Stage Fright

Giovanni Lombardo Ravice, lead actor in some of Italy’s most notorious horror films of the 80’s, passed away in April. As we’ve already reviewed a couple of his films and told stories of his notorious dismissal of the horror genre of which he was so entwined, we decided to pick the most interesting of the remaining films for this week’s episode.

Not to be confused with the Meatloaf-helmed horror-musical of the same name, Stage Fright (a.k.a Deliria) is certainly an oddity of its time. Billed as a stylish 80’s thriller, we found it a bit of a pedestrian bore. Nevertheless, Ravice’s performance stands out, and we’re honored to pay tribute to his career and notoriety here today. Enjoy!

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Stage Fright (1987)

Ep 345, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, Craig has chosen the last few movies that we’ve done, and so it kind of became my turn to pick a film. And as we often do, we keep track of the people in the horror community, whether they be big, big stars or cult genre stars, uh, the people who’ve died and, uh, try to do tribute episodes for them.

And I, I don’t think this is. This man is probably at the top of all of our listeners’ lists. Probably not yours at all. Craig, I forgot who you’re

Craig: talking about. It’s gonna be just as much a surprise to me as to the audience.

Todd: Well, I propo whether he remembers it or not, a, a few days ago I propose to Craig that we do a tribute to, uh, Giovanni Lombardo Revice.

Uh, who died in April of this year. Now we have reviewed one or two movies that he has been in. Uh, they’re all Italian films, so right off the bat, definitely more in my wheelhouse than in Craig’s. We did City of the Living Dead by Lucio Fulci. We were not terribly impressed with that movie, but he played Bob in that film.

And then, um, during another tribute episode that we did, For Umberto Lenzi, the Ill chosen Cannibal Ferox, which we both thought was a steaming pile of garbage. Yeah. He played Mike Logan, the star of the film, and that is a cannibal movie that not only did we hate, but he himself also hated. He, uh, has said on record many times and in many interviews that he regrets being in that movie that he thought it was also a steaming pile of garbage, that it was fascist and mean spirited and racist and degrading.

And, uh, he very much objected to the animal cruelty in that movie and refused to do any of it. Um, there’s kind of a somewhat famous altercation between him and, uh, and the director, Umberto Lenzi, where. There’s a scene in there where they kill a pig and they really do kill a pig. And he was called to do that scene.

Lenzi said to him, all right, now’s the day you kill a pig. And he’s like, well, yeah, the, the special effects or whatever. And he’s like, no, we’re really gonna kill a pig. And he said, I’m not killing any pig. And Lenzi says to him, well, Robert De Niro would’ve done it. And he said, Robert De Niro would’ve kicked your ass right out the door.

And so he refused to kill the pig. And so the special effects guy actually ended up being the guy who killed the pig. And then they had to do closeups on his face, like reaction shots of him stabbing. And the reaction shots of him stabbing were of him stabbing something. It was like a big. Melon or something like that.

I vaguely remember that. Yeah. Yeah. That the special effects guy was holding. And he loves to say that he got his revenge for the pig because as he was stabbing that melon, he stabbed right through it into the hands of the special effects guy. Oh geez. Who had to go to the hospital. So, uh, yeah, he was quite a character and, uh, he’d really made a name for himself, uh, in these low budget horror movies.

His very first love was actually, uh, ballet. And he was studying ballet. Mm-hmm. And he was really into theater, but then he kind of ended up in film. And, uh, like I said, started out with, uh, cannibals in the streets, city of the Living Dead, a, uh, Ruggero Deodato movie called House on the Edge of the Park, and then Cannibal Ferox.

And, uh, anyway, if you’re a fan like I am of this old Italian, early eighties, late seventies horror films, um, he does pop up a bit in this and has ga garnered quite a cult following because of it. Uh, he’s a good looking guy. He’s a yeah, fine actor. He’s been working all the way up until, uh, 2000, uh, 21.

Mm-hmm. Honestly, uh, has like 57 credit film credits to his name on IMDB until he died in April. So, uh, ah, you know, I was looking through, obviously, like I said, we’d already done City of the Living, dead Cannibal Fair. Two movies I had already earmarked for our podcast we’d already done. And, uh, I was trying, I was deciding between two films, the church.

Uh, which is an Argento produced movie. And, uh, this one that, uh, I chose Stage Fright. And the reason I chose it is I thought the concept sounded really interesting and I thought it would be appealing to Craig. I mean, give me some credit, Craig. Sometimes I actually think of you when I’m choosing these movies that I’m suspicious that you’re gonna hate, aren’t you?

Sweets well, Bless you. Yeah, I am sweet. I mean, it’s about a bunch of musical theater, uh, people, uh, rehearsing a musical who get locked in the theater and there’s a killer amongst them. And yeah, some reviews say it’s a fine little eighties slasher with a lot of flair and style and, and eighties sensibility and whatnot.

And, uh, we did a movie called Stage Fright, but I think, yeah, that was our Meatloaf tribute, right? Uhhuh, where it was a bunch of musical theater kids at a musical theater camp who, you know, there’s a slasher among them so it’s easy to get the two movies confused. But this one is from 1987 and uh, absolutely could not be confused with the Meatloaf movie, which itself was a musical.

Yeah, this movie is a pretty lame slasher film and, Honestly, to my chagrin, our, the guy we’re paying tribute to like dies in the first 15 minutes. So yeah. How would you know? I was, I didn’t know. I disappointed.

Craig: I I, I’ll agree with you that I think that, uh, this movie sounds interesting and promising on paper.

