Black Friday

2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

Το περιεχόμενο παρέχεται από το Todd Kuhns and Craig Higgins. Όλο το περιεχόμενο podcast, συμπεριλαμβανομένων των επεισοδίων, των γραφικών και των περιγραφών podcast, μεταφορτώνεται και παρέχεται απευθείας από τον Todd Kuhns and Craig Higgins ή τον συνεργάτη της πλατφόρμας podcast. Εάν πιστεύετε ότι κάποιος χρησιμοποιεί το έργο σας που προστατεύεται από πνευματικά δικαιώματα χωρίς την άδειά σας, μπορείτε να ακολουθήσετε τη διαδικασία που περιγράφεται εδώ https://el.player.fm/legal.

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We kick off the beginning of our holiday horror season much the same way many people kick off THEIR holiday season: Frantic Holiday shopping!

A movie based on the Black Friday shopping phenomenon holds a lot of promise. With this 2021 film, unfortunately, it’s another case of “great concept, poor execution”. Even Bruce Campbell couldn’t save this uneven and mostly un-funny horror-comedy. But at least there’s a ton of holiday spirit in there!

We sure enjoyed chatting about it, and discussing OUR memories of Black Friday madness. Enjoy!

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Automatic Transcript

Black Friday (2021)

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, here we are, Craig, the first Christmas movie of the season. Just finished, uh Hittin up a couple, uh, Thanksgiving ish movies. I don’t know, this movie we chose for today is maybe a little more appropriate for Thanksgiving,

Craig: huh?

I know! We talked about doing it for Thanksgiving, but I watched the trailer, and there was so much Christmas in the trailer. I’m like, let’s, let’s save it. But it’s, it’s Apropos, like, you know, we just had Thanksgiving, now Black Friday, and then we’ll move into, like, the real Christmas stuff. That’s right.

Todd: So the, so the one we’re doing right now is a movie I had never heard of before.

It’s 2021’s Black Friday, so it came out a couple years ago. And, uh, I was really impressed because, number one, it was a Zomcom, and I think a couple weeks ago I told you I’m kinda sick and tired of Zomcoms. But, here we are doing one yet again. Because, I’ll just be forever cursed to watch these things because they keep making them.

I know! What is it? Ever since Shot of the Dead, like, every year, there’s like five of these things. And, uh This

Craig: one’s a little different. Like, it, it, it basically is a zombie movie, but the zombies are unique. They’re not, like Yeah. I mean, I guess they kind of are Walking Dead, but this is, it’s more like they’re possessed, or, like Infected by some kind of parasite or something that it’s very unclear and it doesn’t it’s very unclear.

Yeah And nothing is ever explained. So don’t be waiting for the explanation because it doesn’t come

Todd: I was really looking forward to this movie because it looked like it’d be a lot of fun and because bruce campbell is in it I thought okay. This is gonna be cool and the trailer made it look real funny I was just looking for a big bowl of laughs with it and uh I have to say I was a little disappointed.

Craig: Yeah, it’s not great. Ultimately, that’s gonna be my judgment. Like, it’s not great,

Todd: but I was actively mad at this movie, man.

Craig: Oh, man. See, I kinda had fun watching it. And, which is It’s impossible. It’s impossible that I could have because I had to watch this surreptitiously at work on my phone. Oh, are you kidding

Todd: me?

No. Wow, we were really cramming it in. We tried to get two podcasts in this week to get a little ad for the holidays and I guess that put you in a rough spot, huh?

Craig: Right, right. Like it was the very last day of school before break. And so there, there’s not even any sense in really planning anything. It’s not like we didn’t do anything, but I knew that they were going to be in vacation mode.

I was in vacation mode. So, uh, there wasn’t a whole lot going on in Mr. Higgins’s class that day.

Todd: Why’d you just turn it on for the kids?

Craig: I almost could have, but no, I, I like hid my phone behind my desktop computer and like sat there and pretended I was. Doing something nice

Todd: That might have been the best way to watch this honestly because I’m here in a In a little bungalow, and I plugged my laptop into the TV here.

So I saw it full screen, with the lights off, kind of proper movie style, and maybe it would have been better on a phone, maybe it would have gone down easier. No, I

Craig: don’t, I don’t recommend watching it. On a phone during the day backlit by natural light coming through huge windows because I I only saw about a quarter of this Because because it’s so dark and I’m watching it on a phone So a lot of the time I was just looking at my reflection in the phone.

Oh god, so dark but I kind of saw what they were going for and I don’t know, I did enjoy, I enjoyed things about it. What I, what I wrote at the very top of my notes, I said this. is a great idea, if it’s executed well. Like, a movie about Black Friday, and people getting possessed. I mean, even, it makes me think of, this movie doesn’t remind me of it necessarily, but it makes me think of the opening scene of Krampus.

Yeah. Which, which is a Black

Todd: Friday scene. And I love the opening scene of

Craig: Krampus. It’s fantastic, and everybody, you know, there’s nothing supernatural or nasty going on, other than people just being Nasty. crazy. On Black Friday, and honestly, that representation of Black Friday was not far off the mark from real life.

Now, I think some good, it’s even hard to say this, it’s painful to say this, but some good came out of the pandemic. Because I think that the pandemic killed. American Black Friday. The way that it used to be. Now everything is online, which makes so much more sense. It’s so much more convenient. It’s far better.

Did you ever do the whole Black Friday thing pre pandemic?

Todd: No. You know why? And for those people who maybe are not familiar with this, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving. It’s sort of the first shopping holiday of the season. And supposedly It’s called Black Friday because it’s the first time in the whole year that finally retail gets in the black.

I don’t know if that’s entirely true or if it’s just more of a saying but the idea is that that’s when they really start making tons of money because obviously The holiday shopping season is their biggest time of the year. Right. And so, I don’t know when this happened, because I don’t think this was a thing when we were kids.

Mm mm. At least it wasn’t, like, advertised to the public as Black Friday. I’m sure, within the retail sales circle, they all referred to it, you know, in business like terms. But, at some point I don’t remember what it was, the late 90s, early 2000s, Black Friday became a thing that businesses advertised, so they said, Hey, we’re gonna put incredibly good deals, many of them are like limited number or limited quantity, Yeah.

on the day after Thanksgiving to force you guys to come out and, uh, and start shopping. And they purposely were generating crowds. And so, like, some of these stores would do like what this store did. They’ll open up at like midnight.

Craig: Yeah, or like three in the morning or something. Yeah, and the people

Todd: would literally line up outside the door, camping out overnight, so they could be one of the first people in.

So as soon as those doors open, They would tear to the back of the store wherever the ten TVs that you could buy for half price were. Right. So that they could be one of those first ten people to get it. And thank God, like, I think even before it petered out. There was a lot of criticism. They’re like, this is kind of capitalism gone amok.

Oh god, it was terrible. It

Craig: was absolutely terrible. And not only that, but of course, you know, it forced all the employees of these places to be away from their families at the holidays. Yeah. And to deal with the insanity. And it really was insane. Like, honestly, if you’ve seen the beginning of Krampus, that was what it was like.

I did it. I did it twice. Once for myself, I did it to get a Christmas treat because though my partner and I are financially comfortable now, we weren’t always. You know, we were young, right out of college. Sure, yeah. You know, entry level jobs and, and things were And we needed a Christmas tree and you could get, you know, they would take these high price items and drastically, drastically reduce the price.

And so I stood in line at like four o’clock in the morning at Home Depot one time. For a Christmas tree. For a Christmas tree. And raced all of these other middle aged women. Were

Todd: you elbowing old ladies out of the way? Stepping over children.

Craig: Not elbowing, but it literally was, like, I grabbed one of the trees, because it was like, you know, it was a specific tree I wanted.

