Blank Check with Griffin & David - The Fog with Nia DaCosta

Episode Date: August 29, 2021

A film brave enough to ask the question - what if there was fog? Just kidding - this movie is ACTUALLY about vengeful pirate ghosts and a lady with a sexy radio voice. CANDYMAN’s Nia DaCosta returns to the pod to ask whether or not fog is scary if you aren’t driving through it. Producer Ben wonders if the titular fog should have had a voice. Plus, we explore the history of spooky lighthouse movies. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

1155. Almost midnight. Enough time for one more story. One more story before 12 just to keep us warm. In five minutes, it'll be the 21st of April. 100 years ago on the 21st of April, out in the waters around Spivey Point, a small clipper ship drew toward land.

Suddenly, out of the night, the fog rolled in. For a moment, they could see nothing. Not a foot in front of them. Then they saw a light. By God, it was a fire burning on the shore, strong enough to penetrate the swirling mist. They steered a course toward the light, but it was a campfire like this one. They steered a course toward the light, but it was a campfire like this one. The ship crashed against the rocks. The hull sheared in two. Mass snapped like a twig.

The wreckage sank with all the men aboard. At the bottom of the sea lay the Elizabeth Dane with her crew, their lungs filled with salt water, their eyes open, staring to the darkness. And above, as suddenly as it come, the fog lifted, receded back into the ocean and never came again. But it is told by the fishermen and their fathers and grandfathers that when the fog returns to Antonio Bay, the men at the bottom of the sea, out in the water's bivy point, at the bottom of the sea, out in the water's spivey point, will rise up

and search for the campfire that led them to their dark, icy podcast. Okay. Good. Good, thank you.

Good. You know, honestly, I forgot that that was so long. You know, like, it feels like a very nice short little opening in the movie. Oh my God. But it's it's significant it's captain it's significant that was more engaging than the actual opening hey wow wait oh man oh someone's got their knives out okay all right

all right uh-oh here we go should i just tell you how i feel off the jump I guess so just tell us was not a fan not a fan of the fog and then I realized I had no idea what the movie was about not a fog fan I thought I always knew I was like oh yeah something fog etc no I wasn't I wasn't prepared for Pirates of the Caribbean

in a small town like it was like based on the Pirates of the Caribbean in a small town. Like, it was, like, based on the plot of Pirates of the Caribbean. Like, is that what the ride's based on? Is the fog? And then they made it

into a movie with Johnny Depp? Like, you know what I mean? That is an interesting point. I had never seen this before and it does feel like Pirates of the Caribbean may be cribbed from this more than I knew.

Yeah. Like, they want their gold. Right. They come on the fog and then when they get their gold, the curse is done. And even just the degree, I know these are like,

like leper zombie pirates. Yes. But the famous story about, uh, Pirates of the Caribbean, famous, what the fuck am I talking about? The story about the making of Pirates of the Caribbean is that,

uh, David, you've never been on that ride, but it's mostly just pirates having a jolly good time. Right. But at the beginning of the ride, there's like this tone setting section that's amazing. That's like the thing that everyone remembers where you're just kind of like quietly like going down a river before the pirates come to life.

It's like you're going back in time. And there's this one image you go past that's a skeleton at like the mast of a ship. And it's the kind of thing if you see it as a kid it like sticks in your memory and then uh who's ted elliott and terry rosso when they were writing pirates the caribbean were like oh do skeleton pirates that's like the thing everyone remembers from the ride anyway but the ride doesn't have that other than this one section and it's not like it's like skeletons come to life so it does feel like they maybe looked at the fog and they were like oh it's like that it's like a cursed ship that

comes back and the people want revenge and then they turn into skeletons yeah right 100 i literally was like oh like this is the pirates of the caribbean but they're in maine or seattle they're in they're in california yeah they're in north northern californ They're on the west coast. They're in California, yeah. They're in Northern California. Antonio. Oh, okay. No, Antonia Bay. Antonia Bay.

I'm sorry. Yes. See, I clearly wasn't paying attention enough. Is it a real place? No, it's not a real place. But the ship, the whole deal with the ship is based on a real thing that happened. It is. Like killing the people on the boat? Yeah. I'm trying to find the name

of the boat, but that's something that really happened. The Frolic. There you go. Where someone basically faked out this boat with a fire and they crashed and then they took all the gold. I believe it had, it wasn't gold on the frolic it was

porcelain and opium worth it porcelain yeah porcelain it was coming it was like coming from china like it had like precious china was porcelain very i think it was yes at the time in the 19th century or whatever speaking of china i literally put on big trouble in little china afterwards after i watched the fog because i was like i'm so lost in this filmography right now because halloween happened before and then only a couple years later was was the thing which is like probably a perfect movie yes and i was like what's what's going on then i have to start watching big trouble in little china because was like, I haven't seen that one either. Maybe I need to know more about John.

Did you enjoy that? Oh, I didn't finish it, but yeah, what I watched, I did. Okay. I had, I was talking to... Oh, because I had to come and just do this. Hey, great excuse.

Great excuse. No judgment. And we appreciate that you're doing this because you are beyond busy right now which i should say this is a podcast called blank check with griffin and david i'm griffin i'm david uh and this is a podcast about filmographies directors who have massive

success early on in their career and are given a series of blank checks make whatever crazy passion products they want and sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby and this is a mini series as i think you've uh been able to discern from uh this uh pre-talk about the films of john carpenter it is called i i think it's called oh pod scape for new cast yeah we forgot about that we forgot to resolve that no it's they podcast you think it's a ben you're that's what i think you're playing on the trump card and saying it's they podcast yep it's his podcast wait what was the other option pod scape from new cast oh okay well i don't think we're or the third most distant option was Pod Trouble and Little Cast.

Hmm. I think I just feel like I couldn't make a different call on any of those. They're living in the same reality. So then it's They Podcast. It's They Podcast. It's a mini series called They Podcast. Today we're talking about The Fog with our incredibly busy guest, Nia DaCosta. we're talking about the fog with our incredibly busy guest nia da costa uh nia you've carved out a very small chunk of time uh from uh getting ready to direct a fucking marvel movie the thing

people use as a joke when they uh talk about uh their career going well and being too busy oh that's funny um yes i did do that i do i feel like that's the thing. When the movie, when it got announced that you were directing the movie, you, like, posted a quote of yours from some interview where you said, like, oh, if I ever get to direct, like, Avengers 8 or something, I'll just, like, pay off all my student debt. Like, you had some quote about, like, how unlikely it seemed and what kind of, like, crazy, like, it was winning the lottery. Well, literally i it was less about getting a marvel movie it was more about paying off my student loans that actually felt crazy to me i was like i will only pay them off if i get a marvel movie and now that i have one i'm like jesus i still i'm not gonna pay them all off

it's funny everyone thinks i literally paid them off like when i got the job which is not how you get paid per the dga but yeah right you didn't just put kevin feige in touch with yeah with sally may no he didn't start co-signing my my you know my loans or anything right though i asked um you know but uh it's it's like the scene of falcon and the winter soldier where you have to like go to the bank and go, can you forgive my loans? I'm directing a Marvel movie. Right, I'm an Avenger now. Exactly, yeah. But instead of a boat, it's just my city bank loans.

We should also mention, you came on the show about nine months ago, I guess now, to do the Castaway episode. You were great and then it came out and people said it's so weird that they didn't talk about captain marvel even once now that knee is directing this big movie and the reality is we talked about it a fair amount but we record so far in advance you were like it's going to be announced by then and then like a week before you were like marvel just changed their plans we have and then like a week before you were like marvel just changed their plans you we have to cut out all the captain marvel references yeah

and ben did a very expert job of cutting around it oh man yeah i really thought it would get announced sooner and they were just like like oh we'll do it here we'll do it here i think everyone also was sort of low-key thinking the pandemic would disappear right in some way um and then it was like nope we're gonna wait four months since it was leaked like to announce this so yeah so i apologize and but you're how many days away from filming are you now four wow wow jesus in under the wire in under the wire yeah yeah but i'm honestly like i've been prepping for 10 months and i we just need to start shooting like we there's only so much you can prop a movie even one as big as this and i'm just like let's go let's do it and everyone's excited sure so yeah at this point you're more like frustrated than stressed about yeah starting it's literally

like having a baby that is how it felt having a baby there was a certain point congratulations david by the way like thank thank you nia uh but like there's a certain point where you're like okay we bought all the stuff uh you know like everything we we've read the books i guess like we're just well there's nothing more to do we just got to do this now and you just have to to wait. Yeah. It's like, we get it conceptually. You're coming. Let's go. Right.

Exactly. The plans are in place. Yes. I should also make it clear. I make jokes about the name of David's baby. I say that the baby's named Grafina Benducer Sims, which is obviously a joke. But, you know, I don't want to step on David's privacy here. But we should mention that the actual name of David's daughter is Untitled 2021 Marvel Film Sims.

Oh, yes, yes, yes. Yeah. There are lawyers that will be reaching out about that. You just, you gotta claim that release date. That's the thing. David just put it on the map like nine months in advance. He had to plant the flag. So today we're talking about The Fog,

a film that Nia did not like i actually feel really bad about this because i i would never get on a podcast and start talking a movie by anyone because hey you know hey this is a podcast about honesty above all else we've always said that we have that sign above our door we say this is a podcast about honesty uh and and a wide array of viewpoints. This is talking about like blank check movies. This is the direct theatrical follow-up to Halloween. So this is as blank checky as his career ever gets, even though it was produced on a very, very small budget.

