Blank Check with Griffin & David - Evil Dead II with John Hodgman

Episode Date: April 3, 2022

It’s the definitive Sam Raimi film - a “symphony of silly” with a bravura performance from Bruce Campbell, and a prevailing sense of, “the more gore the merrier!” John Hodgman - who, believe it or not, was Bruce Campbell’s literary agent! - joins us to chat about the magic of “Evil Dead II” and what puts it in the pantheon of “sequels that improve upon the original installment.” Also in this episode - we imagine the time when Sam Raimi, the Coens, Frances McDormand, and Holly Hunter were all roommates in Silverlake; a behind the scenes look at the publication of Bruce Campbell’s best-selling memoir “If Chins Could Kill”; and an unrelated but very involved tangent about the Peanuts comic strip.  Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

I'll podcast your soul. I'll podcast your soul. I'll podcast your soul. I'll podcast your soul. Podcast this. Okay. Well, I have to do everything, basically. I know. It's not a wordy movie.

There's not a lot of quotes where you could, you know. I also feel like the most infamous quote from this movie is groovy. Of course. One word. Am I here or not here? You're here. You could have done some chainsaw noises, I suppose. Yeah.

You just said podcast. Podcast. We just podcasted our girlfriend. Does that seem okay to you? That's a good one. Yeah, that's actually probably the best. Right. Does that sound fine?

Oh, sound fine oh sound fine right yeah um i'm looking at what about what about this one after all i'm a man and you're a podcast at least last time i checked yeah there's some pretty good ones actually that was his corny but like now i'm looking at the page and it's like work shed right that's a line right groovy that's a line groovy that's a line yeah i noticed that again producer ben made a good point right before we started recording we should probably devote the first like 10 to 12 minutes of this episode to redoing our evil dead one episode but just like bullet points like faster speed but we nailed that episode or maybe we blew it this is the only problem right right we gotta recast a little bit

half the cast someone is different it's not ellen sandweiss or whatever anymore it's whatever her name is yes um yes i i think look this movie has like such a legendary status in so many different ways. And I think the fact that for so long that was never really explained, that people were like, so is it a remake or is it not? Right. And then I feel like in the last five or ten years, Raimi and Campbell have both been like, we didn't have the rights to the first movie. We wanted to sort of do a previously on. Right. We couldn't. So we just remade it more quickly with less people. Also, they didn't want to rights to the first movie. We wanted to sort of do a previously on. We couldn't.

So we just remade it more quickly with less people. Also, they did want to make it. They wanted to make Army of Darkness. But it was De Laurentiis who said, no, why don't you just make Evil Dead 2? But Evil Undead, right? That was their... No, no, no.

Medieval Dead. Medieval Dead. That's it. Sorry. Medieval Undead. That's not funny. It's kind of like the Aliens pitch. Evil Dead and then... M-E-D. That's funny.

Except the aliens with a cash symbol. Dollar sign at the end. Makes sense to every craven Hollywood producer. That was the problem. I see no symbols for money in this thing you wrote there. Medieval dead is like a very Sam Raimi idea. It's like, how about we take the thing that is recognizable, that everyone knows, and we throw it into a Ren Faire?

Right. Everyone will be like, ah, it's killing the alien! And it's like, they're not in the cabin at all. Right. I feel like this is going down. Right. Oh, no. I feel like this is going down. Right. Oh, no. I feel like my mic is drifting down.

Ben's mic just drooped. Ben, your cranes have real performance anxiety. It's been a while since I've done this, but I do feel like there's a new Ben nickname I need to add. I'm not going to run through all of them. I trust this is a nickname of approbation and celebration of Ben, not derision. I think it's, look, I think. I don't want to be responsible. I view it not derision. I think it's... Look, I think... I don't want to be responsible.

I view it as a positive. I think it's an honorific. Say it again. He might take Umbridge. Say it again. The new nickname I want to give him is The Futzer. Oh, he is a bit of a futzer. He's futzing.

You know, we're hopefully working towards finally getting a studio, a semi-permanent professional home to record our podcast and for the first time since the pandemic right but it means that ben's always like constructing and deconstructing a record set up for every episode yeah i feel a little bit like my energy is um who's the uh dusty boy and uh charlie brown pigpen i feel a little bit like my energy is just chaos before we get recording, because I'm always just like, I want to set up and get this going.

So anyway. I disagree. You were a calming presence from the moment I stepped in. Excellent. Yeah, Pigpen isn't like a busybody. He's just got shit fucking swirling around him. Yeah, you're dirty as shit. That's true.

You've got flies. I mean, I've got flies. I've got dust. So I guess that's why my head went there. Yeah, but that would be more Pigpen, I think. That would be more Pigpen. Look, this is a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

I'm David. I'm the futzer. You're the futzer. Yeah. Is Pigpen the best Charlie Brown character? Pigpen's the funniest creation, I think. Obviously, like Linus and Lucy and and charlie are like the best rich interesting character so like but it's sort of like it's like the simpsons okay like take the main cast the main

guys off the side side characters so we're talking like schroeder and peppermint patty and all the all this i have an obvious answer i i think i think pigpen's like deal is the funniest comedic conceit that he always has he's always dirty right right but just the idea conceit. He's always dirty. But just the idea of this kid who's so dirty, it creates its own ecosystem. And it is a classic kid thing. There is always that kid who's got jam on his hands. But I have my answer for who the best

non-Trinity character. Obviously Snoopy and Woodstock are out. They're a whole separate universe. But they're out too. Charlie Linus Lucy. Are're a whole separate universe. But they're out too. Those are right. Those are right. Charlie Linus Losey is out. Are you a Shermie guy? You're a Shermie guy, aren't you? My answer feels so obvious.

And I feel like it's a Ben guy, but I've always loved him. It's a guy. It is a male identifying character. Okay. Spike. Spike. Who's Spike? Spike.

Spike is Snoopy's cousin who's got like. Spike is Snoopy's cousin. He's the. Real like Harryry dean stanton he's always hanging out by the cactus or whatever he's got like a mustache the american southwest right there he is there's uh he's that guy oh yeah this guy rules yeah i kind of i remember him are you pro shirmey no i just love characters that just disappear don't don't matter like country cunningham's brother. Yeah, Shermie. Shermie was the star of the show. Yes, he was.

Charlie Brown was a geek that no one liked. Well, the great first issue of the panel. How I Hate Him. It's still the perfect joke. Good old Charlie Brown. It's so good. It's still, you could, it's, the whole thing's right there. Well, and such an amazing

like realization to go like what if the panel's about this guy that everyone hates inexplicably that the universe just is like i don't know something about him parents in the neighborhood give him rocks for halloween adults right everyone's just like rocks he's not ill intention but something about this kid bums me out so So now I'm on the Peanuts website. Okay, here we go. Peanuts.com. The characters... Peanuts.com. Oh. The characters that they give... That would have been a hell of a one to sit on.

I know. 1995, just registering Peanuts.com. Whoever wants it. Some peanut farmer. John Kimball down in North Carolina. Sending his daughter to college. The characters that they list, like 11 characters they list as being worthy of individual profiles.

Can I try to guess them? Let's hear it. Sure. Okay. I mean, obviously, Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, Snoopy, Woodstock. Sure.

Schroeder. Yep. Does Sally make the cut? She sure does. Peppermint Patty? Yep. Marcy? Mm-hmm.

Okay, we're at nine. Franklin's got to be there. They have to put Franklin in. And the 11th character, human? Yeah, we've named him. We've named him already? Yeah. Shermie?

No, Pigpen. Oh, Pigpen. He makes the 11. Of course. But the personality distinction really drifts after the top five. And he's got a great uh little you know avatar little avatar yeah all his little his little dirt cloud uh i'm into schroeder i fuck with schroeder i like him i was gonna say schroeder schroeder is my favorite schroeder's got big hodgman energy

um does cool joe not count as his own character oh i'm sorry joe i think he counts as his own character i really fucked up there that's an alter ego to Snoopy, right? Right, but Snoopy doesn't remember any of the other... Yeah, the Red Baron. He's always fighting the Red Baron. It's Snoopy, the war ace or whatever. That's my understanding.

We're both having conversations at the same time. It's kind of like how Calvin, you know, like Spaceman Smith is sort of a distinct character, but he's also Calvin. I just love that the the peak of coolness in the peanuts universe is this dog putting on sunglasses everyone being like oh wow and a sweatshirt that says jenny cool it does say his name that's true nothing cooler than a sweatshirt with your own name on it this guy's so fucking cool um yes this is a podcast about Peanuts.

Look, I mean, I'd be interested. One panel per ep? One panel per ep. One strip per ep, I guess. One strip. Yeah, you gotta get three panels. It's not a one panel comic. I'm surprised that-

This isn't some Family Circus shit. No. Well, maybe we could do a Family Circus podcast. No, thank you. That's okay. I'm surprised- There's a lot to mine there, I'd say. It's disturbing.

In the Family Circus? Yeah. Absolutely. There's plenty lot to mine there, I'd say. It's disturbing. In the family circus? Yeah, absolutely. There's plenty to look into there. Has someone tried to do the one strip per episode Peanuts podcast that will take 60 years or whatever? I'm pretty sure Connor... Jonathan Franzen is doing it in secret. Yeah.

Sufjan Stevens announced it, but he's only done like three of them. He's only done like three of the Sunday papers. He did the first two, and then he did like a random one from the 70s. Right. And he did a zits. Yeah. He did a first two and then he did like a random one from the 70s. Right. Then he did a Zitz. Yeah. He did a week on shoes. No one knows why.

Comic strips. I do love comic strips. It's actually a sort of, I've got too many obsessions, but it's a quiet one of mine. Side podcast on comic strips someday. Do you ever read the comics curmudgeon, Josh? Yes. Yes. Love it.

That's mostly how I keep up with them these days it's very funny shout out to yes because finding a newspaper that actually has a comic strips in it right right that was it's a depressing enterprise and when i was a kid that was i'd be like you know give me the daily news baby they had like eight pages of them when mark trail changed uh it's very strange when mark trail changed its uh its art and creative direction, the letters that the Portland Maine Press Herald got were amazing. Mark Trail looks like this now. It used to kind of look like Dick Tracy or any of those sort of classics. It was very illustrative. And very square.

Now it looks like a 2002 webcomic. Yeah, a little bit. Like not even present day web comic do you guys remember the lock horns of course of course they're still going single panel single panel and this is the whole thing and josh at the commerce convention has addressed it where it's like now if the lock horns are like a grumpy married couple in their 40s they're like millennials like because of the way time just moves. What if there were an update to the Lockhorns?

Sure. And all of a sudden they're people in their 30s who got married a little too young because they were looking for benchmarks of adulthood because they couldn't get jobs. Now they're arguing about soy lattes. Exactly. Huge educational loans. They keep playing their Tamagotchis. get jobs. Now they're arguing about soy lattes. They had huge educational loans. They keep playing their Tamagotchis. They couldn't rent an apartment, never mind buy a home. There's no way to become an adult

other than getting married. Look at this millennial-ass Lockhorn's caption. Okay, so they're at a marriage counselor, right? And they both look miserable, and the marriage counselor looks like Sigmund Freud. I assume 90% of their household expenses are marriage counseling, right? Like in various forms. Hodgman, do you want to read the caption?

The main reason Leroy and I stay together is to share the Amazon Prime account. I mean, that is like a millennial concern. This is what I'm saying. And this speaks to the theme of the movie that we're going to discuss in about two weeks from today. He does!

It's destabilizing. That image is destabilizing because that caption is relatively contemporary and something that a millennial couple might say

but every visual signifier in that is 1950s 1960s suburban couple of course it's still Leroy

Leroy Lockhorn they remain rooted in whenever he's got that one he's got that bald pate with the one hair sticking out. The one hair sticking out. The thing I was going to say about the Lockhorns, the reason I even invoked them, I read aloud the passage from the book of the Lockhorns and brought them into this room.

You're right. I, as a kid, for whatever reason, my dad would make a big ceremony out of like, it's Sunday, you know, and that means the comics. Yeah, the funnies. Let's slap open out of like, it's Sunday, you know, and that means the comics. Let's slap open the Daily News, read the Sunday funnies. For whatever reason, I got in my head that the Lockhorns were called the comics. So when

I would open that page, the first thing I would do is read the Lockhorns and I'd go, not very funny. Let me read these other things. Was it that they were at the top and it just said the comics? I don't know. I just thought for some reason they were called the comics. Who would have put the Lockh were at the top and it just said the comics I don't know I just thought for some reason they were called the comics who would have put the lock horns at the top but I was like they're the titular comics

and then there's some other strips and I'd be like why do they get top billing they don't and they're not called the comics only one entity is going to knock peanuts out of that top slot of the Sunday comics and that is the lovable fat feline known as Garfield.

Well, this guy. Big G. This guy. I remember Garfield's ascent. You weren't even born yet. I wasn't. I remember Garfield hitting the scene, knocking peanuts out of the top of the Boston Globe comics.

Ooh! Look, I mean, I don't want to... What a triumph. I don't want to anger... I was born into a post-Garfield America. I knew nothing but Garfield. I don't want to anger him. Maybe it wasn't peanuts.

Maybe it was Doonesbury. Do you know what it was? I don't want to anger him. Maybe it wasn't Peanuts. Maybe it was Doonesbury. Do you know what it was? I think it might have been Doonesbury. Well, Doonesbury was kind of... Yeah, Massachusetts, of course. Right. Doonesbury, the top of the comics. It is Monday.

I don't want to piss Garfield off, but it's his least favorite day. I love Mondays. He did tweet this yesterday, which I thought was genuinely funny. For those of you not in the room it is a tweet from at carpool presumably sent on sunday tweeted on sunday dreading tomorrow and let's say all lowercase no punctuation how long have they been sitting on that joke do they do it every

sunday have they been waiting this whole 2022? It's 2022. Not to date us. For this will be an episode that shall live forever. People are trying to like carbon date. It's a Monday in 2022. He doesn't do that like every Sunday. What did he do last Sunday? So last Sunday would have been the 20th. Anyone excited for your 4th tonight? Right, exactly.

Last Sunday he just tweeted this. It's kind of a weird tweet. Sent Odie on an errand so we can't talk about him. This is like we're going to gossip about Odie now that he's on an errand. Also, he's a dog. Did you send me good onions? You know the person who writes the Twitter Garfield account is a listener to Blank Check. You know this.

We're going to get the message. Just desperately trying to get fired. Every day they're like, surely someone will notice this. count is a listener to blank check you know it's just we're gonna get the message there is a just desperately trying to get fired every day they're like surely this someone will notice i don't know but hey person out there if you're within the sound of my voice my name is john hodgman by the way i'm the guest on the show john hodgman gentleman john hodgman the judge like get get dm me my dms are open i want to know what your life is like i want to know all off the record i won't repeat anything but i do feel like holy moly this is increasingly a thing where we'll hyper fixate on some like very specific like who's the person who does this like yeah could you imagine being

the ip lawyer for space shaman who legacy and then some guy will slide in our reddit and he's like hey so i quit recently but i was the ip lawyer on space shaman who legacy or we were like ragging on mill creek entertainment cover art. Yeah. And then some guy on our Reddit was like, that's my wife. People have jobs. And he said they played it in the office

and everyone liked it. They were like, we like the attention. It's so great when people have jobs. People have jobs. And you know, I'm not saying this to make fun. I'm fascinated with the person. I hope they're a blankie. Whose job it is to write,

and I'm sure they're a blankie. They did a great tweet. Or I'm sure a blankie. They just did a great tweet. They just did a great tweet. Tweet of the year as far as I'm fascinated with the person whose job it is to write, and I'm sure they're a blankie. They did a great tweet. They just did a great tweet. They just did a great tweet. Tweet of the year as far as I'm concerned. It's early still. But it's up there. Yeah.

But I just want to say, if you don't make yourself known, or if you're a blankie and you know who this is, if you don't come into my DMs, or if you feel more comfortable, Griffin or David's is their podcast. No, go to John. Trouble Griffin or David's is their podcast. No, go to John. Because I will insist on coming back on this show and modulating my voice and pretending to be the anonymous Garfield. You want this person to reach out to you so you can get their voice down so that you can play. No, because it's going to be my character from now on. Right. No, that's what I'm saying.

I'm very glad to be here. Thank you very much. I was really happy that you reached out to me. Buffalo Bill running the... This is a podcast about filmographies. Yep. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers, much like Jim Davis, Garfield and Early Breakout. Sure, yeah. Or Charles Schultz. Pretty much hit it on the first time out, right? I guess so. Yeah.

He just walked in there and he was like, here's the pitch. They're six years old, but they're miserable. Full body depression. Our only request is you change the name to Peanuts. Yeah. Which was their request. I know.

He was like, why would I call it Peanuts? And they were like, you got to do it. What were you going to call it, Charles? Sad fucks? Yeah, right. I thought he was going to call it Charlie Brown, right? Misery. He was going to call it Lil Folks.

Right. That's right. He had a thing called Lil Folks. Maybe that's what it was. No, I think you're right, though. I don't know. i think you're right hey i met him once i met him once look director did you meet him wait i'm sorry you met charles charles when i was a little kid i went on like a tour of his museum yeah i guess his studio i don't know there's a schultz museum right that i think is right yeah did you last thing i'll say about comic strips because charles i really

love comic strips was a big supporter of Kathy Guyswhite. Did you listen to Jamie Loftus' Kathy podcast? I've been meaning to do. Her phenomenal. The whole thing with Jamie is she's so intelligent and ambitious that I am so staggered by how good her ideas are, and then I'm like, I can't wait to listen to that. And then I sort of like, I put it in my feed,

and I'm like, oh, because now she's got the hot dog thing going. I didn't even know about the hot dog that's her next is it happening it's she's touring with it right now i think oh wow holy moly we're about to tour maybe she's been eating hot dogs around the country i know that oh and i was just texting with her and i was she was just briefly and i was like this is so good i wish i had thought of that i know anyway she's great she's great we'll never be on the show again uh this is a main series on the films of sam ramey samuel ramey it is called podcast me to hell do you approve i approve i didn't even think about this i want to pod me of dark cast i love that thank you uh sure i think but you suggested this title you're trying

to make a war here i'm're trying to make a war here. I'm not trying to make a war. I'm just letting people know some of my alts. Some of them, yeah, sure. What were your others? It was tough. Ben had a really good pitch. It was clean, which was, do you want to say it, Ben? Yeah, Ben.

I don't remember it exactly. I believe it was Spider Pod 3 cast. Yeah, he just. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. The big detail was the three breaking off. It sounds like something

fell down the stairs stopped and then somehow fell down a couple more stairs like you're like it's done right but like no yeah much like bruce campbell sitting down in that chair and it collapsing just when you think the sequence is over right uh that's god it's such a like it that's one of those moments that the entire movie in a microcosm which is like finally there's a breather moment everything quiets down he sits down in the chair and the chair is like fuck you know that chair is gonna collide right yeah right it's like this guy cannot win uh this is this is his definitive film uh yes right it's hard to argue definitive film i think so because i think obviously i'm never saying spider-man movies are his peak of success but they're they belong to more than him right and he's achieved different levels of

success obviously we're like simple plan is probably his most well reviewed critically respected film at least a time of release but this is the sam and i would say a super good movie a wonderful movie i'm very excited to rewatch picture yeah i mean it's one of the reasons we've been eager to do them for so long is like you have these two trilogies on either end yeah that are so like important in sort of popular american culture and then in the middle there's this run where he's like should i make grown-up movies and he does them very well does them very well he does everything good yeah and he's always like you know he got into horror kind of as a practicality yeah yeah because they were making weird yes we'll talk about it stooge right style right goof off super eight movies with each other yeah no no i mean

obviously that was their plan with this comedy obviously was a big part of this well i think movie that's what makes this movie so definitive is like as you said out of practicality judge john hodgman general john hodgman co-creator and star of dicktown i will oh i don't think i was gonna let that slip thank you um you i let's to back up for a second here actually to introduce you more properly a second uh dicktown a wonderful wonderful TV show. Thank you very much. It is. And I'm biased because you have kindly employed me on it.