It was like this Martha Stewart tree, pre lit, like, it was all, it was beautiful, and I wanted it. You are so gay. I know, right? I don’t remember if my sister was with me. I may be conflating stories, but I, I, I grabbed the tree, and I started pulling it, and it was like a goddamn cartoon. Like, there was a middle aged woman on the other side of the aisle, pulling it from the other side, like we were tug of war ing over this Christmas tree.

Are you serious? And I got it cause duh, I’m not gonna let some old bitch beat me.

But I think that I also did it one year with my mother because my mother did Black Friday like, like she planned it, like it was mission impossible. And she would recruit. Me and my aunts and other people and like places because Walmart was open 24 hours, but they would line their aisles with these products, but they would cover them in butcher paper, so you didn’t know what anything was.

So you just kinda had to wait until at whatever, four in the morning or whatever, they would rip the butcher paper off, and then it would be a, just a mad grab. And so my mom would take me and my aunt and maybe somebody else and like position us at different parts of the store. And we had lists. We need this and this and this.

These are our top priorities. Wow. And it didn’t even matter, like, if I was grabbing gifts that were ultimately going to be for me, it didn’t matter. Like, they’re saving money. Yeah. And it was nutty. It was absolutely bonkers, uh, and I don’t think that it happens anymore. More and more retail places, um, even grocery stores in the United States are, Closing on Thanksgiving to give their employees the holiday, which I just think is fantastic.

It’s a small gesture in a really trying industry, but it’s a gesture nonetheless, and I appreciate that they’re doing it. And I’m so glad that that craziness, because you would see on the news, people would get in physical fights. People would shoot other people. Yeah. To get that big screen TV or whatever.

It was insane. It’s insane, and it needed to be put a stop to and I’m glad that it was, um, so thank you Pandemic for that one little thing. I mean,

Todd: maybe I’m also kind of a man of very few needs. I’m always the guy buying the, you know, second or third generation back game console or I’ve got the same TV I’ve had for ages and don’t really have this huge compulsion to get a bigger one.

You know, and so, the kinds of things that would go on sale for Black Friday, like, the deals would look fantastic, but I would look at them and go like, I don’t really care if I get my USB drive for 15 bucks or 7 bucks, like, you know, it’s not that important to me, so I didn’t participate in one of those.

But, somewhere early on in that deal, they did a Cyber Monday, right, where Amazon and all these retailers online, and that I loved, because you can just sit. And God, at work, I would just, like, mostly not get any work done, and I had an office job at that time, so I could just sit down behind a computer and pretend like I was working, but mostly I was checking these sales that would kick off, like, one every hour on all these different websites.

I loved that, and I didn’t get hurt or shot doing that, so that was nice.

Craig: And that’s how it is now, and now they still call it Black Friday, but it’s like two weeks of deals. It’s just better all around. It’s more convenient. I’m sure that these corporations are still making great money. Well, I, I don’t know because they actually, Bruce Campbell plays the store manager, this takes place in a toy store, it was filmed in, uh, an abandoned Baby’s R Us, and he’s the store manager, and he basically says that Black Friday is like, just a loss leader.

You put these high price items. really low, but that gets people in the door. So you’re taking a loss, you’re taking a loss on those big items, but it gets people in the store and then they do a lot more shopping and spend a lot more money. And that’s where they make their money. Pretty much everything is online in America.

Now, anyway, I don’t know what it’s like in China, but I recently went. To the mall that we frequented when I was young. And it’s a shell of what it used to be. Like, there are lots of empty spaces. But the big department stores are, are still there. But we went to JCPenney, which is a big department store in the States.

My mom had found this deal online, and then she also found it in the store, but you could only get the deal online. So like, if she ordered it online, then they could ship it to the store, but it was already at the store. So she talked to the manager, and he’s like, well, let me look into it. And what the manager told us is that their brick and mortar stores Really, these days, are warehouses.

Oh. It’s just where they store their inventory. It’s like open warehouses, you know, people can come in and shop, but it’s really, the main function of it is just to store their inventory and they sell it all online and just ship it directly from the store. Which I thought was fascinating. It kind of blew my mind.

It is.

Todd: I mean, things have changed so much. Thank God it’s not as insane as this is, uh, anymore. So, I mean, in a way, the movie’s already a little out of date. You know,

Craig: the concept is. A little bit. Those stores don’t even exist anymore. You can’t find, you can’t find a brick and mortar toy store like that anymore.

Giant toy store. Toys R Us, Babies R Us, they all shuttered years

Todd: ago, so. Well, that’s probably why they were able to film it in one. You know, I mean. To be honest, like, part of what makes this movie look so cheap, and I thought that, um, there were parts of this movie that looked really expensive, and a lot of the production that looked really cheap, and some of that was This store looked like it’s shelves were half full.

Craig: Oh yeah, it didn’t look like, and like it didn’t even have shelves. It just looked kind of like a showroom. Like, just a bunch of toys scattered around a big empty space. I mean there were, there were some shelves like around the outside, but the whole center was just this huge open space with just toys.

Scattered throughout

Todd: and not even toys sometimes like there was like an aisle of lamps and things I mean like if you really started looking behind it almost seemed like they just grabbed whatever shit They could find and at some point decided it doesn’t really matter the stores in chaos by this point You know overrun by the creatures anyway, so no one’s gonna notice if we just throw non toy random things up on the shelves But I noticed The plot is that these, I don’t want to get, I don’t want to talk too much about the plot, I just want to talk about everything I didn’t like

Craig: about this movie.

Ugh, see and I was getting ready to talk about what I did like, yeah. I mean it centers around, it centers around, uh, these employees of, uh, a toy store and they’re preparing For Black Friday, and then eventually, within like the first ten minutes, they open the doors, and it’s, you know, that crazy Black Friday thing that we were just talking about.

But what I will say that I liked about this movie, and I didn’t hate the movie, I really didn’t. I thought it was kind of fun, I didn’t think it was great, it wasn’t as funny as I wanted it to be. No. But, I really, I, I, everybody in it I liked. I, all of the actors, I liked. I thought that they were good in their roles, and they were fun to be with.

Devan Sawa, I guess, is the main guy. Uh huh. He plays Ken. The movie kind of makes him out like, at first, and I feel like this is very intentional, they try to make him out to be kind of the fun guy. But The movie also then goes out of its way to point out that he’s really too old for that nonsense like yeah Like bro, you’re in your 40s.

You work on the floor at a toy store. You’re dating one of your 20 year old co workers and like skateboarding around the toy store like It may be time to grow up. Yeah. I like Devin Sawa. He, he was in Idle Hands and Final Destination and he’s fun and, and he’s kind of in a renaissance right now. Like, uh, there’s a, a part, there’s a part in the movie where they’re in the break room I think and somebody’s flipping channels on the TV and one of the Chucky movies comes out.

Yeah. Devin Sawa. has been, well, there are three seasons of Chucky, and I know that he’s been in all three of them, but I’ve only seen seasons one and two, in both of which he dies. So, so the character he plays in season one dies, and then he’s just in season two as a completely different character and nobody ever comments on it.

Really? Yeah. Like, he’s a prominent character in both seasons, just a totally different character, and nobody

Todd: talks about it. They just liked having that actor in there. He worked really

Craig: well. And he’s good. He is good in that show. There are frankly Too many people to keep track of. Like I was trying so hard to keep track of all these people.

Um, there’s Chris, who’s like the young, newer guy. I would say he looks like he’s somewhere in his twenties. He’s played by a kid named Ryan Lee. And I was looking at this kid thinking, who is he? I know I’ve seen this kid before. And so I looked him up and, uh, he was in super eight. Did you ever see that? Oh yeah.

Mm hmm. I liked it. Yeah, it was good. And, uh, he was also in the TV show that only ran for one season, but I was a big fan of it with Malin Ackerman, uh, trophy wife. And this kid did a lot when he was a kid, but when he was young, his teeth, his front teeth like were super like buck teethy, like, like they jutted out over his lower lip.