It’s not either of those things.

Honestly, like, I don’t know. I don’t think I was in the right state of mind for whatever reason, meaning I wasn’t like, Hi or drunk like you, you, whichever is your preference. I think that is the state of mind you need to be in for this movie. Gosh, I don’t know what to say because other than a couple of noteworthy artistic choices in the filmmaking, I don’t really think there’s much noteworthy about this movie at all.

Like the, the story is pretty lame. Mm-hmm. The acting is. Pretty bad

and for me. It broke the biggest rule that horror movies shouldn’t break. And because it was boring, I was bored.

Todd: I was

Craig: too, oh, I just, and, and I swear like, uh, I took far fewer notes than I usually do, but two-thirds of the way down in all caps I have, they’re still a half hour left.

Todd: I, I literally found myself wandering from the movie Me too, to where I was like, Oh crap.

There’s still a movie to watch and I like, I like did the same

Craig: thing.

Todd: It’s terrible. I had to rewind. Uh, and make sure that I could write down at least what happened if nothing else. I did that

Craig: a a couple of times too, and both times I rewound it like 30 seconds. I was like, uh, no. Didn’t miss anything.

Todd: Oh man. I, it’s directed by, uh, Michelle, uh, Sovi, and he is both a director and an actor. And I don’t know, you know, for some reason I had it in my head that he directed demons, but he did not direct demons. We loved demons. Demons

Craig: you The demons you mean? No, no, just demons. Okay. Right, right, right. Now,

Todd: another movie where there’s a bunch of people locked in a theater, except in this case it’s like freaking demons.

And that was a gory, bloody just delirious crazy mess. He did not direct that he acted in it. He was the guy in the beginning, remember that, had that like half metal mask on who was in the subway. He was passing out tickets to the theatrical performance. So he was an actor in that. And he was an actor in a number of Dario Argento movies.

Um, before he started directing again, city of the Living Dead, the New York Ripper Tenere Opera. Uh, demons. He was, he acted in that, he was in phenomena. I mean, we’ve done, yeah, a lot of those, yeah. All all. But one of those movies I just, I just rattled off and

Craig: he’s in this too. He’s got kind of a, I guess they’re supposed to be comic relief even though they don’t do anything funny.

That was, yeah. My biggest problem with this movie is I think that somebody should remake it and just go full camp. Like, yeah, make, make it. Actually a musical and, and just make it really over the top and stupid because this is played straight. And because of that it’s just boring. Like I want this to be a bad movie, but it’s not even funny or hokey enough.

To be bad. I mean, the, the, the plot is dumb. I mean, it opens up with just like a black screen, I don’t even remember, but it sounds like somebody’s either bathing or killing a cat and, and then you hear these like cat screams throughout the movie. It’s weird. And then it pulls up on. A hooker who I couldn’t tell at first if it was a man or a woman, and I was a little confused there for a second.

It’s a woman and she gets grabbed, like she gets pulled like it’s on like a street, like a dark street at night, and she gets pulled like into an alleyway and then. It breaks into a huge dance number. And I, I had no idea what was happening. I didn’t realize that we were in the context of a stage performance.

Like I thought that this was just the movie, um, which I think is what we’re intended to. Yeah, so it’s, it’s like a supposed to come as a right. It’s supposed to come as a big surprise and it was a big surprise. And then there’s a big dance number and the lead guy, this guy who we’re paying tribute to. Is in a, um, owl mask like this full, like it’s big.

It’s like a big owl head that sits. On his shoulders. And that’s the only element of his costume. This is rehearsal, so there may have been more to it, but he’s just in like black or a bodysuit or something. Um, and I didn’t know that this guy had a history in dance, but it doesn’t surprise me. I mean, he looks like a dancer and he is graceful and he moves around and then, but it’s just crazy from the beginning.

Like the music is weird. Marilyn Monroes, like on the sax, like with the. Wind blowing up her skirt and it’s really weird. Yeah. But it turns out that they are doing this show, I guess, called the Night Owl, and it’s gonna be sensational because the big twist is that in the third act, the victim is going to rape her own murderer.

This director Peter, who’s super pretentious, I didn’t write down any of the actors’ names, by the way, because none of them were familiar to me. So if there’s anybody of note here, You’ll have to let me know.

Todd: No, uh, I didn’t bother looking up

Craig: any anybodys. Yeah, I didn’t, I didn’t either. Um, so Peter is the director and he’s kind of, you know, the typical douchey, pretentious director.

Alicia is the girl who was playing the hooker. There’s just a small cast of characters. It starts out larger, but it eventually weeds down to these. Sybil and Danny are actors too, and they are a couple and she is pregnant and therefore, Throws up throughout the rest of the movie cuz that’s how you know people are pregnant in movies.

Danny is the dad. Um, I have, uh, Brett is. Uh, gay. I, that’s not, I used a mean word, but that’s the only, like, that was his defining characteristic. Oh, he’s the gay one. The funny, he’s the funny gay. There’s

Todd: always gotta be a funny gay. Yeah. Especially if you’re doing a movie about a musical. Come on.

Craig: And I act, I’m not just saying this because we’re talking specifically about this actor, but he was my favorite character because even though he was kind of douchey, he was at least interesting.

Like he was doing stuff and like he had snarky lines. So he was, I don’t think that it was meant to be like, haha, funny, but he was bitchy and I liked it. The rest of them were just boring. There’s like a fat producer who hits on the girls. His name’s Ferrari and there’s another actress named Laurel and a stagehand named Mark and like a groundskeeper named.

