# Weirdhouse Cinema: The Monster Club

An episode of [Stuff To Blow Your Mind](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/350359306), 30 Oct 2026, 1 h 20 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/6ea152c0-9e3a-45de-8672-ae2f0056b113/31fad446-172b-4c98-8a97-b4f201549fe0/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=d8936746-9e22-4dba-b762-ae2f0056b126

In this episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe discuss the ghoulishly hip 1981 horror comedy anthology “The Monster Club,” directed by Roy Ward Baker and starring Vincent Price, John Carradine and Donald Pleasence. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
[0:13] Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
[0:16] Speaker 3: And this is Joe McCormick.
[0:18] Speaker 2: Each October for Weird House, we bust out a lot
[0:21] Speaker 2: of different sorts of horror films here on the show.
[0:24] Speaker 2: And I think we generally pick at least one film
[0:27] Speaker 2: that feels a bit like a Halloween party. You know,
[0:30] Speaker 2: something that leans a little more into horror wackiness, maybe
[0:34] Speaker 2: horror comedy. And I think we have a really good
[0:38] Speaker 2: selection for this category of Weird House October offerings for
[0:42] Speaker 2: you here today. It is 1981's The Monster Club. Not
[0:46] Speaker 2: to be confused with Monster Party, Mad Monster Party, or,
[0:49] Speaker 2: you know, any other derivative thereof. This is 1981's The
[0:53] Speaker 2: Monster Club. And I think it's pretty special.
[0:57] Speaker 3: What was the... game for the original NES where you
[1:02] Speaker 3: went around with a baseball bat whacking monsters. Was that
[1:05] Speaker 3: called Monster Party?
[1:06] Speaker 2: That might have been.
[1:07] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:09] Speaker 2: This is one of those titles that suggests various other things,
[1:12] Speaker 2: including the Monster Squad. But the Monster Club refers to
[1:17] Speaker 2: a particular... We're supposed to be in London when we
[1:20] Speaker 2: get into the plot here. Is this London? Or is this...
[1:22] Speaker 2: Where are we in this film?
[1:25] Speaker 3: I think it's supposed to be London, especially because a
[1:29] Speaker 3: lot of the anthologies are set in, or I think
[1:31] Speaker 3: all of the anthology segments are set in England or
[1:34] Speaker 3: around London. But the framing narrative, yeah, good question. There
[1:40] Speaker 3: is an exterior shot on what's supposed to be a
[1:43] Speaker 3: street with storefronts that the movie opens with. And I
[1:48] Speaker 3: think that is supposed to look like a London street.
[1:51] Speaker 3: Though none of the characters really have British accents, do they?
[1:55] Speaker 2: No, no, they do not.
[1:57] Speaker 3: So they go to maybe it's like they go to
[1:59] Speaker 3: a monster club, but maybe it's like an American expat
[2:02] Speaker 3: monster club.
[2:03] Speaker 2: Maybe so. Maybe so. Or a mix, you know, maybe
[2:06] Speaker 2: monsters under themselves are just an international group, you know,
[2:09] Speaker 2: and it's a global club. They just have chapters in
[2:13] Speaker 2: different cities. Uh, we'll, we'll get more into what all
[2:17] Speaker 2: of this means and fails to mean as we proceed.
[2:19] Speaker 2: But this is a, I think this is a good
[2:21] Speaker 2: selection because this is a film that sets out to
[2:23] Speaker 2: be several different things at once. And we can discuss
[2:27] Speaker 2: to what degree it succeeds or fails. But, uh, first
[2:30] Speaker 2: of all, it is a horror anthology film featuring three
[2:33] Speaker 2: adaptations of horror fiction, uh, from the writings of British
[2:37] Speaker 2: horror author, Ronald Chetland Hayes, um, And in fact, it's
[2:42] Speaker 2: actually based on a collection of the same name, The
[2:47] Speaker 2: Monster Club, which actually features more than three tales, but
[2:50] Speaker 2: they adapt three of them for this. And also, while
[2:54] Speaker 2: it's not an amicus and it's not a Hammer picture,
[2:57] Speaker 2: it has various connections to those rival 60s and 70s
[3:00] Speaker 2: British film studios, including in its director, Roy Ward Baker,
[3:05] Speaker 2: who directed notable films for both.
[3:08] Speaker 3: Uh, but let's see, did he do, did he do
[3:10] Speaker 3: the train movie we watched?
[3:12] Speaker 2: Uh, no, I don't believe he did. He did, um,
[3:15] Speaker 2: Quatermas in the Pit. Okay. Yeah.
[3:17] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[3:18] Speaker 2: Uh, but, you know, solid director, you know, this was,
[3:21] Speaker 2: I believe his last feature film. Um, but yeah, he
[3:25] Speaker 2: had worked for both amicus and horror. And, uh, also
[3:29] Speaker 2: I would say that the tales in particular, uh, as
[3:31] Speaker 2: they're told, they have much of that atmospheric Brit horror vibe, uh,
[3:35] Speaker 2: particularly of the 1970s.
[3:36] Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
[3:38] Speaker 2: But in its framing narrative, the Monster Party is indeed
[3:41] Speaker 2: a goofy Halloween gathering that features just a weird mismatch
[3:46] Speaker 2: of classic horror actors, full musical performances by a handful
[3:51] Speaker 2: of up-and-coming bands and also bands who were maybe just
[3:55] Speaker 2: keeping it even keel or would shortly vanish.
[3:58] Speaker 3: Up-and-going bands.
[3:59] Speaker 2: Up-and-going. Going somewhere. We're not going to say what direction.
[4:03] Speaker 2: And also what feels... It feels like at the time
[4:06] Speaker 2: a desperate and cheap attempt to grab younger viewers to say, hello,
[4:10] Speaker 2: fellow kids. Yeah. Won't you join the monster party at
[4:14] Speaker 2: the monster club with us?
[4:15] Speaker 3: One of the weirdest things about this movie is the
[4:18] Speaker 3: time warp sensation that it creates where one moment or
[4:23] Speaker 3: exchange and it feels like something from I'd say the
[4:27] Speaker 3: mid 60s with like the comedy sensibilities of Bobby Boris
[4:32] Speaker 3: Pickett or the Adam West Batman show. And then you
[4:36] Speaker 3: will cut immediately from that kind of joke or shot
[4:39] Speaker 3: or moment to a nightclub with a guy playing keytar
[4:43] Speaker 3: and people in neon spandex or like black leather. And
[4:47] Speaker 3: it's obviously the 80s. So the movie is at the
[4:50] Speaker 3: same time pre-Woodstock 60s and post-disco 80s. Yeah. Yeah.
[4:56] Speaker 2: And it's for anyone out there who's like, I really
[4:58] Speaker 2: like horror anthology films, but I wish they used more
[5:03] Speaker 2: British white guy reggae. Well, this is the film for you.
[5:06] Speaker 2: You have found it. Look no further. Yeah. Yeah.
[5:11] Speaker 3: The musical performances are an especially strange choice in this
[5:15] Speaker 3: movie because you get full songs. Like you watch a
[5:18] Speaker 3: band do a whole song and you can tell they're
[5:21] Speaker 3: just trying to, it feels like it was shot by
[5:24] Speaker 3: people who are not used to doing concert footage or
[5:28] Speaker 3: music videos or anything like that. Because you can see
[5:31] Speaker 3: them just kind of desperately making cinematography choices to try
[5:35] Speaker 3: to make the musical performances more interesting. In one case,
[5:38] Speaker 3: just zooming in and out on the singer like a
[5:41] Speaker 3: hundred times.
[5:42] Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. It is a lot to take in at times,
[5:47] Speaker 2: for sure. But, you know, never boring, I will say,
[5:51] Speaker 2: The Monster Club. And that's true. It doesn't matter how
[5:56] Speaker 2: you're enjoying the film. If you put it on in
[5:57] Speaker 2: the background, this is going to entertain you. But if
[6:00] Speaker 2: you sit down and have a devoted couple of viewings
[6:02] Speaker 2: like we did, I think it's still richly rewarding. So
[6:06] Speaker 2: I think it's a gas, as they say.
[6:08] Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't think this is one of the best
[6:11] Speaker 3: Halloween season movies we've covered, but I'd say throw this
[6:15] Speaker 3: on with some friends and you'll have a good time.
[6:18] Speaker 2: All right. Well, my elevator pitch is your two oldest
[6:21] Speaker 2: horror grandpas are sharing spooky stories and dancing to UB40.
[6:25] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[6:26] Speaker 2: That's pretty much the vibe of the whole picture.
[6:28] Speaker 3: And it really literally ends with Vincent Price and John
[6:32] Speaker 3: Carradine dancing in a club.
[6:34] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. So I believe a UB for, well, at
[6:37] Speaker 2: that point it may be one of the other songs,
[6:38] Speaker 2: but there is definite UB 40 of a needle drop
[6:43] Speaker 2: used in this picture.
[6:44] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[6:45] Speaker 2: All right.
[6:46] Speaker 3: If, if at this.
[6:46] Speaker 2: Point you're, you're tantalized and you want to experience this
[6:49] Speaker 2: film for yourself, well, it's widely available. Including, as of
[6:53] Speaker 2: this recording, streaming in full on YouTube via Shout Factory.
[6:57] Speaker 2: So not like some sort of, you know, suspicious upload,
[7:00] Speaker 2: but presumably completely on the level via Shout Factory. There
[7:05] Speaker 2: was also a Scorpion releasing Blu-ray. And I had to
[7:09] Speaker 2: watch this one on an airplane, so I did a
[7:11] Speaker 2: digital rental. So that's also possible as well.
[7:14] Speaker 3: How was it on the airplane? Good airplane movie?
[7:16] Speaker 2: This is a solid A-plus airplane movie. In part because
[7:20] Speaker 2: there's really nothing at all that makes you wonder what
[7:24] Speaker 2: the people behind you are going to think of your
[7:26] Speaker 2: viewing habits. There's nothing even halfway skeezy in this. It's
[7:31] Speaker 2: just a solid viewing experience.
[7:33] Speaker 3: Did we ever talk about the time that I tried
[7:35] Speaker 3: to watch Mutant Hunt on an airplane?
[7:38] Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
[7:40] Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a weird one.
[7:41] Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I watched that one on an airplane. Yeah. So,
[7:44] Speaker 2: you know, sometimes it's a daring experience, but that can
[7:48] Speaker 2: be rewarding as well.
[7:50] Speaker 3: We did that one while we were traveling for work.
[7:52] Speaker 3: That was it.
[7:53] Speaker 2: That was it. Yeah. So if you're traveling for work
[7:56] Speaker 2: as well, yeah, seek this one out.
[7:58] Speaker 3: Or just watch Mutant Hunt again. Either one.
[8:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, both good. Double feature, right? Now, before we get
[8:13] Speaker 2: into the connections here, I want to note this is
[8:15] Speaker 2: an anthology picture, and we haven't really done a lot
[8:17] Speaker 2: of anthology pictures on Weird House Cinema. We're going to
[8:20] Speaker 2: approach this one a little bit differently. We're going to
[8:22] Speaker 2: approach the framing narrative of the film when we're discussing
[8:26] Speaker 2: the cast initially, like it is the movie, and then
[8:29] Speaker 2: we're going to introduce additional credits as we get into
[8:32] Speaker 2: each segment. Also, as anthologies are typically a bit uneven,
[8:37] Speaker 2: we might end up focusing a bit more on certain
[8:40] Speaker 2: segments other than others. But we'll see how it all
[8:43] Speaker 2: shakes out.
[8:44] Speaker 3: Okay.
[8:45] Speaker 2: All right. Well, let's just talk about the framing narrative
[8:48] Speaker 2: here at first and, you know, overall picture. So, again,
[8:51] Speaker 2: Roy Ward Baker, director here, lived 1916 through 2010. British
[8:56] Speaker 2: director that we previously talked about in our episode on
[8:59] Speaker 2: 63's Quatermas in the Pit. He made a number of
[9:02] Speaker 2: films in his native UK and in the US, including...
[9:07] Speaker 2: the 1953 3D film Inferno, 58's A Night to Remember,
[9:10] Speaker 2: a Titanic film, and several Hammer pictures, including 69's Moon
[9:14] Speaker 2: Zero Two, that's the mod space adventure, 1970's The Vampire
[9:19] Speaker 2: Lovers and Scars of Dracula, 71's Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde,
[9:24] Speaker 2: as well as the 74 Hammer Shaw Brothers co-production, The
[9:28] Speaker 2: Legend of the Golden Vampires. Ah, yes. So strong Hammer
[9:33] Speaker 2: credentials here. And then on the competing Amicus front, he
[9:36] Speaker 2: did Asylum in 72 and The Vault of Horror in 73,
[9:40] Speaker 2: both anthology pictures, as Amicus was pretty famous for having done.
[9:45] Speaker 2: And then he was active as a TV director into
[9:48] Speaker 2: the 90s. But again, this was his last feature film.
[9:52] Speaker 3: I just had to look this up because it was
[9:53] Speaker 3: driving me crazy. But the movie that I mistakenly thought
[9:56] Speaker 3: Baker directed was The Horror Express, the train horror movie
[10:00] Speaker 3: with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee and Telly Savalas. That
[10:05] Speaker 3: one we did, I think, maybe a couple of Octobers
[10:07] Speaker 3: ago now.
[10:07] Speaker 2: I believe so, yeah.
[10:09] Speaker 3: That one's a lot of fun, but that was not
[10:11] Speaker 3: Roy Ward Baker. That was Eugenio Martin or Martine, maybe.