But in some of those earlier things that he was in, he was wearing. Like braces, like corrective stuff. And now, he’s super cute. Yeah, he looks nice. A very handsome young man. He’s like a germophobe

Todd: in this, yeah.

Craig: Yeah, he’s a germophobe. There’s Marnie, she’s this young brunette. She’s the one that Ken, I guess, kind of thinks they’re dating, but I think she kind of just feels like it’s kind of just like a work thing, you know, like we can mess around at work or whatever.

There’s several others. There’s Archie, who’s played by Michael J. White, who is super familiar, but I didn’t really recognize him for anything. This like super handsome, big black guy, Jonathan, uh, is Bruce Campbell. He’s the boss in the office and Brian is the stereotypically gay. Floor manager. Right. And it’s just, you know, like, it almost feels like a workplace sitcom for the first 10 minutes.

That’s what it’s trying to be. Yeah. Yeah. It’s quippy. They’re kind of trying to establish the relationship between these people. The floor manager is like the uptight one, and Ken Devansawa is the goofy older guy who’s always messing around, and Chris is the younger guy who’s the germaphobe, but he’s really, he’s taking his job seriously and trying to do his best, and um, Marnie is that really cool chick that you knew in high school or college who just didn’t give a f about anything or anybody, and she just did whatever she felt like doing.

There’s the bitchy

Todd: Anita gal who’s like the goody goody employee of the month, always trying to do the right thing, and doesn’t, only cares about herself, she kind of pops in. I just watched

Craig: this yesterday and I’ve already completely forgotten her, like I have her in my notes. She’s barely in it. I have her in my notes, but I skipped over it when I was talking about the characters because I was like, I don’t remember who that is.

Todd: It’s honestly so weird because um, and I just think this is emblematic of the whole movie. Like there’s so many missed opportunities and this woman is being set up to be this standard character who’s going to be kind of opposing them at every turn or, you know, she’s. Gonna be so self centered or self devoted to, you know, single mindedly devoted to her job or whatever that she’s gonna be an obstacle.

Craig: Well, and she’s a Karen. She’s a Karen, yeah.

Todd: But she’s not. Like, she just kind of pops in a couple times, says some douchey things, and

Craig: goes. Says some douchey things like they Happy Black Friday, Anita. Green

Todd: Friday.

Craig: Corporate said Black Friday was racist, so they changed it to Green Friday. Green, like Christmas and money.

Good to know. Oh my God.

Todd: I know. And that was supposed to be funny though. Like that wasn’t funny. Oh, there’s so much of this movie that

wasn’t

Craig: funny. It wasn’t, it, it wasn’t funny, it was, it was kind of frustratingly real. Don’t forget

Todd: also the older lady, who, uh, is supposed to be funny because she’s got a filthy mouth.

Ugh. You know, I, I, what was

Craig: her name? She was a customer, wasn’t she?

Todd: You’re right. I think she was a customer that just got pulled into the employees when things go amok. Because what happens is, there’s a me like a meteor that flies through the ceiling of the store. I was a little confused at the whole intro because there’s kind of a I think I

Craig: missed that.

What are they like

Todd: stu yeah, it was too dark, that’s why you missed it. It was like literally dark. And I guess it was the people early stocking the store, like maybe before anybody ever shows up. Like the guys unloading the truck or something like that. And a meteor comes in and they’re sort of the first kills, but it kind of happens off screen.

All you see is this glowing, kind of pulsing pink thing that ends up underneath these. It’s the blob! It is. It’s 100 percent the blob. So that thing is there, and I guess some old lady comes in and sits on the chair, and I guess it infects her? And she’s the first one? And then from then on out It’s not clear, like, in the normal zombie movie, like, you get bitten and you turn, and I think that’s still kind of true.

Yeah. But what also happens is that they open their mouths and this white, fibrous thing shoots out

Craig: of it. It’s like a tentacle. Like, first it reminded me of the stuff. Yeah. This white Like goo shooting onto people’s faces, but it’s not really goo, it’s more like, it’s more like a tendril or a tentacle or something that, like, attaches usually to their face, but then I think in other times it attached to other parts of people, like their legs or their arms or, and, and regardless of where it gets ya.

Then you’re infected, and then you basically turn into a zombie, but you continue to mutate into like some monster from hell.

Todd: Yeah, and then you decide to join and meld into, what happens in the middle of the movie is that sort of like they notice, Hey, all the customers are melding together into this giant bobble like creature that’s growing and growing in the center of the store.

Craig: They hear over the radio or something like somebody saying, you know, all these infected people, they, they seem to have a mission. It seems like they’re building something. So this isn’t only happening in this store. It’s happening in other places too. And it’s not that they are physically constructing anything.

And we are. conflating in a couple of minutes what it takes the movie the whole time to tell us. But like there’s these suggestions that they’re drawn towards this central thing and that they’re making something, but it’s really And we see that the blob keeps getting bigger and bigger, but it’s not really until the near, at least the halfway mark, if not later, that we realize that they’re all just kind of joining this mass and becoming part of it.

Todd: So the idea, and I liked what they were doing at the beginning, they were trying a little bit of that shot of the dead kind of thing, where they were at first trying to equate the shoppers, who were not zombies yet. You know with zombies. I love that bit. I did too. It was a clever idea You know, they’re they’re they’re banging at the windows and they’re looking anxious and they’re

Craig: trying to get in but you know They haven’t opened the store yet, but I liked the way that that was shot because they just looked like An angry mob because they were it was through the window and you were just kind of seeing them in silhouette They may as well have already been zombies, that’s what it looked like.

And I liked that too, I liked the, the juxtaposition, like, it’s, it’s, I don’t think this movie is really trying to make any statement. No, no. You know, we know what Black Friday is and was. It’s just a cultural phenomenon, but I think that they’re just Watch actual footage of Black Fridays, Crazy Black Fridays, and these people look insane.

Oh, yeah. And they look like Like, it’s, it’s crazy. So it just, it works really well. As soon as the people get inside, they start getting infected within moments. Like, you don’t even Yes and no. You barely even get to see any of the crazy retail stuff because people start getting inf And, and as soon then as people A few people get infected and the staff notices, like at first, they’re still trying to deal with them as though they’re customers.

Um, but then when it becomes obvious that there’s something wrong with them, then they evacuate the store and most everybody gets out. Yeah. So it’s just the employees and a handful of infected. I think that’s a missed opportunity, too. It should have been a store full of these things, but I guess that would have been a lot more difficult for them to navigate.

Todd: think, yeah, navigating it, it was a little lazy, or the budget wasn’t there, or something. I just want to run through why this bothered me so much. So, even the scenes when the Black Friday customers are coming in, You know, you get the sense that you’ve already met all the employees in the store. Yeah. And it’s just these, like, not even a dozen people, right?

That’s just these like eight or nine people. Yet the customers come storming in and there’s this montage of them grabbing things off the shelves and it’s just closeups. But anytime they cut to a medium shot or a wide shot, you’d think the store was half empty. Yeah, that’s true. And these employees have all the time in the world to chat with each other, and do their banter, and they’re not doing anything!

They’re barely helping the customers. Uh, you don’t see anybody you see one person at the register, maybe. It’s just like, oh, here’s a shot of these two people, and they’re making some funny joke. Oh, here’s a shot of this person helping this old lady or whatever. But I got none of the sense of this chaos that the movie is supposed to be about.

Yeah, you’re right. It just felt cheap. And then, before they even realize that there’s zombies, but they know something’s going on, or at least a few employees know something is going on, they’re kind of one by one all starting to assemble in the back room. It’s one of these cases where, like, Two people go into the back warehouse room or whatever and they’re arguing about something.

Then a third person joins them, then a fourth person joins them, then a fifth person, and pretty soon everybody we’ve already met is back there. And only one of them has this sense that there was like a really weird customer earlier. I’m sitting here thinking, who’s manning the store? Like they’re all back there having these little bits of business, just being funny.

