Free With Ads - Darkness Falls, with Rebecca Brayton

Episode Date: October 7, 2026

It's spooky season and this week we invited Rebecca Brayton of WatchMojo to the pod to watch Darkness Falls, a loosely tooth fairy based horror movie that a fake reviewer said "runs rings around the Ring." Tune in next week when our movie will be... The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996)-----Check out WatchMojo now! Specifically, the top 10 owls video.Subscribe to Emily's new YouTube Channel The Anti-Craft, coming soon!Matt will be opening for Bassem Youssef at The Wiltern in Los Angeles October 10th. Matt will be at the Philly Punch Line Comedy Club October 13 and October 14thMatt will be at the Bell House in Brooklyn on October 15thJordan's new comic The Amazing Venom is in comic book shops RIGHT NOW!Jordan will be at...OCTOBER 7th at Golden Apple Comics in HollywoodOCTOBER 10th at the Santa Clara City Library Comic ConFind out all of Jordan's SoCal events by following him on Instagram  Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinfreewithads

This is free with ads, the podcast that asks the question, why pay HBO max 12 bucks a month for a bunch of supernatural horror when you can go online for free and watch a supernatural horror movie about a killer tooth fairy who doesn't collect teeth or talk about teeth or even seem to care about teeth at all? She just drags random people to the ceiling and breaks their necks, I guess. You know, like the tooth fairy does. I'm Jordan Morris.

And I'm Emily Fleming. Today's movie is Darkness Falls, a ghost story that's the scariest thing in the world. If your primary fear is guttural mucusy sounds. With us as always is the super producer, the he freak Matt Lee, pitting us with those ukey, spooky drops. I'm calling the police. Police are dead. All of them?

Pretty much. What's up, guys? The police are pretty much dead. Pretty much. That was one of the quotes I wrote down. Yeah. One of many great quotes from a great movie. So many quotable lines.

I mean, when you're talking about quotable movies, Anchorman, Clue, of course, and darkness. I do want to talk about Clue, by the way. Oh. Hey, in case you hadn't guessed it, we got a guest this week. First, I should say, it is the start of our Halloween season. We will be reviewing spooky-cooky movies for all October. And we got some pretty cool guests.

on the calendar as well, including today's amazing guest. She's one of the hosts behind the pop culture YouTube channel, Watch Mojo. It's Rebecca Brayton. Hi, Rebecca. Hello, thank you for having me. Yeah, thank you for being here. Thank you for being here. We're so excited to have you. We're going to talk about Darkness Falls, which is, as of this recording, streaming free with ads.

But first, we're going to get to know our guest in a segment we call Talk to Guest. Talk to guest. Rebecca, I want to ask you some things about watch Mojo. But first, I should mention that you came to us via Emily's RollerX. Y'all are pals outside of doing this podcast. You want to share a little bit about your friendship story? Yeah, I think that we met on Twitter. Wasn't that how we met?

Well, you met at me, but yes, and I appreciated it very much. Wow. Look at that. Power move. Slid into the aats. That's right. Yeah, I think it was during the pandemic. Oh, for sure. And then we started having like wine gabs where I just, I made us talk for like three hours at a time.

That sounds like Emily. Well, it's great. You need somebody else on YouTube who gets comments to write about comments with. Yeah, that's true. Yes. And read about general experiences of working in YouTube land, which all of us on this podcast. know about. One land. Everyone's favorite land. Yeah, nothing problematic about that way. I'm a straight white guy, so everybody in the comments likes me. I'm fun and relatable. And no one says

anything weird about my voice or how I look. What's that like? It's amazing. Rebecca, the privilege. Oh, you don't know. Chef's kiss. Oh, it's nice. Oh, it's nice. I wish you could experience it, but alas, I won't stop DM any weird things. Rebecca, a watchmojo is such a cool YouTube channel. I think it's one that like everybody has come across. Y'all do so many cool pop culture lists. It's like movies, but it's also music, it's video games. It's how to cut sandwiches.

It's breakfast tier lists. Can you tell us about some of your favorite lists you've ever done on Watchmojo? Oh, I'm so glad you asked. Okay, every time I have the chance to plug top 10 pop culture owls, I will talk it up. It is my favorite list that we've done. Owls? Yeah, owls. It's very pretty.

Tutsy Pop Owl, the owl from Harry Potter. Oh, shit. You know, the owl from Jason and the Argonauts. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's a good owl, I promise. Hold on, I want to think of more owls. Is the owl from Labyrinth in there? Probably.

I don't remember. I haven't watched it. it in a while. Maybe we have to make it a top 20 now. I don't know. I didn't know that you did stuff. Like, I watch Watch Mojo like every day and listen to see if it's you or some other schmuck doing the voice. I can't think of any more owls. I'm sorry. I mean, there's the Harry Potter owl.

The owls of Gahoole. Gahoole? Secret of NIM, I was going to say we had a bad owl there. Oh, Winnie the Pooh, I think, has one. Oh, yes. A rockadoodle. There was a bad owl and that, wasn't there?

Bad owls. Yeah, Don Bluth hates owls. Yeah, he thinks the villains. So anyway, it's a good list and it's fun to think about it. And in the comments, people are horny for the owls, right? I mean, actually, everybody was just like, why are you doing this list? This is a crazy list. And that's why I plug it at every opportunity because I think it's a great list.

And I think we have had a good conversation about it. So there you go. Yeah. Lately, it's been a lot of. like RuPaul's Drag Race, which Rebecca and I both love. And so I watch any of those top 10 lists that you guys do about drag race. So yeah. Yeah, I actually even watch those myself, even though I've watched them.

Rebecca, is there a particular list where like the comments get spicy? I saw the like how to cut a sandwich one and I'm like, I bet it's a nightmare in those comments. Honestly, I didn't even read, I won't even read the comments of that video. Okay. Smart. I don't want to know. I don't want to know. One of the most recent watchmojo videos that I watched,

it was kind of for research for this pod. You had a great video on the best Tim Curry line deliveries of all time. Oh, my God. Was that a fun video to put together? Yes, I ranked it, actually. And I never rank lists anymore. But I was very excited about that one because Tim Curry is very important to me. And that is why I wanted to talk about Clue.