Todd: Willie. Yeah. And Groundskeeper Willie.

Craig: Groundskeeper Willie. And these are the people. And so I, the, the setup because, so what’s her name? The main actress, Alicia, somehow hurt herself, I guess while they were dancing. She twisted her ankle or something and Peter didn’t wanna allow, allow her to leave to go get it looked at cuz they’re on a tight schedule or whatever.

But she sneaks away and her friend Betty. Takes her to the psychiatric hospital to have her ankle looked at? No. Okay.

Todd: All right. Right. Um, and the psychiatric hospital looks like a jail. Uh, I thought they were taking him to jail. It’s just a psychiatric hospital that keeps people in jail cells. There’s

Craig: one ominous patient, this tall, lanky guy who doesn’t speak that they like, lead into a.

Barred room and strapped down to the bed and keep, you know, doing these ominous closeups of his face as he’s like looking out in the hall and he’s lit and all blue and whatnot. Well, what ends up happening is what’s her name gets her ankle looked at and then they leave and inadvertently bring the psycho back with them, like the psycho kills and orderly and hides in the back of their car and they bring him back to the theater and, uh, He gets in sight and starts killing them all.

The is

Todd: no.

Craig: Yeah, like that’s, that’s pretty much it. It’s

Todd: definitely him, right? Because by the end of the movie, I wasn’t sure who the killer was. I guess it was Are you

Craig: serious? Oh, I thought it was so obvious from the They knew who it

Todd: was. Yeah. I mean, I, I just didn’t care. I, I, my point is like, I knew it wasn’t anybody.

In the theater. This wasn’t going to be a case of where one of the actual cast are a killer because at one point everybody in the freaking cast is locked in a room together. Yeah. From away from the killer and then the killer drills through the door it at one of them.

Craig: And so, un un, unless it would’ve been like a minor character that we hadn’t spent much time with or something.

But no. Like what? Like, like Groundskeeper Willie. Like Willie? Yeah. No. Right. It’s bold on its face. This, this character has a name. His name is Irving Wallace, and he was an actor who went berserk and killed 16 people and doesn’t talk a lot. That’s his mo. Yeah,

but it is him. We know it’s him, but he just shows up and first, like as soon as he gets out of the car, he murders Betty and they find Betty’s body, so they know that there’s. A murderer around, but Peter’s like, no, this is great. It’s gonna be like great publicity and we’re gonna change the show. Right. And the killer’s not just gonna be an anonymous killer.

It’s gonna be the real Irving Wallace, and people are gonna pay big money to come see a show about a guy murdering people in the building where he just murdered somebody. It’s. Fantastic. Lock all the doors.

It’s so dumb, like there’s only one exit door and there’s only one key, and like there, once it gets locked, they’re just, They’re just stuck. They’re just trapped. Mm-hmm. And they know, like they know, um, I don’t know. Does he kill our, our guy next is that we don’t even see our guy get killed. We just see he, he loses his mask.

He can’t find his bird mask. And then he is kind of looking around for it, and I think he finds the spare or something. Yeah. And he goes, oh, there you are. And he bends over to pick it up and the killer is standing right behind him in. Yeah,

Todd: the bird mass, sadly, we don’t see him get killed. There’s no scene or anything.

In fact, I’m not even sure they find the body. It’s just kind of like, yeah, you really

Craig: weren’t paying attention to this movie.

Todd: Yeah, yeah, we were. They find, did they find his body?

Craig: At some point, we know exactly what happens to him because eventually,

Todd: oh, I, well, I know they show his body at the end. I just meant, I don’t think the characters themselves in the movie.

Find the body anytime soon.

Craig: Do they? Not anytime soon. It’s not until much later after a couple others have been killed. One of the things that I, and, and they don’t technically find the body, w I’ll, well, I’ll explain when we get there, but one of the things that I read about the movie was that it’s a very typical slasher.

It’s just people getting picked off one by one. And it is, and that’s fair. But then in that same review I read, but. The kills are like notably gruesome and violent and you know, arguably some of the, you know, most gruesome kills in a slash movie. I didn’t think so. No. But they’re pretty standard really.

Todd: Whoever not wrote that has not seen the movies we’ve seen. Yeah, I

Craig: mean, it was just, it was a fan review, but Yeah. Yeah, I didn’t like it was the Betty gets an ax to the face or a pick ax through the face. Now granted, I wouldn’t want to. You get a pick ax to the face, but it’s not like that’s particularly innovative.

Does it look good? Yeah, it looks pretty good. Um, I would say overall the effects look pretty good. Yeah. But nothing particularly notable? Uh, yeah, I don’t know what else. Peter lets everybody go except for that small group of people that I mentioned before. Uh, as I ran through the cast. That’s everybody who’s there and, uh, God, what, like seriously, I’m halfway through my notes already and

Todd: Yeah, I know he needs.

Craig: Yeah, go ahead, Brett. Brett. Brett can’t find his costume, but that’s what I said. And then he bows and the thing is behind him. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And so we assume that now that owl face is the killer. Mm-hmm. And he is. And then probably the most interesting scene, which is. Telling because it’s really not all that interesting.

They’re rehearsing the scene and Corrine one of the actresses, it’s her murder scene. Yeah. And so she’s out like doing her dance, like before she’s supposed to be killed. And then they are like, what’s your name? The actor Al Face actor. They’re like, Brett, where are you? It’s your. Your turn and to kill her to come out and kill her.

