It’s our 400th episode! Following tradition, we celebrate with a Wes Craven film – this time, his first-ever and most notorious movie, 1972’s The Last House On The Left.
A controversial and nasty rape-revenge shocker when it came out, it nevertheless was defended by critics for being a standout amongst its kind for its uncompromising and raw treatment of violence against two innocent teens at the hands of some hardened and callous criminals. And it certainly set the stage for Wes Craven’s and Sean Cunningham’s takeover of the horror genre in the decades to follow.
Listen as we dissect this uncomfortable classic through a modern lens. We also reflect on 9+ years of friendship and fun talking about horror movies here on 2 Guys a Chainsaw. Thank you all for your unfailing support and company all these years!
Episode 400, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Podcast
Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys in a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.
Craig: And I’m Craig.
Todd: And Craig, I’m here just as, uh, giddy as a clam right now. That sounds like something my grandmother might say, but, uh, I don’t know how else to put it. We are on episode 400, and I cannot believe we are here.
Craig: It’s impossible.
It’s not possible.
Todd: It’s just crazy to think, first of all, the time has just flown by as far as I’m concerned. Yeah. I cannot believe that almost nine years ago, you and I sat down And recorded our very first episode, which at the time we didn’t realize this was going to keep going. It was just like a, something we were going to try out, see if it goes well.
You barely even knew what a podcast was. We didn’t know each other as well as we do now. We were always acquaintances and friends. We went to college at the same school, but we didn’t really hang out together. We were in theater productions together, stuff like that. But one thing I knew about you and one thing that we definitely related on was horror movies.
And so. I was interested in starting a podcast and, uh, I thought that would be a great topic and you were the only person I could think of who might be worth a shot to sit down and chat about stupid horror movies. And it just worked, man. Like from that episode, we just had a blast. And it just gelled so well that we said, you know what, let’s just keep doing this until it stops being fun.
Craig: I know. And now here we are almost 10 years later. It’s crazy. Uh, gosh, it, it just, it comes up in my everyday life. Like people are like, Oh, you have a podcast. And I feel like such a nerd, like, yeah, doesn’t everybody, I
Todd: feel like, I feel like such a tool when I have to admit that I have a podcast that I, you know, cause like everybody wants and thinks they have a podcast, but like, at least nobody can say, Oh yeah, for the last.
Eight, nine years or so, we’re about to record episode 400 that
Craig: kind of makes
Todd: up for it
Craig: a little bit. It does. And, and, you know, of course we have, you know, regular listeners who we appreciate very much, but it’s just become, I mean, 10 years, bro. Like I know we’re not quite to 10 years yet, but 400 episodes, it’s just become a part of my life.
Like, I would feel weird not doing it.
Todd: Mm hmm. It
Craig: would, it would feel weird to me if we didn’t get together every couple weeks or every week or whatever and talk about a movie. So I’m glad we did it. We’re still getting positive feedback. I was just, you know, at dinner with virtual strangers last night.
You know, it was like a big group of people and you get sat with who you get sat with. And somehow it came up that I had a podcast and Then we had something to talk about. Thank God for that. It’s even helped your social life. I, you know, I’m, I’m being blasé, but I, I’m genuinely grateful for it. I look forward to it.
I, I love talking to you. I love hearing from people and talking to, you know, the people that have genuinely, in my opinion, become our friends on Patreon.
Todd: Yeah. That was a game changer a few years ago. And, you know, we had always kind of bet on it. We never started this with the idea of trying to make a living at it, or trying to make money, or trying to be famous.
It was, it’s literally, and still is, really, like, we still have no expectations, sadly. Right. It’s just, have fun, right? And just the idea that enough people have latched onto that and are having fun with us.
Craig: Yeah.
Todd: Just at some point, you know, people were like, how can we support you? And we’re like, God, maybe we need to put something together, because people are asking for it.
Yeah. And that’s how the Patreon came about, and thank God it did, because we have such a great little community back there. And we got patrons that we meet on a semi weekly basis on Skype because of the Christopher Pike book club, and it’s just been so much fun to have that new set of friends. Yeah. Even people that, you know, maybe pop in and out every couple years and like, Oh, it’s that, you know, it’s that person, like, uh, great to hear back from you, you know?
We still remember those conversations, the movies that we both gelled on, the comments that they made, the requests they made, and it’s just been It’s been a wild ride.
Craig: It really has been a lot of fun and just continues to be fun. And, you know, my, my not horror fan mom, you know, when we had done like 15 episodes, she’s like, aren’t you going to run out of movies to talk about?
I think she thought that there were like 30 horror movies period.
She’s so cute. But as it turns out. We keep coming up with things to do, and we keep coming up with For example, this movie that we’re doing today. Now, we did break from tradition once, right? Yes. I think 150th
Todd: was Something Wicked This Way Comes, because that was such a special movie for both of us, and we hadn’t done it yet.
Craig: Right. But the, the very first episode that we did was the people under the stairs, right? Yep. And so for each, you know, like the 50th, the 100th, we did another Wes Craven movie. And again, we have broken from tradition, but for today we decided to go back to tradition. But we’ve done so many, I was talking to my sister last night and she’s like, aren’t you guys out of Nightmare on Elm Street movies?