Yeah, which you can tell. Yes, totally. The weird contrast of Carpenter is it feels like he is a man who got to really make movies he wanted to make his way, but he has publicly griped for years about the fact that he never really felt like he got the room and the budget

to make things at the scale he wanted to, that he was always sort of like uh hustling and hacking it out and stitching things together with the bubble gum and and spit um but but it is fascinating that like uh even post halloween they're like cool you get one million dollars to try to replicate that thing i feel like it's like the blumhouse thing it's like well we're just gonna keep giving filmmakers very little money even though they prove that they can make films that make a lot of money because that's just our model now well look i like uh jordan peele uh who you worked with that candy man movie right uh coming out very soon uh i when he uh post get out gets offered like humongous movies like akira or whatever he was

yes exactly right right and then announced like no i'm signing like a multi-picture deal at universal i was like that's the smartest career decision i've seen from director in a while and and that was like uh you know him saying like i know what my zone is now no like yes a carpenter would have probably liked to have gotten the budget jump that peel had from get out to us but i still think the fact that he was like i've established kind of my genre and there's an audience expectation of what my movies are and i'm gonna like sort of stay doing that rather than try to like get the brass ring uh was smart but carpenter didn't get that sort of like uh jump up in an interesting way i mean it was this and escape from new york he signed a two-picture deal where both of them were supposed to be made for like a million dollars jesus christ and that

was his big post-halloween cash and halloween's like one of the most profitable movies at all of all time at that point if not still to this day yeah yeah um yes but he's you know he's it's true you're i mean everything you're saying is right but he's making this deal with uh i mean it's embassy pictures i they're called like avco back then or whatever he's sort of like you know he's not leaping into the big big studio system I don't know why

what would that have been at the time though like was there like an IP sort of like fever like hunt as it is now going on then you know no what it would have draws to there's just two but but i think like other than the godfather part two arguably like sequels are seen as a little bit less than right the fact that carpenter doesn't direct the halloween sequels feels par for the course because

people like spielberg aren't doing the jaws sequels you know like uh friedkin's not doing the exorcist sequel like these big breakout horror movies the people kind of move on uh the fact that carpenter like wrote and produced the sequel is even sort of more involvement than most of these guys had with the franchises they started. But I do think it's that post-Spielberg thing where, like, there is this kind of, like, auteur-driven populism.

You know? Where, like, directors are becoming the star a little bit, and you have these people like Spielberg and Lucas, even Landis, arguably, who are who are like making these sort of like dudes who grew up on tv and genre movies now making slightly more sophisticated versions of them that are crossing over in a big way um and and carpenter doesn't make a studio film until

the thing oh well that says a lot right and the and the thing is leapfrogging you know like a big movies what this movie comes out what 1980 this is 1980 and then escape from new york is in between and then the thing is i mean there's three consecutive years which is pretty wild yeah it is but like you know you obviously the biggest movie of the year this year is empire strikes back but you have like the year before you know and there's like smoky and the bandit too there's a there's a little bit of that but but and you know the year before you have rocky but yeah it's more like alien you know uh the jerk the muppet movie these things that are like you know they're they're going to be the starts of of uh they are classics the start of hollywood being like okay more of that please right but

like it's just you know we're getting into the beginning of the the 80s are the blockbuster decade the first blockbuster decade really yeah it is wild also i feel like we've remarked upon this before but like 1977 star wars the biggest movie ever number two at the box office smoking the bandit 1980 biggest movie empire strikes back Number two at the box office, Smokey and the Bandit. 1980, biggest movie, Empire Strikes Back. Number two, Smokey and the Bandit 2. Burt Reynolds was just always there bringing up the rear on Lucas. That's hilarious.

And 9 to 5. 9 to 5 was a huge 1980 movie. Like it's a more... Yeah, 9 to 5's humongous. The genre spread in the box office. That movie is so unhinged. It is unhinged. 9 to 5 is one of the most structurally bizarre movies i have ever seen and i

i like it i like it but it is the the middle act of that movie is just a series of dream sequences essentially yeah like that's i didn't know that's what i was like because i think like working girl and nine to five are always sort of in a similar conversation. And they're so different. One is like a movie with a narrative structure that kind of makes sense. And the other one is literally just a bunch of dream sequences. Right, sort of Cinderella story type thing. Right. That's crazy, yeah.

Yes. The dream sequences in the middle of 9 to 5 go on almost as long as the fist fight and they live. It's like a similar kind of like, I can't believe much of the movie yeah is this one thing in the middle um we should mention and we will have covered these on our uh patreon by now or maybe one of them's about to come out but carpenter does two tv movies in between halloween and the fog he does somebody's watching me which is uh his wife adrian barbeau's first film so he meets her uh and then this becomes her theatrical film debut and then he does his epic elvis miniseries with kurt russell which is how he meets kurt russell so like in between halloween the fog he meets two of his biggest collaborators of the next decade.

But also, I think I have read interviews with him where he has said that like doing Elvis in particular was him trying to like knowing that post Halloween, this was an opportunity to show people that he could do a different thing so that he did not get sort of um turn into the horror guy right yeah i love that because i didn't even i don't even think i engage with the fact that he directed big trouble in little china because it's not a horror film you know like it's really i found it really interesting yeah you he is of course the master of horror right like that is a label he does not really escape but yeah and you know he goes on to make films that are more satirical or more sci-fi The master of horror, right? Like that is a label he does not really escape. But yeah. And, you know, he goes on to make films that are more satirical or more sci-fi or what have you. But I do think it's interesting. Whereas like, I'm curious your perspective on this, Nia, because you've had somewhat similar trajectories in your career. But like there are a lot of horror directors where you'll read interviews with them.

And they're like, yeah, I was like never really interested in horror. I made a horror movie out of film school because no one wanted to make my dramas. It's like the one film where you could sort of like the one genre where you could get stuff greenlit if you had a good enough premise and you were willing to work cheap. And then the thing was a hit and I got stuck in it. Like, I feel like Wes Craven's a guy who talks like that. You know, there are a lot of these people who came out of like, Corman or Corman adjacent things. And they're like, horror was my way to get the foot in the door. And then it hit and I had a hard time convincing

anyone to let me make anything other than horror. Whereas I feel like Carpenter has always been very forward about the fact that it's like, no, these are the movies he loved as a kid. These are the movies that made him want to make movies. He had interest in making other types of things just for the sake of variety, but he didn't feel like he ended up in horror by accident.

Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, I love to hear that because he doesn't seem like someone who ended up in horror by accident. When anyone looks at his work, you're like, oh yeah, you're someone who loves doing this. And that's funny that Wes Craven said that because I'm like, oh, that makes Scream... I think about Scream in a completely different context. Not completely different, but I can see that's really interesting.

Him passionately breaking down the genre that he got quote-unquote stuck in. That's really fascinating. But I mean, I always loved horror films growing up. Like I would purposefully try to like scare myself as much as possible as a kid, like at home by myself with all the lights off because I was a latchkey kid. But I definitely, I always wanted to do a horror film, but I never thought like, oh, I'm definitely going to do a horror movie first or second or like I never really. I never thought like, oh, I'm definitely going to do a horror movie first or second or like I never really. Yeah, I never really. I don't know. I think just because it was Candyman and because it was Jordan, that's why that was so exciting to me.

But there are a lot of I think horror is mostly pretty bad when I think about scripts I've read after, you know, I got Candyman. So and I don't think I'm like. My instinct is not like in the way of Jordan, like thinks in horror, I feel likeman. So, and I don't think I'm, like, my instinct is not, like, in the way of Jordan, like, thinks in horror, I feel like. You know, he's, like, that's the, like, even looking at Key and Peele, it's, like, they always ended in some weird horror beat. And you're, like, wait, what? And it's, like, well, that's what his brain does. And my brain doesn't really naturally do that, even though I really love horror. Like, I'd have to really sit down and, like, think, okay, how would I, like, what would

this horror story be? Which is what I did with Candy man but that has a lot i don't know that's like a whole thing that existed already so um but but little woods is a movie like you watch and you go oh this person could make a good horror film like it's not a horror film you know but it has these thriller elements it has a build of tension you You know, there are elements even just in terms of, like, the location and the energy and the relationships and everything that feel like, oh, in someone else's hands, this could turn after the first act into some sort of monster horror movie, you know?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's true. I mean, I really like being scared, and I like, as a director, being able to scare people, whether that's because like a monster pops out of the closet or because people might not make it to the end of their probation or whatever. So I guess that's true. I guess I just like when I think about like, like, I want to tell a story about like X, Y, Z. I don't I don't know if my brain would automatically go like, and it's going to be horror, but I think that my brain would definitely go, how can I make this as tense as fucking possible? Right, sure. You know, we have a saying in our family, use sports, don't let sports use you.

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He's at a film festival for, I guess, uh, assault on precinct 13. It's pre Halloween. It's for, it's for assault on precinct 13 and he sees fog and he's like, Oh,

what if, what if there was fog? Like that? What if the fog was the villain of the movie that was it is environmental yes they're very similar in that way i think where they'll like latch on to a very very basic kind of primal hook yeah and carpenter certainly has like a lot of ideas and uh ideologies he puts into his movies but I don't think he reverse engineers them from that like he does just look at something and go like oh that would be scary for a whole movie

and then I think in the process of writing it his his feelings get put into it but yeah I mean there's this quote from him here where he says like I have a great feeling for physical movies I don't like intellectual films. I love suspense. I want the audience to laugh and cry, an emotional response. The medium is emotional, not so much like a book or a play, really, as like music, which makes sense when you consider that he's, you know, trained as a musician first and foremost and, you know, obviously composed almost all of his films.

