The Horror Returns - THR - Ep. #309: The 13th Warrior (1999) & The Northman (2022)

Episode Date: April 25, 2022

This week, special guest author Alex Grass joins us to go full Viking as we review 1999's The 13th Warrior and the brand new Robert Eggers movie The Northman. Cool of the week includes Killin It, Our Flag Means Death, Moon Knight, and The Frozen Ground. Thanks for listening! Alex Grass Amazon Biography & Books: https://www.amazon.com/Alex-Grass/e/B08KPKTV9R%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share Alex Grass GoodReads: Alex Grass (Author of Black River Lantern) The Horror Returns Website: https://thehorrorreturns.com THR Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thehorrorreturns THR Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thehorrorreturns/ Join THR Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1056143707851246 THR Twitter: https://twitter.com/horror_returns?s=21&t=XKcrrOBZ7mzjwJY0ZJWrGA THR Instagram: https://instagram.com/thehorrorreturns?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= SK8ER Nez Podcast Network: https://www.podbean.com/pu/pbblog-p3n57-c4166 ESP Anchor Feed: https://anchor.fm/mac-nez E Society YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UCliC6x_a7p3kTV_0LC4S10A Music By: Steve Carleton Of The Geekz

victims. For those of you delight and dread, who fantasize about fear, who glorify gore, welcome. You have found the place where the horror returns. Listeners beware. This podcast contains major plot spoilers and the foulest of language. Join us in celebrating the old and the new, the best, and the worst in horror. Welcome back everyone to The Horror Returns. I'm Lance and with me as always are my co-host Brian and Philip. And tonight we're joined by very special guests. We have author Alex Grass.

Alexander Grass, hell fuck. What do you like to go by, man? You call me Alex Grass. I've also been known to go by A-Train. My wife calls me the horn mammal. All right. Very early on, before we were engaged, she used to call me Boners with a Z.

So if we're... What is the name? Boneser? Is that a name? What's your... What are you into, man? What are your... your newest works.

Give us a quick rundown of what type of fiction do you write? Who are your influences? What are your newest works? Just kind of take the floor, man. We'll sort of leave it open. For sure. The newest book is a boy's hammer. It's kind of fitting because

it's Scandinavian mythology set into a modern setting. It's like I hadn't read Neil Gamed lately, but I came to horror sort of later in life. But when I was a kid, that was the one guy that I did read. So if you talk about influences, Neil Gaiman was a huge one.

Sandman, Neverwhere. I never got around to gods and monsters, but American gods, rather. American gods? Yeah, American gods, rather. But the newest one is a family flying over to Finland, a mother and her son, and they disappear in a big storm right before they land in Helsinki. and then 20 years later in the middle of the Philadelphia oil refineries where actually there was a huge explosion there. Okay.

Yeah, in real life, in real life, and they've shut them down, but there's an explosion in the book. And this giant man covered in tattoos of hammers appears in the middle of just sort of like a swirl of electricity and vapor, sort of like Terminator 2 style. I always like to take my favorite parts from movies and put them in books because everything's been done. So you just like try and do honor to the already existing great art that's out there. And the man arrives and then sort of like things start to go very strangely in Philadelphia. The borders of Philadelphia are locked off.

People can't get in and out. And at the same time, a serial killer, the first serial killer, one of the first serial killers from Finland is resurrected by Kalma, the queen of the underworld in Finnish mythology. And he's wreaking havoc throughout Philadelphia throughout. And that's basically what I could give you without, you know. Okay. And that's a lot of historical shit in there. Oh, yeah. There's, I mean, sometimes. times. I mean, that's why I'm kind of pumped to talk about 13th Warrior and especially the Northman, because I know Eggers did a lot of work, you know, with like the historicity of the Northman.

Because, you know, I, not often, but especially in the last book, you know, I go digging, you know. And so the, you know, the bad guy in a boy's hammer, it's like, authentic as much as I could, you know, while still. allowing him to be, you know, a portal jumping demon, you know? So, like, that part was not true. But then again, if you thought that part was true, you have problems beyond the history of Finland. Or maybe it was true. Maybe it was true, yeah. Yeah.

Give us a rundown to some of your other recent books. Like, give us a good feel for what all you do. Like, do you do any romance? stuff at all? Do you do any westerns? Do you stick, you know, pretty much strictly with supernatural? Where's your comfort zone? The closest I came to romance was in my first book, Black River Lantern. Okay. A psychokinetic drunk falls in love with a prostitute. That's about as close to like that. Oh, great. And as far as like, I don't know, the divide between leaving Las Vegas and Pretty Woman, I definitely lean first.

towards the working girl side, you know? Gotcha. And away from the romance. But the last book before a Boy's Hammer was Drek. That one's my baby. I've heard of that one. I tried to read it, man. Again, apologies, dude.

This was too short notice. We had to put the show together. But I've got them. I've got them. So I'm going to be reading them. That's okay. You know, having them is good enough for me. That's a start, right?

That's a start. It's a start, exactly. Yeah. And Drek has set sort of like an indistinct point in the future after World War III. It's called the Long War. And more or less, all governments have been reformed. There's a lot of municipal governments, so it's a lot more like the way the world was, I guess, like four or five hundred years ago.

You got city states and shit. And what happened is at the end of the long war, a portal opened up in Syria and this heinous creature comes out and it's Drek and like who's antlered he's grotesque he is sort of like elephantine skin you know sort of um sort of like the like the uh hyper encephalitis head and right and body of like the elephant man and then like what looks like a beard, but it's actually sort of like craggy, translucent rock with flagella within. I mean, he's rough looking, and I really go into the description. He appears, and it's at the very end of the war, after an armistice, like a universal armistice has been

brokered, and then all these soldiers, then he goes, comes out of the portal, goes right back in the portal, all these soldiers try to touch where he came out of, and every, everyone that goes closer dies. And every time one of the soldiers dies, this border of energy enlarges around the portal. And so it's seen as an incredibly

bad omen. So he becomes the universal scapegoat for the world. Jesus Christ. Yeah. He's having a, he's having a, you know, it's this line from South Park I like. You're going to have a bad time.

They say on South Park, if you pizza, instead of French fry, they're talking about skiing technique, you're going to have a bad time. If you come out of a portal and then seven soldiers die and you go back in and people don't know why, you're going to have a bad time. So he appears on the mortuary slab of this mortician and what used to be Pittsburgh. Okay. And he's dead. And it's like, it's huge news because like no one had been, he'd been elusive.

not quite like Bigfoot, like people could see him, but because he could move in and out, even though people had only seen the one portal, he was never able to be, like, pinned down. And so all these different cults and all these different political interests converge because there's something about his body that not everybody knows about, but they, you know, they want for their own, everyone has their own purposes, you know. And I, you know, that's pretty much all I can give without revealing the twist in that one. Okay. Because it gets...

We don't want to reveal any twist, man. Yeah. Yeah. We want people buying the books. Super creative. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

You know, I got it actually, like as an aside, and if this is too nebulous, of course, you guys can, I assume, edit it out later. But, like, I got to... Nah. Nah. I was talking with, like, I love talking with readers. I love talking with readers. And I've been messaging with this woman back and forth.

And she said, my grandfather's name was Frank Adonazio. She wanted to know if there was, and he lived in Pittsburgh, which is, like, where the story's based. And in the future, you know, it's not Pittsburgh, but it's located where Pittsburgh was. And she said, was it based on him? And everything in me wanted to say yes, you know? But it was, I was, I was just like I wanted to give it to her, because I wanted her to be able to, you know, like, take that and, you know, shove that down and enemies

throat at Thanksgiving dinner or. Totally a major day. Yeah. But we've been talking back and forth. And she does have a fascinating story. And maybe I'll, if I get to know or better, and I get the sanction, maybe I'll go into it in the future. And then real quickly before that, the influencer, which is about sort of a Rasputon character, but ageless comes over from Eastern Europe, naturally comes over to New York City. And he starts brokering deals with influencers.

The book's called The Influencer. he starts brokering deals where he gives them this phone, like a phone. It's sort of like a solid obsidian, stony black tablet phone. And in exchange for their souls, they'll get a billion followers. Jesus Christ. And what ends up happening is like the people who are following these channels become these zombies and they basically nail their own smartphones to their heads. and are not too far off.

Yeah. I wrote this a little bit ago. I mean, not that long. Right. But I like your projections here. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.

I wonder what odds makers would think, you know? All right. Well, we got to get more into. I'm sure Brian, you can help us get a lot of the, the, our group set up with postings of how to get the books and stuff like that. I'll get the word out, definitely. Yeah, we definitely want to help with that as much as we can. Hold on. Somebody wants to say hi here.

Oh. Hey. Say hey. Hi. Hi. Tell them who you are. Hey, tell them about what you do with dolls. Oh, I don't know how to say it.

Your artwork. You're an artist. Come on over here. We heard you did a half Chuckie, half Tiffany. Cut their heads off. Tell them about what you do. Tell them about what you do with dolls. I paint like dolls. But not in the standard way, right?

Yep. Well, your uncle was telling us that you did like a half-chuckie, half-tiffany kind of doll. I've done Ghostface and Michael Myers and Pennywise. Oh, man, that's awesome. That's very cool. Yeah, and so something else we have to post on our social media. you, Brian. What's your name? Tell everybody your name so they know.

Aubrey. Hi, Aubrey. Yep, this is Aubrey. Wanted to come on the show. You don't want to talk about the Northman? Haven't seen it yet. Okay. All right. Later. All right. Thanks for popping in.

I'm not one for censorship, but I think it's best that she doesn't see it for a many. Probably not quite yet. Yeah. Probably not quite yet. start with Frozen, right? Yeah. All right, cool. So we'll put a lot of stuff on social media, and definitely we'll ask you again toward the end of the show, how we can, listeners can get in touch with you, but in the meantime, Alex, we start with something that we like to call Cool of the week. And if you want to, usually we have our guests go first or at least give you the opportunity, so it can be anything that you've watched this week, red, video game you've played, film, just anything new.

Like, what's your cool of the week? Coolest thing you've experienced this week. Coolest thing this week. Well, I don't suppose I could say Northman, because we're already talking about it. But let me see. I watched a new show on Peacock, one of the innumerable streaming services.

Yes. Now that we're up to like 500 subscriptions that you have to have. Right. At least we're not dealing with the cable companies. Um, killing it with, um, Craig. Oh, man, I'm having a dad moment. Craig Robinson.

Thank you. Thank you. Craig Robinson. Oh, okay. So it's a comedy then. It's a dark comedy. It's a dark comedy. It's very, it's like very much in the vein of like Jody Hill, Danny McBride stuff, you know.

Um, except that Craig, Craig, Craig Robinson's character is like a sort of a very moral, uh, upstanding guy. he's a guy who's trying to break through in business. And there's a contest in Florida because they have, I guess, the contracted hunters every year to clear out boa constrictors. Okay. Because I guess this is a real thing because people buy them and then they just like set them free when they can't handle them. You know? So there's like thousands of them down there.

And they're fucking up the whole ecosystem. They're fucking up the whole ecosystem because they're like, you can't, they're, I don't know if they're an apex predator, but nothing can fucking eat. Yeah, they're killing alligators. Yeah, okay. So, like, there it is. So this is a real thing then. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. But the show's real funny. All right. Killing it. I'll stick with a comedy, too, guys. I started checking out on HBO Max. You guys are seeing our flag means death. the next Tycho Waititi

project I started it how far in did you get so fucking silly man oh you know what we're like four episodes in but the funny thing is I put it on it I thought there was no way my wife

would watch it with me because she's sort of like tolerated a couple of episodes of what we do in the shadows and you know she's kind of like that's not really her type of comedy but she does love she doesn't like Taekuatiti I love that guy Yeah, she just doesn't get into that particular show.

I'm trying to think of what movies. I don't even know if she's seen that many of his films. I probably need to introduce her now to some more. But she kind of got into it with me too, but it's just so fucking silly. And then when you realize that it's based on an actual character, that I think he only lived like three years being a pirate and then he got killed. Oh, my God. I don't know how long the show can go on.