You're in it. But I did tell you. And before I leave here today, I am going to break my disclosure agreement. I'm going to show you your episode because you're really good at it. And I predict you're going to get an Emmy Award. Wow. Which is kind of the best award in TV. John, I don't want to put pressure on you,

but every time someone has predicted that, they have been so wrong. Wait, who's predicted? Like, when has that happened? On the set of Search Party. That my big dinner party episode. I mean, it's a very good episode. Charles Rogers, friend of the show,

past and future guest, was like, I think you're going to win an Emmy for this. And I was like, Charles, come on. The problem with the question wasn't submitted. I think I was not submitted was like, I think you're going to win an Emmy for this. And I was like, Charles, come on. The problem was... Question. Wasn't submitted. I think I was not submitted. Were you nominated? I mean, the issue is...

Then they had no choice. You know, I'm a member of the Academy. Yes. I'm on the group thread. Yeah. They were saying, where's Griffin? Where's Griffin? Yes. I'm like, I don't know. We all wanted to vote for you. A TBS actor in a comedy, it's like half snl hosts you

know and then whatever well and that show took a while to break out um and then kevin smith another person will never be on this podcast literally four of the five nominees last year were snl hosts and then the other one was morgan freeman in the kaminsky method fucked things up because it used to be they used to be nominated for variety performance or whatever right now it's all fucking host i'm telling you this is my prediction take it to the bank yeah griffin newman i nominated i'd love it as lance i'd love it in the 11 minute episode okay known as the mystery of lance's lesson hey wow dicktown season two i'm in two episodes this season you are in two episodes but but i thought that right you're big episodes the one you're the one you're being considered for yeah well can i tell you who the nominees were for outstanding

voice over performance last year this isn't going to be a voiceover because they're going to change the category i'm just saying because i'm already running for oracle i'm afraid of splitting vote no you're getting both you You're going to get both. It's so wild, I have to tell you last place. This is your competition. These are not divided by gender. These are just voice performance. So Maya Rudolph won for Big Mouth,

which is a very fun performance. Yes, sure. Then Stacey Abrams, the politician. Future governor of Georgia. Georgia politician, was nominated for Black-ish. Apparently she narrated the election special, I think. Okay. Julie Andrews was nominated for Bridgerton,

which I guess does she do some narrating there? Seth McFarlane was nominated for Family Guy. Now, he voices various characters on that show. That's a little more of a robust performance. Wait, for an old season of Family Guy? No, for a current... That show is still on the 19th season or whatever the hell it is wow um and if you need to catch up check out fxx any hour of any day all right sometimes you just slip

a dick town in a commercial break between when we found out that they were airing us on fxx at 10 p.m on thursdays and it turns out it's not 10pm in classic, because we were interrupting a noon to 2am Family Guy block. I remember when they launched FXX, they were like, it's perfect, alternative comedy can go here, whatever. Oh, look, we couldn't be

more thrilled to be joining the Family Guy family on FXX. In fact, we're on... In the tradition of Family Guy on FXX, we're not only on at 10, same episode, 10.30, same episode, 11. We got a threefer. Wow. You just do it over and over. Every Thursday in March.

Wow. And you're out of cake. You're not a slice of cake anymore. Not a slice of cake anymore. No, you're not in cake. Solid dick down. A little difficult to communicate, I felt. They were our incubator and our home. I like cake. By the way. Dick down would not exist if there were not cake.

I love dick down. And I liked watching cake as a whole. I would watch the full episodes. Right. But I understand from your position, it was hard to be like, here's my new show. It's part of a different show. It's part of a different show. And if you Google the name of that show, you will see a picture of a birthday cake.

Right. And if you Google Cake FX, it might be a cake with some sparklers on it. That's true. But the cake was very good to us. And now we have our own block and the Family Guy block. Can I finish the nominees?

My plug is over. So two of these already, for me, don't count because they're not in the animation. It should be its own live action voiceover category. get stacy abrams and eminem right um and then so two actors from central park which is the lauren bouchard show i've never seen it okay stanley tucci stanley tucci and titus burgess okay uh but i haven't watched that show that's an apple tv right uh and then jessica walter getting a posthumous nomination for Archer. Oh, that's cool. Which I don't...

She thinks she'd never gotten before. That was last year? That's last year's voiceover. They snubbed Jessica Walter. And they snubbed Michael K. Williams. Last year's Emmys were pretty fucking rude. It's sort of this thing of like... We come from the house of Archer.

Digtown comes from Digtown. You've got a similar visual style. Iigtown comes from Digtown. Sure. Absolutely. You've got this similar visual style. I didn't know this. That's very upsetting. But I mean like... It's what happened with Chadwick Boseman where it's like you can want to have your nice moment.

I don't want to talk about that. But like at the end of the day, it's thousands of voters. You have to change so many texts about that. It's hard to control. I really lost control on Twitter and it was like... Oh, I remember you actually were very upset about it

You were inconsolable about it Not a lot of people were trying to console me A lot of people were trying to tell me that I was an a-hole I did not but you were texting me and you were like explain to me how this could possibly happen You were like I want your insight into how this could have happened We don't need to talk about this

I had no idea that people in England in particular would get so mad at me for suggesting that anthony hopkins who are like you know that it's an acting contest right i'm like what are you talking about like there's no there's no technical ko in acting it's not a point system it's a judge's holding up but that's the thing that's the thing about it is it's it's the same with even you know the olivia coleman win or whatever yes the less shocking but like everyone's like i'll glenn close a win so they're just looking at their ballot and like well she's winning i'll just i'll just fuck the person i like you know like i i'll just you know

oh yeah no everyone right everyone knew it's just funny when both the chadwick boseman was going to win so it was It was a very interesting thing that happened. Now, look, we've set up many threads here. Here's one I'm going to try to tie back in. Right, this right now, it's real messy yarn. People probably love it. These sick fucks.

You reach out to me. Dicktown Cookery with David Rees, the great David Rees, The great David Rees. Another past and future guest of the show. Absolutely. And you said, like, we produced this season. We didn't know if it would be part of Cake or FX or when they placed us in the lineup.

They just told us it's premiering much sooner than we thought. We need to go out and promote things. Can we do anything on the podcast? We don't need to do anything. You want to. You want. You're proud of the show. I want to share the news with the world about the thing that we made and love and features you.

Right. Yes. Because we like you. We and you, David, and you. I like you, too. You're right. Your characters were cut. I'll be on the show if you want me.

I'm not a very good actor. We want to promote it. And I said, you know, we record semi-far in advance. Right. We plan on even further in advance. I knew there was no hope. Right. You left a voicemicemail which has now been played at this point thank you and you said just in case anything shakes loose i want to remind you that i was bruce campbell's literary i didn't need reminding i remember that very well this about i had forgotten i had forgotten and you

went i got a lot of thoughts i could talk a lot about from what i told from what i remember you telling me it wasn't just that you had done that but that you were the one who pitched him you were the one who like had the idea kind of right like you brought him in that sort of in a lot of ways changed his career where people were like he sold those numbers there's that level of fan base well you know i don't even know if what we talked about is going to stay in with regard to nerd power. Did we talk about that on mic? I don't know. The Lord of the Rings? No, that was off mic.

That was off mic. Before we got here, we were talking about the year 2000. Lord of the Rings was about to come out and I was doing some writing for magazines at that time, having sunsetted from my position as a professional literary agent at Writer's House, a major literary agency in New York City. Yeah.

Have you heard of Twilight? Yes, I have. Jodie Reamer at Writer's House. You're welcome. Saved publishing. Literally saved publishing. Yeah. Literally save publishing.

Yeah. Anyway, when I was writing, like doing some write-ups of Lord of the Rings, like off camera, off the books, off the record, publicists were saying like, this is going to be terrible. Real humans don't care about hobbits. Like the movies, they'll just go over like a lead brick. Like a lead brick or a lead. I don't even know if there's another lead thing that you could even talk about. It'd be taking calls to Newcastle.

Sure. I had only read The Hobbit at that point. I had friends who loved the books. But I felt like the consensus was Die Hard fans largely saying they're going to fuck this up. It's going to suck. Well, Die Hard fans have always hated Tolkien. Of course. I mean, the fact is people who love Die Hard are not Tolkien fanskien fans this is very true uh the john mccleaners of the world it's a huge rivalry it

goes back all the way huge to 1988 which is funny because both franchises are defined by barefoot protagonists walking across very difficult terrains um but uh but then i think diehard fans were also i have a ring now ho ho ho ho, ho. Right. Yeah, right. Die Hard fans were like, they're going to fuck up these things we love. And also, the normies are going to hate this. And then the thing we love is going to be associated with some fucking flop that doesn't even represent what we love. And the fact that it was like... There was suspicion on both sides.

Everyone was just like, this can't work. And it's going to be embarrassing. And it's going to make it more difficult to make any movies like this ever again and at the same time so flashback a few years earlier right young john hodgman has gotten a promotion from the reception desk to the third floor at writer's house working for susan ginsburg my my mentor okay an incredible literary agent one of one of the most fun places to work except the worst place in the world for me to work because I knew I didn't want to do it for a living. I was too scared to leave. One way I made it fun for myself

was we got the internet. Mid-90s. The sun came up. And nothing was ever bad again. In the 1990s, we thought the world got fixed with that internet. Window open. Once we had relatively high

speed internet the first things i altavista'd at the time were of course my name zero hits right went to lycos nothing there not even lycos excites ask jeeves jeeves said no jeeves shut the door jeeves shut the door on me yeah Yeah. Not admitted. And then I probably searched Blade Runner because that's what it did. Go Fetch, was that something? Could have been. Possibly. There was a dog one. Web crawler.

In 1999, someone's like, if it isn't a thing, I'll give you $1 million on the spot for it. Go Fetch.org? And then I Googled Bruce Campbell because I loved Bruce Campbell. Jonathan Colton and i both love bruce campbell i was an evil dead person he was a briscoe county i was about to say was it just evil dead or was it briscoe county or what else what else would have and and years and years before my high school friend nick mccarthy who is a movie director whom you should know and have on the podcast at some point uh he directed a horror movie called The Pact. Oh, yes, yes.

And others. Uh-huh. He hosted, he would have friends over to his house to stay up all night and watch bad movies and showed us The Evil Dead. This was before The Evil Dead 2 came out. Sure. And initiated us into the cult of Bruce Campbell.

Yeah. And many, many other movies and filmmakers that are really important still to me today. It was like a masterclass. He felt like a turnkey. It was like a no-dose masterclass, 3 a.m. He felt like a turnkey in that period where it's like, do you know Bruce Campbell? Yeah.

Like if you get Bruce Campbell, you're sort of like locked into. And you know, what a lot of the internet was at that point was weirdos and oddballs and nerds who had existed on different planets except when they would get together at conventions were now sending pings out into the darkness and finding each other right it's still exciting too yeah you mean a yeah like like so you know you like bruce campbell i like bruce right right and bruce campbell's career at this point is such an interesting place because it's like daytime syndicated genre shows aside he is primarily a regularly working character actor in big budget movies where you're like

that guy he plays like smug assholes or slicksters or whatever right and then to a certain subsection you're like do you know that he's like he's a movie star he's a leading man yeah that guy showing up in a movie feels like fucking sean Connery walking onto a submarine or whatever. I mean, that was essentially what became the pitch for the book. Right. Which I think started as Confessions of a B-movie actor. Yes. And then due to a fan contest, Bruce chose one of several hundred submitted titles.

Yeah. And he chose some fan-submitted title, which was If Chins Could Kill. Which is a very funny title. Because of his pronounced chin. But the pitch was, you don't know who this is. I would say, you know, you don't know who this is.

But if you go to a hotel where there is a horror movie convention or a science fiction movie convention, in the lobby, he's a shemp. He's a nobody. He's a nothing. In the a shemp he's a nobody he's a nothing right in the convention hall he's elvis he's the king of the world and he moves between those two worlds i was watching this movie last night with someone who had never seen it before and her immediate thing was like who's this guy what happened to this guy right and i was like first of all you've seen him in like probably 40 things and you're not the same thing with my wife

i was like you know i remember spider-man he my wife. I was like, you know, I remember Spider-Man, he's the theater usher, right? You know, come on, you know him. And she was like, I guess so.

But like, he is one of those faces that you might not be able to put a name to. I mean, he's at the apex of his recognizability now. Yes. And there's still

tons of people who would be like, oh, sure. But she was just like, this guy, he's really handsome. Like every scene she'd go like, he's like very good looking.

He's like very charismatic. I mean, sorry Bruce, but never more fucking beautiful than in's so beautiful in this the shock of him in the first evil dead where he's so baby face and handsome is but this is definitely oh it's crystalline and when when they start doing the blood makeup where it's like he goes from being messy to just like only cuts that would accentuate his bone he's got one blood drip down the middle of his forehead on one on his cheekbone, right? It makes him look angular. So the question asked was,

so he didn't really, the career didn't pan out off of this? And I'm like, it did in this weird way where it's like he never stops working. He's had a lot of success. He's worked with great directors, big projects and whatever. He had a fucking hit TV show several times over.

Burn Notice was like fucking humongous for him show several times over uh burn notice was like fucking humongous for him and all this shit but i was like the main thing you need to understand is this is the original king of the conventions yeah right this is the original not only guy to be treated like royalty there but to like own it and not be like to know how to work i hate that i'm doing this right he was not there he was he's a pure enthusiast. Yes. I mean, knowing him a little bit as I do, everything that you see on screen is him. Right. Like, he is totally into the work that he does. He's totally got a corny sense of humor.

Right. That is very genuine and very funny. Right. He is totally dedicated to getting beat up by Sam Raimi. And then he'd do whatever Sam Raimi tells him to do since they were teenagers together in Michigan. And at the point that I put Bruce Campbell into the world to see what came back, there were a couple of Bruce Campbell fan sites.

And then there was Bruce Campbell's site. Yeah. Right. He was early. Yeah. And Bruce Campbell was writing set reports from the set of McHale's Navy. Yeah.

With- One of Ben's favorite movies. Ben just lit. Holly Shore? No, that's Tom Arnold. Yeah, Tom Arnold. Sorry. Tom Arnold.

Down Periscope is Kelsey Grammer. You like both of them, right? Yes, I do. I was getting- For sure. And stories about filming McHale's Navy and what it was like to be on set, and then stories about following a fox down the road on his bicycle and working actor stuff right you thought the book was gonna be this is for people

who are sort of like oh i've never thought about what it's like to be this type of actor he's worked with big movie stars he has some funny anecdotes i don't need to be a fan of his view wasn't that my point of view is this fucking bruce campbell right responded to my email i guess your your bosses that's what you had to pitch them on right you're you understand his well they didn't care i'm like i could do whatever i could go out and humiliate myself trying to sell this to editors they didn't care their job was to support me and boy did they yeah it was no they they lost nothing but my time right right by by encouraging me to do this yeah and this was at a time where the the big the thing that saved publishing in the mid 90s before there was an a a fantasy series that i will not

name um was the celebrity book yeah and huge advances were just being thrown at anyone yes who had who had been on a sitcom. Do you know what I mean? Or anyone who had any profile whatsoever. And so I knew that I wasn't delusional. I knew that Bruce Campbell was, what made Bruce Campbell special was that he had this cadre of people who knew who he was and then a broader world who didn't. And what Bruce was very, from the beginning, very open about talking about is what is it like to be a B-movie actor? Right. Not just a working actor who's been in a lot of things or a working character actor, but someone who's been in a lot of movies that people think very poorly about.

Like Kabuki Cop. Sure. Or Maniac Cop, I think he was. Yes, yes, yes. Maniac Cop. Yeah. Not to be confused with Sergeant Kabuki Man and YPD. Exactly.

That's the one I was kind of confused but you know that back when there was still video cassette rental places straight to video movies a real b movie enterprise that bruce was known within because of his connection with the evil dead yeah mind warp mind warp that's sort of an iconic 90s straight to video movie and he was not ashamed to talk about what it was like to be a B-movie actor. And I thought, okay, this is great. This is something of a celebrity. I'm going to hit it big with this. And my hero put his faith in me to go and sell this book around town,

and no one wanted to touch it. No one was interested. They didn't know who he was. And when I explained it to them, they vowed to forget what I told them. This memory leaves this office when you walk in. I explained it to them, they vowed to forget what I told them. And when I said... This memory leaves this office when you look. Yeah. And when I said my thing about how he's in a horror movie convention or a fan convention, he's a nobody in the lobby, but the king of the floor...

A great pitch. They were like, yeah, but we don't like those people. Right, those people disturb us, and they don't... It was pure distaste for them. I don't recall saying good luck. They give you the, I don't recall saying good luck. Let me explain this to you. What those people do when they go to those conventions

is they buy things. And they buy things in the dealer's area, and they go and wait for hours for Bruce to sign them. You know, figurines and posters and headshots and whatever. And if Bruce had a book for sale in that dealer's area— You will sell copies at conventions alone. It will sell. They're like, we don't like these people.

We don't like these people was the reason for not and these were people who were you know there was one round of publishing there was one round of submissions where i went to people who published genre right science fiction and fantasy and other type stuff who i thought would get it they got it but their perception was these are these are horrible ogres that we sell stuff to that we have no respect for it almost feels like look in a very different way like the wedding industry being like wait a second if we let gay people get married you know it's just like why are we not letting they're gonna spend more buy more go bigger who

ended up buying this book saint martin's press okay now now mcmillan right that was the weirdness of this moment there's like a shift over the course of five years where obviously by the time you get to like Spider-Man coming out. Right. When you're post Lord of the Rings of 2002, all these A legacy media companies are like, we want nerd money. Right. Up until then, it was like that money is dirty. Right. I think partially they were like, it's not big enough business.

And secondarily, they're like those people. It's tawdry. It's tawdry. And so much of the convention association is still like fucking Shatner saying get a life. Right. Yeah. It's like if you're doing a convention, you're either resentful of the fact that you're there. Right. And you have contempt for the fans who care about what you're doing. Right. Or you're like pathetic. You're sort of like a sad sack washed up has-been. And that's what they think of. And they're like, who are these obsessive fans who want to meet whomever? And I was so humiliated and devastated because Bruce said, you know, I was 24 years old or 25 maybe. And I met with his manager. And his manager's like, who are you? And I'm like, well, or 25 maybe, and I met with his manager.

And his manager's like, who are you? And I'm like, well, I'm a fan. He's like, ugh. Even his fan's like, I hate you people. His manager's. One of those. No, he was looking out for his client. No, no, 100%.

Bruce has had an offer to do this major miniseries on HBO, and he turned it down because he promised Rob Taper to do an extra episode of Xena. So he generally just does what he wants to do so good luck to you. And I... He did eight episodes of Xena.

