S7E3. Leftovers to be: Parents (1989)

Wake Up Heavy is a weirdy Way media podcast. Not before that, they were leftovers to be. Welcome to Wake Up Heavy, the world's greatest horror movie podcast. On this episode, my weird dad and his friends will be talking about coming soon. Randy Quaid, Mary Ben Hurt, Sandy Dennis, and director Bob Ballaban bring you a fresh look at family life.

The Loveley family is moving up the world Rise and Shine, but something is eating at young Michael Lemley. You're not scared of your room, are you? Michael? The Cellar's dark. Everything dark at night.

His parents think Michael's problem is in his head, but Michael knows he is on his plate left every Sunday, left over from one from the refrigerator. We all leftovers every day since we moved here. I'd like to know what they were before they were leftovers. Before that, they were leftovers to be, Michael, there's nothing to be right now. Now there's a new name for terror parents better meat for better you.

That's perfect. Hello and welcome to Wake Up Heavy. This is Mark Begley, your host. Joining me once again is Christashu from the Culture Cast. I like meat, I like the way it tastes.

Make sure to eat up your phil boy boy, I love Randy Quaid. Who doesn't love Randy Quaid as like the most menacing the most men. I'm sure there's quite a few people right now that don't care Randy Quader. God. Yeah, Today we are discussing the nineteen eighty nine film Parents, directed by Bob Balaban and starring Randy Quaid and Mary Beth Hurt as the parents of Brian Madorski.

I believe this is his sole credit, as well as Sandy Dennis, Deborah Rush and Cram Jarvis. Wade and Hurt play the parents of little Michael, and he thinks they might be cannibals. Good night, folks, I mean that's the I mean, yeah, what's funny is how similar this is to something we just talked about. And I know that this is why we're talking about it, but I didn't expect it to be like the same thing. But you know what, actually good and Chris is of course referring to Cobweb, which was the impetus for us doing this episode.

And I have to thank the Red Letter media guys again for sort of planning that seed in my head, although I may have come to that on my own if I hadn't watched their video as well, you would have. You're a smart cookie because there are a lot of similarities in this between the family dynamic, the setup, the eventual payoff. We've got dreams in both both the boy protagonists have creepy dreams all the time, suspecting their parents of awful things, making hideous drawings at school, and getting the attention of their teacher and or school psychologist in this case. A lot of points you can connect, I think between the two Nebraska's Own Sandy Dennis, you mean Nebraska's own great Nebraska's O. I love Sandy Dennis To say that she is a better character than the character that is her compatriot in Cobweb is to be mild about it.

It's a real character in this movie. I was thinking about when you're watching the me, I'm like, who does she always remind me of? And I just kept going back to well her as I remember seeing her later and stuff when I was growing up, and then when I finally started watching earlier movies, older movies, and when she shows up and who's afraid of Virginia Wolf? And just like, oh, she's just been doing this forever. That quirky, like I don't know what her affect is, but it's that's great.

She doesn't get to do it as much in this because she's not in the movie all that much, but anytime she shows up in something, it's just fun to watch. He's great. I think everybody in the movie is pretty good. Yeah. Has Randy Quaid been this creepy in any other movie?

That's what I was trying to think of when I was watching it, because he's really fucking creepy in this. This is like proto Elijah c. Scuggs in a way, like he's very menacing, but he's menacing with that like undercurrent of maybe it's not menacing, and I'm just a child seeing it through the eyes of a child, and it just could be menacing because it's an adult. That's why these kinds of movies tend to be movies that are made over and over this theme, which is like you are a kid and your parents are up to no good. Maybe, and that's because of the power differential between a parent and a child.

Is it menacing? Is it for real? This movie gives you the answer, but it speaks to the larger, quoestquestion of the or the larger experience of being a child and growing up and you know your parents being at times your protectors, possibly your parents being your antagonizers. It just depends on what relationship you had with your parents growing up, and this movie tries to kind of straddle all of those lines at once. But the idea of like I am a kid, my parents might be up to something and nobody's going to believe me is a potent idea that will never not be one worth mining.

I feel like clearly since Cobweb came out like a month ago, and it's pretty much asking the same question that this movie asked in eighty nine. Are they antagonizing or are they just being parents? And this movie takes place in the fifties, sometime in the fifties, later fifties. I'm assuming, just by the aesthetic that they're going for the days of do as I say, not as I do, and children should be seen and not heard. And to a kid that's so wrapped up in his own head that can be perceived as menacing, right is his Randy Quaid's character.

Is his menacingness the result of being a cannibal? Or is it just he's a stern father. The movie never answers that question. I mean the movie thought the movie doesn't answer the question is said the movie doesn't need to answer that question because that answer is ultimately unimportant because he is a cannibal, right, that's the thing. I mean, he is a cannibal.

But in another movie where there is no cannibalism and there is nothing else going on, it's just because he's a dickhead dad. He's just an overbearing, controlling father from the fifties. Yeah, expected a cocktail when he walked through the door and would backhand you or your mom because that was acceptable at the time. It's not anymore. It wasn't then either, but now it is widely accepted.

You don't smack your wife around, You widely accept you don't smack your kids around. In the fifties, though, catch a hand like, no, this isn't me being hyperbolic, like that's just the way it was like, and it was Nobody made a big deal out of it, the wishy washiness or the problems that I think we both had with Cobweb. Where are they bad? Right? Right?