And so the owl face starts making his way onto stage very like trepidatious, like Yeah. It’s, it’s obviously not him. Like he doesn’t Yeah, he’s not doing choreography. He’s not acting. He’s just coming out on stage and everybody’s watching from the audience. Like one of the other actresses, Laurel or whatever name, name is director and all that.

Yeah, yeah. And the director, and they’re down there and they’re watching it, but obviously the all guy’s not doing what. He’s supposed to be doing. And eventually he pulls out a big knife and the director’s like, what are you doing with a knife? Yeah. He’s like, and he starts stabbing this girl right there on stage in front of everybody.

And it takes them a minute to understand that it’s really happening. And finally the director’s like, that’s not Brett. And then they all freak out and run and scream and the owl guy chases them around. But that’s just kind of it. Yeah. I, I mean, they end up getting locked in a

Todd: bathroom. They get locked or something.

There’s a police, the police are hanging out outside, but apparently it’s raining so they can’t hear. Mm-hmm. Anything. And uh, you know, really like, I don’t know, it’s just like there’s nothing, I don’t know what to say about it. Alright. I can’t hear. Just say, so we see the movie. The movie tries to be stylish, right?

Like right. He’s got these like p o v shots and it’s got like feathers blowing around every now and then and cool. Eighties music kind of playing. I, I thought the,

Craig: the score was really interesting, like the choice of it was interesting and good, I thought like the, it’s, it’s a, a pretty heavy rock score, so I stylistically I liked the choice, but the music itself was pretty.

Lame. Like, it, it felt like canned, like mu, almost like just like the same eight riffs, like on repeat. I wanted to like it, but it just, it it, it wasn’t as good as it No. Should have been. It,

Todd: it was like trying. It was trying. I, I, I mean, I, I think it was trying, it just utterly like, failed cuz there was no story here.

Nothing interesting about the characters. It, it didn’t even make logical sense from, you know, time to time. There’s like p o V of, of presumably from the owl and it, it goes through the workshop area, which I was like, ooh, you know it, but it pans across the table, knife and a saw and all, all these tools on this table and then zeroes in on this drill press.

Now, I don’t know if some of you out there might not know what a drill press is, but a drill press is a big machine that’s bolted. It’s like, A big machine you’d have in your workshop that’s like bolted to a table and, or it is a table because you’re gonna put something in there and you’re gonna pull this lever down and the drill’s gonna go down.

It’s, it’s not a drill, you know, it’s not like a hand drill that you pick up and move around. It’s a fixed machine. And then later all these people, Peter, and a bunch of the actors are locked in their dressing room. And uh, an arm comes through the door and grabs Mark and they’re like, ah, okay. Get ’em off him.

Get ’em off him. And before they can get the arm off of Mark, they see a drill come through his stomach, right through the door. And I’m like, oh God, are you kidding me? This doesn’t even make sense. A drill press cannot be like ripped. From its perch, right. And carried somewhere and used like, you know, like it’s a hand drill.

It, it’s just, it’s not the same tool. It’s not portable.

Craig: Yeah. So I wasn’t even thinking about it like, oh, I think I must have glanced. To wait, like I, I, I do remember like glancing at the screen and seeing the point of view, like looking through the workshop and I’m like, okay, great. I get it. Like he can find a weapon or whatever.

And then, then I remember the, the

Todd: drilling. Then the drilling happens and Mark falls before and they go, ah. And what’s their next idea? Oh, they’re gonna start prowling around. Well,

Craig: but that’s the thing, like there’s no mystery to it either. They know who the killer is. Or at least they think they do and they’re right.

And when they go out, like when they, they’re, they’re, they wanna go to the workshop because somebody remembers there’s like a skeleton key there or something, I don’t know. Um, and they think because, you know, the bad guy got weapons there, they can get weapons there too, but they walk out, like onto the stage and the director just turns on one of the spotlights and points it up into the catwalks and the killer’s right there.

Todd: Yeah. And, and they run after him.

Craig: Yeah, the God, do they run after him or do they run away from Mark? I don’t even remember.

Todd: Mark’s in hot pursuit. He runs up on the catwalk and the killer’s actually running from them and he’s got that in his hand and they go and it goes through some door up there. And so they break through the door and Mark turns the corner and he sees a dude in a and a owl costume sitting down and swings his ax at it.

And everyone’s like, no, no, no. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Stop. Cuz they see that this guy’s hands are tied. And of course when they pull the owl, Costume off. It turns out that it’s Brett. It’s

Craig: Brett. See, okay, you’re right. It wasn’t just his body. They

Todd: killed him. They killed him because Brett had, okay, so there’s a second owl costume, right?

That the owl guy propped Brett up in In right. The rafter.

Craig: Okay. Right. So when, when, what’s his name? Peter, I think the director ax him. He killed him. Which whatever. I mean, that’s fine. It does. I guess the killer had the foresight to like set that up as a. Gag I, oh, it’s, it’s dumb, and this is all happening to this major rock score.

But even before that, I feel like there was a whole scene where Peter and Danny were out looking for the skeleton key on their own, which was totally fruitless and. They just ended up coming back empty handed like, but during that whole time there was this really loud classical music blaring and I thought that it was part of the score.

And then I realized, no, like this is happening in their world. Like this loud classical music is playing. Did you notice that? Yeah, I still don’t understand really why,

Todd: I’m not sure where that, yeah, why that

Craig: was. Uh, because it doesn’t amount to anything. It’s not like they go and find the source of it and turn it off and like, oh, mystery salt.

Like, no, it’s just, it’s on for a while and then it’s not, at least as far as I remember, it’s so weird and God, what else? Okay. Alright. So Laurel makes Alicia fall off the ladder and she’s just laying there at the bottom of the ladder. Unconscious, I guess. And then that’s when Peter kills bread on accident.