We know that there’s zombies infecting each other, but we’ve only seen one or two scenes of it. They don’t really know that yet, but somehow, and I don’t even remember how it happens, they end up jumping to this conclusion that they’re all in danger, even though they’ve all been back there and nobody’s even been in the front to witness what’s been going on almost this whole

Craig: time.

It was just mind blowingly,

Todd: bafflingly, frustratingly bad. I just, I never felt a sense of urgency, I never felt a sense that this door was being overrun. I felt like these guys could have just sat in the back and twiddled their thumbs the whole time. Zombies weren’t trying to bang at the door and stream into that big swinging wide double door that leads to the stock room that’s in the back in the middle of the store.

They’re all just comfortable back there chatting. And then when they decide they need to finally go out, they all go through the door, and it’s supposed to be this big dramatic scene where all, you know, six or seven of them are lined up and they’re ready to do battle, and the store’s almost already empty by now.

Yeah.

Craig: To the point

Todd: where they’re just creeping

Craig: around. And they split up. Oh. Yeah, like, instead of staying all together, which would have made The most since. They, they split up. And like, I get what you’re saying and you’re not wrong. They’re not pushing

Todd: hordes

Craig: back, you know? No, no, they’re running into one zombie every once in a while.

Like, Anita, the bitchy Anita, is a zombie and they have to fight her. And, um, at some point, the bitchy old lady who was, you were right, was the one who like sat on a throne that the blob was under and she got infected. She becomes one of the main Zombies, and her transformation is progressive, but by the end Wouldn’t you say that by the end, when they’re looking all crazy, like their flesh is all, like, dissolved and they’re monstrous?

I really liked that design, and I thought that it was executed well. It was, it was kind of few and far between, but I liked what I saw.

Todd: One of the good things I’ll say about the movie, and I really, really mean this, the makeup was fantastic. The zombie designs were fantastic, the gore effects were great, most of it seemed pretty practical, I loved that bit of it.

And, you know, they’re all melding together. There were times when that pulsating red thing looked a little too practical. It looked like Trash bags that were kind of being blown open and sucked in with some lights behind them, but for the most part All that stuff was was really nice. The problem was there wasn’t enough of it and there were hordes

Craig: of them No, no, there were only a couple and even though There weren’t a lot of the monsters or zombies or whatever they did.

I mean it’s getting ready to say it It sounds stupid, but they did meet up with them regularly and there was lots of action like there were lots of fights well like Archie has a big fight with one of the zombies and yeah, and and I liked that action and and like the fighting is it’s good action.

There’s also humor involved, you know, like there’s like physical comedy stuff going on that I liked and that happens multiple times. But you’re right. It’s just like these little isolated incidents were really probably they should have just been able to skirt around these people. Like if they’re in this, if they’re in this big department store and there’s only one or two zombies, like just stay out of their way.

Yeah, don’t draw their attention. It shouldn’t be that

Todd: hard. And I think the movie is trying at times to convince us that there are zombies trying, you know, trying to come in, like the store is in danger of being overrun. Because at one point, there’s like a little mini mission to like, make sure all the doors are secured, like in the back.

But every time, and people do end up going outside pretty frequently, it’s just dead out there. There’s like one or two zombies maybe running around the corner, but otherwise, there’s, so it’s like you said, it’s like these isolated incidents of fighting, but no real constant ongoing pressure and no sense of danger, because of the pacing.

I mean, those guys, they can have this fight with the zombie, and then suddenly there are five of them arguing about something and being funny and witty, and so all the zombie action stops, all the pressure stops. While they’re at the front of the store. Where’s the holiday

Craig: bonuses? Are they like in your office or something?

I thought that I told you that there were gonna be no holiday bonuses this year. What the fuck? Jonathan? This is bullshit. Even for you. That’s not what you told me. All you said was that there’d be layoffs after the holidays. Whoa. What the hell? Like who? I mean.

And then,

Todd: you know, in that way it also suffers from the intruder problem, right? Like there’s this big store that’s nothing but aisles, and like you said, kind of the middle of it’s pretty wide open. You’re gonna see these things coming from a mile

Craig: away. Yeah, the emergency lights are on. It’s not like they’re walking.

Except at one point, they did a whole charade where they were like, Let’s form a chain of, uh, Because it’s pitch black in here and we can’t see. Excuse me? I can see you. Like, this scene is lit. Like, what are you talking about? It’s stuff like that, and it’s stuff like, I said, you know, there’s fights and there’s comedies, but it’s, uh, jokes like this.

Like, Archie is fighting this zombie, and he gets tentacled on the arm, and then he points, I don’t even know if he has a gun or a weapon or whatever, but he says, Got your doorbusters right here, mothafucka. Like, stupid, stupid stuff like that. Like, I mean, hardy har, I get it. Doorbusters, eee! I assume he’s dead.

I assume he got killed. I didn’t know what happened, but we never see him again. There’s somewhere else Marnie kills like this particularly ugly zombie, and then says Ugh, I don’t think this night can get any worse, and the power goes out, like, come on. Yeah, it’s

Todd: all this kind of humor. Try a

Craig: little bit harder.

Just a little. You’ve got really good actors here, I mean, you’ve got Bruce Campbell. Give Bruce Campbell something to do! Yeah. He has nothing to

Todd: do! Frustratingly so, right? I thought he was gonna get better. And

Craig: he’s, he’s in it! Oh, he’s in it a lot. See, now when I saw that he was the store manager in the office, again, very much like Intruder.

Wasn’t there that character who just was in the office all the time? Yep. That’s what I thought, uh, Bruce Campbell was gonna be. I was like, oh, they tricked us. This is gonna be a cameo. He’s never gonna come out of that office. No, that’s not true. He comes out. He’s with them the whole movie and he has nothing to do.

Bruce Campbell is hilarious. And he just kind of stands in the background. Yeah. He talks every once in a while, but he doesn’t have

Todd: anything to say. He doesn’t even get funny lines? Oh, it’s such a, it’s such a waste.

Craig: No, he doesn’t get funny lines. But when the black gay store manager, when he attacks a zombie, he runs at it and screams, BEYONCE!

Like, that’s his battle cry. Oh, God. Guys. Guys. I think we may need to take a second look at the script. I think we need to call in somebody to punch it up a little bit. Yeah. You know, get some, you know, bigger laughs in there. Let’s find something for Bruce to do. He seems bored. I mean, he’s slaying the mustache but we gotta find something for him to do.

But no. No. Eventually, Ken, the main character. Thinks he got bit by one of the zombies. Later we find out that he didn’t, just Brian, the floor manager, bit him so that they would think he was infected to get rid of him because he thought he was a shitty person.

Todd: What?! That was, I almost threw something at the screen at that

Craig: point.

It was the, like, most contrived plot device I’ve seen in a really long time. They just needed, for really no good reason, I guess to build tension or something, they needed to, well, they needed Ken to, you know, do the noble thing and like, stay behind and sacrifice himself because he was a goner anyway. And we’re supposed to care about him, like, he’s got kids, he’s divorced, and he’s got kids and, you know, he can’t be with his kids on Thanksgiving and he really wants to get back to his kids.

And at some point in the movie, he does get a text from his ex wife that says, I’m fine, the girls are fine, um, but he still wants So we’re supposed to have empathy for this guy, and then we’re supposed to think he’s noble when he gets bit and he’s like, You guys go ahead, I’m gonna stay back and I’ll do whatever I can to keep them away, and

Todd: Well, his whole character is being set up for an extended Die Hard tribute, basically.

