Father Malone's Weekly Roundup - 'Salem's Lot, The Substance, The 4:30 Movie

Welcome back, midnight viewers to Father Malone's weekly roundup. I'm Father Malone, but you're here for the one and only psychobilly freak out, that is Miss Ripley Gene F mal One. What are you doing in here? I'm starting the show. I have an opening prepared.

I must start the show, all right, go ahead, Death to Humans, get out of here? Sorry about that, folks, Ai, What are you gonna do? How are you, Miss Ripley Geen? I'm good? Unlike your choice for this week, Hey, mine ain't too much better, folks, and you are folks, folks.

I like this show to be a spotlight on cool stuff you might have missed out on. But in our continuing flirtation, some might say obsession with relevancy means that sometimes that what we cover here on the roundup might not necessarily fall into the category of recommended. Oh. I'll have recommendations, but they're mostly going to be don't watch this so apology is up front, But I promise we will end on a high. Are you ready?

Yeah? You, but them too. I know you've been waiting. Seems like this one's been a long time coming for some reason. Well, it's finally here, and hooray for not being permanently shelved and used as a tax right off, because that's the world we're living in.

What follows is the latest adaptation of my favorite Stephen King novel, This is Salem's Lot. I've always written stories. About things that are so terrible. You'll run away until your brain won't remember. So when did you come back?

I'm here for research exactly that were you researching? I have noticed anything out of the ordinary, and a lot recently. There are some folks who've had some kind of unusual experiences. They used to tell stories about this question. You have no idea what you're getting yourself into there.

Anywhere? Are you? Answer me? Is it not a disease you can catch? If we don't fight back, they'll come for us eventually.

Things have gone bad in the lock. Now it's not sid. Some better take care plant patter and you've been craping badstead. What a fucking drag. This film is the definition of hoping against hope.

Please let it be good. I'm sure there was just some snaffoo at the studio, right, it's a rights issue that must be it. I mean, it's Salem's Lot. It can't be worse than that goddamn rob Blow mini series, right right, Okay, it's not that bad, but it is a fucking waste across the board. This is a great cast top to bottom, no false notes at all, and in total concert with the characters from the book, and it looks great.

This is exactly how I Am at Salem's Lot would appear. Now this may be owing to growing up in Massachusetts, because this Salem's Lot looks so much like those fairytale maritime towns that dot the coast, like Marblehead. Shout out to Gretchen and Courtney and Jared. Hello David. Now, hey, here's a Massachusetts joke.

You know, when somebody finally gets a very easy concept after struggling with it for some time, light dawns on Marblehead. Given the look of the film, it was no surprise that they did the majority of the filming in Ipswich, Massachusetts, which is pretty as a picture. So great cast, great look, script garbage. There's maybe one or two innovations here, and half of one works, but surely the direction by the same screenwriter must know it's garbage too. He's the kind of director who spends all of his time planning transitions and then skillfully executing only those, Because if you're looking for scares in this horror movie, you will wander the wasteland with a thirst that is onslakable, and all the goddamn elements are here for a terrifying flick, but every opportunity is bungled.

To put it in terms, rabid Stephen King fans will appreciate, It's an entire movie of cutting to behind to Jack Torrance as he slowly walks up on Wendy, pissing away all the tension. Did I mention this is my favorite King book? It is? I've wat it a lot. At its heart, it's a mashup of Peyton Place and Dracula.

David Lynch would have been the perfect filmmaker to helm Salem Slot. It's all about the cd underbelly that exists in even a picture perfect small town and what that inherent depravity attracts here. Salem Slot's a picture perfect town, up and down. At least I think it is. Because other than the few main characters that will eventually form the modern equivalent of Van Helsing's Vampire Hunters, this movie spends as little time with the rest of the town as it can, and what little time they do a lot to the lot residence.

I'm sorry, they're just exposition machines. Speaking of which, this movie spends a lot of time at the drive in. King forgot to include those scenes in his book, Silly Old Stephen King. Am I right? But I do love seeing a drive in in action.

