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You? But you're supposed to be dead.

I am dead.

Why? Grandpa. Fly.

Everything is ready, my darling.

Do not be afraid. Soon we'll be

together again.

This sandwich tastes as dry as hell.

Hello and welcome to hello. This is the Doom show. I am

Richard. Folks, my grandpa is in the

house and his name is Grandpa Jeffrey.

Excuse you, Grampire Jeffrey.

Oh, man, I blew it already.

We haven't talked to each other in a while, so we're a little off.

It's only been like six months. It's fine. We got this.

We are talking about Moonrise Kingdom.

Yes. Starring Al Lewis from the Munsters.

No, no. Oh, wait, we're not doing Moonrise kingdom.

I watched the wrong movie. Oh, no,

you watched the Wes Anderson and his white linen

suit in the criterion closet. Yeah. And I was like, that's a

vampire. We are talking

about my grandpa as a vampire from 1992.

Yeah. This is a children's film.

Yes, that good old David Blythe,

our friend and yours,

very quick to defend a certain scene in one of the movies he made.

We'll talk about that in a second. I'm getting ahead of myself. Yeah.

1992, my grandpa's vampire made and beautiful,

very beautiful New Zealand and written by

Michael Heath. These two gentlemen made a film called.

Death warmed Up, which I know you're. A big fan of from 1984.

It has one extremely problematic moment in

an otherwise totally run of the mill,

splatter horror movie from the eighties. There's a certain

convenience store clerk played by a white person

portraying a not white person, and it's brutally

unfunny and hideous. And for

some reason, he defends it. And the

extras, like, we played this scene in India, and they love it.

Really. They collectively have gotten together

and said, we love it. Michael and David,

you guys, you really are funny. You know

our humor. No, they were. They were plotting your murder outside the theater,

which is also imaginary because you never played that in India.

You're a liar. But anyway, I was wonderfully surprised that

there were no racial stereotypes in this movie that I could

detect, except for americans and vampires.

And the vampires. I can deal with that. But David Blythe also

worked on house three, the horror show, which he was fired from,

which I like. House three, the horror show. It's a very unusual

film. How much of his footage that he

was there for to direct, I have no idea. House three.

It's better than house two. Yeah, I I'm sure

there's house two defenders out there, but man,

y'all are just. You're vibing in a vibe.

I can't vibe with. Michael Heath also wrote next

of kin, the excellent 1982 Aussie sploitations

slasher giallo movie. Yeah, when I saw that, I was

like, whoa, buddy. Yeah, yeah.

And he didn't really do much else. I mean, he did, you know, death warmed

up this and next of kin, a couple other things,

but nothing really of interest to us. What, what a career. Three bangers.

Yeah. I'm very excited to get into this little

slice of heaven. This is a. A frickin, what do

you call it? A vehicle for a very special vampire.

Al Lewis, our friend from what was the movie

we covered, where Al Lewis was the creepy guy.

Frightmare, frightmare. Oh,

boy. I think Frightmare made me trust him less,

because there's moments in this movie where I got really scared for the

children. I remember. I believe, if I'm not mistaken,

you, like, showed me that there was a frightmare.

One sheet available on eBay with Al Lewis's, like,

horrifying face on the COVID art, just like.

And I, of course, bought it. I've yet to hang it up in my home.

But one day, that'll be your conversation

piece. I love it. So Al Lewis

is kind of the only actor in this. I recognize.

Um, you know, when you watch, you know, australian movies

or movies from New Zealand, you'll see the same, like, six people over

and over. Maybe not even that many. The same three people. Uh,

so I was surprised we didn't have, like, all these familiar

faces from that popping up. But maybe I just also have

lost touch with any, um, New Zealand cinema made after,

like, you know, death warmed up. Well, one thing that I noticed

going through everybody's IMDb page is that a lot of them had very

minor roles in the Lord of the Rings film, so.

Which makes sense, of course. Nice work if you can get it.

Yeah. So I'm going to drop a trailer in here. Found a wonderful trailer

for my grandpa as a grandpa.

And here it is.

There are stories told of creatures centuries

roaming the night searching for just

one thing.

Some farm. Grandpa. Cougar.

A vampire grandpa.

281 years old.

Mozarthouse. He was a beautiful boy. Not running

out of time. Help me. Save me.

I want to fly like Peter Pan with you boys.

Now out into the night.

Grandpa. Now. He's cool.

Give me five. And five makes ten. He's got the

wheel. And here we go.

If he just wasn't dead. Sorry,

lady. I'm starting to feel very strange.

How strange? Maybe he needs food.

Two raw meat patties. No.

Die, you monster. Die. I am

dead.

Grandpa. Run. Follow me, boys.

Al Lewis from the monsters is

Grandpa. Sometimes grandparents really

can be a pain in the neck. So I backed down.

I was gonna read the entire republic.

It's long, it's way over. It just

wouldn't be entertaining. So I grabbed a very succinct

one from a beautiful website called I am debuh.