You missed it. You missed the episode. I am so upset. I know. This is the thing. So you didn't give me clue, which is one of my top three movies. Oh, sorry. It is a formative movie for me.

I went as Halloween with my friends as the Clue characters. I'm in a Clue documentary. Wow. Yeah. But anyway, Darkness Falls is fun. And you've murdered Mr. Body. Wait, who were you for Halloween? Depending on which ending.

Depending on which ending you're considering. Oh, come on. Oh, come on. Oh, hell yes. that dress is like fucking, I immediately went online after watching that looking up chiffon shawls.

Yes. And it's like it floats in air. There's nothing. I can't find anything that like kind of floats the way her shawl did. It's very frustrating. But I know. Anyway,

I watched that movie constantly as a child. Oh, well. And I guess since we're here at the start of spooky season, I guess I should ask, how are you with horror movies? Do you have any favorites?

Do you have things you absolutely will not watch? Yeah, what are your horror movie tastes like? I love scream. I'm a scream girly. Hell, yeah. But I am a not, I am a nightmare on Elm Street's too scared. I can't do it. It's just the whole like you can't do anything you're asleep.

Okay. It gets me. I mean shades of that in this movie, there's some like forced staying awake that has to happen. Yeah, you could say that. Upsetting to you. Not really no. I kind of feel like this character who also is burned You know it's kind of like Freddie Krueger's fuck girl on the side

I kind of think oh interesting I never thought of that the tooth fairy might be his side piece his his situation Lady Lady Ferry yeah Lady Freddy kind of lady fairy Bride of Fratery Frigruder Bride of Krueger It's funny when I was watching this movie I was like I don't want to use the word derivative but You have to for lack of a better term

This movie No. But so I started thinking about all the different movies that it pulled from. And I actually started listening to the audio commentary with one of the writers and like the director and producers or whatever. And they named like five different movies that they referenced, I guess, in like the first five minutes. And I was like, at least you know you're doing it. Yeah. And it's one of the writers, I think is one of the writers of Zodiac, which we've done on this show.

At least that's like, well, hey, the good zodiac? That's a good. That's a good. That's a good. Is there a bad zodiac out there that's just like darkness falls? I don't know. You know, that's such a fun, that's such a fun like lesson in, hey, if you just keep at something, you will get better. Yes, that's a good lesson.

Yeah, it's more a lesson about how Hollywood works, which is that you will get paid to punch up pretty much anything. Or you will have something that you wrote that's really good, be absolutely destroyed by a studio. There's really no way to know whether or not someone wrote something good. Yeah, who is responsible for the movie? That's fun. Yeah, impossible to tell. Well, yes, thank you, Rebecca, for doing your research and listening to the commentary about this thing. You went above and beyond.

I can't wait to hear what you, and everyone here on the Zoom call has to say about darkness falls. But before we do, we should let you know that this movie mentions suicide. So if that's not something you want to hear about, we're going to play a little music. and give you a chance to find another episode. We're back. This is Free With Ads. We're here with Rebecca Brayton, and we are talking about Darkness Falls. Had anybody seen this before going into it? Nope, not at all.

Not even a little bit. It has been mentioned a lot. I've seen people mention it as like a very bad horror movie, and it has been free with ads on YouTube since we started this podcast. And I've been trying, and it's like, I mean, it goes away, but then it comes right back, like, as an option. So I just was like, I keep hearing about this movie and that it's super bad. And I didn't know the right moment to suggest it. And then I went, oh, Rebecca's in a Clue documentary.

Let's have her do Darkness Falls. Sure. Yes. Yes. Perfect. Wonderful timing. I mean, is there ever a bad time to talk about Darkness Falls? I don't know.

Well, yeah, let's start talking about this. thing. It starts with a big old, big old exposition dump, talking about the history of the town of the aptly named town of Darkness Falls. There was an old woman living in this town who would give local children money for their teeth. She was scarred in a fire and she could only go out at night wearing a creepy porcelain mask. Some children in town disappeared. She was hanged for it. And then later we find that the children were actually alive. But she, her spirit cursed, darkness falls. And, you know, pretty cool story.

I wish maybe we watched a movie about that. Yeah, that would be a story of the movie. Seems like a movie I want to see. Yeah. I love that they started with like, oh, here's some background bullshit. And it's like, no, this is a story. The rest is not story. Well, funny enough.

He got to learn about Kyle in his flashlight collection. Oh, how fascinating the story of a... Well, even more frustrating. So the marketing team for this movie was like the same that did Blair Witch projects. So they tried. They did a short film documentary that they put on sci-fi channel, much like they did with Blair Witch. And I watched it. It's like a 10-minute documentary.

And they interview people in the... this Australian town and there's like a voiceover. And there's a lot more to the story in that. And I'm like, wow, I never would have known that from the movie I just watched. Sure. So the marketing didn't go as well as Blair Witch did because this is clearly not meant to be a real story. Yeah.

Like it's not filmed like point POV like it was for Blair Witch. Yeah. It doesn't quite work the same way. One is like a fake documentary. The other one is making a fake documentary for a, filmed the movie. You know what? There was failures on multiple accounts. Yeah. Listen, a lot of people fucked up. Man, it's hard. You get pinned this on one person. Exactly. I would like to actually come back to the Australia thing. Oh, yes, please. Because I'm sorry to everybody in this film,

but not one of the American accents was convincing to me. I know. Wasn't it crazy making? I'm watching this movie going, just be Australian or British or whatever it is. But it's set in Australia is what's crazy. No, it's not. But the documentary that they made. That's crazy. I thought it took place in Maine. No.

Oh my God. But the movie is not. The movie. Well, the documentary that was made for this movie as a precursor for it. I know, but they made it. No, but the filmmakers made it for you to watch before you watch the movie in theaters. In case you wanted to see the Australian version, they really fucked this up, guys. Yeah, they did.

