2 Guys And A Chainsaw

Happy Halloween! Much as we hope your day goes today, 1988’s Primal Rage culminates in a festive Halloween party sure to get you in the spirit of the season. We just expect you to survive your own.

With special effects from Carlo Rambaldi and the direct involvement of writer Umberto Lenzi, this is gore-laden time capsule that will tug at the nostalgia strings of most 80’s kids like us. And a special thank you to loyal listener, Jason, for requesting this!

Expand to read episode transcript Automatic Transcript

Primal Rage (1988)

Episode 274, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd

Craig: and I’m Craig.

Well, Craig, we come to week four, the last week of our Halloween extravaganza, 2021.

Halloween’s technically on Sunday, but you know, we can’t release like another podcast after that and claim it’s Halloween. Right? We got to jump straight into November and our month of Thanksgiving podcast. Right? Let’s see if we can find one. We’ll be lucky. I wouldn’t mind going back to, um, Blood Rage actually, again,  

Craig: God, get over Blood Rage already. 

Todd: It has become one of those movies that we discovered through this that has just stuck with me. And I love it to death. 

Craig: I know you talk about it every day. 

Todd: Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. And why wouldn’t I, because that movie’s awesome. It’s not just cranberry sauce, baby. This movie, uh, that we’re doing is called primal rage from 1988, just by pure coincidence.

This happened to be on our list for a while and it keeps popping up and lists. And so I’ve been looking for an excuse to do it. It also happened to be requested by loyal listener, Jason, so thank you, Jason, for this request and it being kind of technically a Halloween film and that it does take place on Halloween.

It totally qualifies. I was also just in the mood to watch a goofy eighties horror movie. You, yeah, I know. Go figure.

Honestly, and this is just pure selfishness on my part. And I know yours as well. When I watch anything from the eighties around Halloween time, it brings back the Halloween of my childhood, which was in the eighties. So it really doesn’t even need to be a Halloween movie. It just needs to be a goofy eighties, horror movie to bring back those memories of those movies.

I would watch when I was a kid around this time. So I’m just going to lay it all out there right now. I am so happy. We watched this, I loved this movie to piece. Pretty much purely for nostalgia reasons. I never seen it before and I can’t figure out why. In fact, I kind of can’t figure out why this movie isn’t better known because it is a quintessential, not just eighties horror movie, like eighties high school, except in this case college movie period, it hits all of the notes.

It’s got everything in it. Like big catchy theme song, big party at the end, a bunch of bullies, nice girl teaming up with a bad girl, a hot looking guy who just kind of can’t do anything wrong and gets to the bottom of the whole mystery. And I mean, it’s just, he’s got a goofy friend. I mean, my word, what movie have we seen recently?

That was as eighties as this one. I don’t know. I know he can come up with it. You cannot come up with an answer because the answer is. Yeah, God, are you tired or are you not going to be as excited about this as I am? 

Craig: Um, both.

Gosh. Yeah. I dunno, like. Uh, I totally get where you’re coming from. And I will admit that when it got to the end with the big Halloween party, that was totally, uh, I, I was excited about that. Cause the Halloween party is really cool and it’s full like super cool costumes and unusual. Like we just did monster club that had a big house.

Well, I mean, it was the monster club, but basically it was a big Halloween party and it was people in a bunch of cheap masks and this Halloween party at the end, you’ve got some real, some, a few traditional type costumes, but then there’s some really cool out there stuff going on too. Okay. So the Halloween party was really cool.

Everything else that you said is absolutely true. It’s it’s got all of your formulaic pieces, the story’s silly, but that’s okay. That’s fine. And, and really not. Like, I don’t know. We’ve seen stuff like this. It’s it’s, it’s an infection type movie. It’s a kind of, it’s not really zombie. I mean, it’s more along the lines of, I guess, um, not at all as serious, but more along the lines of like 28 days later where it’s like a rage virus that, uh, people are getting well 

Todd: at times it’s a rage virus.

Sometimes it seems to be more like a maniacally stalking virus. It’s weird. 

Craig: It’s weird. It’s weird. And it’s inconsistent. Like that was that’s the problem. That was weird to me, but whatever. I mean, yeah, there were definitely the fun parts and you’re right. Good-looking people, you said something about the group, the group of bullies were super stereotypical, like crazy stereotypical, which was funny until.

The gang rape stuff. And then that wasn’t so funny. And I was like, what? 

Todd: That came completely out of left field. It changed the tone of the movie entirely for like five minutes. I could not believe what was going on that that’s not just because of the subject matter, but because it seems like these guys like have done this before 

Craig: sometimes.

Right. And, and it was, uh, it feels like it was treated kind of lightly. And I was like, oh my God, Horrible. But anyway, we get ahead of ourselves. 

Todd: We’ll get there and we’ll sit here, Moussa, gape at it one more time before we’re done. But the movie is like, I can’t believe that Umberto Lindsay was involved in this film.

I 

Craig: knew as soon as I pulled, as soon as I pulled up the IMDV page, I’m like, here we go. Another eighties movie written and directed by some Italian guys. Like, of course it was Todd’s turned to pigs or he gets some Italian people. 

Todd: Oh, of course they make the best stuff. I, you know how much I love that. And then he was also involved in a movie after this called nightmare beach, which used a lot of the same actors.

And I guess a lot of the same crew, which he actually directed. This one was. Directed by him as directed by another Italian dude. Never. 

Craig: I hesitate to ask, but remind me why. I know Umberto, Lindsey, 

Todd: cannibal furrow. Okay. Oh, that was horrible. Ferox or whatever. Yeah. That really trashy movie that we saw, but he’s done better stuff.

This is clearly better. I mean, again, he did not direct this, but he was heavily involved. In fact, it sounds like he was kind of onset all the time as an advisor, right. There was some reason why he didn’t want to direct it or couldn’t direct it, but that was about it. But my God, it starts with. With this awesome theme 

Craig: song

Todd: which I thought was kind of catchy, actually, even though it sounds like every other eighties hairband song. Exactly. Well, not hairband, eighties pop song. Right. And then the most active park I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s almost as active as the woods from don’t go into the woods. Remember that movie, like every character there’s a dudes playing trombone.