And it goes like this. Sent on a trip from California

to New Zealand to visit with his eccentric grandfather,

Lonnie discovers that his grandpa is a vampire.

Unnerved at first, he soon discovers that his grandpa is a good vampire.

That's it. That's the whole thing. Well,

it does leave off the fact that his name is Grandpa Cougar,

which the Republic Pictures home video vhs

tape mentions no less than three times.

Cougar. Cougar. Cougar, cougar, cougar, cougar,

cougar. There's a really weird review.

I'm not gonna read it. There's two user reviews for this film,

and the second one is the person detailing when he rented this

film. And it is a very, very strange short

story, very detailed about the.

In particular, very unflattering portrait of the person working at the video store.

That's just bizarre. And also, they hated this

movie, which. You can't hate this movie. Oh,

my God. So here's your spoiler warning.

We are totally going to spoil this movie. Not the entire movie,

but we're going to spoil, you know, the. The big moments. In order

to not do a audio commentary or longer

length episode today, um, we're going to do ten scenes,

ten key scenes from this film.

Jeffrey's picked five and I've picked five. We're going to go back and forth.

That way we give you the good stuff and you can go in

there and investigate on your own, which.

Spoiler alert, I kind of recommend this one.

Thank you, Severin kids, for putting this out.

So, Jeffrey, you want to open us up? Give us the fun stuff?

You bet. Let's open up with the opening of the film.

This is a perfect opening to me. We have, like, this chill,

twinkling Jim Manzi music on the score as Gramps

just sort of flies through the air over

and down to a cardinal carnival like this. Every movie

should start with this. This specifically.

It's just such a good vibe. I'm already smiling.

It reminds me a lot of the scenes of the worst witch

flying around as she's, you know.

Have you ever seen the worst witch? Oh, of course. Yeah. Okay. She's. There's just

like, long, like, three minute long scenes of her just flying around

her room across the countryside. And this is much like that.

It's not long enough, but it's okay, because when

he goes down, it's to go to this carnival. He immediately

encounters his. I guess it's his daughter, right?

Like, the aunt is his daughter. Yeah, daughter. And her

kind of boyfriend, Ernie.

Ernie. And Ernie, like,

wants. He hates this man. Even before he knows he's a vampire, he hates this

man. And then the feelings are

mutual. I mean, we do. He is kind of weird.

And we learn that he, like, smells like moldy chops and,

like, is always playing the magic flute.

Anyway, he. Ernie says to him, go buy yourself

some tutti frutti and just throw some money at him.

But instead of doing that, because he doesn't eat food, he's.

He's a grampier. Gramps goes on a

dark ride called Davy Jones's locker.

And I guess it's like a boat, dark ride, and he's

going through it, and it's really intense. And he's,

I think, in a boat that's right behind two kids.

And one of the. One of the kids,

one of the kids is told by her boyfriend it's not real.

And she says it is real. Oh,

yeah, of course this ride is real.

But also, when Gramps is going through this

and starts to have, like, a coronary, we're told that

he is. He goes through this ride often.

He's known as, like, the crazy weirdo who rides Davy

Jones's locker. This is our introduction

to the film. And this character, he's just like, this weird old man

who can fly and goes through a dark ride to

have a heart attack. Great opening. He gets hit by the car.

So he rides out of the ride, right?

While having a coronary on the hood of this little car and

these kids just screaming. It is freaking hilarious.

Surprisingly, this movie is going to drop a few great slapstick

moments that I was. I was expecting to never crack a smile

or laugh during this film, but that is one of the moments that made me

laugh. The kid Lonnie, who's the

grandson, he comes back from America. I just want to say,

lietta called this. Have you seen the scary godmother

movies? The CGI? No.

Okay. There's an evil character named Jimmy who

is the villain of both of the scary godmother

made for tv CGI movies. And the kid,

Lonnie, looks just like him. It's frickin hilarious.

Interesting. I looked at his career. He hasn't done much,

though. He was in a movie called the witching of Ben Wagner,

which I've heard of that. Yeah. It looks cool. Yeah. It was

around the same time as. This, so I might have downloaded that and forgot about

it. So he's visiting to visit Grandpa because

grandpa's not doing so well. But then he gets treated

to something that I want to try, which is Oz dinner.

Tell us about Oz dinner. So this is, I guess this is,

I think, the first day that he's there.

They are treated to this dinner where they are just

slopping tomato sauce all over

their dishes. I don't even know what they're eating. It's unclear to

me. Oh, I can tell you. Okay. It's basically bangers and mash.

So it's just sausages and french fries. Okay,

well, it's largely tomato sauce. They taste these.

These wonderful New Zealand containers of ketchup that look

just like tomatoes, and they're just, like,

squeezing all of it out. It's at the same time that

fake Uncle Ernie comes into the

scene and, you know, like, Lonnie and Kenziora,

his friend, they need to, like, talk about, like, whether or not he actually is,

is the uncle, because it seems like him and the

aunt, they're like. They're, like, having sex, maybe, which is something

that these children talk about. But as he's working his way

into aunt's bedroom, he does this disgusting,

like, swiping of the food off of their plates. These two

children he is not related to by blood. He's just sticking his

hand, his filthy little Ernie hands,

into their plates full of sopping wet

tomato sauce. It's disgusting. Yeah.