[10:16] Speaker 3: Just thought I had to close that out since I
[10:17] Speaker 3: raised it.
[10:18] Speaker 2: Yeah, fun film. Helga Linnae, also in that one. All right,
[10:22] Speaker 2: so mention that this is based on a book. The
[10:27] Speaker 2: stories told in the anthology are based on the stories
[10:30] Speaker 2: of a particular British horror author, and that author is R.
[10:34] Speaker 2: Chetwin Hayes, who lived 1919 through 2001. Author of some,
[10:40] Speaker 2: I believe, like 200 short stories, nine novels, very prolific.
[10:44] Speaker 2: An award-winning author who enjoyed solid commercial success, and won
[10:48] Speaker 2: various awards within his genre. I don't think he is
[10:52] Speaker 2: directly parodied in Garth Marenghi, Garth Marenghi's Dark Place, but
[10:57] Speaker 2: I suppose given his time frame and his popularity, there
[11:00] Speaker 2: might be a bit of him in the general DNA
[11:02] Speaker 2: there somewhere.
[11:03] Speaker 3: I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards.
[11:08] Speaker 2: I get the impression, I've been looking into this guy
[11:10] Speaker 2: and I read just a little bit of the sample
[11:13] Speaker 2: for the book this is based on. You can get
[11:15] Speaker 2: it as an e-book and get used copies of it
[11:17] Speaker 2: pretty easily. I didn't have time to really read it
[11:21] Speaker 2: in full, but I might pick it up for some
[11:22] Speaker 2: travels ahead of me because it seems like he does
[11:25] Speaker 2: have a real sense of humor. This is not a
[11:29] Speaker 2: situation where we have a horror comedy movie based on drier,
[11:33] Speaker 2: more serious work. I think the comedy is in the
[11:36] Speaker 2: source material as well. To what extent it's an accurate translation,
[11:41] Speaker 2: I don't know. I can't speak to that yet. But
[11:45] Speaker 2: I don't think this guy took himself as seriously as
[11:49] Speaker 2: the fictional Garth Marenghi takes himself.
[11:51] Speaker 3: Well, the different components of this movie have different levels
[11:55] Speaker 3: of self-seriousness. So the framing narrative is just a full goof-em-up.
[12:01] Speaker 3: It's just goofy times with jokes about talking about blood
[12:07] Speaker 3: in the club like it's wine. Oh, I prefer type B,
[12:11] Speaker 3: that kind of thing. So it's just silly. Uh, the,
[12:15] Speaker 3: I would say one of the three anthology segments is
[12:19] Speaker 3: basically a comedy. The, the one about the kid whose
[12:22] Speaker 3: dad is a vampire. And then the other two are
[12:25] Speaker 3: mostly serious. One is just straight serious. Like the one
[12:28] Speaker 3: with the ghouls is just serious. The one with the
[12:31] Speaker 3: Shadmach is mostly serious or it's sort of written as
[12:35] Speaker 3: a written straight, but has irony in the concept, in
[12:39] Speaker 3: the concept.
[12:40] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[12:40] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[12:41] Speaker 2: I think that's a, that's a strong read. So, yeah,
[12:44] Speaker 2: if time allows, I think I may pick that up
[12:46] Speaker 2: in the future. As far as other adaptations of Chet
[12:50] Speaker 2: Wynn Hayes' work go, his tale Something in the Woodwork
[12:53] Speaker 2: was adapted for Night Gallery back in 73, followed by
[12:57] Speaker 2: the adaptation of his novel From Beyond the Grave in 74.
[13:01] Speaker 2: That was the first directorial credit for Kevin Conner, with
[13:04] Speaker 2: a great cast that included Peter Cushing, Donald Pleasence, David Warner,
[13:09] Speaker 2: Ian Ogilvie, and Angela Pleasance as well. So you get
[13:12] Speaker 2: two Pleasances for the price of one there.
[13:14] Speaker 3: Double your Pleasance. Yeah. I was actually looking at this
[13:18] Speaker 3: movie in particular while I was researching for this episode.
[13:22] Speaker 3: It almost looked to me like this movie is kind
[13:25] Speaker 3: of a comedy spin from Beyond the Grave because it's
[13:29] Speaker 3: like the same author, some of the same cast.
[13:32] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. There's several bits of connective tissue there.
[13:38] Speaker 2: On the short story adaptations front, let's see, his work
[13:41] Speaker 2: was also adapted on a few different TV shows, a
[13:44] Speaker 2: few different horror anthology shows after this, including 1980's Spine Chillers,
[13:49] Speaker 2: 83's Spooky, and 2001's Night Visions. It's a prolific author.
[13:54] Speaker 2: He also wrote the novelization of a 1979 film, Dominique,
[13:59] Speaker 2: which we'll come back to because that's another one that
[14:01] Speaker 2: kind of connects into some of the other people involved
[14:03] Speaker 2: in the movie here. Oh, and then he also wrote
[14:07] Speaker 2: the novelization of Mike Newell's 1980 film, The Awakening, a
[14:11] Speaker 2: mommy film.
[14:13] Speaker 3: Wait, is that the one also known as Time Walker?
[14:18] Speaker 2: It's the one loosely based at least on a Bram
[14:22] Speaker 2: Stoker piece. So maybe a different one. Not the one
[14:26] Speaker 2: they did on Mystery Science. No, no, no. But at
[14:29] Speaker 2: some point, I might come back to that. Next time
[14:31] Speaker 2: we get the appetite for a Mummy movie, that might
[14:35] Speaker 2: be a good selection. All right, let's see. Screenplay credits
[14:39] Speaker 2: go to Edward and Valerie Abram. They were a married couple,
[14:44] Speaker 2: and they worked together on a number of different projects,
[14:47] Speaker 2: both screenwriters. And Edward also was at least a one-time director.
[14:55] Speaker 2: He was active from 61 through 85, I believe, born
[14:59] Speaker 2: in 1929, and I think still around. His other credits,
[15:04] Speaker 2: I mean, all these credits are with his wife, Valerie,
[15:06] Speaker 2: who lived 1933 through 2006. 79's Dominique, starring Cliff Robertson
[15:12] Speaker 2: and Simon Ward. 85's Murder Elite, starring Allie McGraw. with
[15:17] Speaker 2: Don Henderson. And then in 62, he wrote with his
[15:21] Speaker 2: wife and then directed an adaptation of Poe's The Pit
[15:24] Speaker 2: and the Pendulum, simply titled The Pit. I think that's
[15:27] Speaker 2: like something of a short film. I want to say
[15:30] Speaker 2: 20 to 30 minutes, but I have not seen it.
[15:32] Speaker 2: So that's the writing end of the spectrum. Let's get
[15:35] Speaker 2: into the main cast members, our horror grandpas, who are
[15:40] Speaker 2: going to be our narrators and our main characters throughout
[15:43] Speaker 2: the framing narrative here. First of all, we have the
[15:46] Speaker 2: vampire Eramis, played by Vincent Price, from 1911 through 1993.
[15:51] Speaker 2: This is our ninth Vincent Price film.
[15:54] Speaker 3: Very difficult not to keep thinking of this guy as Erasmus.
[15:58] Speaker 3: And in fact, the Word document kept trying to autocorrect
[16:02] Speaker 3: me when I was writing his name to Erasmus. But no,
[16:05] Speaker 3: it's Eramis.
[16:06] Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll inevitably say it wrong at some point. So
[16:09] Speaker 2: just roll with us when that occurs. Yeah, we've talked
[16:13] Speaker 2: about Vincent Price many times. We've talked about the different
[16:15] Speaker 2: sorts of roles that he played. Here we certainly get,
[16:19] Speaker 2: and this is completely appropriate, we get maximum swagger, late
[16:24] Speaker 2: career Price. This is the version of Vincent Price we
[16:27] Speaker 2: get on The Muppet Show, leaning into his comedy and
[16:31] Speaker 2: playing a vampire, I think, for the only time ever
[16:34] Speaker 2: in a film.
[16:35] Speaker 3: Really?
[16:36] Speaker 2: Though he did play a vampire in a skit on
[16:38] Speaker 2: The Muppet Show in 1977. Hmm.
[16:42] Speaker 3: I'm honestly surprised this was his only vampire voice. Yeah.
[16:46] Speaker 2: Yeah. And I don't know if that's just happenstance or
[16:48] Speaker 2: if he just didn't really want to play a vampire.
[16:51] Speaker 2: I don't know how that came together. But as it
[16:53] Speaker 2: works out, this is the only film in which Vincent
[16:56] Speaker 2: Price plays a vampire, as far as I'm aware. All right.
[16:59] Speaker 2: And then the other character is a fictional version of
[17:02] Speaker 2: the author of The Monster Club, R. Chetwin Hayes, played here.
[17:07] Speaker 2: by the legendary John Carradine, who lived 1906 through 1988.
[17:13] Speaker 2: We mentioned John Carradine a lot on the show because
[17:15] Speaker 2: he was in literally everything. And so he often pops
[17:19] Speaker 2: up in Connections. But I think the only films we've
[17:22] Speaker 2: watched for Weird House that he appears in are, what,
[17:26] Speaker 2: 1935's Bride of Frankenstein. He has a bit uncredited role as, what,
[17:30] Speaker 2: one of the hunters or something. And then he's in
[17:32] Speaker 2: 77 Shockwaves doing what he does best and always did best,
[17:36] Speaker 2: playing a grumpy old man. Yeah.
[17:40] Speaker 3: You know, there's a weird magic to John Carradine, which
[17:43] Speaker 3: is that he forces us to think about reality as
[17:47] Speaker 3: fully contiguous, that like all the realities are in fact connected.
[17:52] Speaker 3: So he was in John Ford movies. He was in
[17:55] Speaker 3: like Stagecoach with baby John Wayne in 1939 or whatever
[17:59] Speaker 3: that is. And he's also in Jacko from the year
[18:03] Speaker 3: 1995 with Linnea Quigley, which was released years after his death.
[18:08] Speaker 3: So it's like making you, it's forcing you to accept
[18:11] Speaker 3: that these films do actually come from the same dimension
[18:14] Speaker 3: and Carradine is proof.
[18:16] Speaker 2: Yeah. There are all these different sets of different sizes,
[18:19] Speaker 2: different budgets, and John Carradine walks them all.
[18:23] Speaker 3: He's the time Walker.
[18:24] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[18:26] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[18:27] Speaker 2: Um, I love John Garrity and I think he is,
[18:30] Speaker 2: he is, it's great to see him in various pictures.
[18:32] Speaker 2: And I think nobody plays a crusty grizzled old man better. Um,
[18:37] Speaker 2: I do think he's a bit lost in many of
[18:39] Speaker 2: these scenes here.
[18:42] Speaker 3: I don't know.
[18:42] Speaker 2: I mean, part of it is he's in there with
[18:44] Speaker 2: Vincent Price. Vincent Price is playing the charismatic, otherworldly character,
[18:51] Speaker 2: and he is playing the normal world character. He's playing
[18:54] Speaker 2: a normal human who has thus far only dreamt of
[18:59] Speaker 2: the monstrous realm. And I don't know, he's just kind of,
[19:03] Speaker 2: at times I just feel like he's sitting there. And
[19:06] Speaker 2: I wonder if someone like a Roddy McDowell or a
[19:09] Speaker 2: Malcolm McDowell or any McDowell really would have maybe worked better.
[19:12] Speaker 3: Andy McDowell, yeah.
[19:13] Speaker 2: Yeah, like someone who could maybe play up a little
[19:15] Speaker 2: more like fear and nervousness, which is not really what
[19:19] Speaker 2: I was getting off of Carradine's performance here. He's still
[19:21] Speaker 2: a lot of fun, but yeah, definitely overpowered by the
[19:26] Speaker 2: Vincent Price qualities.
[19:27] Speaker 3: Yeah, mostly what this character does is receive storytelling and
[19:32] Speaker 3: receive lore and kind of shrug or nod his head
[19:36] Speaker 3: at jokes.
[19:37] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[19:38] Speaker 3: And dances at the end.
[19:40] Speaker 2: It does dance. So if you've been waiting.
[19:42] Speaker 3: It's subdued dancing, but it happens.
[19:46] Speaker 2: Yeah, Vincent Price definitely cuts a much deeper. better rug.
[19:50] Speaker 2: So we'll get to the dancing here in a bit.
[19:54] Speaker 2: I will point out that the production designer on this
[19:56] Speaker 2: film was Tony Curtis, the great British production designer who
[20:00] Speaker 2: lived 1937 through 2021, whose other credits include 83's Krull. Obviously,
[20:05] Speaker 2: a much smaller budget to work with here. Uh, but
[20:09] Speaker 2: you know, it's probably one of the reasons that, you know,
[20:12] Speaker 2: things look as good as they do in this picture.
[20:14] Speaker 2: And I will say that in the monster club itself,
[20:17] Speaker 2: you know, there are some obvious budgetary constraints here, but
[20:20] Speaker 2: you know, I like the lighting. I like the general
[20:22] Speaker 2: sort of feel of it. I bought into its own
[20:25] Speaker 2: self-contained reality. All right. And then, uh, as far as
[20:28] Speaker 2: music goes, I'll, we'll have more score credits as we
[20:32] Speaker 2: proceed through the anthology bits, because at least a couple
[20:35] Speaker 2: of them have very distinctly different, um, scores. But I
[20:40] Speaker 2: just will point out, we also just have a fairly
[20:42] Speaker 2: diverse selection of needle drop tracks in this as well. Again,
[20:47] Speaker 2: I mentioned UB40. We have UB40 playing in the background
[20:51] Speaker 2: in the club. We get classical guitar from classical guitarist
[20:55] Speaker 2: John Williams. So it's kind of all over the place.