The movie never taking a stand on it, and did they deserve what happened to them. Maybe isn't really the issue here because we don't have an outside force actively getting little Michael to do things he's No one is telling him, hey, you need to take care of your parents, right so I can get out of the wall. Yeah, this is being internally driven by the character himself, which I actually appreciated a lot more because I think it gives them the character of Michael a lot more autonomy, a lot more of an ability to feel like he can affect the world around him, as opposed to being the peon for something else that has its own agenda for him doing what he's doing. I appreciate that he has this kind of autonomy of his own to do what he wants.

Whether or not there's a validity to what he's doing is a different question. Again. The movie shows us that he is clearly in a house with Cannibal. There's no ambiguity here, which I appreciate. I mean, it needs to be said that with the lack of ambiguity just comes a lot more menace from Randy Quaid's character, because at some point they're like, now you can be off the leash and given to your worst impulses of this character and let that come through.

But there's none of that if the movie ends with an ambiguous note, similarly to the way the characters in Cobweb died, like they just died, and it's like, well, we don't even know what to feel anymore, and the movie doesn't care at that point. Like this movie, the entire focus of the movie is the parents, which I think works as a better main antagonist than the parents being secondary antagonist, because that's ultimately also what Cobweb ended up being is it sidelines those two characters because they don't really matter anymore. And it's like here they give Mary Beth Hurt and Randy Quaids so much time to do their thing that it's like, this is a superior movie. And what makes me sad about this movie more than anything else is My Boyfriend's Back was so bad.

I watched that like a year and a half ago, and I didn't think anything of it until I was done watching this. I was like, where was all of this in that movie? Like Ballaban has such a command of everything that's going on here, and My Boyfriend's Back is such a such a failure compared to how much of a success this movie is. Yeah, he hasn't done a whole lot and I think that's the only other movie I've seen of his, and I I'm not even sure that I saw it. I felt like when I was scrolling through his filmography that one rang a bell, but I couldn't really say one way or the other.

And he hasn't directed a whole lot else. No, this My Boyfriend's Back and The Last Good Time, and then like I mean, plenty of television as recent a lot of TV. In terms of movies, it's this horror movie, that horror movie because it's a zombie movie, and then The Last Good Time, which seems like a straight drama more so than these are. But I mean, the difference between this and My Boyfriend's Back is this isn't written by the same writer. Bob Balaban didn't write this either.

This is written by Chris Hawthorne. I forget who wrote My Boyfriend's Back. Balaban found the better project as his opening salvo for his directing career, and I like a lot of the choices that he makes. M M. He makes choices which I appreciate for a first time director because there are so many first time directors that play it safe, and look, there's nothing wrong with playing it safe.

If I were given the opportunity, I would try to toe the line of the two, because you can just go ape shit and do some really wild stuff that nobody has any idea how to process, or you can kind of do a little bit of both, and Balaban does both. I mean, there are a couple of shots in this movie that I was like, what is happening here? But it's what is happening here because I've never seen it before, because this is a direction that Ballaban is taking his own movie. It's not wild swings like Orson Wells did with Citizen Kane. But it's fun to see someone employing really great, not trick shots, but kind of shots that in a normal family drama wouldn't be necessary, a lot of low angle, a lot of steady cam work, but with the camera really on somebody's feet right.

One that I really noticed that I love because I love when other directors do this as well is one of the first meals that they have, and she's got a big platter of this absolutely noxious meat that they eat throughout the movie. She grabs a platter and it's framed very low in the camera, and then she starts moving toward the table and it's like she's floating because she's obviously on a rig of some sort, and then steps off and puts the food on it, And I just love Martin Scorsese employs that trick a lot. That dull. I forget what it's called, but having the character on a dolly and moving them with the camera, and it's every time I see it. Speckley uses it a lot, Scorsese uses it a lot.

It's one of those things that catches my attention. And here it makes sense because it's like a force is bringing this meat to the table. It adds the level of disquieting strangeness that this movie needs. And I wonder, and again, this is my own head canon of what's going on, But in a lot of ways, it feels like this story is being recounted to us in terms of like a unreliable narrator. I'm not saying that this guy's parents weren't cannibals, but can you imagine running into Michael as an adult in him going, now, let's sit down over a drink and I'm gonna tell you this story about how my parents were cannibals, you know what I mean.

It's like, there are plenty of people that have had experiences growing up that are as horrifying as this in terms of like the level of abuse, level of manipulation that being shown on screen between the two characters towards their son. If you ran into this guy in real life, you would not trust anything he says, because this story would sound so fantastical, and those fantastical elements appear throughout the story, like you said, with some of the characters floating, or these weird fantastical elements of his dreams that are I saw that it said Ken Russell finds this to be a Lynch movie, a David Lynch movie. I couldn't find the interview where he said that. It just says that on Wikipedia, but I couldn't find an interview where he said it specifically.

He said it's better than Blue Velvet, which is interesting because this movie lives in a certain space for me. I don't know when I saw it, and we didn't forgot to do this a little bit when we opened up, but I know I saw it on video back shortly after it came out. It wouldn't have been in the theater the first run. I was gonna say, I'd be surprised if you saw this theater. Well, I mean, I knew who Bob Balaban was and most of the actors.

