The Horror Returns - THR - Ep. #44: The Matrix (1999) & Ghost In The Shell (2017) (Re-upload)

Episode Date: October 21, 2021

This week we check out The Matrix and Ghost in the Shell. Thanks for listening!

Regings victims, for those of you who 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. Greetings, listeners, you have found the horror returns.

And for all of you who delight in dread, fantasize about fear and glorify gore. Welcome home. This is the podcast that proves the horror never ends. Each episode, we seek out and review a brand new horror movie, then go back and find a classic work with similar themes, looking at both similarities and differences. Our goal is to explore how our perceptions of fear remain the same, from generation to generation,

but also to point out how the presentation can change based on the social and political climate of the times. We include spoilers for the new film. However, we will wait until the very end of the show to spoil the new feature. and we will let you know before we do so with a spoiler alert. If you don't wish to hear the spoilers, simply turn us off at that point, and we promise you won't miss a thing.

We generally assume that you guys have already seen the classic film, so there will always be spoilers when discussing anything that has been out for at least a year. The other thing we may do from time to time is use a few four-letter words. This is a horror podcast, and horror movies tend to be R-rated, so you can pretty much expect us,

to be too. I'm Lance and with me as always are my co-host Brian and Phillip. How's it going? It's going good. Great. Like Tony the Tiger. And so Brian, you said you guys had a good old-fashioned Alaskan snow day, huh, this week?

Yeah, I'm so over-winter snow. That's got to be one hell of a snow day. Yeah. See, it's because of the weather. so warm so when it snows it melts and you know it creates ice and it's kind of makes it really shitty to drive but um we're getting we're getting into the spring weather so i'm totally happy about that it's about time not a moment too soon huh yeah well i was out in the yard uh planting uh chili chili peppers chili pepper plants today nice were they red hot they will be man

Give it a couple of months, man. What were you up to today, Phil? I was working like a dog, man. Yeah, trying to catch up on appointments and get stuff done. So I've been climbing through addicts and digging and busting my ass. Those addicts are already pretty hot here in Texas, huh? Yeah, they're getting there. Summer's coming.

It's really nice outside at the moment, though. Right. Well, in between all that work, man, what was your cool of the week? Man, I think my cool of the week, I'd tell you what my not-so-cool of the week is, freaking Walking Dead. What? I know, my favorite show on the planet. I know a new one's coming out tomorrow or whatever, and it's going to be the season finale,

and I'm sure it's going to kick ass. But it better kick ass because this whole last half of the season, Not a goddamn thing has happened. They've just, like, been setting up this whole battle, and it still hasn't started yet. Right. So I'm thinking the finale should kick ass, I hope. They better.

It's supposed to. You know, it's going to be an hour and a half show, so. Yeah, I should have a little extra in it. Waiting for something big to happen, and nothing has. But my cool of the week is I've been rewatching Game of Thrones. I forgot how amazing that show is, man. The acting is great. And going back and watching it again,

you catch a lot of the little details that you may have missed the first time that you had to have missed the first time because there's a thousand of them, you know? Right. By any chance, you guys see the teaser trailer for the new season? Yeah, I did. Yeah.

Yeah, well, what do you think about the people were talking about the theories of, because you see Circe at the end where she breathes up the cold air. Maybe I haven't seen that. The only thing I saw was just you know, like the words swirling around or something and you could hear

DeNaris's voice. No, there's a teaser with her walking down a hall. Basically it's her DeNaris and John Snow, like they're walking down basically to their own separate throne rooms. What? And at the end,

And Circe lets out of breath and it's a cold air. And then you get a shot of the, what was his name? The Night King. Uh-huh. And there's a lot of theories that in this season they're going to have some kind of alliance. Oh, I bet they would. How is she not dead yet? God damn it.

But then there are, but then there's theories that she's breathing out cold air because, you know, she's a cold bitch and has no heart. Right. I think if there was some kind of a I don't think it wants me to talk about Game of Thrones Apparently not Okay I'm saying one more time It sounds like you were having a seizure

Okay I'll basically Are you okay? Cut a real short I'm a cut a real short Them linking up would be Would make the show a lot better for me I think it would be an interesting angle to the story

Right Yeah I think it's about to get real fucking cool so I'm totally excited about it, especially after going back and having watched this other stuff, man. I guess we're going to find out. Have either of you read the books? Not one page. No, me neither. I've got one of them. I haven't read it yet. Right. Yeah, that's, I can see where you're picking up a lot more detail going through the show again. The books are just loaded with detail.

Yeah. I mean, they make some changes, but it's kind of like The Walking Dead where they tend to kind of end up at the same places once it's all said and done. Every time they have those, you know, scenes where they're just talking to each other and telling stories about their past, you get that much more about that character and so much more in depth into the story and into that world. It's a pretty cake-ass show, man, to go back and watch again. Well, I was, my cool of the week was going to be Iron Fist, which I finished watching. I think you guys have both. Didn't you guys both make it your cool of the week at certain times? I never did, man.

I think I have a couple of issues with that show. I don't think it's my cool of the week. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. It wasn't really, what did you think about it, Brian? Last week, it would have been my cool of the week until I finished it this week. Okay. It fell off. Yeah, kind of like Luke Cage.

It seemed like it ended more with a whimper than a bang, you know? And I am extremely disappointed because I thought this was supposed to bridge, be the bridge to defenders. Yeah, me too. nothing connecting anything. Except Rosario Dawson. Yeah, and there was no... I'm tired of them in these shows.

They keep making references to other heroes. Yeah. Like, Rosario Dawson, if you know somebody that's fought the hand, pick up the phone and call them. That's what I was thinking. Say their name. Say who it is, you know? If you're the one that's calling them how serious the hand is,

why don't you just tell them about Daredevil, you know? Yeah, and a lot of... Say that part was actually kind of cool because it's more of a battle against the hand, which makes it it less complicated than it was in Daredevil. I don't know. It just... And what is his name? Finn Jones.

It plays Danny Rand. Right. He just was too whiny. Right. And just kept making that face. Oh, yes. Thank you. Jesus Christ. That kid was driving me crazy.

Yeah, he just wouldn't take a stand, would he? Like sometimes I liked him, but I was like, man, God, just quit being such a bitch. Right. I would call, I would say, I would say it was okay. I'd say the series that time was over was, I mean, it was, I didn't regret watching it. No, yeah, I didn't either. I just expected more out of it. It was, it wasn't bad.

It just, it was, it wasn't. I guess you'd say it just didn't quite deliver. Right. By no means, it wasn't as bad as these critics that had recently got the first six episodes and reviewed them. I thought, actually, I kind of liked the beginning. Oh, yeah, me too. Yeah, it totally was falling off. I haven't totally finished it yet, but I'm on like the last two or three episodes and I, for some reason, stopped watching it.

Yeah, I just think, you know, Daredevil set the bar high. Jessica Jones was unexpected because I don't think anybody thought it was going to be as good as it was going to be. Yeah. I think her season even raised the bar a little bit from Daredevil season one. And even though I didn't like the ending of Luke Cage, the character of Luke Cage was great. Right. Yeah. And I think they just, this might have been rushed, honestly.

Feels that way, doesn't it? And I think that was the problem with the fighting. I think he didn't have time. Or they didn't have time to prepare him. Yeah. Yeah, that was my other issue. If you're going to have a show about Iron Fist, which has to be mostly fighting, which it is, they have some really cool little kung fu scenes in there, which if, you know, the fight scenes had been better, probably have been a kick-ass scene. But the fight scenes weren't quite there, you know?

Put the mask on them from the comics. That way you can have a stunt double. Yeah. Oh yeah, that would make sense. But we didn't get that, so. Well, my takeaway with the whole thing was that I thought, you know, I thought Luke Cage was kind of subpar, and I thought that this one was kind of subpar.

So rather than try to come out with a season two of each of these guys, would it not make sense just to do like an eight or ten episode Power Man and Iron Fist together? Oh, the Heroes for Hire? Yeah, Heroes for Hire. Yeah, like an eight-episode season after the Defenders would be perfect. Because I don't think they can carry it the way Daredevil and Jessica Jones can. Or even if you just leave them in the Defenders.

