"There are other kinds of justice in this world...." - DARK NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW (1981)

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Learn more@univozpods.net hello, my name's Patrick and I'm a scream queen.

I'm a scream queen and so are you.

Hello again, my beautiful screamers, and welcome to another episode of Scream Queens.

It's the podcast where horror gets gay.

This is episode 1508.

Tonight we're taking a trip back in time, so pack your bags and get ready because this voyage is ill advised.

I'm releasing another episode if it came from the 70s, and we are talking about that quintessential harvest time tale of terror, Dark Knight of the Scarecrow.

And in order to do that properly, my very special guest is everybody's favorite Illinois beanpole tradine.

But before we do any of that, please allow me to introduce myself.

My name is Patrick Walsh, and ever since 2010, I have been your guide to the weird and wonderful world of horror movies.

But I've always made you see them through my very, very, very, very, very, very gay little eyes.

And I will continue to do so as long as there's breath of my body one way or the other.

Hush yourself now.

So, hi, everybody.

How are you doing?

Welcome back.

I'm so happy to see you all here.

Hooray.

And I know you're looking at me like, what are we doing?

This wasn't on the agenda.

I know it wasn't on the agenda, but you know what also isn't on the agenda?

Life and life crises.

I had a couple life crisis and there's been some setbacks.

First of all, I had to change my HIV medicines.

The other one, the one I was on, Triamac that I started like a year ago, wasn't particularly working.

And recent studies have shown that one of the ingredients, abacavir, is causing heart problems in long term patients.

So we decided to switch me off of it.

So I started on Biktarvy.

And whenever you change HIV medicines, it's hard of the system.

It set me back a good 10 days, which is better than what Trimect did.

Trimec laid me up for like a month, but.

So it wasn't bad, But I lost 10 days and it was stressful and awful and bad.

But I was supposed to be doing an episode with Michael Howey and Christopher Grundland.

But Christopher has been waiting to get heart surgery for a really long time.

And the time came now.

The opening came and he took it and he's recuperating now.

And rather than push him to do an episode or scramble to Find another guest.

It was just easier to say, you know what?

Why don't we all just take a breath and relax and just wait.

Wait till everybody's better.

Because, yes, we're in the final grasp of Scream Queens, but I'm also learning I'm in no hurry to end it either.

There are three, maybe four episodes left, and there'll still be three or four episodes left when we finish this one.

So don't panic.

Everything's gonna be cool.

But that's what happened there.

But, hey, you are getting a great episode about a great movie.

And if you haven't seen Dark Night of the scarecrow, it's from 1981.

And for a made for TV horror movie, it's terrifying.

It's a little piece of quintessential perfection, and I love it.

And you're gonna love it.

And guess what?

It's really easy to find, too.

If you have Shudder, it's on there.

And if you don't have shudder, it's on YouTube.

All the prints are very good.

There's very.

There's several different prints.

Pick the one that looks best on your TV screen and enjoy it, because you're gonna want to know what happens before you go into the episode.

Because of course, Trey and I are gonna have to spoil it, because that's here even when it's on.

It came from the 70s.

And if you're wondering what's going on with this, what does.

This came from the 70s.

It came from the 70s is one of the shows that I've been workshopping over on Patreon.

And they've all.

All the episodes have been private.

And every now and then when I need one, I pull one and pull it up over here.

So if you like what you heard, considering subscribe, consider subscribing on Patreon.

Anyway, I've been babbling enough.

Let's get down to business, Go watch the movie, come back and get on board, because Tradine and I are about to take off.

For it came from the 70s and the dark Night of the Scarecrow.

Feel better soon, Mr.

Grunland.

Attention, please.

This is the final boarding call for Polyester Airlines flight to the 1970s departing from Alberto Gate VO5.

Get ready for thrills, chills.

And another episode of it came from the 70s.

Good evening, passengers, and welcome aboard Polyester Airlines Flight 1027 to the year 1981.

This is your pilot, Patrick Wahl speaking, and I'd like to take a moment to remind you that Polyester Airlines is the only time traveling airline that breaks the laws of physics just so that you can watch TV in the 70s.

But not tonight.

Tonight we're going a little out of our comfort zone because tonight is a special Halloween charter flight to the year 1981.

If you're not familiar with the year 1981, let me remind you that that was the year when on the Big Spree, our lost arks first got raided, our chariots were made of fire.

And an American werewolf escaped from New York to go to London.

1981, when, believe it or not, we were walking on air.

Our kiss was on everyone's list and everyone wished that they had Jessie's girl because she had Bette Davis eyes.

But more importantly, we're not just going to the year 1981.

We are going to the night of October 27, 1981.

Because that was the night Dark Night of the Scarecrow premiered as the CBS Movie of the Week.

I am very proud to announce that my co pilot for this flight is a manly man formerly from Texas.

He's also one of my co hosts over at Demi Wanka Lewis.

But tonight, if I'm the captain, he's gonna be my Tennille.

Your co pilot for this flight is the fabulous Trey Dean.

So, passengers, we have reached our cruising altitude.

So feel free to move about the cabin, enjoy the flight and enjoy dark Night of the Scarecrow.

Hey, Patrick, how you doing?

Excuse me, excuse me.

Oh, sorry, Captain Patrick.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Good, good.

Good evening, co pilot Tradine, over.

Oh, no, we're not doing that.

No, no, no.

I was just gonna say you're looking super butch in your uniform.

Oh, I know.

Exactly.

You know, every co pilot has to be ready for the pilot to dive.

Dive.

Just so everybody knows he's wearing a friendly waitress uniform.

But it counts.

It counts, exactly.

It's, you know, it's.

It's a uniform.

I'll have a strawberry fribble and a fisherman.

Jake.

Thank you very much.

Nobody knows what we're talking about because we're all.

We're very old.

So, Trey Dean, welcome aboard Polyester Airlines for the very first time.

This is my first flight here.

Thank you for inviting me.

You're very welcome.

Question for you, though, Trey Dean.

Have you ever flown a plane before?

No.

Have you?

No.

Great.

Yeah.

Even more important, have you ever hijacked a plane before?

Maybe.

Oh, good answer.

Good answer.

Okay.

All right.

So the movie that we are talking about tonight is in fact from 1981, Dark Night of the Scarecrow.

And here's the reason why.

Kids, yes, I know the show's all about the 70s, but there are no made for TV horror movies from the 1970s that have anything to do with Halloween at all.

This is the closest we get.

And God damn it, it's a good one.

It is.

And it's close to the 70s.

It's just off by a few years.

It had to have been conceived in the 70s because this was written.

Supposed to.

It was supposed to be a major motion picture.

Okay, that makes sense.

Yeah.

It was meant to be for the big screen, so it was probably kicking around for a while before CBS bought it.

Yeah, yeah.

No, this is.

This is close to.

As someone who vaguely remembers the 70s, this is.

This is close.

Gotta get that in there.

Young.

Okay?

You're never flying this again.

This flight's for old people.

Okay?

I'm old.

Just not.

Not as old as you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

So, passengers, if you're upset that the flight's been hijacked and you don't want to watch Dark Knight of the Scarecrow, there's plenty of other things on TV that night.

Hey, Trey, you want to know what else was on TV the night of October 27, 1981?

What was on?

Well, CBS was the place to be because Dark Knight the Scarecrow was showing from 9 till 11.

But at 8 o'clock, they were showing Disney's Sleepy Hollow, the Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Oh, the animated one.

Yeah, I remember that one.

What a great double feature.

That would have been perfect.

And you know what I realized?

I realized I was talking with Maya the other day about Sleepy Hollow.

She said something about going to see, because Tarrey Town's just up from us, where the actual Sleepy Hollow is.

And they had the Horseman's Halloween thing.

She was talking about going.

And I said, you know what?

It just hit me that, you know, Ichabod Crane disappears in this legend.

He encounters the Headless Horseman.

Never seen again.

I think actually him and Brom Bones just shacked up in the woods to get away from Katrina Von.

Exactly.

Well, that's.

That's all the tension between them.

Everyone thought it was them, but they were just playing that along for her always.

Big, scary, flaming head.

And he threw it at me in the woods.

Oh, could it clap?

Could it clap?

Okay, so that was cbs.

That was the place to be.

But fortunately, on NBC, babies were the last.

I realized these are like the last of the old variety shows.

But this was that era where country music got really popular.

So on NBC, you had Barbara Mandrell and The Mandrell sisters in Nashville Palace.

So it was all country all night long.

If that's your backyard.

Over to NBC.

Yee haw.

Why are abc.

Oh, well, we've got something called Maggie, which is written by urban Baumbach that didn't last very long, but it's a living with Angelian.

And also Fantasy island in Love Boat.

Okay.

Irma Bombeck, though I wrote all her books.

It'd be funny.

But the show got canceled very quickly, so it can't have been that great.

It was, it was the premiere that night.

But on the Love Boat.

I love Jim backus.

Oh, oh, Mr.

Howell.

Flip Wilson.

Okay.

And Brian Kerwin.

Brian Kerwin from Salem's lot.

James at 15.

Uh huh.

Whatever happened to him?

He was actor.

He just disappeared.

Did he stop acting?

Get like a real job?

A lot of those, some of those actors.

I don't know.

It was a shitty time.

Sometimes they can't make the transition from teens with adults.

But.

But also Fantasy Island.

Fantasy.

Fantasy Island.

It's.

Fantasy island is.

Is a smorgasbord of honks.

This is gonna be a tough call.

It's gonna be a tough call for a lot of the gays out there because we've got Simon McCorkendale.

Oh, oh.

Manimal.

Evil under the sun.

Yeah.

Jaws 3D.

Jaws 3D.

John Saxon.

Okay.

Nightmare on Elm street on Fantasy island.

Which means maybe he'll be in a swimsuit, who knows?

And Lloyd Bauchner.

Okay, okay.

Do you know who Lloyd bogner is?

Yeah.

SeaQuest.

Was it sea hunt or seaQuest?

What did you just call me?

Did you just call me Si Hunt?

Seahunt.

Seahunt.

No, Hartbachner's a somebody.

He was in.

Yeah, I was gonna say it's the father of Hartbachner from Terror Train, but also Canadian actor, huge hunk of his time.

All kinds of stuff.

Did tons and tons of made for TV horror movies, including Crow Haven Farm, one of my favorites, with Hope Lang.

See, I never.

I was.

I came on the tail end of the whole TV movie.

The Week in the 70s.