But it's pretty good, man. You've got a lot of characters, actors that you see show up in a lot of other British shows that you've seen before and New Zealand actors and things like that that he's used before. But the main guy, what does say, Rise Davies or something like that? I've seen him in a lot of other stuff before. I think he had a little bit part in one of the what we do in the Shadow's movies. He was the werewolf.

Oh, God. Okay, that was the swear wolf, huh? The swear, no, yeah. Okay, okay. Now I know who that fucker is. Okay. All right. But this guy's just so just fucking ridiculous as a pirate. Have any of you guys seen this show yet? I've been meaning to watch it. When I go on HBO Max, it pops up all the time. I think they're all up now. I think there's only like eight episodes or something like that. They're only like 25 to 30 minutes. minute. So pretty quick watch. Definitely, uh, definitely worth it. But I'd recommend our flag means death pretty heavily. I saw the first one. It's pretty funny. That guy is. Oh, so you did. You did check up. I saw the first. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's kind of like a dandy.

He like in the beginning, like the first people they pirate are like two old fishermen and like this shitty fucking schooner. And he's not taking any chances. Yeah. Oh my. my god. Hey, all the Taika Watiti stuff has been pretty gold so far, so I'll watch it. Yeah, and I don't, a lot of people show up in it, by the way, and I don't want to give any names out. Because, like, people you wouldn't expect to show up, like, once you get to, like, episode three, episode four. So, I think we're, like, halfway done. We're, like, four episodes, and so, yeah, that's a strong cool of the week.

All right. Well, I'll continue the trend with comedy and then roll into something else. I went back and watched some old stuff with my 11-year-old son. I watched Happy Gilmore and... Oh, God. Go to your home! Yeah. And, man, he is in love with the Waterboy, and it was great to see him.

Enjoy it as much as I did. We call my brother Bobby Boucher because, you know, if you talk about his mom, you know, I love my mama very much. Now you know that. Mama says, alligators is on because they got all these teeth and no toothbrush. Mama's wrong. You're wrong, Mr. Sanders. And then I am caught up with Moon Night now. Oh, don't say anything.

Don't say anything, please. I should have said that. That show has blown me away. I got to add that in here. I don't have any idea what's going on right now. Because at the end of episode four, we're not making a whole lot of sense. Right. But it's just more questions to add to it that they can answer later, and I'm sure that they will.

I think it's all going to come together at the end of the season. Yeah. they're not going to lost us okay how many how many episodes guys uh four right now but i mean how many are there are they're going to be uh in the season do you know uh marvel usually goes the six or eight yeah okay all right cool something like that yeah because i wanted to wait till they were all up so it sounds like we're we're getting close yeah and it's getting there the story's progressing along it just they entered a whole new level of what the fuck is going on oh i just I like that.

The storyline they're on now is at least from what I can see is going towards, I believe, is the Jeff Lemire comic. And I've read it. So, like, you won't be lost forever. Okay. It's based on something that has an end. It's interesting. I like it. I like what they're doing.

It's keeping me entertained and I want to watch it. So I'm happy with that one so far. And so I think that's my legit cool of the way. week. Brian's legit clue of the week is going to be Amityville in the Hood Part 7. I forgot.

No, they haven't made that yet. But yeah, I will start with the... With Lankton. I've been going through the Amityville movies. Because there's so many of them. Every one of them, Alex.

He's going through every fucking one of them. I watch anything because I just like to have that reference. Because when somebody ask about a movie, I like to say, hey, I know what you're talking about. Right. And this. one, the Amityville Terror, came out

2016. Not bad. I will say this is... Amityville Terror. Oh, is that your cool of the week? I'm writing it down right now. No, it's not. Okay. All right. The acting wasn't that bad. It gets points because it actually had the house

in the town. Because a lot of these Amityville movies just have the Amityville in the title. It makes no sense. Head and shoulders above like Amityville sand sharks. Yes. If any of the 15 or 20 of them I've watched so far, I would definitely recommend this one. Yeah.

Nice. Okay. They anybody built terror. Yeah, Lance get the check ready because you can find this at 2B. 2B. To Ching. To Ching. Bean and Marcy are over there dancing right now.

Yeah. We got a deal going with another podcast. They do a 2B Tuesday show. So every time we mention 2B, owed them. What did we decide, 0.0001 cent? Yeah, checks in the mail. Checks in the mail. Ukrainian currency, of course.

That's right. Oh, yes. Too soon? Too soon. Too soon. I'll stick with ours. It'll get worse. Oh, ho! And be on the lookout for Amityville Oiler Room, which is, of course, about a supernatural Ponzi scheme. Oh, there you go. You just put it out in the universe.

So it's coming. My cool little week is actually a Nick Cage movie from 2013. The Frozen Ground. Oh, okay. It's about a real-life

serial killer from my city. You guys ever heard of Robert Hanson? No. He would in like the early 80s, he would basically, he would kidnap prostitia.

rap them, do whatever he wants. Then he would take him on his, he had like a small plane. He would fly him out to the middle of nowhere, release him, and then go hunt them. Jesus. What a fenced-up guy, huh? And I think- Zero killer shit. Wow.

What really stood out to me was how, I guess, incompetent the police were. Right. Because Nick Cage plays a state trooper that he's. was trying to tell everybody, like, these aren't just random murders. They're connected. Right. And the police were basically, like, not wanting to go with the whole idea of a serial killer and close the case. And the guy was actually arrested for rape and was let go twice.

Okay. And Nick Cage was trying to tell everybody, like, this is the guy, you know, all the, all the, no, I don't. I don't have the concrete evidence. but everything is pointing, everything leads to him. Yeah. And Vanessa Hudgens plays like his latest victim that actually gets away and identifies him, but something happens to where they just let him go. And it was kind of fucked up because they were like, like, she's a prostitute.

How does a prostitute get raped? You know, and they just let him go. Wow. Okay. He actually ended up murdering, like, I believe, 21 victims. and he raped over 30 women. Holy shit. And he eventually got caught, but I thought it was a real fascinating because actually we have a family friend.

Her husband was a retired cop. And he actually worked on the little task force they put together. Okay. Because, you know, they were, when they got certain evidence, they got search warrants to go search his house. And of course, you know, he would not have anything. He was very careful and, you know, because he would keep, like mementos of each victim. It was like a, you know, jewelry or, you know, just something.

But of course, you know, he wouldn't, you couldn't find no evidence in his plane, his house, you know. And he was, he was like a regular guy in the community. I think he owned a bakery and just, just, just. Christ, man. Just a nice average guy on the outside, but, you know, would come home and then he would have a girl chained up and just. Oh, my God. Yeah, fascinating movie.

This one's on Netflix, if anybody wants to check it out. That amazes me how, like, people never know, you know, like, Yeah. Oh, hey, Rob, going for another midnight flight into the wilderness? Yeah. Oh, geez. Yeah, and like I said, the way the police handled it was like, they even got offended.

It should be criminal. They even got offended that the feds reopened the case that they had already closed. Oh, man. Too bad. Too bad. They had to do what they had to do. It sounded like... I don't think I understood how much, like... I feel like if you get arrested for rape and, like, convicted,

what are you doing out? Yeah. Right. Especially a couple of times, right? And if I'm remembering correct in the movie, I think it was twice. And it was the same, like, same situation. You know, met a... Met a working girl.

a prostitute, you know, was working out, you know, I want this, but then basically ends up raping her and then having some kind of story that apparently somebody believes and just like detaining him, basically detaining him and then eventually letting him go. Well, once you have to own a plane, you work under different things. Oh, and that was, that was ridiculous because they also found out that he wasn't even supposed to have a flying license. because of what they said, mental health conditions or something. But he was just able to fly this plane anyway.

Plus all these fucking high-powered rifles he was hunting him down with, right? Did this guy go to like the same flight school as the hijackers? Like, I don't get it. Like, who's giving me... No shit. It was, it just blew me away.

It's a little complicated, right? This stuff's in his records, but the flight tower is just allowing him to just take off and but he eventually got caught and it's always sad when they post the pictures at the end of the movie of the real life victims

and some of them they don't even know if it was the bodies they found because they were so badly decomposed and some of them eventually like animals had got to their bodies and at the bottom of it was a body found unknown or an identifiable or something like that so crazy they all

like go after hookers and are normal guys and like how many serial killers are there that have the same exact demo. And I you feel so bad especially when they say she's a prostitute. How can you rape a prostitute?

She's not even, she's not telling the truth. That was a line in the movie, I'm sure, right? Yeah, yeah. But I will say, John Cusack was in that movie, right? Yeah, he's he plays the killer, the serial killer. Okay. John Cusack? Yeah. Yeah, he's gone dark recently.

I will say the one ridiculous moment in it was 50 cent shows up as a pimp, and he has the long hair. Yeah. Truly ridiculous. If it had been stupid, it'd be a totally different story. Yeah, then it would have made sense. This was during the time when 50 had lost, you know, all the muscle mass, and he was a little bit leaner, so it was just like, probably could have just got Snoop, you know. and the hair clearly was not his. Right.

Very clearly. It didn't look good, but it didn't take me out the movie, though. All right. So good movie, though. Yeah, I enjoyed it. A strong, and on Netflix, which for now, we can all still afford. Yeah. So they send us another raising price.

Yeah, well, you guys heard what they're thinking about doing next, right? About the password show. Yeah, change it where you I literally have to buy Netflix for every single individual fucking device in your house. It has to have its own Netflix account. They'll kill themselves.

Yeah, that won't. That'll be it. Well, I mean, they seem to be on that path. Yeah. Yeah. They get more sales. Let's do more shit that people hate. I guess they reported they had a huge

amount of unsuscribers. Yeah. Recently. Well, to me, what's crazy is because, like, I read all about the Blockbuster thing. And like as Blockbuck was floundering, they brought back late fees. And if Netflix can't see the parallel there, yeah, you know. Sure, sure. That's all right. Like you said earlier, there's 16,000 other streaming services to take their place, right? It's not like we're going to be

without streaming services. Yeah, because before I watched The Frozen Ground, I haven't watched Netflix since. Right. Cobra Kai, the last season came out. It's been a while. Yeah, they haven't had a ton of new stuff. It's like real quality. Right. Yeah. Ozark, Stranger Things.

That's about it, right? Yeah. I'm excited about that. Ozark comes back out today, right? Yesterday? Is it? All right? I think it just came out.

The last episodes? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. All right. I got to watch that tonight. All right. Well, now we come to that part of the show that we call horror headlines. Brought to you by Brian.

it away, man. Ooh, slim on the news again. Chuckie's Season 2 has begun production. Very nice. And for some reason, they announced that Brad Duroff was back to voice Chucky, which I assumed he was always back. Yeah, why would there be a question? Let's start going to bring in Luke Skywalker to do the voice.

Told. Yeah. Mind Hunter's season 3, if it would have happened, they would have taken the team to Hollywood and got into the serial killers in that neck of the woods. Okay. But don't know if the season... No, it's probably not going to happen because they let all the actors out of their contracts. Right. It was weird. I just was like, why don't you just say it's not happening instead of just. saying we let everybody out of their contracts and

like what let's yes so Netflix continuing to make good decisions yeah says here says here April 29th for Ozark guys for the final eight episodes we're almost there all right I know there's some more news here um night Shalemann's new film knock at the catman has also begun

production this is part of his a big deal he signed with Universal Pictures. I believe old was the first one in the new deal, so... Okay. They're trying their best to make a splash, Universal. Yeah. Sure.

Yeah, the universe didn't work very well with the Mommy and all that. Tom Cruise. They still got fast and furious. Ah, okay. For how much longer we don't know, right? Oh, they'll do spinoffs. Sure. No doubt.

Lionsgate is looking to relaunch the Blair Witch franchise. Why not? Why not? They can do that. Blair Witch meets Leatherface. How about that? Yeah. I am bound for a newfound footage movie.