And I think that maybe that's their next thing. And I think that would work great, you know, because I still think the characters could be cool in the Defenders. Yeah, I'm a little worried about the Defenders because there's just no setup for it, in my opinion. Well, that's true, yeah. From what I understand, Defenders is only going to be eight episodes. Who are they going to be fighting? Any idea? I don't know. One of these versions of the hand, I guess. I don't know. We've seen enough of the hand.

Probably the hand. I was going to say Kingpin would be cool. Hmm. Kind of been there, done that, though, you know? Yeah, but he's a pretty kick-ass villain. Plus, you know, Vincent's it's not for you. Well, I guess we'll find out. But that by cool of the week ended up being a rewatch of a movie we reviewed last year that I kind of almost in retrospect it probably should have been one of my honorable mentions for top five and that was a little movie with Blake lively in it that we that we saw last year. Oh yeah. You guys remember the shallows? Yeah. Yeah, rewatched it last night on second viewing it's even a much better movie than the first time.

Really? Yeah, really good. I mean, it's just all about, yeah, it's just really all just about her. There's not a whole lot a dialogue in it. I really liked the way at the beginning. They cleverly told her backstory by just showing the screens on her on her cell phone and like who she was talking to and what she was recording and everything.

Very well-made little movie. Wow. All right. What about you? Yeah. What about you, I was just going to say, I enjoyed the shallows up until that fantastic ending. Yeah, the evening was a little bit. But I mean, hey, it was exciting at least, you know.

Yeah. My cool little week was another horror anthology, a trailer we reviewed a little while back called Galaxy of Horrors. Oh, okay. I really dug this one. It was a perfect mix of sci-fi and horror, and I actually think it was a lot better than that XX horror anthology. Yeah, I wasn't super impressed with that one, though. Yeah, I'm not going to give anything away, but there was some weird shes. shit going on in these in these stories i think there's about seven or eight stories oh wow and um the wraparound is basically a guy uh he wakes up in his he's in one of those like hibernation pods and i think just some kind of malfunction and the computer while he's in there keeps showing him

uh oh it was a oh gosh yeah speaking of outer space houston we have a problem and you hear me now so it kind of had the passengers thing going on where he like woke up before he was supposed to or something yeah he woke up and he couldn't get out and basically the computer kept i guess it was going to show him like movies or some basically something to entertain him until he can get out of there and it just kept showing him like fucked up stories that's an odd set up but uh pretty much that's, um, it's a good episode for the hack. The only thing I've seen this week. Mm-hmm.

All right, cool. Well, uh, let's see if we can muddle through some headlines, Brian. I hope so. Recently, it was just a cinema con the past week. Mm-hmm. So a lot of news and trailers came out. Um, real quick, uh, blue-ray picks. Uh, I think a movie that we all pretty much liked, uh, the autopsy of Jane Doe.

Yeah, that was a good one. Yeah, yeah. Coming out May 2nd exclusively at Walmart. So if you want to pick up a copy, you have to go to Walmart. And another thing I thought was real quick, Charles Ban, Chowell Factory and Full Moon are releasing an 18 movie 15-discs Blu-ray set called the Empire Pictures Blu-ray collection. And a couple of the movies in that set are going to be the gooies one and two, dolls, troll, and, a movie you wanted to see Lance robot jocks

there you go the cost of this collection will be $250 oh shit I'll take a pass it is limited it is limited to 600 it will be signed by Charles Bann it is releasing

May 5th pre-order starting April 28th and if you pre-re-re-re- short it, chances are you probably won't get it anyway, because for some reason they said some of the 600 they'll be selling at some of the cons coming up. Mm-hmm. So, probably a good place you might pick one up as Texas Frightmare. Yeah, there you go.

Check us out at Texas Pritmare. And buy one for $1,500. Okay, moving on to some news. Blumhouse may be bringing us a film adaption to. the popular game Five Nights and Freddy's. It was inevitable. Annabelle, the Annabelle sequel is officially titled Annabelle Creation.

Yeah, that's all on that right there. Santa Clarita Diodes renewed for a second season. Awesome. Still haven't seen that one. It's cool. It's funny. They don't end it real well, though. It pisses me out.

Well, there you go. They were clamoring for that second season. It's a quick, it's a quick watch, though. They're only like 30-minute episodes. Yeah, and it's fun. It's a little more, a little more of a quick watch than Iron Fist, huh? Yeah. Oh, gosh.

I just go back to Iron Fist just real quick. It took me a week just to watch that last episode. That's how slow it got for it. Wow, dude. I'm telling you, man, I'm through like episode 9 or 10 or whatever, and I'm like, I just haven't gone back to it in a week so far. I don't want to say nothing about it. We don't talk about the Iron Fist.

The first rule of Iron Fist is don't talk about Iron Fist. All right, let me get some news in before I cut out again. Sony announced a new Venom solo film coming October 5th, 2018. They are describing this as an R-rated horror film. Okay. Well, I was wondering how they were going to make the bad guy, the protagonist. But get this,

it might not even have Spider-Man in it. Well, if it's going to be a horror film, I think that's the way to go. Do a Venom horror film, make him a bad, fucking bad guy. And then bring him into a Spider-Man movie later,

and he brings him more of an audience that it already had. Yeah, that might work. Who's doing this one, Brian? Sony. Yeah. I don't think they're working with Marvel on this one. Doesn't sound like it. It sounds like they're almost as bad off as DC, man. Because they sold the rights to Spider-Man, but they've still got the rights to Venom.

That's dumb. Terrible. Okay. Josh Whedon is returning back to comic book movies. He is going to write, direct, and produce a standalone Bat Girl film. Um, I'm, I'm, Josh Whedon's doing it. He's got my, he's got my attention. Um, rumor.

for bad girl and this is only rumor, Lindsey Morgan from the show of the 100. I've never seen that show. No idea who she is. Right now, they're just, they just got Josh Wheaton aboard, so I'm sure we'll get news on that soon.

You know who would be a good one? Emma Emma Stone. She looks funny looking to me. No, Emma Stone is awesome. She's super sexy. Her little smoky voice. Her eyes are too far apart.

But it's endearing. Didn't she start to play Mary Jane Watson or something in one of the Spider-Man movies? Oh, maybe. But she looks like she could be a bat girl, you know what I mean? Yeah. I don't know. And she looks super. They could start singing, doing some tapfins and play little jazz.

And she looks super skinny now, like a little too skinny. Oh, I don't know if I've seen her like super lately. that's a problem Nicholas Winding How do you say his name? Nicholas Winding Ren. Nicholas Winding Refing. Okay, thank you for correct for me.

That's not a fucking thing. He made that up. He is officially doing the Maniac Cop remake. It has been being lit. That's got to be interesting. Yes. So is this going to be tongue in cheek or is this going to be a serious

film? I think it's going to be more towards serious. Wow. So it'll be interesting, to say the least. A little bit of news here. I was dying to hear your input, Lance. I think you

know about the Escape from New York remake and who's directing it. I heard something about it. I don't think you should mess with the original in any way, former fashion. Robert Rodriguez has been confirmed to directs. I'm on board. Oh, yeah.

Down. Yeah. Yeah. Robert Rodriguez. That's going to be cooler than the original. Oh, I would say that. Nah, it's not going to beat the Carpenter original. Yeah, I just posted something about the Robert Rodriguez directing Escape from New York,

and I was interested in getting Kevin's take on it because he totally hates this. Really? Yeah, I mean, he didn't leave words, but he left little, little, angry emoji faces. Come on, Robert Rodriguez. Come on. Yeah, it's going to be good, Kevin. You're wrong.

That dude's going to do it justice. It's going to be the hell out of witchboard. Okay. Moving on to the next thing. Jordan Peel is wanting to do something about the lack of young black talent behind the camera in horror. So basically, if you have a script, contact Jordan Peel. and he'll try to help you make your movie.

Damn. And it will be cool. Well, yeah, and it will be through his production company, Monkey Paul Productions. And right now he's in demand. I just check the box office.