And we’re not. I mean, there are still several nightmare movies that we could do. God, yes. But, for this one, I surprised myself. I recommended this. Yeah. And it surprised me.
Todd: Well, the reason we chose Wes Craven was because, number one, he’s a horror icon. You know, for our first episode. Yeah. And, and number two, he had more recently passed away, I believe.
I was around 2015 when we started our podcast and so we kind of wanted to pay tribute to him as well. But we didn’t want to go obvious with like, you know, Nightmare on Elm Street. Kind of, you know, it’s been our struggle the whole time with this podcast is like, how do we do the most popular movies and be original at all, you know?
So, we both, you know, Knew that People Under the Stairs was kind of this underappreciated gem that not a lot of people knew of. But we both knew we liked that movie, and had good fond memories of it, and so we chose that. This movie is kind of the opposite, right? Like, it’s his directorial debut. And this is a movie that has been very notorious and was one that both of us did not have fond memories of just because it’s brutal and it’s violent and it has a lot, it’s, it’s a rape revenge story and we are not sex violence fans.
That turns our stomach quite a lot. And I don’t know about you, but when I first saw this movie, I actually actively avoided it for a while just because even as a kid, I was told like, this is, this is a horrible That’s just different from all the others. Like, I spit on your grave, held that same space in my head for a long time.
Right. And so I didn’t even have the courage to get up and see it until, gosh, I think, I think I was in high school. Maybe late high school, maybe early college before I started it. And sure enough, when I watched it, my recollection is it just, it bothered me. Bothered me for a long time. And you know, like, I think my track, our track record on this podcast is, like, we like to have fun, generally.
Like, we love our horror. We love all kinds of horror, but it’s more fun to just, like, see something goofy 80s horror, or something that’s really spooky or scary, something, even something like The Exorcist, you know? It’s just, it’s not real. And movies, when they start to delve into the territory of, this is just horrible people doing horrible, brutal, sadistic things to each other, that’s when Horror becomes real and maybe ceases to become.
So entertaining.
Craig: Right.
Todd: You know what I mean? And that’s harder to talk about on a podcast really. It’s challenging.
Craig: Yeah.
Todd: And But we’re up for the challenge. We’ve done it before.
Craig: Right, but I I mean if to be you know Fair and safe this movie that we’re doing the last house on the left from 1972 It is I don’t even know you mentioned.
Oh gosh. What’s the other you just mentioned it the famous rape revenge You Movie
Todd: I spit on your grave,
Craig: I spit on your grave. It’s in a similar vein and, and there is somewhat graphic sexual violence. So you and I have talked about this openly. It’s something that bothers the both of us listener. If it’s something that bothers you, maybe sit this one out because.
It is prominent, but it’s the same story. I knew about it. I’m a big fan of Wes Craven. I’m not a big fan of this type of movie. I didn’t see this or I spit on your grave until I was in graduate school and I approached them reluctantly, but this one, I’ve seen it, I’ve watched it. And I remembered it being very violent and very uncomfortable to watch.
Now, and then, that’s it. I watched it once, I’m like, I’ve seen it, that’s it. Never felt the need to see it again, but we decided to do this. So I watched it again, and I think that coming at it a second time around, I had an entirely different experience.
Todd: Yeah. Same here, by the way. I think Two things. Number one, I had certainly conflated this and I Spit on Your Grave in my mind.
Craig: They’re similar.
Todd: They’re similar, but my mind, I think, kind of pieced them together and confused the two a little bit in the sense that I think my experience with I Spit on Your Grave made me think that this movie was quite as brutal and as, as graphic. As I spit on your grave was actually it’s not honestly, I was kind of shocked same.
Yeah We will do I spit on your grave at some point. Oh boy. I don’t know
Craig: bro That one’s a rough one. That one’s really rough that but and but that’s the thing like I kind of conflate them, too but that movie is just so Uh, it’s just almost sadistic and it’s painful to watch and I knew that this This movie had graphic sexual violence, but it’s not as graphic as I remembered, frankly.
No, it’s not. It’s, it’s not nearly as scandalous as I remember it being and as I remember people talking about it. It certainly is violent and there certainly are terrible, you know, the, the antagonists, you know, are violent psychopaths. There’s no getting around that. But I was actually. I’m a little bit shocked.
This time around watching it, I remembered it being far worse than it is.
Todd: Yeah, me too. And I think number two, I think the second reason for that, for me anyway, Is the passage of time and seeing so much stuff since then. I think for its time and even for the time that I watched this movie, well certainly for its time this was uh, one of very few if any films quite like it that were willing to be as brutal and as cold and show violence to the With unabashed, sort of, you know.
The thing that Wes Craven, and that makes this movie very defensible, is that Wes Craven’s whole goal in doing this was like, I’m not going to glorify this violence. I don’t want this to look pretty. We are not going to glorify any bit of it. And in doing so, and showing it in it’s kind of it’s raw brutality, almost in a documentary style.
Which makes sense, because he and Cunningham had only done documentary films up to this point.
Craig: Sean Cunningham, like, how are we gonna talk about everything that we need to talk about? It’s at such an intersection! Yeah, here’s Wes Craven doing his thing. First movie ever. He would go on to, you know, spawn one of the greatest horror franchises of all time with a nightmare and Elm Street.