[20:58] Speaker 2: And that's in addition to our featured artists who we'll
[21:01] Speaker 2: get to as we get to them in the plot.
[21:13] Speaker 3: Well, would you like to start talking about the beginning
[21:15] Speaker 3: of the framing narrative?
[21:17] Speaker 2: Let's do it. Let's jump into the picture.
[21:19] Speaker 3: So it opens in the street outside of a bookshop. Again,
[21:22] Speaker 3: we think this is supposed to be London.
[21:24] Speaker 2: I think so, yeah.
[21:25] Speaker 3: Cobblestone-y street. But again, I'm pretty sure that this bookstore
[21:31] Speaker 3: and the storefronts we're seeing, I think this is not
[21:34] Speaker 3: really storefronts on an actual street. I think this is
[21:37] Speaker 3: a soundstage.
[21:38] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[21:39] Speaker 3: It looks like those streets in House of Wax. So
[21:44] Speaker 3: we look in the window of this bookshop where the
[21:47] Speaker 3: display is a buffet of all things R. Chetwynd Hayes.
[21:51] Speaker 3: It's got horror story collections, a skull on a stick, posters,
[21:55] Speaker 3: except the pictures of Chetwynd Hayes are of John Carradine.
[21:59] Speaker 3: And then John Carradine wanders up, looks at the John
[22:02] Speaker 3: Carradine poster, gives it a good smirk like, yep, that's
[22:05] Speaker 3: what I look like. That's really me. And as he
[22:09] Speaker 3: is walking away, suddenly Vincent Price leans out of an
[22:13] Speaker 3: alleyway begging for help. Carradine offers to buy him some food,
[22:17] Speaker 3: but Price says, can't keep food down. Never could. So
[22:23] Speaker 3: Price then rears up and reveals his fangs and bites
[22:26] Speaker 3: Carradine on the neck. And then we fade out and
[22:28] Speaker 3: then cut to later when Carradine, who now appears to
[22:32] Speaker 3: be completely fine, no apparent side effects of the vampire bite,
[22:38] Speaker 3: He's sitting on the corner, straightening his tie. Doesn't really
[22:41] Speaker 3: even seem upset that this has happened. He's just kind of,
[22:44] Speaker 3: you know, whatever. And Price is going through Carradine's wallet
[22:48] Speaker 3: and figures out his identity. And this changes his whole tune.
[22:52] Speaker 3: He introduces himself to Carradine as Eramus. Again, it's hard
[22:57] Speaker 3: not to read this as Erasmus, but it's Eramus. And
[23:00] Speaker 3: he explains that he is a vampire. There's a little
[23:04] Speaker 3: bit of mechanical discussion about how vampires work in this story.
[23:07] Speaker 3: The fangs are, quote, retractable when not in use. Eramis
[23:12] Speaker 3: tells Chetwynd Hayes he shouldn't worry about turning into a
[23:14] Speaker 3: vampire because it was a shallow bite. This also will
[23:19] Speaker 3: play into the middle anthology segment in the movie where
[23:22] Speaker 3: they discuss how a shallow bite means you don't turn.
[23:25] Speaker 3: It's just a feed, you know, feed and you'll be fine.
[23:29] Speaker 3: You walk away from it. I guess it's like a
[23:30] Speaker 3: blood draw at the doctor's office. but a deep bite
[23:33] Speaker 3: means you turn into a vampire. Uh, so this was
[23:36] Speaker 3: a shallow bite. He's not going to transform himself. Aramis
[23:40] Speaker 3: also says, by the way, uh, your blood's the best
[23:43] Speaker 3: I've ever tasted. Really delicious blood. Uh, I don't know.
[23:46] Speaker 3: Do you, how do you take news like that? Is
[23:47] Speaker 3: that a compliment?
[23:49] Speaker 2: I mean, I think it is a compliment to his
[23:51] Speaker 2: skills as a horror writer. That's what I'm to take care. Uh, yeah,
[23:55] Speaker 2: I will say in the original novel, I did read
[23:57] Speaker 2: enough of the sample to, to, to get to this part. Um,
[24:01] Speaker 2: Chetwin Hayes is not a character within his own book.
[24:05] Speaker 2: So in the book, Aramis seems to be like a
[24:09] Speaker 2: very British vampire. And then his victim, this guy, I
[24:13] Speaker 2: think his name's Donald in the book, is like very
[24:15] Speaker 2: much just a working class British guy. So that's the
[24:19] Speaker 2: whole vibe. And then maybe that plays into where we
[24:22] Speaker 2: ultimately go with the idea that he's, in many respects,
[24:25] Speaker 2: a typical human.
[24:27] Speaker 3: Oh, I see. Well, yeah, there are a couple of
[24:30] Speaker 3: kind of contradictory things about how it handles the idea
[24:33] Speaker 3: of a horror writer. We can talk about those in
[24:35] Speaker 3: a minute. One of the first halves or the first
[24:39] Speaker 3: part of one of these contradictions is that Aramis is
[24:43] Speaker 3: a huge fan of Chet Wenday. He loves his stories
[24:46] Speaker 3: in his books. You know, thinks they've done a lot
[24:49] Speaker 3: to promote the cause of monsterdom. And he's like, everyone
[24:52] Speaker 3: loves to read about themselves. But in books, aren't the
[24:55] Speaker 3: vampires always the bad guys? I guess they like it anyway.
[24:59] Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. I guess one of the themes
[25:01] Speaker 2: here with this book, or at least the stories that
[25:03] Speaker 2: are adapted here, is that all of them are stories
[25:06] Speaker 2: in which we feel at least some amount of sympathy
[25:10] Speaker 2: for at least some of the monsters.
[25:13] Speaker 3: That's true, yeah. So Chetwynd Hayes tries to leave this encounter,
[25:18] Speaker 3: but Aramis appeals to him. He's like, hey, hang out,
[25:21] Speaker 3: you know, hang out with me tonight. He says, I'll
[25:23] Speaker 3: take you somewhere. You can get lots of new material
[25:27] Speaker 3: for your books. It's a place called the Monster Club.
[25:30] Speaker 3: And he makes a pitch. He's like, you'll see every
[25:32] Speaker 3: kind of monster and ghoul and vampire there and you'll
[25:36] Speaker 3: get to learn all about us. So so you can
[25:38] Speaker 3: get whole books out of this. So Chetwynd Hayes agrees.
[25:42] Speaker 3: We go there next. So Aramis and Chetwynd Hayes arrive
[25:45] Speaker 3: at the club. And before we follow what they're doing there,
[25:49] Speaker 3: I think we should talk about the first of several
[25:51] Speaker 3: musical performances in the film, the first of which happens here.
[25:56] Speaker 3: And it is the song Monsters Rule Okay by The Viewers. Yes, yes. Monsters.
[26:03] Speaker 2: It goes, Monsters rule okay. And it's like, cha-cha-cha-cha-cha-cha-cha. And it's...
[26:09] Speaker 2: And you will feel, as is the case with all
[26:12] Speaker 2: of the musical numbers, you will hear the entire song.
[26:16] Speaker 2: They are performed in their entirety. And I love a
[26:20] Speaker 2: good novelty monster song, but I have to say this
[26:22] Speaker 2: one is a lot. This one's a lot to take.
[26:25] Speaker 3: I like the verse better than the chorus in this one.
[26:28] Speaker 3: The verse has some good nervous energy and an emotional
[26:31] Speaker 3: chord progression. I was thinking the verse sounds like it
[26:34] Speaker 3: could be an Elvis Costello song. But then the chorus
[26:37] Speaker 3: hits and the chorus just I mean, I love, you know,
[26:41] Speaker 3: a monster celebration, but it feels like a placeholder that
[26:44] Speaker 3: they never came back to, you know?
[26:47] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. I think that's a good read on it.
[26:50] Speaker 2: I was not familiar with the viewers, but they were
[26:52] Speaker 2: a UK new wave slash punk slash ska band that
[26:57] Speaker 2: put out a single EP titled Accident in 1980. And
[27:01] Speaker 2: then the lead vocalist here, Alan Jari, went on to
[27:05] Speaker 2: be in the post-punk band Perfect Zebras. And I think
[27:09] Speaker 2: perfect zebras are still around. As will be the case
[27:12] Speaker 2: with any of the musical acts that we're referencing in
[27:14] Speaker 2: this film, listeners, if you were a fan or you
[27:16] Speaker 2: know more about them than we do, write in and
[27:19] Speaker 2: we'll hash it out in future listener mail episodes.
[27:22] Speaker 3: Almost all of the musical performers in the club seem
[27:25] Speaker 3: to be human, but the people in the club, like
[27:29] Speaker 3: the people that are dancing on the dance floor and
[27:32] Speaker 3: working as servers and the maitre d' and all that,
[27:35] Speaker 3: so the customers and the workers apart from the band
[27:38] Speaker 3: are all monsters. Um, though I will say there's very
[27:41] Speaker 3: little effort on a lot of the monster costumes in
[27:44] Speaker 3: the club. Uh, some of them are just rubber Halloween
[27:47] Speaker 3: masks that look like Frankenstein or maybe a snaggletooth zombie. Yeah.
[27:52] Speaker 2: They look store-bought for sure. Yes.
[27:54] Speaker 3: Uh, so I don't know. I mean, you could read
[27:56] Speaker 3: that as they are supposed to be, those are their
[27:59] Speaker 3: real faces and it's just kind of low effort. Or
[28:02] Speaker 3: it could be that these are supposed to be people
[28:04] Speaker 3: in Halloween masks who have snuck into the club. I
[28:07] Speaker 3: don't know which one it is. Yeah.
[28:09] Speaker 2: Um, It's, I mean, maybe they're monsters underneath cheap monster masks,
[28:14] Speaker 2: but the end result is it does look cheap AF,
[28:18] Speaker 2: as the kids would say. And yet not at the
[28:21] Speaker 2: same time. Like, it's a weird mix because the lighting
[28:25] Speaker 2: is nice and it doesn't, I mean, I get, I
[28:28] Speaker 2: kind of buy into this environment, but it's hard to
[28:31] Speaker 2: get past those monster masks. I've seen a lot of
[28:33] Speaker 2: people reference this in their reviews saying it's like a
[28:37] Speaker 2: spirit Halloween party or something.
[28:38] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[28:40] Speaker 2: And then, yeah, a lot of the people attending are,
[28:42] Speaker 2: I guess, supposed to be monsters, but they just look
[28:44] Speaker 2: like people. One of them credited as Buxom.
[28:47] Speaker 3: Sometimes with purple hair.
[28:48] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Sometimes they do have different hair colors, which
[28:51] Speaker 2: I guess gives them some sort of monster status. I
[28:53] Speaker 2: don't know. One of them is credited as Buxom Beauty.
[28:57] Speaker 2: And she just looks otherwise human. She's played by Fran Follenweider,
[29:02] Speaker 2: who lived 1945 through 1997. Her other credits include the
[29:06] Speaker 2: Rocky Horror Picture Show. in which he plays one of
[29:09] Speaker 2: the Transylvanians.
[29:10] Speaker 3: Well, speaking of Rocky Horror, did you notice the coat
[29:13] Speaker 3: check lady with the vampire fangs looks like magenta? Yeah, yeah.
[29:17] Speaker 2: There are some strong comparisons to be made. Actually, we
[29:20] Speaker 2: just watched Rocky Horror as a family the other night.
[29:24] Speaker 2: We figured it was time. And yeah, there are some
[29:27] Speaker 2: interesting ways that what they're going for here seems to
[29:31] Speaker 2: aspire for what came together so organically in the Rocky
[29:36] Speaker 2: Horror Picture Show.
[29:37] Speaker 3: Though it's a tamer, little, it's a little tickle of
[29:41] Speaker 3: Rocky Horror and not much more. So, but yeah, the
[29:45] Speaker 3: coat check lady looks like Magenta, takes their coats. She
[29:48] Speaker 3: kind of, she spins out of a hidden passageway in
[29:51] Speaker 3: the wall and then gives Carradine's neck a good look
[29:54] Speaker 3: while she's taking the coat. So that moment also feels
[29:56] Speaker 3: kind of Rocky Horror somehow, like the way she just
[29:58] Speaker 3: comes out of the wall. But anyway, Eramis is a
[30:02] Speaker 3: regular here. So the maitre d' Wolfgang shows them to
[30:05] Speaker 3: his table. The table is a green glowing coffin up
[30:09] Speaker 3: on legs. And Wolfgang keeps trying to bite Carradine, by
[30:13] Speaker 3: the way. And Eramis has to be like, no, no.
[30:16] Speaker 3: So you get the impression maybe sometimes Eramis brings humans
[30:20] Speaker 3: here with him and then they just feast on them.
[30:22] Speaker 2: Yeah. And Vincent Price is great in these sequences. I mean,
[30:27] Speaker 2: he's really driving the car. Yeah. And he does a
[30:29] Speaker 2: good job.
[30:31] Speaker 3: When they order drinks, there are some yuck yucks about
[30:34] Speaker 3: Aramis's snooty preferences about blood type. Like he wants type B,
[30:38] Speaker 3: but they don't have it. So he's like, well, I'll
[30:39] Speaker 3: have to settle for a common type O. They never
[30:43] Speaker 3: do tasting notes on the blood, though. And then they
[30:46] Speaker 3: suggest that Chetwynd Hayes drink tomato juice so as not
[30:50] Speaker 3: to appear conspicuous. Yeah. And then somewhere around here is
[30:54] Speaker 3: where the Monsters Rule OK song finishes. And then it
[30:57] Speaker 3: goes into soft reggae. Was this UB40?