Get Out right now is at $154 million off of a $4.5 million dollar budget. Wow. He spides the hell out of me, man. It was pretty, it's a pretty good movie. And I think he, He's doing the right thing right now, which is trying to get cheap talent from unheard-of artists.

Yep. To write this shit and come out with another hit. And then bam, everybody makes loads of money. And our final news, Stephen King has seen the pilot for the Mist. Says it's pretty damn good. Okay. Oh, wow, wouldn't expect anything else. All right, you guys ready to move on?

Yep. So it's time for a little trip. Let's hope that that, let's hope that them boys way up there in Alaska have everything going good now with their log on here, and they don't log off, so we can all join and meet together down at the trailer park. Well, let's look at the big, the small, and sometimes the very, very weird. Brian, what's our first new trailer to talk about this week? Parts one we're going to talk about is Madre, starring, bear with me, Adia, Inasia Alamon, Matisse, Basse, and I'm just going to say others. Directed by Aaron Burns, and didn't recognize any... go.

Didn't recognize anything he's done, but he has worked a lot with Eli Roth and Robert Rodriguez. And Robert Rodriguez,

yep, as a matter of fact, he's an Austin boy. What did you guys think? What did you guys think of Madre? I'm looking forward to seeing. It looks creepy as hell.

Yeah, man, it really, it really does. It was definitely psychological thriller, like super creepy. Uh, foreign language,

which almost makes it creepier. in a style like this except they have to read subtitles the whole time but you know after 10 minutes you kind of forget about it

right yeah I think this is the type of movie where we're gonna get an ending that we didn't see coming yeah that would be cool it's probably gonna be cool I mean if we're talking about it and it's not even in English

then it should be pretty good and this we're getting this one pretty soon April 27th. Oh, cool. Check this one out for sure. Definitely, yeah. I'm excited about it. Okay, our next one is a movie that right now is available on direct TV. If anybody has DirecTV.

I do. Rupshire, starring Numi Rapace, Peter Stormere, and Michael Chickless. This one looked interesting. It kind of looked like the same setup is split a little bit there for a minute. Yeah, yeah, you got a little bit of. of a, you know, kidnapping movie that turns into body horror. Mm-hmm. And I'm, I'm probably going to check this out this week because I'm kind of, I want to figure out what, what are they trying to do?

Yeah. What is the test? Because, uh, I have no idea what this preview was about. Yeah, because, uh, when, when, uh, New Meber Pace's character questions what the, what the serum or what the injections are. And then that girl's face just kind of disqual. figures by itself. Yeah.

I'm trying to figure, is that what they're trying to go for? I don't know. Because it looks super weird, but I'm definitely going to check this out. Oh yeah, me too, man. Yeah, I loved it. I mean, it had pretty much everything you would want out of a horror movie it looked like.

And it has fucking Peter Stormair in it, so... I can't go wrong. Like I said, it's now available on direct TV. If you do not have direct TV, it will be available April 28. I will probably watch it this week. Okay.

Now into our big trailers that came out this week during Cinemicon. First one we're going to talk about is Spider-Man Homecoming trailer number two. What's not to like? Am I right, guys? I think, just from my opinion, I think they put a little too much in this trailer.

You think so? In the first trailer, we didn't know what was going to happen with the with the cruise ship or whatever it was right that was coming apart and this one we kind of got a resolution of that problem and I hated that they put that in the trailer but it is it is a very cool visual scene yes absolutely so I understand why they did that

it's just I think that would have been a moment in the theater when it happened you know me personally I would have been like yeah Iron Man's fucking saving a day and you know he's going to tell spider man you know you got a lot to learn kid you know one of them type of moments but we just got that in the trailer so yeah but other than that i i'm definitely all in i still stand by what i said this is going to be the best spider man we've got yeah i'm sure it will be um moving on to the next trail oh spider man forgot uh july

seven get that release date in there uh next trailer the official trailer for Justice League just released. Oh boy. Lance, we're going to start with you. I am not looking forward to this. This looks like a fucking mass, dude. I'm sorry. Wonder Woman was the only one in it that even remotely

looked like she might be worth watching for a two-hour movie. Batman looked lame as hell. Aquaman is Aquaman. They had to show Amy Adams there because she's so hot right now. She's one of the biggest people go. The flash looks like a little wimp. I mean, what more can

I say? Well, you got to have Amy Adams in there to let everybody know Superman's going to be in it. Yeah, even though he's not, he didn't show up at all in the trailer. I do like that. I don't want to see him in any trailers.

Don't put him. They'll tease about it. I don't want it. We know he's going to be there. It's the Justice League. I do agree with you on Wonder Woman. I just, I just, I just feel like every time I see her on screen, she looks badass. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And the new Wonder Woman preview? Holy shit. I saw it in theaters. I haven't seen that one yet. It was cool as shit, man. Yes, it is. This one looks like they're going to do it right. I'm excited about this one.

It looks cool. I hope you're right, but I'm going to reserve judgment, as they say. I know. I didn't really have a lot of problems with this trailer. I do. at first my only problem was I thought Cyborg was a little too too much CG.

Little CG-R-A-N-A-N-A-N-2, yeah. But then I kind of thought about it. His character, I don't know if anybody wants to correct me, Patrick, anybody. Probably will. As far as his character, his technology is constantly updating and upgrading.

So I think they might have had to go this route because if that's what his character is, he's going to be constantly changing. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. So, but other than that, I mean, I don't know. I love, I love Jason Mamoa, dude.

I think that, like, even if the Aquaman movie is terrible, I want to see him in it. I like that, dude. You know, I, I'm rooting for this movie. I want a good DC movie. I want to be like Aquaman at the end of this trailer when he was like, yeah.

I want to jump up in the theater and I want to yell in someone's face. Yeah. There you go. You know, fingers crossed. Well, just after re-watching so many games at Game of Thrones things, dude, Caldrogo is a bad motherfucker. And he is,

plays that shit to a T. And if you could do that with Aquaman. There is a lot of people saying that he's going to be the breakout of this movie. Yeah. I'm hoping. Which I hope so. You know, I like, I like, Because nobody else is fucking doing it, man.

I don't know that I want to see a flash movie. Sorry. As far as I've been reading, they still don't even have a director after the last two or three left. So I don't even know if we're getting one. But, yeah, Justice League, November 17th. Before we get to the final trailer, you guys check out the new War for the Planet Apes trailer? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. I did see that. I am super pumped for this movie. It looks cool, huh? Yeah. Do you guys think this is the last one in this story? They kind of make it out to be. Yeah.

Like, this is like it right here. This battle is going to be, you know, who reigns supreme, you know. Right. I don't know. They haven't, in my opinion, they haven't missed a beat once, you know? Seriously. The other two movies have been great. Yeah, since they came out with James Franco, man.

They really have kicked ass since then. Not on one of them has been bad. Yeah, I totally agree. Just keep Tim Burton far, far away from this franchise. Oh, they got him far as possible. Okay, now on to my opinion, my favorite trailer of this week, Stephen King's. Oh, yes. All right, starring Bill Scarsguard, Finn Wolfhard, Javier Botet, Nicholas Hamilton, Megan Carpentine,

and Jaden Lieberher and many others. And this is directed by Andreas Muschetti. I'm fucking heard by his name up. He was the director of Mama. He was the director of Mama.

The Machete? And that was pretty good. Yes. I enjoyed it. This trailer, I've been putting this movie in the news ever since we started doing this show. Yes, you have. I've been anticipating.

this and this trailer gave me everything I wanted. I am fully on board with this movie. Yeah. Man, I completely agree with you. Like, we've been talking about it news forever now and I've been

still a little bit leery. I'm like, man, I don't know, the old one was so good or at least the first half of it was, you know? I hate to see them mess that up. Let's see what happens. And that came out with this trailer, and I'm telling you, I had goosebumps through the entire thing.

It was great. That was going to be my cool of the week, except that I knew we were doing it in the preview section. Right. And Stephen King has seen the movie, and he said it succeeds beyond his expectations. It looks scary as shit. And again, of course, he's going to say that. Yeah. The feeling I got when I was watching the trailer was it took me right back to when I read the book.