Really fucked this up. Anyway, so we start, we get that, we kind of promising info dump. And then we get a kid, a kid in kind of maybe set in the maybe 80s or something, 70s or 80s. He has lost his last tooth. And that is supposedly when the tooth fairy comes for you. How old is this fucking kid? He should have lost his last tooth a long time.

I thought that too. I was like 13. These guys. Yeah, I Googled. and it says you can lose your last tooth around 13. I know, it seems like it's, it's just talking about school dances and losing his teeth. I know.

Kissing a girl for the first time and losing a tooth in the same night does not seem like they should lie up. Exactly. It made no sense to me. And apparently no sense to anyone else. Yeah, exactly. I learned to pee in the toilet. Oh my God.

I actually pulled out all of my baby teeth within like a year. because I like of elementary school. Okay. No, I was like in, I think I was in like, gambling debts. No, I just, sold some blood. I just hated being in school so much that I would fuck with my teeth and then be like, I have to go to the bathroom. My tooth is all bloody. Wow.

And so I could leave the classroom and just hang out in the bathroom as long as I wanted to. And I did it all in like one year. And then my teeth grew in straight and I didn't have to have braces. Oh shit. I should have done that. Good scam. Fuck. I was going to ask if anyone had a tooth fairy incident, so I guess that counts.

Yeah, I got killed by one. Did you guys get money? For unclear reason, she just grabbed me and took me to the ceiling. But you can't look at her. I got change. I don't know if that happened. But I got like. I got a dollar.

I got like four quarters. A dollar? How old are you? I was like in third grade and I got a dollar for all of them. Geez, I don't think of it. I got four quarters and I was a little like, I don't know, I felt trashy. I feel like there should be negotiations with the tooth fairy. Clearly not this one, but I think that bigger teeth should be worth more money, don't you think?

Yeah. If you get the big ones in the back, that's like a $5 bill right there. It's a molar. Give me $10 for that. What the fuck did our parents do with our teeth? Oh, I still have mine. They're in my house. Why?

I don't know, but they're in my house. I've seen them recently. Your parents saved them? Yeah, for cloning, I guess. I don't know. I think my mom has a couple in a little like memory box. Yeah, I probably will do that too. I'll have to ask my parents about that because I'm intrigued.

I have one tooth that it was a wisdom tooth. And I went and got it taken out at a dental school. And usually they don't let you keep a tooth. But they were like, yeah, I guess. I got to keep my, I got to keep a couple of wisdom. He gave it to me in a jar. And I was like, sick. Yeah.

And I was like, oh, this is awesome. I don't know what I'm going to do with them, but I'm glad to have them. And I lost them. You could do some spells on yourself. Yeah, that's true. I never thought about that. Put a little hex on yourself. Jordan was like, you grew up a little religious.

Did your mom think the tooth fairy was like antichrist? Oh, yeah. So the devil? Yeah. No, we did tooth fairy and we did like Santa and stuff. Yeah, we weren't like Christian scientists. Oh, okay. Jehovah's witnesses or anything like that.

Well, I think Santa's one thing, but the tooth fairy is like kind of even more spooky, supernatural, because it deals with teeth. And it's like this lady, you know, our tooth fairy lady was like giving children coins for their teeth. And I'm like, if I were a parent in this town, I'd be like, why the fuck do you know my kids lost their teeth? This is really weird. This lady's weird. Sure.

I think they probably hung her. They were gunning for her. anyway. Yes, yes. She was the Ed Sheeran of the town. They were like, get rid of her. Get rid. How can we cancel this woman?

And back then, canceling men, they hung you in the town. That's right. Cancelling was way worse. So, yeah, this kid, he's losing his last tooth. He's talking about inviting Cat to the dance. And Cat, wouldn't you know it? We get a little jump scare. She's coming in through his window.

It's kind of a reverse Clarissa explains it all. I was just going to say that. Oh, yeah. Yeah, fun. Sam, Sam would always come in through her window and it would go, bhaer, we're going. Yep. That kid's cool. So he, so, so the kid, Kyle, he can't, he doesn't quite get out asking her to the dance. She kind of anticipates it and says she will go to the dance.

She's already, like, called her mom and told her she's going to the dance. They, they kiss. He's got a mouth full of blood. And then she says, first time shouldn't taste like blood. it should be sweet. I mean, aw, right.

That's another quote I wrote down. Yeah, so weird and gross. What does that mean? Like, you should taste sweet? Yeah, I guess, I mean,

I don't know. What does that mean is a good question for this movie? Yeah. What does any of it mean? Yeah. So, you know,

that's, she says that. Maybe don't hurt me. Exactly. Yeah, I know. It's like something that, you know, maybe the gothiest kid

in the world, would say she's wearing like a drug rug and jeans. So who's this character? Who cares? Anyway, so he goes to sleep and then we start hearing disgusting mucus noises. That's right.

That means that the tooth fairy is close, but sometimes it's when she's not close. There's just occasionally a bed of gross mucus noises in this movie. They love to squelch. It's a big squelter. It's a squelchy movie. I wonder what is my

more unsettling, the squelching from this or the weird buzzing that the piranha made in piranha. Yeah, it's a good question. It's less annoying than the piranha one, I'd say. But it's also just like, yeah, it's grosser. Why did this, why did this character, this tooth fairy character,

have to make this noise? Also, there's a lot of jump scares in this movie and they are all loud. Were there? And for me, there was. I did not get scared. Oh, fuck. There's only jump scares. It's the only scary thing about this movie. was random jump scare.

And they're loud jump scares. And I'm like, what, I would love to see a quiet jump scare. Like, somebody just pops out and goes, hey. Yeah. It could be at a library. Someone's talking at a library. And the library goes, shh. Uh-oh.

Yeah. You close the medicine cabinet. And then right behind you is a guy going to kill your mom. I'll kill your mom. Oh, my God. They killed the mom. I was like, that much kid. Yeah, mommy.

Yeah. Yeah. So the tooth fairy. she's coming for this kid. You're not supposed to look at her. So he's like hiding under the covers. That's a Santa thing. She's like copying Santa.