Ernie is my secret hero because he is literally

the worst and most repugnant guy in the whole movie.

This is, you know, an adaptation of Dracula that says Dracula is cool

and Van Helsing is your crappy uncle.

The line is, Lonnie, do you think Ernie and your

and your aunt are doing it? And Lonnie

goes, anything's possible.

Anything's possible in New Zealand. It's a running joke

to the movie, man. Oh, my God. It's so funny.

Is he really your uncle? No.

Ronnie. Hmm. Do you think Ernie and

your aunt are doing it? What do you.

Man, anything's possible. So he goes,

they go up to see Grandpa, and, you know, grandpa's ailing from his

heart attack, but these kids, they inspire him.

And what happens when they inspire him to get out of his sick

bed? He's really upset. That again, aunt and fake

uncle Ernie won't let him play his vinyl records.

And particularly, he really likes the magic flute

because, you know, Mozart, he was a beautiful boy.

Does this imply that grandpa, like, knew Mozart,

was, like, friends with Mozarte? Yep. And, like, was an admirer

of Mozart's beauty. I don't know. Anyway,

he has the kids put on his. His, uh, his record,

and he does this wonderful little jaunty dance.

Holy shit. Where he lights candles with his fingers.

Because in this world, vampires have candle lighting powers.

And the boys just assume that it's a magic trick.

But no, I think it's, like, one of his powers as a vampire.

At the same time, like, watching him in his, like,

pajamas, doing his little dance.

The boys don't really know what to do.

So it's clear that, like, they weren't given very good directions

at this time because they just sort of. I think Lonnie starts

bringing up his hands and, like, fake conducting the

orchestra. And then Kenzura just sort of, like, starts doing

a little ditty. It's great. Then for some reason,

the blinds come up and there's sun out there,

I guess. And it nearly kills grandpa.

What a scene. The scene where you can,

like, if we had audio from that

filming that day, you could literally just hear the director, like, no,

keep dancing. Because every time the camera comes to them,

someone points it. The kid, the other one,

Caziora. Very weird name this kid has.

He, like, remembers he's supposed to be dancing every time they cut

to him. And it's so awkward in the best way. It's such

a, like, honest kid thing.

It's. Oh, man. They had no clue what they were doing.

It's awesome. But this is where I believe

this happens. After this, wherever Lonnie and Casiora,

if I'm saying that right, that they start to think,

hey, grandpa's kind of weird. Maybe he's a vampire. And Casiora is really pushing

this hard. So they decide to test it

out by garlic. No.

Ooh, holy water. Let's go get some holy water.

So the next day, or the same day, no idea what

time means in this movie. They go to

the catholic church and. But Lonnie's not. I'm not doing this. So our pal

Casiora takes a cup and goes in just a cup from

a fast food place and just dips it right in the holy water.

And this priest sees him, and he hides

the cup behind his back, and he's like, all right, kid, what are you hiding

behind your back? And the kid's like, nothing, sir. He's like, you wouldn't lie in

front of in God's house, would you? And the kid's like,

it's a milkshake. Okay, show me the milkshake.

You get the sense that the priest, for a moment, is like, oh, it's just

a milkshake. Okay.

Man. It's really bizarre. But then he drops the cup and they have to flee.

It's a very weird scene. Like,

what is this priest's problem with somebody coming in and taking the holy water?

Like, who cares? I think it's what it's there for.

You know, it's a lost boys situation. Come on.

Grandpa does die his first death,

as opposed to the many deaths we're going to die soon. So they're having a

funeral party, and Lonnie's already there, but they invite good old

Caziora to come over. And he comes over in his school uniform

to grieve with his friend. And we

get a character that I begged. I was literally

begging the movie to not go there. There's a lady

who's inebriated at this party.

She is drunk. And I thought because she starts flirting and the boys

are trying to have some punch at the punch bowl, get some snacks.

Casiora is literally shoving crackers in his mouth

or something, and they think this lady's looking at them,

flirting with them. Jeffrey. She was.

She indeed is. Yes. Like, winking lasciviously

kissy faces and then literally wagging her

tongue at these boys. And I was begging the movie to stop it.

It was very upsetting. Yeah, I don't think we fully highlighted

the fact that these boys are, like, eleven years old.

It's out of control. Out of control.

And then the boys start.

After the party's over, they start playing a keyboard.

Now there's a keyboard left. Just randomly sitting there.

And I wanted to go to eBay and see what these things are worth nowadays.

This is a Casio E 20. Excuse me? A Casio.

A Roland E 20. And let's see. Oh, that's not

bad. You can get one for 400. That's downright affordable.

Yeah, they're right. They jumped to 600 immediately. There must be something wrong with that

$400. So these boys are with their dirty fingers,

just slamming their fingers all over this keyboard, just destroying it.