And then he’s working with Sean Cunningham who would go on to produce direct. I don’t even remember, but Friday the 13th,
Todd: he directed the first one produced it. Yep.
Craig: Yeah, it’s, it’s his baby and it’s just, it’s just wild. We talk about this before, and this is the way that things work in Hollywood. You know, people work together and.
Whatever, but it’s just, it just blows my mind that in 1972, these two guys, neither of them knowing who they would be and what their careers would be, just worked on this low budget movie together. And then they both went on to. Gosh, the impact is insane.
Todd: They were smart guys and very opportunistic. As we’ve talked before, Craven, school teacher, really wanted to be in the movie business.
Bit of a hippie, very soft spoken kind of guy. Everybody said he was just the nicest guy on the planet. Seemed to have no ego. Sean Cunningham had just gotten some money from some people to make, also wanted to get a break in the movie business, to make a movie called The Art of Marriage, which was just a sexploitation film.
You know, one that were dressed up as like an educational film, but it was really a sexploitation documentary. There were some distributors who Well, basically theater owners, you know, it was very different back then. You know, you had a lot of very regional theater owners. A lot of these theater owners would fund movies themselves to put in their own theaters, usually low budget, like the, the B picture to go with the a picture, you know, they used to do double features.
Right. So this particular set of distributors, they went by Hallmark, which is no relation to the card company. They’re theater owners out of Boston, and they needed a B picture. Well, they wanted a, a sex comedy. And so they approached John Cunningham and said, Hey, we really like The Art of Marriage. Can you do basically a remake of it that will work for us?
And so he did Together. And Wes Craven ended up as an editor. On that, because the two of them were friends. And so, the two of them got to talking, and then Hallmark came back to them and said, Hey, that was a big hit, and now we want a horror movie. Can you guys make one? And so then, Sean Cunningham came back to Craven and said, Hey, do you want to write and direct a horror movie for these guys?
And said, sure. And that’s how this started. He produced it, Craven wrote and directed it, and it’s his first time behind the camera.
Craig: It’s wild. You know, I never know what to believe about the stuff that I read about these movies that we watch. But I did read that at one point this was supposed to be a hardcore porn movie.
Todd: Yeah. They were all in on it. Yeah, they were all gonna do it. The cast crew, everybody was ready. What a different time though, right? Like, this is like, oh my god. Half of these low budget sexploitation films, especially the porn industry, was all getting funded by the mafia at this time. I mean, porn was kinda breaking into mainstream.
Mainstream, right, right. A lot of that experimentation now. Everybody who’s got a brain is thinking, oh, I’m gonna make an intelligent porn movie, or I’m gonna make a hardcore horror movie, or something like that. I mean, they’re going in all these wild directions.
Craig: Yeah, one of the guys, one of the main guys in this movie, Fred Lincoln, was A porn star.
And he’s good in this movie.
Todd: More of a director and producer than a star. He was in some of his porn movies. Not often as a doing sex. But, uh, definitely. Yeah,
Craig: I wasn’t familiar with his work. But in, you know, For the sake of research.
Todd: You do go long. Laughter. You know, I I took a look.
Craig: And, uh, to be, you know, I I’m not lying, I really did.
Todd: Were you impressed?
Craig: Uh, I I I honestly was, because the only, you know, I I looked at one picture. God, this sounds so gross. I looked at one movie that he had made and it was, it was a hardcore porn movie, but like it had a story like he acted in it. Like it, it, it wasn’t just f g right.
I mean, there was that too,
Todd: but I, I read he didn’t actually do much of that. I mean, he had acted in a lot of them and without, you know, having sex in any of them or even getting naked. But I mean, dude, he directed 350. They’re all porn.
Craig: Wow.
Todd: 350.
Craig: That’s wild. God, that’s so crazy. You know, we talk about, okay, so Wes Craven and Sean Cunningham, and then this guy who, you know, is like big in the porn industry and then the main villain of the movie.
Krug, this, good God, you know, Wes Craven’s first movie, his, his, his villain is named Krug, obviously Nightmare on Elm Street, Kruger, obviously connection, but the, the guy, David Hess, who plays him also lots of credits for acting, but he’s also musician who wrote a lot of Elvis’s hits. Like I’m researching this, I’m like, what is happening?
Todd: It’s crazy, right? Weird talk. We talked about him once before. I can’t remember what movie he was in, but we did talk about him once. I’m gonna have to go back and remember which one it was. I don’t
Craig: know. But he’s a professional musician, like, seriously, like, he wrote, he wrote some of Elvis biggest hits.
Todd: It’s nuts.
Craig: And he sings on multiple songs, not like he sings on screen. He’s, he’s actually a very good villain, very scary in this movie. But one of the things, and we’re going to have to start talking about the movie at some point, but one of the things that blows me away about this movie is that it feels very I would say early 80s.
I mean, this is 72, but I feel like this is giving like Friday the 13th one type of vibes with how
Todd: it feels. I don’t know, man. I feel it’s more 70s grind house. I mean, I think I know what you’re talking about, but to me it’s more like fast cars, loose women, biker gangs, sleazy, gritty documentary style filmmaking that was really big in the 70s.
The acting is fine. It’s good. It’s not bad. I thought it was good. The only thing I would say is stupid and bad about this movie are the two cops, one of whom is Marta Kove.