And this is a movie that really feels like the score is maybe doing the heaviest lifting of all of his movies that I've seen. Yeah. I mean, some of the things are like somewhat baffling when I looked when I was watching it. I was like, like some of the pacing at the end, especially like the church sequence. I was like, what? I was like, I feel like you've done this better before and after john it was very i honestly was so flummoxed that was that was his takeaway that was that's that was his opinion of this film basically he was like i mean first he makes it and he's like i've made a bomb this is

not exciting enough and he went back and reshot and he put in a little more gore and a little more like action just to sort of like spice it up. What I read is that a third of the movie as it exists now was done in reshoots. Oh, wow. That they screened it. It was longer. And he was like, this completely doesn't work. partner co-writer at this point uh uh and and have been halloween and everything um was like the audience is going to be expecting gore that's what's like de rigueur right now especially

because you are the post-halloween guy we have to put a little more gore in there and he also just thought the story was kind of like incoherent it wasn't tracking the film was dull so like that entire i think opening attack sequence not opening but in the first act the the killing of the fisherman that's all new that's all new the the john houseman opening is new he didn't have that as framework and he was like the audience cannot track what's going on i need an old man with a stopwatch to explain it at the beginning also we never go back to him, right? Like we just,

it's just like an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? Because it was reshoots. He wasn't supposed to be there. He's the crypt keeper. Yes, exactly. It's Twilight Zone-y. It's such a funny thing where it was just like,

oh, this movie doesn't track. Let me hire an Academy Award winner to come in and do like a five minute monologue. And just kind of set the table for the movie and then never go back to it ever again. But it also feels like because like with Halloween 2, you know, Carpenter sort of produces that and that movie comes out what a year after this, like and also comes in and adds in more gore because he's like this thing. He does seem to be a little afraid of the shadow of Halloween where he's like this thing yeah he he does seem to be a little afraid of the shadow of halloween where he's like i've created this monster now everyone's doing horror movies that are

even more intense and i have to match it if i'm gonna work in the genre and cronenberg apparently was one that really startled them like when cronenberg movies start coming out they're like holy shit like how is he getting away with this you know and so it's this that uh this the fog uh halloween 2 i feel like there's another thing i'm thinking i mean it just feels like by the thing it's like he's like all right you know okay i feel like now now now i i am i am the king again like you know i know what i'm doing he's like back away peasants i just let me do my work and you you're like, yes, do it, please. Look, I've seen the fog. I guess I'm the only one.

Ben, had you seen the fog before? No. Okay, so I'm the only one who's seen the fog. I love the fog. The fog rules. But I love it for its sort of janky, dark ride, kind of, you know, where the monsters almost are just these little shambling, you know, nobodies that you these little shambling you know nobodies that you barely see and it's a lot of chat and it's a lot of just like you know sort of what's

up in this little town like i i like it as a sort of you know airport paperback thing and i i love the colors and i love the score obviously i just I love the whole mood of the fog. But I do not find the fog particularly frightening. And I assume Carpenter was worried about that. I find it unnerving. Like, I think it builds up a very good energy. Like, I don't know. I woke up early.

I couldn't sleep. And I was like, fuck it. Am I going to watch the fog remake? Like, oh, God, you know, so many of Carpenter's films been remade and i was like fuck it am i gonna watch the fog remake like oh god you know okay so many of carpenter's films been remade that i was like i didn't want to commit to the idea that i would have to do it for every episode but i was just like fuck let me just see because i also know that one's like despised no one likes that one right no one's a fan right not just within the realm of carpenter remakes but i feel like in the 2000s, the surge of remaking all the 70s and 80s horror movies, most of which were successful, The Fog was notoriously one of the least successful and one of the least liked.

And I made it 30 minutes in before it failed my, do I want to keep watching this or take a nap test? It's Tom Welling, right? It's Tom Welling and maggie grace and selma blair and tom welling essentially plays ostensibly yeah well at that point yes yes selma blair's playing adrian burbo maggie grace is playing jamie lee curtis tom welling is playing tom adkins but the three characters are fundamentally not the same. And most of the things are changed in the movie. But the thing I noted,

the one thing of sort of an interesting comparison point before I shut off the movie and slept for 45 minutes was that that movie's all CGI fog. And CGI fog is not scary. I feel like this is a problem that is uh constantly uh

made mistake that's constantly made in hollywood where they do like scary clouds as a villain uh green lantern has its scary cloud yes and fantastic four rise of silver surfer turns galactus into i'm just thinking about galactus what a terrible depiction of galactus i have a lot of feelings about galactus please i'm sure you are deep in your feelings about how to do cosmic marvel shit but like that that is like the most so much cowardly unimaginative boring fucking thing in the world yeah fantastic beast you mentioned that right that that has yes fantastic beast he's an evil cloud too. I feel like Loki did like an okay evil cloud

in one episode, but it also was like a minor threat in one episode. Like that's the other thing. Like they just treated like... What episode was it in? I've only seen three of them.

It's in the second to last, right? Yeah. The thing that was good about the cloud in Loki, and I won't spoil too much, is just like the cloud is supposed to be a lot of sound and fury,

not signifying that much. Like it's not the ultimate bad guy. The cloud is like the projection of the Wizard of Oz. Like it's a sort of... Right. It's to scare you off, not the actual thing you need to defeat.

Right. Yeah, because smoke and fog can't hurt you. I don't know. It's just not effective. Smoke can definitely hurt you it's just not effective smoke can definitely hurt you do not go around breathing oh make me cough and move away from it like also the thing about the fog is like fog it's like as we've all experienced fog in our lives the only time fog is actually scary is when you're driving and trying not to crash into people like that's the only time fog is scary fog is not scary that's a good and so like it's not like the is when you're driving and trying not to crash into other people. Sure. Like, that's the only time fog is scary.

Fog is not scary. That's a good point. And so, like, it's not like the dark where you're like, the dark can't hurt you, but like, you can't see anything in the dark. You really can't. And like, the dark is everywhere. Whereas fog is like, oh, I'm in San Francisco. How pretty.

You know? Like, so that makes it trickier. I love the idea, like, there are things in the fog, like the mist and blah, blah, blah. But like, honestly, I love that they're like leprous like sailing sailors you know but um but like I don't know it is tricky because I'm like for me the most successful part of the movie was actually the woman in the lighthouse like I love that the fact that she could like see the fog coming in and say like it's here it's here it's here and then you see everyone kind of dealing with that like I really like that bit of the movie exact i i completely agree i think that is if

you're gonna you know the success of the fog of any like slow villain in a horror movie right is the weird dread of like i know it's coming i can see it coming there's not much i can do about it and i'm like you know i'm realizing i'm doomed. Right. Like the weird reverse, you know, of that. Well, this is the thing I was going to say about the CGI fog is that like when I'm watching some fucking movie where there's just like CGI missed at, you know, 2005 standards. So like particle physics are not as good and low budget CGI as they are now. It's not scary when I'm like, well, you're controlling that. You're trying to make the fog look scary. You're giving the fog an intentionality.

You're having it move in a set pattern. There's something, maybe not scary, but a little bit eerie about the way that Carpenter shoots fog where like it's so slow pouring out there's a randomness to its like dissipation you know obviously the way he's lighting it like it does give it that kind of like eerie like oh what is this stuff kind of thing but he also just slows the fuck down and a lot of it is like his score sort of feeling like the musical embodiment of this slow, weird, creeping, persistent thing. But I think, I mean, there was this quote here where in our notes, so the idea of the

fog provides a framework in which I've always wanted to work. There are opportunities to do certain cinematic things with ghosts that can only be done in movies. You don't really see the ghost in the fog as much as you think you do. The fog moves around. It glows. It comes through window panes. I think that audiences are going to have fun with that.

I think that's like his whole idea in this is that like, oh, you can have the camera kind of function like the fog, right? You can sort of do the it follows thing where a camera slowly creeping in suddenly has a different power to it i was thinking about it follows you know but you can also like be looking constantly at the corners of the frame saying like oh fuck is fog coming in here like it's just setting up this sort of looming threat of this this thing that can slowly kind of seep in right but you know like ghosts are like, Ooh, you know,

like they make a noise. Sure. Oh, you, you need noise. I felt like the fog should have had a voice. Like I'm the fog. Here I come.

The fog. Here I am. Like it just, it needed sound. Do you know? Like, I feel like it would have really maybe like made like more tension. Ben,

let's just acknowledge the amount of smoke and vapors you have deliberately inhaled in your life have probably killed any possibility of you ever finding fog scary yeah oh absolutely if anything i'm like let me puff on that um you are the fog that is the fog. I think what we're talking, you know, like, it's a good, it's a reversal. Again, he's not going to do a movie

where someone's going to jump through the window at you. Like, you can't really do jumps with fog. You can't make Halloween again. So he's in a horror space, but he's in like the opposite kind of horror space. And a lot of this movie is daytime.