I just mean like this kind of movie, Like I feel like it came out nobody saw it, and then it might not have even played here, to be honest with you, right exactly. It lives in the same space for me as Blue Velvet and a couple other movies from the mid to late eighties that have a really strange tone, blue Velvet being one of them, obviously, and then Tough Guys Don't Dance. I don't know if you've ever seen that. Story Wise, it has nothing in common with Blue Velvet or Parents. But it's weird and there are surreal touches in it, and it's acted strangely, and there's a lot of weird dialogue in it, and oh then, oh God, oh Man, Oh God, Oh then, oh God, oh Man, oh God, oh Man, oh God.

And then also River's Edge, which isn't really I mean, there's some strange stuff in it. Dennis Hopper's character is strange and a lot of stuff he does, but it's more a since it's based on a true story. It's more grounded in reality. It's that uncovering of suburban evils right right in that case in River's Edge, it's you know, real evils and blue velvet. It's more the facade versus the reality behind the facade and or underneath where the bugs live.

And in this it's weird people living in an a frame house, mid century modern life, playing their exotic Brazilian music and possibly eating other people, probably most likely. I mean, the smartest thing this movie does is we never see we never see the act of people being cut up. We just see someone dies, We see a body sometimes and then we see the meat. It goes back to the idea of like unreliable narrator, right, And I'm like a fairy tale aspect or quality to this movie, but there is a again like not tall tale, but it is like more in tune with like a grim fairy tale, at least in terms of the tone and in terms of like the level of violence that we see, because the grim fairy tales weren't exactly sanitized and this isn't either.

And I think that's what makes this fun is that it does speak to again, the real experience of being a child and growing up. As we get older, our relationships with our parents change, and as a thirty year old versus you as you know, a fifty year old. My relationship with my parents is different than yours, not just because of who they are, but because the age that we're at and when you're a child, your parents, like I said, are just it's such a weird relationship that to look back on it, it's very different than like putting yourself and being in that position, because I don't remember what it's like to have that little autonomy over my life. It must be terrifying thinking about it now, like thinking back on it, right, And they're your whole world and you, I mean, you've at school and you might have some friends, but you get your information from them.

So if they're feeding you bunk, that's what you believe. Like his for example, his story when he's introduced at school, he and the other new girl in class are asked to present a new fact and the girl tells him if you use an onion instead of an olive in a martini, it's called a gibson. And then he tells a story about if you take a black cat and broil it on the oven, and you peel up the skin of the bones and take it off, and you chew on the boom. You'll be in visual if your parents tell you shit like that or whatever. I mean not to say that that's where that story comes from, but what if they said that to you to keep you from doing something?

Or although that seems like that might give kids an idea of skinning and deboning a cat so that they could become visible. But however we gained that information, his parents weren't there to filter it out for him, so they can put junk in or not take out the junk that's already there. And I read something on IMDb, so I never thought of this, but that his little tale, and then some of the other stuff implies that they're witches because they come from Massachusetts. And I've never I've seen this movie a good half dozen dozen times over the years, and that never really entered my mind. And this explains why they're cannibals, because there's no magic in them.

There's no sense of magic in the movie. No is there needed an explanation beyond the fact that they just eat people right right? I don't know, I mean, you know, the consumption of human flesh and the transubstantiation is a thing. I mean again, like there's a weird religious undertone that you could take with this movie of like that one kid who's told all the weird things by his parents and then he goes and parents it at school and everybody looks at him and goes, what the fuck are you learning at your house? Pal?

Is that as crazy as a kid coming in and spouting some wild shit that he heard from his parents in this day and age, Like, that's what I thought when that kid stands up. When Brian mcdursky stands up and goes, you know, cat bones and some it's like that's no different than saying, you know, five G gives you you know right right right. But it's like if he were homeschooled, you could make a kind of a different case. And if this movie were made now, you would have the kid be homeschooled so that there is a further isolation idea that you can play with. So then he goes to the homeschooling.

But that's the thing, like in Cobweb, what they should have done, and again, like what I would do if it were me now is you would have the kid be homeschooled, but then he would go and talk to the other homeschooled kids. If you have a kid who's homeschooled, you can isolate them even further in the narrative and really ratchet up the tension. Because here some of the tension comes away with the Sandy Dennis character because she comes into the house, she finds it, so it's like, all right, so we know there's something going on here. If it's a homeschooled kid, like, there's even less interaction with an outside world, and there's even more of a reliance. That's the thing that I appreciate about this movie that Cobweb didn't do is that it is made clear how much this kid relies on his parents because of his age, because he is a little bit younger as well.

So him being a little bit younger I think suits the narrative. But to answer your question about the witches, I don't know where the fuck people would get that from because they mentioned a black cat, Like is that why? Like that's the other thing, right, Oh, black cat must be witches? Like do witches eat human flesh traditionally? I guess I mean the eat kids, right, And the witch.

Yeah, she gobbles up a baby so she can fly. But it's a sentence taken out of context people. Yeah, I guess, so, I mean, which is I mean, yeah, witches eat it was interesting me. Yeah, I mean, hey, I gess sure. I mean it's as good an explanation as anybody.

I don't think the movie needs an explanation. I don't really want an explanation to the fact, right. That sort of dulls the horrificness of people eating other people if there's a reason for it. Yeah, Do I need a reason why Rady Quait eats people other than the fact that he likes to eat people? No, Because, like Stu Macher and Billy Loomis and Scream, it is scarier when you don't explain everything and put a name to it, when you're just like, these fucking people are nuts and that's just their choice to be nuts, Like there's no exterior motive here.