This, okay, here’s my F. This is great. Let’s talk about this. Sybil, the pregnant one gets grabbed from, like somebody reaches up through a hole in the floor, grabs her and pulls her down so that she’s just hanging like by her arms in this hole and her baby daddy is trying to pull her out. And eventually he does pull her out, but it’s only the top.

Part of her torso as though she has been bitten in half by, yeah,

Todd: by a dinosaur. Alien or something. Or a

Craig: shark. And then, and then, does Danny, the dad, the baby daddy, does he dive in the hole or does he fall in the hole? I don’t remember, but somehow he ends up down there on his back and the owl head guy cuts him in half with a chainsaw.

Now, presumably the killer also cut the girl Sybil in half with the chainsaw. He just did it really quietly because there were no chainsaw sounds.

Todd: Oh, there were chain chainsaw sounds. God, there were chain. I’m so bored I missed a chainsaw. I can’t believe I remember it. I remember her being, the half of her being pulled up.

I don’t remember a chainsaw being a part of this movie. Yeah. He,

Craig: he then chainsaws Danny down in the hole and you get the, you get the chainsaw noise, but not when she’s being cut in half. Maybe he cut her in half with the samurai sword. I don’t know. Oh my God. And then, okay, so then blah, blah, blah. He jumps in the hole, he gets hot in half.

The owl is coming after Peter and Laurel. Laurel gets her blouse cut off. Like he swipes at her with a sword and it just opens her blouse so her boobs are out. Now, later you see her again and she’s injured, but there’s no sign of injury at this point, just no boobs. Peter tries to bargain with the killer, but then he gets his arm sought off, and then his head chopped off with an ax.

At this point, everybody is dead except for Alicia. And the last time we saw her, she was unconscious. On the floor. This is the point where I looked at the timestamp and there was still a half an hour left, and I’m like, you’ve gotta be kidding me? Like what are we going to do for another half hour?

Everybody’s dead except for the one girl. And she’s asleep and I wish I was too.

Todd: Oh

Craig: God. I mean, do you? I can keep going. She wakes up. She finds injured Laurel in the shower. She hides in the adjoining shower and watches as the owl kills Laura. And then, She finds a gun and some keys and she tries to unlock the front door for 15 minutes, and she tries every single key.

We get to watch her try every single key. None of them work. I don’t know. I guess the owl’s not worried about her anymore. He’s got his own thing to do, so he’s stage, so he sets up a whole tableau of bodies of all of the dead people. Mm, on stage, which again, that imagery alone, I liked it. If I were to see a still of that, I would be like, well, this looks like an interesting movie, but it’s not.

No. I will also say there was one time that I got up to go to the bathroom and I paused and I came back and it was this, uh, you know, it was frozen on a frame of Alicia up in. The catwalk and it was kind of a wide shot with her right in the middle and, and the light and the focus on her and like nothing important was happening.

It wasn’t an important scene, but I just looked at the screen and thought that’s actually a really beautiful shot. So I do think, oh yeah, that there’s some really good cinematography here. It’s just that the movie is so bad that you don’t even. Noticed care. Yeah. Yeah.

Todd: No, I even noticed, I even noticed the cinematography was good cuz I was looking for something positive to say about the movie and I was trying to get into it and I was trying to reconcile some of the good reviews that I had heard and some of them said, yeah, it’s got some real eighties style.

And, and it does, I mean it’s, it’s got that in the visual, not always, but at moments. Right. It, it has that. But you’re right, that doesn’t matter because it can’t possibly be visually, visually interesting enough, enough to overcome the dull lack of story, lack of character, lack of interest that you feel, uhhuh when you’re just watching these people kind of just fumble around in this movie theater and you

Craig: don’t care about them.

Like, and this

Todd: owl, like what? What’s he gonna do? It’s one guy and there’s five of ’em. Right. You know, like, I mean, I don’t get the sense that he’s supernatural or superhuman or No, especially good at what he’s doing. They just. He’s big,

Craig: but I mean, he’s tall. That’s kind of the only thing. Like you’re right.

I I, but he’s got

Todd: a fricking mask on. He shouldn’t even be able to see half of what he’s doing. I know this giant apple mask, I don’t even know where the holes are in that thing. Like there’re,

Craig: I did notice cuz there’s a close up coming because he sets up this whole tableau of all these dead people and then he just like, Places himself in the Tableau.

Like, it’s just like there’s a couch and a, a, a chair that he’s got, you know, three or four bodies lined up on the couch. He’s got a couple of them down on the floor, it’s like the pose for the breakfast club or something. Uh, and, and he then takes a seat, you know, kind of right in the chair, right next to the couch.

So it’s just. A picture, like an a Tableau, and he just sits there and like the cat, this cat that’s been around all the time is like scream, meowing and gets up in his lap. And the the owl guy, this is when they, there’s a closeup on his mask. I could see the mask itself has eyes, like glass eyes, but just below that there are holes, um, that he can see out of.

But. God, this is so fucking stupid. So she’s, she’s at the door and this whole key ring of keys that we’ve seen her try haven’t worked as the owl man is setting up his tableau, she happens to notice that there is a single key stuck up between the floorboards of the stage. Yeah. So once he sets himself up there, she crawls under the stage, which is.

Unlike any stage I’ve ever seen. It looks like it’s made, it looks like it’s made out of like shipping pallets, right?