Oh no. Jack of all trades? Is that what it was called? Jack of all trades was a spin-off of Xena. What was the name of his character in Xena? Don't tell me. I can tell you that it was a name of his character in Xena? Don't, don't, I have to remember this. Don't tell me. I mean, I can tell you that it was a figure of myth. No, no, he was a thief.

In Jack of all trades, he was. No, no, in Xena, he was a thief. Well, according to this, he played... Atochlis. Atochlis. Atochlis. Yeah, on Xena, he was Atochlis. Yes, he was Atochlis, yes. That's right. I Yeah, on Xena, he was Atocalypse. Yes, he was Atocalypse.

That's right. I've never seen Xena. Who, by the way, worlds colliding. Yeah. My best friend, Jonathan Colton's younger sister, was an actor at the time, and she was on Xena, and she had a kissing scene. Oh. It was wild. Wow.

But, you know, Bruce gave it his all. He came to New York. He took meetings. We would walk down down the street and that's a guy who can work a room like this is why he's totally his reputation at conventions he makes everyone feel like they're the most special person in the world every subway car there was one person who was like yep giving the nod i know you know like every and every now and then someone would just come up to him and go, I really loved you in this. And he's like, oh, thanks a lot, man. And then we were walking down the street and it's New York City and someone's walking the other direction. And he just starts going, Aries, Aries, Aries.

And Bruce kind of like, what's going on? He says, oh, that guy thinks i'm aries who's a different character on xena right he was like i know you're on xena right right and he goes ah that guy thinks i'm aries and then like 30 seconds later you could almost hear the guy's brain click in and he just called back oh sorry he didn't hear bruce say that he just realized aries of course played by kevin smith not the oh sure sure the um filmmaker but the the the guy who was on xena and hercules and the big big new zealand yeah yeah yeah i mean you know i forgot jack of all trades was in it was doubled with cleopatra 2025 25 25 sorry after they were a pair or they built yeah they were building out that saturday power block right the power block with Cleopatra 2025. 2525, sorry. After Xena ended,

or they built, they were building out that Saturday power block. They had that block. Right, the power block, yes. Yeah, they had Hercules, they had Xena. Right.

And then they took another hour and I think they did two half hours. This was Rob Taper, the co-producer of Evil Dead, Rami's old friend, Bruce's old friend. Yeah. And they did Husband of Lucy Lawless. Husband old friend, Bruce's old friend. Yeah. And they did

Jack of All Trades. Husband of Lucy Lawless. Husband of Lucy Lawless, true enough. And then they did Cleopatra 2025 with the woman who was then in

Firefly and Gina Torres. Gina Torres, yeah. That's right. Star of Cleopatra. So incredible. 25, 25. 25, 25.

A great title. I mean, it's a great title. It doesn't exactly roll off the time you have to say 25 twice but it is fun and jack of all trades was he was a scoundrel yes in the west indies during pirate times yes this is pre pirates of the caribbean he was also an american secret agent sent by thomas jefferson there was a lot so he's kind of a scoundrel and a double agent yeah they were putting a lot of concept So he's kind of a... He's a scoundrel and a double agent. Right.

They were putting a lot of concept into it. They're trying to stop Napoleon. How would I describe it? It's like this guy's good at multiple things. Right. He's sort of like... Almost countless things. A little bit of that. Right.

He's sort of like a... Yeah. Master of most. But Bruce never got deterred. Like... Yeah. And I realize now... He's Napoleon Bonaparte?

Fuck. Yeah, right? There you go. Oh, my goodness. But yes, he was a guy who had, it always felt like he had immense pride in what he did. Right. And I realize now,

his experience of taking Within the Woods around to try to pitch it to make Evil Dead, he and Sam had been through this kind of ringer a million times before. So was it embarrassing and humiliating to me that he would go into these rooms and wow these people, and then they would be like, no, we're not going to do this book? Definitely. Was it to him? I don't know.

But finally, someone like me, my counterpart at St. Martin's, was given the okay by his bosses, who did whatever, to offer a little bit of money. Yeah. And it was very satisfying because the book did really well that's the thing really well that's the thing i mean there you go i mean and you're tapping into a thing that of course everyone then figured out which is like oh this is a huge passionate audience like you know you know you were just figuring out something that's exactly basically when i quit when i quit my literary agent but i remember i i don't know if it was like a full article or it was a write-up as part

of some larger piece or whatever it was but like entertainment weekly writing about like bruce campbell's the most popular actor on the internet like sort of this phenomenon of like who do you believe is the most popular has the most fans on his site or the most right search results or whatever and it's like not tom cruise right the guy the internet loves is bruce campbell and this book outsold all expectations and everyone had to like sort of step back and reckon with this guy of like his audience is much bigger than we thought it was and i don't know whether that changed a lot of minds in a global sense i mean i think the success of the lord of the rings really brought things around building blocks towards this thing as we're talking about this shift from like 98 to 2002 right where it just goes from like

this is the thing you have to be a little embarrassed about to like we are just we're in the business of going after this audience right and now and now it's nothing else like there's the to the exclusion of all else and if we don't make them happy we're going to be murdered in our they were talking right before we recorded about the new batman movie and how like any batman movie is now beholden to the expectations of what fans want out of a batman movie right like and they can't like and when when christopher nolan dropped the photos of heath ledger right as the joker the fan community was like no furious not acceptable right which is funny considering he had already won them over with that and begins like that movie had gone over so

splendidly right and people were so excited about like this guy's gonna do the joke but it was still a time i think when the director and the studio would be like, no, we'll throw you a curveball. You have to catch it. Yeah. And it turned out to be such an important. You know, the other thing with the Ledger Joker is, like, there had only been the Jack Nicholson Joker. There was a little more of the expectation of, like, are you going to, you know, come at that? Wow.

Erasure of Mark Hamill. Wow. Wow-y. Wow-y, zowie, as we say on Dicktown Thursdays at 10 on FX. Great show. This is a point, though, is that, like, Cesar Romero, Mark Hamill, and Jack Nicholson were all in the same orbit. They were all doing theatrical clown prince

sort of big energy show. That's true, right. And obviously, the Ledger Joker was being presented as this grungy. And Joker, the character, was very much, at that point, locked in a mode. Yes. Which was in that mode. High comedic villainy, but scary.

But now it's like, why haven't I gotten a new Joker this year? I'm trying to say, it's not just that the mindset has changed from how dare you try and do the Joker. Now it's like, I can't believe you're not giving me more. I need a Joker. Constant Joker. I need multiple Jokers. dare you try and do the joker now it's like i can't believe you're not giving me more i need a joker joker i need multiple jokers i need joker casting rumors i need the whole engine to be constantly spitting out jokers but now now i think i understand a little bit better they all meet they have sandwiches together right pair jokerness yeah i mean i understand better now than i did not just then when i was trying to sell the br Campbell book, but for the years later when I would tell the story about the contempt that editors, particularly within the genre genre, science fiction, fantasy, and comic books and stuff, had for those fans, where I was like, these are the bad guys.

And they were. But also, I understand a little bit more now. Dealing with this fan base routinely and regularly has its challenges. Yes. They can embrace something, and then they can get really mad. And you can be at the, you know, you could be standing in their way and feel very uncomfortable. But at the time you're talking about, there was still that suggestion. Do not get in the way of anthony copkins fans oh

i mean you know when he wins his second academy award do not get in their way hopscars what do they call themselves and ant heads and ant-man um uh where it was like if they just throw us a bone in the joel schumacher movie i'll be you know what i mean like right you didn't even want a quote-unquote faithful Batman, but you're like, just wink at me, please. I know you have to make this movie for everybody. It's enough that it's a Batman. Right. But if you could just maybe toss in a little reference,

I'll get, you know, tickle me. I'll go home happy. Okay, John Glover's scientist character who gets killed by poison ivy is named Dr. Woodrue, who's the villain in Swamp Thing. And it's like, nothing will come of that. The Floronic Man. Well, my friend. A little tickle for me.

My heart just grew two sizes. And now, of course, the Bat fans, I'm sure there's a cadre that are like, if Matt Reeves in the next Batman movie doesn't give us nipples on the Batsuit, we're gonna burn down Warner Brothers. I'm pro. Bring him back. Bring him back. Get the nips back. His nips must be chafing anyway yeah all right yes bruce campbell no i i

think this this movie is in so many ways i think because of that becomes such a defining moment of like this bridge between like nerd culture and popular culture and to speak to what you were saying about his not being embarrassed by his status as a B-movie actor or horror movie, however you want to say it, cult actor. I went to a convention with him at the New Yorker Hotel. Actually, I think this was before we even sold the book. I was trying to get video of him at a convention

to show to people. And we also recorded a piece for this american life about him uh which was i think still on their archives if you want to listen to it captures a moment in time and he took the stage this was in 1999 i guess and he took the stage and was doing q a and loving it up and he someone asked about spider-man because it was in production or ramey at least had been announced i don't remember and he was like i want you all to know you have nothing to be afraid of this is your man if you want a great spider-man movie sam ramey knows spider-man sam ramey loves spider-man yeah bruce vouched for sam ramey in that moment

and to a degree like yeah this evil dead 2 is kind of the definitive Sam Raimi movie. Right. But Sam Raimi's making Spider-Man in a Sam Raimi mode. Yes. It's huge. It's a kind of an alchemy that changed culture forever.

Absolutely. It did. It changed everything. That is the movie that, in so many ways, where it casts like- Sam Raimi getting Spider-Man and being willing to get Spider-Man

to bring that vision to Spider-Man. And it in a way that was would not have seemed like a obvious traditionally cool approach to that character right you know yes not trying to modernize or what we'll talk i mean getting that job period was just like you look back on your like it's so insane that they hired him. It doesn't feel like, you don't want to give them the credit for that courage. It's a fair point. Matt Tolmach at Sony Pictures. Because he was coming off, again, we will talk about it in the course of this miniseries. But yeah, he's coming off four grown-up movies, none of which had quite hit.

Like, all of which had done fine. none of which had quite hit, like all of which had done fine. Right. But none of like Quick and the Dead, Simple Plan, For the Love of the Game, The Gift. Right. Were all kind of like singles or doubles.

They were what you call movies. Right. They're movies. They played in your cinemaplex. They made 40 million bucks. He's a picture maker. You know, it was fine. Movie stars are in them. His earlier pulp beer movies,

he never had something that had the big breakout crossover. He had things that built and built and built. It is weird that at this, the point he gets hired to Spider-Man, it's almost because the fervency around the Evil Dead trilogy has built over 20 years. I think you're probably right. Right?

Where they're like, we're going to gain so much credibility with the fans if we hire this guy, even though his last four films do not feel like the run-up to a Spider-Man movie. And he had made Darkman, which was a superhero movie without a franchise superhero in it. Right. But I mean, very much the DNA of what we call it. It's an audition or whatever.

Exactly. It was his revenge movie for not getting to make The Shadow that ends up secretly being an audition movie for Spider-Man. Oh, interesting. I didn't know that. We'll do our whole Darkman episode. That was his whole fucking thing. That movie is like a jolted breakup movie. It's like, right, The Shadow with the intensity dialed up.

Right. But so much of, I think, this movie's weird place culturally is just like you want to talk about genre not just in film itself but also bruce campbell's performance this movie's like undefinable that is what makes it so electric right it is so destabilizing yes because it i mean obviously horror and dna share i mean horror and comedy share dna right it's a cliche to say it on a podcast. Yeah. But going into this, when I saw it, just because it had laugh lines, I didn't know how to... I have been trained to watch bad movies by Nick McCarthy and to laugh at them. Right. You think this is goofy.

If I'm laughing, it's because this is goofy or totally not. Evil Dead was not goofy. When we watched Evil Dead, we were just like, ugh. Right. It's harrowing. It's harrowing. Yes. But so many of those other movies that Nick would screen on those cheese-a-thons, is what he called them, were being played for laughs.

And earnest young actors with half-written characters trying their hardest to fill a very know a very shallow bag right with feeling and you get these odd line readings that horror fans become obsessed with or whatever right and here's a guy who has this very precise control of tone as an actor yes a not the kind of guy usually plays at the center of the horror movies right it's almost always like dumb jock boyfriend who gets killed off early and the woman becomes the sort of steely final girl survivor right so here's like the doofusy guy right who is like owning being the doofus right and is playing up the comedy right and and and committing pretty earnestly to it but giving you like just enough of a wink not to deflate the thing yeah but to be like i'm having fun and the camera loves him too i mean the camera just loves him and he looks like deflate the thing yeah but to be like i'm having fun and the camera loves him too i mean

the camera just loves him and he looks like that's the thing that came to me on this rewatch yeah i didn't mean to interrupt you no he's just he's like that's a matinee idol like this guy interrupt me all the fucking time yeah no no you're i mean he's he's just gorgeous yeah and i feel like sound you know slobbery over here he's just a handsome man Sam Raimi knows his face they grew up together he knows his face he loves his face he knows how to shoot Bruce Campbell's face

there are certain like the shot where Bruce Campbell turns to the camera and laughs when the whole room is laughing at him is iconic there's so many iconic groovy is an iconic trying very hard not to say face shot, what are we looking at? close up Adam is iconic. There's so many iconic... I mean, Groovy is an iconic... Sure. Trying very hard not to say. Face shot. What are we

looking? Close-up. Yes. Yeah. Groovy is a very iconic... Close-up. One shot. You know, whatever. Iconic image of Bruce Campbell's face looking like a... to quote

Jonathan Ames, a demented god. All of the moments, like, I was thinking of how Kurosawa loves to cheer Mifune's face and knows how to shoot it and find things just in the face without even the acting. Well, and then on top of that, Kimball is so expressive, right? He doesn't just have this beautifully constructed face. Right. He's so expressive. He's got such a range of what he can communicate on his face and because he is such a like he comes at everything with the mind of a filmmaker not just a performer not only is rain

nowhere to place the camera and how to shoot him but he knows how to play to a camera so fucking well right he's in such control of being right in front of a camera in front of a lens being in a movie you know and yet like here's the thing and bruce if you're listening to this i hope i hope you take this the right way for uh anonymous tweeter of the garfield account if you tell bruce to listen to this let him know they're friends he's a he's a cornball he's goof yeah that's what makes bruce so destabilizing too like he is so handsome he's such a leading man right but he's inside he's he's a goofball but even in there are moments where you know i'm watching this for the first time at the age of 16

when it came to theaters which by the way i never expected i would see an evil dead sequel sure do you know what i mean it was six years after the first movie. But you had seen Evil Dead 1. I had seen Evil Dead 1, and one day I opened up the Boston Globe to read what movies were coming out. I was like, Evil Dead 2? I'm trying to think of an analogy. Did it have the poster image, or were you just seeing?

Right. Dead by Dawn. Sorry, your analogy? It would be like, if you opened up the movie pages in a newspaper, none of these things exist anymore, which is also weird. Newspapers themselves practically

don't exist, yes. But it was like, if you discovered that they were showing part two of Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings today. They made it. You didn't know. They never announced it. It just exists. There's no Entertainment Weekly yet. There's no one here to keep tabs on what's in

production for you. There's no bloody disgusting link that's getting circulated. I guess you could be reading Fangoria. Maybe that would be how you would get that news. I guess that would be true. And I called Nick and was like, did you know about this? He's like, no. We went to go see it. And seeing that movie in a theater for the first time was like, what am I watching?

Because The Evil Dead gave you no hint what was going to happen in Evil Dead 2. Right. In terms of the shift in tone. Yeah. Which is immediate. And I'll say this, being trained to watch bad movies for laughs. Right. There's a lot of bad movie in this movie.

Yes. It's corny. But it's owning. It's like weaponizing. Oh, it is. Absolutely. It's a conversation. You don't necessarily know that if you're coming to it.

And there's, with Bruce, because he's such a good looking guy who's such a cornball, there are times when you're like, is he a bad actor or a good actor? The person I was watching it with turned to me maybe halfway through and said, like, this is funny? Right. And I was like, yeah. And she was like, I thought I was going to be like laughing at this. I'm like realizing this knows that it's funny on purpose.

Right. When you get to that run, I got to look at my, because I was just re-watching this this morning. It's the run. Okay. It's this whole run where it starts with the, he goes, it's the whole insanity run, right? Starts with the, he goes, it's the whole insanity run, right? Yeah. Where he comes out of the mirror and grabs himself. Yeah.

And says, we just cut up our girlfriend with a chainsaw. That's, I'm fine to you. Mm-hmm. His reflection, his reflection strangles him. Right. Reverse to him strangling himself. Yes. Right?

That's before the hand starts beating him up. Yes. Then the hand turns bad. Right? That's before the hand starts beating him up. Yes. Then the hand turns bad. Right. Then- Smashes 87 plates on his hand? Which, by the way, this archaeologist, first of all- Is he going to throw a banquet?

He's got all these dishes. He's got all these dirty dishes full of beans. Like, this house is gross. World's worst cabin. I mean, honestly, when she says to him the girlfriend says to him i'm worried about them coming back yeah it's like any it's like an archaeologist lives here don't worry we'll tell them they're respectable it's like this is a dump yeah and and look you learn like oh i guess this place got roughed up because he had to face what

they're facing once before but even still i don't think it looked good before. It's not like the deadites came in and ate 15 plates of beans. That's the archaeologist eating those beans and not cleaning up after himself. So the hand can then hit him on the head. I think the deadites are just mad about all the farts. We're going to open up hell dimension.

That would be an incredible horror movie where it's like farts summoned demons. And it's a summerarts summoned demons. Yes. And it's a summer house full of frat guys. Someone is right now doing a line and typing out farts of the dead. And they're already on page four. So the hand hits him on the head. It's one of the most incredible alien hand syndrome acting I've ever seen.

He's so good at it. He knocks himself out. The hand drags him across the floor to get to the cleaver that thing where you just go like how did he do this right and then the hand gets stabbed in the back of the hand with a knife by bruce yeah who then cuts it off with a chainsaw by the way i've had chainsaw training do not operate a chainsaw in any of the ways you see a chainsaw being operated you will die immediately i shouldn't like uh strap a thing onto my shirt so that I can... So you can pull it? Yeah.

No. It's a bad, bad chainsaw etiquette. Sure. Then he cuts it off with a chainsaw. Then he puts the wastebasket on top of it. Farewell to arms. Right. It's this total overstimulation of what's going on.

All of it is incredible physical comedy. Yes. When he goes in and then finally sits down in that chair, blang, that's when your brain starts going, am I watching a Three Stooges? Right. What's going on? Why am I watching?

This is so overwhelming. And when he hits that final, and what's the last part of that? I forgot. Quickly, I'll just add in that sequence you're talking about john he also flips himself over yes right like that and like i've seen this movie a handful of times i never really actually noticed it but like the physicality of that that is not easy donald o'connor it's crazy right well he's crazy or just a few scenes earlier

he'd been strapped to what they called the Samo cam oh yeah which was basically he was crucified on a crane in front of a picture in front of a thing and he was just they just you know rotated him around as the camera moved forward the Samo cam it's so crazy

that was the he's strapped to an x-shaped strut that rotates. Yep. Anyway, and I forgot about, like, okay, then he cuts off the hand. Then the hand sneaks away in the pocket. Yes, yeah. Very cute.

In the background. It was one of the greatest things I've ever seen in my life. And I remember the audience going, oh, my God. And then the hand goes into the mouse hole, and he's shooting the mouse hole. And the hand gives him the bird and goes, son of a bitch. And he goes, son of a bitch. And then he shoots the hand in the hole

and the blood spurts out. It's totally like, in the theater that was so bonkers. The blood spurts out. It's too much blood. It's still going on. How is there more blood? Then the blood turns black.