A lot of this movie is daytime. That's the thing i like about it a lot i feel like he's experimenting with some different types i mean i like this movie maybe less than you david but i like it uh i find that you know very interesting watching in the prism of watching all of his movies now and seeing like the way he's evolving and this so much as a reaction to halloween um but yes i i think he's experimenting with different sort of vernacular of horror movies after making this movie that everyone is now ripping off and will continue to rip off for decades he's immediately trying to like change the script and go like can you be scary in this setting can you do this i mean even the scenes that take place at night the fog is is bright. Like when the fog enters a room, it gets lighter, which is the opposite of how most of these films work. is like arguably i mean maybe uh arp is gonna tear me a new one and correct me in our halloween episode which we haven't recorded yet but like that sort of feels like the first like slasher

villain of that level who really becomes like a star in that kind of sense and certainly has that visual power and in this movie it's like blake is just kind of whispered about most of the movie. You barely see any physicalization of them. It's only at the end. And then like I knew that like this company I like had made an action figure of Captain Blake. And so I kept on waiting for the whole movie to see him because I knew what this fucking action figure looked like. And then I was like, what did they base this fucking toy off of? He's a silhouette with red eyes.

Like, you never get to see fine detail on this guy. I don't know what the costume looked like on set. But he, like, pointedly never. Is the toy very clear? The toy. I'll post the photo. The toy is hyper clear. Like, yeah.

Oh, that's so funny. And it's very Pirates of the Caribbean. It's a zombie pipe it's a zombie guy with a sword and he's yes you know belts and he looks like a zombie pirate yeah when that saber came out i was like wait i i was also because i was like i didn't because they're not actually pirates they're just like some dudes right they are not pirates they are like a clipper ship or whatever it's not it's yeah they're they're not pirates it's just they're merchants or whatever but the uh like it's the period dress they all look like pirates to me do you just not vibe with pirates nia like the

pirates you're just like inherently goofy no i actually um i really want to make a tv show about pirates really i love pirates i think pirates are the best pirates are cool pirates are awesome i mean they're cool and also they're very interesting intellectually but i won't get into that but they're just fucking cool um so we're like um privateers like they're just very interesting to me i was just like i feel like the story of the the ghosts wasn't like they had no real connection to anyone in the town except for the priest who we only saw in the beginning and the end. And I guess in the middle for a second, like I want there to be more like stakes for like anyone besides just like death. think they're like the this is one of those movies with a novelization where the novelization is like yeah you know they're all the victims are related to the people who originally did this terrible

thing and you know like and the movie is kind of leaving that to you mostly it's kind of like you know you figured it out right like come on the town the people did it yeah they're supposed to be the six that's why he keeps on saying it's six they're supposed to be the six living descendants of the people who perpetrated uh the crime against them um right the movie could probably benefit from stating that at some point yeah you know whatever hellhole brook did they say that in the movie i mean i know they said six will die they say in the movie oh okay they never say it it's implication yeah But it's pretty vague implication at that. Okay. Okay.

But yeah, so no, it, cause yes, this is a film, right. The ostensible lead is Adrian Barbeau. She's mostly in the lighthouse sort of running point,

watching everything happen. But then you've got Tom Atkins and Jamie Lee Curtis kind of on the ground, like moving from location to location. Right. I love those two. They were great. They're great. I love Tom Atkins, who is in lots of he's in Escape from New York.

He's in Halloween three. I love that guy. He's such a such a guy. Yeah. And like a horror movie legend. Yeah. I feel like he's like a king of conventions guy. But then also this is his

kickoff yes yes this is a kickoff but then you know he does like night of the creeps and you know he just becomes one of those guys who's like a superstar in this corner but i like the industry that's what i love about because he's just such a like regular ass dude he's kind of like bulky and he's got a stash a lot of the time and he's really you know he looks like such a regular guy yeah yeah he's great i love that it's like they have that conversation in the car and she's like you're not weird are you and he's like yeah i'm weird and i feel like i looked away for a second i looked back and she's just like naked and jumped his bones hell yeah this is great i was like i like this so. She's a weird chaser.

She's literally looking for some strange at any given moment. And, and she pounces on him. I love, I love that. Right. In 1980, where it's like,

you know, most people, as we know, are normal, but we don't like that. Right. I do like narrative, how kind of, uh,

narratively how spread out it is like i feel like so many horror movies of this era are like a crew that's getting picked off one by one and this is sort of the splintered narrative where you have like atkins and curtis you have barbo in the lighthouse you have holbrook trying to like solve stuff you know they're your three main points a burbo's son as well like it's about them slowly coming together to face this thing rather than starting with one group and and winnowing it down which i think is an interesting way to do it because it also like i feel like a lot of horror movies like this uh not even horror movies like this horror movies in general you'll have your like main cast

and then you'll cut away to like some set piece with some character you're only being introduced to at that moment to get killed off, you know? Yeah. Or the first character killed off. Or you have to come up with some crazy reason for them to split up. Right.

And then the first character killed off in the group. So that you can't have that narrative, yeah. Yeah, the first character killed off in the group, you haven't gotten to know that well um it's kind of nice that this you get a sense of how like pervasive this is across the town because everyone's split off but also everyone's surviving other than that one group of boat guys you know uh and then the babysitter later it's like you babysitter the babysitter gets it back i'm so funny i was like oh my god she literally just got pulled into the fog like like she was like oh

and the way it happened was so awkward she's just like turning around very slowly like oh and then she just disappears while the little boy closes the door i was like it it's also funny after carpenter makes like the definitive babysitter horror movie. Yes. That he's like, I want to make it clear. It's not just about young women. I'll kill old babysitters. You got a nice old lady babysitter.

She better stay away from that fog. I'm not passing judgment on high schoolers. You can get the elderly next door neighbor. I'm still going to fucking kill her. Yeah. Yeah. It's so funny. I was like oh lord

oh man i actually really like that part and i like the i really i mean i really love the woman in the lighthouse and i i thought she was like gonna sacrifice herself or something so that she'd keep reporting on the fog which is ridiculous but i was like oh my god she's just gonna stay here and let everyone know where the fog is gonna come in so she can save as many people as possible why do i think that i don't, but it's also lighthouses. They're very romantic. Oh, well,

I, I do want, we should talk at length about living and working in a lighthouse. Cause it seems really cool. But, uh, the part of the movie where she's just yelling, save my son.

I had this thought. What if you just picked up that radio station, the town over and you're like, what is it? It's just fog guys god lady get it get it get a break war of the worlds or some shit but like this lighthouse still exists you can go visit it it's up in um or in county california up you know in the bay area um and it's very i mean lighthouses are cool do we all agree that it might it's like you everyone fantasizes about like the sort of weird solitary existence out there well not after i saw that that uh who's that one with the black and white thing with the

mermaid the robert eggers movie oh ben's favorite movie yeah with the vagina with the vagina is a good way to put i guess it's more of a cloaca or something but you know there's a lot of there's a lot of openings so that ruined lighthouses for me yeah ben bought a lighthouse after seeing that movie he's like mermaids with vaginas come get me a white lighthouse farting with my friend yeah i gotta do this yeah a new development is that uh on a recent episode ben just casually referred to him as bob bob i know him like that he didn't even say pattinson he just said first name basis bob that's right there's a lot of lighthouse movies i guess because come on right aren't there other lighthouse but there's the light between oceans sure very scary a deeply deeply terrifying film oh there's lights there's

that one about the tooth fairy oh darkness falls yes darkness falls and ends with her smashing over the lighthouse light right yes and she says i see you bitch and like smashes over the thing and i remember being like can we stop having like something something bitch be like the big ending of a horror movie before you defeat the whoever i'm like this is so 2006 obsessed with calling monsters bitches yes they also he he should have i mean freddy drove that into the ground he there were no bitches left in horror after freddy was done with his original run of movies but also i feel like a tooth fairy movie you should end with some fucking tooth pun don't don't just call her a bitch say like here's the ugly tooth or something you know here's a well is that what they have to say is here's the ugly tooth yeah they should

maybe say here's the ugly tooth uh there's you can't ugly tooth. You can't handle the tooth. You can't handle the tooth. Right. There's Shutter Island. That has a good lighthouse. Sure. Annihilation had a good lighthouse. Oh, for sure. Season two of Dolly and Em on HBO.

Did not watch season two of Dolly and Em. Terrifying. Is there a lighthouse in it? What happens in season two? They go to a lighthouse to write their TV series or something? Or book. I can't remember what they're doing. But they go to a lighthouse to write it.

It does actually sound scary. I couldn't do it. Lighthouses are too small. Also, they're very bright. I assume all the time. I guess so. Not all the time. It goes around in a circle. So it's only a little bit you know ben you're on the inside yeah it's everywhere you go ben yeah but you still still shine see it's everywhere around you exactly um i i do feel like you know a lot of lighthouse movies i guess like the the the

isolation of it and then also sort of like the fear of like, oh, you're at like the most extreme vantage point. Right. You're at like an elevated height. You have this light shining. You can see the threat before anyone else. I like that in this it's like her chill ass radio studio, that it's like this very kind of cool vibe she's also really good in this yeah like it's it's one of those things where you're like oh he like marries the actress from his tv movie and it makes her the lead of his next movie this is her first film like what's this performance gonna be and she has like such command as a broadcaster you know like you actually buy this as a compelling radio show

which i feel like is where a lot of movies fail is when you ask a performer to be a different type of performer and you don't believe that they actually could hold that position like in the remake selma blair plays this like sarah koenig from uh serial, 10 years before podcasts are a thing. Like her radio broadcasts, you're like, hey everybody, hope you're all doing well out there. I'm going to play another tune for you.

And you're like, no, no one would listen to this. And Adrienne Barbeau, I'm like, this is like, this is like, she's like a learning. This is like a good vibe.

She's confident. Yeah. I do want to point out, she, you know, she had been Maud's daughter for six years on Maud. She was a solid, she was a well-known figure. She wasn't a total nobody.