[31:00] Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure this is the UB40 track.
[31:03] Speaker 3: There's a bit of comedy chatter here. Aramis goes on
[31:06] Speaker 3: a rant about how it is hard to get fresh
[31:09] Speaker 3: blood from the source these days because people are too
[31:13] Speaker 3: educated about how to protect themselves from vampires. Everybody knows
[31:18] Speaker 3: about garlic and wooden stakes and all that stuff. Uh,
[31:22] Speaker 3: and so he's, he's kind of upset. It's like, you know,
[31:25] Speaker 3: these horror writers and the horror movies have, have given
[31:29] Speaker 3: out all of their secrets and now they can't ply
[31:31] Speaker 3: their trade correctly. I know it's foolish to look for
[31:34] Speaker 3: consistency here, but wouldn't this conflict with the monster's love
[31:38] Speaker 3: of the horror author as stated earlier? Like, aren't people
[31:42] Speaker 3: like Chetwynd Hayes blowing the vampire's cover?
[31:45] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right.
[31:47] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[31:48] Speaker 3: I was thinking about this and it kind of reminded
[31:50] Speaker 3: me of how in The Sopranos, all the mafia guys
[31:54] Speaker 3: love watching The Godfather and the mob movies and they're
[31:57] Speaker 3: quoting them all the time. But also they constantly deny
[32:00] Speaker 3: that the mafia exists. It's kind of going against each
[32:04] Speaker 3: other there. Anyway, so from here, the movie goes into
[32:11] Speaker 3: this bizarre genealogical subplot where Eramis refers to a chart
[32:16] Speaker 3: on the wall. And starts explaining all of the hybrid
[32:20] Speaker 3: monsters that you get when you crossbreed different types of monsters.
[32:24] Speaker 3: So a werewolf and a vampire, you know, they have
[32:28] Speaker 3: a child and that's a werevamp. A vampire and a
[32:31] Speaker 3: ghoul make a vamgu. And on and on. And there
[32:35] Speaker 3: are like 10 or 12 of these things and they
[32:37] Speaker 3: all get explained. And it's pretty funny.
[32:40] Speaker 2: Now, checking out the full text that this is based on,
[32:43] Speaker 2: there are stories in it about multiple monsters off of
[32:47] Speaker 2: this chart. So the full text includes the following stories,
[32:51] Speaker 2: the werewolf and the vampire, the mock, the humgu, the shadmock,
[32:56] Speaker 2: and the fly-by-night. I'm not sure which monster is the fly-by-night.
[33:00] Speaker 2: But yeah, these are some wonderfully, I think, intentionally humorous
[33:05] Speaker 2: monster names for these different. subcategories i was fully expecting
[33:08] Speaker 2: the zaddy to be one of them based on the
[33:10] Speaker 2: way they sound.
[33:11] Speaker 3: Yeah they have a shatty and a maddie i think
[33:14] Speaker 3: and uh and but it's spelled like it would be
[33:17] Speaker 3: pronounced hum goo but they actually say it hum.
[33:20] Speaker 2: Goo and oh yes yes the hum goo because humans
[33:23] Speaker 2: are humes yes right um we're also told this was
[33:26] Speaker 2: in the i got this right out of the book
[33:28] Speaker 2: and i believe they stress this as well that vampires
[33:30] Speaker 2: sup werewolves hunt ghouls care shatties lick Maddie's yawn, Mok's blow,
[33:38] Speaker 2: and Shadmok's only whistle.
[33:40] Speaker 3: Right. So they start talking about this last element here,
[33:43] Speaker 3: the Shadmok's whistle. Apparently the whistle of a Shadmok is
[33:48] Speaker 3: one of the most terrifying powers of the monster world.
[33:51] Speaker 3: And Aramis says, I heard of a man once who
[33:54] Speaker 3: saw the results of a Shadmok's whistle. And then it
[33:57] Speaker 3: cuts to a padded room, guy in a straight jacket
[34:01] Speaker 3: inside the room. And this sets up the anthology segments
[34:04] Speaker 3: that will make up the bulk of the film. This
[34:06] Speaker 3: is the first one. Is it just called The Shadmock,
[34:09] Speaker 3: I think?
[34:10] Speaker 2: I believe so, yes, The Shadmock.
[34:13] Speaker 3: Let's see, how are we going to do this? Are
[34:14] Speaker 3: we going to talk about the cast of each one?
[34:17] Speaker 3: And then we'll do a brief plot summary?
[34:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, you just kind of treat them as like mini
[34:21] Speaker 2: weird houses within weird houses here. So the cast here,
[34:25] Speaker 2: first of all, we have Angela. and Angela is played
[34:27] Speaker 2: by Barbara Kellerman. Born 1949, British actress best known to
[34:32] Speaker 2: many of us as the White Witch, and then later
[34:35] Speaker 2: the Hag and the Green Lady from the 1980s TV
[34:38] Speaker 2: adaptations of the C.S. Lewis Narnia books. So for many
[34:42] Speaker 2: of us, before Tilda came along, this was our first
[34:45] Speaker 2: White Queen crush right here. Her other credits include an
[34:49] Speaker 2: episode of Hammer House of Horror, let's see, 69's The
[34:53] Speaker 2: Oblong Box, 76's Satan's Slave, and 79's Equator Mass Conclusion.
[35:00] Speaker 2: Here she plays the conflicted wife to a devoted con man,
[35:06] Speaker 2: arguably not as conflicted as she could have been at
[35:08] Speaker 2: certain times. But I would say that she's great in this.
[35:12] Speaker 2: She's making some bad choices, but you feel a fair
[35:15] Speaker 2: amount of compassion for her.
[35:17] Speaker 3: Well, yeah, she's really being used by her boyfriend, George,
[35:20] Speaker 3: played by Simon Ward. George is always, he's making her
[35:23] Speaker 3: do all the hard work and he's just complaining about
[35:26] Speaker 3: her efforts the whole time. He's like, you go out,
[35:28] Speaker 3: you scam this guy, you do the stealing for both
[35:31] Speaker 3: of us. It'll be our big score. And he's just
[35:33] Speaker 3: sitting home watching TV.
[35:34] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. He's doing nothing. Yeah. So, yeah, Simon Ward
[35:37] Speaker 2: plays the boyfriend, George. He lived 1941 through 2012. British
[35:42] Speaker 2: actor of stage, screen, and TV. Easily recognizable by his
[35:45] Speaker 2: wide-set penetrating eyes, which made him a great villain or
[35:49] Speaker 2: otherwise dangerous character, you know. But he also played Winston
[35:53] Speaker 2: Churchill in the 1972 film Young Winston. His other credits
[35:57] Speaker 2: include 69's Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, 74's Dracula. That's the
[36:02] Speaker 2: Palance one. Uh, 73 is the three musketeers and its
[36:06] Speaker 2: sequel 79 Zulu Don 84 Supergirl and 92s, uh, Wuthering Heights.
[36:12] Speaker 2: So yeah, he's great here. Uh, very slimy character.
[36:15] Speaker 1: Yes.
[36:16] Speaker 2: And then we also have our Shadmock. Uh, we're going
[36:19] Speaker 2: to learn that this Shadmock's name is Raven and he's
[36:22] Speaker 2: played by James Lawrenson who lived 1940 through 2024, New
[36:27] Speaker 2: Zealand born stage and screen actor who enjoyed a long
[36:30] Speaker 2: career in the UK, very active in Shakespearean theater. His
[36:34] Speaker 2: film credits include 69's Women in Love, 82's Pink Floyd,
[36:38] Speaker 2: The Wall. He plays Pink's father in that. And he
[36:41] Speaker 2: also has at least a small role. I saw this,
[36:43] Speaker 2: but I don't really remember him in it. 2022's Matilda,
[36:47] Speaker 2: The Musical.
[36:49] Speaker 3: He's got some things working against him in this role,
[36:52] Speaker 3: including his ridiculous makeup and haircut, which is supposed to
[36:57] Speaker 3: be horrifying, but instead is somewhat comical. But yeah, I
[37:00] Speaker 3: give this guy credit. He's making it through.
[37:03] Speaker 2: Yeah, he plays a monster that is supposed to be
[37:06] Speaker 2: hideous to behold, like unlovably hideous, but basically looks just
[37:11] Speaker 2: like a pale British guy in a funny haircut. You know,
[37:17] Speaker 2: it does not look hideous. But, you know, he's a
[37:20] Speaker 2: great actor. He leans into it. He makes you believe it.
[37:23] Speaker 2: And as do the other performers here.
[37:25] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[37:26] Speaker 2: Now, allegedly, Pat Roach, the British big man pro wrestler
[37:31] Speaker 2: who's in all sorts of films, including Indiana, all three
[37:35] Speaker 2: Indiana Jones films, I believe. Oh, really? Yeah, he's on IMDb.
[37:39] Speaker 2: He's credited as being in this playing great uncle Uriah.
[37:42] Speaker 2: I don't remember him. And I look for him again
[37:45] Speaker 2: and it's like, I don't know where he's supposed to
[37:46] Speaker 2: fit into the plot here.
[37:47] Speaker 3: Well, he looks very different. I'm used to thinking of
[37:50] Speaker 3: Pat Roach as very is very sure and very hairless
[37:54] Speaker 3: because I think of him as the big, bald Nazi
[37:56] Speaker 3: that fights with Harrison Ford and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
[37:59] Speaker 3: You get squashed by the propeller blades of the airplane.
[38:03] Speaker 3: But in this, the great uncle Uriah guy is the
[38:05] Speaker 3: guy with the big beard and the long hair who
[38:07] Speaker 3: comes to the party later and dances with. That's right.
[38:11] Speaker 3: Dances with Angela. Yeah.
[38:13] Speaker 2: So that's that's that's Pat Roach. Pat Roach gets in
[38:17] Speaker 2: there and has his cameo. And then we also have
[38:21] Speaker 2: the musical score here is of note. Douglas Gamley or Gamley.
[38:25] Speaker 2: lived 1924 through 1998. Australian-born composer whose other credits include
[38:31] Speaker 2: 1960s Horror Hotel, the 1972 Amicus Tales from the Crypt,
[38:35] Speaker 2: 73's The Vault of Horror, 74's Madhouse, From Beyond the Grave,
[38:40] Speaker 2: and The Beast Must Die, as well as The Land
[38:43] Speaker 2: That Time Forgot. So I would say effective horror score
[38:47] Speaker 2: here on the more traditional sort of, you know, hammer
[38:50] Speaker 2: horror format.
[38:52] Speaker 3: Cool. All right, you ready to do the plot?
[39:04] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because this is the fun one.
[39:05] Speaker 3: So for these segments, I think we're not going to
[39:07] Speaker 3: go as granular on the plot as we sometimes do
[39:09] Speaker 3: for Weird House movies. I'll try to give a higher
[39:12] Speaker 3: level summary, and then we can come back and talk
[39:14] Speaker 3: about any details that strike us. But the story goes,
[39:19] Speaker 3: a young couple in London named George and Angela are
[39:22] Speaker 3: looking for a way to score some money. George is
[39:25] Speaker 3: the type who views working or making money a bit
[39:28] Speaker 3: at a time as beneath him. Uh, he he's like
[39:31] Speaker 3: the only way to do it is to get the
[39:33] Speaker 3: one big score, the one big scam that will set
[39:36] Speaker 3: you up for life. And so they find a, they're
[39:40] Speaker 3: sort of looking for a sucker that they can con
[39:42] Speaker 3: and they find a classified ad in the newspaper. Where
[39:45] Speaker 3: a man named Raven, who lives at a vast old
[39:48] Speaker 3: manor house, wants to hire somebody to help catalog antiques.
[39:52] Speaker 3: He's an antiquities dealer. And obviously he seems like a
[39:56] Speaker 3: rich guy, so George convinces Angela to take the job
[39:59] Speaker 3: so that they can steal from this guy or scam
[40:01] Speaker 3: him somehow. Angela goes to the house. She discovers that
[40:06] Speaker 3: the man is hideous to look at. Again, he's not
[40:09] Speaker 3: actually as hideous as the writing would suggest. He's like
[40:12] Speaker 3: pale and has a very weird looking haircut, not actually monstrous.
[40:16] Speaker 3: I think what they're going for with his face is
[40:20] Speaker 3: a very toned down version of Lon Chaney's Phantom of
[40:24] Speaker 3: the Opera.
[40:24] Speaker 2: Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, I think you're right.
[40:27] Speaker 2: I think that was maybe the target they were going
[40:31] Speaker 2: for here. Yeah. And let's achieve that without any additional makeup.
[40:35] Speaker 2: Let's base it as much on a human face as possible. Right.
[40:39] Speaker 3: So despite being initially repulsed, Angela starts working at the house.
[40:43] Speaker 3: And over time, Raven, who, of course, is the titular Shadmok,
[40:48] Speaker 3: starts to trust her. And then eventually he falls in
[40:51] Speaker 3: love with her and proposes marriage. Now, we should talk
[40:55] Speaker 3: about how there are some parts in the story where
[40:57] Speaker 3: you see his Shadmok powers. Angela doesn't quite witness them,
[41:01] Speaker 3: or at least not directly. But there's one part where
[41:04] Speaker 3: we see him taking care of some pigeons in his
[41:07] Speaker 3: yard or maybe some doves. He's a fan of these
[41:10] Speaker 3: birds and he feeds them. And a cat sneaks into
[41:13] Speaker 3: his big lawn and kills one of the birds that
[41:16] Speaker 3: he loves. And then he finds the dead bird and
[41:20] Speaker 3: he's distraught. And then he sees the cat sitting there
[41:23] Speaker 3: licking its lips, and he begins to whistle. And then later,
[41:28] Speaker 3: Angela comes outside after hearing this blood-chilling whistle from far away,
[41:32] Speaker 3: and she just sees a puddle of cat on the ground.