Then it goes in reverse. Right. Every time there's too much blood i i always love that the trapdoor sequence too where it's like it must just be hoses of it i don't i don't even like uh and it looks watery and foamy you don't care well like this is great the classic evil dead blood was k-ro syrup yes which which bruce campbell insisted on using in this movie red i think no one else used it but he was like i want that stuff on me. That was what he had.

Yeah. And it's not, you don't get the sense that he's throwing too much at you. It's a lot of stimulation, but it's elegantly doled out. And it's still intimate, which is smart. The thought I had watching this last night was, this movie is a symphony. Did you really? Just a symphony. Did you really? Just a symphony of gags. Right.

That whole sequence. It just feels like you're like, I'm going to just follow the flow of his ideas. Right. Whether it's a story idea or a visual idea. Right. Or allowing this performer to show off a new skill set or whatever it is. It's not what you would expect. No.

And it is funny. I'll get into it. But yes, De Laurentiis is like, no, I don't want a medieval adventure movie. That sounds like bullshit. Do the thing again. it is it's not what you would expect like and it is funny i'll get into but like that yes de laurentis is like no i don't want a medieval adventure movie that sounds like bullshit again but you would think he'd be like but do the next you know chapter of him leaving the cabin and not just like no just go back to the cabin and just kind of plus everything up yeah right into this dimension where no one really knows what's happening. Because when that chair finally breaks.

Yeah. And you finally breathe with that. It's like, this is a different movie than I signed up for. It's so, I mean. And it is such. The approach to this as a sequel. Where you're like, here's what we're going to do. We're going to reset the table.

We're going to go back. Right. We're going to do an abridged version of the first movie. We'll do sort of a recap of movie one. Right. And let's like consolidate're going to do. We're going to reset the table. We're going to go back. Right. Right. We're going to do in a bridge version of the first movie. Right. And let's like consolidate it, focus it, pare it down to its basic elements, but also just start to modify the tone a little bit.

So it's easier for us to get to this place where just chaos is going to reign. And at that point, we're not really interested in this being a horror anymore. It has horror elements, but it is as much a comedy and then it's going to fully make the transformation into like badass action movie right which is the thing that you kind of believe because i i like army of darkness a lot but i think right army of darkness is so much more into him being the cocky comedic fool who's going to get one-upped because

he has that confidence the whole movie. This movie, when you start at the beginning, you go, no way this guy becomes a badass at the end. When everything's playing with him. And if he gets to that point, I'm not going to buy it. It's going to feel like a joke. And when Campbell gets those moments, he fucking grabs them.

Well, yeah. And as much as that whole sequence, including the room laughing at him and him dancing with the lamp. Yes, God. Like, it's so funny and it's so beautifully choreographed, but it is also harrowing. Like, it's not a horror movie. It's upset. The movie is, it remains tense. His portrayal of losing his mind is very convincing. And there's constantly imagery that is genuinely disturbing.

Yeah. Gross stuff. Right. That's going to haunt you. The gore, the merrier, as Sam Raimi used to say when they went to go see drive-in movies to learn how to make a horror movie. David, open up this fleshbound dossier. I've got that. Right, exactly.

I've got this dossier for you. We've talked a little bit about this i mean we should mention right obviously the other thing is they make crime wave after evil dead right and that not doing well increases their desperation like now they're like okay we need to and that's when they start dangling an evil dead sequel because that's that's that's what i got what they have to their name like that's the only thing they can tempt people with but obviously he's pitching this medieval sequel. They took out an ad. His agent, Irvin Shapiro, just took out an ad for Evil Dead 2.

And at this point over the years, Evil Dead is growing as a VHS cult object every year. And that did attract some attention from 20th Century Fox and Universal. Evil Dead is in Nightmare on Elm Street. Right. She's watching it or someone's watching it. Very bizarre is in Nightmare on Elm Street. Right. She's watching it, or someone's watching it. Very bizarre to think of. Yes, it is. That's right.

And Freddy Krueger's hand glove is in Evil Dead 2. 2, right? Yeah. In the basement. That's a nice sort of tip of the cap, both directions. Tip of the five-bladed glove. Obviously, he's trying to get... Tip of the cinch fedora.

Trying to get the medieval concept funded. Yeah. Eventually, he drops it. He tries to get the medieval concept funded. Eventually, he drops it. He tries to get Embassy, who funded Crime Wave, to fund it. They string him along for a while, and eventually they drop it. And he obviously had a very difficult time with Embassy and Crime Wave, and the movie getting taken away from him. And yet, nonetheless, he actually went to them first. Right.

So him and his buddy Scott Spiegel, who he co-wrote this movie with, were living in a house in silver lake with four cool cats joel cohen ethan cohen francis mcdormand and holly hunter as you do pretty cool unbelievable that that's the tv show that i want to pitch to hbo max i i cannot tell you that those four lived or those six live together it does just pop into my head every once in a while just an image of the four of them sitting around like chairs in a living room at two o'clock in the morning on a tuesday right like just imagining the late night conversations those people spiegel references like holly hunter she's getting off you know her career is taking off she's in sweatpants reading scripts this is the crazy thing they wrote the character bobby joe in this movie for her

of course that makes a lot of sense actually yeah that's the only thing. They wrote the character Bobby Joe in this movie for her. Of course. That makes a lot of sense, actually. The only thing that makes Bobby Joe make sense, honestly. They're like Holly Hunter type. Rob Taper, who JJ, who rarely editorializes in his dossier, calls a rude idiot.

What is this dossier you're reading from? We have a researcher now, JJ Bursch, Oh, excuse me. Who types up cool little... Cool stuff. Cool things. Does volumes and volumes of research and then commits them to a reel-to-reel recorder.

And does he just leave it in a cabin for anyone to find and start playing? Yes. By the way, rude, Bruce. Don't play someone else's reel-to-reel. It's funny that the biggest difference, I feel like, between the first movie and the second movie is that in the

first one, when they play the tape recorder, you're like, I buy this. There's a slow enough sense of discovery. Nothing in the house seems incredibly creepy. And in this, it's the world's most cursed cabin. They don't know who lives here. It's sitting out on a desk next to this horrifying book. And within

two minutes of walking in, it's like, I should press play on this. Yeah, probably I should listen to this. Just to, Rob T like, I should press play on this. Yeah, probably I should listen to this. Just let's just do it. Just to, Rob Taper, rude idiot, said, we need a babe for that role, and turned down the Holly Hunter suggestion. Boo. In the 80s. Rob Taper is an okay guy.

He's an okay guy. I'm sure he's an okay guy. I mean, look, he admits it. A dumb move, yeah. He confirms, without getting myself in trouble, I thought we should look for somebody else. He said that in 2013, so he's like, you know, Holly, he admits it. A dumb move. He confirms, without getting myself in trouble, I thought we should look for somebody else. He said that in 2013. So he's like, you know, Holly Hunter is...

Anyway, as you say, that character does totally make sense for Holly Hunter. It's funny to think of in the 80s, there was still that mindset like, no, no, we need a babe. Holly Hunter is, right, this slight actress with a southern lilt. She's not going to make sense. I don't think Holly Hunter existed yet is the thing. I believe that Raising Arizona and Evil Dead 2

opened the same weekend. In 1987. They're both 1987. It's another insane thing to think about. Spoiling the box office game. Two filmmaking teams are running concurrent, inspiring each other. Yeah, Raimi and the Coens had just made a horrible flop,

and their recovery pieces are two of the most defining, or, you know, among the most defining movies of their careers. And, like, the Coens talk about so much how much watching Evil Dead 1 was like, we can do that with the camera. We can go this far. We don't have to be concerned with, like, good taste or the rules. Right. Exactly.

And, like, Raising Arizona has so much of that energy where they're just sort of like— Same deal. I didn't know what I was seeing when I went into that theater. Just, like, endless invention. Just, like, crashing down on, you know, a supermarket out— And, again, destabilizing because that is a comedy that has huge human emotion in it. Yeah. And you never—and then horror, too.

And that movie moves so fucking fast. Right. Like, the first ten minutes are, like, four movies movies and then the opening credits start and you're like what i still get goosebumps charles diggs and i seeing that harvard square theater boy oh boy what a night what a night um okay so um uh so spiegel and ramey start writing their script rather unlike the first movie they're not writing to a budget they're like let's just write whatever we think is funny. And so that's one reason they keep writing these ridiculous set pieces. It's the symphony that you're describing. Like, what if we did this? What if we did this?

It's a lot of slapstick ideas. It's a silly symphony, if I may. Oh, hey, cartoonish. But also, they know the performer they're writing to, so they know what Bruce can pull off. That's the other thing. It's true. Campbell's take on the comedy, let's see, is, I think when you play something such an extreme, you're either horrified or you laugh.

Sam does not mind punishing the audience, but he does not like to insult them. I like scaring people, but in a friendly way. All of that tracks. It's a perfect encapsulation of everything. But it is, I mean, again, the first movie is quite harrowing. Yes. It is funny to think sitting down being like,

okay, this is going to be more harrowing, right? This is the sequel. I'm expecting intensity beyond belief. Sure, right. And then in 10 minutes in, You do get intensity. You do, but there's also 10 minutes in a stop motion dance sequence

with a corpse whose head falls off or whatever. And my wife last night was just like, what is this? What is this? Like what? What is it? It's like the reverse of taking a top hat off and rolling it down your arm.

It's your head rolling up your arm on your body. But to like, to go, right. A, we're going to essentially redo the first movie. Literally in the first act, but also we're pretty much going to stay in the same zone, the same concerns, the same locations. Right. Right.

And then also- Because Evil Dead ends with the the monster camera rushing at right and that's fate and right that's minute like 15 in this movie right that's where you're supposedly picking up that's when he gets right thrown onto the sammo cam right and revolved around through the woods till he lands in a puddle and then has his first sort of dead eye run um evil ash run i should say but um but then right to do it in such a different tone it's i mean that's one of those things it's like the amount of comedy in this movie makes it more upsetting where you're like they're being funny about this because that's

the thing about like and this is why i think it has it's not a comedy in horror movie clothes no nor is it a funny horror movie it's totally unique it's what it's it's it's totally unique yeah but it does exactly what i think really good horror does and really good comedy does which is right keep you on a level of like i don't know what's happening and i'm not comfortable yes definitely you don't know what to expect but then 20 minutes at the end where he's like i'm gonna become a superhero and you're gonna watch me kick ass and there's no tension it's just fucking joyride can you can you imagine what it was like in the theater when he said coffee right when he said because i don't know that there's a i mean i'm really going into superlative mode here but it's like what that one word does in that moment for that movie

because that's the word where if you had any guesses yeah is bruce a good actor or a bad actor well who is this guy right is this a comedy or a horror like that lead up to groovy that that what is now classic it was a parody of a kind of classic getting literally armed, right? Right. You know, strapping on your gun belts and your stuff, looking at the camera and going, let's go fuck some shit up.

But Bruce saying groovy is like, oh, it's a joke. It's a joke that they take very seriously and all of a sudden this moment

is fucking iconic. Like, you are so amped for this now. But also, it's like if Get Away From Her, You Bitch happened at the end of the first alien and you'd go well you can't do that you need two movies you need this time to pass you need the experiences you need the ripley relation

or the uh newt relationship whatever right and the fact that movie pulls it off in like one scene yeah i know this is the second movie but like he starts off just as goofy like one of the other things that he could have than he was in the first film. Yeah. Groovy is, groovy is goofy. Yeah. It's an incredibly goofy thing to say. Yeah.

And it works so well. But it's saying to the audience, this guy's cool now. You're going to, you're going to buy that for the sake of this narrative, he's cool now. It crystallizes everything about the movie. And that brings the audience on board in a way that they may not have been. Right. For that final act. And that brings the audience on board in a way that they may not have been for that final act.

And as I think Bruce was saying in the quote from the dossier, like, Sam Raimi doesn't mind punishing the audience. He'll show them gross stuff. But he likes the audience. And, like, he trusted that when Bruce Campbell says groovy, they would get it. And they did. They're going to share. I think they did. that when Bruce Campbell says groovy, they would get it.

And they did. They're going to share. I think they did. The big thing that gets them funding is a little man named Stephen King, who was a huge fan of the first movie, obviously, and lent it support and helped spread the word about it. Had the pull quote on the poster.

He's making Maximum Overdrive, and he catches wind that Evil Dead 2, there's a script floating around, and he gets Dino De Laurentiis, who's making Maximum Overdrive, and he says, meet this man right away. I, Stephen King, bless this.

De Laurentiis meets with Raimi and is like, well, I have the rights to a bunch of Stephen King stuff. Do you want to do Thinner? I'm trying to get Thinner going, which he eventually does make. What if he got Thinner? I believe that's what Thinner's about. You're looking to me?

Yes. I've not seen that movie, nor have I read that script. I believe it is a guy who gets a curse. Anyway, and Raimi's like, I don't want to do that. I want to do Evil Dead 2. And De Laurentiis is like, translate the script into Italian for me.

And he was like, okay. Raimi was asking for $4 million and De Laurentiis came back and said, I can give you $3.6. And Raimi was like, sounds good. But it's one of those things when the first movie... It's just funny that he knocked a little bit off. Yeah, $4 million. Come on. $3.6? $3.6.

The first movie was what? Meant to be $150 and it ended up being... The numbers on the budget. Oh, I can't remember that's you know also that's one of those movies where everyone overtakes it the reason did you say the reason that stephen king was uh talking to dealer he loved the first one and he yeah we yeah but he was working with dealer rent as he was directing maximum yes did you just say that yes um but yes put it back in but later put it back in. But later. Put it back in. No, I'm joking. Yeah. All right. Keep it in triple it.

He was directing Maximum Overdrive. He was directing Maximum Overdrive. He was directing Maximum Overdrive. The first movie was well under half a million dollars, even if you believe the most extreme exaggerations of how much the budget overran. Right. If you say to this guy, you have $3.6 million now, it's like he's been given $200 million.

If he was able to make that movie for $300,000 to $450,000, The First Evil Dead, where, like, we were talking about in the first episode, all these sort of young genre filmmakers who see that at a pivotal age are like,

this is the first movie where it doesn't feel like a guy is writing within the limitations of his resources, where he's figuring out how to execute any fun idea he has and then this movie he's like i i can do more right are you fucking kidding me right yeah but that is the thing to larentis is the one who helps with this he's like don't overshoot your ambitions make the first kind of like make a cabin in the woods movie again but with a real budget like yeah that's what you should do uh and so they do they strip out everything in the script that's you know too insane but like the only thing i think you can really equate it to is the road

warrior where it's like which we talked about of course right so basically make the first movie again put up everything right yeah and i think their thought is like just do a fancier version of the first movie and they're like i'm just do a fancier version of the first movie. And they're like, I'm going to go so much crazier than the first movie. I'm not just going to make your shinier, more polished version of my original idea. But the key is they didn't say that.

No. They did that. They're like, thanks for the money. Thank you. We will not be shooting in your studio. Yes. We are going to go several miles away.

Right. And in both cases, into the woods. It was like guys who made movies with their friends friends where they had sort of gathered money from independent sources and had like very little oversight and put all their ambition on screen to show like this is this wild idea i have this thing i can barely barely depict and then the second time people were like here's real money in a real structure and they went thank you and stuff all right here's my brother in a witch costume. Look, a lot of these,

I think, are coming from Bruce's book, by the way. A lot of these factoids I'm getting here are coming from If Chins Could Kill. They shot...

Hey, Bruce's book, If Chins Could Kill, is a great book about young people making movies. Yeah, absolutely. And you learn a lot. It's a subject we love.

I highly recommend it. So they shot in Wadesboro, North Carolina many hours from Wilmington, which is where Sam Raimi's home base was, because they didn't want anyone visiting them. De Laurentiis is on base. Sorry, De Laurentiis. Not Raimi's. Up in Michigan, right?

But yeah, because he wanted to be far enough away there'd be a pain in the ass to visit the set. Right. Smart. Apparently, Bruce Campbell, as I'm sure you can, they talk a lot about how he was really good at quote the local yokel stuff so he'd like go to town and be like hey do you want to like do the wiring or you know hey do you want to like build some you know like and everyone just get everyone on board really good at like scouting locate hey do you know anywhere around here that you know we could do this that's what you call a people person um

they had uh exactly uh spielberg had shot the color purple around there so people were used to a movie right well it's like really developing as a hub i know this is outside of wilmington but i'm saying north carolina yes yes and they shot that's why they built the sets in the local high school in the gym yeah which is like wow sort of a funny to think that that's all in a high school gym like when we're watching the cabin stuff. I really couldn't figure out where it was and it does not track that it was in the gym. It's funny too that the cabin is so

much smaller in this movie and I think that's probably. Is it though? It feels like it is. What about when he's running for three minutes? Well they can make right there are times where they fuck with the physics of it. Right. When you see it it's so cool that is such a do you want to hold on no go ahead i mean talk about it i don't care

what a weird sequence that's also destabilizing too right because you're now you're in a this haunted house that has a million doors right and by the way whole crawl spaces behind every wall that encircle the entire like he's going through five different doors and then goes into some unseen portion of the cabin. Cause when they're outside the cabin, it looks like an outhouse. It looks like this is one room. Yeah.

One or two rooms. There's a tiny home. Yeah. But it just goes on forever inside. It's a tiny home. It's about a haunted tiny home. That was the first time I felt like I'm a, like,

is this a horror movie or is this like an airplane parody of a horror movie? Right. You know? Cause, and then it was showing you like we're able to go bigger. Yes. Like we literally are going to expand, but also we're doing something completely weird that you don't know what's happening. Just this weird level of like, Edgar Wright quote I threw out in our Evil Dead 1 episode, that he was like watching for the first time and realized most horror movies you're watching people get picked off one by one and the first evil dead almost everyone else gets picked off really quickly and then the rest of the movie is this one guy being picked on

right right like the evil force like has no rules in this movie sometimes it can break down doors sometimes it cannot get through doors it can do whatever the fuck it wants right it can do whatever the fuck it wants but its main prerogative is it wants to fuck with this guy. Right. It gets pleasure from fucking with this guy. And then the added layer onto this is, it's top of the brain because Ben and I, the new one came out, Ben and I saw this marathon or whatever. But there is this weird jackass element to this movie. Yeah.

For sure. Where you're like, it's Raimi and other childhood friends behind the camera being like, can you believe we're getting Bruce to do this on camera? Oh, they love, yeah. Right. So it's like, there's the cosmic humor of like, it's funny to have a character like this that's being shit on by everyone who can't catch a break. And then they're also like,

and remember we wrote this into the script and now he has to do it and he has to do it 20 times. Yes. It was very, very honest that Sam Raimi loved to beat up on Bruce Campbell. You can like hear them giggling. Like you can feel it. I mean, talk about Re revenge of the nerds, too.

Bruce was the closest friends with these guys, but he's a six-foot-tall, beautiful guy. He's the handsome jock who does theater. And Sam Raimi, who's just, you know, not that. Very, very shy and tough-spoken. Yeah, and he's like, I'm going to beat up on this jock. Right. It's the movie. It's me beating up on the jock.