Yeah. Because you're not supposed to see Santa. Because if you see Santa, then he kills you. He kills your mom. He takes your mom up to the ceiling and breaks her neck. And then he kills your mom. So, yeah. So he manages to like avoid seeing the tooth fairy.

But then not. Okay. If I may, I was yelling at the screen profusely during this scene. He was not. effectively hiding. No, he wasn't trying hard enough. He was not trying hard enough. A girl would have tried harder.

I'm just going to say that. Yes, absolutely. And also, as far as I could tell, the rules were, if you don't look at the tooth fairy, then you're fine, which to me says, close your eyes. Yes. That's the whole rule. Put on a sleep mask. What are the rules?

That's a good question. God, I know. What are the rules? I almost don't want to get into this because I feel it will drive us insane. Yes. I already tried. I wrote things down and I could not get the rules to make sense. God, I know.

It's like a kid who lost his tooth. Then she can get you if you look at her. But then she's just grabbing random people until. But also you can't be in the dark or you can't be in the light. Or something. So it's the light. But look. Yeah, I know.

Oh yeah. But all of those grown people have lost. their baby teeth. So I guess that's part of it. You know what they should have done? They should have had someone who still had a baby tooth for no reason. Just like, oh, it never fell out and I'm the, I'm the savior. They've got a tumor that's their twin that they absorbed that's just full of baby teeth.

It's a tooth fairy movie. No one, I was like, okay, we'll get some scenes of people pulling their own teeth or like the tooth fairy. I mean, I'm grossed out by tooth stuff, so I didn't really want to see that. but at least that would have been something. It's like the promise of the premise. This is a tooth fairy movie. Nothing with teeth happens. This kid loses a tooth at the beginning.

And then there's that dumb thing at the end where someone loses it. It's a tooth fairy movie. Have to pull out teeth. I don't know. But it's more of a burned lady who can't go out in the light is really what it is. And let you up to the ceiling and breaks your neck for some reason. Yeah. I don't think they hit the tooth fairy thing hard enough.

No. Not at all. Not at all. Like, we could come up with 10 great pitches for something to happen in a scary tooth fairy movie. And there's been other ones. There's that one with Katie Holmes that Gieramoto Toro produced where those little critters pull out your teeth. That's kind of fun. But yeah, this one of like, how do you, anyway, I don't want to go insane.

But yes, how do you have a tooth fairy movie where she doesn't do anything with teeth? Yeah, or give you money. Or give you money. There's nothing with money. There's not like trade. There's not like a scene where people. People trade her for stuff. Exactly.

Or that there's some kind of cursed gold they can exchange the purse. Sure. Yeah. Which, by the way, something cool, like the design of this witchy tooth lady banshee type thing has changed multiple times. And the guy who ultimately like created this character was the creator of the predator. Oh yeah. Stan Winston. He's super famous.

Wow. All right. Yeah. This movie had some really, really like talented, famous people involved in it. and it's just a shit show. And before they figured out, like, there were toys that came out for this character in the movie before they finished it and it had wings and stuff

because it's a fairy, like a tooth fairy. And so it would have been more like Mothman, like, prophecies looking for it. I keep thinking about the Mothman prophecies. Yes. And it feels like they could have repurposed those action figures for Mothman prophecies, maybe. It was supposed to be Doug Jones originally. Yes, that's what I saw too. Would have been great.

Okay, so the tooth fairy takes mommy. The kid goes off to a mental hospital. We cut to 12 years later in that same mental hospital or another one, whatever. There's another kid who is seeing the tooth fairy. His name is Michael. We cut to where Kyle is now. He is living in, living in Vegas. We get one exterior shot of Vegas.

He's listening to a little new metal. No, this is butt rock. Thank you. I was like, is this dad rock? What is this? I was going to ask, does anybody recognize this song? It was kind of creed, creedish.

Oh, I shazamed it. Oh, I don't remember. Hold on. I like the music in this movie. And it was so bland. I forgot the answer. Yeah, I don't even remember. I really liked the soundtrack because I also just recently created a butt rock

playlist on my phone. Yeah. And yeah, it's a lot of creed, fuel. Yeah. Oh, that's my jam. No, you can't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As the resident Canadian, don't say nickelback to me.

Listen, leader of men is one of my favorite songs. Is it called butt rock because the singer sounds like they're taking a shit? I think it's because they probably smell like butt. Yeah, I mean, sure. There's something about sweaty guys in like jeans that are a little too low. Right. But the voices. One of them sound like straining, you know.

You know. Turn her. They don't feel in my own. And you're trying to get all. the tooth fairy took my mom and now I collect flashlights that's it yeah our dude he's listening to listen to some a band who probably opened for creed at one point puddle of mud or something collection flashlights he collects flashlights constantly they never do anything it's like Chekhov's flashlight collection but it never goes on

Duracell bunnies, like, has its head cut off by the toothberry in the background. So, yeah, he's collecting flashlights, and he gets a call from this kid's sister. Wouldn't you know it? It is Cat, his crush from the cold open. She's played by Emma Cofield, Anya from Buffy. Cool to see her. In a bad wig. In a very bad wig.

And it is, I get why you want to hire someone from Buffy because you're like, we got this ratatatat dialogue. We need someone who can handle the high difficulty dialogue. They didn't give her any discernible character information. That's true. But also no one else in the movie. So it's not sexist. It's true.

No one else got to have a character trait. Do we know what happened to her parents because she was like the guardian of her brother there? Yeah, her much, much younger brother. I don't know. Yeah. We don't. Again, no story or. His parents died. Her parents just didn't want to be there.

We're going to head out. They're dead to her. We're going to head out. But yes, wouldn't you know it? Both Kyle and the little boy Michael have been drawing creepy tooth fairy photos. That thing where the kid draws creepy pictures and it's the monster from the movie. Yeah, the kid's doing that. But so is Kyle.

This came out after the ring too. I felt like this little boy was very Aiden, like, coated from the ring. Because you have this, like, shell shock face. Like, you went to the war and came back. Because kids can't cry. Do they find tortured nine-year-olds? I think it's just, that's just what they put out as a casting call looking for a traumatized child. Right.