Todd: Huge. It’s gaps in the which, yeah, which doesn’t match the top. I mean, there’s no, no continuity there. Yeah.

Craig: Mm-hmm. No, it looks ridiculous. And, uh, so she, she goes and she tries to pull out the key, but despite the fact that everywhere else, the gaps between the board are a good inch, Apart, um, this key is lodged in there.

And so she has to like, use what, what is she like? A knife or knit needle. Pulls

Todd: a nail out. Yeah. Oh, god. And, and like sticks it up through, it doesn’t even make sense, like the animal and

Craig: is No, it doesn’t make any sense. Oh, and this is supposed to be suspenseful. Like presumably this owl guy just sat down and fell asleep petting that cat.

Or like, he’s, he’s, uh, So entranced that he’s just not noticing me. The cat has noticed and is screaming and eventually like a, again, I think that this is supposed to be suspenseful. I honestly don’t even remember. What

Todd: happens? Oh, okay. So, uh, she tries to pull the key through, but it’s stuck. She uses the nail, she gets the key, but then as soon as she gets the key, the owl jumps up and starts running.

Like she runs out from under the stage and it’s pursuing her with a yack. So, You know, the chase is on and she runs up to the rafters again, and he runs up with him, and then she pulls out, yanks out a fire extinguisher and blasts it at him, which you know, temporarily knocks him out. And then he slips and he falls, and he grabs a extension cord that’s kind of loose up there, and he starts hanging from the rafters on an extension cord, which is alternately 12 feet in the air.

And two feet in the air, depending on the shot. See, and God,

Craig: I thought this guy, now, granted, he’s supposed to be crazy, so maybe he’s not rational. Yeah. But when he falls, when he falls, he catches himself. And like you said, it appears. That once he catches himself, he is a mere couple of feet off the ground.

Yeah, right. It like, just let go. You’ll be perfectly, perfectly fine. But instead he decides the wiser option will be to climb 50 feet up right this electrical

Todd: cord and shee the crabs and ax and starts hacking away at the cord. The music is pumping. And I literally have in my notes, is this supposed to be thrilling?

Well, and

Craig: this, this chord is like, It a metal chain, like it, it, it is, it’s lit. It’s an electrical cord and it takes her like it, five or six strikes with the ax to finally get it to break. But of course that’s good because then that gives him time. Yeah. Meanwhile, probably, you know, 200, 2 20 pounds of weight are also pulling on it.

Right. And, uh, eventually he, you know, he gets all the way to the top. She finally strikes it at. Breaks and now they’re

Todd: over the stage at this point. Am I right? Yeah. So he falls down onto the stage, but then she also goes down. Oh, she climbs down, right? Yeah. The feathers are still blowing from the feather machine, and she’s walking across the stage and she gets down off the stage and starts to walk through the audience to get to that door.

But he’s actually not on the stage. He’s like in front of the stage in where the like the first row is and he reaches out for her cuz she stupidly just walks right over his body. Even though she could have gone anywhere else, anywhere else, anywhere else. And as he reaches for her, she goes, ah. And she tips over.

A pot that had fire in it, like cocktail. I have no idea.

Craig: Stand. What had that been burning all night? It must have been burning all night. Because I feel like earlier in the movie, like in the very beginning of the movie, grouts Keeper, Willie left and said to somebody, make sure you put out the fire. Oh really?

Yes. Oh, I that remember this at all. Oh God. And like apropo of nothing. Remember, don’t forget to put out the fire and then that’s it

Todd: on fire. Oh God. Well she puts it out on him and so we get, you know, the Chief Slowmo man on Fire Effect and then she manages to get out the door cuz she has the key now to the ineffective cops.

Oh my God. This

Craig: part is in infuriating. This part, this is so stupid, this infuriating.

Todd: She’s in the hospital and. Literally, she just is sitting there and the nurse is comforting her, and she’s like, all right, well, I’m glad you’re better and stuff. She goes, oh. My watch and I was like, this

Craig: watch has never been mentioned before.

Has it at all?

Todd: No,

Craig: there’s like, it would, it would almost make sense, like if it were her dead mothers watches,

Todd: grandfathers watch something like the Pulp Fiction watch. It was stuck up the guy’s ass for years and stuff. But no, it’s, but it’s nothing.

Craig: It’s just her watch. So I have in all caps, Alicia goes back to the theater.

Mere hours after all of this has happened to retrieve her watch, and she f she meets Willie. On his way to work, and this would be, you know, since they haven’t established it yet, the, he, she’s like, um, I really need to get in there. I need to get my watch. And he’s like, no, I can’t let anybody in. Uh, I’m under strict orders not to let anybody in.

And this would be the perfect place for her to say, but it was my mother’s and she died. No, no, nothing. It’s really expensive.

Todd: Oh, please, please, please. It’s really expensive. She finds her watch. And then this is the moment where we’re supposed to have some kind of crazy gilo type

Craig: revelation. Right? It took me a second to even understand what was going on.

Again,

Todd: op apropo of nothing. Willie is just B blabbering at the mouth at her. Hey, did you read the news article? They said they found eight bodies and blah, blah,

Craig: blah, yada, yada yada. Yeah. They’re calling it the soundstage massacre. Eight horribly mutilated bodies.

Todd: Yeah. Suddenly she’s looking at the stage and she’s like, eight bodies were found.

Eight. Eight and then it takes this painstakingly through each of the eight songs by name, songs from the

Craig: stage by name Doesn’t, doesn’t by name. She like name. Yeah. D does she say them out loud or in her

Todd: head? Yeah, practically. God, it’s so on the nose and so, oh, there, where’s the ninth? And sure enough, that dude has been hanging out there this whole time, apparently after the police cleared the area and locked it up.