And I probably read the book just a couple years after it actually came out. So it's been a really long time. But I think it captured the book in the way the miniseries didn't, at least from the trailer. If it's like that, I'm on board 100%. A little fact about the trailer. It just recently broke the online global traffic record. Really? The previous record was 197 million views within the first 24 hours.

or no, it set the record at 197. I believe the previous record was something like 30 million less than that. Right. No, no joke. The first time I saw this preview, my wife shared it on Facebook before the horror returns ever got it. I don't know. Yeah. So it's obviously all over the place.

Yeah, apparently it's at 246 million views so far. because everybody I know that that's seen the trailer has seen the trailer multiple times. Oh yeah. I went back on. I know myself. I watched it a few times. Yeah, me too. Yeah, I can't wait.

September 8th. I am going to be there opening night. So the big question is, Brian, do you know if it's going to be R-rated? Yes, I believe so. Yeah, it needs to be. Fuck it better to be. I can double check right that, but as far as I, No, it's supposed to be both movies.

Because this is the first of two movies. Right. Which I like they focus on this one because I don't even think they've casted for the second movie yet. So I think all their focus was get this right. Get it out there. Right. Okay. As well it should be.

So is that in for the trailers? Yeah, it is rated R. All right. Cool. Yep. And that was our final trailer. Patrick Lear. Once again, he saw the It trailer and he says that he is in.

We've also gotten a lot of positive feedback from our March Madness show, so much so, in fact, that we're already planning the follow-up show, and it will definitely be before next March. Thanks again to Mark, Patrick, Christy, and Kevin for helping us out there. If you haven't listened to it, you definitely check it out. It was super fun. Can I just say Christy was an all-star on that show? There was a couple. I'll just say if I was involved in that, she might have swayed my boat on a couple times

because she made some very good points. Yeah, she swayed mine a couple of times. Yeah. Let's see. Our friend from the UK, Nate Peterson, chimes in on the Black Coats' daughter, watched this a year ago. go, not very good.

You guys may like it. It's got a passable score on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes, but I found it boring and pretentious. Well, yeah. Thanks for the warning, Nate. That's, yeah. I think I may avoid it at this point. Yeah, no kidding, right? If a British guy found it pretentious, ah.

You guys could check it out if you want to, but this blows. Right. Thanks, Nate. Thanks for the warning, man. And regarding the poster for child eater, Stephen Loblad says that it looks fucking creepy. I'm pretty sure I agree with that. Child eater.

Creepy fucking, what is that? That's crazy. All right, so we got a Facebook request. Okay, so, uh, It's from Jay Roberto Antonio Ricardo Black. Roberto Antonio Ricardo is all one word. He says, hey, horror team. I recently came across the show I used to love as a kid and can't wait to revisit and hope it still holds up.

Friday the 13th, the series, this is in no relation to the movie franchise. It's about cursed items that were sold through an antique or pawn shop, and the new owners have to track. them down and deal with the powers and people they possess. My question is, have y'all seen this? And do you have any plans to do any retrospects? Reviews or commentaries on shows like this one? Others I remember are tales from the dark side and tales from the crypt with outer limits and even Twilight Zone being related in a way.

Would love to hear your thoughts on these shows and see if they still hold up after all these years. I would definitely try Friday the 13th. enjoy the show every week. You guys are awesome. Even Lance. All right. I praise. Even Lance. Man, that totally made me nostalgic, man. That would be a fun show. Go back and check out some of the old series. I don't know if I've ever seen Friday the 13th.

It sounds familiar, though. Yeah, I haven't seen it since I was a kid, but it was very interesting, especially because it does not have nothing to do with this. with the movie. No, not at all. No, it was about a brother and sister that owned, like, kind of a resale shop, and they would actually purchase items, kind of like, kind of a little bit, a little bit of what the Conjuring did with that little room that they had with the Annabelle doll and all the different items in it. Like goosebumps? Yeah, well, they would go out and they would actually hunt down items that were cursed and put them in the warehouse so no one else could be hurt.

hurt by them. Is that pretty close behind to what it was like? Yeah, I think so. That sounds really super familiar. My first experience with the drug ecstasy is we were sat around a group of people and watching that. And I remember

the intro came on where it was like going down a hallway and all these cursed items were like floating towards you and I kind of started tripping. It was an interesting watch for sure. Sounds like it. I've probably seen a few episodes of Tales from the Crip, because that was my show back in the day. Yeah, definitely.

I've seen some recently, and I still think that show holds up. It's a cool show, man. The whole Crop Keeper and everything, ah, it's great, man. That's, that's nostalgia. That's it right there. I know, what is the show? The one from about, it's not about a nightmare on Elm Street, but Freddy's Nightmares? Oh, yes.

That was around the same time as the Friday the 13th series. Yeah, that's... 80s, early 90s? I don't remember that. Yeah, that's on Robert Rieges's channel right now. The El Ray Channel. Okay. I think it comes on late at night, but I think it comes on a couple times, a couple days out of the week.

So if anybody wants to check those out. Yeah, that sounds like that stuff's all worth a revisit for sure. Maybe in a different frame of mind this time, but, you know, It definitely sounds like a good idea. Maybe leave the ecstasy at home. Anyway, I think that's about it for our listener feedback this week. Thanks to everybody who reaches out to us. We love the feedback.

As always, you can reach us at our Facebook or Podbean page. Or you can email us directly at the horror returns at gmail.com. We love to hear from you. Check us out on Instagram, Twitter, all the stuff. things. Check us out on the things. On the things. On the things. The social things. Yes.

All right. On that note, you guys ready for our featured attractions? Let's do it. This week, we plug in to the future with Ghost in the Shell as well as the original The Matrix. So we'll start out with the 1999 film The Matrix. Director and writers were the Wakowskies, also known for Speed Racer, Cloud, Atlas, and Bound.

You guys ever seen Bound? No. Fortunately, I have wanted to. Fortunately, I've seen Speed Racer. Speed Racer wasn't their best, but Bound was, I think it's the one with Jennifer Tilly in it. Oh, I have seen that one. Yeah, she falls in love with Gina Gershant's character, right?

Isn't, what is his name? Joey Pants? Isn't he in that? Joe Pansleyoni. Yeah, he shows up in a lot of these Wachowski movies, doesn't he? I think so, yeah. Okay, yeah.

Yeah, I haven't seen it, but I've heard a lot of really good things about it. Yeah, I've seen it a long time ago. I don't really remember it, though. Yeah, I was reading about it, researching this a little bit. I'm definitely going to check it out. It definitely sounds interesting.

You know, it's not your typical love story by any stretch of the imagination. Something about stolen mob money and, you know, they're trying to get away with it or something like that. Yeah. It looked interesting to me. But now here is talking about interesting. See if you guys can believe this.

This is some interesting trivia. Will Smith was actually approached to play Neo. That would have been a different movie. That would have been a different movie. Yeah. Thank God he turned down the offer in order to star in Wild Wild West. Good choice. Yep.

Smith later admitted that at the time he was not mature enough as an actor, and that if given the role, he would have messed it up, says he had no regret saying that Keanu was brilliant as Neo. Now that's a gentleman there, for sure. Big man. This is interesting. Hey, Gillian Anderson turned down the role of Trinity. Oh, I would have loved to see that.

And get these two guys, Gary Oldman, as well as San Diego. Samuel L. Jackson were both considered for the role of Morpheus. I can see that. Maybe Gary Oldman. I could totally see Samuel and Jackson, but... Could you? In this, I love... Taking it seriously, though?

I mean, wouldn't he be more... Put a tongue and cheek spin on it or try to? I think he could nail it. But as much as I love Samuel L. Jackson, dude, Lawrence Fishburn in this movie was outstanding. Well, tell us all about it, man. Philip, how was this movie? Well, I guess that's the end of our trivia, huh?

That's it. Okay, cool. Good timing. Yeah, this was a, this is a classic. This one was great. This was why I was excited about this week. I wanted to watch The Matrix again. And it didn't disappoint.