He’s, um, Bruce Willis character in Die Hard. It’s Christmas time, he wants to be back to his family, but he’s gotta deal with this issue. And so, as soon as he’s Supposedly bit and they leave him and he goes off to do the noble thing I thought it was going to be funny and cute But I just was rolling my eyes because I didn’t care about any of these people You know where he’s like by himself and he’s in the weeds of the warehouse And he’s ducking around corners, and he’s got like I don’t know if he had a gun or something And, you know, the red lights kind of spinning and things, and I thought, Oh, okay, we got Die Hard here.

Ha ha ha! Every single person in this movie was a cardboard cutout, lame ass, thinly drawn caricature. I think maybe people don’t understand that even though something’s a comedy, and even though it can be screwball, it can be screwball shit. Right? Like the hangover and like office space is kind of like this, right?

A comedy about all the wacky Cardboard cutout characters in an office. But

Craig: all of those people they have heart.

Todd: Yes, and they have real relationships Yes You don’t believe that this kind of office and all these people would be in the same room and all this stuff would actually happen But you care about them, right?

They have reality to them and none of these people Did I, for one instance, give a shit about.

Craig: I blame the writing, because I think that everybody in the movie, I think all the actors did the best with what they had. Yes. You’re right, there’s no you don’t get invested in them because there’s not enough time.

The movie’s really only an hour and twenty minutes if you Take out the credits. It

Todd: felt longer, but yeah, thank God for

Craig: that. And it did feel longer, and uh, There are so many characters that you can’t get invested. It would have been better if they had limited it to like three or four. I wanted to like these people.

I really liked, um, Chris. I really liked him. I thought he was great, and I wanted to spend more time with him. I really liked Archie, and he was barely in it at all. I don’t even, well, there’s another like new guy called Emmett, who you meet for five seconds before he goes out and smokes a joint and gets killed, and then he comes back as a zombie and they all recognize him, and good for them, because I certainly didn’t, because I had only met him for five seconds in the beginning, and then I also didn’t realize that Like, the main, one of the main zombies at the end, one of the grossest ones with the greatest makeup, is the old lady bitch customer from the beginning.

I would have never known that had they not told me. Like, the movie makes a point of showing that somebody remembers her because she’s wearing a particular necklace. But, like, they had to, they had to do that. They had to say, hey guys, guys. This is the lady from earlier like they had to show us they had to show us that it was her oh god oh gosh and and and the plot I mean it it’s not slow Paced because things are happening.

There are stupid times where they just take breaks for no reason. Yeah, and you wonder Why don’t you just extend this break indefinitely? You’re fine where you are! Like, uh, the, there’s, there’s a part where they’re like, we’re not gonna let this ruin our Thanksgiving, so they eat some lunch meat, like some turkey lunch meat, and treat it like It’s a big deal.

Yeah. Like it gets serious for a minute. Well, for our last Thanksgiving meal it sure was informative. No. Don’t say that. Don’t say this is our last. I think she was just making a joke. No. I got two kids out there that I plan to see again. Calm down. We get it. You don’t know shit, Chris. You don’t have a I don’t have a what, Ken?

A family that gives a shit about me? Maybe you’re right, but at least I don’t love it here. I don’t love it here. Look at how hard you try to be the coolest person working at We Love Toys! Guys, can we not do this right now? Me? And then somebody, somebody later There’s infighting, and somebody later says, We ate turkey together!

Are you kidding?

Todd: This scene just drove me nuts. Basically, they’re in the warehouse part, the back of the store, like you said. Perfectly safe, they’ve got all the doors bolted, there’s hardly any zombies in the store anyway.

Craig: And they’re minding their business! Like, they’ve got a job to do! Like, just leave them alone!

I mean, ultimately, ultimately at the end, they would be in trouble. We’ll get there in a second, but not for now. And they have no idea what’s happening, so they wouldn’t even know about this imminent threat that’s coming. Of course not.

Todd: You’re right, you’re right, the zombies They’re not even out to eat the people.

Well, I guess. I guess they’re out to infect a certain number of them. Yeah. That’s really unclear now that I actually think about it.

Craig: Well, the whole premise is unclear. Was there a quota? We, we don’t know what these things are. We don’t know where they came from. We don’t know what their intentions are.

Even at the end. And we never find out. No. We just see what happens. And God knows what happens after that. Right. Anyway, sorry. Back, back to that. Back to the Thanksgiving dinner scene.

Todd: I thought it was cute that all, they took all of the glowing toys, like, all of the toys, you know, that light up, and piled them all in the middle, almost like it was a little campfire or it was their way of lighting up the room.

It was, that was so cute. Like, there were so many there were lots of little things that would have been

Craig: cute. But they ended up being throwaways. Yes. Like, there’s a whole goddamn character who is a teddy bear. Yeah, oh god. Like, there’s we hear in the beginning an announcement that this teddy bear has been recalled because it’s malfunctioning or something.

But then we see it. It is, it’s called Dour Dennis, and it’s just like this sad sack teddy bear that’s like, Oh boy, work sure was tough today. Oh man, I sure wish I had friends. It’s voiced by Seth Green, like, and it’s, there’s nothing to it. It contributes nothing to the story except at one point it like shorts out and blows up and I think that that is in some way beneficial to the characters.

But it’s just, it’s just literally sitting motionless in the background. I wanted that thing to get up and walk around. Right. Do something. Because it’s, like, you made it a whole character, you cast Seth Green as a voice actor, who Seth Green I think is fantastic, and he does tons of voice work, you know, he voiced Howard the Duck in the Marvel Universe, and he does a lot of voice, I’m not gonna speculate what else, I just know that he does a lot of voice work, and he’s a funny, funny guy, and you cast this guy, and just totally waste him, I mean that shouldn’t surprise me since they did the same thing with Bruce Campbell, you know?

Todd: If you’re gonna do a running gag, the gag needs to run, you

Craig: know? And it needs to be funny! It

Todd: needs to be funny and it needs to run. At least by the rule of three. Yeah. Oh god. I think we see it twice in odd times and it, there’s no payoff at the, you know, it just, it just roll away like you said. Then after they have this moment, which is super contrived and super typical and super written where they all come together But then you know, they tell each other what their faults are, but then also tell each other what they like about each other and I don’t know, it’s supposed to be bonding, or supposed to be angsty, at the end of the day, I don’t even remember why they decide they need to escape in the truck.

Isn’t that what happens? Well that’s what they decide,

Craig: like, I guess that the truck is backed up to the loading dock? And they’re like, oh,

Todd: we can get out by the truck, and uh But nothing

Craig: comes of that! That is a good 20 minutes of the movie, is them getting in the truck, and like, they get in the back part, and then Chris is like, well, I can squeeze out through the top and get into the cab, and we’ll drive away.

Well, he gets into the cab, but he doesn’t know how to drive the truck, and so then, for reasons unknown, he just gets out and walks around a little bit. Yeah! Accomplishes nothing except for drawing the attention of the monsters. Then

Todd: he gets back into the truck, Into the back. And they all get

Craig: out of it, like the, the monsters attack and I don’t know, somebody’s like, well we’re safe in here, which, yeah, duh.

And then somebody else is like, no, they’re super strong, they’ll tear

Todd: this thing apart. Then they open the back, and they stand there, like, they’re gonna go back in the store and suddenly the truck’s not a problem anymore. The truck is just sitting there. Suddenly not being attacked by zombies, nobody’s tearing anything apart, and Bruce Campbell can stand there and say some supposedly badass things.

For about five minutes, before they decide to go back into the store. And they have some other plan, which involves going onto the roof.

Craig: Oh yeah, and they end up on the roof. Meanwhile, Ken is down there in the store, still dealing with the zombies. Doing the die hard thing, yeah. You know, yeah, you know what would be a good idea right now?

I should put on some goddamn roller skates. What was that about? What was that about? He literally, without explanation, sits down, puts on roller skates. This is And then is just in roller skates for a while.

Todd: It does him no good. Again, I would have thrown something at the screen at that point if I had realized the roller skates would have no payoff.