Yeah, And I just took their moving around, as you know, we got to keep on the move because at some point somebody is going to find out what we're doing. And they don't say specifically that they are constantly on the move. That's sort of me just thinking you know, they've moved to a new town. It's a big deal. It's the opening of the movie, is them going to their new house.

He starts a new school. There's a little bit of a pin put on it that makes it seem like they've had to move against their wishes. And whether it was from Massachusetts or somewhere else is irrelevant. You know, that's fine. I mean, people can interpret things however they want to interpret them.

You mentioned earlier about or we've kind of hinted at the fact that it's not a gray area, that it's black and white, that we do understand by the end of the film that they are actually eating people. I almost wish it was still a little bit more ambiguous. The very end of the movie would hit a little bit harder. A lot of times, I like being able to make up my own mind, because, like you said, he doesn't really see anything, the boy Michael, he never sees anything other than that dead body. Right.

That's the intriguing thing, is him not seeing anything and just thinking his parents are I mean, ready thinks his parents are weird. He's weird too, Let's not forget that, right, And that's what I mean, Like he That's why I said, like, if you met him as an adult, there's no way that you're not already kind of taken aback by him, just in general, because he is clearly the best I can tell. He's a child with a lot of anxiety, understandably so, but I mean again, he's also someone who's going to deal with anxiety later in life, and that's going to present itself. However, but he would not be a reliable narrator if you were listening to his story at all. His clues are not really presented until later.

He's suspicious right away, or we don't know how long he's been suspicious of his parents, but at some point he asks, we moved, cared to know what they were before? They were leftovers before that they were leftovers to be and they're like leftovers and he's like leftovers from what use? Leftovers from the fridge, you know, Thanks Dad for the technical answer to my question. He spies on his dad at the Toxico plant that he works at making an agent orange style defoliant, which is I always get to kick out of, and does see him kind of cutting up the dead bodies that they have there, and I'm assuming that the dead bodies are people that have been poisoned by the products that they make. That seems to be the general impression I get from that.

Right, there are a lot of them in that basement that they're working in. Yeah, and then the leg in the basement, I think is I don't have a problem with it because it's the scene itself is frightening, and I think that's needed in this a little bit. But maybe the body that Sandy Dennis discover is the part that I think is a little too much. I agree. I actually agree one hundred percent.

It's the one moment in the movie I wish wasn't in the movie. Yes, Randy Quaidd chasing after his son at the end of the movie. Yes, Randy Quaid is trying to kill his son question Mark at the end of the movie, But his son also attacked him, right His son hit him with a baseball bat. His son stabbed the shit out of him. Like, I'm not saying that this guy's response is correct, but I can understand from the characterization that we've seen so far of the character that this might be somewhat of a believable response in the character's mind to what he's doing.

I would take that one singular moment out of the movie entirely because I think, to your point, it gilds the lily just a bit too much because it doesn't need it. It doesn't need it. Everything we've seen, the way the shots are edited, the juxtaposition of the dialogue with some of the way the shots just happen, give you, as the audience, enough information to go. The movie is telling me that there is a level of suspicion here that cannot be ignored with what these parents are doing. Whether it is cannibalism one hundred percent or not, maybe is unimportant.

But the parents are being fuck looking weird. And that is the big takeaway, is that the parents are being weird. Yeah, because it serves no real purpose other than to frighten her, because she's going to end up getting killed anyway, Sandy Dennis, with no repercussions. But maybe she could have looked in the freezer that they have down there and seen something odd that spooked her, or just been spooked by the rat or whatever, or little Michael could have locked her down there just being a creep because he's kind of a creep, and she gets out and gets taken out by I'm assuming the mom that's the mom It's got to be the mom. The hands, the hands look smaller than Randy Quait.

I mean, I love that whole scene of the attack in that cupboard or in the pantry. That's the scariest moment in the movie. For me. That was genuinely a unpleasant for me to watch because I have a little bit of claustrophobia and that moment is just like, just bash your way out. If she's able to stab through it, you're able to break through it.

So jump out at him because you're just allowing yourself to be stabbed. At the shots and the way it's edited and then the music is just so I don't know, it's so like trying to disarm what's going on, and I don't know. I was immensely a huge fan of that scene, but also it was successful for the reason Bob Balabant shot at the way that he did. It's an unnerving scene. Yeah, and I'm not unnerved by much in movies anymore.

It takes a lot or yeah, me too simple. I feel like the lead up to that could have played out differently to where we're still not sure. Obviously, again, like in Cobweb, we can assume now, because it doesn't appear that Michael has seen any of this, we can assume that his parents are nefarious. But what but why? I'm pretty sure after the shot right after she dispatches the Sandy Dennis character, there's a shot of the barbecue with all the meat pile on it, so you know, it's like, Okay, that's all I need.

Really, we kind of complained about the ambiguity and Cobweb, but that was more because it was such a switcheroo and a fake out and a were they really being bad right for keeping this girl locked up? Because the girl's a monster? I mean that's the point of the movie. I get that, And part of the reason why I liked it is like, oh, you got duped kid right, and I enjoy that aspect of it. But him taking out his parents is a little different than what Michael does here, and maybe it was something that they needed to add so that there was less ambiguity, Like, you know, let's make sure that people know that these parents are awful, because having a kid kill his parents is pretty severe stuff.