With dark circles. Like, they nailed it. They nailed it. Yeah. So, yeah. So he, so Kyle goes, goes to help the kid. He meets Kat. And they have the crackling chemistry of two people who are just in a fender bender and are trading insurance.

Yeah. Talk about two people allergic to fucking. I know. And all the other characters are like, she's so in love with you. Yeah. I was like, when? That's a tell don't show. Yeah.

The way her mouth hangs open when you're talking. The way you guys don't look at each other through most of the movie? Yeah, you're totally right, Rebecca, about tell don't show. that's like this whole thing of like this is happening is it oh there's a there's a point at which cat is in the car or a katelyn or whatever her name is and she sees a cat and she's like oh no a cat figures and i'm like you don't need to say it though like but she did get the idea that noise of that cat i was like what the fuck cat is this and then she went a cat and i'm like oh okay good i'm glad you're sorry maybe they didn't need to say some of us need it explained

Because it just sounded like, Rahr! Like, it was like, is it a mountain lion? What the fuck happened? So, Kat, because she is a character who,

who rejected a childhood love. She is, of course, dating a scumbag. She's dating a guy named Larry, who's like a lawyer. Larry the lawyer. Larry the lawyer. And then so he is very insistent

that Kyle come out with him to the bar. Kyle, like, multiple times says, I don't drink, I don't drink, but goes anyway. And Larry just keeps, like, handing him beers. He even, like, shows Larry his, like, medication, but he brings him a beer anyway. Larry's a weird guy. And then, but, like, the whole town thinks that he, Kyle killed his mom. So everybody's, like, being mean to him in this bar. There's a, there's a bully who, like, attacks him in the woods.

And he attacks him in the woods. And he goes, these are my woods. You own, these are your woods? Woods. All the woods is mine. That guy was cool. That guy was cool. I know.

Yeah, I'm like, let's see a movie about this guy who thinks he owns the woods. But why does he care if Kyle killed his mother? Yeah, why does he want to fight him for it? Yeah, I don't get it. Why is he so obsessed? I'm sorry. We're supposed to like just, we're supposed to somehow be on his side, I guess? Or no, I guess we're not.

But it's just a very strange thing where he's like, oh, yeah, there's that guy who when I was in elementary school, I heard he killed his mom. I fucking hate him. Did you know his mom? Why? Here's something that I was, I was hoping it was gonna go to eventually because, so our tooth fairy lady was ostracized from that very town. Yeah.

While she was there where people would like harass her and eventually kill her. And I was like, ooh, is he becoming? The new tooth fairy. The new tooth fairy. And there is something towards the end where fire, a potential gas fire is involved. And I was like, oh my God, he's going to become. That would be so cool.

And it did not go that way. But I don't know. Because they do put him in prison and like all this stuff. So, you know, it felt like he was, he was ostracized the same way that she was. Yeah, that would have been good. So, yeah, the tooth fairy. She starts swooping down out of these woods and grabbing people. She's pretty huge.

She's pretty long. I think she's probably the tallest person in the movie. Tallest guy. Yeah. Maybe our first. female tallest guy and maybe our first undead tallest guy. I don't know. Possibly. Who keeps up the wiki? Someone's keeping track. Someone's keeping track. Please let us know. Yeah. So like this guy, the scumbag guy dies in the woods. Everybody thinks Kyle did it. The little boy is seeing the

tooth fairy and they say they're going to put him in a sensory deprivation chamber, but it, it's like an MRI or a cat scan machine and the back is open. It's, It's like these things exist. This isn't what it is. This is something else. It was one of the strangest moments in this movie is when they kept mentioning they're going to put them in a sensory deprivation tank. And then they put him in an MRI machine. And I'm going, do you think that we don't know what an MRI machine looks like?

I just don't understand that. I don't understand where, like, did I miss a scene? How dumb is the audience for this? Also, if I was really excited for there to be a jump scare inside of that machine, because if it's dark, like, what could she fit in? You know? Right. Sure. We don't know.

Because she just appears when it's dark. Does that mean she can get in real tight? Right. I mean, she's got magic. Is she the big spoon or the little spoon? What are we thinking? A question. Wonderful question.

And also, if she's in a sensory deprivation tank and he, there's no light in there. But also, he can't see her face. I don't know. I'm going to stop myself. Yeah, it's not, it's best not to. She gives him a little kiss and then he dies. I guess. So Kyle runs in and says not to put him in the thing and he just runs around this hospital and just yells stuff.

Sorry, may I pause you? You may please, yes, Rebecca. There was a part where he goes to like a gun store. Yes. Yeah. And collects flashlights he never uses. Yes. Did you notice the off brand Johnny Cash playing?

I really need to talk about the off brand Johnny Cash. I didn't notice it. Tell us all about it. please. Okay, so it was very clearly Ring of Fire, but it was like, you know, square of burning or something. You know, like, it was really crazy.

Oh, fell into a really hot circle. Yeah, pretty much. It was exactly, it was that. You need to go back and listen. Honestly, I wouldn't ever want to tell you to go watch this movie again, but this was worth it. I got to find it. Yeah. So yes, an off-brand

off-brand Johnny Cash playing and yes, Kyle collects more flashlights that he never uses. I love it. So he's buying a gun and he has like, he's taking tons of antipsychotics and he's had multiple suicide attempts. And they're like, here, here's all these fucking guns. America, baby.

America baby. And it just made me like, the tooth fairy could take my gun for my whole cold dead hands. That's right. You can take my molars, but you never take. Take my guns. Don't tread on me, tooth fairy. Once again, as the resident Canadian can't relate. What's that like over there where you got all that?

It seems nice. Yeah, so it seems cool. Way to go, Canada. Good job for you. Good job. I hope you all choke. The cops. If I did, I'll just get a doctor to fix it for free.