I missed that train, unfortunately.

Well, that was.

That one was literally 1970, so I did not see that one.

I only saw that one in the past 10 years and it's a hoot.

The only two I remember are this one and don't go to sleep with a Girl and the sister under the.

Bed, which is also the 80s.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Those are the two that I remember with Valerie Harper.

Valerie Harper.

That's a great pizza cutter.

Oh, oh, And Oliver Robinson, Poltergeist getting killed.

And then a watermelon hitting the floor to simulate his body hitting the ground after he falls off a house.

That movie's so mean.

You don't kill kids in movies.

And they just mercilessly slaughter every kid in that movie.

I know it was.

You know what?

We'll have to have you back to talk about that one I talked about on the main show.

But who knows?

We could do a revisit of it.

So, okay, I don't know, I don't know where you were in 1980.

What did you, were you around when this first aired?

Did you see it?

I remember seeing this on TV when I was a kid.

I don't know if I saw it when it first came out.

I don't know about reruns, but.

Oh, I vividly remember certain shots of this movie very well.

It's a, it's a solid, solid little movie.

Oh, this is fantastic.

This is a really well done movie.

Even though this time, you know, I've seen it before going in, knowing what's going to happen, I still picked up a lot of really cool things.

Yes, me too, me too.

I, I, I remember I saw it when it came out.

I saw it the night it came out.

I remember watch it with my parents.

And I distinctly remember my dad kept saying, Jesus, this is like Of Mice and Men got a whole Mice and Men thing.

He's like the guy from Mice and Men and he's absolutely 100% right.

This is absolutely cribbing on Of Mice and Men in the best way possible.

And actually one scene at the end is verbatim from Mice and Men.

And I don't mind.

I know that.

Yeah, that's very cool.

For those who out there who might not have seen Darkness, Gerko, what's the basic plot?

Movie takes place in a little California, kind of a desert town.

And Bubba is a kind hearted, mentally challenged man who's very good friends with a young girl.

There's an accident, Bubba is blamed and a posse of people kill Bubba.

This is at the very beginning of the movie.

And then soon after, one by one, they seem to have horrible accidents knocking them off one by one.

It's a very simple plot and that's what I love about it.

Yeah, but it's never boring.

It's always moving forward.

I'm going to say it's actually, it's slow, but that's okay.

It's methodical.

It knows what it's doing and it's taking its time.

Right that's good.

To, to be fair, when it aired on tv, two hours of this was too long.

Yeah.

But now that we can watch it without commercials, it's the perfect length.

It just, it is one of the things I really like about it.

There is no fat on this steak at all.

There is nothing that doesn't need to be there.

No, no.

There is no side plots.

There's no romantic, you know, trysts going on.

We don't even get backstories for anybody.

We're just plopped into the story and everything's taken at face value.

You're right, I didn't think about that.

But yeah, everything is just bare bones.

But it doesn't feel that way.

It feels like a very lived in movie.

No, because.

Because that's what the story is.

It's a campfire tale.

It's.

It's a.

It's going by like comic book logic.

And I don't mean like superhero, I mean like creep show.

Yes.

Tales from the Crypt.

We've got a 10, we've got a five page story morality tale about supernatural justice.

And it goes exactly how you think it's going to go.

And that's okay because that's how it goes in the comic books.

What I like about this is you.

It could also be a mystery or thriller.

You don't know how if it's a supernatural.

Cause until the very last shot, which I loved about it because it plays a coy, which I liked.

See, I was going to say differently.

I'm going to say differently.

One of the mistakes that I think that this movie could have made is what a lot of what most of these made for TV movies would have done.

Would have made it a whodunit.

Who's in the scarecrow suit?

Who's knocking off these people?

But this movie, the movie puts our villains, the people who killed Bubba, like on a hook and watches them squirm.

Oh, yeah, definitely.

Like, like the Girl in Texas Chainsaw.

It's like, I'm gonna hang all three of you up and I'm kind of come back for you one by one by one and just watch you squirm.

And they start panicking, they start wondering who's doing it.

But the movie keeps kind of turning to us going, shh, no, no, no.

Let them wriggle.

It's exactly what you think it is.

Calm down.

Watch.

Watch them suffer.

This is the fun part.

No, no, no, no.

You're right.

What you think is happening is exactly what's happening.

Calm down.

Watch that.

Exactly.

This is the fun part, but they.

Never show who's doing the killing.

So it's always left up in the air as to, is it a scarecrow, is it the mother, is it a little girl?

I mean, they, they show but don't really.

They don't say, you're supposed to think one thing or the other.

It's just like I said, people are dying, they don't show the killer.

So it's like, well, who is it?

But they never really draw attention to anyone or never have any of that, like zoom in on someone to make you think about like the old woman or the little girl a little bit.

Right, right.

Who isn't that costume?

But I realized this time, going through, this last time, going through up until the very, very end, you don't see anybody in that scarecrow costume.

You never see anything.

Like there's no hint of anybody following.

They're just people panicking.

They're hearing things and they're seeing things, but you don't see it.

Exactly.

And I would swear like, I would swear like.

And I know other people I hear talking about, oh my God, the scarecrow's so scared.

See where he's chasing the guy through the asylum like this.

You don't see him, you don't see him.

So whatever, your brain is actually writing the movie for you.

And I think that's really cool.

Yeah, yeah.

People remember scenes that never really happened because.

Yeah, because you don't see this scarecrow until the very end of the movie.

And this cast is great.

Can we talk about this cast?

Yes, yes.

Before we get into the biggest, you brought up Bubba.

Yes.

Who's Bubba?

Larry Drake.

Larry Jake, he was in St.

Elsewhere where Benny, a similar character, I think, Louisiana Law.

Louisiana law.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Louisiana Law.

He was the killer Santa Claus in the Tales of the Crypto.

So that's really good.

And he was Dr.

Pickles.

Yes.

Yeah.

He's just a fantastic and darkman and dark man.

You're right.

Yeah.

He's a villain, this one.

Only in it for 10 minutes, but he's just such a sweet, kind man.

Leaves an impression for the 10 minutes that he's in.

And yes, it's 1981, so you're getting an able bodied person playing a mentally challenged person.

So there's some cringe factor there.

But honestly, he's doing the most earnest job somebody can do.

Your heart bleeds for this character.

So please.

Exactly.

He's very likable, very compassionate and most of the people treat him the same way with the Exception of some other characters.

You can tell.

He seems to be well liked if not disliked in the community.

Or he's just considered harmless.

Exactly.

That's it.

He's harmless.

Yeah.

Would you want like, he is the.

He's the one innocent in this whole story.

Very, very true, very true.

I mean it.

Having a grown man play with a girl who's maybe 13 or like 12, like right on the cusp, it never felt icky to me.

No, no, no, no.

And see, it brought me back to like watching this watching it too.

When I grew up at the playground, we had arts and crafts classes and there was an older guy who was also special needs who would come to the arts in class because he was.

He was like bubba.

He was a big kid.

He just wanted to make his, you know, his yarn octopuses with us and whatever.

And my mother was always very, very deterred.

You stay away from him.

Oh, really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, yeah, it is too bad, but he just came back to my head for the first time in, you know, 30 years watching this.

This time.

But.

Oh, yeah, I can see that.

But, yeah.

But rounding out our villains, we got Charles Durning in the lead here as Mr.

Hazelwig.

So good.

Hazel rig.

Sorry?

Hazel rig.

Perfect.

I mean, just perfect.

He's a blight like stinkweed and cut worm that just spray and spray to get rid of, but always keep coming back.

No I ever changed my mind.

Something's gotta be done, it has to be permanent.

And he's a last minute replacement too.

Oh, really?

It was supposed to be Strother Martin from Cool Hand Luke and.

Yeah.

But he died just before they started production.

Part of me is sad that that happened.

Yeah.

And part of me is happy that that happened because Strether Martin was the bad guy in Brotherhood of Satan, which is my earliest childhood trauma memory.

Oh, okay.

But I would have liked to have seen it because in that he plays the leader of a covenant of witches who's also the town doctor.

Like town doctor, sweetheart, everybody loves him.

But he's also working with a covenant witches who's slaughtering every family in town, taking their children one by one by one by one by one.

So his leader of this covenant is just all really nice and warm and charming.

Oh, hi.

Come on in.

Welcome to the Brotherhood of Satan.

Yeah, nice.

So it's just to see a really nice.

Yeah, very nice.

Sweet.

But.

Yeah.

And Charles Durning doesn't give you.

That nails it.

Nails it.

Like he's big and he's scared.

Okay.

Charles.

Who's Charles Durning?

Oh, he's a huge character actor.

I was trying to think, what is he famous for?

I don't.

I just know, like, he's in everything of the era.

Maya Murphy is so mad at you right now because he played the greatest villain of all time, Doc Hopper from the Muppet Movie.

Oh, you're right.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Doug Shapiro is really mad at you, right?

No, he was in.

He was in everything.

Hold on.

I've got everything here.

At least some of the big stuff.

But, you know, two time Oscar nominee for Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and To Be or Not to Be with Mel Brooks movie.

What I love about him, that Charles Durning is also a trained dancer.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Has his own dance school.

Like, he's this big, burly guy, is a hoofer.

Like ballet.

Like ballet, jazz, hoofer, the whole works.

And you would never expect that from.

I find that really interesting.

But anyway.

But Dog Day Afternoon, Brian De Palma's sister, is When a Stranger Calls.

Muppet Movie and a whole bunch of others, tons of the great.

He's not Brian Dennehy.

No, no, he's not.

There's a certain mold of guys in that era.

Archie Bunker, the two of them are.

Always getting the roles the other one did.

Oh, really?

Yeah, they're very much the same.

But no, and he's great.

He's stone cold in this.

And so this character is so fucking fascinating.

And it's not even what you get from the script.

It's what you get from things around the script that's great because they don't spell things out.

They just leave things there to simmer with you.

Because the thing I love about him, he is this impotent bastard on a power trip.

Oh, yeah, big time.

But he's so quiet.

He's a very quiet person.

Like, the quieter he gets, you know, the angrier he is.

One of those things I'm getting from Maya Murphy is like visual storytelling.

There's a point where we see the cameras just tooling around his room in the boarding house.

And it's all these pictures of Patton and Napoleon.

Oh, and all this war memorabilia.

And you're a little fucking dictator.

You never take off your mailman, you know, he never does.

No, I'm going to joke about that.

No, it's not a joke.

That makes him an authority.