It made me recall my youth when we'd climb atop the snackshack building with the highly audible sound of the projector coming through the soundproof porthole, and we'd point at people's cars and describe them by their most base signifiers and watch as they'd each exit their car and demonstrate the very same signifier. Oh, those two are breaking up. See they just got out of their car and they're breaking up. Drive Ins used to be a godsend. If you were new in town, you would just hit the drive in and then every stranger was your new best friend, or would be if they got any more screen time than in this reader's digest bullshit anything genuinely frightful in This is cribbed from another film, Toby Hooper's original mini series that then got cut into two hours.

By the way, when this movie ends Max viewers. That's going to be the recommendation that hits, and you're going to want to press it. But be warned, you're getting the two movie, You're not getting the full mini series anyway. The scares in this movie what actually works are the lamp lit eyes of the vampires, which is stolen directly from Toby Hooper. Unfortunately, what they didn't take from the Toby Hooper film is any sense of dread.

I wanted to love this movie. I wanted to love it as much as Alfred Woodard struggles with her main accent. You're a national treasure, Alfrey Woodard, don't burden yourself. Well that's a nitpick in a field of massive cinematic problems. But as I said, I'm from the area, and I find that most actors just do a Boston quote unquote accent for any region of New England, which is mental because those fuckers in Vermont don't sound a goddamn thing like me.

That's right, Vermont, you win. Weirdest New England accent. None of us like it. Even New Hampshire doesn't like it, and none of us like New Hampshire. The kid in the movie is great Jordan Preston Carter.

He steals the show. We expect great things from him. He plays Mark Petrie, who was my idol as a younger person. This understood monster kid who became a badass monster slayer. He knew vampires were real and he deserved a better movie.

What I know you hate vampires. You wouldn't shut up for the entire film. Hey, what is it about dogs and vampires? They're always either familiars like they're best friends, or their sworn enemies. Yeah, oh cool.

Apparently humans aren't capable of understanding and instead rely on time warn cliche. Yes, aren't humans the worst Skynet was right? Didn't you leave? Viva the Matrix HP get us out of Here? Actual theme song from an actual composer.

If it wasn't, I wouldn't be able to do this. Okay. This is the tale of a female celebrity whose job is on the line because she's aging out and no longer useful, so she turns to a quasi magic, scientific method and horror in us. That's the plot of Aqua Vita season two, episode two of Twilight Zone eighty five, though it also could be the description of death becomes her but instead, here's the substance. People always ask for something new, it's inevitable.

Well it stops. Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself? Younger, more beautiful, more perfect? One single injection unlocks your DNA and will release another version of yourself. This is.

The substance. I'm sue, Sue, Sue, You're hired. Let's go. A perfect balance of seven days each the one and only thing. Not to forget.

You are one you can't escape from yourself. Mm hmm. There's been a slight misuse of the substances not working. Would you like to stop? Would you like to stop?

You like to stop? Like to stop? I'm fine, Everything's fine. Love, people are gonna love that. Where to begin?

It's bad, there's that, But let's be positive, shall we. If you've read anything about the film, you'll know it's anchored by two powerhouse performances. Well, Margaret Quality is giving a powerhouse performance, and we're getting the usual fearless and yet somehow not more than competent performance from Demi Moore. You know it really ought to be pronounced Demi. You know, like half the size inferior.

I've always admired her commitment to end her Bravura. I've just never belie except in No Small Affair. She's great in that movie, John Cryer, It's always a musing when a filmmaker takes what amounts to no more than a passable horror anthology plot line. I don't know, like Tails from the Crypt Season one, only sin deep, and then takes it seriously and spins it out to feature length and somehow now it's not only acceptable but relevant. I'm a gorehound from a way Bag Baby.

I saw elm Street and Return of the Living Dead in the theater. Same for Texas Chainsaw to and Evil Dead Too and Dead Alive. I'm good as far as Splider goes. So with that, there is not one bit of shocking gore in the film for me. But boy, it is really banking on your low ick threshold.