They had no payoff!

Craig: Nothing happened! And then I think he eventually just takes them off again, like he just felt like skating for a minute. But he, I, I think this is when he sees and we see that they’re all kind of coming together and the blob is getting bigger and bigger and bigger and then the other people are on the roof and he ends up on the roof too, but the blob is now so big that it like breaks through the roof and then they jump off, well, no, I lied, Ken’s not up there, he never gets up there, but the other ones are all up there, they, uh, they jump off into a dumpster.

And then, they see that this blob is turning into a kaiju. Yeah. I think somebody even says like, Holy shit, it’s King Kong! Or something like that. But it basically becomes just an enormous, two faced, mutated Zombie, but it’s huge. It’s like the thing. It reminds me of the end of the gate when that giant Oh, yeah, it comes out and it’s big and it’s huge and it’s scary and it’s totally stationary

Todd: Flames by the way licking up all around it I’m pretty sure that you just stood there and let it cook the flames are gonna take care of

Craig: that thing It does kill Brian in a really funny way. Like he tries to to store manage it, like he like tries to talk to it like it’s a customer, which is so stupid. Um, and the way that it kills him is it just like flicks him, flicks him.

And he like flies through the air. It’s like, ah, and then he’s

Todd: gone. What were they thematically trying to do here? There were these lame attempts at trying to connect the movie to the plight of an employee or the customer employee relationship.

Craig: I just have a feeling that they thought that they were really funny and it’s not.

Like, these, these jokes, I, I see what you did there. But, like, it’s, it’s not. It’s not funny. And so then Ken comes out and they’re like, oh my god, you’re alive! And, like, Ken and Chris had fought earlier and they had said mean things to each other so they have to, like, take a second to, like, make up and Kiss or something.

I don’t know. And then, uh, Chris is like, I have a plan. So he jumps in a tiny forklift and starts driving towards the monster. What’s his plan? What is the plan? And it moves, it’s moving at like one mile an hour, like it, he could have walked faster. Oh. And eventually, I don’t know if this was his plan, it’s crazy, the, the monster shoots a tentacle and grabs onto the thing, and he like, uh, the forklift, and he like, puts it in reverse and floors it, so it’s like a tug of war, and then at the last second, he, Throws it in neutral, jumps out, and the tentacle thrusts the forklift at the monster with such force that it impales itself in the

Todd: face.

Yeah, like, it’s huge ass face. You didn’t plan that! It’s huge ass face, it gets poked in the eye, and I thought And then the monster’s suddenly going down, I was like, Is the eye its weakness? I just don’t understand.

Craig: It pulls the forklift out and it’s just standing there like spewing blood for a while and they’re like, Oh no, it didn’t work.

And then it just collapses into the store. And the store collapses around it and they all get in the car and they’re driving away. And I don’t know, they have some stupid dialogue. Oh, they go, Oh, what are

Todd: we doing? Don’t we need to go, don’t you want to

Craig: get pancakes? Oh yeah, uh, we should get some pancakes

Todd: first.

Craig: Yeah, pancakes has been like a running It’s not fair to call it a joke. This girl that he’s got this thing with at work, there’s a whole thing about they’re not really in a relationship, and he’s like, but I was gonna take you out for pancakes! Like, oh, right, that’s the sign of a relationship, if you have pancakes.

Ugh, stupid. So then, they drive away, and we see on the horizon, against the dark sky, that these giant kaiju Are all over the place.

Todd: There’s another one. Was there more than one? I just saw one. Oh yeah. There were at least two or three. Oh, on your tiny screen you saw one. I didn’t know. I did.

Craig: I did. Wow. And that’s it.

That’s the end of that movie. I

Todd: was, I was gunning for the end of this movie. This would have been a movie I would have put in like, uh, speed and a half if, you know, three quarters of the way through. I had realized it was gonna be like this, cause I, it was just a chore for me to get through the inanity of the whole thing.

Ugh, I just didn’t enjoy myself, man. I’m sorry, I didn’t enjoy myself at all watching this, and I wanted to so badly.

Craig: Yeah, I did too, and I was disappointed too, but I would still recommend it. Are you kidding me? No, I really would. I mean, it’s, it’s like, watch it on Thanksgiving, or Black Friday, or during the Christmas season, because there’s a lot of Christmas.

There’s a lot of fun, like there’s Christmas music that they didn’t want to pay a lot of money, um, for the Christmas music, so. I don’t know who it was. Somebody just played, like, live on a keyboard, and, and they, uh, recorded it. When the crowd is released into the store, the song, I was listening to the lyrics, the song was like, I, I don’t have any idea what the melody is, maybe you can find it, but, the words were, Christmas is cancelled this year.

Let’s get the f out of here. Christmas is cancelled forever. And there were other funny musical parts too. The writing is bad. That’s what the problem is because it’s not shot terribly. There, there aren’t enough extras to make it seem believable, but it’s the cinematography isn’t bad. I think that the acting is, is good.

It’s fine. But they were just very, very limited by the

Todd: writing. The lame dialogue.

Craig: The very, very lame dialogue. The, the story is ridiculous, but most horror movies are. I liked these actors. They were I mean, they were good looking. They were I was totally fine with watching them for an hour and twenty minutes.

It’s not a great movie, but I do think I don’t know, if you’re just looking for something not to really, you know, put a lot of thought into, just to Something to decorate your house? Yeah, put it on while you’re decorating the Christmas tree. That would be perfect. I don’t know

Todd: man. Oh perfect Well, you definitely wouldn’t feel like you missed anything if you turned away from the screen But it might want to make you throw your your ornaments across the room from time to time.

I don’t know man I wish I could make some apologies for this movie. Like you said the writing is terrible, but the writing is everything I mean, it doesn’t matter that the picture looks good, or that the actors are cool looking people that I know can act. Yeah. You know, a horror movie has a fairly low bar for us to be entertained.

A comedy, on the other hand, generally has a pretty high bar. Comedy just falls flat so easy if all the right pieces are not in place. And, god, this movie, nothing was in place as far as the comedy went. And it’s supposed to be a horror comedy, and so I did not find it entertaining. And, it’s not gonna be scary, cause it’s a horror comedy, uh, a lot of horror comedies can be scary, but this one, like we said, had no pressure, you didn’t really even feel like the zombies were really after him half the time, they had their own business to attend to, as you said, and everything was kind of unclear, as to, like you said, the stakes, and What they were trying to do and, oh, just a jumbled mess of a movie.

A lot of really great ideas. Yeah. Really great ideas. And like you said, the director of this movie did a great job with the cinematography and staging scenes and things like that. He directed Aerosmith

Craig: videos. Yeah, lots of videos. I think that maybe you and maybe both of us would be more forgiving of this movie if it were a 40 to 60 minute One off in an anthology.

Yeah. Like if this were an episode of Creepshow, and it was 40, 50 minutes, I think if they had tightened it up a little bit. Could have been. Because I do like the premise, I, I do. And, and I, I think there’s something interesting going on with the monster. I think they take a little bit too long. to reveal it.

I just don’t feel as strongly negatively about it as you do. I agree with you that it’s not a good movie, but, um, I don’t, I, I, I didn’t hate it. It wasn’t painful for me to watch. So do it, do with that what you will listeners. Uh, As of the recording of this episode, it is streaming for free on Crackle. Yeah.

So, uh, if you find yourself in a bind where you have nothing else to watch, you could probably do worse, in my opinion. Absolutely.

Todd: You could definitely do worse. We’ve done worse, for sure. I think it’s about time to hear from another patron. How about you, Craig?

Craig: Well, it’s my most favorite part

Todd: of the show.

We’re going to have to get a lot more people sending stuff in or else. No,

Craig: that’s okay. It’s okay. When they dry up, they dry up. That’s fine. Sorry. Uh, who are we going to listen to this time? How about

Todd: Michael? Hey, Todd

Craig: and Craig, this is Michael, and I just wanted to thank you guys for a very enjoyable podcast.