I like those. Yeah. They're also looking to relaunch the Leopardone franchise. Yeah. Yes. And one person that has said to be interested, actually he came forward and said he wants to do it as Darren Lynn Bousman, who has worked with the Saw movies. Okay. But he does have some requirements.

He says Warwick Davis has to come back. Yeah. And he said it will be connected to the original ones. He doesn't want to do a brand new story. Yeah. Okay. He's a big director, and he wants to do it. Let him do it.

No ice tea in this one, huh? No ice tea. He could cameo. I put iced tea in every movie. With a magical flute. I love that guy. And there's one thing I was sent here. I'm trying to find it that they wanted me to talk about on the show.

Matthew Lillard has started a new studio called Midnight Movie Club. It's an NFT. based project that allows holders to participate in the first ever decentralized movie studio and its first project is going to be a vampire movie title, Let Them Die. I don't know what that means. All right. Neither do are. It sounds like people that invest in the company or the people that buy the NFT are going to actually have a say in the project and have ideas and feedback.

Is an NFD not just like a digital picture? I don't know anymore. I thought I did. I don't get it. That could go well or that could be a shit show, you know? Yeah, I mean, I thought it was bad enough with like a director and three producers having a say in the way a movie goes. But sure, why not have like 2,000 people fucking say what they think. Yeah, everybody right one line of dialogue, right?

Great. And they revealed... Nothing could go wrong with that. Yeah, exactly. They revealed that the killer was a teddy bear with schizophrenia. Mad lives. Mad lives. Mad lives.

They revealed that the killer at improv nights where they shout shit out from the audience. Oh, my God, yeah. Yeah. They revealed the killer was Dracula's butthole. Well, we're going to segue into a recently canceled Dracula movie. Karen Kusama who did Jennifer's body and

the invitation she was doing a modern day take on Dracula and for some reason they didn't even specify they're not moving forward with it interesting

I'm going to go out and say it'll probably come out that they weren't allowing her to do what she wanted to do with the film and artistic differences yeah okay so but

how it sounded like it was artistic principles man yeah it sounded like it sounded like it was going to be cool because it was part of this whole new universal monsters reboot you know that they're doing

right you know they just did the invisible man with um Lee Wanel and of course I'm looking forward to this rentfield movie with Nick Cage as Dracula. Maybe that's why they're not doing this one.

Maybe they said, I'm going to be the only Dracula around these days. It's already done, it's going to be interesting because he said he drew inspiration from the movie Malignant and the character from the Grudge movies. Okay. Oh, wow. So it's Nick Cage. I'm there for it. Okay.

Yeah. And I. I really wanted to go see that. Which one? The impossible way to unbearable talent. We'll get there. I didn't make it this weekend, but we'll make it this week. I want to see that so bad.

I almost did a double feature with the Northman. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure a lot of people did. Theater was packed, so. That's a good sign. And I think that's all the news. All right.

Well, Alex, you guys have trailer parks. up there in Pennsylvania? Well, I'm in New York now. I moved here because my wife and my kids are all born here. Okay. In Manhattan or Brooklyn? In Brooklyn. Upstate.

Okay. Trailer parks in Brooklyn? Just Coney Island, huh? No, not even Coney Island. Trailer parks way too much real estate. Way too much real estate. You couldn't give people that much frontage. Sure.

Long Island and Jersey on the other hand. Yeah. You got to go Ways Out Long Island. Upstate. Drive upstate just a little bit. Right? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, New York. Got them all over the place.

And there's plenty in Pennsylvania. All right. Well, in the meantime, then we're going to take us a little trip down to the trailer park. Bring you the big, the small, and sometimes the very, very weird. Brian, what's our first new trailer to talk about tonight? The first one, I swear I didn't mean it to kind of work with the, the, the, the, the theme of the show, but it's Thor, Love and Thunder.

Ah, so it worked out. Yeah. Taika Waititi. Taika Watiti is back. Quick synopsis. Thor enlist to help of Balkyrie, Corg, and ex-girlfriend Jane Foster to fight Gore the God butcher. And he intends to make the gods extinct.

Sure. Why not? Sounds like an Alex graph story to me. Yeah. Well, I mean, if Jane Foster was a prostitute. Right. You never know. We got a pretty stacked cast here.

Karen Gillian, the Taika Watiti, Christian Bale, Natalie Portman, Bradley Cooper, Matt Damon. What? Chris Pratt. Matt Damon. Basically, Guardians of the Galaxy are in here. Tessa Thompson, Russell Crow, as Zoo. Right? What?

Melissa McCarthy. I don't know who she's going to be. The fuck. Melissa McCarthy's going to be the Valkyry, right? Sam O'Neill or Sam Neal. What? Well, he's in all of Tyca's stuff. Because he was saying, Neil.

Okay, okay. He was in one of Tyca's first movies. All right. That makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah. I see Luke Kim's were. That was the Wilber Beast or whatever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, all right. Yeah, I see Luke Hemsworth in here So him and Matt Damon They're probably bringing back the Thor and Loki Yeah, sure Sure Did everybody get a chance to watch it?

It's more of a teaser trailer Yeah I think we all watched it What'd you guys think? Looks funny Yeah Lance you weren't a big fan You weren't a big fan in the last one

Were you? Not as much as you guys were But I mean, I'm going to be re-watching it pretty soon since we're going through all the Marvel movies again, so I may have a slightly elevated opinion this time, but now this one looks like a lot

of fun, and this looks like a throwback to that 1980s, late 70s, early 80s, the Frank Frazetta artwork on the Conan novels and shit like that and all the, you know, fucking, what do they have some, did they have, was it Led Zeppelin music they were

playing in there? Guns and Roses. Okay, guns and roses, that was a good choice. So, yeah, this is kind of like your heavy metal, you know, Frank Frisetta, you know, Thor, I think. I think I'm going to enjoy this one a lot. And I like the inclusion of Lady Thor with Jane Foster. And they have confirmed that they're doing the storyline, excuse me, in the comics where she has cancer. But when she wields the hammer, when she wields the hammer, she doesn't have not have any of the effects of the cancer. So.

Okay. Looking forward to it. Got the Guardians in there. So Chris Pratt, you know, there's going to be some comedy in there. You think? I've heard some theories that this is, they're going to kill off Thor in this one. Oh, okay. All right.

I mean, that makes sense. Yeah. I don't think Emzworth is on for any other movies, is he? Not that I've heard. Yeah. I thought that he said that he would do it as long as, as he could. He said that in an interview.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but I think his contract is up, right? Yeah. I mean, you never know. It's Disney. You know, they're going to pull the buddy truck. Sure, sure.

I mean, it'd be nice to bring him back. Because I did hear they were going to bring back Chris Evans for Cap. Kind of do like how they did Black Widow, you know, a story about what happened in between Civil War. Because, you know, we don't. don't know where Cap and them went during that time. So, and he also said as long as they want me to play Cap, you know, so. It's just him sitting in a room growing a beard. Yeah, probably.

Right. Yeah. I think they could do like, because he goes back at the end of end game to be with Peggy. So maybe they could do something like up where Peggy Carter dies. Oh, no. And then she's, she's barren. You know, they share the mind. montage of the beginning, and that's when he goes on his first adventure.

Bring your tissues. Wow. Yep. For sure. And, um... Tika Watiti, dude, um... Ragnarok is probably my favorite Marvel movie.

That's saying a lot. And I'm really interested to see Christian Bale as the villain. It was a Gore the God Butcher. He wants to, wants to make all the gods extend. thinked. Listen, he may yell at extras and he's probably an asshole in person. See, he's going to pull from that as his inspiration in the movie.

Right. He's going to think back to that, what was it, the guy holding the boom mic or whatever. Philip, say it, Philip. You always say the line best, dude. What did he say, Philip? I can't remember what he said. I don't know, but you're always saying it. God damn.

Do you? Like, you get out of here. God damn it, we're being yelled at right now. Mr. Bail, though, man. Yeah. Well, and that shit was funny as hell to me. Right. He's done great in every movie I've ever seen him in.

Sure, sure. All right. Not too long from now, July 8th. Got 11th under July 8th. Two weeks from now, we got Dr. Strange. Yes. That would be interesting. I can't wait.

They brought Sam Ramey in for that shit. Sam Ramey. And they said they're teasing endgame level surprises. Yeah. I'm not sure how much I buy that. I'm going to say we're going to get the X-Men. We're going to get a multiverse version of the X-Men. Interesting.

We're going to have to eventually, right? At some point, they can't let him go to waste. Yeah. Much like Netflix, Disney's Disney. socks aren't exactly through the moon right now. Maybe that money truck's not going to be there in time, Brian. Also, why we stay away from politics. Yes, that's why we stay away from politics.

We learned that several months ago, Alex, or several years ago. I just like, you know what I really need? I need a hundred-year-old mouse telling me what to think about the culture wars. let's not go into any of those older Disney cartoons either oh shucks dumbbo you can't apply you just an elephant all right our final trailer is upon a strange of things four

after what two three years of waiting for this yeah four maybe uh the only person I'm going to mention in the cast needs to be mentioned because everybody else is coming back is Robert England is in the cast as a

major character. What did you guys think? Looks creepy as hell. I love the opening of this. Yeah, this looks like really, really scary, stranger things. Yeah, I hope what I heard is correct that they said

the pandemic actually made them go back and fine-tune the script and make it better. So hopefully they're just not saying, you know, our show is the best ever. But I'm looking forward to it. Go ahead. I was going to say I'm looking forward to it.

I'm assuming that was the main monster at the end looked super creepy. Look well done. I'm looking forward to Robert England. I like the time jump because they're now in high school, which is smart because they're super grown up now. You can't just still be in 6th, 7th grade or whatever they was. They're all like a foot taller. Yeah.

You know. Listen, you can cast a 30-year-old as a high schooler, but you cannot cast an 18-year-old as a 6th grader. For sure. That's why, that's why do Yehouser disappear for a couple of years. Yeah. Yeah. I thought it was, I was, I mean, I was not a huge fan of the last season. so you know

like you were saying Brian like the idea that they went back and and fine tuned the script because I think that like because it was such a phenomenon you know you can kind of get like that you know like that

sophomore junior year you know lays where they kind of like feel they don't have to they can just do whatever they want you know that's why I feel like in shows like you know it's like seasons one and two are real good. All of a sudden, the third season, you know, just sort of like generalizing here, third season of a show, like, be a bit of a turd. And then, like, the fourth

one will come back. Like, I'm remembering, like, Breaking Bad or, like, you know, maybe even the wire, but, like, the fourth season, usually it's like, you know, it's like, it's, it's, they, they strap on their big boy pants and they say, right? Yeah. The fourth season come back, huh? Yeah, but the trailer was, it really looks explosive. And to be the one good thing about, like, being a cultural phenomenon is it looks like they got some serious money pumped into it. It does, yeah, it does. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I don't know how long they'll be able to do it, but...

Season five is the end after this. Yeah, they announced it. There's an end game to it. At least they have some sort of... story going now and they know where it's going to end and they can build up to that and i think that that's going to probably make it a lot better yeah yeah i think so too it's like anything that has you know you can it's always easier when you're working towards a goal yeah you know if you have the end zone inside you know yeah you know the you know the end game right right exactly you could you like

you can work because if you're just like out in the wilderness you know trying to pull ideas but you don't know what purpose the ideas are serving. Lost season four. Just come up with a story good enough and leave it open-ended enough to make up a story later to fill in the gaps. Yeah. And I don't know what this new thing Netflix is doing, but they're splitting the season up.

But luckily, they're not split too far apart because part one is May 27th and part two was July 1st. Not Pat. Comes back to the money thing so that people don't subscribe, watch all the episodes, and then unsubscribe. Right.

Which I don't think happens too much with Netflix, but if they keep fucking around it, it will. Yeah, I always say I'm going to just cancel my description, and I've been paying for it for, I don't know,

however long it's been out. I mean, it's getting expensive enough to make a difference now. Man, I had Netflix when I literally rented DVDs. DVDs. Yeah.