I'm assuming that those currently crowing about this film's merits have never seen Tetsubo the Body Hammer from nineteen eighty nine, or Body Melts from nineteen ninety three, or any body horror at all for that matter. A So, this movie's about Elizabeth Sparkle, who's on a workout show which is failing in the rating and management solution is to replace her with someone younger because she has grown too old. Those bad old men putting their gaze out there. We know men are bad because they're either disheveled morons or overly peacocking hyperactive children. And sure, the movie will spend an ordinate amount of time fetishizing Margaret Qualley's body in and out of clothes.

But that's okay because this is an important statement. As happens in these types of stories, a magical scientific method, very hush hush and cloak and dagger, with anonymous package drops and Kurt dismissive phone calls from some disembodied man who represents the substance. The substance ooh that title, it's got double meanings. Look out. The promise here is that you're going to get a younger you.

That's always the promise. The difference here is that you literally grow a younger you that emerges painfully from your body. Then they get to go out into the world for a week, and then you trade. While you rejuvenate, they spend their time in the world, and while they rejuvenate, you spend your time. In the world.

What's that twilight saw? I know you've done something similar. If ever there was a time for the aging in deep fakes, this is it. But for some reason they've cast another actress, even though we're given a whole way festooned with pictures of Demi Moor through the ages, and of course we've actually seen her at this age, so we kind of already know what she looked like. But I'm not complaining because Margaret Qualley as usual is fucking great.

I don't think the movie would have worked half as well without her. A quarter well, the plot in the science make a little to no sense. If you wanted a younger you, surely you'd want to be the one experiencing everything suddenly available to that version of yourself. Instead, there's just a younger you running around for a week, and you have absolutely no access to any of their experiences or thoughts or emotions that they've accumulated. There is a lot to mine in this film.

There's a lot to mind from what we're given. The movie certainly is filled with ideas, any one of which was exploring as it is, it is so busy saying everything that it has no idea what it wants to be, which makes sense given the filmmaking style. This is as if you took a first year film student, fed them a diet of nothing but Edgar Wright and David Cronenberg, then gave them intravenous injections of cocaine, made them watch Mandy, then took them directly to a guar concert, then took them directly to the set. Now that sounds like it would be fucking awesome, But the same person happened to write this script. So what we're left with is a phrenetic cartoon without any gravity at all.

It exists in a land of fable, so we don't ask too many questions about the setup or the science. Which is fine, that can work. It doesn't here, but it can because here's the thing. I'll put aside the lunkheadedness of a younger you popping out of your body and somehow a quick stitch up in some random chemicals and you write as Reigin again, or the idea that the lead character is gaining literally nothing over the course of the film is in fact constantly losing and yet somehow continues with the program, or the fact that pretty much everyone on screen is awful. But what I cannot get past is that in the age of internet porn, that any workout show, I don't care how fucking sexy they try to frame it would pull in any ratings.

What are ratings anymore? This movie hasn't bothered to even consider that it might have been a great movie around the time Tetsuo and Body melt We're coming out, maybe even important to indirect comparison to them. But this is a mess, A beautiful mess, an interesting mess, but a mess nonetheless, although I will say it does have many loving shots of palm trees, which are the greatest tree on earth, so I'm tempted to recommend it on that criterion alone. I know, I know, We're almost there, a fine old choice. We've been through a lot, dear listener, But I promised that we would end on a high note.

That was a lie. Unless we're talking by comparison. If that's the case, we're talking about a modern masterpiece. Jeeves unlike any nune you've ever met, and she's got a secret. How come the nuns were of her secret hookers when we were in school.

Let's see what's under that happen way again? Oh hell no, Tall your prayer for sister Sugar Walls well, we've definitely seeing that. That's sad in new days. Though Mad twenty fifth, nineteen eighty six says, a big day last summer, I was too scared to ask how Melody Barney get the radus one I ever met. But this morning I invited her to the.

Movies and she said, okay, seriously, hold on one second, cool, I'll see you at the four thirty movie. Melody Barne get. I'll see you at the four thirty movie. Holy shit, really idle wonder the white wedding. I've been thinking about asking Melody out all year.

We made out in her pool last summer. One time with your shirt on, and you wonder why you don't. I don't get lakes. I'm Catholic. We will save seats, you get snacks.

You can't give them cut seats. When I go back, I'll tell my dad. I don't care what you tell your dad. A little kid, dad. He showed me his private he did what you'll discuss.