But it's this. I love this scene with them again.

Kids being kids, just dancing awkwardly.

The Lonnie shows off his one sick move he learned from, like,

an R and B video spinning on one heel and like.

Yeah. Like, clapping his hands and it's just so cute.

But unfortunately, or fortunately, it resurrects

grandpa. Their energy feeds him.

You know, it's the magic flute. That's kind of what

they were channeling there. The beauty of

Kenziora. Majestic.

Majestic stuff,

everybody.

Okay, so my favorite scene of

the movie, except for the scenes that

Jeffrey picked, is when the kids and Grampy grampire

go flying. They go flying, you know,

because Grampa reveals that the moonlight gives him power,

which is why this movie was originally called Moonrise.

Very catchy. Very catchy title. I like it. I mean,

moonlight might have been a good title, too. Yes.

Or I'm powered by the moon, said grandpa.

That one rolls off the tongue. So. So Auntie

and Ernie are having their date, their special night in,

drinking champagne. You know, she's in a very vulnerable place because she

just lost her father. I hope Ernie's a nice boy and doesn't

take advantage of her, but they're having a nice date, and the

boys and grandpa are flying over the city, flying over

whatever in the full moon. And then

a cloud covers the moon, and they drop

like stones from the sky and hit that metal corrugated

roof. And I burst out laughing.

It made me laugh so hard. I just loved

that. That was my favorite thing. I. God bless

it. And this is what I

think I'm too jaded from

Fright house. Or is it frightmare? Fright house.

Oh, yeah, you're right. It is called Fright House, not frightmare. Yeah, sorry. Fright house.

I must be too jaded because I got so creeped out with him with these

boys. And Al Lewis wasn't a bad person.

It's just like my grandpa.

I would not. I would not want to be alone with my grandpa. He was.

It was something. I won't go into it.

He was a character, a kooky character. That's putting it

as nicely as humanly possible. But, yeah,

I just get so weirded out.

I mean, just listen to Lonnie. Lonnie says that grampire

is. Excuse me, grandpa Cougar is his favorite

cool guy. I. Maybe I'm

just jealous. I just have to ruin it because I didn't have a cool grandpa.

Damn. So now that they know that grandpa

is a vampire, they have to hide him,

because Ernie has discovered grandpa alive

and well and vampin, stone cold vampin,

and he wants to kill him, wants to drive a stake through his heart.

So the boys concoct a way to hide grandpa. So they take

him to Kaziora's house and hide

him in the shed. But what happens when they do this?

Well, in the middle of the night, we have grandpa giving

way to his vampiric impulses in

sort of a classic dracula or Salem's

lot tradition. He approaches the

window of Kenziora's bedroom and

starts sort of, like, outside of it.

And by the way, Kenziora's room is really cool. He's got lots of cool,

like, horror posters up, including, I think it's a famous sponsors of

filmland cover with Vincent Price and madhouse. And then

also our girl from Lair

of the white worm, a beautiful poster of her in snake form.

That kid's a Ken Russell fan. This kid is me.

I am Ken Ziora,

but so we've got grandpa Cougar

going outside the window, and he says,

thirsty, thirsty,

while bearing his dentures. And then we do a quick

cut to the kitchen where Kenziora is giving him a glass of

water. Dude, that joke hit so

hard. I love that bit. That reminded me of,

like, that would be the best joke in the disney

version of this movie. Like, that was a great

joke. Yeah, it feels like a joke that the

movie was sold on. Just like, you know, you can imagine the pitch meeting where

they're like, you know, he's outside the window, but then he really just wants a

glass of water like grandpas do.

He does the whole glass of water. And then he says, one more,

please. And Caziora's

dad hears him. He has to pretend he's sleepwalking. I found that part very funny.

That was great. Oh, wait, he should have given him the milkshake from

the church. No, that would have killed him. Oh, right,

because there was no milkshake. There was no milkshake. Wow,

he fooled you. Damn, got me good. So the

kids, through an insanely weird

thing of Katziora's family going on vacation,

they go to McDonald's. Now,

I looked up commercials for New Zealand

McDonald's, and I found the most New Zealand

McDonald's thing ever. They call it Maccas. So it's called Maccas

over there. They call it maccas. I wish the sign said maccas instead

of McDonald's. That'd be great. But I found a commercial that just

lists a bunch of New Zealand things that,

you know, people in New Zealand would understand in

this jaunty little song. So here's this beautiful McDonald's

commercial. It's wonderful.

Arnold and raisin beasts. Chili bins. Cricket wins.

Basties. Gold teas. Silver ferns. Carriedries. Kiwi burger,

love one, please. With a slice of watties. Beetroot, 100% pure beef. Patty and

an egg from farmer brown. It's the original Kiwi burger.

Hokey pokey. Mari Hacker Kiwi burger. That's a taca.

This McDonald's sequence, I can't talk about it.