I work for the government, the postal, important.

Like, if I had.

Like, I did my head.

Can I.

Like, in my.

My head.

He likes to think of himself as a War hero, but he probably was like 4F and just stayed at home.

Like never actually went to battle, but likes to pretend he did.

If he had a unifor from the war, he'd wear it all the time because that means everyone's gonna give me respect.

So he wears that mailman uniform like it's a war uniform.

Like he's a four star general, which he's not.

Yeah, yeah.

And he just commands all his little crew around, but he's just.

Yeah, that.

That suit just gets so nasty and sweaty.

I mean, he's just sweating this entire movie.

That helmet is like the thickest, awfulest plastic.

And.

Yeah, I just know because I had to wear something like that for a show once.

Like all your sweat just beads up in there.

So I know when he took it off, it was like.

I mean, I grew up in South Texas and so I love the look of this movie.

The look at this movie.

And it was kind of things California.

But it still looked 100% California.

That ranch is right where I used to do theater, summer stock.

And what I love about it is that they managed to get the area.

It's that same farm where they shot everything.

The ranch where they shot everything.

Although every goddamn TV movie shoots there because they own it.

But they got there a little earlier than usual, so there's still some green out there.

The drought hasn't really set in yet, so it looks much more beautiful.

One of the things I would love, like when I would arrive at the beginning of the summer, like, look at everything.

So green.

And a month later, everything's brown.

Since the drought, everything's ready to burn.

But they got it just right.

Everything looks gorgeous.

And there's some beautiful shots in here too.

One of the other things I think is great too is that he's got his little.

He's got his, his.

His.

His harem.

His.

His funkies.

Yeah, toadies.

I realized as the movie going on goes on, I'm like, they're not even his friends.

No, no.

They call him Mr.

Hazelwig.

Oh, yeah.

When they go to visit him in the boarding house, they're looking around his room like they've never seen it before.

Because they've never seen it before.

They're not your friends.

You don't have any friends.

Oh, yeah.

No.

No one likes this guy.

No one else.

But for the first half of the movie, you feel like him.

Like, oh, yeah, I own this town.

Then as the movie keeps going on, you're like, oh, no.

Everybody thinks you're an asshole because it's a small town.

Everybody knows what you are.

Everybody knows everything about everybody in small towns like this.

And everybody knows what a fucking monster you are.

But they just don't say nothing.

Because we're all polite.

Exactly.

And a few of them have a bead on what he really is.

But also with casting.

Did you.

Are we still talking about casting?

Because I got one cast member I want to talk.

Well, yeah.

What are we.

Sure.

I wonder what just.

Yeah, we're done with Charleston, everybody, but with casting.

Like the flunkies, his three flunkies.

They are.

They are a trio of.

Oh, that guy.

Guys.

Yes.

And they're all different from each other.

It's easy to tell them apart after the first scene.

But, yeah, if you're.

If you're around in that.

That period.

These were guys who were in everything.

Yes.

And I couldn't tell you what.

I recognized.

LANE Smith.

Oh, 100%, yes.

Yeah, he was.

He has more starring roles because he.

Was in V.

He was in V.

He was one of the.

He was the.

One of the leader aliens from V.

He was in Red Dawn.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But just.

And what I appreciate was, like I said, you could tell each of them had a little personality.

It's kind of like in Heathers, how you have the three Heathers after all.

You start to kind of pick them apart.

They had kind of the same vibe going where each of them kind of related to Charles Journey a slight.

A different way.

He didn't have the same relationship with each man.

You know, one was more competent, one was just kind of Weasley, and the other is just a coward.

So I thought, like, you know, with the minimum screen time they had, they managed to make them each kind of stand out a little bit.

I want to talk about the boarding house.

We need to bring boarding houses back because this one goes to Mr.

Chick.

And I was like, you know, that will never happen.

It won't.

That will take power away from landlords.

We can't give it to little old ladies who own their own houses.

We can't allow that.

No, no, no, no, no.

Mega corporations have to own all the real estate, Trey.

We can't have boarding houses happen.

We can't have flop houses happen.

But do you know who ran that boarding house in this movie?

Mrs.

Bunch.

Yes, and you.

Well, too bad.

She died in that horrible accident after.

A terrible truck accident.

Oh, it sounded like a falling off the Empire State Building.

She was large.

Marge.

Large barges in this movie.

For 30 seconds, Marge.

And I was.

I.

I saw her on the castle.

So I had to go back and find her.

And it did not disappoint.

No, it's not.

I.

I almost missed it this time through.

And I was just going to the IMDb I looked at her.

I wasn't going to look at her, but I'm looking at the picture going, I know that picture.

Why does that look like that can't be large.

It is large marsh.

IMDb had had, like, the large Marge photo for the little picture.

So, like, that's large Marge.

Wait a minute.

Where is she in the movie?

Go back and watch it.

She had the best fried chicken in town, baby.

Fried chicken.

Fried chicken.

The first reel is like a little soap opera itself.

Just.

Let's just go through that.

Yeah, I love that.

We open with this little scene with the.

With.

With Bubba and the girl.

One of these times through, I wrote down it.

We're like 45 minutes into the movie, but does this kid have a name?

I don't remember.

Oh, you know, it's Mrs.

Blah, blah blah girl.

The blah blah blah kid.

She does have a name.

I don't remember what it was, though.

Oh, it was Mary Lee.

Merrily, Merrily, Merrily.

Yeah.

That's okay.

That's a name I finally came up.

But I'm like, does she have a name?

But she's playing with Bubba out in this field, playing with flowers.

And it's absolutely 100% a visual callback to Frankenstein.

Yes.

Yeah.

The ring of flowers.

Yeah.

Except he doesn't drown her.

But it sets you up for that.

Like, oh, gosh.

But it immediately puts tension in you because you're like, oh, God, I know where this is going to go.

Yes.

Yeah.

It actually turns you into Charles Durning and his band of assholes.

Oh.

It's an adult playing with a kid in a field of flowers.

This is going to end badly.

Turns into them for a minute.

Turns into the villains for a bit.

Yeah.

But Charles Durning is watching with his binoculars.

That right there is just Chicluan.

He's a little bit too nosy in other people's business.

Well, particularly about this kid, too.

Yeah, this kid.

It's too much with this kid.

You want to talk about projection?

Mm.

Mm.

Everything that he accuses bub of, it's him that you really should be worried about.

And he's got the Williams girl.

Uh, you know what he's liable to do?

Yes.

Well, let's get down there and break it up then.

What good would it do?

Two days, he'll be back again.

Just like before.

Not this time.

I'm gonna teach that moron a lesson.

You're wasting your time.

Just you wait and see.

When I get through with him.

You're wasting your time.

He's an idiot.

He can't remember.

You ought to know that by now.

What do we do then?

Nothing.

Nothing.

Wait a minute.

I don't understand this.

It was your idea.

He's dangerous in the first place.

You're the one who always wants to run down there and rub his face in the dirt.

What happened?

All of a sudden you changed your mind.

He's a blight extinct, weird and cut worm that just spray and spray to get rid of but always keep coming back.

No, I haven't changed my mind.

Something's gotta be done and it has to be permanent.

Hey Otis.

I'll kick him around a little, have a little fun with him.

But that's as far as I'm gonna go.

What would you do if something happened out there?

Well that's different.

You know what I'd do?

There'd be a reason.

Uh huh.

Say hello to the Mrs.

Funny.

Yeah.

They never say it out loud.

They imply, imply.

Then they get one point to where I was like.

I was like.

Oh, that's what they are.

That's what they mean.

Okay.

But Merrilee ends up.

Her ball goes into the backyard.

A backyard of someone.

And she broke.

No, she broke into a backyard.

Oh, she broke into the backyard.

Okay.

Cause they added all these gnomes.

Somebody neighbor had all these gnomes in the backyard.

It's a magical paradise to a kid.

Sure, why not?

Yeah.

And she goes back there, but there's a dog, it attacks her.

Bubba saves her.

Bubba doesn't go in.

Bubba playing all the audio.

I can't.

Bubba knows he's gonna get in trouble if you go in there.

But no, she gets ripped apart by the family dog.

Come on.

Oh, why Bubba can't go in yard?

Just to look.

We won't put anything.

No, I'll get in trouble.

Don't be such a scaredy cat.

There's nobody home anyway.

Okay, you stay here.

I'll go Bunnies.

But there.

This is the thing that stuck when he was a kid.

Is Bubba with her?

Her.

Her body in his hands?

Her.

Her dress just torn up.

Crying on the doorstep?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we're not sure what happened to her yet if she's alive or not.

And as a kid that was potent stuff for me.

That really stuck with me.

Well, it's an incredibly powerful image.

It's like Maya is always Talking about on Damian Louis, it's that classic Universal monster silhouette of the Frankenstein monster holding the limp body of a woman.

Except here it's a little girl.

But it's also giving it religious pieta vibes with this giant weeping hulk of a man standing there on your front porch holding the limp body of your little girl.

All right, all right, I'm coming.

Bubba didn't do it.

And the love we keep getting throughout this is bubba didn't do it.

Him just crying and saying, bubba didn't do it.

I hate that people do it.

And it's a funny thing.

Cause it's such.

It's every time it happens in the movie.

It's not played for laughs in the movie, ever.

Nothing about him is played for laughs, which is a nice relief and odd for a movie of this era.

Yeah, no one calls him any slurs or anything, which.

Yeah, it was.

No cheap shots.

None of that.

So there's no time for that.

There's no time for that because this is so damn streamlined.

Yeah.

And basically the word gets out that she was hurt, that somehow Bubba was involved, that she's dead.

She's dead.

She's dead.

She's dead.

Yes.

He done did it.

He did that thing you were afraid of.

He killed her.

He's done it.

The Williams girl, just like you said.

How bad?

She's dead.

Otis.

The sheriff's calling for volunteers.

Everybody's gonna meet over at the courthouse.

No, we'll do this ourselves.

Let's get the dogs and the guts.

And so Charles Durning gets his.

His friends together.

They go out and they chase him down and they hunt to the field and they track him to a scarecrow.

Well, before that, they gotta go through his mother.

Cause we gotta talk about.

We gotta talk about Baba's mom.

What is it?

It's so melody.

But I didn't know him, Mama.

I told her not to, Mama.

Told her not to.

Not to.

Not to what?

Me, Mama.

Scared, Mama.

But I didn't do nothing bad.

I know, sweetheart.