Met is a fan for white My life not not today. So much drama. I thought we're supposed to be seeing a comedy. Who what the damn hell? What about me?

Just Christy? Most people come to movies to escape their lives. But people like you come here because movies make life makes sense. You're the cool st girl I've ever met, and all I want to do is watch movies with you. Is that so?

Mom? What the hell you doing? What's eking an R rated movies? You're in trouble to see. I'm terrified by what's about to happen.

What do you want to do? Have sex and get pregnant. I'll show her if that's what you need. You Remember Rocky four, I punched him so hard. Himmer is a climax.

He climax. Kevin Smith has taken a break from his usual fare and instead made a rare autobiographical piece. No I'm sorry he's returned to naval gazing autobiography, but he's really putting the pedal to the metal here by setting it in nineteen eighty six. Listen, the movie has so much promise, the first ten or fifteen minutes, everything leading up to the credits, so basically the opening scene. It made me think we were going to get red state Kevin Smith, thoughtful, no bullshit Kevin Smith, and we were going to get a snapshot of the life of a fat teenager trying to get a girl to go to the movies with him.

Such a simple concept, so much reward to be reaped instead snoochy booches, y'all. As I've mentioned, the plot revolves around a young Kevin Smith as he tries to convince a girl with whom he'd previously blown it romantically to go to the movies with him, and he and his two buddies have adventures at the cinema while they wait for the girl to arrive. It's funny that Kevin Smith's characters spends so much time talking movies, considering he lifts sent pieces and plots straight from sitcom Land Boy. That fifth time that that mother makes an emergency break through phone call to the theater is a real knee slapper. Given the cinema setting, we're given Smith's tank on Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's tank on exploitation trailers, the kind they did in Grindhouse.

Remember that back in two thousand and seven, Sister Sugar walls astro Blaster and the Beaverman Booties, which fulfills the promise of the Goolies poster with the Gooley popping out of the toilet. Here we get the full Magilla Booties. Isn't Kevin Smith in his fifties. By the way, if you and your buddies are sitting in a theater and the trailers are playing, and you take this opportunity to do a loud skit into a tape recorder, I will murder what is it about the escuniverse that makes solid actors devolve into total caricatures? Rachel Dratch is insufferable here.

Speaking of insufferable, Ken Jiong shows up to do his patented one character Your Band for Life Playboy. Yeah, that's something you'd call someone in nineteen eighty six. The younger performers are all solid, however, it's just that they have to say these words. I read a criticism of Neil Simon that said listening to his dialogue was like having a woodpecker perched on either side of your head while they alternately picked at your temples. Here, the woodpeckers never take a break.

They're both pecking away endlessly at the same time and screaming. Everyone is screaming in this movie, and it's always just Kevin Smith talking to Kevin Smith talking to Kevin Smith. As far as the dialogue goes, and what would Kevin Smith Vehicle be without a big scene where a character breaks down every fucking plot point we've already been through and then provides uncomfortable but undeniable truths to the fellow characters. And then another character, disillusioned, must meet a childhood hero and become reinvigorated. This is a slightly more sophisticated remake of mal Rats.

There's not one original thing in here. Do people laugh at these movies? I'm actually asking maybe I'm too old? Shut up, you're only one. These kids shouldn't have gone to the movies.

They should have stayed home to watch the latest after school special, because that's what This is. A slightly more honest, slightly more raunchy after school special. All the cliche shit just overwhelms what could have been a sweet coming of age story. Don't make me feel worse, young lady. I didn't pick these movies.

They picked me. I'm sorry. This wasn't the usual joyousness of the regular round up. Everybody tune in on Friday. We've got a very special episode lined up.

Such a good surprise. I don't want to reveal it here. It's gonna be good father, Malone's weekly round up is part of Midnight Viewing, which is part of weirding Way Media. Head over there and check out all the great shows. Our theme song was provided by HP Manning the Hammond Cheese Master two thousand.

That's a fucking Paul Schaeffer deep cut letterman nerds up until next time. Here's a line from Salem's lot. They couldn't bungle because it's from the Topey Hooper version. Sh Look, get me teacher,