Craig: It took me like 20 minutes into the movie, I’m like, I know that guy. And then I had to look at him, like, are you kidding? Like, and it’s so obviously him.
He’s the, the bad guy. Dojo owner from Karate Kid still working. He’s Kreese. Yeah, John Kreese. He’s still playing that role on Cobra Kai, which I’ve never watched. Have you, have you watched that?
Todd: Oh god, I’m, I’m all caught up. They saw they just released a new season. I can’t wait to get to it. It’s one of my favorite things on television.
It is just, I have heard such good
Craig: things about it.
Todd: Dude, you’re an 80s nostalgia nerd. I mean you grew up loving Karate Kid, right? Oh, absolutely. You will go over the moon. They just, they strike the, in my opinion, Karate Kid. They strike the perfect balance of serving up the nostalgia, but having a fun, compelling story, but also not taking it too seriously, but still seriously enough that it’s not a big joke.
It’s just. This great mix and it’s got great action sequences. The karate sequences in the, in that movie, some of them you’ll are just draw dropping. It’s so much fun.
Craig: I’ve really only heard good things. I’ve never heard anything bad about it. So yeah, so he’s in it. He plays this dumb cop and yes, those parts are dumb.
What was interesting to me is like, this is a violent abduction rape movie and it’s terrible. Like it’s such a terrible. These young girls. Get themselves into a very bad situation, and it turns out horribly. But it’s so weird, because it is shot and scored like a goofball comedy.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: All of the music in the background is like ba ba
Todd: ba ba ba ba ba ba
Clip: ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba Like,
Craig: it’s just this silly, goofy That’s what blew me away with this was like, you would think based on those cop scenes, especially, and the music in the background, you would think that you were watching the Dukes of Hazzard or something. Like, I don’t even know.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: It was jarring. From
Todd: what I understand, reading interviews with Wes Craven, he did intend for it to intentionally be jarring.
They took great pains to make sure that the music was totally incongruous with what was happening on the screen. So, when there is some serious, horrible stuff happening on the screen, the music is almost wacky. And then when it doesn’t matter, it gets kind of folksy, and like you said, when the cop scenes come in, it’s just goofball.
Like, it’s almost like a whole different movie when the cop scenes come in. And they’re cut and juxtaposed deliberately against some of the most horrifying things happening. Suddenly, it’s like, cutaway, hey, here are the zany cops who are just one step behind everything that’s going on because they trip all over each other.
For like the
Craig: last half of the movie, they’re just walking on the street because they ran out of gas. Like, no shit. For like the last hour of the movie, they’re just walking down the road. It’s ridiculous.
Todd: I have to say, I think it works against the movie, honestly.
Craig: It does.
Todd: It’s not Have you seen
Craig: the remake?
There was a remake in 2009, have you seen it? No. God, no. It’s okay!
Todd: Yeah, I know the It’s not Full participation of Craven and Cunningham in that one. They got the rights back and so they, they were the ones who initiated it. So I’m sure it’s good enough, yeah?
Craig: It’s not bad at all. The dad, I don’t have it up in front of me.
So it focuses more on the parents. My goodness, we’ve got to start talking about this movie, but the, the remake focuses a little bit more on the parents and the dad is played. I’m not going to be able to come up with his name, but the bad guy in ghost, Patrick Swayze, whoopie Goldberg ghost, you know, the guy that was Patrick Swayze’s friend and double crossed him.
Oh yeah. And, and that guy’s good. And that guy’s good in everything. And, and he’s good in that movie, but the, the remake, it takes itself more seriously. I wouldn’t say it’s darker because this movie is certainly dark, but the characters feel a little bit more real, especially Junior,
Todd: or
Craig: Willow. Willow slash
Todd: Junior.
Craig: They kind of build him in the remake as a more sympathetic character. Like, I feel like Craven and. They were suggesting that here, but he was like, Everybody’s so over the top that it’s difficult. Anyway, I was talking about the remake. It’s fine. Let’s talk about this movie!
Todd: You were gonna say it’s difficult to take seriously, weren’t you?
Yeah. I know what you mean. The way that the movie is shot is sleazy. The reason for it is that they were documentary filmmakers before this and Craven was like, I don’t really know what I, I don’t, he had a vision. Everybody said on the set, like the whole production was very rushed and it was not comfortable for everybody involved and they were constantly getting kicked out of locations because they didn’t have permits or whatever.
And over half the movie was shot basically like on Sean Cunningham’s parents property, like in their house and like in their backyard and down the street and stuff in Connecticut. And it
Craig: looks like it.
Todd: Yeah, and it did, but Craven said that, look, he said I figured we will just approach this like a documentary and we’ll just do long takes from a couple different angles, and then I’ll be able to edit it all together.
But he said the result was like Not all that stuff can edit together. Like, you know, when you don’t plan it out like that, and you’re just doing that, like the shots don’t always match up and you can’t necessarily do the good edits. And that adds a little bit, I think, to the amateurish feeling of the movie, but then also it adds to the realism of the movie because it does end up with this sort of documentary cameras are in their movie.
Not unlike Cannibal Holocaust was.
Craig: Right. It feels voyeuristic.
Todd: Mm hmm.