It's too crazy. Jeffrey, you're gonna have to handle this one

well. So first off, I think, you know, we have to acknowledge this is a

full scene in this McDonald's. This is,

you know, 1991 prime New

Zealand McDonald's. It's a vibe. It's a whole vibe. But first off,

I just love the fact that this definitely required McDonald's,

like, consent and involvement because it's really. They were putting it on

display here. And so I love that, like, after fumbling

with Mac and me in the eighties, they're like, we're going

to rebound. We're going to. We're going to bring this around. My grandpa

is a vampire. This is the one. This is the one. It's going to work

out this time. And it did,

actually. Yeah, they part of a great film. We got a cameo

here from a weird Ronald statue in

the front door. That's, like, waving. We also have a cameo

from Captain Crook, a McDonald's character who has

sort of fallen by the wayside. But my favorite part

here is just what's going on with grandpa and the kids. Grandpa is

not doing so well. They have disguised him in

a dirty yellow bucket hat and sees big sunglasses.

He reminds me a little bit of Christopher Lee and howling, too, with these sunglasses.

They're not quite as, you know, crazy, but they're close. They're full

on Oakley's. They're like, full on that yellow band

with the super mirror reflection on

the. On the shades. They're pretty stylin'yeah. I mean,

as Lonnie says, grandpa, you look cool.

He doesn't really, though. In fact, he looks like he's dying.

See, that's the thing. One thing we have not talked about is, like,

other than the pajamas, al Lewis,

this entire film is in, like,

17th century garb. Like,

he looks like sort of dressed like a fop or like

someone who would, like a courtier or something. It's hilarious.

Yeah. Someone who would try to seduce Mozart.

Oh, no. Oh,

no. So the boys go to the counter and order themselves

some big Macs, but then order some two raw meat patties

for Grandpa, which they then squeeze

into a cup. And, you know, they just say, like, well, they should say they

don't, but they should just say, like, grandpa, it's a milkshake. Here you go.

They plug his nose because Grandpa doesn't want the

blood, so they plug his nose and just funnel it into his

throat. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

There is also crazy, a sort of closing moment in

the scene, which I don't.

Maybe New Zealand. Our New Zealand listeners will understand this reference

because I sure do not. I didn't. I know exactly what you're talking about.

Yeah. So. So Grandpa, or I think, you know,

Uncle Ernie Bustin. That's what happens. And points at

Uncle Grampire and says, that's a vampire.

And some random guy who's eating at the McDonald's just says, yeah,

mate, and I'm John Collinse and we're supposed to get

it. I don't get it. I looked up John Collins, New Zealand,

and there was like, a politician and I think maybe an athlete.

I didn't get much from that. It's got to be the cricketer.

The cricketer. There you go. Yeah. But. But then again,

he died in 1943.

Weird. There's. There's a rugby

guy. Yeah. Well, you know what? It made the

New Zealand dads roll

over with laughter. I just wish. Wish we had been

raised right, then. We know and we'd laugh along.

That's right. They managed to get Grandpa out of the

McDonald's and they end up at the talent show.

So this is a big talent show. One of the characters we've sadly left

behind is good old Caziora's sister,

who hasn't even. She didn't even look at Lonnie

before she had a crush on him. Or does she see him and describe him

as river Phoenix or something like that?

Yes. They say he's like river Phoenix.

Yeah, kid, I've met river and

you ain't no river. No, it was very sweet.

But she's doing a sort of a hawaiian,

I'm guessing, or just an islander dance. I got confused because

I'm, you know, a goofy white person. When they were dressing

up in the lays and everything, I didn't know. I'm having a

cultural, like, brain fart, so just ignore me. But anyway,

they're doing a song on stage and of course grandpa crashes

it, literally destroying the stage. And then the cop

who's been trying to catch him and Ernie end up

flying through the air and hooked on the

top of the stage in the lighting rig and sparks are shooting

out of all the lights. And I assumed that Ernie

and this cop were dead. They were just dead meat.

But no, no, it all works out, this whole thing.

The stage crashes, people are screaming. It's insane.

We think Grandpa's dead again because the light rigging falls

on him in this big debacle. Oh, my God. So then the

end of the movie comes and the kids have to say goodbye

to grandpa again. He's going to go out and

be a real vampire now, presumably actually killing people,

drinking their blood, etcetera.

It doesn't make a lick of sense. It is so baffling.

It's very teary. Earlier in the movie, I really did like

when the kids were, like when Lonnie was actually crying over

his dead grandpa before he came back. And then

it has that phone call with his mom. I'll be okay,

mom. Oh, man. Brutal. And I think that's just

the movie broke so many times. I think. I think the funny thing

about the ten scenes that we picked out is that each time the

movie came to a complete standstill and then kept going like,

that was something else. It's slightly episodic in its

structure, let's say. Yeah. The producers on this,

two of the producers, Judith Tyre and Murray Newey,

worked on a film that very unusual called

Jack Be Nimble, which I don't know if you've seen that one. It's from 1993.

Yeah, it was on. Put out on Blu ray pretty recently.