That was a long time ago. 30 years ago. Back when they had like maybe maybe 20, 30 movies to stream online. Yes. When I first started, Brian, they had zero streaming at all. It was literally nothing but like hard DVDs and they would mail them to you in like an envelope that you could unseal it and see you know what I'm talking about. See, and that was that was many, many years ago.

I used to do Blockbuster that did that exact same thing. Oh, they did do that for a while. But then you could take the DVDs and trade them in store for something to add there. And now mail. And they'll mail. That's a great show. Yeah. Except for the last season.

Yeah. Right. All right. That was the last trailer. All right. Time to take a little trip down to listener feedback. I was going to say, trailer park but that's not where we're at like how you fix that right we passed we passed the trailer

park we're maybe toward the feedback now right um actually we're gonna skip feedback for this week but i do have one thing to throw in there let's see what we got uh we've got from cindy um it's a crowd fund for horror able it's a movie uh so check that on on indigo gogo uh she says Hope All Is Well, I just launched my, launch my crowd funder and wanted to know if you can donate and or share to help me get the word out. You can find all this on the Horror Returns Group. So I'm going to check that out.

Horror able, like horrible, sort of, right? Yeah. Or it's horror able instead of just, I don't know how to say that without being a physical. Yeah, it's a, it's a documentary about creatives and horror with disabilities. and they're going to have Black Ulet director William Crane that's participating in one of the perks that you can donate to. Yeah, a great subject matter of important projects, so definitely I posted links. Cindy's Sinabria is a friend of the show, so you should already be following her if you follow us. Oh, yes.

She's been posting. Women of color and horror and horror tour guide. Yep. Cindy Sinabria. But if you don't follow her, you can go to our social media pages, and I posted a link to the crowd funder. Nice. Nice. So in closing, go check out all our social medias, because that's where all the info is.

Horror Able, awesome. Go fund that thing so we can get some good movies out. And we're going to once again throw some love at our newest Patreon patron. Al Ramsoor. It's all about Rihanna. Big, big, big Rihanna. Alex, you got to go back and listen to our show two weeks ago and you'll get it. If you give me enough time during the editing, I'll do it.

All right. We threw something out there and randomly without any context at all. He was saying something about seeing Rihanna's blood hole. I don't know. It was weird. I think he basically. did admit to drunk messaging or something. Yeah, he was drinking.

Thinking about Rihanna on Facebook. I can't put him for that. Commented on a post that had nothing to do with anything they had to talk about. Right. And of course, our show intro comes from Steve Carlton of the League of Geeks. Nope, just geeks. Geeks with a Z. Reformatted.

Yep. And our artwork. is from Natsulani. Check her out on Instagram. And if you'd like to help us out and be like Al, who loves Rihanna's butthole, will let you pick the movies for a future show

at any amount, and for $5 or more a month, also pick a commentary for a future bonus show. That may not even be what he said, but that's how I remember. He said something a little bit more risky than the muddle. There's definitely licking involved and whatever you. And if you have a chance, please give us a five-star Apple podcast review.

Rihanna, we're talking to you. Yeah, there you go. On to our featured attractions. This week, we get ready for battle with 1999's 13th Warrior, as well as a brand new film, The Northman. both of which I think were maybe based on some really classic stuff. But we'll get into that. We're going to start with the 13th Warrior from 1999.

A man having fallen in love with the wrong woman is sent by the Sultan himself on a diplomatic mission to a distant land as an ambassador. Stopping at a Viking village port to restock on supplies. he finds himself unwittingly embroiled in a quest to banish a mysterious threat in a distant Viking land. Directors are John McTiernan, also known for Die Hard and Predator. And Michael Crichton. Got the right movies, Lance. Yeah, there you go. Brow to you.

Two good ones. Wasn't some random movie he did. Wasn't his college film project, right? and Michael Crichton author of several books and director of the original film Westworld writers were Michael Crichton because I think it's based on the book and

Eaters of the Dead. Yeah, Eders of the Dead. Yep. William Wishwer and Warren Lewis. Yeah, Crichton. Losing Crichton was a bad one, wasn't it, Alex? That hurt. You know, I came to him later, but like, He was, if you learn about him, he was monumental. He really was. Big time.

Great stuff. Yeah. Let's see, the Vikings, some trivia, the Vikings' disparate armor can be explained by the Norse tradition of taking the armor of a vanquished foe. Like a video game. Oh, that explains why they were all so different. Okay. It's a great game.

I get it now. Okay. Vikings also used to jump into bricks that magically. levitated in the air and then they would jump above the brick and collect coins. Got to find the secret stash. It was also a display. So much history. So much history in this episode tonight, guys.

It was also a display of status in North Society. The nicer the armor, the higher the position. Dennis Storthoy, store hoy. I don't know how to say that because it's an O with a line through it. Um, almost drowned. Help us out, Lars. Lars from Denmark. Uh, almost drowned during an underwater section. Um, Antonio Banderas jumped in the water and pulled him out and saved his life. Wow. Yes. Real life hero. Nice. Antonio. Antonio. Antonio Baris saved. Antonio Bers saved the day. Are you okay, my friend?

Uh, Alex, what did you think about the 13th? 13th Warrior. A much maligned film, one of my favorites, actually. That's blind. Yeah. Well, I was reading. At the time, it got slammed. You know, I was kidding. Yeah. It was a big box office disaster. And John McTiernan, who was like a go-to guy for these blockbuster films. He really suffered. I don't know what he made after that, but it affected his career, you know. Oh, shit. Yeah. But, um, I loved it. I saw it in theaters when it came out. I think I saw it with my old man. I thought that it was just like, as I watched as an adult, and I have seen this movie,

no joke, 30 times or more. I watch it. I watch it very often. I find it incredibly inspiring. I thought it was, you know, it was designed to sort of be a blockbuster, and you can see that for its time, you know, at an incredible budget. But to me, what was most interesting is sort of like the riffing on the myth, on the myth of Beowulf, you know? You know, because the chieftain, the main chieftain in the movies, Bulaweiss, which is spelled Bulawhiff, which is pretty darn close. And, you know, Crichton's explicit about that.

But, you know, Beowulf, it's like you don't realize that there are some books or some stories that are so important in the Western canon in storytelling that you sort of take for granted how much they've informed. And like Beowulf, it's like, the huge problem for historians is books go missing, right? Like we have something like less than 3% of anything that's been written, you know, pre antiquity. And so, and because Beowulf is sort of like a combination, It's been theorized as a combination of a lot of different cultures. People added, what you're getting is you're getting like a myth that's on par with, you know, like the biblical flood. It's like a story that's shared by everybody.

It's the hero story. Okay. So let me, not to interrupt, Alex, but how do you think that the current technology is going to change all that? Everything being digitally somewhere now at all times. How do you think that is going to, do you think we're still going to lose that much? or do you think that it's going to be somewhere accessible if you just know how to access it, you know, through digital means moving forward?

You know, it's hard to say because, like, listen, you know, people probably thought the same thing, you know, when film first came out, right? Or, you know, when music, you know, you could tape everything and transfer digitally. But then there was that, like, huge fire, was it the universal fire? right there or there was like a fire universal or so many pictures i forget which house and like

they lost everything right right some of it's cannot recoverable and you're not even sure yeah so you know disaster's always possible and uh you know you never know what you know like there's this judge who's also an academic's named richard posner and he wrote a whole book about how like people only know how to prepare for disasters that have already happened right yeah and And yet we don't. Yeah. Look at what just happened that happened 100 years ago. Right.

Well, I mean, you know, like Marjorie's better. You know, like, and it's like that famous story, like Nassim Taleb talks about it in his books in the, I forget what it is. But he is, you know, like the, like a quartet of books and, you know, like Black Swan and anti-fragile. It was like he, they were real hot and I think they still are when they come out. But the, it's the, like the insertion. quartet or it's called something else. You said in Egypt, right,

they would mark off where the Nile flooded each year. And sure as shit, they weren't prepared one year because it flooded higher than ever, you know?

So, yeah, that's a very... Stuff used to happen back then, too. Yeah, for sure, yeah. This is what I say, like, listen, man, it's a shit show forever, you know, in either direction, moving back or forward. But, yeah, this is very...

this very long way of saying, I don't know. Okay, fair enough. Yeah. You know? And just to answer your question real quick, the movie he did after this was 2002's Roller Ball with Chris Klein and L.O.T.

No, the remake! Yeah. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. He hasn't directed a movie. His last directed movie was 2003's basic with John Travolveld. Maybe Rollerball and John Travolta were more his mistakes than the 13th Warrior. Yeah, John Tervolta at that time, right? He wasn't very hot.

Well, this was John Travolta after, or right? No, before. Sorry. I was going to say after. Wasn't that with Sam Jackson? Yeah, the military thriller. Right, right. It was about like the general daughter was raised. Vaguely remember that. John, oh yeah, I forgot about that movie. That's why you entered the military, Philip.

That maybe inspired you to join the Army. There it is. I'm going to stop military rape. What a hill to die on, man. Right. Let's bring up politics, religion, and the military race. You want to pick a harder hill to die on? How about like prosecuting sex crimes involving prostitutes?

There you. go. Ain't the same ballpark and ain't even the same fucking sport. Aye, y'all. So you love this movie then? I did. I thought it was incredible. I thought it was, you know, like, I knew nothing about the book until later, but I went

back seeing like how they, it's such a fascinating idea, you know, like, because it's like, It shows you how myths are created and how monsters are created. You know, they're positive that the Wendol are literal monsters, you know? Sure, sure. Yeah, and the fireworm. In the, yeah, the worm, the worm. Yeah, which was easily explained, right? Once they actually looked and saw what the fuck it was, it was easily explained.

Right, but then it's a question of, you know, I always think like, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. It's just because, you know, we have this materialist mindset. I don't mean like in terms of consumerism, but in terms of like the scientific sort of hyper-focused on what we can actually see and touch, that you don't, people don't think about what sort of fear something unknown can evoke in a person, you know? Yeah, and that comes up several times in this film. Oh, yeah. Psychological warfare. Right, exactly.

like the terror of it and you read in the book and eaters of the dead it comes up these are relict neanderthals they're like the last leftover neanderthals and so they're like so they're super super strong you know uh but no endurance which is you know like why ultimately you know homo sapien prevailed over them but also they did exist at the same time by the way yeah exactly yeah and and in the in the movie, it's, you're looking not only at myth-making, but you're getting to peer back to understand how someone in that situation on the Viking side could be so terrified. Because if you saw someone come in and it's sort of dark and it's like, yeah, growling like a bear. Growling like a bear. And they pick up a man and they throw him, which a Dandrthal could surely do,

throw him across the room. You know, my question then to people, like I said, that materialist mindset, What's the difference then between that that real thing and a monster? Sure. You know? Because that if it if it's an unknown, right? If it's an enemy, if it terrifies you. And if it has attributes that are dangerous and like I say, evoke deep, deep dread in you, right? Because dread, it's fear combined with, you know, the uncanny, what's unknown?

What's the fucking difference then, man? you know and that's what I that's what I loved about it it's it's it explored that but it's also it's one of the so it's going back to the the real Beowulf it's one of the original like the hero can only win by sacrificing himself right and the scene at the well I the movie's like 20 years old so I could do spoilers right yeah we this we can spoil the next one we won't we won't spoil until we go around give our scores and then we'll get into spoilers okay cool So, but at the end, where Bulvai is, like, sitting on the wooden throne. Yes.

Right? This massive man. Yeah. And he's just like, he's leaned against his sword. And he has, he's died victorious. He, that, by the way, that is the ultimate Viking way to die. One of the things in Eaters of the Dead. Or Klingon for that.

Or Klingon. I mean, Warrior race. This is why I'm saying, you know, like, nothing's new. Nothing's new, you know, like, the idea of, like, dying and bad. And it's explained in Eaters of the Dead that the most disgraceful way, one of the most disgraceful ways for Viking to die was in his sleep. Sure.