But even still, I feel like sitcoms were... Yes, definitely. Yes, yes. And were a real career silo at that point. People didn't come out of sitcoms to do movies. And certainly to do movies in a different genre, I think they were sort of judged harshly i mean she's certainly like not the worst performance in the movie there were a couple that i was like what is happening right now it was very confusing i was a bit alarmed uh well but you do have janet lee obviously uh you know, psycho royalty as the matriarch of the town,

kind of, I guess, like what, you know, that she's the mayor's wife, right? She keeps calling her assistant stupid to her face. What the fuck is up with that? So rude. You got Holbrook. I'm very much loving everything Holbrook's given me. Yeah. As the priest he's just he's just sort of instant gravitas for me um but yeah everyone else i don't really know

oh wow holbrook grandpa how i know I know. Listen, I just feel so... Please. You know what it is, too? I think, like, for whatever reason, I don't know if all his stuff is reshoot stuff, but, like, the staging and blocking of all of his scenes were so awkward, especially in the beginning. It was like when the stone comes out of the masonry

to reveal his grandfather's, like, book or whatever, or box with the book in it. Yes. It was, like, his face close. A rock. to reveal his grandfather's book or whatever, or box with the book in it. It was like his face close, a rock, the wall. I was like, wait, what is this? And I was like, oh my God, I feel like a studio note coming into my brain, like a really stupid one.

And I just felt like so disoriented. Because you know, a studio would be like, I don't understand, can you do a wide? But I kind of was like, I don't get what's happening like i felt slightly belligerent watching this movie it feels like there is uh a little more precision to the stuff that i either know he reshot or assume was part of the reshoots um like even even the even the opening houseman sequence has a little more visual precision to it then that opening Holbrook sequence, I agree, is a little bit... You mean that smash zoom?

Yeah, it's a little confusing. That came out of nowhere? Yeah. I was like, whoosh, and then it cut in the zoom. I was like, what? Oh, man. It was actually my favorite shot in the entire movie. Oh, man. It was actually my favorite shot in the entire movie.

I wonder if it was like a lack of shoot days thing or just him trying to experiment with other stuff that didn't work. And then obviously, as he said, when they screened it, he thought it was really bad, like it was fully terrible. And he shot new stuff to try to salvage it. And I think it wasn't just story stuff or gore. It was also to try to put some style into the movie ostensibly. Jamie Lee Curtis, of course, like everyone always talks about how Trading Places was such a career reinvention for her, that it was like such a seismic change for her to go from horror to comedy and like in a modern era you don't think about that being as much of a hill to climb uh being that stuck in one genre but i didn't realize the extent to which her career is like tv appearances halloween's her first movie then her second movie is the fog then she does prom night and terror

train within the same year she has three horror movies in 1980 then she does uh road games another horror film 1981 uh in the same year as halloween 2 right exactly and then then her next movie is trading places it was it was truly like i guess she's the first and the greatest scream queen to like actually jump ship whereas like all the others sort of class so so many other classic scream queens are that's what they are like heather langenkamp or whatever you know like they you know that you're cramped in and you're always going to be going to like vangoria conventions and stuff like that like it's a great you know it's it's there's cool status to it but that's what you are meanwhile jamie lee curtis married a lord she did she married a lord and a great comedian all in one yeah yeah i'm just

like i love everything going on for her i just feel like it's great have you seen any lords where you're at great on the streets great question bet great question yeah yeah uh we should we should mention right now uh because uh david probably doesn't know this that you are currently in uh england yeah wait what what yeah oh wow uh-huhhuh. I do know that. Oh, where you're from. Yes, thank you. That's where I'm from. People talk about it all the time here, David. They're like, when are you coming back?

When's David coming back? They're like, our prodigal son. They miss him. That's right. They're like, our prince had a child. When is the prince bringing his child to be christened at St. Paul's Cathedral? Well, because every New English citizen has to swear an allegiance to the queen of course i have to bring to like kiss the queen now you're gonna have to bleep out her name yeah name out yeah

i will anyway untitled marvel studios 2021 yeah right right right right whatever her name is um but um they have your place in the house of lords waiting for you david i i am no lord Whatever her name is. Forcat. Forcat. They have your place in the house of lords waiting for you, David. I am no lord. I do not have a peerage awaiting me in England. But maybe one day for services to podcasting, maybe I'll get a lordship. Yes. They do give OBEs for that. Right.

Exactly. I mean, if you've ever seen Christopher Guest in like Girlfriends or one of those like, you know, 70s movies, he was hot. He was a cutie. Sorry, I thought you meant Girlfriends, the UPN show. Not the UPN sitcom. No, no, no. The 70s indie movie.

Nia, you don't remember that Christopher Guest did two seasons in the main cast of UPN's Girlfriends? Yeah, I knew he was one of the Girlfriends, but I really... J.C. Ellis Ross, Golden Brooks, Christopher Guest. The Lost Tapes, yeah. Girlfriend had some really good guest people. Kelsey Grammer, obviously, he produced the show.

He was in it. Kelsey Grammer produced Girlfriends? He was one of the creators of Girlfriends. What? Yeah. Kelsey Grammer, mogul. He was kind of in mogul mode the other final seasons of Frasier.

I'm obsessed with Kelsey Grammer. Get Kelsey Grammer in a movie. I watched all of Frasier this year. I feel like his personal life is distressing. I can't be around that chaos. He's got a lot going on. But he is so phenomenal as an actor. it's absolutely insane

like watching fraser you're like oh this is like i mean the entire cast is amazing but like he is so fucking good down periscope i mean then sorry okay it's what it's wild watching cheers where his character is supposed to be like an antagonist right like he's supposed to be like the fucking asshole who steals the love interest and then he is so funny on that that they're like we're gonna keep you around and make you this guy's friend that like he then right diane leaves the show and his character is sad sack who goes to the bar with the guy who stole his fiance even though she eventually left him too uh and then it just becomes about his own failing marriage um he's uh so good what's a baby new earth which is an amazing oh it's all so good

bb new earth is oh i i... This might be my hottest take ever. B.B. Neuwirth might be the best performance across the run of Cheers. Oh, you know what? I can talk with that. I mean, I think you can make the argument just because she's so good. But it's kind of one of those things where it's like, there's probably four or five names you could say there.

And no one would really be able to fight you. I just think she... It's kind of the most impressive character work and she never misses like coach is my favorite character but i think oh coach i think she might be the best performance lilith um i the the jamie lecruz thing i just in my mind i feel like as a kid when i would fucking read things about like movie history watch documentaries or whatever i wouldn't understand the way that people would talk about like uh perception in that way of like can you believe jamie lee curtis overcame becoming a screen queen and i'd be like why would like an actor being in one type of movie

prevent them from being believable in a different type of movie i think the industry has sort of moved past that to a certain degree now to some degree but like you really look at the 70s and the 80s even the 90s and it really was like if you're a sitcom star you're a sitcom star you're a tv actor you're a horror person like all this sort of shit she just went so hard on horror for like three years there. And most of them were very successful that I guess it really did feel like she was making her bed with that one genre. And then Trading Places felt like kind of like revelatory. But she is interesting in that like as opposed to some other people, she never sort of like cast aspersions on horror. She never kind of like look back on it with the sky right she does halloween again 20 years later and then 20 years after that but she'll

also do shit like scream queens and she did that that documentary what's it called terror in the aisles i don't know that what yes it's it's like a it was a big hit in the well not a big but a medium-sized hit in the 80s that's like a documentary about horror movies. Oh, cool. But it was sort of like the That's Entertainment of horror at the time, right? It was sort of a compilation of the scariest scenes in movies that became a commercial success. But that's right. That's 84.

That's the year after Trading Places. that's 84 that's the year after trading places like she's sort of wore her crown as a scream queen while also saying like i'm gonna do other things as well which is kind of an impressive balance to pull off of course her mom is janet lee in case people don't know oh right yeah oh i always forgot that even though she literally is in this movie um yeah she doesn't we don't have any scream queens now though like i know nev campbell they were trying to make into a scream queen but i was like that doesn't count doesn't work nev campbell's probably the closest like that's the thing yeah but yeah but who jumps from like a franchise like there's no one right i mean because now it's like you remake a nightmare on elm street you bring in rooney mara you bring in

just like a sort of very talented young actor for for a role like that i'm trying to think like and then they sort of can't get out of horror fast enough right yeah it's kind of like okay fine i did my horror movie yeah i don't know i don't know i'm sure there are examples also there's not enough original horror right like you can't go from franchise to franchise that's a good point yes because because everything we're remaking used to be original i mean emma roberts has done a lot that's true yeah yeah vera farmiga has done a lot of horror i guess even hawk weirdly does a lot of that's true and patrick wilson well we love that we you know that that i mean that's more like it's like well this is where i can make a smaller scale movie that's not like, you know, a studio breathing down my neck.

Right. And like if you're Ethan Hawke, you're like, and I can cut a deal or actually get a lot of money if the movie hits. But also those people you just listed, like Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson in particular, feel like they're occupying more the Donald Pleasance space where it's just like. Right. Rather than being like the young star who cuts their teeth in horror right right you're bringing pedigree to it I feel like there are people on the indie level who have kind of scream queen status like that that I don't know

that's the thing there's names in the more like you know streaming only what's her name from the guest and it follows Micah Monroe yeah you know, streaming only. What's her name from the guest stand it follows? Micah Monroe. Yeah. Micah Monroe, yeah.