Um, back in the summer of 2018, leading up to Halloween 2018, which has always been my favorite franchise. Halloween 4 was the first horror movie I remember seeing. It scared me to death. Um, I was listening to a different podcast, and then you were probably the second one I ever found. And while some of them can be a little, I’m trying to be nice here, um, self important and, I don’t know, too pigeon holed, I feel like you guys are very, um, good at showing your love for the films, but also having fun and just being yourselves.

I think that’s really great. I think you both have a good sense of humor. I’m also from a small town. So it sounds like both of you guys, one of you is from rural Missouri. I think as a teacher, my mom and my grandmother are both teachers. Uh, or were, they’re both retired, but yeah, I just really appreciate you guys a lot.

Appreciate hearing about your, your, your lives and your, your love for these movies. And I, you know, I love specific series and things, but I also really liked the fact that you guys just watch pretty much anything. Sometimes Craig doesn’t like what you pick Todd, but I find it very entertaining and I really appreciate you guys and I thank you so much for doing this podcast and I love that I’m a Patreon now.

So have a

Todd: great day. I also find it entertaining when you don’t like what I pick, Craig.

Craig: I know you do. You do it on purpose. It’s one of

Todd: my favorite things over

Craig: the years. I don’t do that to you. But, uh, that was really nice. And, and, you know, we hear that sentiment a lot. That, um, you know, I’m not gonna say anything.

I, I really don’t listen to other horror podcasts. I would like to, I just haven’t really stumbled on any. I, I, there are only a couple of podcasts that I listen to. So, uh, if, if you all know any other good horror podcasts, you know, I, I assume that if you like ours, that we would have similar tastes. So, um, let us know, but we’ve heard that before that, like, we just don’t take ourselves too seriously.

And it just seems like we’re having fun. What other way is there? I don’t understand a different way to approach it. Like why would you even want to do it any other way? That doesn’t make sense to me that I do understand. You know, I, I really enjoy hearing, I’m loving these. Voice messages, by the way. Thank you, Michael.

That was very sweet, um, and I really appreciate it. I love that part of it, but another, the big reason that we do it is because We have fun talking to each other. Yeah. Like, if it felt like a job, either one of us would quit immediately, you know what I mean? Well,

Todd: it’s literally the pact we made with each other, right?

Like, as soon as it stops being fun, we’re gonna stop doing it. Yeah. I mean, to be fair, I have looked for other horror podcasts, and I think, um, we have the kind of podcast that we have because this is what we would want to hear. And I’m sure that’s probably true for about anybody who’s out there creating anything.

At least I hope it is. I guess. People create things for different reasons and that’s probably true. I’m sure there are people who very intentionally put together shows that they’re trying to sell or they’re trying to appeal very desperately to a particular market or, or whatever. Or just, once again, the kind of thing that they like that I don’t particularly care for.

Like, I don’t really want to hear somebody go on and on about all the latest horror news, you know, I feel like I could just read that online faster. So that’s not something I want, so it’s not something that I would be excited about adding to our podcast, you know. I’m the kind of guy who I would love to hear another podcast like ours, and not just about horror movies, but really about any movie or any book.

It’s just two people who are just discussing that, you know, don’t go off on crazy tangents, don’t spend the first ten minutes. Bantering about how their day went or talking about people who I don’t know who they are. Inside jokes that

Craig: I don’t know. We just did that. We bantered before this movie for like 20 minutes.

Yeah, but you know I’m

Todd: gonna cut most of that out. Only the patrons are hearing that shit. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Craig: But yeah, but those, those are the types of podcasts I really only listen to a couple, but I, I listen to them pretty religiously.

I, I want to laugh and have a good time. Yeah. And it’s, it’s much easier to do that when you’re laughing with somebody. You know, when, when, when the hosts or, or the hosts and their guests are having fun with each other. Then I’m having fun, and I’m laughing and having a good time right along with them, and that’s what I want to do for other people, too.

I just want to laugh and have a good time. I don’t, we don’t take this super seriously. I mean, we, we try to provide some insight or things that maybe you wouldn’t otherwise know about these movies or whatever, but I just, I just want to have a good time and, and allow other people to have a good time with us.

That’s

Todd: That’s the best part of this. Well, we have no pressure. We have that luxury, right? Like we’re just doing this for fun. So, uh, so yeah, it’s, it’s fun for us. And I, maybe that just comes through, right? If it’s fun for us, it doesn’t feel like a chore then, uh, hopefully, I guess that’s what makes it fun for other people to hear and.

Maybe that explains

Craig: that. Thanks, Michael. And shout out to your mom and grandma. Teachers, teachers

Todd: are awesome. Yeah, they are. Yeah, thanks, Michael. Glad you’re having fun. Alright, until next time, I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

417 επεισόδια

#Horror #Movies #Zombie #Monsters #Cinema #Todd Kuhns #Craig Higgins #Review #Critics

Black Friday

2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

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We kick off the beginning of our holiday horror season much the same way many people kick off THEIR holiday season: Frantic Holiday shopping!

We sure enjoyed chatting about it, and discussing OUR memories of Black Friday madness. Enjoy!

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Black Friday (2021)

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

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Craig: huh?

Todd: So the, so the one we’re doing right now is a movie I had never heard of before.

I know! What is it? Ever since Shot of the Dead, like, every year, there’s like five of these things. And, uh This

Yeah And nothing is ever explained. So don’t be waiting for the explanation because it doesn’t come

Craig: Yeah, it’s not great. Ultimately, that’s gonna be my judgment. Like, it’s not great,

Todd: but I was actively mad at this movie, man.

Todd: me?

No. Wow, we were really cramming it in. We tried to get two podcasts in this week to get a little ad for the holidays and I guess that put you in a rough spot, huh?

I was in vacation mode. So, uh, there wasn’t a whole lot going on in Mr. Higgins’s class that day.

Todd: Why’d you just turn it on for the kids?

Craig: I almost could have, but no, I, I like hid my phone behind my desktop computer and like sat there and pretended I was. Doing something nice

Todd: That might have been the best way to watch this honestly because I’m here in a In a little bungalow, and I plugged my laptop into the TV here.

So I saw it full screen, with the lights off, kind of proper movie style, and maybe it would have been better on a phone, maybe it would have gone down easier. No, I

Yeah. Which, which is a Black

Todd: Friday scene. And I love the opening scene of

Did you ever do the whole Black Friday thing pre pandemic?

Craig: Yeah, or like three in the morning or something. Yeah, and the people

Todd: would literally line up outside the door, camping out overnight, so they could be one of the first people in.

Oh god, it was terrible. It

And so I stood in line at like four o’clock in the morning at Home Depot one time. For a Christmas tree. For a Christmas tree. And raced all of these other middle aged women. Were

Todd: you elbowing old ladies out of the way? Stepping over children.

Craig: Not elbowing, but it literally was, like, I grabbed one of the trees, because it was like, you know, it was a specific tree I wanted.

Are you serious? And I got it cause duh, I’m not gonna let some old bitch beat me.

It was insane. It’s insane, and it needed to be put a stop to and I’m glad that it was, um, so thank you Pandemic for that one little thing. I mean,

I loved that, and I didn’t get hurt or shot doing that, so that was nice.

It is.

Todd: I mean, things have changed so much. Thank God it’s not as insane as this is, uh, anymore. So, I mean, in a way, the movie’s already a little out of date. You know,

Craig: the concept is. A little bit. Those stores don’t even exist anymore. You can’t find, you can’t find a brick and mortar toy store like that anymore.

Giant toy store. Toys R Us, Babies R Us, they all shuttered years

Scattered throughout

Craig: about this movie.