You know, who knows? I don't know, And again, like, what's funny is the amount of weight that it's given in this movie when Brian Durski kills Randy Quaid more or less is the appropriate amount of weight given to murdering your parents And Cobweb does just kind of it's almost a gag in Cobweb. It's almost like a moment of comedic pressure valve released because like it's a funny scene when he's like puking all over the place, like it's being played for black humor, like somewhat comedy in this it is too, like it's ridiculous that this guy, this adult man, is having such a hard time killing this child, Like the optics of that are ridiculous. But in this movie I felt like, oh yeah, there's actually some an actual level of threat to the Brian Mdursky character that there isn't in Cobweb.

Like and again it's because the parents are the threat here, at least one of the parents is, you know, that's right. The other smart the really smart thing about this movie is that the way the Marybeth Hurt characters, there is a level of ambiguity with her character that does help alleviate the thing that you're talking about, which happens with the Sandy Dennis Carter to where there is no ambiguity. There's no ambiguity that there are cannibals, but there is ambiguity that Marybeth Hurt is complicit in the way that Brian mcdirsky thinks she is. And it turns out it's not the case. But again, you sat there and you ate human meat for how long?

You killed how many people? I mean, you make a decision now that ultimately serves the plot, But it's like, why now do you care? Oh, because they're threatening your kid? Okay, makes sense, but did you not think it was going to come to this eventually? Well, and she's walking and I think, as an actress does it very well that line of protective mama bear versus someone who likes eating human flesh.

You know, she's towing that line that she's also protecting her son because she takes his side in a lot of cases throughout the movie. And she's constantly telling Randy Quaid to like, you know, take it easy on him. And then it's sort of that spare of the rod spoil the child type of attitude of him versus her. And I don't know if it's a fear of her thinking that he could possibly be on the menu at some point, or if it's just that instinctual. You know, this is my child and I want him to live and be okay.

Yet I'm also going to kill the school psychologists when they come here and invade our little bubble, our little meat factory here, and you know, we can't have that get out, which in a way, she's still protecting her family as a whole. From that, it's interesting to me how often she takes his side and is very nurturing and tries to calm him when he has his nightmares and stuff. And I mean speaking of his nightmares that I love those scenes in the movie. And I don't quite get the taking off his pajamas thing, but I love that little bit in there. It's like, you took off your pajamas again, didn't you?

You always have nightmares when you take off your pajamas, Like, what what the hell are you talking about? Why would that get the nightmares? He jumps in the bed and it's a pool of blood, which you know, that's pretty cool. And then as the camera keeps backing out than the arms, there's like dozens of arms in that pool. Of Blood, and I looked at my daughter and I was like, Okay, that's legitimately creepy right there, and she's like, yeah, we mentioned the thing about Ken Russell comparing this to Blue Velvet.

Those are the moments that are definitely standouts in the film. But they're standouts because they remind me of other directors like David Lynch. Yeah. Yeah, but it's done in a way that's like, again, it's not doing it in a way that's not derivative. Yeah, it's not derivative, but it's welcome in this movie because again, I think it further speaks to the idea of the mental instability of the Brian mcdirsky character.

And that is used well, and it's used well enough, but not too often either. You want to cloud your movie with a bunch of dream sequences, that's fine, not for me in a lot of ways. But using it sparingly to help reinforce what we're seeing on screen in the daytime in reality, I think is smart and the movie does a good job of that, giving you the idea that he's already struggling with something that he knows is going on, but he just can't figure it out. Yet the one scene that really makes me think of Blue Velvet is when he stumbles on them having sex in the front room, because there's a really bright, almost spotlight on him. And there are shots in Blue Velvet that are very reminiscent of that, using that stuttery slow motion, and she's got lipstick all around her mouth, just like Frank Booth does at one point in that movie.

And I think Blue Velvet and the success of that movie opened up some doors for other people. It's kind of like when Reservoir Dogs came out and then the fifty Reservoir Dog ripoffs came out in the early nineties. Blue Velvet, I think opened the door for some weirdness in films. And it doesn't help that Angelo Battlamente did the music for this film to sort of reinforce that idea. I mean, I think it helps Frankly like Angelo bad Lamentes, I don't know, like one of the great So I'll yeah, if you're gonna have somebody do this movie, yeah, you're gonna kind of get some unfortunate comparisons like that made me think because I didn't remember that.

It's been like, I do know, three or four years since I last watched this, so that put Blue Velvet in my head immediately with the opening of the film, and then I thought, you know what, this does share some stuff with that. Then today I read that Ken Russell quote quote unquote quote, I'd like to read the whole article that that comes from. I really would, because, like again, like Ken Ken Russell's a weird guy, like on his own right, right, I mean, yeah, right, it could because he worked with Bob Ballaban. I mean he's in Altered States, for Christ's sake, It's true. Bob Bellaban is in four or five of my favorite movies that Close Encounters, Catch twenty two.

Oh what was the other one I was thinking of earlier? He's at Midnight Cowboy. Always plays a little creep for the most part, which is kind of great because you think all Chris Guest stuff as well. But yeah, yeah, he does a lot of That's where I know him from primarily is Chris Guest stuff. So he was in Oz Perkins's second film, that one that's on Netflix because he was friends with his dad and they work together on Catch twenty two and that's on and so on.

But I love it whenever he shows up and stuff and I wish there were more of these films from him to watch that are odd and quirky, And I mean, I agree with you. Like as much as I'm not a fan of My Boyfriend's Back, this does have that same weirdo tone to it and weirdo feel that. Yeah, I kind of was like, oh, this is like, this is a Bob Ballaband movie. Like when I was watching this, I was like, this is a Bob Allaban movie, Like I can already tell because of My Boyfriend's Back having that same weirdo tone. I think this does everything that My Boyfriend's Back does wrong, it does right.