Yeah, she's on her horrors. There have to be people who have done, like, five Glass Eye Picks movies that I don't realize within a niche community are, like, viewed as legends, you know? Yeah, yeah. There aren't a lot of Shudals maybe right it's hard to imagine someone having the the jamie lee curtis arc though it's hard to imagine someone like 100 having a horror movie that's that much based around them be that big of a hit and then go make like four

more horror movies that are sold on them right at least largely or partially yeah you know but also the thing is with jamie lee curtis is like um when halloween comes out it's like holy shit you know why aren't we making five of these a year and so then everyone starts to make them so quickly because it's like we gotta get on this train it's it's the hottest thing and so absolutely there are suddenly roles where it's like yeah come do prom night it was almost like liam neeson post taken where they were like we're writing a bunch of these scripts do you want to do all of them do you want to do yeah at least a few right yeah can we just take a short liam neeson detour please anytime anytime always allowed on this show i just feel

like he like had such an interesting career and And this is, I feel similarly about Tom Cruise. It's like they both hit a certain age and they were like, I will, I will only do action films now. I will only be like insanely proficient at running, fighting, like spy craft. And I just don't, I mean, Liam does more like survivalist ones, but I'm just like, what is that switch? Griffin, please answer. Yeah, I have, but I'm just like, what is that switch? Griffin, please answer. Yeah, I have my answers.

I have my theories. David, you can correct me if you disagree on this. War of the Worlds breaks Tom Cruise, right? And the press hullabaloo around War of the Worlds, the Katie Holmes thing, the couch jumping, whatever. Weirdly, like that movie is his last, like not his last colossal hit but like his last colossal hit before there's a dry period he goes into the weeds and does like valkyrie and lions for lambs and is trying to do his sort of like tony or cruise stuff and then when he comes back to mission impossible it's like fuck this is like the only stuff that works for me

anymore i need to just like stay here and he has three directors he works with right he works with christopher mcquarrie he works with joseph kaczynski and he works with doug lyman he works with those three people those are the three guys he has rapport with whereas before he used to totally be a director driven filmmaker like he would seek out directors and then go like what do do you want to make? I'll give you my star presence. I'll add that to it. I'll give you the support. He also breaks up with his producing partner.

And I think it's just a means of survival of like, how do I stay relevant as a movie star? What are the things I do well? What are the genres that are succeeding? I'm no longer capable of pushing a drama to $100 million. Like he knows he couldn't make Jerry Maguire and have it be that level of hit today. And he doesn't want to make a movie that only makes $20 million. What a shame, though, isn't it? It's a shame.

And I feel like— Yeah, yeah. Damn. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. It feels like I would have predicted the same thing 10 years ago. But, like, I feel like we're five years away from him being like i can't run anymore i resign i become elder statesman i relinquish the title of tom cruise and i go back

to being an actor right he could finally dip his toe in that again i think it's also he just knows that he can't be accepted as a regular human being anymore i do which is true yeah i think that's why he makes action movies only now he just he's not plausible as a regular human being after the katie holmes thing sure people just don't buy it and the closest he tried was rock of ages and no one like that doesn't work right like that's the right we don't like that movie right i mean like you can i mean people stick up for his performance in a way but like you know it doesn't go over and i think he's like fine just just action okay i enjoy night and day is that crazy i don't know no night and day has its fans yeah it's fine i'm gonna kill myself and then her i mean come on but that's like that was him trying to own

because there was that whole period then where he was like i'm gonna do comedy like i want to show that i have a sense of humor about myself because everyone thinks i'm so extreme and there are all those stories about him like meeting with judd apatow and seth rogan setting comedies up with ben stiller and then the only two things that come out that was announced they were going to do a hardy men movie that was ben stiller and tom cruise as the adult hardy boys yeah oh wow and that was gonna be like a big fucking action comedy but then the only two things that come out of that are uh tropic thunder obviously excellent uh and night and day is like him trying to do a funny tom cruise movie and i think like tropic thunder worked but he's obviously doing such a like heightened disguised character thing in that.

And then night and day, he's trying to be funny within his Tom Cruise persona. And it didn't do well. I think he was like, OK, it's not people aren't buying me being charming guy anymore. But Liam Neeson, Liam Neeson, I feel like that. Well, I don't know. I mean, I guess it's obviously it's like those roles are always there for him. I have my answer, David. I have my thought.

Okay, go ahead. Natasha Richardson dies. Well, I know that. But that's so not to diminish how horrible that was. And he talked about that post taken where it's like, right, I just want to do these movies where it's like, you know,

very simple. And I know it's expected of me, but it has now been many years and he has occasionally dipped his toe. Like he did the Mark Felt movie. He has that great scene in Buster Scruggs. Like, you know, he did widows,

which is sort of like a kind of like a high-end version of a you know liam neeson action movie silence silence he's fucking incredible silence it's a great performance obviously it's he's only at the end but right you know like so snow crime moody movies like no but that's no no yeah but that's no grip that's the other shit and he's like obviously he did that movie griff called what's called like made in italy that's the other shit. And he's like, obviously, he did that movie, Griff, called, what's it called? Like, Made in Italy? That's like... Yes, him and Leslie Manville.

It's like about a guy whose wife died. Like, you know, there's... No, no, the one with Leslie Manville is called, fuck that, Ordinary Love. That's a cancer drama, right? That's the one that, what's his name? Brian Darcy directed, right? No, no. He did Made in Italy. He did Made what's his name? Brian Darcy directed, right? No, no. He did Made in Italy.

He did Made in Italy. Okay. James Darcy. Oh, okay. James Darcy directed Made in Italy, which is him and his son. Yes. And that's like getting over the loss of your wife movie that's clearly about Natasha Richardson. Right.

And so he is dipping his toe back into it a little bit yes and i can see a world where i thought this might happen with silence but i think that movie was a little too alienating for oscar voters but like right where he he has some kind of commanding serious performance and gets his oscar i i really thought that was going to happen with silence yeah and even like seeing that movie now he did mess it up a little bit by doing a press tour where he couldn't stop talking about how he wanted to beat up a black guy not the best press tour of all time i will say yeah right yeah so so i i do feel like post that everyone is sort of like you know what why doesn't liam just make movies where right he's he's a snowplow driver and he has to get revenge or he's a grave digger

and he has to get right like where it's just it did feel like people were like we don't want you to not work but we want you to not try to get oscars from us right now because we just need time like sure why don't you go chill for a second so right we don't want to have to deal with you but but it's also the time the timeline is like he shoots taken like two years before it comes out in the States because it comes out everywhere else in the world a year earlier. Like it was like a leftover movie released Super Bowl weekend that had already played everywhere else in the world that Fox had delayed like for over a year. And then that movie comes out is this fucking like colossal hit out of nowhere. And then truly i think it's a month or two later than tasha richardson dies like those two events are so close together

that this film that he had made two years earlier suddenly becomes like an american blockbuster then his wife dies and he said as much in interviews where he was just like i i just started working like i didn't want to be alone with my thoughts you know how dare you do his voice when he's talking about his dead wife i have to do a movie i need to work but but he just i think took every fucking script that was offered to him you know and it was a combination of him doing like all of these euro thrillers the best of which are the jamie colette sar, and also doing like shit like Clash of the Titans and what's the other one I'm thinking of? Like things where it's like this is a team where it's like, can you give us some prestige in our big action movie? Yeah.

Anyway, I love Liam Neeson in this movie. He's great in this movie. In conclusion, I think Liam Neeson started not doing serious movies because he didn't want to deal with his emotions. And everyone was offering him all these silly action movies. And then he got addicted to being paid that much money to do those movies. He must be so rich. He must be so fucking rich. And then when he's, you know, Widows, he's so good in Widows.

But he'd be good at widows. But he'd be good in the fog. He'd be good in the fog. He'd be a great Captain Blake in a movie that was all about Captain Blake. That's how I want Captain Blake to sound. Also, I just always mention this. Anytime Liam Neeson comes up a conversation, Liam Neeson, I believe,

is the exact same age as my father. So anytime I watch a Liam Neeson action movie, I imagine my father doing the same scenes. How old is your dad? How old are they? Let's see. Liam Neeson is now 69 years old. Yeah.

Yeah. Nice. Shut the fuck up. Yeah. My dad and Liam Neeson, both the naughtiest age. That is crazy. That's the thing.

Like, my dad should not be in action movies. I know that fundamentally. And then I watch Liam Neeson and I'm like, yeah, this guy's good. He's good. Have you ever seen him in person? He is so tall. He's, David, it's beyond him being tall. He's just one of the biggest people in the world.

He looks like a tree. Like, not like a station. He looks like an ant or whatever. No, he's like a human Groot. He's like, his hands are the size of my entire chest. That's crazy. Can I just pick you up like this? Yeah.