[41:34] Speaker 3: Just the cat is melted.
[41:36] Speaker 2: Yeah, this creature's whistle is so powerful that it can
[41:40] Speaker 2: just straight up melt a cat into nothing in just
[41:43] Speaker 2: a matter of seconds. And it's, I mean, it sounds
[41:47] Speaker 2: kind of funny, but it's played straight, and it's terrifying because...
[41:51] Speaker 2: In this scene, especially, the Shadmach is a timid monster.
[41:58] Speaker 2: You know, he seems full of anxieties. And this whistle
[42:03] Speaker 2: seems a very deadly weapon that he doesn't have a
[42:06] Speaker 2: lot of control over. It seems as much, it's almost
[42:08] Speaker 2: like an unconscious response to not only like physical threats,
[42:12] Speaker 2: but just like emotional threats.
[42:14] Speaker 3: Yeah, we never see him use it in a predatory way.
[42:17] Speaker 3: He uses it when he is overcome with emotion after
[42:22] Speaker 3: having been wounded. Yeah. So George suggests that Angela accept
[42:29] Speaker 3: this wedding proposal from the Shadmach so that she can
[42:31] Speaker 3: get closer to him and get an opportunity to steal
[42:34] Speaker 3: money that they know this guy has stashed in his
[42:37] Speaker 3: safe because this guy has got big rolls of cash
[42:40] Speaker 3: that he uses to buy these antiquities. So Angela says
[42:44] Speaker 3: yes to the marriage proposal. Raven throws a party to
[42:47] Speaker 3: celebrate their engagement in the form of a masquerade ball.
[42:51] Speaker 3: And I think a lot of the guests we see
[42:53] Speaker 3: here at the masquerade are also people we see in
[42:55] Speaker 3: the Monster Club, but I can't be sure of that.
[42:58] Speaker 2: Yeah, that would make sense. They have different costumes, though. Here,
[43:01] Speaker 2: they're wearing all these masks that they all have kind
[43:05] Speaker 2: of a plexiglass or clear plastic kind of appearance. And
[43:11] Speaker 2: It has a creepy effect because, I don't know, it
[43:15] Speaker 2: reminds me of a particular mask that I think Hannibal
[43:20] Speaker 2: wears at some point in the Hannibal TV show. Everything
[43:23] Speaker 2: feels very unsettling. And again, it's kind of like, what
[43:27] Speaker 2: kind of faces are under there? Presumably monster faces, but
[43:30] Speaker 2: we don't get a great look at them.
[43:32] Speaker 3: Yeah, because the masks are creepier because they're not masks
[43:36] Speaker 3: of anything. It's not a witch mask or a... vampire mask.
[43:41] Speaker 3: It's just a clear plastic mask that obscures your actual features. Okay,
[43:47] Speaker 3: so in the middle of the party, Angela sneaks away
[43:49] Speaker 3: to Raven's study to open the safe and steal his money,
[43:53] Speaker 3: but he catches her in the act, and he is
[43:56] Speaker 3: devastated by this. He tells her, you know, I would
[43:59] Speaker 3: give you whatever you want. I would give you the
[44:01] Speaker 3: money in the safe, but could you still love me?
[44:04] Speaker 3: And she makes a kind of bad move here. Instead
[44:07] Speaker 3: of just like getting out of there. She decides she's
[44:10] Speaker 3: really got to tell this guy how ugly he is. Uh,
[44:14] Speaker 3: so she's like, you're horrible, horrible, horrible. I could never
[44:17] Speaker 3: love you. And so he is overcome and then he
[44:21] Speaker 3: puts his lips together and we zoom in as the
[44:24] Speaker 3: whistle begins and then cut to later, uh, George Angela's
[44:28] Speaker 3: good for nothing. Boyfriend who never seems to leave the
[44:31] Speaker 3: apartment is at their apartment and there's a knock at
[44:34] Speaker 3: the door. Angela comes home with her face hidden when
[44:37] Speaker 3: she comes in. She goes to the corner of the
[44:39] Speaker 3: room and then turns around and uncovers her face to
[44:43] Speaker 3: reveal that the whistle has turned her into a melt zombie.
[44:47] Speaker 3: So now she's got like her, you can see her hair,
[44:49] Speaker 3: but it looks kind of muddy and her face is
[44:52] Speaker 3: just a melted mask, you know, kind of depressions where
[44:56] Speaker 3: the eyes were. but not much of a face left.
[44:58] Speaker 3: It's just goo. And then she mutters through the gooeyness.
[45:03] Speaker 3: She kind of says, you could still love me. You
[45:06] Speaker 3: could still love me.
[45:08] Speaker 2: And then it's just straight to the insane asylum for
[45:11] Speaker 2: George here. And, you know, I have a lot to
[45:13] Speaker 2: say about this film regarding the special effects and saying
[45:17] Speaker 2: the makeup effects don't go far enough. This one looks
[45:21] Speaker 2: really good, though. Maybe this is where all the money
[45:23] Speaker 2: went for practical makeup effects. Yeah.
[45:26] Speaker 3: Yeah. It's pretty nasty. Yeah.
[45:28] Speaker 2: And I would say that this is, in my view,
[45:31] Speaker 2: I think this is the strongest of the three entries, um,
[45:34] Speaker 2: engaging plot characters you're rooting for. Like I'm rooting for her,
[45:37] Speaker 2: but I'm also kind of rooting.
[45:38] Speaker 3: For the Shadmock.
[45:39] Speaker 2: Like he's a lonely monster that I feel some amount
[45:42] Speaker 2: of sympathy for. He doesn't want to be this whistling murderer,
[45:47] Speaker 2: but it's just his nature and the way he reacts
[45:50] Speaker 2: to threats. Um, Yeah, I think my main notes here
[45:54] Speaker 2: are that, you know, come back to, well, shouldn't the
[45:56] Speaker 2: Shadmach look a little ghastlier? Maybe he needs to have
[46:00] Speaker 2: been done up more with his special effects makeup of
[46:03] Speaker 2: his own. But again, the actors do everything they can
[46:06] Speaker 2: to convey all of this on their own, and they
[46:09] Speaker 2: do a good job.
[46:10] Speaker 3: I agree. I think it is often the case in
[46:13] Speaker 3: anthology movies that the first segment is the strongest. Not always,
[46:17] Speaker 3: but a lot of them go that route. This one
[46:20] Speaker 3: is the strongest of the three. I think it would
[46:23] Speaker 3: be even stronger if the Shadmok looked a little less goofy.
[46:30] Speaker 3: It's really close. But I agree that it works on
[46:33] Speaker 3: a lot of levels. Angela is a very tragic character.
[46:36] Speaker 3: You really feel for her, especially the way she's just
[46:40] Speaker 3: being used by George. George is the real villain here.
[46:44] Speaker 3: The Shadmok is portrayed as a kind of pitiable monster,
[46:47] Speaker 3: a creature, just a squalid creature. um, abject creature of
[46:51] Speaker 3: loneliness and self-loathing George is just a real piece of work.
[46:56] Speaker 3: And he's always complaining. Like there's this scene where Angela
[46:59] Speaker 3: steals this gold artifact and brings it back for him.
[47:03] Speaker 3: And he just reacts like this kind of thing is
[47:05] Speaker 3: impossible defense. There's no pleasing you, dude.
[47:08] Speaker 2: Yeah. It's like, yeah, she's already risked her life, whether
[47:11] Speaker 2: she knows it or not to bring this back. And
[47:13] Speaker 2: he's like, yeah, this, this doesn't work. I need something else.
[47:15] Speaker 2: Does he have cash? Aren't there like great piles of
[47:18] Speaker 2: cash around? Figure out how to bring that to me.
[47:22] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[47:22] Speaker 2: And oh, man, the scene, too, where after the Shadmach
[47:26] Speaker 2: has unleashed his terrible whistle on her, the other monsters
[47:29] Speaker 2: at the party, they kind of like gather around him
[47:31] Speaker 2: as he weeps. And there's this sense like, you know,
[47:34] Speaker 2: they're sympathetic towards him. They're like, oh, we really on
[47:37] Speaker 2: some level, we thought this one would work out for you.
[47:40] Speaker 2: But they're also maybe not surprised because I don't think
[47:42] Speaker 2: things work out for the Shadmach.
[47:45] Speaker 3: Do you notice a recurring theme in, I think all
[47:48] Speaker 3: of these stories is about, um, the potential for monsters
[47:52] Speaker 3: of various kinds. Like it, it, it doesn't always work out,
[47:55] Speaker 3: but the potential for monsters of different kinds to fall
[47:58] Speaker 3: in love and even reproduce with humans.
[48:01] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And I guess that goes back to the
[48:03] Speaker 2: whole genealogy chart. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, and, and if
[48:08] Speaker 2: I ever, if I get around to reading this book, um,
[48:11] Speaker 2: It would be interesting to see just how that's carried
[48:14] Speaker 2: on in each of the tales.
[48:17] Speaker 3: It's kind of a strange theme, but yeah.
[48:18] Speaker 2: Well, it's a sad note, and you know what that means.
[48:22] Speaker 2: It's time to get back to our bridging narrative and
[48:26] Speaker 2: also have another musical performance. Yes.
[48:29] Speaker 3: Okay, so this next song is called Sucker for Your Love.
[48:32] Speaker 3: I think that is a vampire joke.
[48:34] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[48:34] Speaker 3: It was performed by, I don't know this guy otherwise,
[48:37] Speaker 3: but named B.A. Robertson. This is the one where most
[48:42] Speaker 3: of the video of the performance is just of this
[48:45] Speaker 3: guy singing the song and zooming in and out on
[48:48] Speaker 3: his face, like really getting up in there, getting up
[48:50] Speaker 3: in the nose and the mouth, uh, turbo zooming in
[48:54] Speaker 3: and out.
[48:54] Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah. This, I tried to, I was showing parts
[48:57] Speaker 2: of this to my wife and this scene, she's like, no, Mike,
[48:59] Speaker 2: I can't, this is too much because it keeps going
[49:03] Speaker 2: because again, it is full performance, the full number. Sucker
[49:06] Speaker 2: for Your Love, yeah, performed by B.A. Robertson. Robertson is
[49:10] Speaker 2: a Scottish rock, pop, new wave musician who I believe
[49:14] Speaker 2: is still active. He's had a very long and presumably
[49:17] Speaker 2: fruitful career. I wasn't super familiar with him. Best known
[49:20] Speaker 2: for such hits as 79s bang, bang and 79s knocked
[49:23] Speaker 2: it off. Um, yeah, this is the, here he's made
[49:28] Speaker 2: up in vampire makeup and, uh, he's getting into it.
[49:33] Speaker 2: Like he's a, he is a charismatic performer, but we
[49:36] Speaker 2: just keep zooming in and out.
[49:37] Speaker 3: Of his face.
[49:38] Speaker 2: Yeah. Uh, yeah.
[49:39] Speaker 3: And he, do you think he's supposed to be a vampire?
[49:43] Speaker 3: I did not think so.
[49:44] Speaker 2: I mean, his makeup is like as good, if not
[49:47] Speaker 2: better than some of the makeup we see in the,
[49:50] Speaker 2: the main story pieces.
[49:51] Speaker 3: So he doesn't have fangs, but then again, they say
[49:54] Speaker 3: they're retractable in this world. Um, if he is actually
[49:57] Speaker 3: a vampire that would challenge my, the performers are human rule,
[50:01] Speaker 3: which is, seems generally true for most of the movie. Uh,
[50:05] Speaker 3: but yeah, the, this song is, this song is cheeky.
[50:08] Speaker 3: It has a lot of jokes in it. Uh, there
[50:11] Speaker 3: are lines. I wrote it down a couple of the lyrics.
[50:13] Speaker 3: He says, you're so vain. You come from Pennsylvania. Well,
[50:17] Speaker 3: I'm from Transylvania. And then there's another line where he says,
[50:21] Speaker 3: something is like making love to a colander. And that,
[50:25] Speaker 3: that genuinely got a laugh out of me. Yeah.
[50:28] Speaker 2: I was thinking as I was re-listening to this song,
[50:31] Speaker 2: I was thinking, man, it's so close to something I
[50:34] Speaker 2: could imagine the cramps having done. It's not a Psycho
[50:37] Speaker 2: Billy track, but I could imagine the cramps performance of it.
[50:41] Speaker 2: I could imagine leaning into that Psycho Billy energy and
[50:45] Speaker 2: it still being basically the same song, same lyrics and
[50:48] Speaker 2: all with that sleazier Psycho Billy kind of vibe to it. Here,
[50:56] Speaker 2: I'm not exactly sure how I would even classify this song.
[50:59] Speaker 2: Is this just pop rock of the early 80s?
[51:02] Speaker 3: I don't know. Yeah, monster rock. It's kind of sui generis,
[51:07] Speaker 3: isn't it? Yeah. Okay, you ready to talk about the
[51:11] Speaker 3: next anthology segment?
[51:12] Speaker 2: That's right, because if you don't check out during this
[51:15] Speaker 2: musical number, you get the second installment. You get The Vampires.