I, I don’t know what the fuck, you know, I just don’t

Craig: understand. No, it’s so stupid. Like he was fully engulfed in flames. Um, so I guess. You know, between the time that she got outside to the two D cops sitting outside, one of whom is the director, I don’t know if we mentioned that or not. From the time that she gets out there till the time that the other police arrive, I guess he’s extinguished his flames and hidden himself away so that they don’t find him.

Right. Oh my God, it’s so dumb. And then so he pops up. He’s not wearing the mask anymore. So we, we. Finally get to see this guy. And he is a big guy and they, he, they’ve got him a little bit burnt, not not much at all. And then he’s like standing over her with an ax or something, but then there’s a gunshot and the killer goes down.

And it was Willie who then goes insane. Like, I didn’t understand

Todd: Willie’s like she, he makes as he’s b blabbering to her as he lets her in. He’s criticizing her as something he’s talking about. You almost had him. You could have shot him, but

Craig: you know, you Yeah. That gun, it pretty much fires

Todd: itself in the gun.

You didn’t have a bullet in the chamber and you didn’t turn the safety off. And so the idea is that while she is fighting her watch Willie’s off looking for the gun, which apparently the is back in storage somewhere so that he can pull it out to show her. How to load a bullet in the chamber long after the fact, right, and turn the safety off so he happens to be there with the gun that he’s just retrieved to shooter her, and he just keeps going over and over right between the eyes, just like I said.

Right between the eyes, just like I said, like you said, like he’s going insane. He’s just, yeah, he’s lost his mind. She’s wandered off.

Craig: He is, he’s still talking to himself. Yeah. And before, before, before she wanders off, she looks down at, at the ground and her watch is in like a million pieces. Like this is supposed to in some way, significant, significant.

It doesn’t matter who gives us. Fuck. It’s a cheap ass looking gold. Watch. Go to pennies and get another one.

Todd: She picks it up anyway and we get this long shots close up shots on this killer’s head, and he has a bullet right in the middle of his forehead, bullet hole, and then the movie ends on a closeup of his face.

And his eyes twitch and he smiles

Craig: and then it cuts to Marilyn Monroe on the sax again, like it cuts back. That was awesome though. Yeah. Like it cuts back to the insanity of that first surprise scene. Like we’re in an intellectual musical. That cracks me up when they were referred to it as that too. It’s an intellectual musical.

No it isn’t. Um, but that moment, When he turned and smiled at the camera and then it cut back to Marilyn Monroe on the sax. I wanted that tone for the whole movie. Yes. Yes. Make me a movie in that tone. Yes, with the exact same plot devices. That’s fine, but I want it to be over the top and ridiculous. I want Marilyn Monroe on the sax.

I want you like tongue in cheek breaking the fourth wall. I want you to just go for it and. This movie just didn’t. And so, no, like I said before, you know, God, it’s gonna end up being a short episode cause I just don’t have anything to say there. It’s just not an interesting movie to even talk about.

Really. Yeah. Huh. Which is too bad. I don’t know. Again, bad. I think that it a hundred percent think that somebody could remake this movie in a really clever and ironic way. Um, and it could be really funny. I

Todd: thought it was heading that direction because the musical itself looked ridiculous. I mean, intentionally ridiculous.

Yeah. It was avant garde and like, you know, Marilyn Monroe on the saxophone. I mean, I was actually chuckling at the beginning of the movie. Sure. And I thought they were setting up that tone, but it was just a joke about the musical itself. But the movie itself was taking, was taking itself seriously and not to good effect.

It was just, Boring and stupid and nonsensical and really a shame, honestly. And I’m sorry, Giovanni, rod, uh, what could we say about your performance? You were great as, uh, Brett.

Craig: I, I, honest to God really did, he was my favorite of them. Like he was, yeah, because he was really, The only one of them who had any character, the rest of them were really just indistinguishable.

They were just fodder for the killer. He at least had a personality. Yeah. He may not have been the most endearing personality, but at least he had a personality.

Todd: Yeah. He had something like distinguishable about him. Well, the director was kind of Loony tunes. The director was kind of a self serious to almost to the point of insanity.

Kind of guy who was just high, high tension all the time, kind of. But, but yeah, you’re right. And, and, and funny enough, I mean, um, Giovanni Rod, he, he, he’s billed as John Morgan in here because he hated horror movies. Even though he started a bunch of them, he did it for the paycheck. Uh, he didn’t actually like them.

He didn’t even put his name to them. But that is what he’s probably gonna be most remembered for are these are these roles. So, um, yeah, I mean, for what it’s worth, he did a great job in this. I can’t say I liked Cannibal Fairo, but. You know his character in there. He was certainly, I think we did say it was certainly well acted, uh, by him.

What more can I say, Craig? Yeah, I don’t know. I’m trying to, I hate it when we do these tribute episodes and then we pull up these movies and then they’re just sort of shit. Well, Which is beside the point, you know? It

Craig: is. I mean, whatever this is, you know, again, I I I’m not, it’s not like I’m a big fan of this guy.

I, I, I think I remember him from Can cannibal fair cuz I remember that story, um, that you told before. But I don’t know, I, I, I could have him mixed up with somebody else and, and you know, it’s not like I think that this. Performance in this movie was, you know, award worthy or anything. It was just fine and it was a fine performance and a not so great movie.