Yep. Yep. Just came out. It is

very unusual. I recommend that one. It's just

very atmospheric. Kind of artsy. Maybe not kinda. Maybe very

artsy. But I. I remember liking it a lot. It was one of those ones

I caught on cable and was like, what is this? That might have even

been a Turner classic. Movies in the middle of the night movie. Oh, could I

mention a couple other things quick, please? Just about

the music in this film. Oh, yeah. I didn't even look up the music.

Yeah. So the music is by Jim Manzi, who is

a well known composer for a bunch of different movies,

including Night of the Demons, two Bloodsurf,

one of my favorites from a whisper to a scream. That one actually got a

vinyl release recently from. Wow, somewhat a

few years ago from terror vision. What else did he do?

Leatherface, Texas Chainsaw, three tales from the dark side,

stepfather two, make room for daddy.

Nice. Yeah. Jim Manzi. Cool. Damn. I dropped the ball

in the music. Thank you. But I also wanted to point out the

closing song for the film by

Andrew Fagan, who is the ex frontman

of the New Zealand band the Mockers. And the

song is called I still want you. And it's a total, total bop.

I love this song.

Leeta asked me to turn it off. I loved

it. Oh, man, it's like a perfect. Like sugary power

pop song. I tried to

find it on YouTube. YouTube or Spotify. It's not there. But,

uh, he. Andrew Fagan himself did

post the official music video on his Facebook page so you can view

it. I'm gonna look up the mockers I

love. I just assume based on the

age of the person composing, that maybe

it's punk or new wave or something or. No,

I think it's sort of just like power pop.

Oh, okay. Okay, cool. Yeah. Cuz I think it's

somewhat similar to what you get there with. With this song.

Yeah. Because there. There's a great playlist of Ozzy,

of Ozzy and New Zealand, new wave and

punk. Mm hmm. I don't know if that playlist is still. I'm assuming it's still

sitting up there. And it was crazy. Like, there's so many bands he never,

never crossed over to over here, you know, they can't all be

freaking split ends, you know? You know, it's a whole different country.

What? Yeah, it's the 51st

state. Okay, do we have any trivia about this movie? I could

not find Jack or squatt about this movie.

I mean, a little bit about the film itself,

particularly that it was first developed and

produced as a children's radio program.

Oh, wow. So Michael. What was

his name? Michael Heath or something? Yeah,

he wrote this as a. As a play that was broadcast in

New Zealand, and from there, they used that as the inspiration for the screenplay.

The entire. All five episodes of it are included on the Blu ray from

Severin. I've not listened to them, but I wonder how they differ

from the. The final film. I'd be very curious to find

out, but I think maybe some of the episodic structure kind of plays in with

that, too. I wouldn't be surprised. They did a little cheating

and didn't fill in the gaps so good.

The other thing that I found out from the special features and such,

particularly the interviews with Karen Lewis,

who is Al Lewis's wife, was that he was thrilled

to be a part of this movie. This was not like him slumming it or

just like playing. Playing into an expected role. He was like,

oh, oh, this. I might actually get this role because.

Because I've been Grandpa Munster in the past, I'm already

well known as a vampire. I get to do this. I get to go on

vacation to New Zealand. Apparently, after he read the screenplay,

he was buzzing with excitement. He was so thrilled to be a part

of this. And I think you can tell I'm not surprised. It really gives us

all in it. At his advanced age, that absolutely

makes perfect sense. This does not feel like a cashier

paycheck and go home thing. He was all in for this magic.

As confusing as it was. I mean, he was also excited

to have a starring role in a film. You know,

like, somebody like him. You might end up on the poster

art for Fright house, but you're not necessarily

pulling a lot of heavy duty work. But in this film, he does.

And I think he appreciated that. But speaking of Al Lewis,

his Wikipedia page has got a lot of fun stuff on it. I learned

a lot about him today. Me too. So, yeah, Al Lewis

of the Munsters fame, which was a whole two years in

the mid sixties. And of course, they had some reboot

movies that came later. I love

Munsters. Go home. I had no idea. I really,

really love that movie. It's just so outlandish and bizarre.

Like, speaking of not having enough plot to do a whole

movie, and yet here we are. You know, that's great. But, yeah, he was.

He was a free speech proponent. He was. He was very outspoken.

Apparently. He was somewhat something of a regular on Howard Stern.

He was. Yeah, I remember when he used to. Call in,

I was not a Howard Stern guy. I know basically the setup.

And then I remember seeing the.

The frickin biopic, and I was just like,

I'm out. But he went into politics. He was a Green

party almost nominee. He actually ran under

the name Grandpa. He tried. He tried to run under the

name Grandpa Lewis, but the court said he couldn't do it. Aw.

But he got 50,000 votes. He didn't get the nomination,

but he got close. Better than I would have done. They won't let

me be Grandpa Richard either. He opened an italian

restaurant called Grandpa's Bella Gente. Did he

really? Yep. Wow. And the only other trivia

I have about him is that he lent his likeness to a video

game called Midnight Mutants, which you could have played on the Atari

7800. And I believe you can play it on emulators now.

And he's all over the artwork. He's all over

it. And then in the game, he breaks in and, like,

texts. You know, he's looking all vampy. And then he plays some

texts and says, thirsty.