You know? Yeah. So you understand in 13th Warrior the reason why Rothgar, who's like this old besotted fool, says, get my armor. You know, because he knows, like, this is his last chance. Right. He wants to go and die in battle. And he did.

He died as a king. Mm-hmm. A very majestic way, even though he kind of got poisoned. But, yeah. Yeah, which is always the woman's way, right, to poison. Well, to be fair, to be fair, the, in 13th Warrior, she's the equivalent of Brendel's mother. Okay. Yeah.

They're actually fighting them. a little bit. You know? She, she's not like, you know, poisoning him like some, you know, like medieval court intrigue. Right. Yes, yes. She's got a broadsword and she has like a call. She's swiping at him.

And if she's a Neanderthal, she's probably about even Stephen with him. You know, they probably, they're probably, they're probably right in the same deadlift bracket. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, man. I actually really enjoyed this movie.

too um it's i don't think it gets enough credit i love the story of bea wolf and i even though i didn't realize it when i was first watching this i like you could tell once it started going i was like wait a minute is this bay wolf yeah did you you get that thought it's it's it's way better than that that fucking cartoon version that they yeah that's right the terrible cg i know what you're talking about I don't know what the hell was going on with that one. Wasn't that the guy that directed the original Thor movie? Or am I thinking of something else? I don't think that was Kenneth Branagh.

That wasn't Kenneth Brano? Okay. All right. I don't know who okayed that one, but I'm sure they got fired. Okay. Now, this one was pretty good. It was interesting. And yeah, like you were saying, I like that they bring like a real world aspect to it

and explain super-narch. natural kind of stuff. Although they did just rip the heads off of people, which I find slightly hard to believe. It's fine to watch though. Yeah, but it was a cool mystical thing, right? They were just heads off of people and then there were no dead bodies left because they took them with them. Right.

And it made it, I imagine as somebody who's getting sieged at that moment and you only have a few people that defend you, if that happens, you've got to be thinking, Well, okay, Satan himself is after me. Yeah, sure, sure. It's totally understandable. I like Antonio Banderas. He did a really good job in this. Yeah, it was a good movie, man.

I appreciated it. I also, just at what Phil's saying, the siege part, it makes you think, like, you know, oftentimes in horror, the enemy, the supernatural, the monster is the more powerful force. And the only way that it's overcome is by ingenuity, you know? And this is throughout like all, even like the most recent can, you think about like Stephen King books, right? Right. You know?

Okay. Four kids. Yeah. Or five fucking kids defeat like a quarter million year old alien, you know? Right. So, and you say, like the Neanderthals, they're brutal, they're strong, but you have Bulvai and everyone else, you know, setting up the ramparts, setting up the, you know, the lances so, you know, so that they could defend a siege.

Like having the forethought to like go into the, the cave. It's just like, and even figuring out what's happened, you know. like the idea that, you know, a Neanderthal wouldn't go into like one of the first scenes where they go into a cabin to see where a family's been slaughtered. And they see that it's like, it looks as if they've been nod upon, you know? Great accent, man. Well, I'm a bedirophile. What can I say? Always have been.

Well, and I like that, like, cross-culture thing that they, got going and he's like the outsider learning their language and learning their stuff and that was that was a standout scene for me where he's just listening yeah learning their language yeah that was beautiful i listened and then just immediately knows how to speak it two days later which well but yeah maybe not i think it was over time it might've been over the course of a month dude i mean seriously. But I mean, the way they feel like it kind of made it look that way, but you know, they had to work within the constraints of a two-hour movie. Yeah, that scene always sticks out to me.

He's just like, my mother was a pure woman, you know, and they're just like, and he waited. He waited. I know who my father was, you peeve it, eating. He bided his time. He was listening to them for a couple of months, right? Well, they were they were all traveling together. Then he was picking it up a little here, a little there, a little there, and that kind of showed you how he did it. He waited until the exact right moment, the exact right line. Somebody talked about my mother. I'm not going to back now.

Exactly. It was amazing. And I like the way that they showed that where, you know, they would be speaking some totally foreign language and then a few English words. Slowly. Yeah, it would creep down. So that you understood it the way that he understood it. That's how it works. That's how, you know, like, I remember.

remember when I was a, you know, I was first learning, uh, Hebrew and then I, I moved to Israel. That's exactly how it works. You start picking out words. Sure. You know, and before. Slowly but surely, right? Yeah, exactly. That's how, that's how it works in Spanish. I can almost understand what my mother-in-law saying. Yeah. And then when you do, you'll wish you didn't. But that's also, I also think that like the Ivan Fadlan character, Bandarist's character, it's also like, it's a really great portrayal

because it's accurate, I think, to like what an emissary from like, you know, I believe it's supposed to be the Ottoman caliphate. Or, you know, it's like one of the great Turk, you know, Turk kingdoms.

Although maybe, he's like supposed to be in a book. It seems like he's like an emissary for like a weaker sultan. But that doesn't matter. The point is like this guy would be tremendously well educated. Right. Tremend, like ridiculous. In a time where there's no TV and there's no distractions and your entire job is to no length.

This guy already, it would have known several languages. So he's like Saudi royalty. No, no TikTok to watch. No TikTok. There's no like, there's no like, he's not like in the middle of learning astronomy. And then he's like, oh, look at this funny video of a cat playing piano. And here's the Cardassians. Yeah, exactly.

But it was, it was so, it was so gratifying because it was like, so still is. It's still so new and fresh idea-wise in a time where a lot, you know, like even the best content. is often retread, you know? Sure. We were talking about the Stranger Things trailer. It looks fantastic to me, but there's everything that's in there I can attach to something else, you know? Okay.

I can attach to Lovecraft or to Stephen King or, you know, to like recent or at the most, you know, a century old idea. But what Michael Crichton did here was like he took two different worlds that typically or maybe at all haven't been associated with one another but historically probably would have even if in a very very distant way you know okay um explorers i'm sure for sure but like to each other but this is also about like legend making right because so few people because it's not like you can just like get on delta international and like fly to fucking norway You know, so few people would have come in touch.

So it would have been like adding to the myth making. We know about these people from this other side of the world, but we know like basically in vapor and whispers, you know? Yeah. And so now there's like this Muslim story written about a bunch of Northman. Yeah, exactly. Well, you guys love this movie. I think Brian is going to take us back down to,

the common denominator with what most people have to say, I'm totally fucking bullshitting, Brian. I know you love this movie. This movie was bad ass. I've always loved this movie. I wish Nes was here so he could say

hella good. I'll say it for him. This movie is hella good. I love Antonio Banderas. And like I said, my favorite scene was the learning the language. And Vladimir Kulik,

how do you pronounce this character's name? Bulvai. Bullfight. That guy can be my king. I don't know anybody's fucking name. He was great in the movie, and I also love the scene where he also wanted to learn. You know, he saw an opportunity to where he sees someone that could feed and write, and he was like, teach me, teach me how to do this. Yes.

Yeah, that makes sense. I like that transit. You know, he's writing the word, you know, and he's correcting him, and he's like, okay, got it. This walks up. Oh, yeah, when they were riding in the sand on the beach there. It's like multicultural, but in a cool, realistic one. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And he was awesome.

And my second favorite character was the guy that essentially was the link between them, the translator. Oh, yeah. He's called, like, in the book, he's called So-and-So the Happy. You know, Omar Sharif's character? No, no, no. I think that was Dennis Storhoi. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

I think so. I mean, I'm trying to find the happy, huh? Yeah, Hager, the joyous. That guy, you want that guy around you. Right, right. That guy lives spirits. And another standout scene for me is when he takes on that big guy. Yes, yes.

That was amazing. That's amazing. He's just letting him thinking he's winning until that final he just lands one, what was it, one blow? he just like because he's leaned on the sword right he's like leaned on the sword

like he's exhausted right and then the guy comes and he's just like the ultimate rope dope yeah it was that was so great yeah

and I can't really say too much that hasn't already been said this is one that I think a lot of people got wrong when this was a box office failure it was then Yeah, I can't believe it. I'm into this movie from start to finish.

There was no time that I was not out of this movie. And I just think sometimes people get it wrong. And this movie definitely, if you haven't seen it, watch it. If you have seen it, you didn't really care for it. I think it's time for a revisit. For sure. For sure. I guess so, man.

And I'll just start out with this because you guys know my taste in movies, right? So you think I'm going to like this one, Brian, or not? Not as much as we did. You don't think so? Okay. Well, I'll definitely got some cheese in there. There's, oh, there's some cheese. Some cheese for sure.

Cheese is good, though. Cheese can be good, but, all right, so this was a particular year in film that you guys have heard me talk about a lot. I'll just mention a couple of movies. The Blair Witch Project, The Sixth Sense. I'm reading a few out here, The Matrix. Let's see, American Beauty. For fuck's sake, Austin Powers, the Spy Who Shagged Me. 1999, guys, it's no surprise.

My favorite year in film. Far and away, 1999 to me, was the year for movies. This movie in any other year, if it had been released, any year besides 99, would have easily been in my top 10. I'm not sure whether this would have been, but this was a first-time watch. and I found this film to be just phenomenal. Just absolutely gorgeous.

The storytelling from start to finish was amazing. I love the way that he kind of got put, Antonio Banderas' character got put in a position where he kind of, you know, it's like, okay, well, I'm kind of playing along here, but all of a sudden there's this soothsayer, this witch or what have you, and this soothsayer says,

oh, there must be a 13th warrior, and it's going to be an outlander. And he's looking around like, oh, fuck, I'm in the wrong place at the wrong time. And sure enough, he goes there. But yeah, I love the story. Or is exactly where he's meant to be. Yeah. Well, one thing about this movie, and I'm going to play my hand a little bit for the next one,

I don't think this movie left a lot out. Philip, I know you're saying, yeah, he learned the language in two days, but I think that was more of filmic style. I think they were together, you know, a lot longer. And I can sort of understand that. Yeah, because there's shots of him on the ship, like watching them speak and listening. So that had that trip to wherever they were going through on C had to have taken quite a bit. Yeah, that makes sense.

You know, I think this was very well done. The second movie we're going to talk about tonight might have some things that I feel got left out that if they were there would have made it a better movie for me. but the film that we're talking about right now, I don't know, I thought it was really powerful from start to finish, and I don't know how I've never seen this movie before. All of the acting, all of the acting was amazing. I'm like trying to think,

have I ever seen any of these other actors that played the Vikings before? And I almost started thinking, maybe these were real fucking Vikings that time traveled and showed up in these movies because they were so goddamn believable. Okay, so one guy, sorry, I just got to interrupt. One guy.

Okay. You know, the guy with like, I mean, they're all tall, but real tall, and he has sort of like the black mullet and the black armor. Sure, sure. He's a physician in sports medicine now. Okay. Okay. One of my favorite characters in the movie was that blonde guy who got in the fight and killed the, I got the blonde guy, they're all fucking Norseman. The one that killed that big dude in the fight.

Yeah. He grew on me the whole movie. I loved him by the end of it. Oh, yeah. These were great characters, man. Yeah. Yeah, and these guys, Vikings must have a lot of fucking fun. They're just like, they're always, you're talking about a character named the joyous.

It's kind of like these guys are always fucking joyous and just, they can't wait to get into battle. And I'm a huge, huge Trekkie, Alex, as you might could tell, because I mentioned Klingon's earlier. And this is like the Klingon race all the way, man. And I just, I love it. I'm a sucker for Viking stories. And then when you pull somebody in who's the fish out of water, you know, the character that's from a completely different type of culture. And he has to learn how to interact and mash with these people. And then he basically kind of like, you know, dances with wolves, right, becomes part of this culture.