Craig: You feel like you were. It’s difficult to explain, I guess. I mean, it’s not a difficult concept, but it doesn’t look cinematic like a movie. It looks like you are there watching it, or you’re there behind the camera.
Todd: Yeah. Filming the whole thing.
Craig: Yeah.
Todd: That feel of the film, coupled with, again, we see a lot of stuff from this era that’s very amateur and it just feels amateur, and again, it’s kind of in that vein cinematically, so you can’t completely, like, lose that, that veneer. And then, like you said, a couple of the characters are so over the top that you’re kind of, it does also take you out of it just a little bit.
But somehow the movie overcomes that emotionally, I think, ultimately. I don’t, wouldn’t say that it holds up today to the same degree that it did back then, or even when I watched it, you know, like a decade or two later, but I think it’s still there.
Craig: I don’t know if i’m just romanticizing West Craven, but watching this.
Again yesterday. I’m like it was over and I’m like that was a good movie.
Todd: Yeah
Craig: It’s terrible the events of the movie in case we never get to them. Are these two teenage girls?
Todd: 17 just once just turned 17
Craig: Right are they’re gonna go to a concert and they want to get some weed and they meet a guy on the street and it Just turns out this guy happens to be part of this murderous group of people and so these girls are abducted by them.
The thing that is most horrifying to me, and I think that this is absolutely genius, is that all of this happens on the main protagonist slash victims doorstep.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: That is what is most horrifying to me. Like they get abducted by these people and these terrible villainous, violent people, their car happens to break down.
And so they get the girls out of the car and the main girl, Mary, Looks up and literally is looking at her mailbox like they were at her house
Todd: Yeah,
Craig: and that to me is the most horrifying thing that something so brutal and violent and horrible Could happen to you. Yeah, just within arms arms reach of your sanctuary of the place where you’re safest Her parents are home.
They’re worried about her. Yeah She is being brutalized a couple of hundred yards from her house that that blows me away.
Todd: Well, it’s it’s classic Craven It’s like he’s setting up the themes for the rest of his career like it or not, right? He’s always bringing the horror into suburbia, into the places where you feel like you’re safe.
You know, that’s all of Nightmare on Elm Street is like that, you know, um, The movie that he does after this, The Hills Have Eyes, is kind of similar. It’s like the city people, you know, the comfortable suburban city people going on a trip that are in a A place suddenly where they’re, you know, that is foreign to them, and they’re out of their element.
Even though they don’t feel like they should be. And then horrible, terrible things happen to them. And it’s also a classic teenager setup. I mean, my life was like this, you know? Hey mom, dad, we’re gonna go see the Aerosmith concert in the big city. Right. We’re gonna drive to Kansas City with a car full of our friends.
We’re gonna go, don’t worry, we’ll be home late, but we will be home. But the reality is, if we got into the wrong neighborhood in Kansas City, and we needed gas or something like that, we were sitting ducks. We were not street smart. Sure. We didn’t know what was going on. And it’s kind of what happens here.
You know, this girl’s got these lovely parents, or it’s just been her birthday. They clearly want to have like a family birthday thing together, just the three of them, you know, when she gets home. God. They’re decorating for it. Mom’s baking a cake.
Craig: That is so That’s crazy too, because again, you know, I, I don’t know much about the process, but Wes Craven’s the director.
I assume that he had something to do with the editing as well, but the way that I’ve already talked about the music just doesn’t make sense tonally. It’s, it’s crazy. But then also you will jump from these brutally violent scenes where these girls. are being beaten and raped. And then it will just jump back to the parents, like so happy, like making a birthday cake and, and decorating the room.
Clip: Oh, John, I should have bought one at the bakery. They have such pretty ones there. It’s truly remarkable. I want to attack you.
Craig: And it’s. Jarring. That’s why I say that I think that it’s a good movie. It’s weird.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: Knowing that this is his first movie, I just look at it and, and think, I see your early days.
Genius. Yes, this is not perfect and you will get better, but you are doing things that are shocking me and surprising me.
Todd: And it’s not just shocking and different and surprising, but it’s a little unsettling. Yes, absolutely. I think it speaks to a deeper fear in all of us. You’re old enough like me, that you’ve probably been in a situation where something terrible happened, right?
Or you heard of something to, to, to somebody you know, or somebody you love and you’re thinking, God. And while that was going on, like, I was just at home having the best time of my life watching TV with somebody. Yep. Yep. That’s life. That’s what happens, you know? And here he’s throwing it right at you.
These poor parents are blissfully unaware in their excitement and their giddiness of getting ready for their daughter and goofing off and playing around and flirting and stuff like that, that in the meantime their daughter is being horribly brutalized. Right on their, in their backyard, essentially.
Absolutely. You know, there’s nothing that scares us more than that. You know, we all want to feel like we’re away from it. Like evil and badness is something that we can stay away from and remain blissfully ignorant of. But please don’t remind us of our ignorance. You know? But he does. And these kids, they’re out of their league, they’re out of their element.
The older girl that she meets up with, Eileen, is portrayed by her parents, like they have a little discussion about her before she takes off. I don’t know about Eileen, you know, I’ve never met her before. No, it’s
Craig: Phyllis, isn’t it? Phyllis, Phyllis, you’re right, Phyllis.
Todd: She’s more of a city girl. She’s a little more street smart.