Really? Yeah. Like, he’s a prominent character in both seasons, just a totally different character, and nobody

Todd: talks about it. They just liked having that actor in there. He worked really

Craig: well. And he’s good. He is good in that show. There are frankly Too many people to keep track of. Like I was trying so hard to keep track of all these people.

Todd: in this, yeah.

There’s the bitchy

Todd: Anita gal who’s like the goody goody employee of the month, always trying to do the right thing, and doesn’t, only cares about herself, she kind of pops in. I just watched

Craig: Well, and she’s a Karen. She’s a Karen, yeah.

Todd: But she’s not. Like, she just kind of pops in a couple times, says some douchey things, and

Craig: goes. Says some douchey things like they Happy Black Friday, Anita. Green

Todd: Friday.

Craig: Corporate said Black Friday was racist, so they changed it to Green Friday. Green, like Christmas and money.

Good to know. Oh my God.

Todd: I know. And that was supposed to be funny though. Like that wasn’t funny. Oh, there’s so much of this movie that

wasn’t

Craig: funny. It wasn’t, it, it wasn’t funny, it was, it was kind of frustratingly real. Don’t forget

Todd: also the older lady, who, uh, is supposed to be funny because she’s got a filthy mouth.

Ugh. You know, I, I, what was

Craig: her name? She was a customer, wasn’t she?

Craig: missed that.

What are they like

Yeah. But what also happens is that they open their mouths and this white, fibrous thing shoots out

Then you’re infected, and then you basically turn into a zombie, but you continue to mutate into like some monster from hell.

Craig: time.

It was just mind blowingly,

Yeah.

Craig: To the point

Todd: where they’re just creeping

Todd: hordes

Craig: back, you know? No, no, they’re running into one zombie every once in a while.

I really liked that design, and I thought that it was executed well. It was, it was kind of few and far between, but I liked what I saw.

Craig: of them No, no, there were only a couple and even though There weren’t a lot of the monsters or zombies or whatever they did.

Yeah, don’t draw their attention. It shouldn’t be that

Craig: bonuses? Are they like in your office or something?

And then,

Craig: away. Yeah, the emergency lights are on. It’s not like they’re walking.

Todd: all this kind of humor. Try a

Craig: little bit harder.

Just a little. You’ve got really good actors here, I mean, you’ve got Bruce Campbell. Give Bruce Campbell something to do! Yeah. He has nothing to

Todd: do! Frustratingly so, right? I thought he was gonna get better. And

Craig: he’s, he’s in it! Oh, he’s in it a lot. See, now when I saw that he was the store manager in the office, again, very much like Intruder.

Bruce Campbell is hilarious. And he just kind of stands in the background. Yeah. He talks every once in a while, but he doesn’t have

Todd: anything to say. He doesn’t even get funny lines? Oh, it’s such a, it’s such a waste.

Craig: No, he doesn’t get funny lines. But when the black gay store manager, when he attacks a zombie, he runs at it and screams, BEYONCE!

Todd: What?! That was, I almost threw something at the screen at that

Craig: point.

Todd: Well, his whole character is being set up for an extended Die Hard tribute, basically.

A comedy about all the wacky Cardboard cutout characters in an office. But

Craig: all of those people they have heart.

They have reality to them and none of these people Did I, for one instance, give a shit about.

The movie’s really only an hour and twenty minutes if you Take out the credits. It

Todd: felt longer, but yeah, thank God for

Are you kidding?

Craig: And they’re minding their business! Like, they’ve got a job to do! Like, just leave them alone!

Todd: You’re right, you’re right, the zombies They’re not even out to eat the people.

Well, I guess. I guess they’re out to infect a certain number of them. Yeah. That’s really unclear now that I actually think about it.

Craig: Well, the whole premise is unclear. Was there a quota? We, we don’t know what these things are. We don’t know where they came from. We don’t know what their intentions are.

Even at the end. And we never find out. No. We just see what happens. And God knows what happens after that. Right. Anyway, sorry. Back, back to that. Back to the Thanksgiving dinner scene.

It was, that was so cute. Like, there were so many there were lots of little things that would have been

Todd: If you’re gonna do a running gag, the gag needs to run, you

Craig: know? And it needs to be funny! It

Isn’t that what happens? Well that’s what they decide,

Craig: like, I guess that the truck is backed up to the loading dock? And they’re like, oh,

Todd: we can get out by the truck, and uh But nothing

Todd: he gets back into the truck, Into the back. And they all get

Craig: out of it, like the, the monsters attack and I don’t know, somebody’s like, well we’re safe in here, which, yeah, duh.

And then somebody else is like, no, they’re super strong, they’ll tear

For about five minutes, before they decide to go back into the store. And they have some other plan, which involves going onto the roof.

Todd: It does him no good. Again, I would have thrown something at the screen at that point if I had realized the roller skates would have no payoff.

They had no payoff!

Todd: Flames by the way licking up all around it I’m pretty sure that you just stood there and let it cook the flames are gonna take care of

And he like flies through the air. It’s like, ah, and then he’s

Todd: gone. What were they thematically trying to do here? There were these lame attempts at trying to connect the movie to the plight of an employee or the customer employee relationship.

Craig: I just have a feeling that they thought that they were really funny and it’s not.

Todd: face.

Craig: It pulls the forklift out and it’s just standing there like spewing blood for a while and they’re like, Oh no, it didn’t work.

Todd: we doing? Don’t we need to go, don’t you want to

Craig: get pancakes? Oh yeah, uh, we should get some pancakes

Todd: first.

Ugh, stupid. So then, they drive away, and we see on the horizon, against the dark sky, that these giant kaiju Are all over the place.

Todd: There’s another one. Was there more than one? I just saw one. Oh yeah. There were at least two or three. Oh, on your tiny screen you saw one. I didn’t know. I did.

Craig: I did. Wow. And that’s it.

That’s the end of that movie. I

Ugh, I just didn’t enjoy myself, man. I’m sorry, I didn’t enjoy myself at all watching this, and I wanted to so badly.

It’s fine. But they were just very, very limited by the

Todd: writing. The lame dialogue.

Craig: videos. Yeah, lots of videos. I think that maybe you and maybe both of us would be more forgiving of this movie if it were a 40 to 60 minute One off in an anthology.

So, uh, if you find yourself in a bind where you have nothing else to watch, you could probably do worse, in my opinion. Absolutely.

Todd: You could definitely do worse. We’ve done worse, for sure. I think it’s about time to hear from another patron. How about you, Craig?

Craig: Well, it’s my most favorite part

Todd: of the show.

We’re going to have to get a lot more people sending stuff in or else. No,

Craig: that’s okay. It’s okay. When they dry up, they dry up. That’s fine. Sorry. Uh, who are we going to listen to this time? How about

Todd: Michael? Hey, Todd

Craig: and Craig, this is Michael, and I just wanted to thank you guys for a very enjoyable podcast.

So have a

Todd: great day. I also find it entertaining when you don’t like what I pick, Craig.

Craig: I know you do. You do it on purpose. It’s one of

Todd: my favorite things over

Craig: the years. I don’t do that to you. But, uh, that was really nice. And, and, you know, we hear that sentiment a lot. That, um, you know, I’m not gonna say anything.

Todd: it’s literally the pact we made with each other, right?

Craig: I don’t know. We just did that. We bantered before this movie for like 20 minutes.

Yeah, but you know I’m

Todd: gonna cut most of that out. Only the patrons are hearing that shit. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Craig: But yeah, but those, those are the types of podcasts I really only listen to a couple, but I, I listen to them pretty religiously.

That’s

Maybe that explains

Craig: that. Thanks, Michael. And shout out to your mom and grandma. Teachers, teachers

Todd: are awesome. Yeah, they are. Yeah, thanks, Michael. Glad you’re having fun. Alright, until next time, I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

417 επεισόδια

#Horror #Movies #Zombie #Monsters #Cinema #Todd Kuhns #Craig Higgins #Review #Critics

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