And he actually fights with him alongside him just as strongly as if he were a blood-borne brother. But he still keeps his values, though. Like he won't drink. Right. fashion's you know the weapon is way too heavy for him oh yeah I love the part of the sword that was amazing he didn't even talk about that real stronger yes I love that and he ends up the reaction he ends up fashion into a way to a one he can use absolutely man yeah this is a great movie in any other year than 99 guaranteed it would be in my top 10 but it's probably up there and there's so many

great lines too like Brian's talking about the scene where he he like makes the sword. And then, and then I forget the actor's name, but he's like, when you die, can I give that to my daughter? Can I get that to my daughter? Yeah, talk about do Arabs ride their dogs into battle? Yeah, yeah. It's great minds.

So we'll get into scores now. So, Alex, here's what we do, man. We do from one to ten, like 10 being, you know, a masterpiece, right? Like Clockwork Orange. And one being like, uh, Oh, I don't know, the fanatic, the one with John Travolta from a couple of years ago, right? Right. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

You get the idea, man. Where would you rate this movie? How about just make it the fan scale? One being the fan, and then 10 being the fan with De Niro and Wesley Snipes. So you actually have the same movie or like Volcano Dante's Peak, Deep Impact Armageddon, you know, that kind of thing. For me, for me, this is. and, you know, like, for all the reasons I said in personal reasons, this is a 10. To me, this is like, I have...

It's a hell of good, guys. This is... There's one other movie. Well, there's two other movies that I would... Like, I have said, like, I watch and I just have nothing that I can say that could improve it. Can we ask you what they are? I mean... Yeah, for sure.

The other one's the thing by John Carpenter. Brian? Brian? Yeah. That is my favorite movie of all time. That was my favorite movie long before I was into horror. That's right. I think it's just like a complete masterpiece. It says everything about paranoia and relationships and high-stress situations and deception.

It's basically 12 angry men with aliens and done just as well as the Fonda film. and then the other one is Scorsese's the Aviator. Wow. That's a great movie. I got to rewatch that one, man. I haven't seen that one probably since it first came out. Yeah, it's an amazing movie. I think it says an incredible amount about that era from, you know, like immediately pre-World War II.

into, you know, the 1960s. I think it's like, it's probably the only movie that digs into one of the most varied in eccentric characters in American business, Howard Hughes. And it's like, it's beautifully shot, you know, the color palette's amazing. The soundtrack. Oh, my God.

See, that's what we'll be remembered about him. Yeah, yeah. And that, I just, I like, like with the other, with the 13th Warrior, I have nothing to say. I have nothing to add. The performances, the soundtrack, the cinematography, the story itself. Sure. I mean, Dennis Storhoes' performance to me, I still watch that and get bowled over. You know, he's in turns, charismatic, you know, Huger the Joyous, you know, or. And then the way he can convey his character's fear, you know, where they, like Omar Sharif as Melchazetek is asking him, you know, like, what's this thing? He's like, we can't say, we can't say. They won't even mention the Vendel. They won't even say the name yet. Voldemort. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. Voldemort, but like more metal, you know? Yeah. I'm not going to give it quite as high as that, but I will definitely give it an eight. I think it was super enjoyable and entertaining, and I forgot how good this movie was.

It definitely has some cheese and the, you know, just the Hollywood factor, you know, you got the epic music playing in the background, and all that stuff. But yeah, no, I thought it shed some light on, like I shed a new light on an old story, which is always pretty cool. Yep. And especially when you make it a little more realistic.

And Antonio Banderas was awesome. And I loved, like I said, that the dude that killed that big guy in the fight. Those two were the standout performances to me. And, like, their chemistry together was fantastic. Yeah. Oh, sorry. I just got to add. Because Phil's talk about the chemistry.

Like, that part at the end is so beautiful. Where Herger is saying, you know, like, perhaps for you, one God is enough. But here we have need of many. Bye, Arab. And then Antonio Banderers just. Right. Goodbye, Norseman. Right.

And he wasn't defended. He was offended. And that's what it was. He was framed all of his guns. Hey, we come from two totally different worlds and we respect each other. And I love that. That's the message that we need to be sending. Yep.

We could learn from that. What do you think, Brian? Well, you know me, I don't give a lot of tens out. I can't give this one to 10, but I can damn well get it close. This is a 9.5. Damn. I'm sitting here listening to everybody. I don't have anything bad to say about it.

Not one thing. Yeah. There's not a whole lot you can. No. The characters you guys mentioned are my favorite, as well as the leader. You know, I just, like I said, I'll go into battle with that guy any day. That was my king. And he nailed that part.

And, yeah, 9.5. I can't think of anything that I can say negative about the movie. The only thing that we're missing from an Antonio Banderas movie is Selma Hayek. Selma Hyac. She's going to at least done the dance of the seven bells. Come on. All right, I'm going to go strong eight. Strong eight.

So this is a very high-scoring movie for me. And goddamn, thanks for bringing it to our attention. Brian or Alex or whoever decided for us to watch this movie. I mean, first time watch, I loved it. It won't be my last time to watch it for sure. Strong eight. It worked, man. It worked with the new movie.

Even had some of the same chance. True. Yeah. V.C. Hat Compaise. All right. Now we're going to move on to the new one, The Northman. From visionary director Robert Eggers, that's his official title. Comes the Northman, an action-filled epic that follows a young Viking prince on his quest to avenge his father's murder.

Director is Robert Eggers, also known for the Vich and The Lighthouse. Writers are Robert Eggers with John, S-J-A-O-N, or S-J-O-N, also known for Lamb and Dancer in the Dark. Filming was supposed to start in March 2020, but was delayed due to COVID, of course. The actors were already present on set and rehearsing before the production shut down. Historical consultants were archaeologist Neil Price, author of the Viking Way, Religion and War in a late Iron Age Scandinavia, and Children of Ash and Elm, a history of Vikings. A literary scholar, Joanna Katrin, Fridichshred daughter. Watch your mouth, Philip.

Yeah. We're talking about ridiculous daughters. Come on. Yeah, we're not that kind of show. Bridger's daughter. Sometimes we are. Author of Valkyry, the women of the Viking world. All right.

The Northman. Alex, what did you think about that one? How did it compare? I said to, I went to see this with my wife. I said like, it's like... Oh, I did too. I did too. Yeah.

She enjoyed the first 45 minutes. I said... Not a short movie. Not a short movie. We came out and I said, wow, it's like they made Conan, but they took out all the feminine pansy parts. This movie. was like we saw a preview, we saw a preview for a horror movie before it called men. And Gina said, were we watching.

Yes, I'm looking forward to that one. Yeah, that looks good. She said, no, this movie is called men. It was, it was like the whole movie was, you know, it was really good, but it was definitely like, it was like it was like written for me, you know what I mean? It was actually called White Men. Yeah, exactly. Oh, my God.

Should I edit that? The Vikings, what do you want? I know, I know. I'm fucking with you, man. You stick Antonio Banderas and there is something else in there, but it's not going to work. This is like historically

the whitest of the whitest, white place in the world. So let's, you know, let's get straight about, like the non-white people in this movie were the predecessors of modern Russia. Like, so that's like, that's true, you know?

Yeah. It's like going from like eggshelled. Yeah, right? Yeah, exactly. This movie was like so, this got, the battle scenes got my blood up so much. They were so well executed. Like the berserker scene in the beginning, I just like, oh my God. I felt like a touch something like animal in me.

Like I was just like starting to be like brer-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r. He's not barking like a dog. Yeah, it was like fucking nuts, man. Like, yeah, we're, um, Umlath catches the fucking spear and throws it back, you know? Some dude speared them from fucking 70 yards out and he just catches it. Yep. And, you know, and everyone looks fucking horrifying, you know, like, right?

It was like, um, I forget, I forget, I, I, made Phillips that it was like in the 13th warrior, like, I thought like, If I didn't know who Scars Guard was, I'd be like, these guys are actual Vikings. Yeah. Sure. Sure. Like they went to like, you know, like, uh, like the equivalent of some cargo cult in Norway, some untouched fucking village in the mountains where people like this still

exist. And they said, and just grab people and said you, you, you, you. Yeah. Exactly. Like they couldn't even offer them money. They're just like, we'll give you, you know, a hundred yaks and three thousand pounds. All the honey, all the honey mead you want. Yeah.

Exactly. And if that dude is walking through your village with a couple of axes covered in blood, what are you doing? That's why I'm so, yeah, exactly. That's why I'm so, that's like, how could you look at a berser and just like not be fucking terrified? Like who would even fight back? I would be like, oh my God. It's like turning out and go back.

Yeah. So, you know, and like some of the. The performances were really strong. Like, I thought Ethan Hawke's performance, even just like in a very small part. And, you know, I've been thinking about him because of Moon Knight. Yeah. Very strong performance.

I was wondering if that was him through the whole time. I was like, man, that guy really looks like Ethan Hawk. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You had a couple of big time jumps, for sure, in this one. For sure. And then the guy who played Fjolner, Klaus Bank, I'm a huge fan of him.

I really liked him in... Dracula. Yes. Oh, my God. He was so fucking good in that. Dracula 2000? No, no, no. The Netflix one.

Yeah. Oh, okay. I haven't seen that. Dracula 2000 was Leonidas. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Gerard Butler. That was an unholy turd.

Aye, aye, aye. Yeah. Hey, at least it had seven of nine in it, right? Yeah. But as an aside, maybe Ryan could back me up with this. The Dracula on Netflix, at least the two first installments are tremendous.

Yeah, for sure. Are they? Okay. Yeah. And the third I heard he's like in the disco era or something that gets silly. I didn't get it. Okay. It took a turn in the third.

Yeah, it took a turn for the third. worse. Yeah. But, Land, you should watch it for his performance as Dracula. All right. I'll check it out. I'll check it. So you, so you obviously love this one. It sounds like, I mean, you love the cinematography.

I did, but okay. This was like, I will... See, we try not to say too much in this first go-round. We try to just give our general, general thoughts. Because we're going to get to the spoilers. I don't want to say too much yet.

Okay. Well, no spoilers, but like... Okay. Some of the dialogue... Yeah. ...was so stupid... Was it? That, like, when I heard it, I felt like I had to go take a shit, you know?

Like... Aye, aye. All right. Like, someone, like, slapped me in the face with a stupid switch. You know, like... So, but I'll save it for the next round. Can I talk real quick about the part that bothered me? No.

And then, all right. Go ahead. All right. Here's what bothered me about the movie. I love the cinematography. Some of the acting was fucking phenomenal. Some great characters, a really good revenge story, which is always good, right? But, man, there were just some parts, like, early in the film, when you get the first time jump forward. I'm like, where the fuck has he been this whole time?

And it's like, you can go back and you can read about it. and you can, you know, yeah, I've seen YouTube videos and shit like that because I'm like, where the fuck has he been? How does he go from zero to 60 and five seconds like this? And I just, and here I am bitching that we're talking about how long the movie is and I'm bitching lately. You guys know about how long every fucking movie in the theater is now. You cannot go to the movie theater right now without it being between two and a half to three and a half hours long. I get it.

I have a reason to me. Watch an Amityville. movie. Oh, my God, dude. Hour and 10 minutes. Okay, but for some reason, you want to slow down time. For some reason, this film, to me,

left out huge chunks of what I thought should have been story that was in there. This would have been a much better, you know, limited series. I'm a big Eggers fan. I love the witch. I thought the lighthouse for what it was was good, but this one lost me a lot. It really did.

I just, I had, unlike the film we just watched, which I understood every part of the from start to finish, it made perfect sense. This one really lost me in a few spots. And I totally understand how they were mixing together, the mythology, and that we're doing mushrooms, so we're tripping. So is this really happening?

Is that really happening? Is this from God's own high? Is this from humans? Is this a mixture of the two or whatever? But this movie just lost me. So what do you guys think? I told you I'd make it quick. Yeah, no, I was going to say the same thing, because there's, it seems like he's got a really good story and they stick to this one character.

And I think that it would have been probably better suited for a TV series. I think so. I think so. Or a biblical story or something. I don't know. You used to say stuff like that and you'd be banned from everything because it doesn't make any sense. TV, I'm not doing TV, I'm Hollywood. Right.