I'm going to make this jock beat up on himself. I'm going to make this jock punch himself in the face. It's like, I'm gonna beat up on this jock. Right. It's the movie. It's me beating up on the jock. I'm gonna make this jock beat up on himself. I'm gonna make this jock punch himself in the face. It's literally, why are you hitting yourself? Yes. That old gag. God. I want to shout out Peter Deming. I love this movie. Has one of the most incredibly

diverse careers as a cinematographer. I don't know who he is. Who is he? List a couple credits. Well, I will, but first I want to point know who he is who is he let's a couple credits well i will but first i want to point out he was nobody when he got hired at first ramey hired some guy called eugene shuglet and they like fought and he fired him right away right then he went back to tom philo who shot the first shot the first movie one of these things i always love is a phenomenon where it's like a guy who was friends with the guy who made this movie that was so seismically important this look that's been replicated he was like like, I don't want to work in the film industry my whole

career. And Evil Dead 1's the only movie he DP'd. He did second unit on this. And he did something else. He has this quote where he's like, I read the script. He says the script is an amazing document. It's impossible to read, but the level of complexity, it just describes all this incredible stuff

in it, like these shots. And he basically was like, I can't do this. I won't be able I'm gonna be the fall guy if you hire me they hire Peter Deming he had shot Hollywood Shuffle that was like his one credit yeah he was like a Midwestern he went to Wisconsin I think but another like seismic movie in American independent film right this huge yes and then but yes he goes on I mean his greatest work is Mulholland Drive he also shot lost highway he was also shot in the Austin Powers he did Huge, yes. And then, but yes, he goes on. I mean, his greatest work is Mulholland Drive. He also shot Lost Highway.

He also shot The Austin Powers trilogy. He did The Austin Powers movies. He did all the screams. The range of this guy is all the screams. He's technically not credited on the first screen, but the first screen famously fired its cinematographer and brought him in. And then he did all the other screams.

He did Twin Peaks The Return. I heard Huckabees. Yeah. Oh, wow. He's, you know, but this is his first. I should pay attention to who films these movies he's a secret like great and like and i feel like he maybe doesn't get cited as as much as some other guys because he doesn't have the distinctive house look right he's so

adaptable to who he's working with yeah um but this is the whole thing with peter deming it's like not only are we like he's being brought in and like basically production's happening yeah and every day sam ramey will just have breakfast with him and be like so we're gonna you know put bruce on this crane and we'll shoot him through the woods or whatever and he's like okay you know like they're just like doing it on the fly i mean i was i showed you some of these rigs you know yeah this is the one for that goes through the car the ram of coolest yeah shot when it like smashes through the windows through the car, which is the coolest shot when it smashes through the windows of the car. Even Forky was like,

how'd they pull that off? Yeah, well, what they did in case you're listening to a podcast and you can't see the result, for anyone who that applies to. Yeah, what Raimi did was, and this is something he did in Evil Dead 1 as well, was he had a cart on wheels with a long pole sticking straight forward on it

duct taped the camera to the end of the pole so that he could push the cart and the camera could go through the back window of a car and then out the front window of the car that old 88 of course is a motif it shows up in a lot of ramey movies they called it the classic right yes always showing up yeah and that's also funny too because like oh yeah suddenly i've got three and a half 3.6 million dollars i can really upgrade the ramo cam right maybe i'm not using duct tape anymore on the on the pole that i'm sticking through this oldsmobile look it's not like he's the first but in terms of the consistency with which ramey is constantly approaching the camera as an object and being

like what are things you can do with an object how can you move an object right and how can i make it hurt bruce campbell can i throw it at him can i just whip it at his head what's legal here yeah i watched the i mean there's this like beautiful 4k restoration of this movie which is how i have it watch it and it you know it's not been like uh artificially scrubbed it still has like texture and everything but especially compared to other movies of the genre it is kind of incredible how clean this movie looks like it has such like bright vibrant colors like a bc comic yes yeah yes it has a comic book vibe to it right it has that the sort of palette of uh rights, 60s, 40s genre comics where they could only use six colors to print.

And horror comics that were gruesome and that started the reason for the comics code. And this movie uses shadows and whatever, but it's not murky. It's not grainy. It's not grimy. It's surprisingly clean for a movie that's so much about viscera yeah yeah no that's true that's true it's not janky i guess even though it's a janky atmosphere is how to describe right but like the special effects feel so like cutting edge in a weird kind of a way you know like using like everything every type of

technique it must have been a pain in the ass i mean which is so much of what he is in you know it's just like how they did the eyeball shot you know how complicated that was how they did the vine trick where she's being you know they would shoot a lot of this stuff backwards and then run it forwards obviously that's sort of like a classic way to do that. In Bruce's book, Sam would yell at Bruce for being a bad reverse actor. Come on, you don't know how to act backwards? Everyone knows that. That's the worst reverse acting I've ever seen. Obviously this thing has a famous kind of murderer's row

of makeup and visual effects guys. Yeah, Greg Nicotero. Greg Nicotero, the famous one. Mark Sjostrom, who had done Nightmare on Elm Street and Videodrome. Cool, gooey effects Howard Berger and Robert Kurtzman and Tom Sullivan

who'd worked on the first movie obviously the biggest influence on these movies is the Three Stooges we talked about in the last episode but Ray Harryhausen is obviously coming to the fore here the dancing headless body the dancing headless body when The dancing headless body.

When the hand is on its own and moving through the mouse holes. And then Army of Darkness is like just primarily a Harryhausen tribute. Right, exactly. Right, right. That only gets dialed up more. I mean, it's just, it's what we,

it's like they had worked so hard with no money. Yeah. And instead of not working very hard with more money, they worked so hard with a little more money. Right. And it produces this, like, exponential result. Right. Like, that's the best way to describe this. Right.

But it's the same for me as the Mad Max Road Warrior Jump, where it's like, they can now afford to have five cars instead of one or two and be more comfortable. And instead they were like, no, we're going to pay for 80 cars and suffer and break our backs to make another one of these. But there are also choices in this movie like the bridge, which is so phony looking. Thank you. I was just about to bring this up i think that's another key like tonal indicator of the world this movie is taking place right because it looks phony and it's it looks like it looks janky it looks janky it's like a weird matte painting but even the design of it you're like that damage doesn't make sense right how could it look like only a dead i could do it that's the only explanation i could do it yeah but i mean the first time you see the bridge before

it's blown up yeah it's obviously a matte painting. It's kind of a beautiful matte painting. Yeah. But it's definitely cluing you in. A, I think it's cluing you into the facts like this is kind of a janky horror movie. Right. Like these are the visual cues that this is not a fancy movie. Yeah. Don't, this is not a Rosemary's Baby.

We're playing in the B-movie realm. Yeah, exactly. Right. But then also I kind of feel like Sam Raimi's like, it's just a Rosemary's Baby. We're playing in the B-movie realm. Yeah, exactly. But then also, I kind of feel like Sam Raimi's like, it's just a Sam Raimi thing. Like, the thing about the Ram-O-Cam. Like, yeah, they're working really hard with more money, but they also have this kind of Michigan working class. Like, why would we improve a pole that bashes through an Oldsmobile? Like, this is what we do. Like, we'll spend the money where we need to spend the money.

What technique is better than that? On stop motion, like, headless dancing. The bridge looks so, like, illustrative. Right? Yeah. Right? Like, it looks like a weird gnarled Tim Burton tree or some shit. Oh, once it's been busted open.

Yeah. And you're like, there's so many ways you could just depict the bridge has gone out right and it's also such a weird narrative cul-de-sac because we've been so caught up with this guy in the house right you've watched the first movie you're like you never leave the cabin you can't get out that's right so then this cut to the plane landing the brother and sister children of the archaeologists you're like where's this going so they're gonna go to the house and you're introduced to bobby joe and what's the the townie's name townie uh his name is is it jake jake yes yes i think it is jake but there's this weird relief where like these people are not living the same it's like i can take you up there on a trail

it'll cost you 45 dollars a weird number i mean bobby joe says to 100 no he says 45 and then she she ups it to 100 she nudges him and he goes I mean $100 right like but like in those first 20 minutes

I guess maybe especially if you haven't seen Evil Dead 1 yeah maybe you're kind of having that thought of like are we not

gonna leave this like is it just gonna be this guy is it just gonna be yeah like and then and I think also if you haven't seen Evil Dead 1 you're watching it, so you're like,

what was the first movie? Right. What happened before this? But you also, I think that, understand too that this is showing in movie theaters and like kids and stoners and weirdos are just... Right. They're out for a Saturday night. It's what's playing.

There's a lot of people who don't care what Evil Dead was. Right. And there are a lot of people who might have even what Evil Dead was. And there are a lot of people who might have even said, let's not even put two on the end of this. Absolutely. 100%. But I just feel like them cutting to the plane is kind of you getting some

water splash in your face and you're like, no, no, right. It's a movie. There'll be characters and a plot, right? I briefly thought there might not be. I briefly thought it was just going to be in this cabin. But that's also sort of telling you like i'd be like you like that check out evil dead one right this movie can ultimately make this jump to action adventure film on this odd small scale because they're going to come in and it's not like they're there to save him it's like we can infuse new life into the situation and he can sort of transform right right you have this young couple

one of them wearing shorts all the time yes um and it is the guy destined to be thrown into a fruit cellar as soon as possible no offense she's carrying around extra pages to the book of the dead yeah in a glass case that can only be opened by shattering of course no offense to any of these actors and cassie de p, I think is her name, who plays Bobby Joe, she went on to be on One Life to Live for 20 years. She had a rich career. But it is funny that in both of these movies,

it's Bruce Campbell, and then a bunch of people you're like, I couldn't tell you. They don't pop really at all, and you're just like, yeah, they're there to turn into monsters. Right? But they are there. We need some new bodies right we need some new people to get like it's a little it's a little extra life it's a it's a little faint you kind of towards of like

maybe there's a there's a you know a love story here these young kids right no thank you that guy's gonna go down the basement as so fast as possible. That Fred-looking asshole. I was so ready for that. That's what I was looking for. That's the Hoseley magic that I needed. Let's see. I mean, Sam Raimi just, I guess, similar to his energy, his energy seems to be he would keep having ideas. On set, he would be like, can we do the eyeball like goes in her mouth

like you know like he would add things onto it uh with the makeup he would famously just say make it scarier and they'd be like okay like i don't know what that means like apparently he's very into giving you percentages he'll be like 20 scarier here like or something like that you know like he'll he'll speak with a spectrum that you're like don't know what he's working off of obviously ted ramey his brother his brother uh who is a fake shemp in the last one is henrietta in this one basically right like probably to what you were just talking about the second most noteworthy performance like that's the other performance that kind of jumps out is henrietta in that state yeah he drew ramey had drawn this or someone had drawn this sketch maybe it wasn't sam ramey

of like a monster that was a skinny lady with bones coming through and sam was like ted will do this because ted's skinny and then does whatever i tell him right and ted agrees i was 20 20 year olds have no regard for their mortality i was the perfect age to be in that movie yeah uh and then they eventually decided no we should put him in like a fat monster costume because then whatever he can do more like it'll be easier to build around that it'll be easier for us but more torturous that's the thing it sounds like living hell like when they describe like the 3 a.m wake up they would start putting prosthetics all over him two hours of that then they put bean bags on him to like girth him up and then they put the face on him but it's like 100 degrees yeah you're wearing this thing that is probably

not you know designed with your comfort in mind like now right they'll put a refrigerator in your suit or whatever right now they'll have fans going and also like you're in a harness for some of these shots on top of that like you're like on a yeah you know being around there's a the famous moment where ted as henrietta is lifted up and spun around yes and you can see the sweat streaming out of the costume truly because you just have liters of sweat because it wasn't just 100 degrees. I mean, they were shooting this summer in this high school, so it was naturally 100 degrees.

Then inside, then with the lights on, it had to have been unbearable. It feels like advanced interrogation tactics. Yeah, exactly. And then he had to crouch in this hole because there wasn't a cellar there. Pretend. Ted describes it as the acting there wasn't a cellar there. Right. Pretend. Ted describes it as the acting version of the Rommel campaign.

Okay. Yep. But yes, basically torture. It just, the sweat would fill the latex feet so they would cover him in baby powder. He couldn't see anything. Yeah. Because he's wearing like white lenses. Right.

Bruce Campbell, unsurprisingly, kind of the leader of men on this set, kind of the one rallying everyone to try so hard. He also got buff. He looks good. He dropped the, let's see, what was he eating? The egg McMuffins, the banana cream pies at lunch. Does he love it?

Does he have a sweet tooth? Right, whatever. I think that sounds... He worked out. Yeah. He looks good well also like his trainer would make him work out for two hours after they wrapped each day so they would shoot for 12 hours yeah and then he'd be working out for two hours after that and then obviously he has to strap on this damn chainsaw that like bulge belches smoke in his face like

so he's like smoking cigarettes basically i held I held a chainsaw once. It was very terrifying. And they're not white. I would not want to do that. Unless that's some gimmick chainsaw that is much lighter. I think it is lighter. It had been hollowed out so he could put his hand in it. But it still is heavy. But also, I mean, talk about working with a trainer

for two hours after a full day of filming on a movie that looks this exhausting, where he is the guy. He's in every fucking shot pretty much right uh when you hear stories like that today it is uh people who get paid 20 million dollars a movie right to be in pre-established franchises right where they are guaranteed magazine covers where they get to brag about the diet they went on and whatever don't know who you're talking about could be anybody could be anybody could be anybody could be In fact, there are multiple examples. Yeah, multiple examples.

But to do that for this movie, I think, is unusual. Not just in this time. Right. But still to this day, purely. He did it for his high school friend. Yeah. I mean, also, he wanted work. He wanted anger.

And this was his gig. He loves acting. Yeah. He loves making movies. You know, the way they did the blood pouring out of the wall right was they tilted they tilted the set tilted the camera had bruce lie down then emptied like a bathtub's worth of fucking blood on his face and sam comes over before they shoot and he goes so if you find that you're drowning just wave your hands as if you're in terror and bruce said well that's what i'm supposed to be

doing what i performance that's what the performance is going to look like and sam was like yeah i guess you're right okay roll it well now we'll figure it out i just feel like putting in that extra work to look like this for this movie is not a career calculation at all. It's just who Bruce is. It's what would help this movie. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's what would help this movie. They're making the best high school movie

that they've had a chance to make. Yeah. So what are some sequences we haven't talked about at all yet? What else should we talk? I mean, plot-wise, obviously, it's not a plot-heavy movie. No, it's a silly stuff. It's a symphony of silliness. I wanted to say, because we got right up to when he you know the

sequence of putting together the chainsaw and his look for that like final battle yeah to me i like i think that he is this one of the coolest designs it's for a character yeah and it is like and it's like this is obvious but like man still even seeing it to this day, that shot when you finally see him in his final form, I guess, or whatever. Right, right. Half his blue shirt ripped off. He's got a leather buckle situation that's somehow connected to the chainsaw. Totally. And the sequence, the way that it's all these close-ups showing how everything is going to kind of connect you.

You're like seeing the pieces all assemble. how everything is going to kind of connect you yeah you're like seeing the pieces all assemble but when you finally see him i i mean like i it's something to where it's like he's a superhero right or in that moment but it's like anyone could be him basically he's just a normal guy with now a chainsaw for a hand and a fucking shotgun he's pissed as hell like it gets me so excited yeah it is so effective and cool the the lines on where the leather straps are where the shirt is ripped like everything i feel like this is like an off imitated thing of like, how do you let a character get to badass mode in the final act? What's the cool battle damaged world weary form? And it's kind of never better than this in this sort of literally blue collar form where he's like still a guy in like dockers.

And he's just like fucking i've had enough right fuckers right uh it's also i i i'm trying to remember what the transition is there is a cut where like things have hit a fever pitch and then there's like another one of those moments where like they let you catch your breath and i think it's maybe him taking the pages from the book or something like that. That sounds right. But there's, right. There's like a cut.

That's like a little bit of a time jump where he's sort of trying to like explain everything to the new visitors at the house. Right. And his whole performance has shifted. It's now he's the elder statesman. He's not the guy being fucked with. He's the one who understands this better than anyone else. Right.

And hidden in that cut, this character is being so much shit piled on him and it's like blood roughed up green stuff black stuff red stuff mush sweat whatever and then that cut happens and he's like the most perfectly handsome he's ever gonna be and the blood is now arranged where it's like his hairline and then these like four or five specific cuts the great little red lines on his right and he's just now like i'm the expert let me explain great little red lines on his face. Right. And he's just now like, I'm the expert. Let me explain this to you. And otherwise his face is clean,

like immaculate. Yeah. You know, the stains he has on the shirt are only cool now. Right. The rips he has are only cool. Right. Yeah. He had a little time to clean up in the cabin's secret ninth bathroom. Yes. And you believe it too because like it's obviously it's not a continuity error

no he's transformed into something else and you believe the transformation because you watched what he went through which was so funny but also truly harrowing yes and he really does know what's happening right right and i think the movie's weird emotional sincerity to keeping one foot in. This guy's night started with him having to saw the love of his life in half. Yeah. And that the necklace is the thing that sort of brings him back. Stupid necklace. This movie does give you at least one minute of them as a happy couple in the car, just so you can somewhat feel the impact of his song.

It's incredible. When he starts singing and she's covering her ears going, oh, please stop. He's like, champagne. Because obviously he's got to chainsaw her head within a few minutes. So, you know, it's going to be harder to sell. Like, you can't believe he did this. And the necklace thing, they have that whole cute exchange in the first movie with her sneaking up on him and him pretending to be sleeping or whatever.

And in this one, they get into the house and he's like, remember this necklace I bought you? Like, they have to call it out. It obviously becomes more important later, but there are little gags like him going into the, the work shed

and the camera, like, whip panning over, seeing the chalk outline of the chainsaw of the chainsaw and then the camera whips over and here's, like, headless corpse with the chainsaw. And it's like, why was the chains whips over and here's like headless corpse with the chainsaw.

And it's like, why was the chainsaw check outline? Because you need to know it's not there. I know, but it's so funny. Yes, I love that. The headless corpse with the chainsaw is maybe the coolest stop motion effect or whatever that is. Right. The coolest puppety effect. It's using every technique.

I think when they have, when she has the chainsaw, it feels like that's a puppet. That's like a rod puppet. And when the dance is happening, that's pure stop motion. And Sam Raimi's using every tool in the shed. Yeah, truly. Workshed. Workshed. That was such a dumb add-on.

I mean, when I rewatched it this morning, there's that moment where he says, workshed, and clearly his mouth isn't moving. Yeah. Someone's like, well, you need to tell them where he's going. That feels like a DeLaurence's note. Yeah. They're confused. How do we know he's going to the workshed what kind of shed is it

apparently De Laurentiis is a vampire I mean my impression what does he look like I've definitely seen De Laurentiis he looks like Kevin Pollack's character in the whole 10 yards I just imagine like a total stereotype which is maybe rude like obviously he was a genuine movie lover that's the thing about him yes as much as he is this parody of like a

european film producer right right he actually did sort of care about this shit yeah sure in a way he also was happy to make stupid stuff and where was this movie with regard to david lynch's dune uh well david lynch's dune is 84 i want to say and this is 87 so this is post dune but i mean which de la renta's produced he sure did rafael rafael is the producer on it but obviously that was a you know a deg right like a still controlling the purse strings um but uh yeah what else is he working on at this point let's see he's so he's done well he did king kong well sure that's in the 70s right no but the second one's like much later right the linda hamilton king kong king kong lives yes that's 86 so yeah that's right around i don't know and

that's like a big step down movie because when when the 70s one came out, he's like, this would be forever. We make a Kong movie every three years. Yeah. And then it was like seven years later. He's like, it's another one. I don't know. Bring out the monkey. What year is it?