Craig: Yeah. God, Todd, I feel like we could talk about this all day. I could talk about it all day with you. I don’t, I don’t even know where to begin because I like, I’ve already set up what happens. These girls get abducted, but I liked Phyllis. Phyllis seemed. And I guess that we’re just supposed to believe that because she’s from the rougher side of town, like she’s just more enabled to deal with this situation, I guess.
I don’t know. And that’s fine, and she is, and then the other girl, Mary, is so privileged and not equipped for this, that she basically just breaks, like, from the get out. Um, and Phyllis has to kind of take care of her, and I just thought, there were such interesting dynamics, and then when you read, about the making of the movie and you read that that dynamic with those two actresses.
was really kind of real. Like, the actress who played Mary was terribly, terribly uncomfortable with all of it. With the violence and the sexual violence. Multiple people have, who worked on the movie have said in interviews, you see that horror on her face. It’s real. She was terribly uncomfortable. And the other girl who played Phyllis, Okay, so the girl who played Mary, Sandra Peabody, and the pornstar guy who we’ve already talked about it, condemn this movie.
Like they won’t even talk about it in interviews. Well they,
Todd: they, they do now. I found an interview on YouTube, yeah, where, where the, the guy, Fred Lincoln, was interviewed and talking quite extensively about it. He seems to be more comfortable. Sandra Peabody, she’s said some things, but she does not want to be on camera about it, and you’re right.
I still think she feels like. Well, her feelings have appraised, I think, in the passage of time. But when she first went to see this with her mother at the cinema, she was so horrified by the final product, it was just like a cast screening that she stormed out. She didn’t want to have anything to do with it.
I think now she recognizes that it was kind of important, and that it was, uh, She’s maybe a little more proud of participating in it, and she, you know, the benefit of time, you can look back and forgive a lot of things. But apparently, she was not treated very well by David Hess, because he was very method.
And, and she studied under Meisner. She was a very serious actress, I mean, this woman She was young! She’s a child. Yeah, but like, she’d been acting since she was a child. She was in plays, she was in soap operas, TV commercials. She had won awards by this point. And she had done a couple of these low budget exploitation films and things like that.
She wasn’t just like green person picked off the street who was out of her element. She just, her, her way of acting just did not gel with them. In fact, it sounds like. She wasn’t always able to deliver what they wanted, despite her being terrified. And so part of the cast took it upon themselves to terrify her a little bit to get her to Yeah, I don’t like
Craig: that.
Todd: I don’t like that at all either. I think that’s just uncalled for, really, but Yeah, it’s a job. Apparently Craven was was consoling her the whole time and uh, and quite nice to her on the set the whole time
Craig: Well, that’s not difficult to believe because he seemed like a very soft Kind man, but but I read things too I read that one of the actors the guy who plays jr.
They were shooting a scene And he didn’t feel like, and maybe Craven, I don’t know, but the other actor didn’t feel like she was giving it her all. And so, he physically threatened her, like he held her over a cliff and said, If you don’t Get this. I’m gonna throw you off this clip. Like, that’s not cool.
Todd: No.
I’m not a fan of terrorizing actors to get to
Craig: Yeah, I understand that actors take their jobs very seriously. And I also know the frustration of working with somebody and you just feel like it’s not working. And you feel like you’re doing everything you can do and maybe you feel like they’re not. But that’s not, God, it’s just so wild.
Like it’s just that, that, that, that happened. And we’ve talked about a lot of movies, a lot of movies that were made, you know, decades ago where people could get away with things. That they would never get away with today, but that’s just kind of blew my mind. Huh, I don’t know. What do we want to talk about?
Okay, so I feel so bad for these girls like they were just first of all to think about how young they are You know, this girl is on the verge of her 17th birthday, and they’re abducted by these Sex criminals, who, who we hear on the radio, recently escaped. And we hear on the radio and TV like, uh, yeah, these sex criminals escaped and, uh, and, and they’re just trying to buy some weed for the concert.
Like, it’s not like these are, you know, they didn’t do anything bad.
Todd: That’s one of the unsettling things of it is just how quickly and easily they get into trouble. And it, it’s totally. You know, you just talked to the wrong guy in the street and he’s like, Oh yeah, come inside. I’ll get you some weed. And then they close the door behind them, lock it.
It’s horrifying
Craig: because this is the kind of scenario that could happen. Things that could happen in real life are, are very scary. Basically, they’re abducted and, and the plot of the story, folks. Is that they are abducted, they take them on the road, they happen to break down right in front of this one girl’s house.
And then they sexually and physically torture them in the woods, in basically Mary’s backyard. Yeah. Phyllis gets away for a while. Oh god, that part of the movie made me so angry because there’s no reason why she couldn’t have gotten away. And the fact that she, they eventually caught her and murdered her brutally, and then they brutally rape Mary and she tries to run away and they kill her too.
That’s another difference betwe between the original and the sequel. And the remake, Mary, I don’t remember if that’s they use, but that character is brutalized horribly, I would argue more horribly than the actress in this movie, but she doesn’t die. There’s a part in this movie. Movie where the parents suspect that something weird is going on and they run outside to find their daughter Dead in the remake.
She’s not dead. She’s alive and they bring her back But other than that, it’s very much the same then the parents decide that they are going to take revenge on the Killers and they do and it’s weird.