Yes, yes, you could. With one hand. Nia, Nia, you're miming two hands. He could do it with one hand. He could just go like this. Like i was a fucking bottle of soda grabbing you by the crotch and no no like this like this like this yeah like an ice cream cone um yes so wait david can i ask you a question about the fog of course why what do you what's your favorite part what my favorite part of the fog is yeah it's probably the well i really i mean you're gonna laugh at me but it's probably the end i

love the glowing cross i love the weird yeah build of them you finally see them see like i also love the keep which has a similar vibe to the fog uh i was going red eye enemy you know weird have you seen the keep near i love glowing red eyes i've never seen the keep the key is a more messy movie than this right obviously but but the keep and fog both have that vibe that i just find very intoxicating yes Yes. So I like all this. My favorite individual sequence that just I think about all the time is the sign starting to leak water and bursting into flame and stuff

just because it doesn't make any damn sense. And it happens in the daylight and that kind of makes it all the creepier because it's like, what all the creepier um because it's like what are the rules of this like the sign can change shape and like i found a piece of gold and then it turned into a sign and then the sign started dripping and then it got dry again yeah it's it's super cool uh the fog i i just you know it's just good vibes from the fog just good good noises good sounds good colors good vibes all i really need um much more than i need to be like truly scared out of

my wits what what then you reminded me because like speaking of the rules of this like another thing that came to mind is the dead body getting up and walking and then trying to stab Jamie Lee Curtis. And then he carves three. How does that work? Carves a three. Well, he's got to tell him there's three to go. I missed that. Three.

Okay. Three down, three to go. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. He's keeping count. He's the official tally guy. A couple things I want to point out.

Tom Atkins' character in this movie is named Nick Castle. Nick Castle is one of Carpenter's big, big collaborators going back to Dark Star, but plays, is credited as playing The Shape in Halloween. He's Michael Myers. He plays Michael Myers.

But he goes on to do a lot of things, including he's one of these jack-of trades who's done like kind of everything in the industry. But he directs Last Starfighter, my favorite, but also co-writes Escape from New York or he gets some credit on that. Yes, he he co-writes that. some credit on that. Yes, he co-writes that. Anyway, this also, Blake, for the little time he is visible on screen,

is played by Rob Bottin, who is another legend, a makeup legend, works with... He did all the Verhoeven movies, right? He did Robocop and total recall and all that right yes he becomes rick baker's apprentice uh and lives with him and works on uh king kong and star wars with botine and then uh this really gets him started and then the howling the next year like makes him a name guy but rob botine yes like one of the best practical special effect guys ever

tommy wallace is in it too which is who that's the guy who made halloween three like he he just lays late call it laziness or or just call it him being cute or whatever he just calls characters after his friends who he just made movies with i have a i have a friend whose name i'm gonna put in every movie really have you have you put them in every film so far yeah her name is jane g wow well no so she missed out on on little woods but i have an officer minarath is one of my friends but jane g is gonna be in every she's a candy man um one line role okay by a comedian named tian tran who's fucking hilarious uh so she's yeah she's a candy man um one line role okay by a comedian named tian tran who's fucking hilarious uh so she's yeah she's your little like your little button that for people to notice or

whatever yeah she's my little boop yeah right is this an exclusive scoop that jane g will appear in the marvels yes it is wow huge wow okay huge new mcu character huge new mcu character yeah the hierarchy of power is about to change everywhere in the mcu thanos galactus jng jng trumps them all one name makes them shake in terror um i'm trying to there's nothing else really in the notes that are did you like um the shots of just fog rolling in david yes do you have a favorite shot of fog i love fog i love that fog was quite thick i for what i'm from i'm from england i'm from foggy london town oh boy yes uh uh you know i there's nothing i like the rain i like the the atmosphere of fog maybe that's why i love this movie so much you you like dampness you like you like things wet

is what you're trying to say are you a damp dude david damn i'm a damp oh shit damp dude 2021 help help okay i gotta say i really like the energy that carpenter is bringing out and then we've only recorded a couple of these so far but i i really feel like uh ben's ben's he's empowered he's empowered oh man no it feels good i was thinking the same thing i was like ben is like i'm here he's like hello to be fair as we mentioned off like on nia's last episode ben was a volleyball he wasn't swinging in as much by a volleyball right so this is a pretty stark contrast but also i'll say this like i i saw someone on the reddit or something say like oh i missed the presence of ben now that ben isn't always on the show ben is on the record i would say 95 percent of the time the thing people don't

understand about ben is very often we'll finish a record and he'll go that was going well the guest was so good i didn't feel like i needed to butt in i didn't say anything like he's just sitting there silently well so what are you trying to say Ben okay well hey that was Griffin and well I'm in a lot of trouble but I'm going to try and talk myself out of it and say it's also because we'll have two

guests on and it's just like a lot of voices over Zoom and you know it's just like you want to like you don't want to interrupt the dance that you're seeing of course but it's also like sometimes you're not that taken with the movie that's what i was gonna say you're not that pumped up about it like well we'll finish recording and ben will go like i was gonna do a bit where i was gonna say this about this dumb fucking movie but i didn't even feel like doing

it whatever whereas i feel like the shift in energy is ben loves all of these movies he's very excited about the fact that we're covering this filmmaker not only that ben is like doing research like ben is like coming to the table with episode with like fucking notes and books and shit i got a fucking book that is right so he's like jumping in because he's got shit to say yeah man yeah i'm so i have text i do i have context because they're connoisseurs and I can never live up to it so I've got a dang book so yeah yeah I should have brought a fucking book I don't know half the things you guys are talking

about if I'm being honest what we have look we have researchers we have researchers yeah I'm like what is film what is movie what is movie um should we play the box office game Griffin Like, what is film? What is movie? What is movie? Should we play the box office game, Griffin,

as we wind down this episode? Because I know Nia has to go pretty soon. Yes. I feel so bad. I genuinely was looking at the timing of your other episodes, and they're all like 17 hours long, and I was like, oh, no. I saw one that was three and a half hours. I was like, what?

Nobody needs to do podcasts that are that long. Look. Podcasts should all be 90 minutes long. God, I'm going to get so dragged for that take. Nia, David is going to send you an edible arrangement for keeping this episode short. You have no idea. He has a baby now.

He has things to do. Yeah. I do have things to do. do yeah she slept through the night last night oh that's good i hope i don't listen back to that being like well that was the only time that happened uh i was i was gonna say this is i'm trying to get this timeline correct uh the fog remake and the assault on precinct 13 remake both come out the same year. I guess Assault on Precinct 13 comes out first. Comes out in the winter and this comes out in the fall.

The Assault on Precinct 13 remake is totally solid. I like that movie. Yeah, yes. It's entirely solid. It's written by... Yeah, I remember liking it when I saw it. I mean, it's got a fucking great cast. Everyone in it is good and overqualified.

James DeMonaco wrote it, who did all the purge movies uh and also wrote the the most terrifying of all american horror films jack did right jack he wrote francis ford coppola's jack no film scares me more than jack um that movie was right that was sort of like it wasn't like a big hit or whatever but everyone was was fine with that movie was right that was sort of like it wasn't like a big hit or whatever but everyone was was fine with that movie it got fine reviews modest january performer it got fine reviews everyone's good on it then the fucking fog like stunk up the joint and people were sort of asking carpenter because you have two in one year like what's the deal with these remakes and he'd be like i just like show up and i wave and i say hi and then i walk away like because i do want that there's that quote that's so good i mean it is you know

it's classic i mean yeah you do it yeah unless it's a different one that you're thinking of no it's the one so people were like why aren't you more protective of these movies like if you're if you're not showing up if you're not invested he went well there's an interesting thing that happens every time they ask if they can remake one of my movies. They call me up, they ask me, I say yes, and then I hold out my hand and a bunch of money just drops into it.

This is the line I have where they're like, why are you letting them remake Escape from New York again? Which I guess that still hasn't happened, but that keeps getting announced, right? He says, I love it if they're like why why are you letting them remake escape from new york again which i guess that still hasn't happened but that keeps getting announced right right he says i love it if they're gonna pay me money if they pay me it's wonderful if they don't pay me i don't care i think it's unfair if they don't pay me i think everyone should pay me why not i'm an old guy now and i need money send me money yeah i mean like this take fog is the only one where i remember him being like well you know the original film i had such a limited budget and i wasn't happy with how it turned out hopeful

it could be improved on right there's like a reason to remake this and since then he's just been like pay me yeah you know what's a shame the thing remake or it wasn't a remake technically which they reveal at the end or whatever this that could have been really interesting because that's like really the best way to go into that it's like oh let's just figure out what the fuck that dog was doing before and those swedish people like that's cool and then my recollection recollection of it is like despite the great cast and you know it just didn't kind of do what needed to do but like that could have been really great do you know the absurd thing about that movie? They were very adamant that they were like,

this is going to be the movie to bring practical effects back. It's the thing. It's like the most famous practical effects movie ever. Right. They shot the whole fucking movie with makeups and animatronics. You can go on YouTube. You can see the tests. They look unbelievable.

They shot it that whole way and then the studio went this looks corny and made them redo a CGI that sucks because like you look at Evil Dead which is all all that shit's practical or like 95% of it's practical and the rest of it's like you know right and like that is why that I think that worked really well like anyway I could go on and on totally I just feel like I think they also like cut that movie down, but I feel like there is a, a cut of that thing prequel that is good. That's good.