Bring out the ape. Manhunter. He had made the year before. It's always funny with him because it's like that mix of Red Sonja, Year of the Dragon, sort of trash, Maximum Overdrive, and then Blue Velvet. Something where he's obviously putting his head on the block. The commonality is that he, to almost all of these,

I don't remember who directed King Kong. John Gehrman? John Gehrman made the one you're talking about. No, he made both. The Twin Towers. He made both of them. Alright, so with the exception of this person, there is a commonality, which is he's

working with directors who have visions. Yes, real directors. He clearly kind of respected directors. Yeah. And it didn't always work. visions. Yes, real directors. He clearly kind of respected directors. Yeah. Yeah. Like, and, you know, it didn't always work. Yeah. Yeah, right.

He's rolling the dice on proper visions from real filmmakers. Obviously, he made, like, a bunch of Cronenberg movies. Right. Worked with, what's his name, Richard Fleischer, right, who is sort of a genius, weird hack. Like, he made, like, Dr. Dolittle, but he also made, like, Amity 3 weird hack like he made like dr doolittle but he also made like amity 3d amity 3d the second conan he made red sonia uh and he did make the second okay he made conan the destroyer right um anyway uh one of those guys when you just look at the totality of his career and you're like he starts in like the 1940s and 50s making

like those movies where they're like we got a couple songs a comedy routine and a dancer and it's called make mine fun or whatever and a guy comes out and he's like thank you for coming to this picture show i went and saw there was a richard fleischer like retrospective somewhere and i was like what's playing today i saw this thing and i was like this can be a movie sure it's 45 minutes and a guy comes out and he's like thank you for putting on your nicest clothes for this picture here today there's a little of that that mood in evil dead 2 as well absolutely a couple dance numbers yeah an interesting thing about this movie is that de la rentis actually stipulated that it should had to be rated r then he saw the film and they were like this will not be rated r and for us to get even close to an r you would

it would be about 60 minutes long. We would have to cut out so much of the movie that Joe Larentis was like, okay, don't worry about it. And he created this subsidiary company called Rosebud Releasing, which only released this film. I was going to say,

because it's quite a striking little fanfare at the beginning, but it looks quite a striking little fanfare at the beginning. But it looks like uneasy, like Lynch blue velvet. But he created this subsidiary company. They claimed at the time, like, yeah, we had to sell it to Rosebud. Because we couldn't get an R rating out of it. And it was just him being supportive. Him being like, look, you made your movie.

So it was released without a rating then. Yes, I believe so. And in Britain... I can tell you, Rosebud will release anything. They don't care. They have no standards. They're just trash. They're wild.

In Britain, it was banned for a while. I mean, it was like... We talked about the video Nasties. It was sort of a famous one for a bit. I think. Am I making that up? And like a deeply terrifying VHS cover. I feel like that was an image that haunted And like a deeply terrifying VHS cover.

Like I feel like that was an image that haunted me as a child. And then later I was getting into nerd shit and Evil Dead 2 would be spoken about in such high regard and I'd be like that's Evil Dead 2. And then the day I put it together and I was like that's Evil Dead 2? Right. Because the imagery I knew of it at that time was all Ash stuff. Right. This skull with an eyeball is just

The skull with the eyeball never shows up in the movie. Just a striking idea. So when did you first see it and what was i the context i think i was about 12 perfect young right it's scary i mean i talked about inner evil dead episode but i was just like such a comic book store kid oh i'm sorry i didn't listen to that one yet because it hasn't come out no i'm not saying this to you i I'm just saying this to myself. In my timeline. Yes. Such a comic book story kid was going to conventions and stuff with my friend, was reading like Wizard Magazine and shit. Sure. And so these things would just be spoken of in very reverential tones.

Yeah. Yeah. So I was just like, I think I need to see this. And the very cool people who worked at the local video store kind of did me the mitzvah of my mom walking up and being like is it okay for him to watch the evil dead and they were like it's it's like pretty goofy yeah yeah it's mostly a comedy don't worry mom right and then the guy said like you know aside from the tree rape he did say tree rape to my mom and i was like this guy's blown it and she was like yeah you can rent it but i was renting evil dead one mostly so

i could watch evil dead too like it felt like i know that's the one that everyone talks about wait the guy left the the video store guy let you rent evil dead one yes he vouched for evil dead one with your mom yes an incredible thing i don't like this guy now and i had a little i had a little like tv with a built-in vcr sure and i And I watched Evil Dead. It was taped to your head. Yeah, so it was taped to my head. From years seven to 20. No, but it was like a 10-inch screen at most. The way it was meant to be seen. Right, and I'd watch movies late at night,

and I watched that movie and was like, this is much scarier than I thought it would be. This movie's upsetting. He said Evil Dead 1 was goofy? He was like, you know, it's like a horror movie. What video store was this? TLA Videoly departed where where was it it was uh in the west village what was this person's name i don't remember jimbo bobby moynihan worked at that store cool he was one of the people who would sometimes do me the solid and be like he can watch this

was it moynihan it wasn't moynihan that wasn't when i remember the guy's face i couldn't tell you his name i remember the guy's face alright but he anonymous Garfield tweeter I want you to get on the case yeah you have to figure this out get it Moynihan I know that you can but the point is

I watched Evil Dead 2 like probably a week after Evil Dead 1 like that was one weekend and then the whole week at school I was like grabbing onto the armrest

going like and then on Friday I get to rent Evil Dead 2 building up and then watch it and I had that like it could not have been more built up in my mind. No brain is capable of taking that in.

No. Within the space of a week. No. No. It was truly, I think it was two consecutive weekends. Did you like it? Loved it. You did?

Loved it. This is a real griff horror film. Right. And it has lots of puppets and magic. Sure, sure, sure. First movie, I think. But I mean, if you were coming off of Evil Dead, I don't care whether you're 12,

I don't care whether you're nine, I don't care whether you're eight. Yeah. If you just watched Evil Dead 1 and a week later you watch Evil Dead 2, that's a real whiplash. But you know, Evil Dead 2 was what I wanted. Like Evil Dead 1, I was like,

I get this, this is good. This isn't necessarily my kind of shit. Sure, but I'm not going to want it all the time. And I was like, Evil Dead 2, I was like, here we fucking go. Young Griff in his smoking jacket with his pipe going, I get this. I get this. This is good.

This is not what I'm wanting. The thing I equated to was like first Terminator, which I have a lot of respect for now. I think at the first time. Piece of trash. You think it's a piece of trash. I don't think it's a piece of trash. But the first time watching it, I was like, this is set up and then I'm going to get to the cool movie where the guy's the metal face and the fucking explodes and turns into two is the movie that terminator one wants it and the exact movie you want to see as a 12 year old i would yeah sure

right so i think i was like this is the grimy movie where they test out the ideas and then i'm gonna get to evil dead 2 which i know is the chainsaw movie like i knew that's the thing i knew as like an empire magazine reader is like someone who watched like spaced right entertainment weekly talks about bruce campbell these tones and he's got a fucking chainsaw movie and he has a chainsaw i knew all that before i watched the movie like the lore had already where were you when you watched the movie the united kingdom of great britain and northern ireland yeah enjoy my restraint um i mentioned in the first movie how what how i think i discovered i thought you said it was banned well the video nasties had all been unbanned it's the first one that

was a video nasty not the second one i checked that it was it was the first one that was a video nasty so evil dead 2 sailed through but i mean as i've talked about on this podcast i did have that weird thing of like clockwork orange exorcist these are movies that got unbanned in britain when i was like a teenager yeah britain had just thrown them on a ban list that weird thing of like Clockwork Orange, Exorcist. These are movies that got unbanned in Britain when I was like a teenager. Yeah. Britain had just thrown them on a ban list and been kind of like, who cares? You know, don't worry about it. And then like later, I guess it's come of age and like we're censoring. The prophecy has come true.

Oscar nominated films. But you know what? It's so crazy. Those are both Best Picture nominees. Britain was like, hey, they can't be seen in this country. Right. Under no circumstances. Right. Like a theater once showed clark rick arnott and stanley kubrick like sued them right and you're like is this like is this the most cursed image right yes um but uh i i first i think i first saw evil dead as the movie within the move the movie they're watching in donnie darko i mentioned that last time yeah donnie darko they go see evil

dead i've never seen Donnie Darko. Let's watch it. We'll throw it on. We'll do it right in the middle of this episode. Live watch? Yeah. And then we're going to listen to all of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown? Absolutely. That's a great, great, great musical. Roof! Boom.

The Sally song is so good in that. The book report? My New Philosophy. That's an added. That's a revival. That's in the Kristen Chenoweth revival. I know it is so good in that. The book report? My new philosophy. My new philosophy. Oh, well, that's an added. That's a revival. That's in the Kristen Chenoweth revival. I know, but it's so good. Because Sally was in the show period in the original production, right? Sally was the new character.

Sally was the... You want to get into some deep, please. Absolutely. Good man, Charlie Brown. People thought there's no way they circle back. And if they do, it's going to be the... After 15 minutes at the top, they're going to let it lie. If they circle back, it'll be the end as always.

They're not going to open a whole new sidebar. The Sally character was Patty in the original. Right. Off-Broadway. And it wasn't even a full musical. It was basically a workshop for a musical. And Gary Berghoff was- Gary Berghoff and Bob Balaban were in the original.

Wow. Was Balaban Linus? He was Linus. And Berghoff and Bob Balaban were in the original. Wow, was Balaban Linus? He was Linus. And Berkhoff was Charlie Brown. Kristen Chenoweth doing My New Philosophy in the 90s revival, or whatever you want to call it. New Songs by Andrew Lippa. Is one of the great Broadway performances, in my opinion.

You can listen to it any time. Where she's basically having an argument with herself throughout singing a song. It is unbelievable. It was also one of those things. So fucking good. I feel like if someone breaks out on Broadway and becomes a crossover name in filmed media to the public at large,

it is usually because the show that they're a part of is such a cultural phenomenon. And the Charlie Brown revival did okay, didn't run as long as they thought it would, but I just remember that New York Times review coming out, and there being, like, a star. Sure. And she wins the Tony, and everyone's like, put her in sitcoms, put her in movies. Like, this is obviously, everyone needs to know her name.

So much, you know, when I stopped representing Bruce Campbell. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. No, go right ahead. I was going to make a joke about how she's short. That's all. Please. Her only problem is she's a foot tall. Yeah. It's astonishing, though. She's very small. I mean, she make a joke about how she's short. That's all. Please. Her only problem is she's a foot tall. Yeah, I am.

It's astonishing, though. She's very small. I mean, she's a small person. Martin Short did that joke on the set of Mulaney where he, what was the thing? He improvised a bit. It was him. I'm sorry to go on the sidebar. No.

I don't even remember what I was going to say. Unaired TV pilots, so I can share jokes because no one will see them ever otherwise. And the bit is that Mulaney wants to quit his job writing for martin short who's this hack comedian who has a game show he's like i i don't need you i can make up my own bits look i could do physical comedy and there was nothing written right and his bit he did was he picked up a toothpick and went uh look it's a christian chenoweth's walking stick martin i'll never forget that. Martin Short.

It's very funny. Yeah. Very funny. I think it was only in a rehearsal he did that. So he didn't do it on the show? No. Kristen Chenoweth's walking stick. So, yeah, when I stopped representing Bruce Campbell and I stopped being a literary agent,

I spent some years in the wilderness writing for magazines. And then I wrote a book of fake facts. Yes. You're a guarantor. Areas of expertise. That's what I, yeah. What's that? The guarantor to your career.

The guarantor to my career. To use blank check. Areas of my expertise. I remember seeing, sitting in my college apartment. What college? Newcastle University. Oh, sure. How do you know that?

Watching More 4, the British channel that aired The Daily Show. Right. Which was sort of like, not Channel 4, that's regular. Not E4, that's for the youth. More For. More For. More For. It's kind of for people who drink some tea.

No, not for Geordie. And you being on it. I remember that to clear memory for me. That's all. I promoted that show on The Daily Show. That book on The Daily Show. And that's what led me to be on the Daily Show and changed my life. But it all happened because of

You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, the Lucy song, where she tells Linus all these fake facts. And that was what gave you the idea? I listen to that all the time. It is funny. Do you see that bird there? It's called an eagle. Christmas and Thanksgiving, we eat them. What a good fucking show. That is such a great show. I sing the opening number in the shower a lot what's that oh you're a good man

charlie brown i mean it's been 20 years i don't want to get you in trouble with that scab his solo of like everybody says to me also new to the show interesting an add-on to the original or like that he expanded that whole song bd wong played linus yes correct and did he win a tony or was no it was roger bart and kristen chenoweth roger bart this was a very pivotal production for me i was like obsessed with this broadway you into this iteration of you're a good man charlie brown roger i'm glad you guys are having fun right and he played schroeder right he played snoopy he played snoopy roger bart was snoopy They won the Tony talk. Bart won a Tony as well. And he played Schroeder.

He played Snoopy. Roger Bart was Snoopy. Stanley Wayne Mathis was Schroeder. This top noggin, Anthony Rapp, was Charlie Brown. I forget who played Lucy. Ilana Levine is the actress. But yeah, you're right.

It's kind of a loaded uh cast there yeah um and uh bunch of yeah brubidi wong was linus right no pig pen no tough to do on stage if you're gonna have a sort of cloud you could figure it out he would he would figure it out i want to i want to see uh julie tamor's pig pen i want julie tamor to loop in bono on the edge again just give me $45 million. I could give you a Pimpin' Musical. But that was 1999. It's been a long time.

It's high time for another Charlie Brown. It's high time. You going to be in it? Yeah. Who are you going to be? A Woodstock. Non-singing part. A Woodstock.

Non-speaking part. Non-singing, non-speaking. Maybe non-visible. Maybe not being. Maybe not written into the non being part i'm playing woodstock and i'm not in it but yeah i'm ready spiritually they told me canonically i am woodstock in this production that that's the the norm mcdonald joke i think i've told it's my favorite where he's like i'm gaining weight for a role and they're like what

role he's like oh i don't know but they always need that guy's a movie like there's there's a comedian i know adam cousins who does a bit where anytime there's a movie that's set in space and they show earth he will add it to his imdb as extra uncredited oh boy uh what haven't we talked about evil dead 2 the big head thing big head fills the door right right goes back in time right because you have scary tree the how late they get to tree in this movie considering how like the tree is sort of the well i like that his reaction hearing she went out i was like oh she's dead you know you know one i should have mentioned that and she runs out there's the blackout the lights go out and then

the next thing you see is her running out of the cabin they're all like this fucking idiot right right um this is the holly hunter uh yes bobby joe and you have this sort of tamer version of the tree attack that that mostly builds to her just being dragged she's just being dragged right by vines right you get the spooky tree and then you start translating the pages right first i have to bash open the these these incredibly valuable ancient artifacts are kept in a shadow box that cannot be opened by any other means than throwing it on the floor. It's funny

that this movie opens with like the book mythology as well. It does. It's more in on the book. Right. Rather than just like what's this weird object we found? The movie at the beginning is telling you like there was a book. I mean obviously they called it the book. Repeats the camera is the sort of secret villain thing right like where the camera's rushing at him and all that but it is like such an incredible gimmick to make up when

you have zero dollars exactly it's so brilliant right right this movie opening with the book is very logical like with the with that little bit of flavor right you know but but there's nothing like the opening of the first movie. The camera just whooshing through the swamp and you're just like, I'm unsettled. And the moment you realize this isn't a stylistic flourish, this is the visualization of evil.

This is the menace. Right, yeah. By the way, we have a special guest on the podcast. I don't know, the camera from The Evil Dead is here. It is here in the corner. It's we're trying to bat him i'd like to work with sam raymond very professional it is one of those things that when she breaks up in the pages and she explains that it's like part one is you have to physicalize it you have to bound the evil into flesh part two is you open a portal that you can send it through. It's the only way to rid this thing.

Classic. You're sort of like, how is this movie going to visualize this thing? Like, clearly they can't have any budget left, any scope left. And then this giant fucking horrible face. Fill up the door with a face. Yeah.

That was the moment you finally got to see me. But then there's also the pages go down into the fruit cellar and Bruce has got to go get the pages. Right. Battle gimmick. Which is fun. Going down to that cellar is always fun. The most horror movie part of this. Yes.

Very much so. And also a reveal of yet a new secret basement within the secret basement. Right. Because there's the Henrietta sequence. sequence i mean it's just so funny all the way in there and then it opens up the door to the other part of the right but we like we haven't followed it up on those four pipes wrapped in rags or something right steamy pipes wrapped in rags you set up those four you don't see them for a while you're so caught up in like the bruce mania right and the next thing you know this guy jumps through

the window starts punching him in the face it's like intruder intruder lock him in the basement right then once they have a moment to settle they're like wait he dismember he wouldn't dismember our mother and he wouldn't kill her like they start playing the tape and it's now a later part of the tape you haven't heard and he's like anyway what i was supposed to do but what i did instead and then that realization of that archaeologist really paused the tape you haven't heard and he's like anyway what i was supposed to do but what i did instead and then that realization of that archaeologist really paused the tape at the wrong time i know that's you know but like it's you talk about i play the tape we talked about this on the last i would play the tape tape player the endless imagination of like this is the form of henrietta

this is wild and then the added thing of like oh also her face can change into this and she has the teeth and the neck goes out. Right. It's just a snaky head. A snaky head. Yeah. Yeah. The end of this movie. Yeah.

I mean, we mentioned Jake getting dragged down the cellar and then one million gallons of blood coming out. Right. Or the second million gallons of blood. Yeah. Right. So far. Deadite Ash getting snapped out of it by the necklace. Power of love. I'm all right now.

That necklace is so dumb, though. I'm sorry. I agree. It's a little bit of a goofy. What do you use that necklace for? Frying ants? That's the problem. It actually looks dumb.

It's a bad looking necklace. It's a dorky looking necklace. It's a shitty gift. Maybe that's why it pops in my... He's like, oh, it's a dorky necklace. Oh, right. I can't believe that's why it pops him he's like oh it's a dorky necklace you need it to wedge in your brain yeah uh but i just love the like i mean it makes sense when you know that what they wanted to do was this movie but it also just watching it it could play as like what's the ironic twilight zone ending to this movie like how do you fuck with this guy further right

well because the first one basically has that with the final jump of him right getting crept up on by the camera yeah it gets dead right yeah um but obviously this one he gets you know zapped into the past i mean that's the i mean don't you think that's that's pretty twilight twilight zoney that's what i was saying no no no i'm saying i thought you were asking us to punch this no no no no i'm saying i'm like i can't i can't do better than that it very much feels like a twilight zone ending of like what's the final indignity now he can never even go back to his time right right right and his job is to kill these monsters i guess i do love i'm just looking at the big monster right now it's pretty cool He looks like a monster from the game Doom. He looks like the villain

or one of the floating heads. You're talking about the game Doom? Yeah. The video game? Correct. Oh, I haven't played that. Doom, where you go around

like... Oh, Doom. Yeah, not Doom. Oh, excuse me. Well, Doom was inspired by Evil Dead 2. Directly. Is that true?

Yes. That makes perfect sense. That makes sense. Monsters. Right. Yeah. And they're just walking around just looking at different walls.

That's the thing about Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2. It's pretty vague. And then, of walking around just looking at different walls. That's the thing about Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2. It's pretty vague. And then, of course, they're monster thingies. Yeah, and Duke Nukem ripped off tons of lines. Well, he's, right. From, yes.