Thirsty. You defeat him by giving him a glass of

water in the game. That's all I got in Al Lewis. Yeah. I mean,

this man is so interesting. I found more stuff. He had a number of

jobs early in his career. Although one thing

about him is that apparently he, like, lied pretty often,

like, made up stuff about himself, so who knows if these

are all true? Oh, I like this. But he apparently worked as a salesman,

a waiter, a pool room owner, a store detective, a circus

clown and vaudeville performer, a basketball talent scout,

and a hot dog vendor. This is all before

acting. I believe only one of those is unrealistic.

Which one is that? The talent scout.

But, I mean, anybody. I suppose all you have to do is just look for

tall people. Well, apparently he was a high school basketball

player, and quite sure that. I don't

know. I don't know. That's just what he said. For, like, a year and a

half, I played basketball, like, every day with my best friend,

and it was one on one, and I was hideous, but I did it.

So I technically was a player of basketball.

And then you discovered Kobe Bryant, right? Yep. Yep. I saw

a tall guy. So I saw LeBron James and said,

you go, man. To secure his iconic

role as grandpa Munster, he apparently

lied about his age, most likely during that audition process,

because he was born in 1923, which actually

makes him one year younger than Yvonne DiCarlo,

who plays his daughter on the show. That's amazing.

But I guess, like, he just sort of, like, dressed up, looking old and

just sort of always had an old aura to him. But that's why, you know,

when it was the nineties and he still looked basically

the same, it's because, oh, he was actually an old guy then.

He was also. So another important thing about pretty much his

entire life is that he was an unapologetic,

self proclaimed communist and a labor agitator.

He would, you know, when he called up to Howard Stern, he would often talk

about, like, you know, being on picket lines and,

like, fighting scabs,

like, physically fighting. So, yeah, real cool

guy in that respect, for sure. And one last

little thing is he does have a connection to italian horror, which, of course,

is important for us. He had the

role of assistant. This is the character's name, I guess,

in Ricardo Freda's 1957 I Vampiri.

So he appears in that film. Yeah. I look for him.

Not an important role, but he is there. Dude, I haven't seen that in

years. That's incredible. Oh, I do have one thing.

There was. I found a VHS cover. I printed it out for

Grampire. It was one of the alternate titles on VHS.

That's beautiful. It says, sometimes grandparents can be

a real pain in the neck, and some ghouls

just want to have fun. Wow. Wow, wow.

So how do you feel about this movie, Jeffrey? It's a perfect film.

No notes. Nice. It's very

like, you know, this is a film infected by,

by moonlight. It is one that is

dreamlike in some respects. Again, that episodic structure kind of

just has us floating in and out. The main character

is alive and then dies and then comes back and then drifts off.

And all of these sort of experiences the kids have with him are

wholesome and funny. And this

is a film that, if I had seen it as a kid, would have

absolutely been one that I rewatched constantly.

For me, it would be up there with like, little monsters and earnest,

scared stupid. All of those perfect children's

horror films that made up such a part of

my DNA. This one absolutely would have been one because it's

amazing. Yeah, I could see this being alongside. Did you say

Ernest scared stupid? Of course. Yeah. Yeah. That's great.

Be wonderful. I really enjoyed this a lot.

The energy pretty much stays through the whole thing,

and the mind blowing stuff is just so unbelievably

mind blowing. It's also pretty like

they brought the suspiria lighting to this freaking movie.

The house is almost always just

covered in gel lighting inside and out.

Like I thought, you know, at the, at the carnival that, you know, that that

would be the only, like, kooky lighting setups in the moon.

Nope, dead wrong. It looks great. Some of the jokes

are perilously unfunny, but this, the stuff that does

work. Surprising, very surprising. Made me laugh. A slapstick

just kills. The movie's charming and then it's unsettling

sometimes. Al Lewis, as always, is just a huge

pain in the ass. That is a recurring theme and I think

in his entire career. Lyette and I were watching

the second Colchak movie.

Colchak, the Night Strangler.

Not the vampire one? No, they're both vampire ones.

The strangler is also a secret vampire one, but Al Lewis has

a very small part in it. I forgot that he's in it. Yeah. Yeah.

He's a homeless guy living under the streets of Seattle and

let's see what else. Yeah, I was impressed.

I did ask you, is this the weirdest thing we've ever covered?

I mean, seriously, this ranks as maybe

slightly weirder or maybe less slightly

weirder than the face with two. I mean,

the, the, was it the face with two left feet? Yeah,

yeah. The, the Travolta sploitation

movie we covered many years ago now.

Grampire, not normal boarding house.

Normal.

Seriously? Yeah. I think the director,

the team who made boarding house would blink in the face

of my uncle's a vampire.

Not really sure what to do. They might be jealous of the production values.