I mean, some of the effects are you can tell that they were from that era, but they're not terrible at all. And the story was great. I love that they put it from Neo's point of view, and you kind of see it from his point of view, because they explain everything to you because Neo is new to this world, and so are you. So it gives you a really good description of what's happening,

and then when it happens, you're that much more invested in it. and great movie, great movie. I loved rewatching it. It was probably, if it was allowed to be a cool of a week, it probably would have been. Question is, do you love rewatching the next two Matrix movies? No, really, this was, this was great. I kind of wish it had been just a standalone movie because I love the way that it ended even, you know, it kind of still left it open,

but he was God all of a sudden. It was so cool, man. They should have just left it the fuck alone. Yeah, on the show, I'm probably known as the guy that watches all the sequels. I do own the sequels, but I chose not to watch them. Because I would probably say there's probably,

you know, the second one, I really enjoy the freeway scene. And then that's it. Yeah. Well, that's cool. characters that came in. Yeah. But,

yeah, this movie's a classic. There's so many iconic things that came from this, you know, the bullet time, slow-mo effects. Yeah, this is the first time

they did any of that shit. Yeah, the camera, the camera going all the way around, like they used the multiple cameras, that got really big after that. The blue pill, red pill, was iconic. Nice.

Yeah, and I, I mean, I mean, Keanos had some very big action films before this, but I think this really put him out there as action star. I think so, too. And I don't, I don't really think we would have got movies like John Wick if he hadn't done this kind of movie, honestly. Very true. And, yeah, it is very, very, and I want to put in a little, a couple of casting things that almost happened. When you get into the series, Jade at Pinkett Smith. almost wasn't in this movie.

Okay. Do you guys remember the singer Aaliyah? Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah, she was originally casted, but she had passed away. And another person that was supposed to be in this, I forget his name in the movie. He's Jada's, he's part of the crew, the Asian guy.

I don't know if you guys even remember this second or third movie. I'm not sure what actor you're talking about. The only other actor I was really familiar with was Marcus Chong, the guy that played Tank, and that's just because he was Tommy Chong's son. Yeah. Really? Yeah.

I had no idea. Yeah, Jet Lee was supposed to be in this series, too. Oh, no kidding. That actually could have been really good. Yeah. See, you're talking about like the Matrix 2 and 3 and shit, though, huh? Yeah, well, originally, you know, they were supposed to be involved more. Yeah.

Throughout the series. I just want to throw those in there because I think some of these castings could have made the series. a little bit better. That's true. You know, and I was never a big fan of Trinity, to be honest with you. Although, yeah, going back and watching it, though, I mean,

she's still got a weird look to her, but she was definitely pulling off the leather Matrix hot chick thing. You know what? I actually enjoyed her in this one. I think as the series went on, her character kind of got ruined for me. Yeah. I really liked her

in this one. I don't know about what is her name? Jillian what was that? Anderson. Yeah, I don't know if she could have pulled this off. I don't think so.

I don't care if she was in it. I'd have watched it. It was a pretty hot name at the time. I guess she still is. But no, I think the casting was spot on. At least for this first film. No doubt about it.

Yeah, let's not forget about Agent Smith. Oh, yeah. He did really kick-ass. Yeah. What is the actor's name that played? You go leaving. Yes, he is phenomenal in everything he's in.

He was really good in this one, man. Yeah, definitely good in this one. Cypher. I can't remember. Lord of the Rings. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's right. I forgot about that.

Yeah, no, that's Cypher. I can't remember his name in real life. Joey Pants. Yeah. Oh, that's how old is. Man, he's great in this. Dude, everybody is great in this. It's so believable.

Everything that everybody puts across is just so believable and great, you know? It's a classic movie. It's top ten probably ever. Well, I'll put it to you guys this way. 1999, it's no secret if you've known me long enough. You know that that was, that's my favorite year probably in film ever, period. So 1999 brought us, just to name a few movies from that year, Fight Club, the original Blair Witch Project,

office space, one of my favorite comedies of all time. Yeah, definitely, absolutely. Stephen King's The Green Mile. And then way up there at the top, almost close to this one would be American Beauty and the Sixth Sense. And out of all the films of that year, this was far and away my favorite. and I think a lot of it had to do with the acting.

I thought that the special effects were way ahead of their time. The way that they filmed, when a scene at the beginning, I was like, this movie kind of has a green tint to it. You know, I was trying to figure out if anybody else in the theater noticed that. And then come to find out, that's because all the scenes that they're filming in the Matrix, they had like a green tent behind it. So you kind of knew when you were in the Matrix or when you were in the real world that way. And the fact that he was a computer hacker, I think.

I think made a lot of sense that he's somebody that's enough of a genius and knows code enough that he was able to at least come close to the intelligence of these, you know, these artificial intelligence creatures that were man-made that kind of took over. I mean, it's a story, it's an old story, you know, I mean, it's basically, you know, the Terminator, did this exact storyline, a number of other movies have too. And I mean, it's, it's probably inevitable that something like this is going to happen or we're going to have to have to make some changes so that it doesn't. But it's highly believable. And the fact that they said it was like 200 years in the future and yet you think you're still in 1999 and that's when the movie came out, that alone kind of creep me out.

That gets your wheel spinning a little bit. But one of the best films I've ever seen in my life as far as who they picked to play the parts was just perfect. And I never thought Keanu was that great of an actor, but man, he pulled it off in this one. You know, I think he is. I mean, I don't think I guess put him in like an Oscar-type movie. I just think he doesn't shine when he's, he needs the right project. And I think you can get something good out of him. I can't remember a movie that I've seen him in that I didn't like.

Of anything? He's been, he's been in some duds for sure, man. Has he? Well, a lot of the time it just seems like he's not really acting. I mean, you guys really liked the devil's advocate, for example. Oh, I love the devil's advocate. I wasn't a huge fan. I loved his accent in it.

Tell us about that, Brian. I loved his, what was his character from Florida? He had kind of a southern Florida accent. It was amazing. But I more so love that movie for Al Pacino because he just went full on crazy in that movie. Yeah, but I really like Keanu in it too, man. And, you know, Bill and Ted, come on. Yeah, absolutely.

Bill and Ted's a classic for a whole different reason. But like that 47 Ronan movie wasn't very good. I know he's been in a few others that I thought Bob. But, yeah, hey, it's like you guys disagree with me. That's all good. It may have bombed, but even the 47 Ronan thing was, It was all right, man. It wasn't as good as, like, the last samurai, but it was still pretty cool, you know?

And I think Keanu is cool enough to pull off that kind of role. He's a cool guy. I like him. He's definitely the essence of cool in this movie. There's no doubt about that. Yeah. So speaking of you guys were talking about Joey Pants, what did you guys, did you catch, because I didn't the first time I watched it, all the little hints they were throwing out there,

like where somebody would sneak up on him, he'd look around and stuff like that. But did you guys kind of on this next viewing kind of catch the little tails they were given that he was going to be the one that kind of gave him away? Yeah. Yeah, on this one, but initially no. You know, I thought they played it off pretty good until he had that meeting with Agent Smith. I was like, oh, you asshole, you're the one that's going to bring all this down. And I was kind of, I was a little mad because I really, like, I really like him as an actor.

And I was like, it's got to be you out of everybody. Well, that's what I was going to say. It's hard to, it's hard to even on the second watching see him as the bad guy because he's such a likable character. And then, uh, and then he turns on him, you know. Mm-hmm. But watching it now, you do get them hints, especially the jealousy he had, uh, with Trinity. As he, you know, he notices how she looks at him. And so watching it now, yeah.

you kind of get it now. Mm-hmm. Another iconic scene for me personally was the training scene. I thought that was cool as shit. Oh, yeah. All you have to do. Yeah, all you had, I'm going to learn jujitsu, you know. Right.

Fucking iron fist, take notes. Exactly. So many. But see, Keanu is, he's for real about all that stuff. Yeah. The train, the martial arts training, the, you know, the training with weapons. you know, there's a little feature on YouTube for John Wick too where he's learning all of that stuff. And he takes it very seriously. He takes it very seriously.

Yeah. So I'm not saying he's John Wick in real life, but, you know, he knows some stuff. You know, I feel sorry for anybody that tried to run up on him real quick. But yeah, I really just, you know, the whole him getting, you know, hooked up and just down. downloading all these fight styles. And then, of course, you know, Morpheus is like, show me. Show me what you know. Right.