He's a re-skinned Bruce Campbell. Yeah, exactly. The Doom, the video game. Yeah. I thought you were talking about Doom, the movie, which I tried and failed to bring up earlier. Tried to bring it up in every conversation, but I thought you were talking about the monster

kind of looked like the third stage guild navigator in David Lynch's Dune, which is not wrong. Sure, it does. It is not wrong. There's a lot of pinky rubbery. It's a cool design. Yeah, exactly. I'm not a hardcore Dune hand, but I...

You know about the guild navigator, right? I'll show you the guild navigator. I was going to say, no, I was going to say, I miss them from the Villeneuve. Well, we're going to get them next time. I'm sure. Oh, yeah. To me, that was one of the great graces of the Villeneuve movie,

which I loved, was that they didn't touch the third stage guild navigator, the most important character in my heart. Okay. Because that is exactly what I wanted to be when I was 13 years old. The Lynch movie leads with that. I just wanted to be the sexless creature in a tank. I just love the way they were. It's super cool. But the Lynch movie leads with that. I just wanted to be this sexless creature in a tank. I just love the way they were floating in a tank.

It's super cool, but the Lynch movie leads with it, and you're like, the book doesn't exactly lead with these guys. No, that was David Lynch saying, get ready. Exactly. So Lynch is kind of just like, this is my vibe, just FYI. Just so you know, there's going to be a floating penis vagina in a tank. And then any time they, you know how like in Star Wars? We're going to have this floating penis vagina

explain the plot to you. Yes. This is important information. And to Virginia Madsen. Try not to get too freaked out that it's a floating penis vagina in a tank. The other thing is Virginia Madsen where he's like, well, the book is narrated by this character, so Virginia Madsen... And she's like, yeah, so she'll narrate it and then at the last scene she'll show up and be like, hi, by the way.

But no, I feel like in Star Wars it's like, you know when you jump to hyperspeed you pull a fucking thing and be like, hi, by the way. Hi, how's it going? But no, I feel like in Star Wars, it's like, you know when you jump to hyperspeed, you pull a fucking thing, and it goes, bam! That's cool, right? Well, in Dune, that experience will be the penis vagina floating around for a while, and then I cut to a black hole, maybe. You know, it'll be the opposite of that.

Opposite vibes. It's the, yeah. Which I love. Right. It folds space. Speaking of the new Dune. I did it. space. Speaking of the new Dune. I did it. I got it.

Back to Dune. I pulled it away from Charlie Brown, pulled it away from Pink Ben, got it back to Dune. Son of a bitch. I think we will see. Kid Dune does it again. Some version of the Guild Navigators, obviously, you know, the big boys, the stage three. Third stage. Because in the Villeneuve movie, we do see these guys.

Those are the second stage. Right. But they're amateurs, right? That was the implication I got. Yeah. Those are the second stage. Right, but they're amateurs, right? That was the implication I got. Yeah. These guys are rookies. Right, right, right. That's what I assumed.

You saw them right at the start. They're fishbowl heads. But they're going to grow. Yeah, they're going to turn. But so, you know, Dune II, we see them. We'll meet Fade Rautha. There'll be lots of, you know,

fun harkening and stuff. You don't have to convince me. I know. I'm on board. I'm just excited. I was just so glad to not have Third Stage me. I know. I'm on board. I'm just excited. I was just so glad to not have Third Stage Guild Navigator Erasure with some new idea.

Yes. So I could hang on to my guy. You can ease in. For a little while longer. The Avatar of Hodgman. Evil Dead 2. I was not here. This never happened.

I did not say these things. I was not here. That's what he says. This film did fine. Yeah. It made $6 million. But once again, it was a video thing. That's where all the money comes from.

Yeah. The reviews were positive, but a little baffled. I think they were all sort of like, it runs out of energy. Like the energy is so intense. And then like that seemed to be that's an incorrect i agree with that but i can also imagine critics being like i don't know what i'm supposed to do with this of course this movie's like 84 minutes with credits like you're watching you're like how can they sustain this tone right and it's like they're just gonna get

in get out as quickly as they can right you know ebert's review very much does understand like this is a comedy like whereas i think others were sort of like, it's so slapstick, but it's so violent. Like, what a strange mixing of tones. Like, you know, but yeah. I mean, it depends on whether you accept strange mixings of tones as an artistry or mistake. Right. Right. And if you look at this movie movie you could read it as a mistake

there are people who go you can't do both at the same time you have to right you could look at bruce campbell and say he's a he's a good actor yeah or you could look at him and say he's a cornball bad actor but what you have to appreciate is he is the most brilliant actor of bad acting yes and uh like watching him in this again for the first time in many years now on the other side of having done my imitation of acting i realize now how talented he is like he's in control of every yes every muscle in his instrument right and he can flip himself over right then mentioned mentioned. But then even, I mean, a movie I adore, Bubba Hotep, which is, you know, on its face, one of the most absurd premises for a movie ever.

Do you know this one, Ben? No. Ben, can I tell you what Bubba Hotep is about? Can I give you the gift of telling you what Bubba Hotep is about? Yeah, sure. Bubba Hotep is from the director of Phantasm and Beastmaster. Yeah, Don Coscarelli. Okay.

Okay. Bruce Campbell plays a man known as Sebastian Half, who people think was an Elvis impersonator and is now in a retirement home. Okay? Okay. He claims adamantly that he was the real Elvis. He's the real Elvis. Fame got too hot.

He needed to cool off, so he went low and remade himself as an Elvis impersonator, and he got too deep in it, and no one believes he's the real guy now. And he hired a stand-in to take over for him. Right, who became like depressing, fat, paranoid, shit on the toilet by Elvis. Right. So he's at this retirement home where he's trying to like come to terms with his sense of self where no one believes him except for one other person at the retirement home. Ossie Davis. Who is a man in a wheelchair

who swears to god that he is john f kennedy that they didn't shoot him they kidnapped him and they died in black he's played by a black actor i am jfk yeah they just did me over sure right and even bruce campbell is like this guy's probably a little crazy i'm the real elvis of course yeah so that that's the setup of the movie. Unfortunately, a redneck mummy gets conjured. A redneck mummy? Yes. He's a Bubba Hotep, if you will.

He's a rotting mummy in a cowboy shirt and hat and boots. And he's stealing souls, is that correct? From the retirement home. And how is he stealing the souls? Fuck. Does he suck them out of their butts? What's that? Does he suck them out of their butts? One more time

He sucks them out of their butts He sucks their souls out of their butts He sucks the souls out of their butts He's stealing the souls of the retirees in this retirement community By sucking them out of their anuses And it's like unforgiven For Bruce Campbell playing old Elvis being like,

I gotta get on my walker and be the last stand against this bubba ho tip. But he's so good at it. And it's like a very naturalistic performance. It's kind of a lovely performance. It's like filled with pathos. It was one of those butt sucking.

I know. It's some of the best was one of those butt sucking yeah I know it's some of the best butt sucking ever committed I feel like when it came out it had been years since Evil Dead

and Briscoe County and everyone was just finally like a round of applause for Briscoe please the critics were very kind to that movie

it's a fun silly movie but they were also just like this guy this guy he takes it seriously he'll be in the silliest thing and he'll give it his all like it was really like a sort of standing o for bruce yeah and ozzy davis is really good in it too yeah the whole movie

rolls it's good fun that's one of my father's like five favorite movies ever he read the review in the noise newspaper and he was like what is this thing and i was like that's a bruce campbell picture dad and he was like you want to see this and i went yeah and then when i got out of school he called me and he was like i bought two tickets to bubble hotel let's go tonight oh wow and for years he would recommend it to anyone he talked to and he was like it was kind of a friend test for me yeah i'd be like you want to see a good movie watch bubble hotel and if certain people didn't get it right he'd maybe distance himself it's a great movie it's a great movie bruce campbell's a great actor yeah but yeah those critics didn't know what to make of it.

Yes. Like, it's stable. Very much so. And obviously, VHS is where it finds its following, much like the last movie.

This is obviously a classic, the sequel is better, right? Like, if people, if you're ever reading a list in a magazine in the 90s, it's like,

of Godfather, Terminator, Aliens, these are the ones people might throw out. Do you guys agree? Better than the original? agree i certainly i do too i just i have more appreciation for evil dead one now a movie i i always liked but re-watching it recently because i mean i re-watched both of these movies a lot as a teenager and don't think i had seen either film in about 10

or 15 years uh so i rediscovering both of them they both were better than i remembered right i love them even more now i think one is such an impressive achievement in so many ways but that's the thing and it's also fun to see such an elbow greasy movie but honestly so is this so it's like you know yeah but evil dead is the movie that Sam and Rob and Bruce and the others all made in order to make other movies. Right. Yeah. And it is, I mean, I've not seen it in many, many years. It's great, you know.

But Evil Dead 2 is a statement of vision. Yes. This is the movie they wanted to make. Absolutely. Not just the Evil Dead movie they wanted to make, but the kind of movie. This is what we wanted. Can we use Evil Dead to make the kind of movie? Visual genetic, un-pindownable, or whatever.

And what makes the later Sam Raimi movies so weird is that they are so conventional. I mean, it's been a long time since I've seen Simple Plan or The Gift. I never saw it for the love of the game. I haven't seen The Gift. I've seen, right. Yeah, but I remember going to those movies and not feeling Sam Raimi there. Right. Until I saw Spider-Man.

We'll get to that episode. But my read on it has always been the Coen brothers crossover to legitimacy. Combined with him having movies like Darkman that were liked, would explode on video, and he could never make the movie that crossed over into being a hit at the time. video and he could never make the movie that like crossed over into being like a hit at the time right uh he talked about that he felt like when he would go in for things people would be like oh you do the sam raimi thing the kinetic thing and someone else was supposed to direct simple plan to like right beforehand and he was like i want to just get a good script and show people that i can place the camera down right like it was almost a challenge yeah Yeah. Right. A personal challenge. And a simple plan is such a Coen Z pitch. Yes.

Right. The cast. It's like, I just want to work with actors. Crime goes wrong. What a tangled web we weave. Good piece of material. Right. Which is absolutely right.

Yeah. And, you know, like I was going to say, Darkman is definitely that Sam. Mike Nichols. Thank you. Mike Nichols was like this close to doing Simple Plan. Right. Oh, really? Yeah.

I knew there was someone. Months before filming was going to start. And I just read Mark Harris' book. So I don't know if the timing is the same, because I don't know which came first, but Darkman is obviously Sam Raimi in the terms that we're talking about, very Sam Raimi-y.

But then the last place where I felt like I saw Sam Raimi before Spider-Man was Hudsucker Proxy, which he wrote. And it was their reunion with the Coen Brothers. That's after Darkman and before Quick of the Dead. Yeah. And also it's just like, boy, you know, you think

Sam Raimi's so great and the Coen Brothers are so great, and when they get together, it's supposed to be heart to heart, they'd be murder. Right. But it's like, it's these weird projects that people either love or hate. I know. Prime Wave just goes away. Hudsucker is my favorite Coen movie. It was not was not liked no no no it's such a great love and brain i mean we should call this out uh raymie by all accounts i mean he was the second unit director in that movie and his big sequence in that is the hula hoop montage of the sale of the oh really which is just like yeah that

whole fucking sequence is masterful yeah it's so great. I'm going to watch it again tonight. How about that? One of my favorite movies. Durning. Let's play the box office game. No, don't be a podcast. He's in that one. He's in that movie.

Bruce Campbell. Smitty? I think his character's named Smitty. That gag's got whiskers on it. He only sits in backwards chairs. Yeah. In the newsroom where a female lead, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and here are always gabbing,

are always jawing. There's this big sign in the back of the newsroom that just says, is it interesting? So beautiful. And it's gorgeous. That's the? So beautiful. Such a beautiful movie. And it's gorgeous. That's the thing, right?

It's actually a beautiful book. This film came out on March 13th, 1987. And as you noted, so did Raising Arizona. Maybe I should have not given that enough. Well, Raising Arizona opened on one screen, so it's not in the top five. Oh, that's right. It opened at the Harvard Square Movie Theater,

where I saw it with Charles Stiggs. Really? Well, that's where I saw it with Charles Stiggs. Really? Well, that's where I saw it. I don't think that was the screen it opened on. But yes, it's on one screen. It made $36,000, which is a lot of money for one screen, actually. But Evil Dead 2 opens number 14. So neither of these films are in the top.

Okay. Or even the top 10. Something else. But both films... I mean, obviously, Blood Simple was was a huge thing and it won at sundance and it but like this is the entree true and there's the blood simple reference in evil dead 2 where he's dragging the person dragging the body along and says something about blood simple yeah yeah sorry number one at the box office is an action film number one at the box is it uh

canonical action star absolutely canonical action franchise canonical action franchise is an action film. Is it Canonical Action Star? Absolutely. Canonical Action Franchise. Canonical Action Franchise. It's the first one. Is it Predator? Nope. It's 86 or 87. This is 1987. So it is the Predator, yeah. The Predator is not to be seen. I know, I'm just trying to ground myself here.

But he is, of course, invisible. He's, of course, invisible. Is it Lethal Weapon? It's Lethal Weapon. With Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. They're cops, and they've got a lethal weapon, a gun. No, it's Mel Gibson's character. I have never seen a single Lethal Weapon movie. You know, the first one is kind of great.

I've only seen the first one. It's that guy, Shane Black. Shane Black wrote it. Right. And Richard Donner directed it. And Gibson is, you know, really good in it. It is good. It's a lot of fun it's very 80s

I used to enjoy watching Mel Gibson a lot it's a pretty perfect use of him he's crazy, he's a lethal weapon all on his own and then Danny Glover he does some Three Stooges stuff in that that's a very Three Stooges and then Danny Glover is getting

a little old for this shit. He's like 42. I would argue he's too old for this shit. Danny Glover, younger than all three of us? Probably. Number two at the box office is a horror sequel. One you love. One I love. In a famed horror franchise.

An entry in that. Is it Dream Warriors? It's Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Dream Warriors. Dream Warriors. Really good one. Has a absolutely banging song by, fuck, I want to get this right.

Freddy Krueger? Dream Warriors. Doc, Doc, Doc. Doc, Doc, Doc. Doc, Doc, Doc. Yes. Dream Warriors. That's all I remember

about that movie. Darabont wrote that one? Other than it's a team up, right? Yes. The teens get together and decide to take... Heather Lane came from the first movie. Lawrence Fishburne's in it? That's all I remember about that movie Darabont wrote that one? It's a team up right? Lawrence Fishburne Heather Lane came from the first movie Lawrence Fishburne's in it? He's the order

John Saxon They take the fight to Freddy himself It's a really fun movie It looks cool, it's directed by Chuck Russell It was written by Darabont and Wes Craven And Bruce Wagner and Chuck Russell. It's a lot of fun. Number three at the box office is the best picture

winner of 1986. 1986. You always forget this one. Platoon? Well, you got it. The streak is broken. I feel like Platoon would be one you'd always miss. I've never seen Platoon. You've never seen Platoon?

Never seen Platoon. It's one of like... I've never seen you with a platoon. I don't like war movies. You've never seen Platoon? Never seen Platoon. You know, it's one of those movies where you're like, I can see how this was different. Now you're like, this has been done so many times. This is what everyone does. But I can see how this felt immediate and new and raw. Yeah, I don't know. It's the same deal with Deer Hunter,

where you watch that and you're like, I can see how this kind of blew people's minds and now it feels a little quiet. It became so iconic so quickly that I felt like there did nothing for me. Deer Hunter's unwieldy, but there are some incredible sequences. Right, that's the thing.

There are sequences in it where you get it. In Platoon, it's like so much that movie's legacy, when you read the coverage of it at the time, was just like, he made the actors go to boot camp. Right, and it's like, and he served in Vietnam, and it's about his experiences and like it's the 80s so people are because deer hunter is not a good representation of the war in vietnam it's this very operatic right this is like this is what it was like they were doing drugs and they were right affected right and again now you're like well i've seen vietnam movies right yeah anyway but it is you know it's good it's it's well done um it's just funny that

yeah anyway uh number four at the box office is i think it's sort of a dark comedy it's from a big director but it's one of his kind of smaller he would often make these kind of slice of life movies set in his hometown so it's a barry Levinson. It's a Barry Levinson film. Is it Tin Man? It's one of his Baltimore films. It's Tin Man. With Danny DeVito and Richard Dreyfuss about used car sales.

No, no. They sell aluminum side. Right. That's what it is. That's why they're Tin Man. Right, they're Tin Man. I've never seen it. I've always heard that it's good.

I did see that movie, but I have no memory of it. I was at Diner, Avalon, Liberty Heights. I was going to say Avalon. Avalon's wonderful. That's later. Recent. Hey, I'm not playing this game. I was a diner, Avalon, Liberty Heights. I was going to say Avalon. Avalon's wonderful. That's later. Recent. Hey, I'm not playing this game.

I'm just an observer. I remember Avalon being kind of the grandest. That's the sort of like sort of godfather-y except without crime. Really paid off. Number five of the box office

is a horror film from sort of a major director of the time, although I feel like nobody talks about him anymore 1987 1987 it's got i mean this is not a franchise it's a standalone horror standalone horror film this will give it away but it's got a famous twist is it's jacob's ladder it's not jacob's ladder but you're on the right track oh uh angel hearts angel oh okay okay No one saw that coming

Louis Cipher This character called Louis Cipher Who's played by Robert De Niro Louis Cipher, who could he be? He's kind of evil, wait a second Louis Cipher, Lucifer He's the devil! I didn't see that coming at all

He's the literal devil And it's Mickey Rourke And Lisa Bonet who got fired from because you mentioned sitcom yeah and right fired no fired off of a different world for making that movie right right yes no so Lou cipher he eats an egg I remember he's got like a whole thing with like hard-boiled egg hard-boiled eggs and Alan sounds like the devil to me, hard-boiled eggs. Exactly.

But you know, like Alan Parker, someone put him in our Reddit. Yeah. And I was like, you know, I've always sort of poo-pooed him because he made movies that I feel like haven't aged that well. But like, it's a crazy list because it's Bugsy Malone. Yeah. Kids shooting ice cream guns at each other. We could have been anything that we wanted to be.

It's a crazy movie. Midnight Express. Saw that in a theater. Did you enjoy it? Bugsy Malone. It really unnerved me. It's very weird. Honestly, yes.

I don't like it. And all the Model Ts that they drive around in are pedal powered. They're powered by... That's the thing with him, you know, now that I'm looking at it. It's like he switches from kind of like a... Because it's Bugsy Malone, then Midnight Express. I'm looking at it. It's like he switches from kind of like... Because it bugs me a lot. And then Midnight Express. So serious movie about being in a Turkish prison.

Right. Sure. And then... Unlike all of those lighthearted comedies about being in a Turkish prison. But I'm saying like he would switch from goofy to serious. Right. Because then it's fame. Right.

Back to like, okay, we're singing and dancing. We're going to school. Except for the one scene with Coco. No, no. There's some rough stuff in fame. I mean, then Shoot the Moon. And then Pink Floyd, with Coco. No, no. There's some rough stuff in fame. I mean, shoot the moon and then pink Floyd the wall.

Can I say this to Ben? Yeah. Ben, there's some real shit in fame. Okay. Okay. They want to live forever.

Don't go in there just thinking it's their song and dance. It's not, what did you call it? Let's have some fun. Oh, yeah. Let's have some fun.