This is actually kind of a scary movie in terms of like actual dread and terror being created by the Randy Quaid character. It's actually a movie worth watching. And I think again, it speaks to a more relatable experience than My Boyfriend's Back does, which is being a child and growing up. I think that there's a relatability to this that most people can feel. A relatable story is always going to be easier to get through the door than one about your boyfriend being resurrected from the dead.

I just thought of this one of the comparisons to Cobweb and the thing in the wall being the influence on that character, and I kind of incorrectly stated that he doesn't really have an outside influence in this. Michael does, but he does. He's got his friend Sheila at school, who is also weird. She plants the seed of investigate your dad, find out what he does. If you're distrusting of him, you need to figure out why.

And that's the impetus for him to break into Toxico and get down into the morgue that they have. Why would you have a morg at a chemical plant. So he has a little bit of something whispering in his ear that ends up getting him in trouble. Once the scene came up where the teachers looking at the drawings, then I was like, Okay, it is appropriate to connect these two films because they're, like we mentioned in the beginning, three or four things that are almost specific to both. I think it's played out a little more interestingly here.

Well, Cobweb doesn't have a kid in the pantry getting accosted by sausages either. Yes, what a bizarre, What a strange and bizarre and off putting scene with Mary Beth Hurt, just like go into town on some ground beef, ground beef that looks. It's so funny how gross you can make ground beef look by just putting a little ketchup on it before you put ketchup on it to imply blood. Yeah, it's impressive how easy it is to make something gross looking look even grosser with the simplest of techniques. So yeah, all the shots of the kidneys in the pan the I think they employ pork a lot because it's the meat that's most similar to our own, right, you cut it up and cook it, and from what I understand, the smell is as well.

Understand he says, well, not from experience, Mark Begley. No, there was a movie I don't I want to say. It was Valerie and Her Week of Wonders and they're burying somebody and they're putting rosemary in with the body. It caught my attention, So I looked that up and they're like, oh yeah, people used to put that in to kind of mask the smell, you know, the decaying corpse, because that herb is used a lot when you cook pork, because they have a similar And I'm like, oh god, now I know that it's called long pig like human is called long pig. So yeah, it's a white meat.

I guess I would not know. This comes up every time we bring up a cannibal thing. I would try human meat if it were my own. I mean, there have been people that have lost limbs that have then been able to keep the limb and cook it. So if there ever came an opportunity, I would try it.

But I would never do this any more than any sane human beating would. I don't know if I could do that. I don't know if I could do that. But eat your own leg, yeah, I mean I get it, you know, and in a live type scenario, yes, but not just like, oh, lost your leg, do you want to keep it? Why the fuck would I want to keep it?

Most some people eat it. That's okay, here's custody of your leg, taking it out of the hospital. But I mean again, like that is the thing about cannibal fiction or cannibal movies is they kind of always have the same tone and feeling to them of you know, the people eating the meat tend to not have a good reason why, or if they do, it's often misguided. Here, it's just we're just doing it cuz like we're just doing it because like and I like that as the explanation, Like I don't need a cultural explanation. I don't need a Oh it's because it's cheaper explanation.

It's just these motherfuckers like to eat human meat. There, you go great, like it's a family tradition passed down from grandpa to son. I guess maybe who knows. I mean again, that's the question of this movie, is what is really going on the thing that surprises me is that at least in part the meat that they're getting is from his chemical plant, and these people have obviously died of some kind of chemical toxicity. And early on before for Michael has broken in to watch his dad.

He's down there and he's advising the lab tech to cut out a sample of liver and grind it up for him, and it's like, the liver is the place where the toxins are gotten rid of. Why would you want the liver? Why is he feeding his family there? What's the explanation for that? You're eating like the most toxic part of this person's body if that's what they died from, Which is the implication here that they have possession of these bodies because they have died because of the chemicals that they make.

You're going to eat the filter of those chemicals delicious by my account. The weird things about this movie that are not explained are intentionally not explained. Yeah. I enjoy that, Yeah, because it is weird. Is it fresh meat?

Is it meat from corpses that have been hanging around? Like? Are they always eating human meat? Those questions are answered for the better. We as the audience just get to draw our own conclusions as to what we think is actually going on.

Yeah, And that's the other problem I have with the body that Sandy Dennis discovers at the basement window, because it seems like he's got a pretty big selection to choose from down on that basement Morgue. Are they also going out and killing homeless people or what's the deal with that body? Who is that person? They had done such a good job at hiding everything else, it seems odd that there would just be a body in Yeah, Windo, Well, like it almost feels like a moment that was I mean again, like, nothing about this seems like a studio movie in any sense I've heard, But like that feels like a studio note, we need to have a scene where there's like incontrovertible proof that these people are bad people.

And it's like, is the fact that they're fucking possibly eating human meat the ambiguity of that isn't that enough? The movie plays its hand pretty clearly that there is something going on enough to be suspicious. I don't need to see a human body for it to go see. Look, it's like, no, I I get it. The movie is doing enough with context clues and storytelling techniques that I've seen before to inform me that that is what I'm meant to believe.