Well, and then everybody is like, holy shit, Morpheus is fighting Neo. We all going to go check it out. And everybody goes and watches it, which builds up this whole, the one thing, that much more. And that's the part that I love about this movie, the one. You know, you're really, you got a root for him, you know? And when he comes just badass fucking guise. God mode by the end of it. Oh, the lobby scene?

The shootout in the lobby. Yeah, the shootout in the lobby. That's classic in any action movie ever. Oh, man, that's one of the tops, definitely. This movie's just so kick-ass. There's every scene in it is awesome. Yeah. Yeah, it's a masterpiece, man.

Nothing's short of a masterpiece. You guys ready for score so we can move on to the new one? Yeah, let's do it. Philip? I think it'd be a. I've seen not to give it a 10. Whoa, wow. Yeah.

Oh, man. All right. Tim, yeah, that's pretty high up there, Brian. What do you think? I'm almost there, but I'm going to give it a 9.5. This movie is completely,

this has so much rewatchability. Right. You know, this is a movie that I can pop in and not get tired of it. And like you said, Lance, I think everybody was casted perfectly

in this movie. And there's a lot of iconic action scenes in it. And it's almost perfect. But it might be perfect, but something in me just can't give it a 10 for some reason. But I'm going to give it a 9.5. Yeah, I'm also giving it a 9.5. I mean, like I said, my favorite film in the year of favorite films, there's only a few movies that I would consider, you know, up in this rare air.

I mean, it's just got everything you would want in a movie. It's got, first of all, it's got an absolutely seamless storyline. It could be true. There's no way to disprove the fact that it could actually be happening. It's maybe a documentary for all we know. I mean, who's to say, it's got all those action scenes in it. It's got great character development. I mean, there's just nothing missing from this movie.

Before we move on to the next movie, quick question, with all the talk of the remake, reboot, prequel, whatever they're calling it, as good as this is and as shitty as the next two are. Right. Do you think there needs to be more Matrix movies? I don't think there needs to be. What do you think, Phil? No, I mean, there definitely doesn't need to be, but I mean, they're remaking everything.

And I guess, you know, people have, we've only been making movies for what, like 100 years or so. And eventually all those stories are just. going to get retold it's kind of human nature. So that happens. What are you going to do? Yeah, good point. I mean, I think that it's not necessary at all, but I guess if it turns out good, it could be, as long as they don't try to retell the same exact story.

Yeah. You know, like you were, like you were hinting at a couple of weeks ago, Brian, where there's all these different things going on in the Matrix universe. In fact, maybe all these different worlds. That's where I would be on board. if we got other stories than what we got. That would be cool. I'd give it a shot.

Or maybe wait another 10 years, you know? A little too soon, maybe. Yeah, maybe it's a little too soon. Because this is still totally watchable. It's not really outdated at all. Right. You know, except the little, you know, flip cell phones that they have, aside from that. And the pay phones they had to run.

Yeah, the pay phones and the actual phones ringing that, like, it probably don't even know what hell they are. Right. Hey, but it works because it's a replica of 1999. So no matter when this comes out or when it happens, I mean, you could go back into a Matrix movie that's a replica of 1938. You know what I mean? It's a period piece.

It'll be interesting. You know, I'll give it a shot. We'll see if it's any good. It's supposed to be a movie, not a TV series, right, Brian? Yeah, they're talking movie, many movies, but it's all talk right now. so. Right. We'll see.

Time will tell, huh? All right. So we'll move on to our next movie, which is the brand new Scarlet Johansson film Ghost in the Shell. Director was Rupert Sanders, also known for Snow White in the Huntsman and Black Hole. Writers were Jamie Moss, who's also known for Street Kings.

Speaking of which, wasn't Keanu in that one? Yes, he was. And Captain America. And William. Wheeler, also known for Queen of Cotway, as well as the upcoming Lego Ninjago movie.

More casting trivia here, guys. Margot Robey was considered for the role of the major. This would have been fucking horrible. I'm going to say it right now. This would have been fucking horrible. She'd have brought maybe a little more sex to it.

I don't know. Sexier than Scarlet Johansson? You would think? Fucking. I don't. I'll reserve my right to judge in a minute. I'll wait until we get into our reviews. Sam Riley was in talks for the role of Hideo Cuse.

The title of the film, and most people probably already know this, but we'll cover it just because it's sort of the basic. But the title of the film in its source material is a play-owned ghost in the machine, which is a concept and philosophy first used by Arthur Kessler in his 19, 67 book of the same name. In it, he argues against the traditional Cartesian mind-body duality of the human mind,

which traditionally saw the human body as a sort of complex machine with a soul or mind inside of it controlling it. So I'm sure everybody's familiar with that concept of that philosophy. And of course, this was originally a Japanese comic, and then it was made into an anime film and a series.

Brian, what did you think about this, man? Um, you know what? I watched the, the anime film last night. Really? And I was bored as shit. Oh, really? Oh, I hate hearing that. I really wanted to see that, actually.

Um, I don't think I was also, I wasn't in the right state of mind to be watching an anime movie. Right. I'll just put it at that. Um, but I was a little worried going into this because from what I'm understanding, you know, this was going to be exactly like the anime, but live action. But as we got into the movie, I really enjoyed this movie. I enjoyed the action. I enjoy it very well shot.

I like the, you know, the, I can't even think of the word. It was filmed beautifully. The cinematography? Yes, thank you. Thank you. I kind of had a brain fart there. It looked nice. Yes, yes.

Scarlett Johansson is a badass, and she looks good as hell doing it. too. Oh yeah. And I thought the story moved along a lot better for me personally watching the live action version than the anime. That's interesting.

Not to interrupt, but how did the storyline compare? Was it the same exact story? Like I said, I wasn't in the right, I shouldn't have been watching it. I don't remember a lot of it. You don't remember it totally? Yeah, but from watching the movie, there was a lot of shot for shot stuff. Some stuff I bring up in the spoilers that I was kind of like thought I was going to see in the movie but didn't see.

But overall, I had fun watching this movie. And to me, this kind of puts, if Black Widow didn't put her as an action star, I think this kind of threw that in there too. And I have no problem watching her carry on an action movie. I think she's fucking amazing. And she's better than Margot Robbie. I'll split that out. Yeah, I definitely enjoyed this movie a lot more than I thought I was going to. I was really kicking myself that I didn't get a chance to see the anime version first

because I had a bad feeling that this was going to be a horrible, a ghost, if you will, of the anime. I didn't think it was going to be nearly as good for some reason. I don't know where I got that idea. I don't know where I got the idea that Scarlett Johansson wasn't going to be good in the role. Because she was really, really good. I mean, it's like her facial expressions told nothing. I mean, she basically was in an android body that felt no pain. I totally agree with you.

The way she moved and everything, the way she would walk down the hall and turn and walk into the next room. It was very, you know, robotic. She had it down, and I thought the guy that played her partner, Batu, or whatever his name was, I thought that guy did a really good job, too. Yeah. Another thing I'm a touch on in spoilers. I have a... I just want to get your guys a take on it, but... Mm-hmm. I'm sorry to interrupt you.

No, that's cool, man. I thought that the doctor, Juliet Benoche played the doctor that I guess... None of this is spoiler. I mean, you know it right up front. The one who basically created Major, you know, by taking a human brain and putting it in an android body. I thought that the story arc that she went through was pretty believable. you know, I believed her character when she was in a certain scene, and then when she was in a different scene, you know, the changes that she was going through. I thought her character grew quite a bit.

And I thought that the, once you finally find out who the main baddie is or whatever you want to call, I thought that was pretty well acted as well. So I was very surprised. I knew the special effects were going to be phenomenal. I didn't think they were going to be quite this good. I thought it was really neat. It reminded me a whole lot of the Spielberg movie that's coming out that I read the book for called Ready Player 1. Yes.