It’s a college 

Craig: campus, right? Like, I guess it’s like the quad of a college campus or something, but you’re right. There’s it’s. Fantastically eighties, either like a large group of women doing gymnastics, like aerobics, aerobics, like in their leotards. Spandex. And, um, the, our main guy whose name ends up being Sam Nash is riding around on a moped, like taking pictures with his Nope, like Nikon or whatever.

Like, like 

Todd: he has not a care in the world and everything in there is interesting. 

Craig: Yeah. It looks like an eighties commercial, like you expect at the end for him to like, hold up a glass of orange juice or something. 

Todd: Dang gives me the power to go take pictures of everything all day long. 

Craig: Does it? I will say that it, it completely establishes the.

Feel of the movie. And I did, like, I smiled, I was okay. I see what we’re getting into. 

Todd: Right. Come on. You know, you love me for it. 

Craig: Okay. 

Todd: So Sam’s going around on his moped and, uh, taking pictures of everything under the sun, which it lets this theme song play. I think in its entirety, under the credits, not the last time theme song for this movie plays nor.

Is it the last time that theme flock for this movie place in its entirety and during the movie, but there’s a girl and her name is Lauren and her car is getting towed for reasons unknown, because she runs out and he’s like, oh, you can’t take my car. I’m late for class. And the guys like her hair, whatever, whatever.

And then Sam sees this happening and runs up and take some pictures and he’s like, you have to just let it down 

Craig: for her. Okay. Saw what’s the, numnuts this car’s not ticketed in case you didn’t know, it’s illegal to tow and I’d take any car in the state. So I guess if it’s not sitting on off-road wheels and about 10 seconds, you’re looking at grand theft auto and tomorrow’s cover story.

So smile have a nice day. 

Todd: And here we have the past. Of the journalistic photographer. Yes. And fold on full display. 

Craig: I get irritated at some of the most ridiculous things like, so she’s getting towed and she runs out and she’s like, but I was only parked here a minute. She is illegally parked right in front of the library.

The reason that he gets her out of it is because he’s like the car isn’t ticketed. I get irrationally irritated by people who say, I was only parked here a minute. It doesn’t matter. You can’t work 

Todd: there at all. You’re not supposed to park there at all, 

Craig: but that’s a pet peeve of mine, whatever he gets her out of it.

And in such a smart ass way, like he’s such a smart ass about it. He is a smart, but he’s supposed to be. Her Knight in shining armor. Like somebody literally refers to him as that later, but he goes, okay, so apparently he’s a journalist for this college paper or whatever. And he goes back to their newsroom or something.

And there’s this group of coeds that are demanding to see this guy named Duffy. And they’re super mad, but they he’s not there. So they leave and it turns out Duffy’s really just hiding under his desk. And Duffy is kind of. The goofy friend, but not so much. He’s more kind of like the smokes. A lot of cigarettes has an earring kind of long hair.

Like, I don’t know, chip. Right. So he’s not really dumb. No, he’s 

Todd: just a, I liked him. I liked his character. I thought he was one of the more interesting, well, he seems 

Craig: like somebody that I would have been friends with, but he’s so cynical. Like, I feel like. Take him so much. And the reason those coeds are mad at him is because apparently he wrote this expo Jose about how this group of girls were basically prostituted out to recruit athletes, which if that’s a true story is an excellent story that a journalist should write.

But I don’t, I assume it’s true. I don’t know, like Duffy is the one who is all about getting the big story, no matter what, like, you know, whatever, whatever it takes, whatever you have to do, get the big story. That’s uh, the journalist job, but 

Todd: also like stretching the truth a little bit. Oh 

Craig: yeah, yeah, yeah.

He doesn’t sensational. Absolutely. But he, um, has heard that there are these scientists experimenting on. Baboons or something and he wants Sam to look into it, but Sam is hesitant. Well, then we see the scene of the scientist experimenting on this baboons, which I thought that this, I liked the scene. I like these kinds of movies.

I’ve seen movies like this before there’s monkey shines. I can’t believe we haven’t done monkey shines. That’s like a cult classic movie, but there have been others too, where, you know, Xes animal experimentation gone wrong, gone ride. You know, when they have great intentions, they’re trying to regenerate brain cells.

You know, I’m sure if this were actual research that could have all kinds of applications for people with dementia and, you know, brain damage, all kinds of things, so great intentions, but we see it and like they’ve got a bad mood. Dummy that moves a little bit, but it actually, I know for an eighties movie, no, I thought it was actually pretty good, but they’re injecting it with something and monitoring its brain very soon after they inject it with this stuff, it starts to freak out and like the machines and computers that are monitoring its brain starts to freak out too.

And there’s, I guess there’s an investor there who, when he sees this going wrong threatens to pull their funding. And Dr. Etheridge is the main doctor on the experiment and he begs and the scientist gives them 60 days. Dr. 

Todd: and I would also say maybe one of the best actors in the movie. Not that you know, it’s not just a hammy role, but, uh, he is also one of the most decorated actors on the.

Boasts Vinson originally from Sweden, but has been working in Hollywood since like the late sixties and has been in big movies, like the great Waldo pepper with, with Robert Redford. He was in the original Inglorious bastards and then brought back by Quentin Tarantino to play a role in his version. He was in kill bill volume, two.

He’s been all over television and movies, always playing like a kind of tough guy type commandos and soldiers and stuff like that. And, and, uh, I thought this doctor was interesting. He had that little ponytail in the back. That was a little distracting, but wasn’t sure what that was all about, but yeah, it was, it was interesting.

Uh, I thought I kind of liked his character actually, even though it turns out to be really silly. 

Craig: Yeah. I mean, he’s, I don’t know. He doesn’t have a whole lot to do. Yeah. I mean, he is obsessed, which is fine, you know, it’s, it’s his work. I mean, he wants to protect it well, sure. And again, it appears that their intentions are good.

So I don’t know. He doesn’t really come across as a bad guy. Now, later in the movie. He goes to desperate measures to try to further his work and protect his work, which is questionable, but whatever. And we’re still in the process of meeting people. Next we meet Debbie. Debbie is Lauren’s new roommate.