You don't have to outright say it. Plus, the scene before that is Michael discovering the leg on a hook, right, but then it's not there when he brings her back. That leads me to think, Okay, is he seen this for real or is this his active imagination? And then the body pops out, and it's like, well, that sort of kills that interesting ambiguity that you just presented by showing me the leg and then having it be gone now, right, because you could make a very strong case that this is all on his head. And as far as I'm concerned, like as much as I'm never a fan of that being the case, I kind of think it would be the funniest way to interpret this movie.

Is this kid kills one of his parents, causes the other one to get murdered by the other, and then ends up with his grandparents, who he's now convinced you're doing the same thing, because once again, what's the common denominator here? You? You are the common denominate, right, Not the grandparents, not the parents, it's you. Is that the right way to interpret this movie? Probably not, but it's a fun way to interpret it that the movie almost leaves room for.

And I think if this were a David Lynch, I think he would have left room for it, because that is something that David Lynch does almost exclusively, is not try to define what's going on. I answer the questions that he's posing, right, because the moment you answer the question, it's not the answer that's the problem. It's cutting out all the interpretations that everybody else has that aren't the answer. Yeah. Yeah, you could argue if that body didn't fall into the window, well, you could argue at the end of this movie, the buddy that you saw it with, whether they're actually cannibals or not.

Well, Grandpa leaves a sandwich on the night stand, So I mean, it's a weird midnight snack, but it's not out of the realm of possibility to leave somebody a big old slab of meat if they wake up and get hungry. That's not a weird midnight snack. I would be happy if someone left me what looked like like a pastrami sandwich on my nightstand, like wake up. I'm not complaining yet. I'm not complaining about that at all.

But that's the funny thing. It's like, I think this movie is so much fun, but I think it could have been even more fun if they had just showed one percent more restraint, because it really is just like the smallest amount of restraint needed, because they practiced it everywhere else in the movie, almost to a fault. They had practiced restraint, but that one moment, and I would almost go as far as to say, like, the Sandy Dennis character doesn't need to go to the house, she doesn't even need to die. We don't need to see that, because again, what's the point. We've been seeing this whole thing already, so now we're just seeing it through the eyes of another character.

Okay, but why the character ends up dying anyway? It's like right, which is was my point, Like, well, she gets taken out. I don't even know if he realizes that she's now dead. So we've seen the body. Was for our benefit, literally, for the audience to say, yes, this is what they're doing, so that later on when Michael ends up killing his parents or causing the death of his parents, you're okay with it, And I'd rather be still answering the question of like, well, were they even cannibals?

I don't know. Two things. Firstly, thankfully that scene does happen. We kind of talked about it a little bit. The scene of the camera coming out of the house and going out the smokestack and then panning to the car coming into the driveway doesn't exist without that, So at least they're i mean, true, create one of the better like stylistic scenes in the movie.

But could make the case that there's just a dead body in the window. Well, I mean, isn't there just a dead body? Isn't there just an ear out in the open and blue velvet, you know what I mean? Like it's just there. Maybe it is just there.

What's to say someone didn't just die in the window? Well, like, I'm kind of I'm not saying that that looks like a warm place. Yeah, I'm not saying that's an applicable explanation. But again, because the movie does certain things afterwards that makes it very clear that the implication is that body was there. Because of the Randy Quaid character and the Marybeth Hurt character, they even could have done it with some ambiguity, but at least we get a moment out of it that is so stylistically weird and fun that it kind of it is one of the best shots in the film.

Yeah, very true. It probably could have been employed in another way, but with one of his dream sequences. Yeah, it's pretty great. Through the vent, through the ducks, and out the exhaust pipe of the house and boom, there's mom coming home. They don't make movies like this anymore.

If they ever made movies like this to be ken or you know what I mean. What's funny is the thing I wanted to mention to you is, first off, human beings grabbing knives when they're being stabbed things is a fucking fear that I have always had. That's one of my bugaboos. It's a real gross thing and I really hate it, and watching a character do it always makes me, Oh, I'm feeling myself do it and it's off. Yeah, my hands tingled every time someone does that in a movie.

The other thing is I looked into what else was released with this when this was released on Blu ray, and man, there are a lot of interesting titles under the Bestron Video Collectors series, a lot of interesting movies. I think I have one of them. Yeah, is one of them Shivers, directed by David Cronenberg. It sure is. Yeah, But there's a lot of stuff on there that's like weird sequels to things.

Also, Earth Girls Are Easy is on there. But they started releasing movies under that in twenty sixteen and they're still doing it as recently as this year. You could do a whole podcast on all of those movies, because it's a wide array of weird things, and this movie kind of fits right in there with all the other things in a way, like it makes sense that this was a vest On thing for sure. Yeah. When I saw that pop up, well, I immediately thought of Shivers, just because I own it, and I thought about those titles because I have seen the ads for the Vesturan Video Classics thing, and they're released kind of in a neat little package that replicates you know, the old video days and stuff.

And this became a decent sized cult quote unquote film, and a lot of the reviews I read, you know, were complained about the tone and the flip flop of the tone, but I don't know, it seems to have a pretty straight line for me of flipflop of a tone. Well, like you know, the horror never gets horrible enough, and comedy sort of just kills what horror there is. And this is the movie that I always refer to for and it's not even really all that comedic, but for black comedy. In my head, this and eraser Head are two sides of the same coin. A lot of people don't get the comedy in eraser Head.