But, man, there's a lot of TV series that are really good because they can tell deeper into the characters. Ozark, you know? You don't get a character like Bruce in a movie. Yeah. Because you don't have the development that goes on. Well, that's the problem with, I think with the, it's so true because now the resources that used to be available only for film are available for series.

You know, you can see great... Yeah, you see series that have like tens of millions, even a hundred, like, yeah, like, go look at the Marvel series. It's like $100 million, pumps into every one, you know? And the problem is that if you're tackling, it's not just like riffing on a theme, you know, like The Witch and the Lighthouse, I didn't... Disclosure, I don't like either, you know? But the...

You're taking a theme and you're... you're riffing on it, you know, like, you know, like Willem Defoe and Robert. Yeah, the witch was very contained. It was a very contained story. Thank you. Yeah. One family. Yeah.

The problem here is that like this is, it's like, this movie's like, it's got like Terrence Malick elements, you know, like these tripping. We're like doing these big sweeping shots. Yep. We're trying to stay historically true, right? So we're jamming in a lot of facts. But the problem is it becomes so dense. that, you know, it becomes sort of like,

don't get me wrong, visually, it's like a fucking masterpiece. Yeah. But it's just like it's confused. There's a lot of shit going on. There's a lot of shit. There's a lot of shit going on. And like, even in two and a half hours,

you have to pick what you're putting in. I know, right. Yeah. And this is a, you know, something that could have been, you know, like a fucking five-parter. an hour and a half each. This is like, you know, this movie has more uncommon, you know, in terms of how it needs to be told with midnight mass than it does with Eggers.

Yes, my favorite television series of last year. Thanks for mentioning it. No problem. I loved it. I thought, you know, to me, the future of horror or like trippy speculative films is my... is Mike Flanagan. Yeah. Mike Flanagan was a lot more about making a good story than Eggers does.

Eggers, like the smell of his own farts a little bit. Wow. Yeah, you can tell that in this movie, kind of a lot, because they did a lot of very, self-indulgent. Yeah. Going in deep into some stuff that didn't exactly flow with the movie. and like I think that they maybe couldn't quite decide what they wanted to be.

Right. Like it had all the pieces to the masterpiece, but like the person that was putting the puzzle together was just sticking pieces wherever they could. You know what I mean? Yeah, exactly. I love it. To me, like, okay, to compare it to like Mike Flanagan is like there's like a real famous physicist named Richard Feynman. And this guy's like super brilliant.

brilliant. And he said like, listen, if you can't explain it simply, then you can't explain it. Right. Right. Okay. To me, that's Mike Flanagan. You know? And a guy like that actually honors his viewers by saying, it's like, you know what, we're going to get out there. But I promise you're going to be with me every step. No matter, no matter how fucking funky this gets. And if you think about Midnight Mass, right, he takes us all over. He takes us over to fucking Mesopotamia. And he's delving. into old, you know, Babylonian lore. You're talking about like, you know, conflicts of faith, resurrection, deep, deep Christian themes, Catholic themes specifically, right? But you can follow them. And honestly, it comes off across as being much smarter, much more complex than any of the ideas in, in Rotten Eggers, I mean, Robert Eggers movie. You know, you know, Well, look, every year at the end of the year, we do a best of and worst of a show, Brian. You could tell him what my last four, three of them have been television shows that have been developed by that particular writer-director, right?

Yeah. Three or four of the last four years. So I hear you, man. Yeah. Well, I think it's the difference between, like, and maybe this is because Flanagan's Catholic. So, like, as a Catholic, he's. self-flagellating himself and I always think. I'll say, you know, I get, I get this being a Jewish guy.

I'm so low, I'm so low, you know? I think the problem is like Robert Eggers is like, I'm so great, you know? Right. And he's the type of guy to be like, not like, oh, if you don't get it, I'm doing something wrong. I got to explain to you. He's like, you know, he's more like a first year art student, you know, like, oh, you just don't get it. Yeah. Oh, man.

Brian, Brian, what do you have to say about all this? this man. Okay. I'm not going to deny that I think Robert Eggers like his movies visually look fantastic. This visually was amazing. There were more than one scene in there that were

fucking amazing. Yeah. And it wasn't black and white. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not a big what's his name? Alexander Scarca. I'm not a big fan of his. The Black Man from the Stan remake. Yeah, if you guys go back and listen to our review of Godzilla versus Kong, how I ripped on him for not being a believable

scientist. Oh, you've never seen a scientist who looks like a fucking supermodel and is six and a half feet tall? Yeah, I'm shocked. Stans there with a bacon look on his face all this time. Like a James Bond movie female scientist. Yeah, exactly. He does, however, make a pretty convincing Viking. Yes, that's what I was about to say.

And this might be the best thing he's. done because he looked apart like you were like you were saying okay him just standing there with a sword and the axe just covered in blood and yeah barking and howling I almost stood out my seat and started barking and howling at the next person yeah it took me a minute to get into that by the time they were towards the end of that scene I was like I was I was in it yeah yeah a lot of dog a lot of wolf a lot of bear right it's again that psychological warfare You make the getting scared.

These people attacking us are animals. I thought Ethan Hawk was great for the short time he was in it. You know, I was kind of wondering how he was going to play it. Because, you know, Ethan Hawk, I'm not going to say he is limited in his range in movies, but I wasn't, I wouldn't have thought he'd be cast as a Viking king. Yeah. And when he came and then we got the scene, well, I'll save that for the spoilers, but the scene with him and his son

and they're going through like some kind of ritual ceremony or something. I was like, I was like, I'm buying it. Yeah. But I have to say, I thought I was coming into a straightforward Viking movie. This kind of got a little fantastical. I didn't necessarily know what was, if it was really happening or not.

It kind of made me go back to the lighthouse to where I didn't know what was really happening. And if what I'm watching, is it really happening? or is it in his mind? Yeah, it's not what I expected out of this movie, for sure. I thought... It's a little more Mandy and a little less 13th Warrior. I thought Anya Taylor Joy was great in it. Nicole Kidman was in the beginning was kind of just there

until it takes a turn with her... No, until it takes a turn with her character. And I was like... I still don't understand that part. We'll talk about it in spoiler. I just, I think I'm too much of an AMCA lister that I have to see Nicole Kidman at the beginning of every fucking movie I go to at the theater. I'm getting tired of her right now. Yeah.

Clouds of Bang, fabulous performance, amazing. The brutality was there, but at times I kind of was like, can we have a little bit of more of that? You know, this is supposed to be a Viking revenge movie, and I kind of just, there was times when I was just like, fuck, yeah, let's, let's do this. But then there was times

I was just kind of like, what are we doing? Yeah. Yeah, there was a lot of weird, ethereal moments, like probably more than there should have been. It was self-indulgent.

Yeah. It was definitely like, it reminded me of, I don't know if anyone's seen this, because like, it's the fountain by Darren Aronofsky. Oh, Darynovsky.

Absolutely. I like the fan. Mountain, though. But I'm a minute. But when's the last time you watched? But Aronovsky does that shit too. I've watched it once. Aronovsky does that shit,

but he does a much better job. Yeah. And the truth is, is like, Aronovsky has shown straight up storytelling chops, the wrestler. Right. Okay. All right. Yeah. I'll buy that. You know, that point, man. Like a whole lot less metaphorical junk.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and the next movie he's supposed to be doing is it's going to be like, you know, it's like straight up drama, you know. Okay. But to me, Eggers is like, he's got to earn something. Right. A little, you know, I'm with, not just suck his own dick. Yeah, exactly.

You know, smell, smelling his own farts while he's giving himself head, you know. Everybody likes their own brand. Yeah. Oh. You know, it's like, it's like Brian said, you know, like I was, I was so ready to go in. And to just like, because I watched the trailer and I was so fucking pumped. Yeah, sure, sure. I was so ready for it to be just like, like, fine.

Give me a fucking visually stunning Conan, you know? Yeah. And by the way, actually, if you watch this and you watch Conan and you understand that Conan is also a product of the 80s, John Millius is a much, is a much, is a much, much better job. You know, with... And I think the screenplay was written by Oliver Stone. Oh, my God. You heard it here, folks.

Conan or this one? Conan. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. John Milliams is a better film maker than Robert Eggers. You heard it here? That's where I'm at. That's where I'm at.

Yeah. You all ready for scores? I saw a whole video on... So we can really spoil the shit out of this? Working for him. It was pretty great. Just to throw that out there. All right.

You guys are starting to rob me the Kyla Wren episode on Saturday Night Live now where he's the unseen boss or whatever. That was so great. Alex, you're right. Oliver Stone was one of the writers. Wow. Wow. His latest JFK thing is excellent, by the way, if you haven't seen that. There's a new. Oh, man.

Yeah. He did a new JFK, uh... JFK redo, right? Documentary, though. So I like his favorite subject? Yeah. He's into it, man. There's a whole lot of information there. It takes a while to get to it.

All right, scores, guys? Uh, let's go. Lance, you were first, right? No, Alex was first, right? Oh, Alex. They're guests. My bad. We're just scoring this.

Our guest of honor, man. Come on. Um, I'm gonna- We're gonna put you on the hot seat, brother. For sure, for sure. I'm gonna give it a six, but I'll say that I'll probably, I'll probably re-watch it like it's a seven or an eight. Yeah.

Okay. Like, I can imagine watching it and just like fast-forwarding to the fight scenes. Nice, nice. Lance? I'll go a little higher, six and a half. I'll go six and a half. It was a two-thirds good movie. I couldn't take the fucking time jumps that were unexplained

and there was just too much of the story and the dialogue that just didn't grab me. So, yeah, cinematography is a 10. Score was a 10. Acting was a fucking 8. Everything else was a 2. So it ends up at 6.5. Yeah, the score was fucking boss, man. That score was awesome.

Yeah, I... This is one of the few movies. that I've watched in the middle of watching the movie instead of being in the movie I was like man this would work better as a TV series Ah no I think you're absolutely right

with that however I do like the story that they gave I have some questions which we'll get to It was a little fucking weird for What I expected to see Okay but having said that I'm still going to give it a seven I think it

had a lot of really cool shit in it. And, uh, I, the, the, the, yeah, the ethereal stuff was kind of self-indulgent, but sort of cool. I just wish they'd have done it like two or three less times. Yeah. Yeah, like the final time where like it's just, yeah, here's the thing. The final time where they do like the king's tree, like Yiddresil. Oh, sure, sure, sure. Okay.

Careful. Okay. You know what? I'll save this. I'll say this. Okay. We got it. I'll save it all.

Brian, what do you think? I'm going to give it a seven, even though I'm kind of around the six, six and a half. But like I said, visually, it was great. You guys just brought up the score. It was great. I enjoyed the cast. But it's just, at times, it made me, like,

want to rip my shirt off and swing my non-existent acts at somebody. But then at times, it just, it just, Yeah, and I just thought from the trailers, I thought from the trailers, it was just going to be a straightforward Viking revenge movie because he leaves as a child, I know. I'm going to avenge my father, save my mother.

You know, he's saying it over and over. And then when he comes back, he's still saying the same thing. This is just building up this whole time. Like that first weird. moment I was totally okay with. Okay. Y'all ready for spoilers?

After that. You got our scores. Now comes the spoilers. This is a motherfucking spoiler alert. You've been fucking warned. This is a motherfucking spoiler alert. You've been fucking warned. This is a motherfucking spoiler alert.

You've been fucking warned. Who's first? I'm sorry, Brian. I didn't mean to catch you. You said about the family tree. Who was talking about the family tree? Was that Alex? Oh, yeah, Alex.

Wait, let's start there, because that had a big bit. That was a huge part, right? Yeah, okay. So throughout the movie, there's a tree. I think, I mean, at least when they first show it in a wide pan, it looks like Yildersil, you know, the world tree. Okay. And you see it a couple of times, and it's supposed to like,

it's, it's like represents, you know, the lineage of the kingship, I guess. and just like they showed it, like Philips said, like one too many times. Like they jumped the shark with it. Because like at the end, like they show it and it like it goes up and you see his two future kids. And just, you know, it was just one time too many. And also. Yep, yep. One time too many.