Lauren is surprised that she shows up. Both of these girls are very beautiful girls. Uh, Debbie has really striking blue eyes, so, and dark hair. So she stood out to me days of our lives. I’m 

Todd: waiting for you to say that. I don’t remember to make a chart. Well, not just days of our lives, like a bold and the beautiful too, I think, right?

Oh 

Craig: yeah. Those, those soap folks hop all over the place and good for them, but she’s a, the new roommate and like, she’s just appeared late in the semester or something. And they have this conversation. Lauren’s like, were you sick? And she’s like, no, I had an abortion. Lauren looks kind of a gassed. And Debbie’s like, oh, I’m sorry to surprise you or shock you or something.

And like, Lauren’s, oh, I just am not used to people admitting things like that. And that’s it. Like, it’s never referenced again. Like it was such a strange piece of dialogue now. Like that’s fine. Like, okay, Debbie, good for you for taking care of yourself and making your own choices about your body. That’s great, but it’s completely in consequence.

So the planet, like I just expected that it might come up again or something, but it doesn’t, it’s just 

Todd: well looking at the time period, I think it was a bit of character building, like I think at first, although this idea seems to be dropped a little bit later on, I think at first they’re almost trying to set her up as a somewhat of a bad.

Ooh, she got pregnant and then she had an abortion, which was way more like of a controversial taboo thing then than it really is now I think, and some girls in one of the co you know, they have a classroom seeing with a professor up there and she walks in and sits down and these girls are like chattering a bat, or basically calling her a slut or something or saying she’s so trashy, which I’m not sure why.

No something about her that we don’t, you know, cause she looks just fine. And the 

Craig: same girls that are calling her a skank or whatever are latently flirting with the disgusting professor, the 

Todd: bald overweight, ugly, nasty, also terrible actor. 

Craig: See, and I thought that they were trying, I think still with the whole abortion thing, they were trying to set her up as a strong independent woman, because then also in this scene, this classroom scene, she’s the only one that can provide the answer.

And then we also find out that her major is like nuclear physics or something like that. So she’s supposed to be super 

Todd: smart. Well, and then sends it out. Right. I have an IQ of 185. What a dumb line. I can smell all that 

Craig: stuff. My keys 180 4. Oh God, you don’t look. I’m sorry. 

Todd: Nope. Maybe you just studied, like, yeah, but she and Lauren, I guess that, you know, Lauren and her getting clothes and uh, and then we meet Sam and Duffy again in the bar.

This is so cool too. Right. It’s just, I actually, I think that this movie was filmed in Florida, at Florida state or north Florida, some kind of university actually on campus. This bar though, where they were, I guess it’s a bit of a dated bar. You probably saw this as, you know, this college bar everywhere, but it reminded me of what bars, like in.

Eighties and seventies were like, like in the Midwest, these kind of dark, everybody goes there, lots of wood paneling, writers, posters, and things. You know what I mean? Like the 

Craig: neon signs. Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd: It kind of gave me, you know, good feelings as well. Yeah. 

Craig: I mean, it, it, it seemed very much like a college hangout bar, um, very, very casual and laid back.

But, and again, I did like Duffy, I like cynical people. I’m a cynical person. So I did like him, but he drugs a guy, like there’s just this annoying guy sitting next to them. And because he’s annoying Duffy drugs, him and I was like, what? Like. Okay. First of all, not cool. Don’t drug people. Secondly, why did you have those drugs in your coat pocket to anyone 

Todd: who had no idea?

Craig: Right. And like, I don’t know. It didn’t, it wasn’t like he roofie them. Like the guy didn’t pass out. It was like he had like ipecac or something, something that made him sick. And again, it like, it hadn’t nothing to do with anything. It was just a bit, and it was weird. 

Todd: It feels like something you’d seen a John Hughes movie, you know?

I mean, they don’t play as well today as they used to. But you always saw these characters doing these wacky things, just offhandedly, like this. Another day for them, you know, which then appalls us and appalls all the people all around them. And, and I thought one thing that was kind of interesting about this movie is they, they were always sprinkling this kind of stuff in there, right.

There was always a little bit of humor dropped in, even in some of the more intense scenes towards the end. The movie never really lost its light tone almost to a jarring degree because there’s some serious violence that gets going on, um, by the end of it. But still there are these kind of like psych gags and kind of wacky jokes and things in the background and stuff kind of thrown in offhandedly that I thought was, I liked it actually, but it’s still, it’s so weird, you know?

I mean, nobody makes movies like this anymore. 

Craig: Yeah. And I found that to be uneven. Like I just didn’t get it. I didn’t, when it was. You’re right. You’re right. It was a different time. And I think that I would have reacted to it differently in the eighties, but drugging people isn’t funny. And then there are other things, gosh, and now hearing myself say that out loud, I’m like, oh my God, quit being such a baby.

Like, it’s just like, I get it. It’s just a movie. But I don’t, I know we are, we are old men now, but there are other things too that I feel like we’re played a little bit for the humor that I just didn’t really think was funny. And I don’t know, maybe it’s dark humor and that’s that’s okay. You know, that’s fine.

Again, it is just a movie, whatever Duffy wants to break into. So he does, he borrows Sam’s, uh, camera and he breaks into the lab and he’s taking pictures and he sees the baboons in a cage. Now he had mentioned that he was gonna release the monkeys after that he got all of his evidence or whatever, but he doesn’t even have to because he, when he takes pictures of the baboons, the camera flash irritates it.

And this scene actually kind of literally scared me because I was concerned for that actors, safety, whatever primate it was. Now we’re talking about a real animal now, whatever primate it was, I don’t know if it was a bad Boone or if it was some other primates that they put a big red diaper on. I don’t know, but it was real and it clearly was agitated.

And I, I was a little nervous, but it does it. He doesn’t have to release it. It breaks out of that. Cage it’s in like a frickin dog cage. Like it’s ridiculous. It could have like, just want, you know, the regular dog can all that. You just lift the latch and pull it like a primate would figure that out anyway, but it breaks out and it bites him and it escapes.