If you want fame, you're going to have to work. Birdie. Which I'm sure must be a favorite of yours, right? Well, it's got Nick Cage I know But Shoot the Moon

and the Nick Cage movie were confusing that with something else Shoot the Moon does not It's like Albert Finney Diane Keaton Karen Allen Oh, okay

I'm thinking of It's called Racing the Moon or something That's Sean Penn and Nicolas Cage Right I have heard of that It's a coming of age movie

Angel Heart Mississippi Burning which is another serious movie that's maybe a little dated feeling now. Racism is bad. Turns out these guys were bad. Come See the Paradise,

I don't know. The Commitments, Back to Lighthearted, Winning Over, Word of Mouth. Now, I have seen The Commitments recently. And can I say this to Ben?

Yes. Permission to speak directly to Ben? Granted. Have you seen The Commitments? No. It fucking slaps. It really does.

It is a great movie. It's one of those movies kind of in the vein of... You stared so deeply into Ben's soul. He really did. I didn't know what he was going to say. I didn't either. Although I agree with you. But you know what I mean?

You watch Billy Elliot and you're like, this is good. I can see why this was a phenomenon. The Commitments was so good. You're like're like this should be cheesy but it's so winning you use it kind of rules so hard and the band is so good yeah and that guy the the big guy who plays the lead singer who's kind of a jerk yeah that's him singing and he's so good yeah he still sings but he's still a jerk so, so he doesn't work that often. Yeah. Every one of those performers, you expect them to go and be huge movie stars. The once guys, the only ones.

They're so charismatic. Every one of them. Yeah. And it's such, everyone goes through the commitments. Then he does. Then. Remember what I said about it? Speaking of your, I opened a tab.

It's a lot of fun. You'd love it. Yeah. I mean, you'd have a good time. One of the best opening credits songs of all time. Great opening credits song. He follows it with A Total Bounce, The Road to Wellville. Kind of a famous 90s bounce.

Speaking of Anthony Hopkins. Speaking of Anthony Hopkins. A movie I'm fascinated by. You know, Anthony Hopkins. John Harvey Kellogg. You've won an Oscar. You're hot. Do you want to play the world's most famous incel?

Do you want to make a movie about milk enemas and people who show fap clubs? I can see, Anthony, that you're resistant. How about I tell you it's based on a T. Corragison Boyle novel. But think of you buck teeth and a funny mustache. It's about the inventor

of cornflakes. That was like a Columbia Pictures. Like, who allowed this? They spent oodles of money on it. The 90s were a weird time. They were making movies for grown-ups to see in movie theaters still. With a lot of money. That was a movie. Like, talk about, like, Evil Dead. Like, some people

go, I have nothing against T. Coragas and Boyle. Don't you fucking sell me out, anonymous Scarfield Twitter. The Boyleheads are going to come for you. The Carragas. I've never read the book. I'm sure it's a great book, but I mean, you know.

Talk about weird tonal movies. That would always play on Comedy Central during the day. If I was homesick, I would watch some random 30-minute stretch of Road to Wellville and go like, this feels illegal.

Yeah. You should not be able to make a movie that feels like this. Same. of Road to Wellville and go, like, this feels illegal. Yeah. You should not be able to make a movie that feels like this. Same. Saw it on Comedy Central, and I was like, this makes me feel weird. Dana Carvey's like a street urchin with, like, black teeth. Who is? Dana Carvey? Dana Carvey.

Hey, Governor, give me one of those animals. I've never seen this particular film. It's so bizarre. Who else is in that movie? In the Road to wellville bridget fonda danica i know it's a bridget fonda yeah i'm uh you've got the age of bridget fonda matthew broderick john cusack michael learner who doesn't love a learner appearance a drop-in from a michael learner of course that doesn't work he's like fine i guess i'll just do

evita with madonna how do you like them wow he Wow. He follows Evita up with Angela's Ashes, which is like the bestseller upon bestsellers. Can't miss. And then people are like, hmm, it's a little sad. This movie's a little bit of a bummer. Because that movie was rolled out with like, I assume the Oscars are coming for this one.

That's in 1999. Who was even in it? Robert Carlyle and Emily Watson. Robert Carlyle, the feel-good actor of the same period. It's true. I mean, Emily Watson, too. God love her. She's in a lot of miserable... The poster is just a sad-looking kid's

face, and then Hollywood's like, oh, wait, why no tickets sold? Zero? What year was this? 1999. People are like, Fight Club, Magnolia. You don't want to see the starving children. Well, right. And what's interesting is like, yeah, okay, we were talking at the people are like fight club magnolia like you don't want to see the starving children well right and what's interesting is like yeah okay we were talking at the beginning of this about the turn 1999 to 2003 yeah how everything shifted and they just stopped making no one would make a movie

based on a novel for adults now like no i mean make it for hulu or whatever right they make it for apple members of a geisha's 2005 and that was one of the like that's a movie close to angela's ashes where you're like undeniable inevitable movie of the year yeah of course everyone's gonna love this yeah i mean at least memoirs of a geisha it's like right they're wearing dresses there's sex there's intrigue angela's ashes is like we didn't have any food yeah we continued to not have any food right like how long is the movie days went on but you know what's so funny is you talk about like two and a half hours long good you talk about people being surprised that the poster of a sad little boy like didn't blow up the fucking box

office eight trillion people bought the book that had the almost identical cover right that cover was so yeah i'm the present yeah you want to see this, Ben? There's a reason I never saw the movie The Tindrum. That's a good movie, though. That poster is... And then his final movie, of course, was The Life of David Gale. That's his final movie. I'm going to tease something that we need

to explain, go into in some later episode. Go back to the Angela Ashes poster. I'm going to get a big version of it. Angela's Ashes just i'm setting up deep ben lore that's gonna come in some future episode ben the kid on the ash angela's ashes movie poster looks like you in the don't litter poster he does yeah he does and to our listeners you'll find out we will tell the tale of the don't litter poster someday soon. So that's the box.

I have some other movies. Sorry. Some kind of wonderful is in there. Something called Witch Board? What's that? No idea. Anyone know what Witch Board is? No. I'm going to get yelled at.

That was a Ouija board horror movie. It sure is. Get ready for 18 texts from Alex Ross Perry. Seriously. You don't know Witch Board? So sorry. But yes, Ouija board. What year? 1987, we're talking about.

Yeah, that's right. Mannequin is in the top 10. Another 80s junkie. Also one where the sequel is much better, Mannequin 2. I've never seen. Much better title. I don't know. On the move?

I always get this wrong. Mannequin 2 on the move? Is that the title? I think it is. That sounds right. And also, I've never seen any of the mannequins. Mannequin 2. Who's in Mannequin 2?

In Mannequin 2, you've got Kirstie Swanson, William Ragsdale. It's not a cast that's like Sinsley. You don't get the lead of Mannequin 2. You don't get Andrew McCarthy back. You don't get Andrew McCarthy. You don't get the lead of Manicow. You don't get Andrew McCarthy back. You don't get Andrew McCarthy. You don't get Meshack Taylor, though, I'm sure. Is he in both? He's got to be.

I feel like. Go back to Manicow. David so confidently exits out of the Manicow tab. Meshack Taylor is back. Okay, thank God. Meshack Taylor is back. I think that was a log line of Manicow 2. Meshack Taylor is back.

Meshack Taylor is back. Manicow 2 making $3 million on a 13 budget. By the way, we're doing Manicow on Patreon. Oh, that's fine. That's fine. Theeshack Taylor is back. Mannequin 2 making $3 million on a $13 budget. By the way, we're doing Mannequin on Patreon. Outrageous Fortune, the Shelley Long movie, is up there. And Hoosiers, which absolutely is the best. I've never seen any of the Hoosier franchise. Do you want permission to say anything

to Ben about Hoosiers? Fucking slaps. He wasn't looking at me. He wasn't even looking. Have you seen Hoosiers? the basketball movie oh I thought it was a football movie no it's basketball well it fucking slaps

why is it slapping so good? honestly you throw it on it's one of those movies where you're like this movie's been made a million times but you throw it on and it's set like five in the morning in a farmhouse and you can like one of those movies you can feel that the air is kind of dewy and cold yeah and it's like gene hackman walking into a farmhouse with a basketball and you're like

i got goosebumps like holy shit like nothing's even happened yet like you know it's that good the last half which is more sports movie like oh they have to make the comeback, is good. But it's the first half when it's just Gene Hackman barking at a bunch of Indiana kids like, fundamentals, passing! You're just like, you bark at him, Gene! It's invigorating. It's so good.

Bracing. It's a bracing film. It's a bracing film. Bracing basketball film. It's just what you want. Who else? Who are the Hoosiers in Hoosiers? Well, I mean, Dennis Hopper is the sort of famous

supporting character. Yeah, but there must have been some young actors. Who are the Hoosiers and Hoosiers? Well, I mean, Dennis Hopper is the sort of famous supporting character. Yeah, but there must have been some young actors. Who are the kids? Yeah. I'm going to look them up. And I mean, like, because the funny thing, of course, is Hopper is getting this sort of combo Oscar nod that year for that and Blue Velvet. And they gave it to him for the less objectionable movie. Oh, right.

But he is really good at it. Like, you can't really. Brad Long. Mike Valanis, of course, plays Jimmy Chitwood. They're mostly related. Did any of them come back for the sequel? Is there a sequel? Yeah.

Two-sures. That's all you wanted. He is raising his arms triumphantly. Like, he just won. I couldn't even let it sit. I had to get it out as quickly as possible. The state championship. You couldn't even let it sit i had to the state championship you couldn't even wait for him to say what was it called couldn't couldn't you were worried i would move on no i was gonna break i was gonna break tutors on the move the only other movie

in the top 10 or top whatever they want to shout out is heat the 1986 heat with burt reynolds yes which is like a sort of is Is that an Elmore Leonard adaptation? It's William Goldman. It's a novel he wrote and then adapted himself. Isn't that movie... The Stick is an Elmore Leonard adaptation. Right. Yes, yes.

Am I wrong that that Heat is later remade as something else? I don't know. Is it? That might be a totally false memory I have. Yes. It was remade as a movie called Wild Card starring Jason Statham.

Directed by Simon West. And the poster is in the form of a playing card. I wonder which. The Jack! And guess what? He's all in. Oh boy. He's got fists in case you were worried about that.

I would not have even noticed that that was a playing card. That's such a small detail on that poster. It's all Statham, no playing card. I do not accept. Wild card. Yeah, anyway, so that's the box office, The Evil Dead 2. But yeah, it wasn't the theaters.

Even though you saw it in theaters. I did see it in theaters. It was the home video market that made that movie yeah but i was you know i only saw because uh because nick mccarthy included me in shout out to nick mccarthy yeah uh you should get to know him everyone's looking at their phone i'm sorry i'm sorry david i saw something over the shoulder over your computer. That you did not acknowledge. That I was like, clearly I must be imagining things

because this has been the case. On the wildcard poster? What are you looking at right now? This is the French wildcard poster where the film had a different title. Yeah, I just wanted to move on. I was like, let's wrap it up. How long we've been going?

Too long. In France, wildcard was- In France, the movie was called Joker. Joker. Joker. Joker. It was. I can't deny it. It was called Joker.

That is a wild card. Not a jack. No. That is true. That is actually a fair point. More realistic. Ben, I hope you bleeped all of those out. No, we retired that bit.

We retired that bit? Yeah. Didn't we? We were sick of that shit. I don't know. Especially because people would be like, hey, new listener to the pod, what was Griffin talking about where something got beeped out like eight times?

They're like, he was just saying Joker. It's complicated. But no, we've been going for a while. I have to eat my bagel. I'm starving. Ben's bagel has been sitting here for a while. And anyway, when's this episode coming out? Well, I won't spoil it.

It comes out, I believe, a week after Dicktown. April 3rd, so no. Oh, no, I believe, a week after Dicktown. April 3rd, so no. Oh, no. It comes out a month after Dicktown. So by now, all new episodes of Dicktown have been on FXX. Okay. And they're now all available to you on Hulu. Yeah, but I want to watch some in-between Family Guy episodes.

So do I have to do FXX for that? Or can I do it myself? For all I know, we're recording this in advance. For all I know... This is not live, to be clear. No. For all I know, FXX might now be running Dicktown from midnight to 2am

every day. We may have overtaken Family Guy. With the help of the Blank Check listeners, we have become an international phenomenon. About time. Thank you very much for that, because it's tremendous, and we hope to be able to make more episodes of Dicktown. It's a wonderful show, and I've said this to you before, but animation takes so goddamn long, and if you're just a voice actor, unlike you and Mr. Rees, who also write and run the show and all of that, you do it and then you walk away from it. And you see the final product so much later that I really do think, as opposed to anything I've ever acted in on camera, I feel very divorced

from it. Like, I'll know my own performance but I feel like I can objectively watch animated things I'm in because I'm like, I was not privy to any of this process of this thing getting made to this point. And so I did the record with you guys for the first season and then it came out much later.

Much later. In the middle of the pandemic. Sure. And it was one of the few things I found to be an actual, in terms of new TV shows, that were a real salve for me and an escape at the worst of the doldrums of the lockdown. I found the show to be a really pleasant, fun distraction. It is. We hope that it will be only that. If anything, it will be a really fun, pleasant distraction. It is. We hope that it'll be only that. If anything, it'll be a really fun, pleasant distraction.

Very fun. It is dinky little mysteries in a dinky little town. John Huntsman. John Huntsman, David Purifoy, teaming up in an old Pontiac Fiero to solve really crummy mysteries. It's a broken child genius and his former childhood bully

solving mysteries together in a houseboat. But then, spoiler mean, spoiler alert. Sure. My character, John Huntsman, and his character, David Purifoy, we have a fight. We go our separate ways, and I have to hire a new driver, and that is Lance. Who would that be? Lance. Lance and his Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle that I have to ride on the back of.

It's very funny. Very funny. It's a really, really funny show. And Griffin is amazing in it. And season one, obviously, is on Hulu for people to watch. Yeah, season one is on Hulu, and by now, season two is on Hulu.

But it was like, yeah, exactly. Watch them all. They're bite-sized. They are bite-sized. And if I may just say... And you're taking bites. I'm ready to bite, baby. But David's character, vibe-wise...

David Reese's character? Correct, correct. It's getting the official Ben stamp of approval. Yes. He's a real fucking motherfucker. He's a motherfucker. He rules. He rules, and I love it.

It shows great. I think if we have a season three, if we are so lucky, we'll have to write a character for you. Wow. Like David Purifoy's cousin, who's even more of a motherfucker. Yeah. You know what I mean? Oh, I would be honored.

Sorry, I was speaking directly to Ben there. I didn't have permission. Is that all right? Yes, yes. Retroactive permission. So sorry. We don't have to cut this out of the episode. The word, Chris.

Check our bylaws. It was all about it. And David, we have a Belgian boy detective who comes to Dickon in this season. Tintin type? Is that the idea? Because of IP issues, I cannot respond to that question.

What a weird connection for you to make. We have a Belgian boy detective. Is he wearing plus fours? Tintin always wore plus fours. Until the very last collected album, Tintin always wore plus fours. Why would you make that? Until the very last collected album, Tintin and the Picaros, when he finally wears slacks.

He wears flared trousers. Flared trousers. Tintin and the Picaros is one of the most incredible masterpieces of literature, in my opinion. I agree with you. But we do have a Belgian boy detective who shows up in Dicktown this season. If we have a season three,

maybe a young man from England. Why would you say that? Would you want me? I'm not even doing the bit. Maybe I don't have to act. A young American from England. A young American from England who doesn't shut up about how he grew up in England

from the ages of nine to 22. Yeah, exactly. Right. Anyway. I was curious, because we were talking about the line groovy. And I was like, for all I've known, I've never known the origin of that line. Yeah.

Was it an ad lib? Was it in the script? So I asked Bruce. You texted Bruce? Yes. And he said, Sam wrote it. He wanted something out of it that was cool. And in the mid-80s Reagan era, groovy was way not cool.

Here's the thing about the groovy line, and we're done. Yeah, they're done. The camera holds on him. He says groovy. Hang on. Can I talk to Ben for a second? Absolutely. Ben, get ready to eat that bagel.

Just hang on. This is it. After groovy, we're done. Thank you, John. I appreciate that. Are you ready to eat it? He's literally holding it in his hand, unwrapped. It's a scallion cream cheese.

It's got a scowl on it. But the camera holds on him. He says groovy. You punch the air. And then what I love is the camera holds for like two more seconds, and you almost see Bruce Campbell start to break. He kind of goes like, you can almost see his eyes flicker to like, all right, good. We got it.

Probably in real life, Sam held it for five minutes. Right, exactly. Just like, nope, not done yet. Hang on there, Bruce. Hang on. It's so good. We got it. It's perfect. Probably in real life, Sam held it for five minutes. Right, exactly. Just like, nope, not done yet. Hang on there, Bruce. Hang on. It's so good. What a fucking great movie. Very good movie.

And Bruce Campbell is Charlie Brown. That's what I was going to say. Try to tie it all back together. Someone whose life just beats up on him. I was going to say Bruce Campbell would be good as the tree that eats Charlie Brown's kite. If that tree could talk, I imagine it having like a mocking adult bruce yeah yeah i agree listen here kid oh the only thing i want to say i'm sorry sorry ben ben's bagel when you're talking about how you knew that they were writing to him after this movie and i'm spoiler alert

because i'm only going to talk about the very first image of army of darkness because i went on to watch a little bit more of it and i have some thoughts about it but I won't share them anymore because Ben's hungry. But the actual title of that movie is not Army of Darkness. According to the opening credits, it is Bruce Campbell versus Army of Darkness. Like, they knew. We'll talk about it.

They fucking knew. Thank you all for listening. Thank you, John, for being on the show. Thank you very much. One of those things where we were like, wait, has Hodgman not been on since before the pandemic? There was a pandemic. I know, but that weird thing where we're like, have we had this person on three times since the pandemic and Hodgman not since? Well, that's right.

You invited America to come in. Oh, that's true. I did. Yeah. That's right. That was the last one. Come in. Come in.

Come in. We're going to do a remake. The sequel to that is going to be amazing. What a difference an A makes. Master Builder 2. The Apprentice apprentice on the loops. That's the builder to colon the apprentice. Ben,

you may eat that bagel. Go. Ben, eat the bagel as I wrap up the show. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media,

JJ Birch and, uh, Nick Loriano for our research, Alex Barron, AJ McKeon for our editing, Lee Montgomery and the Great American Novel for our theme song. You can go to blankcheckpod.com, our shiny new website made by the aforementioned

Marie Barty for links to our merch, Discord, Reddit, all the fun things. Thank you all for voting in recently finished March Madness, and I'm just going to call it now being normal. Let's just will that into existence. I'm saying now the day before March begins. Thank you all for a very normal and calm month. I hope you all lived up to my expectations.

Tune in next week for Darkman. Am I getting the word around here? Darkman. We're going dark. We're going dark, baby. Have you ever seen Darkman, man? No. dark man we're going dark we're going dark baby have you ever seen dark man man no i think you're gonna like this guy you will like dark man you're gonna like this guy we're gonna have a fun guest classic guest a classic guest an old favorite coming back for that liam neeson liam neeson that's right yeah and as always now i'm just thinking about

liam neeson doing you're a good man, Charlie Brown. It's nice to have you. The whole podcast on the phone is what I'm imagining. He just calls in. I have a very particular set of skills. Guesting on podcasts. Who's Liam Neeson in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown? Charlie Brown. Everybody says to me, you're a good man, Charlie Brown.