Reading through that and the way they had people living in the apartments that they had them set up in and stuff like that. With different levels and stuff like that because you have so much overpopulation that you have to start building upward instead of outward. I thought they captured that really well. I love those holograms. Like all around the city, there were like advertisement holograms. It was basically like billboards out of control where it was like gigantic size holograms of people like using a product or, you know, lifting weights or something like that. I thought that was that was really neat. Japan needs a pop-up blocker.

You know what? There you go, man. Just all in all, I was, I was really pleasantly surprised. Now, Philip, I know you were really looking forward to this movie. I was. I was really more looking forward to watching The Matrix again. But I was looking forward to this one. I expected kind of a lot about it, out of it, because Scarlett Johansson is super hot.

And to quote the great Sir Mix a lot, I like big butts and I cannot lie. And she was looking good in this one. But, yeah, she played so much of the robot that I kind of wish that maybe she'd have sexed it up a little more. That might have gotten my interest a little more in this movie, man. I think it was just, I know, I know, but I needed something. I got bored halfway through it, man. I think that it was fun to watch still, but it was really just okay for me. Oh, I'm surprised.

Okay. Yeah, I really, I think I expected more out of it. I wanted more. I think that the cast was there. I think the acting was there. The story was there. It just wasn't put together right for me. I don't know.

and I didn't really like the effects. I didn't like the special effects at all. I thought that all the... It almost fell into the same downfall as like an iron fist did, where the fight scenes were just not as cool as they should have been. And like all the cool moments in the fight scenes, you already saw them in the previews. There were no more cool moments in fight scenes,

except what they showed at the previews. The rest of it was just like talking. about. Dude, those creepy-ass robots, man, come on, dude. That was some some really good special effects, dude. They were super cool. Okay, the Japanese robots were super creepy. I love it. I saw it in the previews.

Everything that's really cool about this movie, you saw in the previews. The rest of it is some story. Some of it's cool. I still, I really like the casting. I really like the acting. Maybe it just wasn't put together right for me, man. It just didn't

quite do it for me. Man, that's, yeah, that's the exact opposite because I went in expecting nothing and I really enjoyed myself and you sound like you had the opposite. I mean, what was your takeaway, Brian? I, like I said, I've had a lot of fun with this. I also came in, I also came in not expecting a lot. I knew I was going to get something good from Scarlett. But I, you know, the overall story. And for me, I thought the action was there.

I thought the story was there, the acting was there, and a lot of cool images and the technology that they, you know, in this world was crazy. You know, I don't, I would never even compare this to Iron Fist because that, you know what can be, I've seen, I seen. I seen something on Facebook how they did, they put up a meme. The Iron Fist fighting was like that, you guys ever see Bowfinger? Uh, maybe. Steve Martin and, uh, Eddie Murphy. Eddie Murphy. I've heard of it.

Oh, I know what you're talking about. Yeah. Uh, if you guys haven't checked it out, uh, there's a meme going around. The fighting was just like the, the last scene in that movie. And if you guys don't know what it is, check out the very last scene of Bowfinger. And that explains Iron Fist. Okay. So, um, yeah, like I said, I would never compare this to Iron Finger.

fist. Okay. This is way beyond, way above and beyond Iron fist. So her little like kicks around the pole that she did were pretty kick ass. That was a cool fight scene. But I'm, like I'm talking about some of the effects, like

she had one where she was like jumping up a building real fast. And it had that like that Lord of the Rings kind of Gumby animation. I'm talking about. I will give you that one. I don't know what you're talking about. That shit drives me insane.

I fucking hate it. I know. I know what he, there's some scenes that with, we're going to get into Lord of Rings talk with, what is it, Legulus. Yeah.

There's some scenes in that. As much as I love that movie, there are some scenes with Legolas. He kind of looks like a cartoon character jumping on stuff. Yeah. Well, they did on Spider-Man a lot too. Right.

I do, I do know what. I name the movies because every time I see him, that scene, it drives me and fucking infuriates me. Same exact scene, huh? I do know, I do know what scene you're talking about in Ghost in the Shell, where it looked a little

cartoony. Like maybe the speed wasn't quite right or something or the way she landed wasn't quite right? The movement wasn't, something was wrong. Movement. Okay, fair enough. Another example, a movie we reviewed earlier that we all really liked split. Right.

when he was crawling up the wall. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I guess. I don't know if it's comparable. As far as I can remember, that's just one scene. Yeah. There was a lot of good shit in this movie.

Yeah, I don't know. But then like the hologram things and they're that far into the future where they can implant people with robotics and their holograms are still jumping around like they're in, fucking... They're out of... I don't know. I love that. I love that. This is a super creepy movie, dude.

This was really almost a horror movie in certain place. All the body horror, the Kronenberg-esque body horror in this movie, and just the fact that you're trapped in something and people can just bend you to their will and do things with you. And, oh, man, it just gave me the creeps. I just thought it was a really, really well-written story and a good acted movie. and I just got a lot more out of it than I expected. It was just a good hard science fiction movie.

Yeah, I think we should get in ratings because I think we're kind of on that line. Yeah, we're welcome. Yeah. Okay. All right, fair enough, Philip. Or no, Brian, you went first, didn't you? I am going to give this a very high seven and a half. Wow.

That's good. Yeah, it might be a little higher. I'm probably going to, because I was telling them. my wife about this movie and she seemed really interested. So I might get a second viewing in the theater. But I, like you said, Lance, I went into this not expecting a whole lot and got a lot out of it. And, yeah, I'm going to go with a seven and a half. I'm going eight here, guys.

Wow. I'm going eight on this one. This could be, it's not going to be in my top five, but this could be an honorable mention. Yeah, I could see that. the rest of the year. I just had a damn fun time. No more to say about it until spoilers. I just really had fun.

All right. Well, I guess I'm going to be the Debbie Downer here. You know what? Look, it was a fun movie. It sits in my mind a little bit like Suicide Squad did. I really enjoyed watching it, but there's a lot of things that were kind of

I don't know about it, you know? I'm going to give this one a six. I think More good than bad then Yeah definitely more good than bad It was a fun watch I don't regret it at all

I think I was just expecting maybe a little bit more Because I kind of did the opposite as you guys You know I was expecting This to be a really kick-ass movie And it didn't quite deliver for me All right cool Well there you go So I mean we all gave it decent scores

And boy it's all kinds of twist this week I'm usually the one given the low score and uh and my dumb ass likes everything so it's all good all right so spoiler time spoilers all right Brian

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 all right um one thing I wanted to bring up

it was pretty crazy that basically everybody had these enhancements or was neither. I could not tell who was an android and who was a person. That's the right thing that was really crazy throughout the movie. And these enhancements were crazy. But the one thing, can't they make them look a little bit better? Because with all that technology...

I thought they looked pretty damn real. Well, her part... No, I'm not talking about that. I'm just saying... Oh, you mean with the eyes? Yeah, that looked really creepy. I mean, nobody wants to walk around, like, looking like that. With all that technology. Yeah, sure. We have these little dime-sized tubes.

We're going to jam into your eye sockets. How about that? He didn't, you know, with flesh-colored stuff. He didn't even want to go feed his dogs because he didn't want to scare them. I mean, you know, he already knew they looked kind of fucked up. Right. He zoomed into the mirror. But I thought, what's his name?

every time he shows up in a movie, I think he's badass. What is his name? He was the chief in charge. He was the one, he was always speaking in Japanese. Oh, that guy, the one from,

yeah, don't sit rabbits to hunt down an old fox, right? Yeah, he was in that movie we just watched. What the hell was it? Battle Royale. Battle Royale. Oh, yeah, that dude was awesome. Yeah, I love that scene

where you thought he was dead and then he just popped out and just shot everybody with his little revolver. Yeah. That was awesome. And like you said, he said, he said that line. Right. And I thought his whole character, I didn't think he was going to do shit

in the movie up until then. I wish we had got more out of the team though, the other because they kept showing the other Japanese guy, the younger guy. Yeah. Yeah. And then, Yeah, and then the chick, she had a British accent.

She just seemed to kind of disappear at the end. Right. I kind of wanted more of them as a team. Yeah, that would have been cool. Yeah, because you got them throughout the movie as, you know, together. But then when we got to the end and, you know, they was coming after, coming after the team to take them out, you just kind of didn't see anybody else. Yeah, that would have got a lot more of that.