And I actually thought that the filmmakers did a pretty good job here of mixing the real animal footage. With the dummy. Now the, the, the dummy didn’t look exactly like the real animal, but it was fairly seamless in that you see, you see the baboons running campus and through the streets and you see a car approaching and you see the real animal, like in the headline.

But then you just see a split second before it gets hit, where it is the dummy and the dummies, like reaching up, like it’s going to attack the car or whatever it gets hit and it kind of explodes. But the whole sequence I thought actually was really well executed. 

Todd: Let’s get, it was, I mean, it could have looked worse.

It could have looked really fake and you’re right. I mean, you knew it was fake. You could kind of tell moments where it was fake, like you’re saying, but actually it was, it was, it was done very well. I really liked the music here. This kind of reminds you. It’s just like in our gentle movie where suddenly there’s this intense scene and out of nowhere, Almost hard rock guitar starts

that style Ablin did it, you know, they didn’t, but oh, that always makes me feel good too. I love that stuff. It was good. It was a good scene. The monkey puppet gets hit by the police. Uh, and so, uh, you know, they all kind of. And it’s dead. And every time the police are involved, somehow the doctor shows up as 

Craig: well.

Every time he’s always there. I kept waiting 

Todd: for the one thing that we almost never saw, which was I was waiting for the cop to show up. Right. All right. There’s been too many murders. Let’s get to the bottom of this and start interviewing everybody. And that, that really didn’t happen. And I was kind of shocked.

That was really the only part of the formula missing from this movie that an actual nudity. Yes. 

Craig: Well, and th the scene also surprised me because I expected the monkey to be a persistent threat. I didn’t expect the monkey to be taken out of the equation so soon. Now it makes sense because Duffy is now infected apparently being bit or scratched by something or someone that is infected.

Rage, 

Todd: primal rage, primal rage. But you know, it’s funny. It took a long time for that to become consequential. It’s slow. We still have a lot more of this kind of like getting to know 

Craig: people exposition. This is where we meet who I lovely lovingly in my notes refer to consistently as the douche bags, there’s just this group of three douche bags that they have a leader.

The leader’s name is love joy, but they’re always together. They’re just douche bags. Like they’re always just aggressive. Lovely. And. In the most disgusting ways, like hitting on women. And I just have in my, uh, my notes in quotes, um, prime, freshmen, titties, like these are the kinds of things that they say, Hey bud, what’s shaking a new crop of prime freshmen.

Today’s we need some fresh party meat, thirsty candidate. They’re so stereotypical. I loved it. Yeah. I mean, I like, 

Todd: I don’t love it. I just love this and movies. 

Craig: Right? Exactly. I like the stereotypical nature, but they’re so toast. I suppose they’re supposed to be so fine, whatever. Like, uh, they harass the, our two main girls, Lauren and Deb.

And once again, Sam, you know, intervenes and is like their night and shine shining armor. 

Todd: I love that bit when he comes in and he’s like, I see mid level joy. 

Craig: One of our legendary lovers take a hike Nash. As they asked you, if you were pennies yet, speak at a mic. 

Todd: Yeah. Dialogue. Nuts, so stereotypical, but so funny and fun because of it.

I wrote, well, you wrote these guys down as the douchebags. I wrote them down as Cobra, Kai. That’s what precisely those guys. 

Craig: Right. And then, I mean, again, jumping the gun, but at the end, for the Halloween party, they dress in skeleton outfits. Totally. Even better than the skeleton outfit from Cobra, Kai.

Cause they’ve got cool light up, but yeah. Oh, I totally thought of that too. They, they are they’re, they’re just jerks now to be fair to a movie that I love the guys in Cobra, Kai weren’t evil, they were just misled and 

Todd: misled and misunderstood as we learn later decades later.

Craig: But now Duffy is getting sick. Just, you know, slowly. No. Super sick at first, just under the weather, but we see him, the bite on his arm is painful and clearly in five. I also 

Todd: love all of the wounds on these people look like things that are life-threatening and they just like are covering it with the shirt every now and then going oh, and kind of touching it.

And what is that? Oh, nothing. Nothing. Just like a scratch. I got like, no, this is like disgusting. Your muscle is showing through here. There’s POS coming out of it. It’s it’s, it’s pulsing. All of these people are just writing off these nastiest looking wounds, uh, in the world, which is also pretty stereotypically funny.

And what does he do? Like he was going through his house and he opens up a medicine cabinet to find medicine and just pours a can of old beer in there, on it. 

Okay. 

Craig: Yeah, like he’s looking for a disinfectant. I think he’s looking for disinfectant, but he can’t find any there’s alcohol and beer. It hurts like crazy or whatever it’s silly, but fine.

Whatever Etheridge the scientist sees Duffy on the surveillance camera. So they know it’s him. Salmon Duffy, go on a double date. Uh, Sam with Lauren Duffy with Debbie, which I don’t know. I mean, kind of comes out of nowhere, but it’s 

Todd: college, I guess

Craig: Sam and Duffy go to the bathroom together, which I thought only girls did. I don’t know. Typically 

Todd: take a friend for Dundess nor it. No. Do I pretend that I’m going to pee on him? That it was all a little, right? 

Craig: It’s like swing your Dick around Lego. Just testing your reflexes. Oh God. It makes me uncomfortable to talk to other guys at the year out.

Like I will, but like face for like, if I talks to know why you’re at all, like, all right, I will talk to you, but no eye contact, like look at 

Todd: the last, this is the code. This is how we are to anybody out there has never been in a men’s bathroom. We’re going to tell you they’re not portrayed accurately in the movies.

Craig: Oh boy. Um, so while they’re in the bathroom, uh, the jerk love joy comes over and is harassing the girls and just says horrible, sexist things to them. Get lost. And he’s like, why don’t I lose my face and your boobs,

Todd: this is why I’m going to watch this movie again, over and over. I, I just it’s so silly. It was just, it was just charming. I love how this is these guys, right? It’s these, these guys and these movies, somebody does some minor slight to them and suddenly the rest of their life is devoted to murdering this person.