Yeah. Before we go, I wanted to have a little segment,

a new segment on the show where we each pick a film that

we've recently seen and loved. I'm calling this segment

of recently seen and loved any genre.

What do you got, Jeffrey? What have you seen lately that you just loved?

It could be one you revisited or even, like, a first time watch. What do

you got? Yeah. So a first time recent watch that I think thematically

kind of matches up with this film pretty well. And that it's extremely.

It's an extremely goofy comedy with, like, weird humor,

but that, you know, sort of, like, subtly probes at deeper themes.

Like, you know, this one deals with. With loss and death in some

ways. Right, in the family. And the one I'm going to talk about deals

with themes of growing up and moving on.

It is OC and Stigs from 1987.

The Robert Altman comedy. One of his most hated films

is, I think, wonderful. I loved it.

Really? Yeah. I've never heard of it. That's insane. It's so good.

It was recently put on Blu ray by radiance films in

the UK, and I use that as

my opportunity to finally check it out. You know, it's in that

period from Altman's career when he was, like, interested in doing comedies

and, like, you know, more overt comedies. He did this. He did, like,

beyond therapy, which I think is maybe one that people hate even more than Osean

Stiggs. But Osean Stiggs is great. It's about two

teens who are like, oh, man. It's hard

to describe the sort of humor that they engage in. They are like

two little beetlejuices who are just wreaking havoc on

the world. Particularly this. This guy

in their town who is a.

What is he? I think he's. I think he works with an insurance company

and is just like a real big slime ball. They, like, basically have

dedicated their lives to, like, making him and his children to

cause pain for them. And so it's their experiences

over a summer as they're just sort of, like, going through their random

episodic adventures and causing trouble.

Strongly recommend it. Most people will hate it. I think you might like it,

though. Oh, my God.

You could be making that up. That sounds crazy.

That's basically Lonnie and Kazuria.

Kazura's freaking extended universe. Yeah.

Nice. So I picked my

first film I watched in 2024 I was

trying to get some of those first time watches in I love

end of the year taking a look back. And so I write down all my

first time watches. And the very first film of this year was a little japanese

horror movie called don't look up from 1996,

directed by Hideo Nakata. This was two

years before Ringu. And this movie is scary as hell.

It is about a movie studio that's haunted

and a film crew is in there making a wartime

drama slash thriller and they are being

set upon by a ghost that's, that's taken up residence in that

particular movie studio. And it's a great movie if you

love movie making. Like if you just love the way

that movie magic is portrayed on screen

and when they, you know, lift the veil and you see this

intimate scene with these two people who are having like, this emotional

moment, and there's 30 crew members just

outside of the frame making this whole magic happen,

the fact that Ringo is so lauded, which is a great film,

I think Ringo is a perfect film, but yet for some reason,

don't look up has been forgotten. It does have an open

ended ending. I think that might be why some

people don't talk about it more, because it leaves

your imagination going. And you know, that's a fine line with

horror movie audiences. They get real upset if you don't explain

the mechanics of stuff. But man, I highly recommend

don't look up. It is if you love Ringo, you will love

don't look up. It is great. I don't think I've ever heard

of anybody bring it up before. So yeah, I need to check it out.

It's, it's just complete. I love movies about movie

theaters. I love like, what is that one with John Goodman

matinee? And I love movies about

making movies like that. Stuff's just like, especially when it's done really

well, where it's cynical in the way that it

reveals the mechanics, but it's heartfelt in

that you see people really putting their all into it.

Nice. And like I said, it scared me.

It got me. Got me good. That's it, man. We did it.

Congrats to us. Did you have anything you

wanted to promote while you were here? Did you have any like,

sick URL's to drop?

Www.mustache.org yeah,

man, check out my podcast. It's called Super Chillers.

Oh yeah. And you can follow it on most platforms at super

underscore chillers. And you can check it out on any

podcast. Well, probably not any, but like most podcast providers if

you type in super chillers, we talk about retro

ya teen horror from the eighties and the nineties. And you know what?

It's fun stuff. It's funny. I make jokes. There's a lot of

preparation that goes into it. It's a. It's a hard podcast to

make. I even edited. Wow. You should listen to the podcast.

So sorry for your loss of time,

folks. I am a huge fan.

I'm so madden at how much better super chillers is than this

show. I listened to those episodes numerous times.

Him and his co, Jeffrey and his co host, Katie. They are so like,

the rapport is great and they just love the material.

Even when the material is kind of unlovable, they really bring

it. And yeah, it's. I'm, you know, I've started

reading YA horror novels. I never read them when I was the

age range, so I welcome.

I'm going back and reading stuff, and it's fun as hell. Yeah, Katie and

I are a real Lonnie and Kenziora, and you are our grandpa.

Well, same body type, for sure.

Same bucket hat, same athletic

ability, and sunglasses.

All right, folks, thanks for listening and. See you

later, mashed potato. Oh, goodbye to you in

Auckland. Dream weird,

everybody. Ooh, wait, is that

the magic flute? That's my ringtone. I gotta go,

folks. Thanks so much for listening to this episode.

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