That was a lot of buildup and not too much payoff. but um to jump to the end i thought the end was pretty fucking cool with the what was it the spider tank yeah that was fucking awesome and the guy was controlling it with you know back at back at the headquarters i guess it was i thought that was that was really good but that was the scene i think you were talking about philip where she was running up the wall or whatever falling down she was like exploding and she was jumping around it yeah i could see where it looked a little Yeah. A little sketch.

Yeah. I was like, oh, did they do this? Come on. Put a little more effort into this one fucking scene and we'd be okay. No, but then I don't know, man, like I think the middle of it was kind of like the beginning was super cool and then the end was super cool. And I actually really like the ending of it. It was just the parts in the middle there were just, I don't know, it slowed up for me, man. And it's only an hour and a half movie, you know.

Yeah, I liked it. I thought it was a buildup. Especially to the villain, which we didn't really get much. We didn't really talk much about him. And his weird, like, Max Hedroom. Yeah, that was creepy, I thought. Yeah, where he had, like, his little digital stutters or whatever. I thought that was really creepy.

Oh, yeah, he was fucking cool, man. I like that guy. Cuse? Yeah, I like the connection that they had. They figured out that they were runaway kids. that they stole these kids and tried to do these experiments on them. And a thing that I kind of thought was pretty cool, because there was a lot of controversy about this movie,

you know, the whole casting of Scarlett Johansson in this role, the whitewashing or whatever they call it. I thought it went with the story. Yeah, it kind of did. It kind of did because they could make it look like anything they wanted to. Yeah, exactly. Why would you make her look like anything, how she, used to look, you know, or any of these kids. I thought it went with the story, and I like to

reveal, you know, I like the scene where she, she basically went home and was meeting her mom for the first time, you know, her, because, you know, they wiped her memory. And I really enjoyed the end where she told, you know, she met the mom at the, at the gravesite and told her, you don't have to come here no more. I really like that scene. Yeah, I like the way they set up that graveyard there where they made it at first i thought they were standing like in some kind of a sports arena but yeah and that plays to that overpopulation motif you know where there there's no longer any room to spread out the only thing you have left to do is is spread upward and downward you know i thought that was pretty cool the the way that they did that i wasn't expecting that to be a

grave site until they they kind of like zoomed down on her marker philip man i don't know i think that's about all i got to say on it yeah not a whole lot to spoil really you know i mean yeah it's uh once you think once you figured out what was really going on it was just kind of kind of um straightforward pretty straightforward you know but it was i mean it was a cool story though you know like i i'll i'll definitely give them that you know i you know they pulled it from the comic or whatever but uh or the anime but uh yeah i i thought the story was great and again the acting was great. I just, there was something, there was something off about it that I didn't like. I didn't quite get it.

If Margot Robbie was in this, there'd be something really off about this. No, listen, I, I, I really like Scarlett Johansson, and I like her in this role. Um, but Margo Robbie excites me as well, so. There you have. I mean, I think she found her lane with Harley Quinn, so. Yeah, that's. Well, I'll, I'll say a couple of things about the characters. What I thought about the characters, like I said, I thought the doctor's story arc was very believable, where she was basically, you know,

first, she was always really close to her because she was kind of like the creator, but she kind of lorded herself over her, it seemed like there toward the end. I didn't think it was until like that very last scene when they ordered, when what's his name, Cutter, ordered her to basically kill Major.

Oh, yeah, yeah. That's when she really developed. developed as a character for me, and she decided to take a stand. She knew what was going to happen to her. Yeah. She knew she was shocked if she did that. I kind of thought it was going to go a different way when they had the one part. When Scarlett was basically, I do not consent to this.

Right. And then she told her, we never needed your consent to anything. That was, that was fucking chilling. I kind of thought she was going to go a whole different direction than what she was going to do. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I thought she kind of because she had this whole like, no, I'm not going to kill her because she belongs to me. She's mine.

Yes, her property. She was going to be like a real bad, bad guy. Yeah. And then on top of that, she was always involved in this whole program. And she knew about the other runaway kids that, you know, what she said like was something like 90, 90 something, 96, 98 other, you know, that's a lot of. you know, that's a lot of dead runaway kids. Right. And she just basically kind of disregarded the death of these kids talking about, you know, this.

Yeah, she was sacrificed. Sacrifices to something better, you know. She was real cold-blooded in the name of science. But that's what I liked about that final scene with her is that I think she really had a spiritual awakening there. When she realized that this was a human being that she was dealing with. I thought that the cutter character, he was kind of one-dimensional, but he was, you know, he's the typical, you know, bad guy company owner, CEO, do anything for a buck type guy. So, you know, you had to have that kind of character in there. Like I said, her partner, Batu, I thought he was really good.

He was, there was obviously some chemistry between him and Major. I mean, that was obvious from the start. She meant a lot to him. and the fact that he never gave her up or sold her out, you know, there were some good strong characters in here, you know? I would say that the acting is probably what surprised me more than anything. Again, I knew the special effects were going to, I was going to enjoy that part of it.

I didn't think the storyline or the acting were going to be this good. Agreed. Philip, you can disagree all day, man. Well, I don't necessarily disagree with you. you. It just did quite hold up to what I wanted it to be. Yeah. All right. Well, fair enough. Maybe maybe next week's

pick will be a little bit more up your alley, man. We shall see. This has been a very, very good year so far with movies. Oh, it really has been. I would agree. I'm going to say, of course, you know, with the exception of bye-bye man and maybe rings, you know, I didn't hate rings.

It just, it was what it was. other than that, I think it's just been a phenomenal year so far. This was way better than Rings. You know, you know what? You know what? I'm going to have trouble. I am going to have to go out there and start watching some shitty movies, guys. Listeners, anybody who's still listening with all the in the section here with everything we're giving away,

can you please give me some ideas of horrible, horrible, crappy, shitty movies that have come out this year? Because I'm going to have trouble with the top five. It's going to be by my man. who knows what else at this point. You know, I... You know, I've been keeping track of my list and, you know, my worst and my dishonorable mentions, is really kind of slim on that side.

Yeah, I mean, it is just what the year is one-fourth over, so we still have plenty of time to go, you know? Yeah, we haven't even gotten to the summer movies yet. Right. In fact, if you guys will recall last year, We didn't even start the podcast until June, so we only had half of movies' worth of stuff. And the very first one we watched for the show, I think made it on to two, if not all three of our worst of list. Yes, that movie is notorious.

While we're all on here, and we got the listeners listening to, you guys ever thought of changing our rating system? I don't know. I mean, I'm open for anything, man. Yeah, listeners, if you guys got any ideas, you know, maybe something, I don't know. Like sometimes if I watch a bad movie, I automatically think of the darkness. So I don't know if that would be a rating. The movie's really shitty, so I give it a darkness. We're getting down into the darkness territory.

I give it an incarnate. Oh, no. I give just a suicide squad. Would that be in the middle somewhere? Yeah, I think it's better good than bad. Yeah, kind of in the middle. Okay, I just wanted to put that out if any listeners got any ideas. Yeah, that's definitely something to think about for sure.

Yeah, and I do want to get those ideas for some bad movies, people that have seen some shit this year. I got to catch up on some bad movies, guys. All right. You know, I watch a lot of shit, so maybe I'll find something for you. I'm sure you can. The worst one that we find, we all have to watch it.

All right. I'm on board, man. Okay. All right. All right. So, as always, we want to thank you guys for listening to another episode of the Horror Returns. As Philip and Brian would tell you,

we would love to hear your feedback and ideas. You can always reach us at the Horror Returns at gmail.com. Of course, reach out just through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, pod bean, et cetera. Look for us on iTunes. Rate us, please, review us.

We will keep bringing you guys bigger and better stuff. You guys are the reason we're here week after week. Next week, it is Female Empowerment Week at the Horror Returns. We will be reviewing the new Anne Hathaway movie Colossil, as well as the 1958 classic attack of the 50-foot woman. What did you mean when you said it'd be a little more up my alley? I'll leave that up to you So, until the horror returns again, Philip

Good night