You know what I mean? And that’s the situation, Sam embarrasses him in front of these girls. And so now he and his goons are going to take revenge against them. Right. You know, it’s it’s so, it’s so 

Craig: dumb. Well, the thing is like, in most of these movies, Bullies are so easy to laugh at. And these guys are just so mean-spirited like even early, early on they’re so mean spirited.

It’s hard to even laugh. It’s just like, they just are such jerks and it gets worse. It does only get worse. I guess the two couples separate after their group date, Lauren throws herself at Sam in his room, which is fine. Again, ladies get yours. I’m not judging, but whatever. And then Deb and Duffy have, you know, like a sweet conversation about how they both have bad pass or whatever.

And the thing that bothered me, first of all, Duffy chain smokes again, not judging, I’m a smoker. I’m not proud of it, but it’s gross. But beyond that, I mean, that’s, that’s gross. But he’s obvious, like he’s clearly sick. Like he says stuff about not feeling well. And she talks like, she’s like, oh my God, you’re really sweaty.

And he is like, he’s clearly ill. And she makes out with him anyway, gross. That’s disgusting. First of all, his mouth is going to taste like an ashtray. Secondly, he is clearly sick and while they’re making out, he bites her neck and she pushes him off and she’s like too aggressive, too aggressive. And then he’s like, oh, sorry.

And he goes to light another cigarette. And she grabs him and starts kissing me again. Like this is such a weird scenario. There are so many reasons she shouldn’t be kissing him, including the fact that he got super aggressive with her within 10 days. But I guess she’s into that, which 

Todd: okay. That’s why I thought they were kind of, this is where, you know, again, I think they were trying to push her as a little bit of a, a lives on the edge girl, even though she’s super smart.

I kind of. That aspect of her character. Cause it was a little new, you know, it wasn’t just the, this is the slut, this is a smart girl. You know, this is the girl who’s, uh, maybe got a little bit of a, of a, of an edgy pass, but is also super smart is attracted to this guy because he’s yeah, he’s, he’s kind of like her in his own way.

Like he’s clearly pretty smart, but like you said, he’s got a bit of an edge to him and just super cynical to be annoying. You know, nobody wants to be around somebody. 

Craig: He is right. He is super cynical, but I mean, she, to be fair, he’s an attractive man. Yeah. I found him attractive. He’s got kind of the gruff, you know, look going on or whatever.

And when they’re talking, he’s nice and she even says something, you know, she’s like, you know, beneath this rough cynical, exterior, you’re actually a really nice guy. And he’s like, oh. Ask all the people I’ve written the exposés about, but it’s a silly scene, but you, I, I saw it like, yeah. I mean, he does seem like a nice guy.

It’s not that I’ve found it unrealistic that she would be attracted to him. I just thought it was gross that she would kiss him when he was clearly sick. True. The next day he goes to the doctor and his wound is disgusting at this point. And for really no reason other than everybody gets annoyed waiting in the emergency room, he freaks out any attacks, the other patients and orderlies and nurses and things, and like destroys the waiting room.

And then he runs around town, destroying things, shrieking like a baboons, and then 

Todd: falls down and like his eye explodes or it’s like the corner of his eye was it isn’t supposed to be the vein, but I don’t know, but I thought 

Craig: he died. Like blood, like shoots, like, like shoots, like a water gun out of the side of his eye.

And he falls down. He collapses. I assumed he was dead too. And Sam hears from his news office. Something has happened. So he goes to the hospital again, Etheridge is there. Cause he’s always there. Then we find out that the douchebags are planning revenge on Duffy. We see Deb, she’s sick now Duffy again is just running around screeching and like attacking cars with street signs and things.

And he’s, he’s all gross now. Like as they get sicker, they it’s not zombie. Like they just look like they have a terrible, terrible infection everywhere. Yeah. They’re pissy and scabby and gross. He kills a cop in a lecture hall. 

Todd: But in the meantime, Sam is looking for him, no word hasn’t gotten around who this guy is, but just Sam hasn’t seen Duffy.

So he goes to his house and he can’t find him. And then he goes in, he actually goes through the trouble of developing Def developing Duffy’s photos, which I thought was cute. Right. But at the same time, Debbie is looking like, hell basically exactly the same. And Sam develops some of Duffy’s photos, prince basically.

And one of them is of a baboons in a cage. And so I’m not sure what this means to him because he knew that Duffy went 

Craig: there. He knew that he was planning on going there, but when they found out that the monkey had escaped, Duffy said I wasn’t there. Like he’s adamant. Oh, 

Todd: okay. So he finds out he was there 

Craig: information, right.

Confirmation that he was there. So he confronts etheric. The scientist with the picture. Now he’s finally willing to talk, right? That’s the only way you can get them to talk. Meanwhile, Deb, I don’t know where she’s going, but she’s walking around by herself at night on campus, which is inadvisable um, young ladies out there.

Yeah. The douche bags come upon her and hassle her. And I just didn’t know, this is so weird. Like I just expected them to give her a hard time. But in fact, in fact, they abducted her. 

Todd: She’s clearly sick, she’s sweating. And she 

Craig: says, she’s sick. Just leave me alone. I’m sick. And she’s just, yeah, she looks disgusting, but they put her in the car.

They forced her to drink. Um, like, you know, they pour beer down her throat. Basically they take her back to their dorm or their frat house or whatever it is. And like we said before, this. Casually discuss. Now I say, discuss this is all in very fast and in the heat of the moment, but they casually discuss the fact that they’re going to gang rape her.

And like, one of them is like, I want to go first. And the other one’s like, you always go first. And then one of them is like, let’s all sticker at the same time, like a pork, 

Todd: your pie. This was 

Craig: so aggressive and they get undressed and she’s on the bed. And they’re putting on 

Todd: masks that 

Craig: pulling out. One of them puts on a thing on his finger, which I’ve, I think I’ve seen another horror movies, but I think it is like a BDSM thing where like, you know, you cut people and, and make them bleed.

It’s so gross. Like it’s just the whole concept of it. Not only the horrifying notion of what could happen here, but the fact that they have done it many times, like they are accustomed to this now, fortunately she has primal rage, so she’s able to fight them off and she scratches them horribly and bites several of them and, and she gets away.