You're a good boy.

Now, nobody's gonna hurt you, you hear?

Nobody's gonna hurt you.

Mama's not gonna let em.

Damn them.

Anything happened in that town and they come blaming you.

Now get up here.

Listen to me.

Now, you remember what we did the last time we played a game?

The hiding game.

Remember.

The hiding game?

I remember the hiding.

I can play it good, Mama.

I know.

Now, come on, we're gonna play it again.

Come on.

Come on.

Come on.

We're gonna play it again.

I'M gonna play the hiding game.

Yes, we're gonna.

Jocelyn Brando, Marlon Brando's sister.

I.

When you look at her face now, it's all I can see.

Yes, it's all I can see.

She's great.

Oh, she's so good.

She's great.

Ding dong.

This is Captain Walsh speaking to you from the future.

I made it a point to write down, do not just reduce Jocelyn Brando to only being known as Marlon Brando's sister.

Make sure you mention some of the other things she did.

And I completely forgot because I'm a horrible person.

Jocelyn Brando worked like crazy.

She did a lot of stuff, a lot of the Western.

She's got a great look for western.

So she did all the Western shows.

Bonanza and Big Valley, all that.

She was on all those things.

But bad me, bad gay.

I forgot the most important thing she ever did.

Jocelyn Brando is in Mommy Dearest.

Jocelyn Brando plays Barbara.

Barbara, as in Barbara, Please, Joan.

Barbara, please.

Please, Barbara.

Barbara, please.

Shame on me.

Back to the show.

There are parts where she's borderline playing melodrama, but she somehow manages to keep it grounded and keep it very, very real.

She's got lines that are ridiculous, but, man, she's selling every one of them.

They're murderers.

They killed my son.

They killed my son.

They murdered him.

They murdered him.

It ain't right that you let him go free.

They killed my boy.

They killed my boy.

You may think that you're getting off free, but there's other justice in this world besides the law.

There are other kinds of justice in this world, Mr.

Hazelwig.

Her and Chellis journey both, like, skate right to the edge, like chewing scenery.

But they're still good.

And I mean, it's, it's, It's a ridiculous movie, but they play it low key enough that it actually becomes creepy because they don't oversell it.

Oh, yeah, yeah, like, yeah, like this.

Like, with the wrong hands.

This could have become another generic TV bit of ridiculousness where people just got the lines three minutes before they shot, right?

But everybody's very grounded and very real, especially these two because they have some weighty stuff and they just, both of them anchor in.

There's two heavyweights just, just going for each other, not even throwing punches, but just like, who's gonna throw the first one?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I guess because Charles Jerning is so formidable at this point that she seems to be the first person who really not just stands up to him, but may actually go be able to Go toe to toe with him.

What are you men doing on my property?

I asked you what you're doing.

We come for him, Ms.

Ritter.

In a pig's eye.

This is official.

Official?

Who do you think you are?

The only thing official you ever done is lick Stamps.

Now get off my place.

He's wanted, Ms.

Ritter.

I don't believe it.

You're just out here to torment him again.

What's he supposed to have done?

What do you think?

Frank Williams daughter.

No.

He wouldn't hurt nobody.

Especially a child.

Don't you understand?

He loves children.

It plays with them.

Cause he's no older than them in his head.

He's 36 years old, Mrs.

Ritty.

He's physically mature.

Where is he?

He ain't here.

Dogs say different.

I ain't seen him.

We'll tear this place apart if we have to.

Over my dead body.

I'm warning you.

You're obstructing justice and you ain't the law.

You are obstructing justice and aiding a fugitive.

And you're trespassing.

And this is my problem.

Mrs.

Ritter, I feel like she has in the past.

Like, when they show up at the house, they're demanding you, we're coming in.

Then she's like, you're not coming in here.

You're not the author.

He's like, oh, we're here on.

Like, well, we're authorized to be here.

And she's like, the only thing that you're authorized to do is lick stamps.

Stamps?

Yeah.

You're nobody.

You can't come in here.

You're trespassing.

You're wearing.

You're a bullshit.

I bit a piece of shit.

Nobody.

Get the fuck off my land.

You know she's got a shotgun in there somewhere.

Yeah.

But she knows if she takes it out that she's the villain, that sort of thing.

But, yeah, she defends it.

She said, no, but Bubba came crying.

How Bubba comes crying home.

It's the only scene he has with his mama.

And it's so.

It's so heartbreaking.

Just this gigantic man, just so genuinely frightened.

Just being hunted like an animal.

Literally.

And so she tells him to do the hiding game.

And he goes off.

And then the posse comes down, I think, with a dog.

And they track him down into the.

Fields, the two dogs which are conspicuously not barking.

But that's okay, you know, there's a dog.

No, it's okay.

It's okay.

That always happens.

Like when you see dogs fighting in a movie and you hear.

But their tails are Wagging.

You see, they're all really happy.

Like, no, no, no, I get it.

Guess it happens.

You got, you got to make the magic happen anyway.

Yes, please.

And so they, they, they track him down and he is in a scarecrow costume perched out on the field.

And just a closeup of his eyes wide.

And you can hear him breathing, terrified.

Oh, man, that was.

It's creepy.

It.

The visual of Charles Durning and him staring each other down through that mask.

And like you said, it's just this burlap mask and you just see these big terrified, tear filled eyes hiding under there with this, the silent scream of the mouth that the mask is making.

Yeah, that mask is great, especially at the very end.

But yeah, that mask is just terrifying.

And it's just wrong.

It's wrong, it's wrong, it's wrong.

Everything that happens here is wrong.

They know exactly what they do.

They're just like, yeah, yeah, okay, well we're just going to shoot him.

And they do.

They kill and they kill him and they take the pitchfork and put him in his hand so they can say that they were defending themselves.

Yeah, you shot him 24 times.

Yeah, he's tied to his steak.

That's the part I think it's like he's tied to the stake.

How?

It doesn't matter.

It's good old boys and good old boy town.

Yep.

And I gotta say, they did a great job of making this location feel almost like a character.

Like it felt like a very lived in space.

100%.

100%.

The thing I enjoyed is that the name of the town is Bogan.

B O G A N.

So in my mind, this is the town where the boogens happened.

But this is before the boogens.

So like before the boogens is just the bogans, but the boogens happened to the boogens.

But now it's Bogan.

Now it's Bougainville.

But before it was Bougainville.

I got nothing.

But.

Yeah, it's, it's.

They, they, they, they massacred this guy for no reason.

And as soon as he's dead, they get that call.

Hey, Harless, you out there?

Yeah, Ludy, go ahead.

Hey, where you at?

We out here at the riddle place.

What are you doing out there?

They called everything off a half hour ago.

What the hell are you talking about?

Hadn't you heard?

Little girls.

All right, it was all a mistake.

Hank Renfro's dog jumped her.

They've already released her from the clinic, sent her home.

Funny part is, old Bubba Saved her life.

Ain't that a laugh?

Harless.

Hey, Harless, you reading me?

Ugh.

And they knew they fucked up.

Oh, yeah.

And of course, the three turned to Charles Durning, all but basically saying, what next?

This is your call.

Well, they were the ones who shot first, but they stand there for a really long time with their guns, wondering what we're gonna do.

Well, we're just watching this poor man suffer the last moments of his life.

He's absolutely terrified.

Probably pissing himself in public and just whatever, completely defenseless.

And they don't start shooting until he starts shooting.

Yep.

They wait for him.

That's how they work.

That's how they roll.

That's how these three.

These three don't do anything until the other one does it.

And that's just how it go.

Yeah, And I was like, it goes immediately to trial, and they're basically acquitted.

Like, just like.

And this is at this point, like, what, 15, maybe 20 minutes into the movie?

It moves fast.

Yeah.

Well, the other thing, I think that's fun about this movie, that there is no sense of time passing this movie.

Like, the way time moves is weird.

And people might get hung up at that because, like, well, that went to trial really fast.

But the kid doesn't know that Bubba's dead yet.

And there's weird things that happen, which I think are fun.

That I know a lot of it's just budget things.

Okay.

But you're right, Trey.

This trial seems to happen immediately.

Or the inquest or whatever the heck it is, it seems to happen the next day.

And we all know justice system doesn't work like that.

It's going to take some time.

And plus, like, Bubba's funeral doesn't seem to happen at all.

It's never addressed.

Like, there's no period where the town seems to be in shock.

It's just another day.

So there's this weird sense of timelessness about this whole thing.

But, yeah, the trial doesn't go well.

This is.

Poor lawyer who's really trying his best to pin something on these fuckers.

I want you to tell this court, whether you or these men gave the deceased a chance to surrender himself.

Yes, you, Honor, you did.

Several times, in fact.

We even fired shots in the air.

We did everything we possibly could not to hurt him.

We had to defend ourselves.

Defend yourselves.

The man had 21 bullet wounds in him.

Objection.

Objection, you, Honor.

Now, once more, I'm gonna clear this room.

Will the attorneys come on up here to the bench?

We have got a very Delicate situation on our hands.

Now, we have to be extremely careful.

Sam.

These men are members of the community.

They're not criminals.

But, your honor, they went out.

Sam, I'll tell you the truth.

After listening to the arguments.

I don't think you have a case against him.

Henry.

Your honor, these men went out with no legal right.

Sam, you have produced no witnesses.

You have produced no evidence.

You have not shown me one thing to prove that what happened is any different than what they say.

Now, do you have anything else yet?

Anything else to present then?

All right.

After reviewing the evidence and testimony in his hearing, I find it insufficient to establish probable cause.

And I'm ordering the defendants released from custody immediately.

And this is when Bubba's mom has that fabulous bit about there are other kinds of justice and there's moral business that I played earlier as a dragging her dramatically out of the courtroom.

And now everybody's celebrating on the hallway.

But the lawyer has one last stab at Charles Durney before he goes.

I think you executed that man.

And I promise you this.

If I ever find a single shred of evidence, I'll see every one of you on death row.

Am I keeping you, Mr.

Hazelrigg?

Huh?

Oh, well, I was just noticing the time.

It's Tuesday, and Mrs.

Bunch will be having fried chicken over at the boarding house where I live.

Bing Bong.

This is Captain Patrick from the future.

I wanted to go back and insert all this stuff about the trial because one of the favorite things about this movie for me is not the big plot scares.

It's not the dramatic deaths.

It's not the.

The wheels of supernatural justice grinding slowly towards you.

It's not the.

The suspense.

It's not the sense of dread.