For free. Lucky y'all. So, okay, the cops have Kyle. And this is kind of when the tooth fairy, yeah, just starts kind of killing. random people she'll like grab you and kind of take you to the ceiling i guess she just breaks your neck right is there any like scratches you kind of know what she does to you scratches you up that's i think drops you from a high place i do have so confused i do have why did the monsters start killing

adults all of a sudden good question yeah i mean just like no no rules anymore and yeah and it would be like have something someone steals her magic tooth and it's like oh no now she's just killing everyone but have some little explanation why she's not just getting kids who lost their teeth. And are we supposed to believe also that like this type of rampant murder has been going on since the 17 or 1800s when this first happened in this small town of Darkness Falls Maine? Like how long? Because every person he talks to, he's just like, I'm telling you, it's the tooth fair. And they're like, that old wives tale. Right.

Aren't we supposed to believe that there's been multiple murder? I mean, in this movie, we see like 30 people get murdered by the tooth fairy. At some point, the whole like disbelief thing kind of falls a little flat because you're like, she's a raptor. Like she just pounces out of the shadows, grabs you and kills you. Yes. Yeah. So again, yeah, if there were just some little thing of like, oh, someone broke the spell or someone snuck into her magic.

Both those are accidentally, you know, broke her gravestone. There you go. Matt? Perfect. That's fine. And then he turns into a tooth fairy at the end. Great. Great movie. Wonderful movie. We did it. Yeah. So the tooth fairy just starts fucking up cops.

There's like a bunch of and then it kind of goes. Pretty much all of them. Yeah. Pretty much all of them. Their guns are useless on her. They go to the hospital. I got to say the cop stuff or that whole prison scene is. It's impossible.

It's impossible to watch because he is an actor. He's got a script in front of him. I can only imagine his face when he went through the script. And there was literally 15 pages of him just saying, stay in the light. Stay in the light. Over and over and over again. People say stay in the light. Like, I wish he'd said it earlier so that we could have carried that through, that logic.

allegedly. Right. I mean, at the very least, you know, like it gave us some rule, but it gave it to us too late. And by the time they gave it to us, they hit us over the head with it. I'm like, give him another fucking line. I'm sorry. It's just really effective. People say stay in the light in this movie and they say each other's first names. Kyle, Michael, Kyle, Matt, Matt. Michael. Kyle. Stay in the light, Kyle. Stay in the light, Michael. Man the light, Matt. Mickey Mouse. Just give me the light. It's like Lou Bega. A little bit of Matt in the light. A little bit of Kyle.

Steal his teeth. A little bit of Michael in a deprivation tent. It's actually an MRI machine. Yeah, Lou Bega originally did the soundtrack. They're like, we should replace it with fuel or, stained or whatever. Anyway. Saliva.

So yeah. So let's do this. We're almost at the thrilling conclusion of darkness falls. Let's take a little break and we'll talk about it when we come back. Hey, we're back. It's free with ads. We're here with Rebecca Brayton. She's from Watchmojo.

We're talking about the tooth fairy. Oh, what is this movie called? Darkness Falls. No. Yeah, no. Darkness Falls. Whatever. Whatever.

Whatever. I'm sure it was called the Tooth Fairy at some point. I think it had like three names. I'm sure, yeah. So, okay, so the Tooth Fairy kills everybody at the police station. She starts killing people at the hospital. One of the cops, Matt, gets them and drives his plan. I guess all the power has gone out in the town.

So you can't stay in the light anymore so she can just kill whoever she wants to. But it's lightning. Does lightning count? I don't know. The word light is in it. Yeah. A question. So they drive out to the light house that has gas lamps.

And you get a little scene of them kind of trying to like light the lamp. And this bit has like a little bit of energy. Like it's definitely like more coherent and fun to watch than the rest of the movie. Yeah. And you know, I like a lighthouse as a setting like an old. Lighthouse kind of cool. Yeah. Scary, fun.

Good time. It looks cool, too. It gave it like a little bit more like and height to it because she's a floaty thing. Yeah. She doesn't walk. You know, it reminded me. A big Christmas Carol. That, but also Mama.

Did you ever see the movie Mama? No. That was a Giermo del Toro like produced thing with like Jessica Chastain. And it was in it, I think that is Doug Jones in that. But it's like floaty, distorted. tall lady. It looks like this pretty much. But yes, you're right about the floaty baby from Mother Christmas

Carol for sure. But yeah, this, this, this, yeah, again, this movie mostly takes place in just like brown and gray rooms. Like, it makes Zach Snyder movies look like the whiz. I mean, it was 2003. I don't think they had color. Yeah, I know.

But they did have camera angles. They did have camera angles. They had fisheye lenses. And for a dark movie, this had better lighting than Game of Thrones. That's true. It's a pretty light movie. I didn't struggle. That's true.

So yeah, they're fighting in the lighthouse. They turn the lantern on the ghost and they think they killed it, but they didn't. It grabs Kyle and he rips off the mask. We get to see her zombie face. And then he lights his arm on fire via the lamp and he does like a fatality, Mortal Kombat punch on her. Finish her. And she dies.

And later we get a little PS post-script scene of a I think unrelated family. The family in this, are they just a different family? Is it anybody who is in the movie? I guess. I think it's just another family in the town

that this isn't going to happen to, question. Yeah. I guess this is proof that they killed the tooth fairy and that no one wants to make a sequel to this. At first. They did.

At first, they wanted to. I don't know what they did. Oh, I didn't even look into it. But when I saw this at first, I thought, oh, maybe him killing the tooth fairy was a reset button and he gets to go back and be a little boy again and his mom's alive because that mom looked a lot like him. That's good. Would you have all the memories from after, though? All the memories, none of the teeth.

Yeah. Just a toothless eight-year-old. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, we just get another, a different family or maybe. It's a time travel alternate timeline thing. That would be fine. Just a little kid and you get a little,

he's leaving his tooth. You get a little jump scare. But it's just mom leaving him money. Cute. And then. Like one quarter, cheap. Yeah, I know. Cheap as mom.

And then we get a credit scene with a bunch of squiggly lines and some more butt rock. It was like a 10 minute credit scene because it wasn't long enough to like to qualify for a feature film. No. Yeah, they had to make the credit scene super long. That's crazy. Well, yeah, that is the plot of Darkness Falls. We're going to tell you what we thought of it.

But first, you know we got to do the hunk watch. It's hunk watch. So, Rebecca, for you, we, every movie, we pick a hunk. This could be someone that we had feelings for. This could be someone who just did a, did a fucking bang up job. We'll go around the horn and we'll come to you last for your hunk. You know, I will say always good to see somebody from Buffy.

I do think Kyle is a pretty hunky dude. Definitely. You know, nobody, I don't know that the acting in this movie is the actor's fault. He does seem like he should just be on a billboard for herpes medication. And that would be a very good use of Kyle. But I will say, I thought he was a pretty hunky dude, you know, despite not really really giving us a lot in the movie. But just a handsome man, I think.

I'm an agreement. Yeah, it's Kyle for me, dog. The other interesting thing is his first acting role was on Buffy. He had like a side, like a little small role on it. So we had two Buffy Buffer buffers, Buffy buffers. Bufferoneys. Bufferoneys on Darkness Falls. But yeah, Kyle's like, I don't know.

no, no one else who I wanted to ban. Yeah, no contest. Uh-uh. Maybe that MRI machine, I don't know. That was a pretty sexy MRI machine. Big old hole. Oh, big old. Put me in there.

Not big enough for me, bro. That's right. Oh, yeah. Bingering story. That MRI is DTS. Um, any, there's one other character from this movie that's a guy with the glasses, who was the, The lawyer?

Was his name Larry? Larry the lawyer. Larry the lawyer. Larry, a generic Jewish last name. Yeah, Larry Golden Jew. Larry Minorstein. Exactly. I didn't mean to do that accent, by the way, before I like.

No, you can do it. I'm allowing it. I'm officially allowed to allow it. So, yeah, I guess him, because I was like, oh, he seems. like he's going to be like a fun foil and then he dies and I'm like what is this movie give me give me nothing yeah there was no comedic relief no he wasn't even evil enough to die frankly he wasn't that bad I thought he was going to either just be like a fun guy or just sort of a you know he's going to be this secretly in league with the fucking tooth fairy whatever and then nothing

they didn't give me anything and they just gave me an extra guy who Was he dating, Kat? Yeah. I think so. Yeah, I was kind of unclear on that too, but I think he is supposed to be dating. I've never seen so much, I've never seen so much story like given up on in the middle of it. You know what I mean? Like they just gave.

They gave up on every story that possibly could happen in this movie. Any B plot, subplot of any kind. They were like, ah, forget it, forget it. Just make them stay in the light more. Sorry. I feel like everybody in this also like just. had was smooth down there. There was just nothing sexy about anybody.

Yes. All good looking people with absolutely nothing, like no sexual energy to them. Yeah, what is that about? I don't know. Too many children in the film, maybe? I don't know. Maybe because they wanted it to be like a first horror movie for a younger audience kind of thing, like something you'd watch doing a sleepover kind of thing.

But when we were little, we were watching Nightmare on Elm Street and shit. We were really watching scary shit. Jason movies? There was tits in those. Yeah. I remember. That's what you missed out on Rebecca. Hey, man.

Rebecca, do you have any thoughts on the hunks of this film? I think it's got to be R.I.P. Cheney Clay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He is. He's beautiful. The way he died is really creepy in considering the film.

Yeah. He died of sleep apnea. Yeah. And I'm like, that's, yeah. I don't like it when I found that out. Oh, no. Yeah, no, but it's just kind of, it is wild. I found that out too after watching the movie and I was like, oh, that's the very

darkness falls type of way to go. But he had a great career. So, you know. Yeah, good for him. Anyway, I'm sure he was good in other things. He was in the shield, I think. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. But that's making me think about my sleep apnea thing because I'm just kind of like powering through it. You got to get on that CPAP machine, baby. want to. You got to pap it up. No, I don't want to do it. Get papped, bro.

That is not what it means to women. Oh, I think it is. I'm pretty sure that's what it means. I'm pretty sure that's what getting papped. I think we all know what getting papped means. Papped in both angles. Okay, we're going to take a little break. We're going to pop it up.

And then we're going to come back and tell you what we thought of Darkness Falls. Hey, we're back. It's free with ads. Rebecca Brayton is here. She's from Watchmojo. It's nice of her to be here with us. And we're going to tell you what we thought of Darkness Falls. But first, we want to tell you about our bonus episodes. It's We Like Shows. We like shows. Those are our bonus episodes where we talk about some of our favorite TV pilots this month. It was my pick. I picked Star Trek, Strange New World. It's the first track thing we've ever talked about on the podcast. The episode is up right now.

So if you want to hear what we thought, go to maximum fun.org slash join. You kick us a couple bucks a month and you get to hear a bunch of bonus stuff from every single show on the maximum fun network. What a bargain. It keeps this show coming and it's the reason that we love you. Maximumfund.org slash join. All right. Rebecca, for you, we rank these movies on a scale of one to ten super loud commercials. So how many super loud commercials would you watch in order to enjoy this movie?

You're our guest. We'll start with you from one to ten. What do you give? Darkness falls. Honestly, it wasn't even fun boring. Like, it was just one. If one is the lowest, it's one. I don't know.

I'm sorry to everybody involved. Yes. I'm Canadian. I have to apologize. No, no, thank you. That sounds a boot, right? No, I would never. I would never.

We do not say that. Oh, I don't know. I've heard certain, from various comedies I've heard you do. Yes, and you say sorry. I know that. Anyway. I have health care. Emily Fleming, what did you think of darkness falls?

Yeah, I agree with Rebecca on this. I'm going to give it a one as well. It's not even like, like you have something to make fun of. Well, we did have things to make fun of, but like if you were hanging out with friends and stuff, you just immediately start talking to each other. Wouldn't pay attention anymore. Like even a heavy, heavy joint would not help this situation at all. So yeah, it's a one.

Matt Lee, what'd you think? You know what? I think you guys are being really mean to this movie that tried really hard to make you a movie about a thing that happened. You give it a two. I thought it was one of the worst movies I've ever seen, but I thought I was watching it. I was going, you know what? Sometimes you just, you have to give up on a dream in the middle of that dream happening.

And it is clear that is how the filmmakers viewed this. And I almost respect that. I've never seen a movie give up on itself. And that is a new thing for me. So I was like, I'm giving it a little. bit for that. The movie was basically looking at its phone throughout itself. Exactly. Yes. All right. Well, I'll go last. I actually watched this on DVD. I grabbed it from my local library. On the DVD cover, I got to see like the press quotes that they pulled for this movie.

Please read them. And I was excited because I'm like, oh, it's got some good, it's got some good notices. It's on the cover. This is from Scott Herito from Tech TV. Scott Herito from Tech TV writes, for sheer terror, it runs rings around the ring. So Scott Harito from Tech TV, get fucked. Scott Herito from Tech TV, eat shit and get fucked. This is a zero. This is such a, this is like, yes, it is a bad movie. When people talk about fun, bad movies to watch, there's Teen Witch, there's Sleepaway Camp.

There's Bird Dem. Oh my God. It's movies where people cared and just something weird happened and there's a weird compelling energy pulling you throughout it. So I think when people make lists of bad movies and stuff like this is on it, I'm like, don't even make a list of this. You know, it's like this is not a fun bad movie. If you're looking for a fun bad movie for your Halloween party, there are so many wonderful options. Yeah, this is just kind of boring and was clearly rewritten 9,000 times. I have an interesting fact about this.

So the director of this was a first time feature director because he made a short film that was about this. And it's like the backrooms kid and stuff who are like they saw this short film. And then they went, we're going to let you direct the features. So it doesn't work every time. Doesn't work out every time. No, if I may, I bet there was a lot of studio interference. Oh, I guarantee it. Yeah, pretty...

They didn't let him make his movie, I don't think. I'm sure. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. I have no idea. But yeah, who knows? But yeah, if I don't know, if you've heard about this movie somewhere, like, oh, you got to see it, you got to see it. You don't have to see it. Don't even watch clips of it.

Yeah, it's really, really bad. You don't watch clips of it. You said making lists about bad movies. I make lists about bad movies and I've never even heard of this movie. So, Rebecca, do you have like a favorite fun bad movie? Do you have favorite, like, movies? in that zone of like, this was a train wreck, but it was so fun to watch.

I mean, my friends and I definitely watched all the sleepaway camps. Oh, yeah. Even Sleepaway Camp 3, Teenage Wasteland. Yes, yes. But I don't know what a favorite. But yeah, the sleepaway camps are a great example if you are looking for like something fun and bad

for Halloween. Those are a treat. This, it ain't. Well, if you don't want to watch this movie, then you could watch the tiny documentary they made for the sci-fi, the prequel thing. and it's called The Legend of Matilda Dixon. And it's free on YouTube if you want to, I don't know, bleach your eyeballs with acid or something.

Rebecca, thank you so much for joining us. Do you want to tell us about Watch Mojo? Anything cool you have coming up on that or anywhere? Plug any old thing you want to. Oh, my goodness. I don't really have anything to plug. Just keep watching those lists. Actually, you know what?

Everybody go watch Top Ten Els. I want that video to do really well. And I want us to do a million more of them. Wait, elves? Owls. Owls. Oh, owls. Okay.

I was like, top ten elves sounds good too. That's a good list too. That's a good list. Maybe come Christmas time. I'll tell you an email immediately after this. Give them a million. Spam the comments. I just want to make stupid lists.

That's what I want to do with my life. Link to watch Mojo's list of Top Ten Owls in the show notes. Go in the show notes. Click that link. and tell the comments which owl you are horny for. Hosts, anybody got anything coming up? I'm good. Okay.

I, yes, I have some things. I'm sorry to continue this talk, but I have been desperately searching for Scott Harito of Tech TV. He is not real. He was a fictional or satirical reviewer whose hyperbolic quote for sheer terror runs rings around the ring was famously printed on the home video

of the 2003 horror film Darkness Falls truly an incredible bit of information there I love Hollywood okay Matt great producing wonderful producing man amazing producing Matt

truly I wish you could see my face I wish you could see my okay so I will be at the Philly Punchline on October 13th and 14th. Oh, in Los Angeles, if you are in the Los Angeles area, I will be at the Wiltern on October 10th. Come out to that, see myself and see Bass. The Wiltern?

The Willtern? Where giant bands play? Yeah, baby. Wow. Holy shit, Matt. I'm opening for Bassam Yousiff, a dear friend of mine, very funny comedian. So you can see him and you can see me for a, you know, a handful of minutes.

Check it out. I know. That'll be fun. You may get some free tickets, Matt? Of course. Yeah, you maybe can. And come to Philly Punchline on the 13th and 14th, and then on the 15th at the Bell House in Brooklyn. Thank you.

And hey, the day you're listening to this, you can go to your local comic book shop and get a copy of. Issue number one of The Amazing Venom, the new Marvel Comics mini series from me and artist Luke Ross. It's crazy. It's funny. It's got a little bit of heart. It's got a bunch of crazy cameos from all your favorite Marvel characters. I would really, really like folks to check this out. I'm quite proud of it. So go to your local comic bookshop and ask for The Amazing Venom. And if you're in the Southern California area, I'm going to be doing a bunch of little appearances at comic bookshops, signings, and that sort of thing throughout the month. So please follow me on the Instagram to find out where those are. But most importantly, grab the Amazing Venom. your local comic book shop. Rebecca, thank you so much for joining us. It was a real treat to talk to you. And we hope to have you back for Darkness Falls 2.

Oh, God. Oh, God. If I come back, it has to be a better. It has to be. Yes, we'll try and find another tooth fairy movie for you to review. Yeah, Darkness Falls to Toothbury in the city. Yeah. All right.

Tune in next week when our movie will be the island. of Dr. Moreau, 1996. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network. Of artists-owned shows. Supported. Directly. By you.