She gets them all somehow. So well, she injures, I, again, I don’t know the logistics of it, but she, at least she at least deeply scratches or bites all of them. And then it cuts to a scene where that gross, disgusting skeezy professor is seducing a girl who needs a better grade. Such a stupid trope, but we see it all over the place and they hear something outside the car and the professor goes out to investigate.

It doesn’t find anything comes back in the girl’s been strangled and then Duffy rips his face.

Todd: I was a little disappointed in, I mean, some of the makeup was good or serviceable, and then other times it just looked like they were smearing blood around, you know, it was kind of inconsistent as to the quality of, of the, you know, the makeup and, and the, the S the practical effects with the kills. I thought, you know, I don’t know.

I actually thought I looked 

Craig: pretty, pretty good. Even the E yeah. Even the face ripping off, I thought looked pretty good. I mean, there was, there was texture to it. And, um, in the end, you know, when we S I say the aftermath, I mean, it all just happened. In seconds. Um, but you see his teeth and like no 

Todd: lips.

Yeah. That’s true. That’s true. 

Craig: I thought it looked pretty good and, and it is. I don’t know. It’s funny because if somebody asked me to describe this movie, the first word I like gory, wouldn’t be one of the first things that I sell, but really there is a fair amount of gore, um, and, uh, quite a bit of violence, a lot of violence actually.

But, uh, the, the cops come looking for Duffy, Deb, sick, disgusting. Deb asks for Lauren’s help. Um, Sam, uh, eventually Sam has already been to Duffy’s house at least once, but then Duffy finally comes home and apparently Sam is waiting for him there. And, um, Sam offers to help, but Duffy attacks him and Sam is able to, I’m your friend.

I want to help you. And so Duffy pulls a gun out of his waistband and hands it to Sam and says, Kilz says, kill me. And Sam doesn’t want to, but Duffy attacks him again. So he does. He shoots him. And he calls Etheridge. Cause Etheridge knows that Duffy is infected at this point and he wants to get ahold of him so we can test them or whatever.

So Sam calls, Etheridge and says, he’s dead. And Etheridge is, well, I need to do an autopsy. And Sam’s like you can’t. Well, it turns out that Sam staged a fire. Duffy’s house, I guess, to protect him. Uh, I don’t know. 

Todd: Well, just before this, Lauren came home looking for Debbie and couldn’t find her. And it was right at this moment as she’s walking through the house.

Actually thinking in my head, man, we haven’t had a shower scene in this movie yet. And then she does, she walks into the bathroom and kind of forgets about looking for Debbie and decides it’s time to take a shower, but no nudity. It’s all just kind of shoulder up stuff. And it’s, I know, 

Craig: I thought it was funny because the camera was a little bit wide, like maybe to the top of her chest.

And then when she went to take off her towel or whatever she was wearing, it tightened on her face. And I was like, oh, we’re not. No, 

Todd: this actress had this in her contract. No nudity for me. And so, I mean, it’s so silly she gets in the shower and then we get the classic, uh, hands, uh, you know, point of view, somebody coming towards the shower and, oh, no, what’s going to happen.

Uh, random shots of her scrubbing her legs or whatnot. But again, nothing really beyond that, but it’s, it’s Debbie and Debbie just opens the curtain and scares her, but then she’s like, I’m really in trouble. I need help. I’m really, really sick. Uh, and so I think this is how they all kind of link up, right.

Is that, uh, Lauren takes Debbie over to see Sam, which at the same time Sam’s got the doctor and, and, uh, everybody there as well. Right. And they’re looking over. 

Craig: Yeah. And they leave her, they leave her there now. Y like leave her there. And then Etheridge runs tests. Well, Debbie attacks, Sam and 

Todd: Lauren, and then they, they knock her out or something and he calls the doctor.

And of course the doctor shows up in his like, man, she’s really in bad shape. We need to get her to my lab. I’m thinking, no, take her to a hospital people. Yeah. But he supposedly also has a cure right. Sitting in the fridge. Wasn’t that what it was, which also never came into play. 

Craig: I will see. And I don’t know if he really had anything or if they just thought that he would like, well, he must know what’s going on.

Like I know he, he 

Todd: referenced one didn’t he didn’t, didn’t he point to earlier in the movie, when Sam, when he finally had that talk with Sam and he’s showing him his lab and stuff, doesn’t he open up the fridge and point to a vile in there and say, yeah, if they ever are lucky enough to find your friend alive, we can use this on him, but I haven’t tested it.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I thought there would be a thing at the end where, you know, the very end one of them was going to need. You know, that’s how we’re going to save Lauren or Deb or Sam or whatever, 

Craig: but that never happened. No, and I, I was, you know, when Deb started getting sick, I was, I was sad and I, and I hoped, I hoped that, uh, they would be able to save her because I liked her and she was very pretty and I wanted her to, and she’s smart and tough and I liked.

But, uh, he runs tests on her, you know, once the other two are already gone and he goes over her and she’s strapped down to a table and he says, I’m sorry, dear. It’s too late to save you. However, there’s so much I can learn from you. Think of it. Debbie, you could be making major medical history, future victims worldwide could owe their recoveries to you.

Debbie. I envy you your life. What really counts since you are no longer a sound mind I have made the decision 

Todd: for you. He suddenly turns evil. Um, that was, I don’t know. Right. 

Craig: And so he’s going to kill her, I guess. So he can. Experiment mint on her. And he’s got what I assumed was this lethal injection that he sticks in her neck and injects her with.

And then she breaks free and kills him. Fine. That that’s fine. But this injection never has any effect. So weird. 

Todd: I didn’t, they did the same thing to Duffy in the hospital. Remember the hospital scenes going crazy, swinging a baseball bat around and a doctor runs out and stick some injection in him makes a big deal out of it, but then he runs away and like nothing happens.

Craig: Uh, well, I mean, if that was just supposed to be a sedative that works on normal, he does work. But if we’re, if we’re talking about, you know, a huge vial of some something lethal, but who knows, maybe the primal rage over contexts. Okay. And so then Sam and Lauren are at this Halloween party and they are the only one 

Todd: not.