All of that is great, but I love these moments of little teeny, tiny scares.

Stuff that just makes your flesh crawl and leading up to one.

And I wanted to get the stuff in there because it's really important to get that fried chicken in there.

Charles Journey has a.

Charles Journey has that shitty comment about the fried chicken.

Oh, I was just thinking about the fried chicken.

And it immediately cuts to the four murderers at the bar.

They've gotten away with it, They've committed murder, and they're gonna walk free.

And they are drunk and they are rowdy, and they are just screaming fried chicken.

Fried chicken.

At each other over and over.

And it's gross.

Ah, chicken.

I'm gonna go drop this chicken.

Now.

Earlier in the movie, when these murdered Bubba right after they got that message on the CB radio that everything had been called off.

And the kid was fine and Bubba was a hero.

There's this crane shot that's pulling out on the four of them, or they're just staring at each other, wondering what to do.

This wind all of a sudden starts to blow.

The rest of the movie's been very still.

There has been no wind.

Now there's this wind blowing through, making Bubba's clothes blow a little bit, giving him a little motion even though he's dead.

Now, in this scene, they're all at that bar.

It's nighttime.

And they're hooting and hollering, having a grand old time.

And the camera pulled back from them, pulls back out through the window of the bar and starts to go down the street.

And oh, look, that wind is beginning to blow.

Like that wind was something leaving town when Bubba died.

But now that wind seems to be bringing something back.

And these four idiots don't know.

Enjoy your fried chicken while you can.

Because the wind brought something back.

And you're not gonna.

Because there's something in the air in town tonight, and you are really not gonna like it.

I need to jump to the end just cause we're not gonna go plot point by plot point.

One of the things that I didn't remember at all, or maybe it just never hit me until now, I'm like, oh, the final moments of this, when you realize, did the kid do this?

Did she bring him back?

Oh, is it her?

It really has been her the whole time, but not in the fact that she's killing anybody.

But she brought Bubba back.

She brought back her playback.

Because her last line is, I want to teach you another game tomorrow.

Exactly.

Thank you, Bubba.

You know what?

Tomorrow I think I'll teach you a new game.

Did I ever show you how to play the chasing game?

It's fun.

You like it?

It's sort of like playing tan.

That's what really struck me.

But when I watched it again, I'm noticing.

I'm like, you don't have any friends.

We never see you in school.

Yeah.

The first image, like we said, is her making leis for Bubba.

Bubba's lei keeps coming back.

She find, like, she.

At a certain point, like after the trial has happened and after these guys get acquitted, she goes looking for Bubba at his house, and she finds his lei.

Mm.

And I said, flower lays don't last more than a couple of hours.

Why is that?

Lay still.

Okay.

And I know it's because it's a TV movie and it's cheap and it's made of plastic, but I said, but what if it's not?

What if that's her?

Maybe it's still alive because she made it.

Well, the thing is.

Okay, so if I had seen this, you know, if I had watched it for, you know, for first time yesterday, I would have thought she was a killer.

Because she always has this sort of mean little.

Not a mean streak, but it's.

The actress does a good job being antagonistic to Charles Journey.

Well, she knows.

Yes, she knows.

She knows what he did, and she never pretends that she doesn't know what he did.

And he's.

She's also not afraid of him.

No, she's not at all.

Which is great.

So that would give you that thing like, what's wrong with this kid?

She should be afraid of this gigantic man.

But she's not.

And there's a reason why she's not.

Because she's a fucking witch or something.

She's a witch or something.

I don't care what she is.

Well, because there's a scene halfway through where he confronts her at like a Halloween dance.

And he corners her, like, back, like in the hallways when everyone's somewhere else.

And it's because.

So at this point, also, the mother's basically accused him of wanting to molest the kid.

And he's trying to talk to her alone at night in the school hallways, all alone.

And he's just that kind of.

Come here.

I ain't too scared of you.

I'm the mailman.

And she's like.

She even says, bubba told me what you did.

So she's been talking with Bubba this whole time after he was killed?

I'm not gonna hurt you now.

You're not afraid of me?

I'm the mailman.

No one's afraid of the mailman.

Let me see you costume.

Isn't that pretty?

Let me see if I can guess who you are, fairy princess.

I know who it is, Mommy.

Right?

Huh?

Show your costume to Mrs.

Ritter.

Hmm?

She's your friend, isn't she?

Yeah, sure, she's mine, too.

But you didn't know that, did you?

Huh?

You know something?

I think Mrs.

Ruth is trying to play a joke on me and some of my friends.

But she told you about it, huh?

I bet that's what it is.

It's a secret.

Well, I can understand that.

You can tell me.

I won't say where.

Come on.

I'm not gonna hurt you.

You come whisper in my ear and it'll still be a secret.

I know what you did to Bubba, and you lied about him.

Where'd you hear that?

He told me.

He told me everything.

Eli, you know that's not true.

It was Mrs.

Ritter, wasn't it?

She told you to say that.

No.

Yes, it was.

Now you tell the truth.

And who was it?

I told you.

It was Bubba.

No, it wasn't.

Dammit.

Bubba didn't tell you that.

Bubba didn't tell you anything.

Bubba's dead.

I know.

Haley.

Well, that's what I.

That was my favorite thing about the scene.

She holds.

She doesn't move the whole time.

She's up against the wall.

She's got one fist.

Fist raised up.

As in.

As in resistance.

But, you know, she's leaning on the fist, but she's just looking at him the whole time.

She doesn't say anything.

And he's playing all that sweet shit on.

Oh, you don't have to be afraid of me.

I'm the mailman.

Nobody's afraid of the mailman, I said.

You just own yourself, honey.

Because you know what?

Nobody is afraid of the mailman in this town.

They just.

Nobody's afraid of you.

Nobody.

Bubba was.

Nobody else is.

But yeah, he goes.

That whole thing, and it's all very creepy.

Oh, you got a secret?

Do you know secret?

Why don't you come and whisper it over here in my ear?

Oh, my God.

Cause then it will still be a secret.

And it's gross.

And she does.

She goes over and she's like, I know what you did to Bubba.

Ah.

And that was a great moment.

His look.

And then.

Who told you that?

Who told you that?

As much goes, no, Bubba told me.

You're lying and you know it.

Bubba's dead.

She just went, I know.

Well, this is where I know is dead.

He's still the one who told me, stupid.

Did you not get this?

I brought him back.

He's still my plaything.

And I was watching this movie, and this movie is Charles Journey trying not to go crazy and lose his mind the entire time because he's just.

Because you.

He underplays everything.

You don't really see him.

He's not the kind of guy who yells and storms around.

This kind of guy gets very quiet.

And so.

But just as the movie goes on, he's just.

He's starting to scramble mentally.

It feels like he's just losing his mind.

Well.

Cause he's losing everything.

He's losing his posse one by one, which means he's losing his power, which means he's losing his status, which means.

And then he's starting to.

Now, without these shields that he has these human shields.

He's starting to realize how he's viewed in the community.

Because two things happen in that party scene, which I love this whole party scene.

It's great because oddly enough, I would swear to God, it's the same location that they shot the Halloween dance in at when Michael calls.

Because the kids also wearing the exact same costume that the little girl wore.

Michael calls.

It's the same network.

I'm sure they recycle costumes.

But anyway, at the end of that scene that we just talked about, that security card comes in and she says.

The party's up front.

The party's up front.

But he's got that look in his face that says, this is not the first time I caught you in a dark hallway with a little girl.

Yeah, okay.

You're the reason I have to work these things.

Okay.

I love that moment.

There's a moment right after that where he's getting punched.

Oh.

And the woman's like, oh, haha, sure.

Oh, it's so nice to see you, Mr.

Hazelwig.

Oh, hello, Mr.

Hazelwig.

Can I get you something?

Something to drink?

Please.

This one is plain and this one is fixed.

You don't drink.

You don't drink.

And then she pulls it out of his hand.

I was like, whoa, was that a reed?

And that's when I first started realizing, oh, no one likes this guy.

Yeah, I know.

That's right.

You don't drink.

We could smell the scotch on your breath from six feet away.

But you don't drink.

Don't drink.

Okay, sure.

Uh huh.

It takes the glass out of his hand after she's given it to him.

That was.

This whole town knows.

This whole town does.

That point in the beginning of the movie when I don't know if it's a trial or an inquest or whatever, but you think, wow, this whole town doesn't give a shit.

This whole town is on their side.

Everybody's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

There's a couple good old boys.

That's it.

Yeah, that's it.

There's a couple good old boys as they're always there.

But for the most part, we know exactly who these people are.

We don't like them.

And they can go fuck themselves.

They haven't caused enough trouble yet to really make it worth anyone's while to take them down yet.

Let be.

Let be.

If they're not messing with mine, I'm not gonna mess with theirs.

But I'm also not gonna be anywhere near you guys either.

Fuck all y'all and we're talking about Charles Journey.

We're kind of jumping around.

But there's one great moment towards the very end where he only has one cohort left.

Everyone else has been killed and they go to Bubba's grave to dig it up to see if Bubba's in it.

Bubba is in it and the guy.

And the only other henchman left is a Weasley little guy with a red and white polka dot hat that just doesn't match what he's wearing.

But he's losing.

He's going crazy.

He's just babbling.

Let me go.

Let me go.

Stop it.

Let me go.

Was an accident.

You're lying.

He had a heart attack.

Well, which was it?

Accidental hurt or something?

It was both.

Found him this morning, bottom of a silo.

Oh, the green flower.

Don't panic, Dammit.

Hell no.

I don't care.

Listen to me.

There's no reason to throw it all away now.

No, no.

I don't want to hear it.

It was Bubba.

No.

Yes.

He's dead.

He's not.

We killed him.

I saw it.

I was there.

He's dead as a pulse.

We don't know we left him there.

Please.

Please stop.

Don't say anymore.

You twist everything around.

I get so confused.

The other night at the carnival, I saw the Williams girl.

She told me that.

I didn't believe it.

She said she still sees him.

She still sees him.

Skeeter.

It's him.

It's always been him.

They buried him.

He's running under five yards of ground.

He's not yet.

I'll make you deal.

You give me a chance.

Don't run out and I'll prove it to you.

Huh?

Come on.

Come on.

Come on.

It's going to be all right.

And at one point, Charles.

And when he opens the grave to see that it's empty and sees that Bubba's still there, he loses his mind and starts becoming a mess.

No.

Let me go.

Let me go.

Let me go.

Okay.

And Chelsea, at one point, is, like, trying to calm him down.

He, like, has him in his hands, like.

Shh.

It's okay.

We're gonna do this.

We're gonna put, you know, put the dirt over the grave.

We're gonna do this.

And he reaches, lifts his head up and kisses him gently on the forehead and puts it back down like you do a child.

And then as the man's covering up the grave, he gets behind Charles Rain comes behind him with his shovel and kills him.

Oh.

Did you know, Mr.

Hazelrigg, that I Have a cousin, lives up in the hills in Arkansas.

Way back there in the woods, there's.

Just nobody around for miles.

And in fact, all they got is.

A dirt road for the last 12.

Miles getting up there.

Oh.

When I was a kid, I spent a summer there.

Just beautiful country, fishing, great hunting.

But that moment of him just, like, reaching up and kissing his forehead gently like a child was just.

That's when I was like, oh, this is tra.

That's the scene that's directly lifted from a Mice and Men.

Oh, this is the last scene of Mice and Men.

Oh, no.

Okay, I did not know that.

Yeah, I.

I can't think of the goddamn character's name now, but it's the same, the two brothers.

This one who's special, who's got himself into trouble, he accidentally killed a girl.

Lenny.

Thank you, Lenny.

The.

We're.

There's no more running.

They're coming for Lenny.

They're going to kill him.

But his brother's like, I'm gonna have to put him down myself.

And it's the same.

I want for you to sit down.

There.

And I want for you to look across that river.

Cuz I'm gonna tell you like you can almost see.

Go on, George.

We're going to have a little place.

We going to have a little place.

We're going to have a cow and a pig and some chickens.

And then down in a flat, we're going to have a field of alal.

For the rabbits.

For the rabbits.

And I get to tend the rabbits.

Tend the rabbits.

And we could live off the side of the lamp.

Just keep looking across that room.

Like you can really see.

Where?

Right there.

Can't you?

Almost see where.

George, Keep looking.

Just keep looking.

Oh, I'm looking, George.

Oh, I'm looking.

Going to be nice dealing.

There ain't going to be no trouble, no fights.

There ain't going to be nobody mean.

Steal from.

It's going to be nice.

Yeah, I can see it right over there.

Do it.

Make a deal.

Oh, it's exactly that scene.

It's exactly that scene.

I did not get that.

But it was.

It was a.

It was just creepy because it just brings up a lot of questions, like Charles Durning and like the childlike way he handled the guy before he killed him.

Yeah, it got to me.

And then at the very end, you see, he's.

He's driving away.

He sees a little girl standing there in the middle of the road in the middle of night in her nightgown, and she runs off into the cornfield.

He runs after her and she's hiding in a wheel like a.

Some farm equipment.

Like a tractor.

It's a thresher.

Yeah, well, I don't know if it's.

No, it's not a thresher.

I mean, I think it's just a regular tractor, but it's got the bladed wheels on it, right?

It's there to slice whatever in front because it's.

When it gets rolling, it's slicing pumpkins.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah.

And so someone's getting carved tonight.

And someone.

And.

Who'S that?

I.

I would be thinking she's the killer.

She's the only left.

But.

Sam.

But then who's in the tractor cabin?

Listen, Sam, I know what this looks like, but I can explain.

It was her, Sam.

It was her all the time.

Then as he's ch.

He was yelling at her and kind of find that she may have done this all along, starts going after him.

He runs.

He runs.

He looks back behind him, turns around and runs right into the scarecrow with a pitchfork.

What I love too about the shot is that we don't see the.

Like we see him run into the scarecrow and It's a good 30 seconds, 45 seconds before we realize there's a pitchfork involved and lets us wait.

Yeah, yeah.

Just runs into him, stops, you think, what's going to happen?

What's going to happen?

What's going to happen?

And he moves back and you see the pitchfork.

What I also thought was great.

This is the only bit of blood we get the entire movie.

They made us wait the whole movie.

And even though we know what happened, even though we didn't see it, we know damn well he ran into a pitchfork.

They're making us wait to see it.

They're making us wait to know what happened.

And just Charles Durning is looking that empty scarecrow in the face.

The empty scarecrow's looking at him.

The lights go out of his eyes and the blood just starts to drip out of his mouth the last possible second.

It's masterful.

I mean, we skipped a lot.

But I just want to say, Trey.

Yes?

You know, we had.

You know, we had in this movie.

What?

Some mulching.

Oh, we had some mulching.

Somebody got mulched.

Someone got mulched.

Okay, you can come out now, Sam.

I know what you're up to, Sam.

Let's quit playing games.

I'm tired.

Come on down, Sam.

I got to close this place up.

Come on, Sam.

We love a good most.

And someone got grained to death.

Also, there's a lot of farm death.

That's horrific.

That.

That.

That death is horrific.

Yeah.

The second of Charles turning flunkings, gets locked in a grain silo trying to hide from the scarecrow and gets drowned in his own corn or grain or whatever the hell it is.

Wheat.

Whatever it is, it takes a really long time.

And it's horri.

And that shot of his hand sticking out of all that grain stuck with me.

That.

Same here.

Same here.

I talk about a lot about how the pool scene, the legacy, had this lasting effect on me.

Scenes with people being buried alive like this have also affected me.

So this and also the opening scene in Damien Omen 2.

Okay.

With people in the tomb.

That's slowly filling up with sand.

Terrify the hell out of me.

Yeah, that.

Yeah.

Being smothered, like, slowly.

That was possibly those even more.

Because I never think of them.

The pool scene I think about all the time.

But these two are so deeply ingrained in my heart that, oh, what a horrible way to go.

What a horrible way to go.

Because he has a heart attack, though.

So he's not easy.

What I also think is great, too, which is fun.

With this kind of a move, it's just like, yeah, I'm coming for you.

I'm going to take my time.

You know I'm coming.

Yes.

You'll know when I'm coming.

There's nothing you can do to stop it.

It's going to be awful.

But whatever I do to you is still nothing as bad as what you did to him.

Everything you did was so much worse than anything I'm going to do to you.

So what are you complaining about?

Exactly.

And it's all psychological because each person gets a scarecrow in the field, marking them.

Trey.

One of my favorite things about this movie, and it's such a small, wonderful touch, is every time the scarecrow pops up in a new person's field, the next victim's field.

We never see it right away.

No, we always see somebody else see it first.

Like the guy's wife sees it first, which is a wonderful scene.

What?

That was a great scene.

We just got an invitation to the church Halloween party.

You heard?

What?

To the church party.

Can we go?

Oh, I don't care.

I'd have to let them know before.

Saturday because they sure don't want me.

Carla.

What now?

Have you started planting?

What?

I said, have you started planting?

What's the matter with you?

Can't you see I'm busy?

You ever see me planting this time?

Of year?

No.

Why do you ask a lame brain thing like that?

Well, I just thought it's kind of strange.

If you're not planting, why would you.

Put up a scarecrow?

But when we finally do flip the camera and they show the field, it's so.

It's such a long shot.

Yes.

You actually have to hunt to find it.

It doesn't matter that we can't see it.

They're seeing it.

They're seeing it exactly where it is.

But they used the location.

Like, it's just so beautiful.

Just.

It's picturesque.

But that dialogue with the guy and his wife where she's just talking, talking, and she's like, have you started playing?

He's like, no.

She goes.

And she keeps looking up, and he's, like, yelling at her, but she's looking off in the distance.

And finally she goes, why is this scarecrow out there?

And just this back and forth.

Because they're talking, talking, talking, getting them, five of them.

And then it starts to drift.

Like, where's this conversation going?

And then what's that scarecrow doing out there?

Ah.

And just got shot.

And conversely, the next victim.

I don't.

But Philby.

Philby, the guy who eventually dies in the.

In the grain silo.

Yes.

When he finally sees his.

He sees it next to his herd of pigs, and I'm like, oh, my God, are there gonna be pigs?

Are they gonna be pigs?

I like pigs.

Pigs eat everything.

Pigs eat anything, and pigs eat everything.

Someone's never gonna be found.

Because I didn't remember how this went.

No.

Yeah, but no.

We get a good thing anyway.

But no.

When he goes running across the field, and finally you finally get to that skeleton, and the camera just pulls back and it's this beautiful shot of this field with just him, the skeleton, and miles and miles and miles and miles.

Nothing.

There's no farm.

There's nothing in the world except him and the scarecrow.

Yeah.

There's nowhere to run.

There's nowhere to hide.

It's just the two of you.

That's why everything's kind of all CG now.

It's just.

They made use of that beauty.

I mean, the location, that town feels like a character in the movie.

It feels lived in when he's in a room.

You know, they're shot in a room somewhere because you can see the imperfections on the wall.

It just looks like an old, you know, nice place, but just.

I love the little town.

It felt almost like.

Like Mayberry.

A very Mayberry sort of.

Yeah.

But like mayberry on the way out.

Like, I feel like this town's dying.

Like, nobody has moved into this town in years.

The only people that.

The only new people you get are the people who are born here who never leave.

Yeah, yeah.

You got like the boarding house and the.

There's no thriving industry here.

There's nothing.

There's no reason to come here.

There's no reason.

That's why there's no school.

That's why there's no other kids.

But that's why the character is a bully.

Which also gives a timelessness to the feel of this movie.

Mm.

It doesn't feel like it's the 80s.

It doesn't feel.

It could be the 90s.

It could be right now.

Sure.

The fashions are generic.

Yes.

Enough.

Farm.

Ish.

Yeah.

This is definitely a very nondescript.

Yeah.

It doesn't try to capture a moment in time.

It does feel very timeless.

Something that struck me this time, and this is just a modern thing, things that struck me pop back into my memory.

I remember after this aired, back in the day, kids, if you weren't around for the made for TV movie of the 1970s and 80s, when they came on, they were such an event.

Something that you collectively watched as a nation together.

Because there are only three channels, damn it.

Which, I mean, to come back to redo something later, but channels.

Probably everybody was watching.

Yes.

Yeah.

Because it was appointment tv.

Appointment tv.

And the next day at school, everybody was talking about it to the point where I had entire classes where the teacher would just, like, throw out the itinerary and would talk about last night's movie of the week.

And I remember talking about this one in my English class with Sister.

Sister Anthony Edward.

Sister Anthony Edwards.

Who knew.

She was awesome.

She loved E.T.

and she loved koalas.

She was a cool lady.

She was cool.

And she said that there was something.

There was a lot of Jesus imagery in Bubba.

Yeah.

She's not wrong.

I see that.

Definitely.

Falsely committed of a crime comes back from the dead to take the sinners back to hell with him and all this stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it worked.

Yeah.

And this is me from the modern perspective, too.

When that scene happened, when it just gave me a big lump of my gut.

I don't know.

The thing that just popped into my head was Matthew Shepard.

Oh.

Oh.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

Okay.

This kind of thing just happens in the movies, but nope, nope, it doesn't.

This happens, period.

Mm.

And covered up.

Happily covered up.

Well, yeah.

Well, those people can get away with it.

But still.

But Just a little grim reminder, like.

Yeah.

Even as, like, oh, it's so cheesy.

But not, though, because that actually happened to somebody.

That happened to a real person.

I mean, I don't want to say it reminds me of a Ti west movie, but Ty west does.

Like the House of the Devil.

Very simplicity.

This movie has that.

But it shows, it doesn't tell.

It lets you know what's going on.

But the acting is just good.

Charles Durning is the most of the movie.

He's stellar.

And then you have the mother.

That was mother.

And everyone else is just.

I mean, there's not a weak part of this movie.

Everybody's a solid character actor who comes and delivers exactly what they're supposed to do and nothing more.

Right, right.

Which is exactly what this needs.

Like, there's a lawyer in this who the group is suspecting is maybe he's the one who's doing this.

And in another movie, we'd have a whole subplot with him and his wife trying to get to the bottom of what really happened with Bubba.

They're trying to get to the truth.

No, there's none of that, because the movie goes, shh.

None of that matters.

You know what happened to Bubba and you know who's doing this.

Relax.

Just watch what I'm going to do.

It's okay.

Just watch them suffer.

That's the fun part.

I got you.

Don't you wear your pretty little head.

It's all good.

I got to tell you a story.

Well, I was gonna say also at the very end, when the scarecrow turns and looks down at the girl, like, that's when we finally know what is going on, where, you know, Charles Ring has been killed, someone's driving the tractor, and we're not sure, but.

And also, so if.

Who's driving the tractor?

If Bubba's up there on the.

On the.

Mounted.

On the.

On the truck.

Yeah, on the post.

On the post.

On the post.

So, obviously, there's a little telekinesis going on there because we're expecting someone to come down off the tractor.

Instead, Bubba looks down at her, and that's just a great shot where you don't even see.

He's got, like, these three almost circles, the exact same size.

The eyes and the mouth, all the same size.

And when he looks down, you can't see into them.

They're just black.

So you don't see anything behind that mask.

No.

Which I was expecting, since it was such a signature visual moment in the first part of seeing those big Blue eyes suffering inside that mask.

Oh, we're gonna see the big blue eyes, but there's nothing.

There's nobody in there.

Mm.

Mm.

And that was one of the things that was bothering me, too, on the millionth time through now.

And I just said, there's something off about this.

Bubba didn't.

We all know Bubba didn't do it.

Yeah, right.

But Bubba wouldn't do this either.

No, no.

Bubba had humanity like Bubba.

Bubba wouldn't have.

Bubba would have forgiven them or whatever or something, but Bubba wasn't.

So this always says to me, it's not Bubba.

Bubba.

It's the girl.

Yeah.

She didn't bring back Bubba.

Like, she's just whatever.

Whatever she brought back isn't Bubba.

It's her plaything version of Bubba.

But he's gone.

He's not in that suit.

This will make an interesting sequel.

There is a sequel.

Oh, is there?

I heard about it, but I didn't even try and look at.

I didn't either.

I know some of the people who worked on this one were involved in it, but if it's gotten no pressure, there's probably a reason.

Yeah.

It didn't get any press, and I just don't want to go down that route.

I think it's perfect as it is.

It doesn't need a sequel.

What's he going to do?

What's he going to do, kill more people?

No, his job is done.

Well, I love movies that tell you the big answers but leave ambiguity for smaller details.

Like I said, who is driving the tractor at the very end?

Doesn't matter.

Bubba didn't do it.

Bubba didn't do it.

Bubba didn't do it.

That's the important thing Bubba didn't do.

Does it matter?

Does it matter?

Yeah.

Did she bring him back?

Is it really Bubba?

It doesn't really matter, does it?

The movie?

Really?

Kind of.

Yeah.

It's very minimalistic that way.

Yeah.

Well, I guess like.

Like a comic book story.

Like something out of Creepshow.

Yeah.

You take a story and say, take everything.

Like, does this.

Does this.

Does this need it?

No, Pull it out.

The only thing left.

There's nothing in there that doesn't need to be there.

I mean, it would be even better if it was an hour long, but that's okay.

Right?

Right.

Yeah.

This wasn't too bad.

It moved along well.

You got a stellar cast.

There are fireworks happening in this cast all over the place.

They're wonderful to watch.

Yeah.

It doesn't leave us much to talk about because it is so simple.

But it is a wonderful film, and one of the things that it was really exciting a long time ago, one of the first Horrorhound weekends I went through.

BIST had just gotten a DVD release, and a bunch of the people from behind the camera were there.

I think the director was there, maybe the writer.

I don't remember exactly, but people were so excited that this movie was here.

I can imagine.

Well, it was the first registered that I'm like, oh, of course it would.

Because, yes, I'm a child of the 70s, but, like, all these kids that are a generation younger than me, this is their childhood nightmare movie that popped up on TV because it was either on broadcast TV or it ran all the time on usa, too.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Us.

Night Flight, Up All Night.

They loved it over there.

So, yeah, this is a movie that's perfect for that younger audience.

And if it gets you young enough, it will never leave you.

This is great gateway horror.

This is perfect gateway horror.

A wonderful implied violence.

The deaths are all grisly even though you see nothing.

Yes.

Gore wouldn't have added anything to this movie.

Yes.

I mean, even.

Even the one, even.

I love the fact that the third guy doesn't get killed by the spirit.

Charles Durning takes him out because he thinks he needs to.

The one great grisly moment is that he clubs the guy with the shovel, and then when he picks it up, his bandana's still stuck there.

His hat's still on the shovel.

So gross.

It is.

I noticed that, too.

I was like, oh, that's a great detail.

Well, I mean, he just kind of pulls it off.

It's like, you know, it's stuck there but doesn't show it.

But, yeah, it's just little things like that go a long way.

And while it's sad that this script didn't get a full cinematic treatment, I'm kind of glad that it didn't, because I can only imagine that it would have to be rewritten a lot.

I mean, whatever form was it, I'm thinking it would have to have.

We don't really like horror movie scripts that don't have women in them.

Yeah, we like to have some jiggle.

Mm.

I'm just saying audiences in general, like.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

One of the reasons that people said the Faint flops was that there was no girls in it.

We need some hot bitches and have their tops fall off.

Yeah.

They would have ruined this.

Yeah.

It's good to say it, for.

People are the worst.

People are the worst.

Or it would have had too much gore, or it would have had the romantic subplot.

It would have had all these other things added to flesh out a movie.

Whereas on TV we could keep it simple because we have to shoot it in eight days or whatever.

We don't have the time to get fancy.

Well, you're right.

This movie shows how a few quality elements really make a huge deal.

Like just Charles Durning and Jocelyn Brando alone elevate this movie so much.

And just the locations, just knowing how to shoot the locations, doing these wide shots, really.

I mean, just those three little things.

If they hadn't had those, this movie would not have been interesting.

Yeah, 100%.

And the thing is, like I've said, this ranch shows up in a lot of these TV movies and TV shows.

Everything got shot there.

You know, if you keep an eye out, you know, you see the bat cave in the background, that sort of a thing.

Everything was shot here.

But a lot of the times you shoot there and it looks cheap.

It looks like, here's that ranch again.

Oh, yeah.

Okay, here's that recycled thing.

Here's.

Everything's brown, everything's yours.

But everything feels lived in here and feels.

It actually feels like somebody's home.

It does.

And it's not supposed to look nice because it's an old.

I mean, it's not like a.

It's just an old town.

It's just a standard old town.

Worn down.

It's worn down.

And it's drought season coming up, you know?

Yeah.

And like I said, Charles Durning is sweaty as hell the entire movie, but that gives you a feeling of how hot it is, just how nasty he is.

And his shirts, just as the movie goes on, just gets more and more sweat stained.

He probably got 50 of them.

It's a whole open closet.

Oh, 100%.

Oh, 100%.

They always do.

They always do.

He never wears anything other than that postal uniform the entire time.

Probably sleeps in the damn thing.

Probably.

In case there's an emergency.

MALE Emergency.

No, I mean, it's his armor, man, his battle suit.

It's what gives him clout.

One of the things I noticed too, this time through, which last time through, when the word comes out about Bubba, that the girl's been hurt, like the sheriff's forming a posse and he's like, nah, I'm forming my own posse.

Yep.

I have to be the big man in charge.

I'm the biggest fish in this tiny little shithole of a bowl.

And he's gonna get the four.

The three men he can control.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because I gotta be the hero.

Because then I got my uniform on.

I think I'm Napoleon.

I think I'm Patton.

And he just wants to.

He wants a chance to kill Bubba.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

And it's gross to think about now that he realized he wants Bubba gone.

Not even to protect the girl because he's competition.

Yep.

Well, so I don't want him.

I don't want to.

I don't want him to soil her.

Because then what will be left for me?

Which is so gross.

Which is so gross.

But they don't say it out loud.

It's all implied.

I think this is a great little movie.

When the mother is talking.

When Bubba's mother's talking to him.

Halfway through the movie, she goes, I know why you look at that girl.

I've seen you look at that girl.

I know what you want.

And just that.

And that was just perfect.

Get off my property.

Friend of mine was killed the other night.

So I heard.

They all think it was an accident.

I don't.

That so?

There's other justice in this world besides the law.

It's a fact.

What you sow, so shall you reap.

An eye for an eye, tooth for.

A tooth, hand for a hand, foot.

For a foot, a life for a life.

Now just a minute.

You think that.

Don't flatter yourself, Hazelrigg.

There ain't 10 like you worth my son's life.

Word to the wise, Mrs.

Ritter.

It's even now.

Let it lie.

Not hardly.

It ain't even.

Not so long as you're walking.

You don't fool me, Hazelrigg.

Not for a minute.

I seen how you look at that little girl.

You may think you got the rest of them fooled, but I know exactly what you are.

Stay away from her, Hazelrig.

This is a small town.

Everybody talk.

You just remember what I told you, Hazelrigg.

It's a small town.

Mr.

Hazelrigg.

Mm.

Yeah, she keeps using his last name.

People talk, Mr.

Hazelrigg.

I'll be playing the dialogue.

It's all good stuff.

I think we might have done this movie.

I don't know what else to say about it.

No, it's a perfect little gem.

It is.

And there's.

There's no camp to it.

There's really nothing to make fun of, which doesn't make it great for the show.

But it does have a Halloween dance in it, which makes it a Halloween movie.

And that's more Halloweeny than anything else that came out.

As a made for TV movie in the 1970s, so.

That's so sad.

It's weird.

Well, I guess Halloween wasn't as big a commercial thing back then as it is now.

Oh, sure, they sure did.

Sure was.

Sure it was.

But I mean, I guess these things shot in the summer or what?

I don't know, I just.

Yeah.

Even Paul Lyndon do a special.

I think you know damn well that Paul Lynn did a special.

He did the most special special of them.

Special, but not that well, I think that's true.

They did all the variety.

Something.

All right, Trading.

I think we have arrived at our final destination, Whatever the fuck that may be.

We've arrived safely back in 2023.

Yeah, I'm glad to be away from all those bigots and horrible white people from right now.

The scarecrow.

Me too.

St.

Mickey looks exhausted.

She's had a day.

She hasn't moved.

We've been to Helen back.

Yeah, Helen.

No, no, we haven't been.

Oh, Helen.

I don't know where I am now.

Okay, thank you for joining me.

Trading.

Maybe next time we'll actually go to the 70s.

Oh, yeah.

Because you know what?

You know what?

We do need to take trade in the 70s, because that movie, Staten School for Girls, it has one, not two, Charlie's Angels in it.

Oh, I gotta watch that.

Kate Jackson and Cheryl Ad.

Oh, fuck yeah.

And one of the most wonderfully lurid titles ever, Satan School for Girls.

Have a good one, Trey.

Thank you for flying Polyester Airlines.

Stay groovy.

Stay groovy.

Fabulous.

Thank you again to Trey Dean for coming out and playing with me and talking about this crazy, crazy, kooky, fabulous movie.

And also he's gonna be back again real soon.

He's one of the final guests on Scream Queens, if not possibly the final guest, but there'll be more about that when the time comes because we've got to have some talk here.

I want to lay out some plans that I have for the future here.

What the future of not so much the show is, but the Scream Queen's legacy, if you would.

And how things are gonna be progressing in the future and how my brain is working now.

So I know my patrons.

Thank you for being patient these past few months because I.

Since COVID my brain has become very linear.

I can't multitask like I used to.

And that's why I'm only doing one show a month now.

And also why I realized that for these final episodes of Scream Queens, I need to focus specifically on that.

Because if I start Multitasking, multicasting.

I get distracted and then things get forgotten completely.

So I just need to focus on what it's right in front of me.

And right now that's getting the show, the main show finished, wrapping things up here, that's really been the foremost thing in my mind because I can't really move forward with things until it's done.

So thank you for your patience because you haven't been getting much on Patreon lately.

You have been getting anything on Patreon lately.

And there's a couple of reasons for that, too.

It's not just, I can't do the multitasking, but Damian Lewis is.

One is going to become public in the fall.

And in order to do that, you don't have to worry about resubscribing or anything.

You don't have to leave Scream Queens when things end here, because eventually I'm gonna be moving everything that is currently exclusive on Patreon.

All those podcasts I've been working on over there and all the special events over there, they will come over here, they'll become public on the Scream Queens feed that you're already subscribed to.

The whole thing with Damian Uncle Lewis was I wanted to test it out and if it worked, I was going to make it public.

The public feed would be like six months behind the Patreon feed.

So if you wanted to become, if you got really hooked on the show or you're a really big Friday the 13th fan, you could subscribe to Patreon and then you would be able to catch up to where we are presently.

But now we're like a year and a half into the show and I said if I keep going like this, there's going to be no more show left to go public with, you know, and get that extra, the extra bonus and, you know, get the, the money making capabilities in it there.

And I'm sorry, podcasting is expensive and it's time consuming.

It'd be nice to make a little money sometimes, but that's not the point right now.

So I wanted to slow production there anyway, and now I just realized I gotta just slow things down completely.

There's gonna be an episode out next month just because I can't completely leave you there.

But just be patient, be patient and things will all be fine there.

And the other thing is, I want to talk about Patreon when things start to relaunch here on the Screen Queens feed, when I start moving other things over here, like I said, when I make Demianca Lewis.

And eventually it came from the 70s.

Public domain.

Not public, but, you know, a public feed.

I don't want to use Patreon anymore.

It's not a good system for podcasters.

There is becoming more difficult to use and they're taking bigger and bigger cuts and I don't have to take up for that anymore.

My, my, my Captivate, my podcast host now has a membership service where that they take much less of a percentage and there's much more flexibility.

And it's actually built for podcasters.

Current Patreon subscrib.

You can just stay where you are.

That's fine.

You don't have to change your subscription.

That'll be fine.

I will keep that, but I will be closing it to the public.

I will say, you guys, whoever's on here can stay.

That's fine.

There's gonna be no more new Patreon subscribers, but any new subscribers can sign up through Captivate.

I hope that made sense.

That's where we are right now.

The other thing that I'm realizing, too, as we get closer and closer to the final episode of Scream Quiz, is that I'm gonna need some time to do all this manipulation behind the scenes.

It's gonna take time to move everything over to this other feed.

It's gonna take time to set up this Captivate membership service.

It's gonna take time to limit Patreon.

I have to do everything in that linear fashion.

I have to do one thing at a time until it's done.

So it's going to take an extra while.

So I figure taking a few months off over the summer or however this works out will be great.

But the biggest thing that I've realized as the final show creeps closer and closer, I'm gonna need time to mourn.

I need time to mourn this show and the experience of doing this show.

And it's a lot to process.

It's a breakup.

It's a death in the family.

It's been a huge part of my life for 15 years.

It's been the biggest part of my life.

It's revolutionized my life, and I'm walking away from it.

That's gonna take some time to adjust to.

I can feel that already.

And I'm dancing around it now, which is fun.

I said that we're in the final throws here.

And I've got these last few episodes planned out.

I've started recording them already.

And I have recorded the final episode of Scream Queens.

And I deliberately recorded the final episodes of Scream Queens.

The absolute final episode of Scream Queens long before I'm done recording.

I still have other episodes I want to record, but I wanted to get that one out of the way because I won't be emotional.

I wouldn't.

Because this way I wouldn't be an emotional wreck when I recorded it.

And I also know when it comes time to actually launch it, that will be another emotional wreck.

So I'm trying to, you know, moderate my pain, the loss, and whatever.

Whatever else is gonna bring up.

Cause it's something new every time.

And I'm not sure how much I talked about this here, because I need to keep some of this somewhat under wraps.

There is a project I had an idea for.

There is a live event, a multimedia event that I had an idea for that I could actually travel with, that I could bring to your city, that I could do anywhere, anytime, for a relatively low budget.

And it's not a live show.

Screaming.

There's not a live podcast.

It's a whole experience, if you want to think something similar to Rocky Horror Picture show with the.

With the shadow cast and.

And something that's interactive and.

And.

And.

And it's similar to that, but it's not that.

It's something new, and it's something that I really am excited about.

And I've pitched it to a couple of people in the industry, and they said, this is a brilliant idea.

I've had no time to work on it.

I've had the idea.

I had the idea years ago, and if I don't start working on it, it's just going to.

I'm gonna wake up one day and I'll be 80 and be like, oh, well, gosh, you never did that.

What a jerk.

You should have done that.

So I want to start working on that as well.

And again, all these things are going to take time, hopefully.

I really wanted to have it out before Halloween this year, but that's not going to happen.

I'm not going to lie.

But I at least need to start putting the legwork in there, and I can't do that till the show's over, until Scream Queens is laid to rest.

The other thing I want to say is that about the moving everything to the Scream Queens feed the things for Patreon.

It also gives me the option if I need to bring Scream Queens back.

Like, even if it's first one special episode.

Like, I really wanted, you know, the Death Drop gorgeous guys.

They have their other movie coming out, Saint Drogo.

I really wanted to cover it on the show.

I've seen it, but you can't really talk about it without spoiling it.

I don't want to spoil it until everybody is able to see it and hasn't been picked up from distribution yet.

When that finally happens, I want to do an episode on that.

I want to be able to bring Scream Queens back for a special episode.

You know those episodes where I started talking to queer horror filmmakers?

I wanted to do more of them, but I just.

My body betrayed me at the time.

This allows me a place to do that.

So Scream Queens is not going away entirely.

It's just changing forms and.

But it will all be working under the umbrella term Scream Queens Productions.

And that's where we live for a while.

I think I've rattled on long enough.

So, Patrick, what's coming up next time?

Well, next month is my birthday month, which means yay, extra party.

Yay.

You're getting two episodes about the same movie.

Remember how I did the Friday the 13th spectacular?

That last one where it was a two parter where I had two episodes?

Talking about one movie?

We'll be doing that.

We'll be Talking about the 1988, 1987, whichever Halloween classic, Night of the Demons with Linnea Quigley and all those crazy people.

And I'm gonna be talking about it with Allison and Brian and that'll be a goofy walkthrough because they're bananas and I just know they're gonna eat this movie up and they're gonna have lots of crazy fun, ripping it apart in our fun way.

But I also want to do one with Matt Knife.

Remember Matt Knife?

He loves this movie in a way.

And I want to talk about why this movie is so special to our people.

Why do gays love this crazy movie so much?

So they'll.

It'll be a whole night of the Demon Spectacular for my birthday.

And I hope he can make it.

I can't wait to see you there.

I have run out of energy.

Did you hear that in my voice?

Did you hear my voice?

Just kind of canked out.

That's.

That's how things go right now.

But I've talked a lot, you've listened a lot.

So why don't I just shut the fuck up?

So until next time, my beautiful, beautiful screamers continue to make the world a more fabulously creepy place.

And never, ever, ever forget the Scream Queen's golden rule.

Fight or flight, Survive the night, make it to the final real baby, stay safe, stay healthy.

And most of all, stay fabulous.

And don't forget, Bubba didn't do it.

He really didn't.

All of the music for tonight's show, unless otherwise specified, has been written by Sam Haynes.

You can find all of his music@www.bandcamp.com Ew.