Todd: Yeah We,
Craig: we’ve got about 15 to 20 minutes.
Todd: Well, you gave the summary so we can now just start talking about individual bits. I mean, I’d be curious, where did you see this? Did you see it on a streaming service or uh
Craig: huh? Yeah a free streaming service that I don’t use regularly that’s out there It’s crackle C r a c k l e free lots of ads So this hour and 20 minute movie took me about two hours to watch because lots of ads It’s out there.
Todd: There are apparently a million cuts of this movie out there, like, you never know what you’re gonna find, what’s gonna be in it, what’s not, because even when it was being put out to theaters, and this is also a different era, right? It’s just so hard to believe, like, angry projectionists and theater owners would cut bits out that they didn’t like.
And so every time they’d get a print returned, there would be pieces and bits of it missing. And at one time Craven said they had a whole little studio set up to take all these return prints and go through them and try to piece together whole films from the bits that they got back. That was how strong the reaction was to this movie.
And yet, at the same time, Roger Ebert gave this almost a full four stars and a thumbs up. And he gets very critical, usually, of these types of films, but, you know, he saw something in this. There was, uh, at least one case of a theater chain that was, you know, parents and people were demanding that they stop showing this movie.
And they stood up to defend it. And they said, look, we think this is more than just an exploitation movie cash grab. We think this movie has a message. We think that it speaks to things that are actual dangers and horrors that teenage girls face in their lives. It’s a cautionary tale in a way. And they also said nothing about the violence on the screen is glorified.
Everything is very real. And presented appropriately, they said. And for that reason, we’re gonna keep showing it. And that’s a pretty bold stance to make. So, I’m curious because there’s so many different cuts of this movie. It seems, I went online and I found a documentary. I also found a whole bunch of Found footage that they found kind of in the early 2000s that they thought was lost None of it terribly significant.
Some of it was just lengthenings of different scenes and maybe just a little bit more But as far as like adding more explicitness to it, not really but one thing that it was different from the original cut that they put together and what kind of ended up going out to theaters. And some people apparently, some cuts of this exist, where when they parents find Mary, she’s not quite dead yet.
And so she’s able to tell them without a doubt, this is what happened to me and these were the people and in her dying breath. And I noticed a little hint of that in the cut that I had, like when they found Mary just sort of jarringly by the side of the river that she had been. that she had walked into.
I could see her move a little bit and I saw her mouth start to move as they looked at her. Then immediately it cuts to a different like angle on the shot and her mother says, what can we do to save her? And he, and the father says, oh no, she’s already dead. And I was like, oh, I thought we were getting a last gasp something from Mary.
And then when I went back into the trivia, I saw that no, actually cuts do exist that have that in there. So I thought that was, that was kind of interesting. I wasn’t sure if you saw that little That little bit in your cut or not?
Craig: No, when the parents find her, which, gosh, it’s so crazy. So what happens is they brutalize these girls, and they ki Phyllis almost gets away, but they catch her and they stab her to death, and it’s very violent and terrible.
At some point, Krug rapes Mary violently, and it is a very upsetting scene. It’s very upsetting. It wasn’t as graphic as I remembered and it wasn’t as graphic as I expected.
Todd: Yes. I remembered this lasting longer and being more graphic and it was neither. It honestly, I don’t even know if it, if it’s a minute long.
Craig: It’s very brief. It’s obvious. What is happening, but there’s not a lot of like explicit nudity or yeah, it’s, it’s terrible. I mean, sexual violence is just terrible and I just hate it. And I, I really don’t, I don’t seek out movies that I know are going to be about that. But when I go into a movie like this and I know that it’s coming, like if I’m prepared, I’m better, you know, like if I know it’s coming, if I’m prepared.
I’m prepared to deal with it. If it takes me by surprise, I, it just might. me, but it’s, uh, it’s not as graphic as I expected, but considering the fact that this young woman is supposed to be 17, barely 17 years old, it’s an absolute nightmare. And then when she walks away from it, which is also. I mean, just, it’s just disgusting and it’s, it’s, it’s so hard to think about.
Like she’s just been brutalized and all that she can do is just pull up her pants and walk away and she just walks into the lake and then they shoot her. So, I, I suppose we’re to assume that she’s dead. Well, then, they all get cleaned up. This terrible group of psychopaths get cleaned up. And, go to her parents house.
Where, this is where things start to get a little goofy for me. Because I just think that times are very different now. Like, this would never happen. Like, if a group of weirdos, Show up at my door. I’m not gonna be like sure come in. You can stay the night. I’ll make dinner like Fuck off No Bye
Todd: Kind of imagine that because it does just cut to them in the house You guys you kind of have to imagine that some sort of good psychological manipulation happened in the meantime
Craig: They clean up they put on like a Shirts and ties and stuff.
Yeah, and the girl there’s one girl in this group of psychopaths Oh my god, Todd. I swear to God we could talk about this all day. But the one girl Sadie She’s such an interesting character because she seems like a psychopath But then there’s one point in the movie where Phyllis is Almost gets away, but Sadie catches up to her and Sadie takes her down and says to her, I’ll help you, I’ll get you out of this, but Phyllis, I mean, of course she’s in self defense mode.