Craig: And, okay. So what I will say about this party is it looks amazing and I want to go to it. And like I said before, There are, uh, traditional costumes, but even the traditional costumes are good. Like these people really went all out and I went to college. So I remember that in college, we knew how to have a good time.

And we went all out for this type of stuff. Lots of us. Now I hung out with a lot of theater kids, so 

Todd: they went all out that other degree 

Craig: it’s true. Um, but it just looks super fun and it’s enormous. Like, it seems like at least half of campus must have hundreds and hundreds 

Todd: of they did not skimp on the scene at all.

Craig: No. And, and, and there’s a live band. The only thing that I’ll say, and this is not a slam on this movie at all, this is movies in general. I have never been to a party where every single person. Is on the dance floor, dancing for their alarms,

Todd: but you’d like to, 

Craig: I would like to the other thing it’s so it’s funny to watch because if you watch, like, these are clearly extras because nobody’s really dancing with anybody in particular, like it’s just whoever you happen to be, oh, hello, I’ll dance with you for a minute. Ooh, turn around. Here’s somebody

that said it’s super high energy. It looks like super fun. And on top of those traditional costumes, there are some costumes that I don’t know where they got them, or if somebody on their team may have them, but they are super unique and creative and interesting and really, really cool. 

Todd: This is Halloween, right?

So this is where the Halloween bit comes in. Yeah, for sure. I was actually a little sad that they didn’t have a little bit more Halloween sprinkled into the movie, if not even just decorations in the background or something. There’s like one mention of it towards the beginning. There’s a little poster in the bag that says something about the Halloween dance.

Okay, cool. Cool. At the same time, there is a full-on rock band and stayed show going. And we get, it’s basically all this as montage and it’s got again, this great, awesome 80 song playing in its entirety through this entire sequence. These three goons who just before they dawned their skeleton costumes were comparing their wounds and laughing about them.

Uh, now have, like you said, it’s like the Cobra Kai costumes, but they have awesome skull masks where the eyes light up. Oh, that was so cool. Was super creepy 

Craig: and cool. I loved this part. Oh my gosh. It was so great. And it was so Halloween. And we’ve talked about this at Halloween before. Like these guys, once they get there, they just go nuts and start killing people in plain sight, but it’s Halloween.

Yeah. People just think it’s gags or whatever, and they’re great. Loved it. Oh, they’re great. 

Todd: There’s a guy. This is so creative. There’s a guy who’s kind of dressed, uh, as, as a, as a dude who’s hanging, uh, he’s got like a noose around his neck that he’s kind of perpetually holding up. So this guy grabs him and actually chucks it over like a basketball thing and pushes a button that pulls him up and the guy ends up hanging there.

There’s another person in a mass that it’s like a Salvador Dali thing or whatever. It’s like heads 

Craig: and out of bounds coming out of the 

Todd: nose. Yeah. And he goes over and chokes that person as he’s squeezing them or whatever blood is pouring out of all of those spouts. And it was cool. I mean, it was very.

Very inconsistent because at this point, what they’re doing seems a little more deliberate and not like just rage. They’re kind of seeking people out through the party. Somebody bumps into them, that’s the dude they’re killing or like, they’re just looks like an opportunity. So they kill this guy. Um, you know, so it was kind of that sort of deal, 

Craig: uh, well, and it was the killing, the killing of the people.

Like I could almost believe that that could happen and people might not notice, especially since it’s so loud and there’s so much going on, but there’s one point where one of the douche bags grabs a guy’s hand and D gloves him. And when I see it say deeply loves him. I mean, the gloves, him, of his skin, that guy.

Would freak the F out that there’d be no hiding that unless they killed him too, which I don’t remember them killing him. Um, meanwhile, Deb is also running around killing people, not as many, but she kills a cop and she kills a 

Todd: poor guy. There’s a big guy who dresses up and like a girl, like a little girl’s outfit, you know, 

Craig: like a baby, like a big fat new year’s baby or something.

And 

Todd: he walks by and he sees her. And of course she looks like, hell, but in Halloween it just looks like great makeup. And he goes, Hey, nice costume. And she lashes out at him and kills him. And I was like, oh, that poor guy. 

Craig: I know I felt bad for him. Yeah. I feel like she attacks me. He was like, I’m sorry. Or something.

It was terrible. Yeah. It was too bad. But anyway, as it turns out, they’re chasing these, these bad guys. The skeleton guys are chasing Lauren and Sam all around. One of them gets to sand. And Sam kills him somehow. Like 

Todd: some stick through the head. Somehow. 

Craig: That was a great. Yeah. I don’t remember exact like, uh, a sticker, a Piper, something through the head.

So that’s one down then another one Chase’s Sam. And he does the old mechanical bleachers trick. And I say the old mechanical bleachers trick, but maybe they did it first. I don’t know. I just remember this from the faculty feel like that. Yeah. Yeah. They, uh, Elijah would traps the alien at the end, in the mechanical bleachers, just like.

Todd: I didn’t know that, that now you spoiled it for me. I haven’t actually seen the faculty, but when I saw this, I was like, oh man. You know, when I was a kid and I was in high school, I always imagined this sort of thing happening because those bleachers are, it’s just, just as a fascinating thing. I don’t know if they do this in other countries or whatnot, but you know, it’s just the bleachers themselves kind of fold up so that you can use the whole gym during gym class.

But if there’s a game, then you push a button and the bleachers just sort of unfold. They just kind of stretch out, um, to full extension. So they’re now steps and he just does that in reverse. He pushes the button, this guy’s already under the bleachers and before he can get out, it’s closing in, on him and finally crushes his head.

I thought that was a great kill. It was so. 

Craig: Yeah, it was good. It was good. I had just seen it before. I’m not, not to this movies discredit cause they did it first, but I had seen it before. So then the last douche is after and the last one is the main one, love joy or whatever his name is. Um, he’s after her.

And uh, she hits him with a bat or something and it’s a big chase with her, hiding him, finding blah, blah, blah. Um, at some point primal rage, Deb saves Lauren from one of the guys, but then that guy rips her to shreds and Sam finds her body 

Todd: later. I thought we were getting like a primal rage battle. At that point, they really missed an opportunity for these two kids to go off on each other.