[51:20] Speaker 3: This one has a lengthy prelude where they bring in
[51:24] Speaker 3: a guy who I think is supposed to be the
[51:26] Speaker 3: monster alter ego of this film's actual producer. That's right.
[51:31] Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're told that this is the childhood story
[51:35] Speaker 2: of a Hollywood producer, Lintem, played in the bridging narrative here,
[51:41] Speaker 2: an adult version by Anthony Steele, who lived 1920 through 2001,
[51:45] Speaker 2: but it's going to be played by the then child actor,
[51:49] Speaker 2: Warren Sayre, who was born in 68, and went on
[51:54] Speaker 2: to be a grown person actor as well in Lady
[51:57] Speaker 2: Jane in 86, Salome's Last Dance in 88. Also the
[52:02] Speaker 2: TV series Sharp in 96. But yeah, he presents it like, hey,
[52:07] Speaker 2: now I'm a successful Hollywood producer. And there's some vampire
[52:11] Speaker 2: jokes about Hollywood producers to be had here. And he's like,
[52:14] Speaker 2: this happened to me when I was younger. Here's the
[52:15] Speaker 2: film version. Yeah.
[52:17] Speaker 3: Okay. So he sets up the film to watch and
[52:21] Speaker 3: then everybody in the club watches it and then we
[52:23] Speaker 3: watch it too. So the cast, well, let's talk about
[52:26] Speaker 3: the cast. Okay.
[52:27] Speaker 2: So we mentioned the kid. And then his father is
[52:30] Speaker 2: played by Richard Johnson, who lived 1927 through 2015. A
[52:34] Speaker 2: British actor. His other credits include 63's The Haunting and
[52:38] Speaker 2: Lucio Fulci's Zombie in 1979. I think he plays a
[52:42] Speaker 2: doctor in that or a scientist of some sort. He
[52:45] Speaker 2: did a lot of British TV. He did an episode
[52:48] Speaker 2: of the British season of the Tales from the Crypt
[52:50] Speaker 2: series in the 90s. Obviously playing a Dracula character here.
[52:56] Speaker 2: They're not beating around the bush. Dad is just straight
[52:59] Speaker 2: up a Dracula.
[53:00] Speaker 3: Well, and it's played for comedy. This is the one
[53:03] Speaker 3: segment that's just straight up a joke.
[53:05] Speaker 2: Yeah. And I mean, it and it doesn't was looking
[53:08] Speaker 2: into I wasn't sure that it was going to be
[53:09] Speaker 2: a complete joke at first. There are moments where it
[53:11] Speaker 2: feels like it's getting into some serious territory. But then
[53:15] Speaker 2: at the end, just fully a joke. So that's Dad.
[53:19] Speaker 2: And then the mom is played by Brett Eklund. born
[53:23] Speaker 2: 1942 yes it is willow from the wicker man uh
[53:25] Speaker 2: it is good night from 74 is the man with
[53:28] Speaker 2: the golden gun uh swedish actress that we've talked about
[53:31] Speaker 2: on the show before um she is is she doing
[53:34] Speaker 2: it is she just using her own accent right she's
[53:36] Speaker 2: not like playing up a romanian accent.
[53:38] Speaker 3: Is she no yeah i think she's just doing her
[53:40] Speaker 3: normal accent and she she's got a weird energy here
[53:44] Speaker 3: but uh i don't know i i usually find brit
[53:46] Speaker 3: ecklund likable and she is here though it um I
[53:50] Speaker 3: don't know. I was kind of thinking about it like
[53:52] Speaker 3: the story is supposed to be I've got I'm having
[53:56] Speaker 3: trouble because my father is a vampire. But the subtext
[53:59] Speaker 3: really of it was more like I'm having trouble because
[54:02] Speaker 3: my mom is Britt Eklund.
[54:04] Speaker 2: Now, is she a Hume or is she a vampire?
[54:06] Speaker 3: She's a Hume. Yeah, I think so, because you see
[54:09] Speaker 3: the part where. The dad, who's a vampire, goes to
[54:12] Speaker 3: kiss her goodbye as he's going out for the night,
[54:15] Speaker 3: and he almost bites her on the neck and then
[54:17] Speaker 3: catches himself.
[54:17] Speaker 2: There you go.
[54:18] Speaker 3: He's like, sorry, sorry, honey, and then gives her a
[54:20] Speaker 3: little peck on the cheek and walks out.
[54:23] Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's mom, that's dad, that's the kid. The
[54:26] Speaker 2: other casting element, and the one that might lead many
[54:28] Speaker 2: people to check out this segment or even this film entirely,
[54:31] Speaker 2: is that Donald Pleasance is in it, and he plays
[54:34] Speaker 2: a character by the name of Pickering. We've talked about
[54:37] Speaker 2: Pleasence before on the show. We've talked about his range
[54:40] Speaker 2: and also sort of the more stereotypical roles that he plays.
[54:44] Speaker 2: This is kind of like standard Pleasence villain mode. He
[54:48] Speaker 2: is not going to surprise you with anything here on
[54:50] Speaker 2: the whole. You may be able to identify some key
[54:53] Speaker 2: nuances that he brings here. I'm not saying he's coasting
[54:56] Speaker 2: or anything, but it is more of a standard Donald
[55:00] Speaker 2: Pleasence performance playing what we're going to find out is
[55:04] Speaker 2: a government vampire hunter, the leader of something called, what,
[55:07] Speaker 2: the Blini or the B Squad?
[55:09] Speaker 3: The Blini, or I truly could not tell if they
[55:13] Speaker 3: were saying the B Squad or the Beast Squad. It
[55:17] Speaker 3: could have been either one.
[55:18] Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's some sort of governmental agency that's tasked
[55:25] Speaker 2: with seeking out seemingly immigrant vampires, And brutally enforcing the
[55:32] Speaker 2: law against them or working outside the law. I mean,
[55:34] Speaker 2: maybe it's I don't know if it's extrajudicial if you're
[55:37] Speaker 2: if you're staking a vampire. But these are definitely the
[55:40] Speaker 2: villains of the piece.
[55:41] Speaker 3: I think they're supposed to be government agents. Yeah.
[55:45] Speaker 2: OK.
[55:45] Speaker 3: OK. Well, so should we do the plot here?
[55:47] Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do the plot.
[55:48] Speaker 3: So the young boy in this story lent him he's
[55:51] Speaker 3: having a tough time. He feels lonely and sad. And
[55:54] Speaker 3: he is being bullied at school. And so there are
[55:57] Speaker 3: some moments early in this segment where it feels like
[55:59] Speaker 3: it's going to be serious, especially in the scenes where
[56:02] Speaker 3: he is dealing with brutal bullying. Yeah. I don't know
[56:05] Speaker 3: where this comes from, but I do think there's kind
[56:07] Speaker 3: of a stereotype of these like high bullying English primary
[56:12] Speaker 3: schools where, you know, they're just like calling, yelling at
[56:15] Speaker 3: the other kids and coward, you know, shrimp. And they're
[56:19] Speaker 3: trying to get him to jump over this mud puddle
[56:21] Speaker 3: and they're like, you can't do it. And then he
[56:23] Speaker 3: jumps and lands in the mud and they all mock him.
[56:27] Speaker 3: And so part of his sadness comes from being bullied
[56:30] Speaker 3: at school, I think, because he's small for his age
[56:33] Speaker 3: and he's a little bit shy and timid. But part
[56:36] Speaker 3: of his sadness also stems from his relationship with his father,
[56:39] Speaker 3: who is not presented as a bad guy. Like he's
[56:42] Speaker 3: presented as like a kind and loving father. But he
[56:45] Speaker 3: works nights and he sleeps during the day. So Lintum
[56:48] Speaker 3: sees very little of him. Now, why does his dad
[56:51] Speaker 3: work at night? Well, it's because he's a vampire and
[56:54] Speaker 3: they're not subtle about it. He's just dressed up like a,
[56:57] Speaker 3: you know, he's like Count Chocula. He's got the high
[56:59] Speaker 3: collar and everything. And Brit Eklund, again, is not a vampire.
[57:04] Speaker 3: So just dad is a vampire, not mom. And the
[57:07] Speaker 3: father is, he explains what he does to the son.
[57:10] Speaker 3: He's presented as a careful, moderate vampire. He says, quote,
[57:14] Speaker 3: feed without greed. That's my motto. And he focuses on
[57:19] Speaker 3: the after theater crowd. In fact, he, he, he almost
[57:23] Speaker 3: frames it like he searches out people who have more
[57:26] Speaker 3: blood than they need and removes a little bit of
[57:28] Speaker 3: it from them.
[57:29] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[57:31] Speaker 3: So. The young boy in this early scene is warned
[57:34] Speaker 3: about a group of dangerous men to avoid. These are
[57:37] Speaker 3: the Bellini or the B squad or the Beast squad.
[57:42] Speaker 3: He says these are men in suits who carry violin cases.
[57:46] Speaker 3: Beware of men with violin cases. Well, one day after
[57:50] Speaker 3: being bullied at school, young Lintem is approached by Donald
[57:54] Speaker 3: Pleasance playing a character named Pickering. In this first scene,
[57:58] Speaker 3: he's disguised as a priest. He comes up and starts
[58:01] Speaker 3: asking him questions about his father. And the kid's like,
[58:04] Speaker 3: I'm not supposed to talk to strangers. And Donald Pleasance,
[58:07] Speaker 3: this creepy voice, he's like, but I am the clergy.
[58:11] Speaker 3: And so Pickering is hunting for evidence that Lintem's father
[58:15] Speaker 3: is a vampire. Eventually one day while Lintem's mother is
[58:18] Speaker 3: away at the shop, the Bellini break into the house.
[58:21] Speaker 3: They find the father's coffin in the basement and they
[58:24] Speaker 3: stake him. They drive a stake into his heart. But
[58:27] Speaker 3: right after they stake him, the father in his death throes,
[58:31] Speaker 3: Bites Pickering on the neck. Bites Pickering, the boss of
[58:34] Speaker 3: the squad. So now they realize he's going to turn.
[58:37] Speaker 3: And Britt Eklund has to explain this to the Blaney.
[58:40] Speaker 3: You'd think they'd, they know how it works, but she's like,
[58:42] Speaker 3: you are doomed. He bit you deep. And now your
[58:45] Speaker 3: own men will have to stake you. And the men
[58:48] Speaker 3: are like, she's right, boss. So this part is definitely
[58:53] Speaker 3: played for comedy, but these guys in the bowler hats
[58:55] Speaker 3: have to chase down Donald Pleasance and drive a stake
[58:59] Speaker 3: into his heart. And then they take their boss away
[59:02] Speaker 3: and leave in their truck. But once the squad is gone,
[59:06] Speaker 3: Lentim and his mother, they're mourning their father's death when
[59:08] Speaker 3: suddenly he pops back up. He's fine after all, and
[59:11] Speaker 3: he reveals that he was wearing a steak-proof vest filled
[59:15] Speaker 3: with tomato ketchup. So how did the steak go in?
[59:19] Speaker 3: Because you see it sink in when he hammers it.
[59:22] Speaker 3: What did it go into? Yeah.
[59:27] Speaker 2: This is I obviously this is the weakest of the three. Yeah. Yeah.
[59:34] Speaker 2: By the time the tomato ketchup joke was unleashed, I
[59:37] Speaker 2: was I had just given up on caring about it.
[59:39] Speaker 2: But to even ask these sorts of questions, because I felt,
[59:42] Speaker 2: you know, it has a solid cast. And despite the
[59:44] Speaker 2: obvious comedic elements to it with the dad being Dracula, essentially,
[59:50] Speaker 2: I was thinking, well, you know, it does have maybe
[59:51] Speaker 2: there's some commentary taking place here about like the working
[59:55] Speaker 2: class immigrant experience in the UK, you know. The horrors
[59:58] Speaker 2: of aggressive immigration enforcement or something, you know? And I
[1:00:03] Speaker 2: was like, okay, maybe we're going to get into somewhere
[1:00:05] Speaker 2: kind of poignant, you know? Kind of how we landed
[1:00:08] Speaker 2: the last installment. But then it just ends in cheap
[1:00:12] Speaker 2: laughs at the end. It's just the lamest tomato ketchup
[1:00:17] Speaker 2: is blood joke I think I've ever heard in my life. Yeah.
[1:00:21] Speaker 3: It's pretty silly. Yeah.
[1:00:23] Speaker 2: But it's over pretty quickly. What can you say? All right.
[1:00:27] Speaker 3: You want to talk about the next musical performance?
[1:00:29] Speaker 2: Oh yeah. Cause this one is, this one's pretty power.
[1:00:31] Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, I guess the, not to say
[1:00:34] Speaker 2: that the lyrics are all that great, but the, it's
[1:00:36] Speaker 2: a great performance. Uh, we get this song, the stripper
[1:00:39] Speaker 2: performed by a group called night and the vocalist here. I,
[1:00:43] Speaker 2: sometimes I see this presented as with vocals by Stevie Lang. Um,
[1:00:48] Speaker 2: I think she was their vocalist, at least on some
[1:00:50] Speaker 2: of their tracks on their first album, but maybe she
[1:00:53] Speaker 2: didn't work with them all the time. I'm not sure.
[1:00:55] Speaker 1: Hmm.
[1:00:56] Speaker 2: So Knight released two albums in 79 and 80, Knight, self-titled,
[1:01:01] Speaker 2: and then one called Long Distance. And then Stevie Ling,
[1:01:05] Speaker 2: also known as Stevie Van, the Zambian-born British singer and
[1:01:09] Speaker 2: vocal coach. And I have to say, pretty powerful performance here.