But, you know, still an impressive body of work. And, uh, somebody who. Got to do something in his life that a lot of us will only ever be able to dream of or live vicariously through other people. So I, I’m glad I would. How did you even hear, uh, about his passing? Did you see it on like a horror website or something?

Yeah,

Todd: it came across my feeds, uh, several times. So, uh, either with some, um, group, some horror group I was in on Facebook or just, uh, a friend of mine who happens to be into horror or whatnot. Uh, yeah, it, it came across, uh, back in April and, uh, a couple weeks ago, and I had reached out to you then, and it was between this one and the church.

And I, the church is still on my list. It looks really fascinating and I kind of wish I had chosen that one, but I think we’ll do it eventually. Sure. Get around to it. I would’ve, I would’ve picked this one too, honestly, because I

Craig: would’ve too, had you given me, uh, the choice and said, look at the plot synopsis.

I’m sure I would’ve chosen this one too. It does, it sounds good on paper. Um, it’s just not executed all this well. Uh, this is totally off topic, but it’s a question that I’ve been meaning to ask and didn’t get around to, and it’s a question that I know that I’ve asked before, but I don’t remember the answer.

Why do they dub these movies? Uh, like obviously the performers were speaking in English. Um, and then is it, is ADR just cheaper? Is it, yeah.

Todd: I mean, in general, yes, it’s cheaper eight to do adr, and sometimes it’s a stylistic choice. You know what, who wants to bother with trying to get good sound on set when you know you can just gather the actors together afterwards and get a nice, clean recording in the studio.

Gotcha. Um, even though, you know, if it’s not done skillfully enough, it, it becomes quite obvious right there. It’s funny because like there’s more ADR than you would ever realize in the biggest and most popular Hollywood productions. Oh no. Yeah, I know. It’s just. You know, usually done so ni so well, and, and not usually the whole fricking movie.

Right. But yeah, these Italian movies, they just, they just shot him cheaply by not worrying too much about sound on set. Yeah. And, and sometimes they just wanted to put another voice, uh, behind it. I’m not even a hundred percent positive that that was his voice. Right. In this, in this movie. Honestly, he can speak English.

He can speak English perfectly fine. And, uh, I’m sure we’ve heard his voice in Cannibal Ox and, uh, I’ve heard him, uh, interviews on YouTube. I, I went and watched a couple interviews with him in preparation for this, but you know, he is got a little bit of an Italian accent that wasn’t so clear in this film.

So either he was able to affect a different accent or they ended up dubbing him with somebody else.

Craig: I would be, I would suspect it was the latter. Yeah. Because I now, God, I don’t, I just watched it yesterday. I don’t even remember. But they didn’t speak with Italian accents, did they? No. No. Yeah, so, whatever.

Anyway, um, yeah, no, I, I can’t, I can’t recommend this movie. The funny thing is, as soon as I saw that owl mask, I thought that I had seen it before because I know that I have seen that mask before Harry Potter.

Todd: Is it? No, I’m just kidding.

Craig: I was gonna say, uh, you, I watch a lot of those, like the hundred scariest movies you’ve ever seen or, uh, the hundred Killers, blah, blah, blah.

So I’m sure that I’ve just seen that it’s been in one of these, uh, in clips somewhere. But it, I, me, I mean, cuz you see, it’s one of the very first things you see and I honestly, my first thought was, Wait, have we already done this movie? Because we’ve done so many at this point that I forget some of the ones that we’ve done.

Um, but anyway, I, I quickly realized that. No, I was just familiar with the, the costume. Um, and frankly, if you have any interest in it at all, I think you could see the most interesting parts by like doing like a Google image search. Like look at that tableau that the killer sets up at the end. That’s that.

I, I actually liked that. I liked the look of it. Yeah. And I, I don’t know, God, I think of the dumbest things when I’m watching this, but, uh, I was like, wow, they’re all doing a really good job of keeping their eyes open.

Todd: Yeah. Oh no,

Craig: I didn’t see any of them Blink once.

Todd: That literally crossed my mind as I was watching it too.

I’m like, man, they’re playing dead really, really well.

Craig: I, I thought they were too, and I liked the look of the makeup. It didn’t look real, but it looked like, you know, good e spooky corpse makeup. Mm-hmm. Um, and you know, like the one girl, uh, is cut completely in half, so they clearly got her rigged somehow.

Halfway through the floor and there’s a, a fun shot where the, the director had his head chopped off and his head is sitting on a table and it looks good. So you can tell that he must have been sitting under the table. And then, uh, the killer goes to pick his head up and you see him grab the actor’s head and move it just a little bit before it cuts back to a wide shot, and you see him lifted off the table.

And so it’s obviously a prop, but. Pretty seamless in the way that it was shot. Um, and so there were, there were things like that that looked good, but it’s, I just don’t think it’s worth the time. I don’t think it’s worth an hour and a half of your

Todd: time. Yeah, I, I totally agree. Sad to say. I mean, thank you for listening to our podcast.

Just don’t see this movie. Yeah.

Craig: Can’t recommend it.

Todd: Rest in peace. Giovanni Lombardo, Rache. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend. You can find us just by searching two guys in a chainsaw podcast on Google and, uh, find us on anywhere. A podcast is where you can leave a review or, uh, just shoot us an email or leave a comment on our website or on our.

Facebook page or shoot us a message on Twitter, something on our Instagram feed. Just all of those places online where you could leave us a message. Let us know what you thought of this. Let us know what movies or films we should do next. And if you are so motivated, uh, to join the club and support us, please consider our Patreon patreon.com/chainsawpodcast.

Until next time. I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.