You know, 

Craig: they really did. We just see the aftermath, but then love joy. And Lauren ended up in the locker room and he finds her and he grabs her and he pulls her out of a lock. Sam shows up just in the Nick of time and cuts his head off with an ax. Um, and then, and, and so now, We believe that everybody with the primal rage is dead.

So everything should be fine. It’s the next morning the cops are there. They’re interviewing the kids, bodies are being brought out. And then Lauren is moving out of her dorm room and Sam is helping, he’s taking a box down to the car or whatever, just as she’s about to leave, she gets grabbed. And they, they take their time and showing us who it is.

Like they intentionally only show the arm, grabbing her. So we’re like, who is it? Um, but it turns out to be Etheridge who we thought was dead, but apparently isn’t, he’s just got the primal rage. Um, and so Sam fights with him and ends up.

Todd: He has the primal rage. Don’t worry 

Craig: as, uh, he ends up throwing him over a balcony and his head lands right on his sprinkler. So that like this sprinkler is like shooting out of his mouth, which was fun. I enjoyed it. But I also was like, Ooh, is this like setting up for a SQL, like will the primal rage get into the water supply?

Todd: Interesting, interesting. That was hilarious. He said it was hilarious. It’s shooting out of his mouth at regular intervals, so funny. 

Craig: And Sam’s like, let’s get out of here. And so they jump into her Miata. I think 

Todd: I’m off to the theme song again, to the 

Craig: theme, to the happy fun poppy theme song was so very apropos of the eighties.

Uh, yeah, I mean, it, I’m not as stoked about it as you are, but it definitely did have, uh, it’s fun elements. I, I really enjoyed the Halloween party. There were some creative kills. There were just so it wasn’t silly. To be, uh, like a constant so bad. It’s good movie. You think so? Yeah. I like there were moments like when Duffy or whatever his name was when he was running around shrieking like a baboons.

That was hilarious. I wanted everybody with the primal rage to shriek like a baboons, but they didn’t that bothered me. Uh, I don’t know. 

Todd: I liked watching these people act in all of their hilarious glory, Patrick Lowe, who was Sam Nash? I could, I could have sworn he w he has a face. It looks like it would have been in like 15 of these movies in the eighties.

And he’s only been in like two or three. He was, um, the first victim of the driller killer in slumber party, masker we’ve done. And this. And like maybe one other thing. And that’s it. I can’t believe at why he was, he was a good, I mean, you know, he was fine and he was handsome. Yeah. Handsome, smile, smiling.

Pretty good actor kind of knew the role he was playing, played it to the hill. I thought it was cool. And of course these bullies were silly. Like the dialogue between the bullies was so laugh out loud. Hilarious. 

Craig: But, but yeah. And then the sadistic gang rapers and like, so dark it’s so dark, listen, it may just be me, anybody who listens to our podcast.

This is no surprise that makes me so very uncomfortable. It makes me sick to my stomach and I just have a very, very low tolerance, um, for that. So maybe other people wouldn’t be as affected as I was, but it just, it really bothered me and I’m super glad. That she fought back and got away. That’s great. But just even the notion that these horrible men had done this before.

Todd: Yeah. And had the props, I think for you, it sorta sounds like that just sort of cast a dark cloud over the film for you or, or it’s ale that contributed to the unevenness that kind of made it hard to settle in and really enjoy it to huge degree. I don’t know, I guess for, no, it bothered the hell out of me.

I thought, oh my God, this has come out of left field and this is really uncomfortable. But I think I had just kind of put it out of my mind after that. I remember, you know, when I was a kid watching karate kid, I thought it was the coolest movie. We used to watch it all the time. And then after not having seen it for a very long time, I went back to watch it as an adult.

And I was actually quite shocked at how brutal the bullies are in that movie. They are green and they are violent. And the fight scenes in that movie, when they’re just beating, like they would kill, they would have killed. Daniel, you know, if Mr. Miyagi hadn’t come in, they were just that brutal. And that surprised me, even in the 

Craig: very beginning, Johnny is vicious with Allie that would never fly 

Todd: today.

It would be lighter. It would have to be lighter than that. And so this movie, like I said, like that too, I feel like maybe in my mind, I kind of give it a pass because it it’s, I mean, not that that’s a little, a little over the top, even for this time, but things were just a little more like this back then.

Like we weren’t so sanitized, we weren’t really worried about this sort of thing. And so movies did push things to the edge. They had characters that were kind of very violent and very carbon copying over the top. And so I guess I was just slipping back into that mode and that’s why I kind of like enjoyed it, but even still that scene was above and beyond anything I’d ever seen, to be honest.

Craig: So. But for the first part of the movie, I thought it was fine for a movie. And you had told me, you said it culminates in a Halloween scene. So I, I, the whole time I was like, God, I hope this Halloween scene is good because this doesn’t really feel like that much of a Halloween movie. And it’s going to be our last one, but it got to that Halloween party.

And I’m like, yup, totally. Yup. It’s a Halloween one, a 100% Halloween movie, especially if you haven’t seen it, watch it. And how it’s good. I mean, it’s a, it’s a good eighties violent year, right? I’m, I’m a little surprised that it’s not better known. I guess not because it’s great, cause I don’t think it’s great, but it does have some moments that I’m surprised that I don’t hear about or haven’t heard about.

And it’s, if you, if you’re a fan of, of horror and if you’re a fan of eighties horror, which obviously we are, you should watch it. You should 

Todd: watch it. And it’s so competently. It’s better than a handful of these movies very much 

Craig: as well.

Todd: All right. Well, thank you again for listening during this Halloween season, hopefully we picked up a few more listeners during this time. If you enjoyed this podcast and the films that we’re talking about this October, please send us out to a friend so they could share in the fun to season with us, recommend some films for us to do as the year comes to a close and the new year arrives.

You just look us up online, two guys, and a chainsaw podcast, and you’ll find our social media channels and things out there. Just drop us a message and give us some feedback. We really like to hear it. And once again, thanks to Jason for your request. Also, while we’re talking about. 

Craig: The happiest of Halloween seasons to all of you. I hope you enjoy it. I hope you do something fun and spend some time with your friends or family.  

Todd: I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw.