before saying a word, this is a must see episode.  I'd dare even say it might be my favorite so far.

Okay.  One for the road:  #PussyStretcher

Joe Bob's Rating

⭐⭐⭐

Contamination (The Last Drive-In)

Film Year:  1980
Genre:  Science Fiction, Horror
Director:  Lewis Coates (Luigi Cozzi)
Starring:  Ian McCulloch, Louise Marleau, Marino Mase, Siegfried Rauch, Gisela Hahn

The Movie

Starcrash director Luigi Cozzi follows up his Star Wars knock-off with an Alien knock-off.  Contamination finds the military investigating giant green eggs that explode and then make the people who have come into contact explode too.  They follow the trail to Columbia, where they find an alien squid cyclops that is plotting to destroy the entire human race.

Maybe I expected more Alien in my Alien rip-off, but Contamination disappointed me.  There are more than a fair few elements of Alien here:  an alien, some alien eggs, exploding chests, acid goo, ect.  The problem I'm having is that they're jumbled up and they're being used in ways that don't really play all that well.  Let's talk about the eggs, which one would normally assume is a reproductive cycle, which is not only what it is in the film Alien, but what an egg in general typically is.  Here they don't seem to serve any sort of reproductive purpose, but are rather time bombs that just explode and make people gooey.  Okay, so they're not reproductive.  Fair enough.  But if they're a weapon of some sort, one would think the explosion of the egg itself would be harmful by itself.  Instead the movie decides that just having the egg explode isn't enough, but the egg goo needs to make the people it touches explode too so we have a string of gooey explosions.

This is one hell of a cycle.  It's no wonder I don't like eggs.

But yeah, you can totally see Cozzi taking the Alien concepts and running with them in a budget friendly direction.  Budget friendly is the key word here, as he sets the film on modern day Earth, and it's a bit of a dull setting.  What I wouldn't give to see Cozzi try and do Alien in the style of Starcrash, but one shouldn't fault a film for wanting to be different.  Or as different as a copy can be.

I'm not too enthusiastic about Contamination.  I thought I would be, but it doesn't have much of an energy.  There are times where it's unintentionally funny, as the alien itself is funny enough and there are some hazmat suits in the film that resemble the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  There is also a silly scene in which the female lead is locked in a bathroom with an egg, though why the bathroom locks on the outside, I'm not sure.  These moments are about the only things worth mentioning about the film, which is by no means as entertaining as Starcrash.

The Drive-In

Probably the highlight of the episode are the Drive-In Totals, which is one of Joe Bob's longest lists yet and full of interesting additions.  Even he seems surprised, as he faces the crew about two thirds of the way through and says "This movie is better than I remember it!"  But as we get to the end, we receive his restrained two-and-a-half star rating, and we have to accept it may not be as awesome as it sounds.  And it isn't.  Boy that Drive-In Total should have been for a full on four star movie.

Joe Bob takes the time to discuss Italian rip-offs in general.  He goes into the history of Italian cinema, where they became the "masters of dubbing" (wouldn't know it from this movie), and utilize techniques that allow them to have the actors recite their dialogue in their native tongue and just dub over them.  He discusses their attempts to boost their popularity of their films by taking the concept of the latest Hollywood blockbuster and rehashing it for quick money, like Contamination and Alien, Starcrash and Star Wars, and Devil Fish and Jaws (all these Italian knock-off films that Luigi Cozzi worked on).  There are also a few words mentioned about giving these films US settings, even though they're all shot in Italy.

As for crew, he tends to discuss Luigi Cozzi the most in-depth, and lists off his career and how he wanted to do sci-fi, but the film companies wouldn't let him, though he used the popularity of Alien to get Contamination off the ground and then just made a pair of Hercules movies in sci-fi settings.  Joe Bob also relates that Cozzi wanted Starcrash actress Caroline Munroe to play the lead, but was disappointed that the studio forced him to hire someone "old and ugly" instead (note:  I disagree With his assessment of Louise Marleau).