[1:01:14] Speaker 2: She's got some real pipes. She's not dressed up as
[1:01:17] Speaker 2: any kind of a monster. She's just up there, you know,
[1:01:21] Speaker 2: belting out these power vocals. And it's a pretty rocking number.
[1:01:25] Speaker 3: Yeah, the performance is pretty strong. I was trying to
[1:01:27] Speaker 3: think what it reminded me of, and the closest thing
[1:01:30] Speaker 3: I could think of was the band Scandal sings, like,
[1:01:33] Speaker 3: Goodbye to You, or they sing The Warrior, I Am
[1:01:37] Speaker 3: the Warrior. Oh, yeah, yeah.
[1:01:39] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I know the track.
[1:01:41] Speaker 3: You're talking about. Patti Smith, I think.
[1:01:42] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:01:42] Speaker 3: Another Patti Smith, not that Patti Smith.
[1:01:44] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, The Warrior. That's a great song, yeah.
[1:01:46] Speaker 3: Yeah. Shooting Out the Walls of Heart.
[1:01:49] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, so that kind of, like, you know, female
[1:01:52] Speaker 2: power ballad kind of a thing, you know, that kind
[1:01:54] Speaker 2: of energy going on here. The other thing that this track,
[1:01:57] Speaker 2: this performance has going for it is that unlike the
[1:01:59] Speaker 2: other performances, it doesn't have to rest purely on the
[1:02:02] Speaker 2: strength of the club and the actual performance, because we
[1:02:07] Speaker 2: get really one of the highlights of the picture as
[1:02:11] Speaker 2: part of the sort of the illustration of this particular track.
[1:02:14] Speaker 3: Right. So this track has an animated segment that goes
[1:02:18] Speaker 3: with it, which is an animated. It starts off with
[1:02:21] Speaker 3: a dancer doing a striptease, but then the human dancer
[1:02:25] Speaker 3: turns into an animated dancing silhouette and continues the striptease.
[1:02:31] Speaker 3: But then it reaches this amazing climax where it turns
[1:02:35] Speaker 3: into a skeleton that strips to remove its flesh and
[1:02:39] Speaker 3: then keeps doing a burlesque dance as just a skeleton,
[1:02:43] Speaker 3: which is very funny. And I like the animation. It's great.
[1:02:47] Speaker 3: It's wonderful.
[1:02:48] Speaker 2: This may be the highlight of the picture. If you
[1:02:52] Speaker 2: watch nothing else, it's worth just seeking out this clip.
[1:02:56] Speaker 2: This clip gets shared a lot on socials. I saw
[1:02:58] Speaker 2: Amy Sedaris share it just the other day. I think
[1:03:02] Speaker 2: maybe she shares it every year as part of her
[1:03:03] Speaker 2: regular Instagram activity. But yeah, it's hand-painted animation. The gimmick
[1:03:10] Speaker 2: is really cool. This is basically what Robbie Williams would
[1:03:13] Speaker 2: do later on. in the music video for 2000's Rock DJ,
[1:03:17] Speaker 2: but there's absolutely no beating the hand-drawn animation that we
[1:03:21] Speaker 2: get here in this Monster Club segment.
[1:03:23] Speaker 3: I mean, it is the logical conclusion of the striptease
[1:03:26] Speaker 3: art form. Yeah, exactly.
[1:03:28] Speaker 2: So, yeah, absolutely.
[1:03:30] Speaker 3: Strip off that flesh. Okay, you want to talk about
[1:03:42] Speaker 3: the third segment?
[1:03:43] Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk about the ghouls. And this one is
[1:03:48] Speaker 2: going to concern ghouls, but also the hume goo that
[1:03:52] Speaker 2: we talked about earlier.
[1:03:53] Speaker 3: That's right.
[1:03:54] Speaker 2: So this one, we kind of also continue the theme
[1:03:57] Speaker 2: of it being somehow connected to movies, because this one
[1:04:01] Speaker 2: is going to be about an American film director filming
[1:04:06] Speaker 2: some sort of horror movie in the UK.
[1:04:08] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
[1:04:10] Speaker 2: And the director's name is Sam, and he's played by
[1:04:12] Speaker 2: Stuart Whitman, who of 1928 through 2020, an American actor,
[1:04:16] Speaker 2: you know, kind of like rugged Western, you know, good looks,
[1:04:21] Speaker 2: slightly stocky, reminded me, who's he reminding me of?
[1:04:24] Speaker 3: Reminded me of Oliver Stone.
[1:04:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess maybe they were kind of
[1:04:28] Speaker 2: like patterning him a bit on Stone. I don't know.
[1:04:31] Speaker 2: Off the top of my head, I don't remember what
[1:04:32] Speaker 2: Stone looked like at the time. He was much younger,
[1:04:34] Speaker 2: I guess. But yeah, I think that's a solid comparison,
[1:04:37] Speaker 2: at least from our vantage point. But yeah, American actor
[1:04:41] Speaker 2: nominated for an Oscar in 62 for his leading role
[1:04:44] Speaker 2: in the drama The Mark. And his many film and
[1:04:47] Speaker 2: TV credits include both 1972's Night of the Lepus, the
[1:04:50] Speaker 2: giant bunny movie, and 81's Demonoid. So I think he's
[1:04:56] Speaker 2: pretty solid here. He basically played one of these roles where,
[1:05:00] Speaker 2: to the limited extent you can develop this in an anthology,
[1:05:03] Speaker 2: you know, short form format, an unlikable guy. but he's
[1:05:08] Speaker 2: put in a dire situation where you can't help but
[1:05:10] Speaker 2: root for him. And maybe you see a little bit
[1:05:12] Speaker 2: more of his humanity emerging in that situation. Yeah.
[1:05:16] Speaker 3: Yeah, they don't really go deep with this character. It's
[1:05:19] Speaker 3: more just like a guy trying to survive in a
[1:05:21] Speaker 3: crazy scenario.
[1:05:22] Speaker 2: Yeah. And that crazy scenario is going to include a
[1:05:26] Speaker 2: village full of ghouls, as well as a humgu by
[1:05:29] Speaker 2: the name of Luna, played by Leslie Dunlop, born 1956-1950.
[1:05:34] Speaker 2: British actress best known for her role as Nora in
[1:05:37] Speaker 2: David Lynch's 1980 film, The Elephant Man. Her other credits
[1:05:41] Speaker 2: include 1977's A Little Night Music, 78's Red Shift, and
[1:05:46] Speaker 2: 74's Haunted the Ferryman, a rare Jeremy Brett horror picture.
[1:05:51] Speaker 2: There are only a handful of these. This one about
[1:05:54] Speaker 2: a horror author, played by Brett, whose fictional creations begin
[1:05:57] Speaker 2: to come to life. So I haven't seen it, but
[1:06:00] Speaker 2: it's definitely going on the list.
[1:06:01] Speaker 3: Okay.
[1:06:03] Speaker 2: I think Dunlop is wonderful in this. I think Luna
[1:06:06] Speaker 2: is a lot of fun here. We can talk a
[1:06:08] Speaker 2: little bit about the Tarzan speak.
[1:06:10] Speaker 3: The writing, yeah. Yeah, the writing. She's got a difficult
[1:06:14] Speaker 3: job ahead of her delivering some of these lines.
[1:06:16] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, really, all sorts of credit to all
[1:06:20] Speaker 2: of our main actors in these anthology segments, because I
[1:06:23] Speaker 2: think they all really do a great job of elevating
[1:06:26] Speaker 2: the material and bringing it to a place where even
[1:06:29] Speaker 2: with the budgetary constraints, you can enjoy it. Yeah. Let's see.
[1:06:33] Speaker 2: We also have a horror staple in the form of
[1:06:36] Speaker 2: Patrick McGee in this. He plays an innkeeper and I
[1:06:39] Speaker 2: think probably a ghoul. He lived 1922 through 1982. We
[1:06:43] Speaker 2: previously talked about him in our episode on Corman's The
[1:06:45] Speaker 2: Mask of the Red Death, but his many credits include
[1:06:48] Speaker 2: all sorts of stuff, including pictures like 71's A Clockwork Orange,
[1:06:53] Speaker 2: 75's Barry Lyndon, and 81's Chariots of Fire. He's also
[1:06:57] Speaker 2: in the Amicus Tales from the Crypt movie. Hmm. We
[1:07:01] Speaker 2: also have, I didn't ID him in this, but Vic Tablian,
[1:07:05] Speaker 2: who played two different roles in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
[1:07:08] Speaker 2: He played the monkey man. And then also some other villain.
[1:07:13] Speaker 2: I forget where else he is in the film. But
[1:07:15] Speaker 2: he plays the monkey man. He's one of the villagers here.
[1:07:18] Speaker 3: He pulls a gun on Indy in the opening, in
[1:07:21] Speaker 3: the prologue. Oh, yeah, yeah.
[1:07:23] Speaker 2: That's it, yeah.
[1:07:25] Speaker 3: I think. I'm not positive.
[1:07:27] Speaker 2: So he's just in there somewhere. They're between... And so
[1:07:29] Speaker 2: we have a couple of Raiders references just walking around
[1:07:33] Speaker 2: in the background. The music, though, in this segment is
[1:07:37] Speaker 2: pretty alarming because I wasn't expecting it. Because up until now,
[1:07:41] Speaker 2: we've had our pop and our rock and our reggae.
[1:07:45] Speaker 2: And we've also had more traditional sort of hammer type scores.
[1:07:48] Speaker 2: And then this particular segment goes full synth. We get
[1:07:53] Speaker 2: this really crazy and enjoyable electronic score from Alan Hawke.
[1:07:59] Speaker 2: hawkshaw who lived 1937 through 2021 he worked a lot
[1:08:03] Speaker 2: in british tv and library music for media he was
[1:08:06] Speaker 2: a pianist keyboardist and producer whose music credits span a
[1:08:10] Speaker 2: number of genres from pop rock to disco and he
[1:08:13] Speaker 2: worked as a sessions musician for such artists as david
[1:08:15] Speaker 2: bowie cliff richard and olivia.
[1:08:18] Speaker 3: Newton john hmm Okay, so the plot of this one. Again,
[1:08:23] Speaker 3: as we've said, Sam is the horror movie director. He's
[1:08:26] Speaker 3: working in London. He's dissatisfied with the locations that his
[1:08:30] Speaker 3: scouts have found for him to film a scary scene
[1:08:33] Speaker 3: in his current movie. So he's like, if you want
[1:08:37] Speaker 3: something done right, you've got to do it yourself. So
[1:08:39] Speaker 3: he decides to drive out into the country and find
[1:08:42] Speaker 3: a creepy-looking village to shoot. So he's going on down
[1:08:46] Speaker 3: the motorway and at one place he pulls off to
[1:08:48] Speaker 3: the side and finds an old wooden sign indicating a
[1:08:51] Speaker 3: place called Luffville. To reach it, he has to drive
[1:08:55] Speaker 3: over an old stone bridge and through a bank of mist.
[1:08:58] Speaker 3: And when he gets there, the buildings are shabby and
[1:09:01] Speaker 3: decrepit and all the local people are squalid and they
[1:09:03] Speaker 3: behave strangely. They talk about the elders who will be
[1:09:07] Speaker 3: here soon when the elders arrive. Things will happen then.
[1:09:11] Speaker 3: Sam gets freaked out and he tries to leave, but
[1:09:14] Speaker 3: he is prevented by the locals who seem to have
[1:09:16] Speaker 3: disabled his car. I think they pulled out the spark plugs.
[1:09:20] Speaker 3: So eventually he seeks shelter in a room at the
[1:09:24] Speaker 3: local inn. The innkeeper is like one of the first
[1:09:27] Speaker 3: guys he talks to when he gets there. And the
[1:09:31] Speaker 3: innkeeper says, oh, you shouldn't drive at night. You should
[1:09:33] Speaker 3: stay here for the night. And then he tries to
[1:09:35] Speaker 3: go back out to his car. That fails. And then
[1:09:37] Speaker 3: he is just mobbed by all of these locals dressed
[1:09:40] Speaker 3: in gray who chase him inside. And they follow him
[1:09:44] Speaker 3: all the way up to his room. It's really funny
[1:09:46] Speaker 3: the way they're just constantly pushing and grabbing at him
[1:09:49] Speaker 3: as he makes his way up the stairs and up
[1:09:51] Speaker 3: another flight of stairs and then to his door. But
[1:09:53] Speaker 3: once he finally gets into his room, okay, now he's okay.
[1:09:57] Speaker 3: And there in his room, he gets some room service
[1:10:01] Speaker 3: from a girl named Luna, who again speaks like Tarzan.
[1:10:05] Speaker 3: She's very me, Luna, me, hume, goo. The other villagers,
[1:10:10] Speaker 3: it turns out, are ghouls, which are undead monsters who
[1:10:13] Speaker 3: live by eating grave flesh. They eat the flesh of
[1:10:17] Speaker 3: the dead. So normally we find out they live by
[1:10:21] Speaker 3: digging up corpses and consuming them. But it seems the
[1:10:25] Speaker 3: local graveyard has now been fully exploited and they're out
[1:10:28] Speaker 3: of supplies. So they've got to find new flesh to
[1:10:31] Speaker 3: feed on. And there are some funny things in the
[1:10:34] Speaker 3: revelation of how we find out about this through Luna.
[1:10:38] Speaker 2: Yeah, I love how, again, with sort of the Tarzan speak,
[1:10:41] Speaker 2: she talks about how, oh, yeah, we get our clothes
[1:10:43] Speaker 2: from the boxes. The boxes have food. The boxes have clothing.