Are you fucking me, dude? Come on. They did that. They were so fucking self-indulgent, dude. Yeah, it was. That's why I say it reminded me of the fountain because like there's like scenes of the We're like like fucking Hugh Jackman meditating for no reason. Sure, sure.

It's like, okay, awesome. Right. You went to film school or your cinematographer did. That's very cool. And I'm sure that your mom is real proud of you. But the thing is, I just paid, you know, I'm in New York. I just paid like fucking $15, $16 to be here. You know?

And like everybody who's going to see this is paying money to see it after. two years of everyone losing their fucking job. So, like, try and be a little cool, dude. You know? I get it. You don't have to abandon everything. And I'm sure, like, everybody on the show is mostly on the side of, you know, like the autotour and the artist.

But just, like, don't make a movie for... Oh, we're going to get some hate from this episode. Even though we all gave it good scores, anything above a five is good, right? It means we liked it. We suggest it. I guarantee you we're going to get some fucking hate on this one. Oh, dude, there's going to be so many people suck in this movie's dick. Really?

Just watch. Just watch. You'll see. You'll see. I'll say what Rottenegger says then. You guys just don't get it. Okay. You guys just don't get it.

All right. I got you. I got you. All right, let me say this, though. Before we move on, I'm going to say, Alex, dude, I don't know what besides your writing, what else you're doing. but anytime you ever want a guest on this show with us, if you want to do like a monthly, you know, literary show with us or something like that, you're always invited back, man.

This show's far fucking out, man. So much insight. Thanks. Like, this is a, this, I really like the structure. I do. It's like, this is far fucking out. And, you know, I feel like, I don't know, very different. Everyone has, everyone here is super different from each one.

But somehow we're all in the same. same fucking wavelength, you know? You know? So the last of, the, the tree is unnecessary to me because at the end, there's that, there's that beautiful shot that does make sense with the Valkyrie, you know? Right. It's like taking him up to fucking Valhalla. That's a perfect shot.

And it makes perfect sense. And like, why have, you know, 40 seconds before of like going up at, like, we get it. Right. We get the tree. Yeah. We've been here. We've been here. What about the Valkyrie face that they showed while he was like... Oh, my wife called it the braces, you mean?

That's what my wife said? What is this? What is this? Is she wearing braces? That was such a weird. It didn't make any sense. Yeah, exactly. Like the Valky.

It's like, oh, because she's a junior Valkyrie. That's why she can still wear her head gear, you know? Somebody's got a finish. Yeah. Like, what the fuck? Fuck, man. That was weird. That was weird.

Oh, and the Valkyrie, I don't know. At first it reminded me the actor that's in so much of Kronenberg's son's movies. I can't think of his name, the weird blonde guy. Never mind. Everybody's yelling at me like, y'all should know this actor's name. He's a super weird. Okay, so Kronenberg's son makes films as well. The guy from Get Out?

He was the brother? Maybe. maybe. Yeah, I think he was the brother. Yeah. Yeah. I can't. Oh,

for the person. Yeah. Lans is losing it over the cheapest double on Tondra ever. We break Lance every now. Yeah, yeah. We look at it. Get out. Somebody look it up.

Please. I'm looking it up. He was in a... Cosmopolis No, not Cosmopolis, come on. He was in it. God damn it. All right, move on. Kurt Russell's kid? No.

All right, well, I fucking fuck around here for thinking of who this person is and I'm thinking the Valkyry was. Who else wants to say something about the movie? I was just going to say, because I brought it up earlier. I like that we got that turn with Nicole Kidman's character because I before that she was just there and there was no need for her to be in the movie and then when that turn happened it gave her character something to do

and it did I think she I think she played it real good because when it happened I was just kind of like damn that's fucked up I'm inspired again Caleb Landry Jones I have no idea to that is though all right I mean, aside from being sort of like a very epic edipus kind of thing going to bring it back to. Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

I think it's a riff on like the source material for the original, for Hamlet. Hamlet? Yeah. Everything has something to do with Hamlet, right? Every fucking half the movies in Hollywood deal with Hamlet, right? Yeah, I didn't get Nicole Kidman's. thing. Like,

it was just very surprising when he confronted her, her reaction to it, and it didn't make a lot of sense, and it didn't really have a lot of payoff. I saw it coming, but only because I've seen Nicole Kidman before a hundred of my last 101 movies that I've seen at the theater. And so I thought she's going to be a cunt somehow. I sure enough, she was. She's good at that.

She's good at that. Somehow I saw it coming. You know, I'm with Brian. I saw that and like I got like the, I don't know how, like the goosebumps, the chills, you know, like that was a hell of performance. She fucking freaked me out, you know. Did she? Yeah.

So was she telling him the truth? Yeah, I think so because she shows the brand with the sign for the prostitute. You know? But then she was like also kind of telling him whatever he was. wanted to hear to keep her alive. Well, I think like that's the that's like

the deceit. Or just to piss him off. Fuck, I don't know. I think deceit as political survival survival. I think just madness, you know? Right. Who knows? I mean, that's part of the

fun of like a really good performance. You're left to, you know, sort of guess at it. Yeah. And I'm with Brian. That was like very, very strong performance. Yeah. when she tells him, your father only tolerated me because I gave him a son. Yeah. And, yeah.

Oh, yeah, that was rough. That was rough. I could have told your father about, about his brother, but I didn't warn him. And she knew, and I was just like, wow. And then she, she kisses him on the mouth kind of seductively. And I was like, whoa. Yeah. What are we doing?

I can't believe he didn't behead her at that moment. I don't know. I might have regged it differently. I think he was so. I'm so caught off guard because, like I said, you just been... Yeah, you guys are probably reading it pretty good. That's been one of the things he's just been repeating to himself. I'll save my mother, save my mother.

Yeah, yeah, for all those years. Okay, good. And then when I come to save her, she's just like, no. Yeah, she don't want saving. You were supposed to be dead because I said so. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's one third of his outlook, right? Like, the guy is super complicated, you know what I mean?

Avenge father, save mother, kill Fjolner, you know? Yeah, that's what he kept saying over and over. And then Fjolner maybe was not as a couple of a person. That's why I actually, I really like the turn because it kind of makes Fjolner, it fleshes them out, you know? Okay. It makes the character like, you know, it's never these things like, everyone's got family drama, right? Sure, sure. And like the person who's sitting there telling you about the piece of shit from the other side of the family, maybe they're like 80% right, but no one's ever 100% right.

Yeah, they've always got their point of view. Exactly. Three sides to everything, right? Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Like so everyone's always leaving, leaving out like, you know, like the drunk New Year's party where someone kissed somebody else's wife or what have you. Sure. There's always some.

Why you had to bring that up? Yeah. Sorry, Philip. sorry philip by the way that wasn't somebody's wife pal you were kissing you were kissing a grandfather clock you were just like really ripped and I real quick I just want to shout out

the quick little small roles basically glorified cameos of Willem Defoe yeah yeah and Bjork it was great as a witch I thought the casting of Bjork as the witch was spot on. Oh, that was Bjork.

Okay. She showed up just like she was. And they said, you don't need to go to costume. Yeah, exactly. At least he wasn't worth something on this morning. At least he wasn't in a swan costume, right? Was that last witch guy somebody? Was it?

I don't know, right? Like I was watching it and he took his little mask. helmet thing off and I was like that's not Kurt Russell is it? Was that Kurt Russell? I don't think so. Did we miss something? Man, it almost kind of looked like. If that was

Kurt Russell, then this movie goes up a point for me, but I don't think it was. Back full circle of the thing here, huh? But yeah, no, the turn with the Colt Kiddman and the whole

shifting of the paradigm, I think, could have been fleshed out a lot more in a TV series. There you go. Right? Yeah. And then it would have made more sense. And it would have been another twist, you know? Right.

And I think it would have been cool. Yeah. As it was, I don't think they played it out as much as it should have been. I mean, because it was like 50 seconds long. You know? Right. It's like so huge. Yeah.

It's like huge, just a huge bombshell to drop. And then it's like, you know, like, okay, I'm running away again. Yeah. And then it goes right back to the original plan. Yeah. I mean, like, this is like, I think the point I'm about today can like basically sum it up for all the listeners out there. You can't have a dude kissing his mom who just revealed that she's been betraying him for 20 years. And then also a naked fight between two dudes at a volcano within 20 minutes of the time.

Yeah, I know. It's just like a lot going on without enough, like, easing the viewer into it. The volcano fight was pretty fucking cool, though. It was real fucking cool. It's the only time I can approve hanging dong in a movie. Yeah. On that note, all right, I think we've dragged this one through the volcano along, the lava and the magma long enough. Best scene in the movie, though.

Yeah, it was awesome. That very first scene working great at the village was awesome. Yeah, there was some other moments where I wish we would have got more of, like, when he killed those guys. And then the next morning, they were displayed on the outside of the, whatever. Yeah, that kind of had mid-sumar vibes to it. Yeah. Yeah, I went to pee and came back and didn't realize what was going on. All right.

Well, Alex, once again, we really want to thank you for joining us, dude. So again, you know, the plug here, man, can you tell our listeners where to find your work? And, you know, like, is it easiest to just get your books through e-books or go buy them at Amazon or where's your stuff? All of that. Yeah. So it's all on Amazon. I do Amazon, like, pretty much exclusively because that way if you got Amazon Prime, you can get the book for free. Oh.

Because it's on Kindle Unlimited. You can get print books, too. So, you know, Amazon type in Alex Grass. I think it comes up pretty easy now. It would do pretty good. And if you want to get in touch with me, I'm not on social media. I'm sorry. Gorin, my guy who, you know, you guys talk to, he wants to murder me.

Yeah. Yeah, he wants. He's like, he has three things in life. you know, promote Alex, schedule Alex, kill Alex. Yeah, not necessarily in that order. Yeah. But you can find me on Goodreads. And I'm really great.

First of all, if you're a horror reader, goodreads is like a pretty amazing website. And you get, I think, you know, like you can find a lot of stuff you would not find otherwise. Nice. Nice. You know, and there's like great book lists and there's very prolific reviewers. I think it's really good also because it's, you know, specific to books. And if you contact me on there, like I said, I talk to all, any reader that gets in touch with me and very easy to get in touch with.

Yeah, and it's very simple. It's Alex just like it's spelled and it's grass just like, what you smoke? Yeah, exactly. So no trickery with the spelling. I looked it up on Amazon. It's right there. Got the influencer and what was the other one? Black River Lantern. Drek. Yep.

Yeah. So those are the three that pop up. All right. Oh, a boy's hammer. There it is. That one's free. Yeah, that's the newest one. All right. And as always, we want to thank you guys for listening to another episode of the Horror Returns.

We would always love to hear your feedback and ideas. You know, you can reach us at The Horror Returns at Gmail.com or fuck, just go to our website, thehorrorreturns.com. Follow our social media. We are on social media, unlike Alex, but I've got good reads, dude. So when we're done recording, I'm going to look you up. Check us out on iTunes and all the rest. Now, next week, I think it's potentially...

More pretentiousness, Brian. Yes. If I'm not mistaken. And so next week, Brian, what will we be covering? We will be covering last year's lamb and the upcoming movie The Hatching. More 824 goodness. All right. And we're having a special guest.

Sniff and some more farts. Adam Thomas. You're ready to hear. his impression of Lance when he comes on. I can't wait. He's going to make my Texas accent sound very Tennessean. I do declare

with some mint julep. Says you sound like Jason Vandervee from varsity blues. What? I don't want your life, please. All right, Alex got that one. I didn't, so I guess I got to go watch the movie. You're alive. All right.

So next week, we just talked about it. It's going to be our co-host from Double Edge, Double Bell, Adam Thomas, and we're doing, as Brian said, Lamb, which I, unfortunate, which I saw in the theater last year. Boiler. And the hatchling, which looks interesting. So, Philip, until the horror returns again, good night. Thank you.