Yeah. Yeah. I, I don't doubt it. At the very least is visually impressive. Uh, cause yeah, the tests that are out there are amazing,

but it is interesting that people seem to kind of keep getting things fundamentally wrong when they remake Carpenter or sequelize it or whatever. I mean, like, the David Gordon Green Halloween is, like, I feel like the first one that's, like, a hit and was well-liked and approved by horror fans. And that was the one where they got him more involved where they sort of score and he's i didn't score at school right consulted him and also that right right that movie is such a loving i don't think it's like completely successful but it's so it's so obsessed with halloween with you know john carpenterpenter's Halloween and much less with the you know Halloween mythos and universe or whatever right yeah

let's do the box office game Griffin come on yes yes no that was all I wanted to say that was the end of the things I wanted to say and I just very quickly wanted to say that John Carpenter appears the beginning of this film and he looks pretty good we got that wrong in fucking trivia once

and it will haunt me forever. Do you remember that, David? There was a video round that was director cameos in movies and we got that wrong. Did we say it was a different movie or did we just say it was a different guy? I think we said it was a different movie

and I can't remember which one. Right, right, right. Yeah, it will haunt me for fucking ever. I just want to correct my earlier quote. The exact quote is uh what carpenter does in these remakes well i'm a producer but i come in and say hello to everybody go home i'm just a fucking bum okay he's a bum oh i can't wait till i have that the number one ironically at the box office on february 1st okay 1980 is a slasher movie is a total uh halloween ripoff i've never

heard of it huh um it's set at a boarding house and there's a homicidal killer on the loose huh stalking some some coeds it just like sounds like uh fucking any of these things oh i've seen this i know this movie i know exactly what it really what is it nia i've seen it i've seen it wait no then you would know you would have heard this movie um i can't remember the name of it though um um no wait no you guys would have heard this movie i'm thinking i think i'm thinking about the criterion movie which obviously would not have made any money so but it's at a boarding house what movie is i can't remember what the line thinking it was called well are you talking about what's it called the slumber party massacre no i'm thinking of

carnival lost souls no that's not that's not a boring well this movie is called the silent scream oh yeah i truly have never heard of that oh it was successful the successful indie you know release a successful Halloween ripoff you should clarify it is not the anti-abortion 1984 film the silent scream which is the first thing that pops up when you google it no that is the first result that shows up

a very upsetting poster Jesus Christ no it is not that it is not it is just some you, I don't know. It's a slasher movie. Wow. Okay. That's number one at the box office.

It's doing great. Number two at the box office is a very iconic movie of the year. We're going to have some good box office games, Griffin, I'm realizing. Yeah. good box office games griffin i'm realizing like yeah um uh it's uh i believe i think it's i think it's the first hollywood studio movie to show like it stars penis i'm almost what is it american gigolo it's american gigolo yeah i don't think there's any movie that had shown peen at least not like star i mean definitely a landmark film in in on-screen pain yeah it's also just a great movie obviously just very you know the giorgio armani suits and all

that and like the you know the the whole mood very uh early 80s um what's next uh number three it's then it's the best picture winner gr Griffin. Number three, the best. Picture winner of 1979 is Kramer vs. Kramer. Yeah. And the number one movie of 1979. It just will never stop being astounding to think of that movie doing endgame numbers. Yes, it totally did. The number four is, okay, it's a star-driven movie.

It's not a movie. I mean, I've heard of it. I've never seen it. It's from a major director, but I feel like it's sort of a forgotten entry for these guys. It's a sort of like comedy drama. It's a Western, like a modern Western. It's about like an old rodeo guy who is retired

and is trying to figure out his life. What? All right. I'm going to tell you the stars. Two guys in it? Okay. It's Robert Redford and Jane Fonda. Electric Horseman?

Electric Horseman. Okay. Which is directed by who, Griffin? Sidney Pollack? Yes. Not a movie I've ever seen. No. Wow, thank you.

It's a great title. Good title. Good stars. It was a hit. It made like 60 million bucks. Like it was not a nothing, but I feel like it's just sort of, you know,

not well known for any of these three people. Like it's one of their better entries. I got this trivia question wrong recently, which is, what is the name of the most recent collaboration of their better entries. I got this trivia question wrong recently, which is, what is the name of the most recent collaboration between Fonda and Redford?

Oh, it's that, um, rom-com, right? Exactly. But the question is, can you pull that title in a million years? No. No.

I knew exactly what movie it was and I was like, I truly think you could give me one million years of concentrated effort and I would not remember the title of that film. I've also seen that movie. Me too.

Oh, it's called Our Souls at Night. Never, never would pull that. Wow, love it. Never. Yeah, I don't think I could pull that one. I got this wrong two weeks ago, and I already forgot. Well, his last film ever, of course, is Avengers Endgame. No, Avengers Endgame's his last film ever of course is avengers endgame no avengers endgame's his last credit ever yes love it's old man and the gun after our souls at night and then

him saying hail hydra that's hilarious bless his heart because he was very purposeful about it being the old man in the gun um yes the old man in the gun is like the total swan song movie yeah yeah that's funny and then uh and then right he just sort of pops in an end game being like whoa what's that over there hey lycra who's this loki guy yeah that's like lowry told us he had shot end game but it was top secret and they were promoting old man of the gun and the only question anyone wanted to ask him was so is this it bob are you retired and like they couldn't answer it yeah right they were promoting Old Man and the Gun, and the only question anyone wanted to ask him was, so is this it, Bob? Are you retired? And they couldn't answer it. Yeah, right.

That's funny. They were like, well, you know. That's so funny. Number five at the box office, Griffin, is an action film. It's, I think, fairly early in this man's career. Okay. He's an action star,

but one of the sillier ones chuck norris it's chuck norris of course had to be yes um and i think it's like i it's maybe it's maybe it's like second action movie you know where he's like the star delta force it's not delta force okay it's not the octagon what a good time it's not silent rage uh-huh i'm trying to think of truck norris movies uh the enforcer is that what that movie's called it's called you're close it's called a force of one okay okay uh and he is i believe the titular force of one the tagline he hears the silence he hears the darkness he's the only one who can stop the killing david how funny would it be if he wasn't the force of one if you watch the movie i can't believe we let him

get away with his career for so long but i mean i believe the plot of the force of one is that there's a serial killer and the police decide to recruit a karate champion to find the serial killer like it's where they're still trying to be like so let's explain why this guy like kicks people it's it's the way fast and furious has to justify cars being the necessary uh right tool for everything yeah to go off of what you said we let uh chuck norris get away with way too much a lot a lot for far i was watching walker texas range with my grandma yeah we just i don't know we gave him so much power yeah yeah so much power uh yeah some other hits we got chapter two uh the james conn neil simon movie oh wow we've got uh the jerk uh-huh uh we've got the fog obviously which opens number 10 and we've got fatso the um

dom deluise movie right yeah Bancroft's only film. And Bancroft directed it, right? You jumped over the fact the Fog opened at number 10? Yeah, but that's how it is back then. But even still. This is not an opening weekend thing. I know it's a platform, but even still. No, but the Fog was a huge hit.

It made $20 million on a $1 million budget. It was exactly the same vibe of Carpenter, where it's just like, the man, you know, he profits. Like it's all profit with this guy. Yeah, sure. That's why he keeps getting to do stuff. And we'll never let him get a bigger budget ever. Right, exactly.

But I'm excited because now we start to get into the satire a little bit, you know? What's your next one? Are you going in order? Yeah, we're going in order. It's Escape from New York next. Nice, yeah. I love the Kurt Russell-Carpenter collaboration. It's the best.

It's great. I like that tongue in the cheek. They are perfect for each other. Yes, right. And Kurt Russell just has the exact type of humor that really, I think, makespenters work saying also just, I'm sure as we'll talk about for several weeks in a row now, an insane face.

Like in terms of its beauty. Yeah. Just young Kurt Russell. That face is just unbelievable. And you're like, slap a beard on it. Incredible. Shave it even better.

It's like, it's all good. Yeah. He totally looks like his name could be Snake, too. He wears that shit well. He's one of those actors who looks like he was

production designed. His jaw, especially, looks like it was production designed. Someone came in and built that with hydraulics. We'll talk about Kurt Plenty, obviously on this show. There's so much Kurt talk. Nia, thank you so much for carving out some time

to come back on the show. Thank you for having me again. You're the best. No, you're the best, Griffin. Please. Oh, guys, geez. No, you hang up. No, Ben's the best.

Ben's the best. We can all agree. Ben's the best. He is the best no ben's the best ben's the best we can all agree he is the best i am the best thank you nia is there anything you want to plug are you working on anything these days what do you have anything going on um please go see uh candy man when it comes out next month but don't at me in theaters in's exciting. Candyman is in theaters this weekend that this episode is dropping. It lines up perfectly. It's coming out this weekend. So go see it. So go see Candyman.

Next November, please go see this Marvel movie. I'm sure you won't get any advertisements about it. No, you're going to have to really hit the podcast hard to promote that. Right. I literally feel like i became a director so i could do podcasts that's my career path come back anytime anytime please um and i gotta say in addition to saying thank you for coming back on the show nia thank you all for listening now i'm speaking to the listener. And thank you to

Marie Barty for her social media. Thank you to AJ McKeon, Alex Barron for our editing, Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for our artwork. You know what just happened? My brain just started farting and I started I almost started thanking people from a different podcast because I've been listening to

other podcasts too much. Oh wow. What are you listening to? My brain was farting because I went to college with Marie Barty and I was like, what? New member of the family. I've been listening to Podcast the Ride and I almost shouted out the team in Forever Dog. So thank you to Joe Cilio for helping to make other good podcasts that our podcasts have nothing to do with. Thank you to JJ Birch for our research. Lee Montgomery and the Great American Novel

for our theme song. Go to blankies.reddit.com for some real nerdy shit. And you can go to our Shopify page for some real nerdy merch. You go over to patreon.com slash blank check, blank check special features. We'll have covered Elvis and Somebody's Watching Me, which are important early works of Carpenter.

So if you want to hear those, sign up for that. Just one tier, five bucks a month. Tune in next week for Escape from New York. All killer, no filler, this lineup. Pretty much. Yeah. And as always, Ben is fundamentally not afraid of fog no he's the best though we love him thanks guys