[1:10:47] Speaker 2: And we realize, oh, she's talking about caskets.
[1:10:50] Speaker 3: Yes.
[1:10:50] Speaker 2: These ghouls are ripping the caskets out of the ground
[1:10:54] Speaker 2: and then scavenging all the nasty meat inside and also
[1:10:58] Speaker 2: putting on the grave clothes that they pull out of it.
[1:11:01] Speaker 3: Yeah, so everybody's dressed like in coffin clothes, too.
[1:11:05] Speaker 2: So.
[1:11:06] Speaker 3: they're going to eat Sam. Uh, we learned they're going
[1:11:08] Speaker 3: to eat Sam and, uh, Sam figures out that he
[1:11:11] Speaker 3: can protect himself with crosses and by hiding at the
[1:11:14] Speaker 3: local church. I think Luna tells him that she says that,
[1:11:17] Speaker 3: you know, ghouls cannot go in church. They fall down. Uh, so,
[1:11:21] Speaker 3: you know, they cannot tread upon Holy ground. Eventually they
[1:11:24] Speaker 3: go to the church. Uh, Luna ends up there as
[1:11:26] Speaker 3: well because the ghouls attack her. And Sam, uh, learns
[1:11:30] Speaker 3: the history of Luffville, uh, how long ago it was
[1:11:33] Speaker 3: taken over by ghouls. First, there was one ghoul, but
[1:11:36] Speaker 3: the local priest took pity on this creature that was
[1:11:40] Speaker 3: crouching and squatting in the graveyard and tried to clean
[1:11:43] Speaker 3: it up and civilize it. He thought he could give
[1:11:45] Speaker 3: the ghoul a bath, put it in bed, read from
[1:11:49] Speaker 3: the Bible, I guess, and thought that would really straighten
[1:11:52] Speaker 3: the ghoul out, but it didn't work. And then the
[1:11:54] Speaker 3: ghoul just started eating the dead from the village. So
[1:11:57] Speaker 3: the people chased it away, but then it came back
[1:11:59] Speaker 3: with many more like itself. And eventually the ghouls just
[1:12:02] Speaker 3: took over the village.
[1:12:04] Speaker 2: Now I have to add that as we're learning about
[1:12:07] Speaker 2: the ghoulish history of the town, we're treated with illustrations.
[1:12:11] Speaker 3: Yes.
[1:12:11] Speaker 2: The fabulous illustrations by British comic book legend who worked
[1:12:15] Speaker 2: a lot in horror, John Bolton, still around, still working,
[1:12:19] Speaker 2: born 1951, but just amazing kind of Bernie Wrightson-esque images
[1:12:25] Speaker 2: of these horrific yet carnal ghouls. Like these are perfect
[1:12:28] Speaker 2: ghoul illustrations. And I am something of a ghoul connoisseur.
[1:12:32] Speaker 2: And I feel like these illustrations just capture the spirit
[1:12:35] Speaker 2: of the ghoul perfectly. And this is, of course, not
[1:12:39] Speaker 2: what we see with our human actors in the live
[1:12:42] Speaker 2: action sequences. All of the villagers look like peasants from
[1:12:45] Speaker 2: a Monty Python sketch at best. So again, this is
[1:12:49] Speaker 2: definitely a moment where they clearly had great pre-production art,
[1:12:52] Speaker 2: but could not realize something like that through their special
[1:12:58] Speaker 2: effects budget so they just show the images as well
[1:13:01] Speaker 2: i'm glad we got to see the images uh so
[1:13:03] Speaker 2: the illustrations do you know they work to some extent.
[1:13:06] Speaker 3: Yeah the the villagers really are they're like what do
[1:13:08] Speaker 3: we burn apart from witches more witches.
[1:13:10] Speaker 2: Yeah they look like that what.
[1:13:12] Speaker 3: Do we eat apart from corpses more corpses uh but
[1:13:16] Speaker 3: i like your bernie wright's in comparison too because these
[1:13:19] Speaker 3: illustrations they they kind of remind me of um Did
[1:13:22] Speaker 3: you ever see Bernie Wrightson's take on Frankenstein? He did. Yeah.
[1:13:26] Speaker 2: Very much.
[1:13:27] Speaker 3: Kind of looks like that. Yeah. But anyway, eventually in
[1:13:31] Speaker 3: the church, the ghouls start throwing rocks through the windows.
[1:13:35] Speaker 3: These are rock throwing ghouls. And Luna and Sam make
[1:13:39] Speaker 3: a break for it. They're trying to escape the village.
[1:13:42] Speaker 3: The ghouls chase them, throwing rocks. Eventually, a rock hits
[1:13:45] Speaker 3: Luna in the back, and Luna is killed. She has
[1:13:48] Speaker 3: a not-super-convincing death scene, you know, one of those scenes
[1:13:51] Speaker 3: where somebody's laying on the ground and is like, I
[1:13:53] Speaker 3: die now. Yeah.
[1:13:54] Speaker 2: I guess Hume Goose have much thinner skulls or something.
[1:13:58] Speaker 2: I don't know. Their backs are highly susceptible to ranged
[1:14:01] Speaker 2: rock fatal injuries.
[1:14:03] Speaker 3: I'm not sure. Yeah. She says, like, back broken. You know,
[1:14:07] Speaker 3: Dada throw rock at Rabbit. Rabbit die.
[1:14:09] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:14:12] Speaker 3: So anyway, Luna is killed, and then Sam makes it
[1:14:15] Speaker 3: out onto the highway finally and is picked up by
[1:14:17] Speaker 3: a policeman. So he's safe. He's made it back to civilization.
[1:14:21] Speaker 3: Gets in the back of the police car. Wouldn't you
[1:14:23] Speaker 3: know it, these are ghoul policemen. So they just take
[1:14:25] Speaker 3: him back to Luffville, and he's going to be eaten.
[1:14:28] Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're escorting the elders in. The elders are
[1:14:31] Speaker 2: in some sort of black-tinted window vehicle. So we don't
[1:14:35] Speaker 2: get a lot of additional info on exactly how the
[1:14:37] Speaker 2: elders work, other than I guess they're like the leading ghouls.
[1:14:40] Speaker 2: who are carrying on business, I guess, maybe in London
[1:14:44] Speaker 2: and then coming back out here, um, on the weekends.
[1:14:47] Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know exactly what their arrangement is,
[1:14:48] Speaker 2: but we keep it nice and mysterious.
[1:14:51] Speaker 3: So after this segment, we get a final framing segment, uh,
[1:14:54] Speaker 3: where we come back and Vincent price. Um, he, he
[1:14:58] Speaker 3: makes the case that John Carradine should be allowed to
[1:15:00] Speaker 3: join the monster club. Why not? You know, he's, he's
[1:15:03] Speaker 3: a horror author, but not just because he's a horror author.
[1:15:07] Speaker 3: He should be allowed to join the monster club. Uh,
[1:15:09] Speaker 3: price says, Because Humes are in fact the most terrible
[1:15:13] Speaker 3: monsters ever to exist. And here he runs through a,
[1:15:16] Speaker 3: this is a speech that gets clipped out of the
[1:15:18] Speaker 3: movie sometimes.
[1:15:19] Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
[1:15:20] Speaker 3: Because it's basically a speech. I don't mean removed. I mean,
[1:15:24] Speaker 3: like it's a, it's a clip people watch in isolation
[1:15:27] Speaker 3: because it's just Vincent Price giving a speech about how
[1:15:30] Speaker 3: humans are the worst monsters ever created. And he runs
[1:15:32] Speaker 3: through this itemized list of like human terrors and crimes
[1:15:37] Speaker 3: and mass murderers. and the awful technologies humans have created,
[1:15:41] Speaker 3: and all the execution methods we've come up with, and
[1:15:44] Speaker 3: so on and so on. And then finally, I believe
[1:15:47] Speaker 3: the club secretary, who is a kind of werewolf creature, says,
[1:15:50] Speaker 3: I didn't realize Humes were so talented. And Carradine says,
[1:15:54] Speaker 3: we don't like to boast. And so there you go.
[1:15:59] Speaker 2: It's pretty fun. Obviously, Vincent Price is having a tremendous
[1:16:02] Speaker 2: time delivering this monologue. And yeah, it makes sense that this,
[1:16:06] Speaker 2: along with the skeleton stripper segment, is one of the
[1:16:09] Speaker 2: things that gets shared around a lot.
[1:16:11] Speaker 3: Yeah. So that's the end. It seems like John Carradine
[1:16:15] Speaker 3: is going to be allowed to join the Monster Club
[1:16:17] Speaker 3: because humans are, in fact, quite monstrous. And then we
[1:16:21] Speaker 3: get a final song where we're just watching everybody dance.
[1:16:26] Speaker 3: It's called Welcome to the Monster Club.
[1:16:28] Speaker 2: Yes, performed by the Pretty Things, English R & B band,
[1:16:31] Speaker 2: active band. on and off from 63 through 2019, multiple albums.
[1:16:37] Speaker 2: Dick Taylor was one of the founding members, and he
[1:16:39] Speaker 2: was actually, I'm to understand, a very early founding member
[1:16:42] Speaker 2: of either the Rolling Stones or what would become the
[1:16:45] Speaker 2: Rolling Stones. And then the lead singer here that we
[1:16:48] Speaker 2: see performing is Phil May. He lived 1944 through, I believe, 2020.
[1:16:54] Speaker 2: For my money, this is a pretty solid number. This
[1:16:56] Speaker 2: is total English white guy reggae. That was my read
[1:17:00] Speaker 2: on the genre anyway. But it's a snappy little... I
[1:17:04] Speaker 2: don't know. I had it stuck in my head all morning.
[1:17:06] Speaker 2: So I have to agree. There's something working with the
[1:17:09] Speaker 2: Monster Club by the Pretty Things.
[1:17:11] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a shuffling soft reggae. It's the kind of
[1:17:14] Speaker 3: thing John Carradine could dance to. Yeah, you get to see.
[1:17:17] Speaker 2: Now, Price definitely cuts a rug to this one. Price
[1:17:21] Speaker 2: has some moves. Carradine, this is the most animated I've
[1:17:24] Speaker 2: ever seen him at any age. Oh, I don't know.
[1:17:27] Speaker 3: What about Night Train to Mundo Fine?
[1:17:29] Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Well, I need to revisit it. I need
[1:17:33] Speaker 2: to revisit it. And that's the Monster Club.
[1:17:37] Speaker 3: There you go.
[1:17:38] Speaker 2: They send us home dancing, send us home happy with
[1:17:42] Speaker 2: some mixed messages throughout. Like humans are bad or they're great.
[1:17:46] Speaker 2: Monsters are to be feared or to be celebrated. I
[1:17:49] Speaker 2: don't know. It's all of the above.
[1:17:51] Speaker 3: A lot of ambiguities here, yeah. Are the monsters the monsters?
[1:17:54] Speaker 3: Or as Vincent Price makes the case, are humans the
[1:17:57] Speaker 3: most monstrous of all? In which case, why are the
[1:18:00] Speaker 3: humans generally not in the monster club? Why is only
[1:18:03] Speaker 3: Archette Windhays in? I don't know. Also, yeah, the question
[1:18:07] Speaker 3: remains for me, do monsters want to be known about
[1:18:10] Speaker 3: or not? Do they like the fame they get from
[1:18:12] Speaker 3: horror stories? Or do they want to keep things hidden
[1:18:16] Speaker 3: and keep their secrets?
[1:18:18] Speaker 2: Unclear.
[1:18:19] Speaker 3: Uncertain.
[1:18:20] Speaker 2: We have to pick up the book. But hey, listeners,
[1:18:23] Speaker 2: maybe some of you have read the book already and
[1:18:25] Speaker 2: you can write in and let us know. Maybe you
[1:18:26] Speaker 2: have some takes on these questions that we've been asking.
[1:18:31] Speaker 2: Either way, we'd love to hear from you. If you've
[1:18:33] Speaker 2: watched even just the dancing number from this movie, write in.
[1:18:39] Speaker 2: The Monster Club. Pretty fun. I would say a pretty
[1:18:41] Speaker 2: fun Halloween party. All right. We're going to go ahead
[1:18:45] Speaker 2: and sign off here. But yeah, we just want to
[1:18:49] Speaker 2: remind you that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily
[1:18:51] Speaker 2: a science and culture podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays
[1:18:53] Speaker 2: and Thursdays. But on Fridays, we set aside most serious
[1:18:56] Speaker 2: concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird
[1:18:58] Speaker 2: House Cinema. If you're on Letterboxd.com, look us up there.
[1:19:02] Speaker 2: We are Weird House, and you'll find a nice list
[1:19:04] Speaker 2: of all the movies we've.
[1:19:04] Speaker 3: Covered over the years.
[1:19:06] Speaker 2: Wherever you get the show, though, if you're watching on
[1:19:08] Speaker 2: Netflix or you're listening, wherever you get your audio podcast,
[1:19:12] Speaker 2: just rate, review, subscribe. If you're on Netflix, give us
[1:19:15] Speaker 2: a couple of thumbs up and ask to be reminded
[1:19:17] Speaker 2: about new episodes.
[1:19:19] Speaker 3: Huge thanks, as always, to our excellent audio producer, JJ Posway.
[1:19:23] Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
[1:19:24] Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
[1:19:26] Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
[1:19:29] Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stufftoblowyourmind.com.
[1:19:39] Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio.
[1:19:42] Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple
[1:19:45] Speaker 1: Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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