I would do the exact same thing like stabs Sadie or something. Did you think in that moment that Sadie was genuine? Like, I really thought in that moment, That, that woman, that girl, who has fallen into this terrible group of men, I really thought in that moment she would have helped Phyllis and Mary get out.
I think so.
Todd: That’s debatable. Maybe. I sort of felt like Junior was on the edge of helping as well. I mean, he was always kind of cast as the one who was a little more uncomfortable with everything and he’s more interested in getting his fix than anything else and these guys are such assholes even to each other.
That they’re just like, they don’t even give a shit. Like this guy’s going through withdrawal and he’s like getting a little more and more like, I
Craig: didn’t care for that. I didn’t care for that whole plot line. Like it just seemed really silly.
Todd: Yeah. I mean, it felt obligatory. Like it’s kind of, I spit on your grave has a little bit of a character kind of like this too, but toward the end, he’s the one who kind of betrays them and, and almost does them in.
Craig: If I remember correctly, I spit on your grave has a character who is literally. Yes. Yes. Intellectually challenged. He’s
Todd: sort of the junior equivalent in a way. I think as far as the plot goes, you know.
Craig: Yeah. This kid, I mean, you kind of feel bad for him, like he’s supposed to be. to be Krug’s son, which I don’t know.
This adult man is not this other young man’s son. I don’t believe that. Right. But he just, he just seems dumb. I understood Mary’s. Motivation when she was trying to endear herself to him, you know, she’s she’s trying to get herself out of this But
Todd: it’s not very sophisticated. It’s not real forested. It
Craig: does
Clip: Shut up, huh?
Junior. Junior. Is that your real name? I gotta give you another name. I’m gonna give you another name. I’m gonna call you willow
Todd: Willow
Clip: willow Because you’re kind of beautiful and you shake when the wind blows Cool some wind. Don’t leave me
Todd: alone
Clip: Willow do you have a girlfriend? I got lots of girlfriends just waiting to get me.
I don’t think you do. Well, you are right. I wanna give you something. I don’t want that. It’s worth a lot. I don’t want see. I wanna be your friend. Oh, you wanna get free? I wanna be your friend. I wanna be your friend. I can get you a fix.
Todd: It’s a silly plot device to get her her necklace around his neck.
Craig: Exactly. And not to mention the whole forced plot device of the cops. That part is so stupid. I, I just, God, I don’t even know what to say about it, but eventually, so the, the parents take them in junior, the kid that you were just talking about is going through withdrawal apparently. And so he’s barfing.
And so the mom who is the most hospitable person in the world is checking on him and she sees. Mary’s necklace. They had given her an early birthday present. A peace sign. It was just a, a peace sign necklace. So generic, like, Oh my God, a peace sign necklace. It must be hers. But they figure it out and then they run down to the lake and they find Mary dead.
And then they decide to exact their revenge. Now, this is where it got to me more like I Spit on Your Grave. Yeah. Where it becomes like rape revenge. What shocked me was that these parents were more motivated by revenge. Like that was the emotion that motivated them. Like they, the fact that they’re. Child had just been brutalized and murdered.
To me, I would think that despair and sadness would be your primary emotion, but they’re immediately motivated by revenge. And, and they immediately go into like,
Todd: Cold calculating mode really like a very business like and that just didn’t ring as true It felt it felt a little sloppy
Craig: it did and he the dad Sets up home alone booby traps in the house, which I totally forgot about.
I didn’t remember that at all Me neither something else and and maybe this is just a thing With rape revenge movies of the 70s, but something that always Always me is that in their pursuit of revenge, women sexually gratify men. And that bothers me. It bothers me. Like I understand what the mother’s purpose was.
I get what she’s doing, but she blows that guy. To the point that he’s about ready to come.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: Before she bites his dick off. Yeah. Like just bite it off. I Don’t like that. I don’t like that. I don’t like it I feel like something very similar happens and I spit on your grave. It does. The woman who has been violently Brutalized gratifies one of her attackers before she castrates before yeah, right I don’t like it.
Yeah, I don’t like it in the remake The parents also take their revenge this again Is it just as bad it seems like they made an attempt to ground it more in reality And so there’s not that like the, the mom is certainly not blowing any of these guys that raped and killed her daughter. Certainly not.
It’s not a bad movie. It really isn’t. Like if you haven’t seen the remake and you want to, Watch it, it’s fine, it’s a fine movie.
Todd: I mean, I was just gonna presuppose, like, I’m sure that it has a cinematic quality to it.
Craig: Absolutely.
Todd: That takes away from the feeling you get, you know, this movie, I think it’s amateurishness.
At some points, like you said, like we’ve discussed, it Works against it. It makes the movie rather silly in points. It doesn’t always dull the violence But also in some ways it kind of elevates the film. It’s almost like a happy accident, really. Although I do feel like Wes Craven did know what he was doing.
Craig: I think that he was a very, very talented filmmaker and This is his first thing ever and I swear to God, I can’t even really tell you why. I mean, I don’t know. Okay, so the parents kill the bad guys and the cops who have been walking to their house for the last 45 minutes finally show up to witness them killing the bad guys.
It’s dumb. But when it was over, I don’t even know if it was worth it. How to explain it, but when it was over, I’m like, that was a good movie. Yeah.
Todd:
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