We conclude with a visit from Darcy the Mail Girl, who actually unknowingly met Cozzi at his bookstore in Rome with her son.  It's a swell note to end on, though I must profess I had hoped Joe Bob would at the very least get to play with a flamethrower by the end of this episode, of which he professed an admiration for early on.  After all, he is like all of us and never tires of the line "Call in the flamethrowers!"

Joe Bob's Rating

⭐⭐1/2

Re-Animator (The Last Drive-In)

Film Year:  1985
Genre:  Horror, Science Fiction
Director:  Stuart Gordon
Starring:  Jeffery Combs, Bruce Abbott, Barbara Crampton, David Gale, Robert Sampson

The Movie

This cult classic stars Jeffery Combs as a medical student who is working on a formula that can reanimate the dead back to life, but he can't get them to return to their original state instead of mindless, grunting zombies.  Renting a room from a fellow student, he confides in his roommate in his discovery, but they find themselves spiraling in a domino effect of reanimated corpses and a growing obsession with perfecting the formula.

I had not seen Re-Animator before this showing.  I had heard of it, most definitely knew it by reputation, but I had never had the opportunity to sit down and watch it, though it has been on the to-do list for a while.  Frankly, as crazy as I've heard this film was, I profess a tiny bit of disappointment.  I've seen many films much nuttier than this, many of which were seen in this very marathon (the previous film, Basket Case, makes Re-Animator look like Downton Abby), so very little in Re-Animator made me flinch.

But it's a devilishly stylish movie that's rooted in a rather colorful, comic book tone from beginning to end.  If there's anything Re-Animator has going for it, it's that it's fairly quick paced and always doing something flashy to keep audience interest up.  I found myself constantly intrigued as to what route the film would take and what its destination would be.  By the time it landed at its open-ended conclusion, there was a satisfying completeness to the entire experience that I'd say not a lot of movies can achieve with such an ending.

I don't think Re-Animator will become a favorite of mine, despite its best moments, but that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy watching it.  I enjoyed the performances, I enjoyed the creativity, and I thought the world of its spirit.  Even it's score, which obviously borrows many notes from the score to Psycho, is colorful enough to compliment the film itself.  I might find Re-Animator a tad overrated, but I can certainly see why people love it.

The Drive-In

Joe Bob knows he has a nutty little Frankenstein tale this week, and takes a good portion of his opening segment to lecture on the human brain, which is probably one of my favorite moments of The Last Drive-In so far.  Joe Bob gets all college professor on us, with his little chart and pointer stick, as he points out various portions of the brain and explains, in his own words, what they do.  This lecture is very important to him, because, as he points out, a lot of his fans (myself included) do not have the luxury of having this organ.

When it comes to discussing Re-Animator, Joe Bob takes the time to acknowledge what he feels is the greatest performance in horror history:  David Gale.  Gale plays a conniving professor who plans to steal the reanimation formula, gets his head ripped off, is reanimated, and then spends the rest of the film as a headless corpse lugging his own head around, which Joe Bob feels is the performance of a lifetime.  He's not wrong.  He spends most of his time praising Gale, though he has praise for the rest of the cast, including Jeffery Combs and the nakedness of Barbara Crampton.  He has some positive things to say about Bruce Abbott as well, who he feels isn't mentioned enough in reviews despite putting forth a good performance.

He shares some neat tidbits about the production, which he claims was put together by people from the theater, rehearsed for two weeks, then filmed in less than three.  He mentions the original cut to this fucker ran two-and-a-half hours long, which was cut down to 86 minutes (wisely, in my opinion).  But he laments the cutting of a subplot involving Gale's character which established that he was a hypnotist, explaining how he had control of all the corpses in the end.  Apparently the film's composer shot this subplot down, claiming one supernatural element in the film was enough.  Joe Bob thinks this is absurd, and considers the lesson to be "Never take storytelling advice from your composer."

But despite some editing choices Joe Bob doesn't agree with, Joe Bob is really enthusiastic about this movie and is really enjoying talking about it.  Plus Darcy has some amazing cosplay at the end of this episode, making it one to watch for your average Joe Bob fan.

Joe Bob's Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