For me, the black comedy in that movie is turning every day events the banal into the horrible because getting married and having a kid is the most horrific thing that David Lynch could think of, and that's where not having coffee, Yeah, that's where the black comedy comes from. That film and this film it's the most horrific thing being turned into the banal the idea of people eating other humans, but it's wrapped in this mid century modern pistiche you know, and it's like, in my head, that's always how I differentiate the two kinds of ways you can go with black comedy. I often think of that episode. I don't know if you watch Criminal Minds, but there's a really fucked up episode with Jamie Kennedy in it, who plays this absolute creep.

Oh playing into type huh yeah. He serves human flesh to all the people that are searching for this missing girl. He makes chili for the people that are doing the searching and stuff, and they have all consumed human flesh. I mean, isn't one of the most famous horror movies of all time about a family of people that he eat, right, I'll tell you cannibals and cannibalism. I don't know.

It's a weird thing that in movies. I'm with you, like in movies, it more often than not is funny and should be played for laughs because oh, look, they're literally eating each other. They're literally eating each other. And if you can't see the comedy in that, then I understand, but in movies, it's okay to laugh at it. It's okay to play it for laughs because it is a movie, and that's fine, and we get to confront our worst than best selves through cinema.

And it is hilarious to see a family of people so convinced the only way that they can exist in the world is to eat other people. And there you go. And that is the entire basis of the idea behind this movie, as you have a group of people who are so hell bent on eating people that that has become something that they do regularly, and they're so convinced that they need to do it that they're going to eat one another, possibly if one of them descents to the idea of eating one another. For me, comparing it to Motel Hell, which I did an episode on, this for me, presents the black humor of this idea better. We actually lean into the horrificness of this more but still also have that line of like uncomfortable laughter when you realize what's going on.

I mean, that shot of that sandwich at the end, to me is hysterical because you're like, ooh, fuck, dude, he walked right back into it. Mother. I did a show about Tails from the Crypt a couple of years ago. We did the entire show, and one of the better episodes is a cannibalism episode. It's worth actually seeking out yet Chris Reeves and Margot Margot Kidder.

It might be Margot Kitder as well, which would be a little on the nose, I think. Judd Nelson and Art Lafleur. Chris Reeves plays a owner of a restaurant that sells squid and no one wants to eat squid, and Judd Nelson stumbles in as a hitchhiker and says, I've got this great recipe for meat, and it turns out that he's serving human meat, and hilarity ensues, and again it's got the Tails from the Crypt tongue in cheekness, but also again it is about human beings eating one another, but it's again played in an interesting and fun way that seems novel, but again also can't take away from the fact that when human beings are literally eating one another, there is some metaphorical hilariousness to the idea of it actually happening, versus us just saying, well, we're all at each other's throats.

Now we're actually ripping them out. Can do a whole show on cannibals, like fictional cannibals. You know, there's a whole slew of cannibal comedies. Even you know, you're don't have to go down the Italian cannibal holocaust route. You can watch a ton of because, like you say, it's inherently funny in a really dark way to think about it and to present it, and to present the idea of not only people savoring in it, but for the uninitiated or the unexpecting people when they find out that that's what they've eaten.

That that's part of it, right you think about that, Yeah, well, reveling in it. They revel in I have given you some human meat to eat, like and you ate it unwillingly. But that's what Jamie Kennedy does in that episode of Criminal Minds. I mean, he's just like giddy right when they realize what he has done. And part of it is a power thing too, right, we mentioned the whole which side aspect of that's why people would eat human meat is to get part of their power.

Plus you have exerted power over people. I mean, if you're actively hunting them and Killeam as opposed to just dissecting already dead bodies. Power over the people that you're serving it to if they're eating it unexpectedly. Yeah, hey, you know Cannibal the musical. It's a spaedoinkal day, folks.

Earlier this year I traveled to I have We have a very close friend who lives in Lake City, Colorado, which is where Alfred Packer killed the people that he ate, supposedly, And I have a sticker on my cup now that says Alfred Packer love his fellow man a little too much. And it's from Lake City, Colorado. So I'm a fan of cannibal fiction, not a fan of cannibal fiction that is non fiction adjacent. Looking at you, Dom or the TV show. Stuff like this is a lot of fun.

I wish that there was more like Parents, But I'm glad that we have something like this that we can watch on repeat, that people do have an appreciation for, and that has gotten a release recently on blue ray, so we have a nice clean up converted copy to go back to and rewatched. So thank you for putting this movie on my radar and definitely adding yet another movie into a long list of things that I will show to other people and hopefully they enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed it. What kind of brings me to what I usually asked? And this was a first time watch for you, Chris, Yeah, it was end of the episode the way so find out ending where I should have started. I got a little thrown off.

Not only a first time watch, but it was a movie I'd never even heard of. I feel again, as someone who's such a big fan of Freaked, primarily because of Randy Quaid's performance, someone who loves Randy Quaid in most everything I've seen him in, it's kind of surprising to me that I had never stumbled upon this movie during my early teen years of just like voraciously consuming as much film stuff as humanly possible, but never came across my radar, probably because there was no DVD release of it, right, Yeah, it went from VHS to Blu ray, so that probably factored into it. But first time watch and not the last time watch though, So we'll end on this. As far as Randy quaid performances goes, where would you rank his in this?

You mean in terms of all the other things I've seen him in Yeah It's up there. I think this is as good as anything I've seen him in. Say what you will about Independence Day. His character in that movie is a lot of fun and he's playing it perfect. Freaked is probably my favorite thing that I've seen him in, But this is now one A, one B.

He's menacing in all the right ways. But again the question of is he just a stern father is there because the nuance of his performance. Randy Quaid is someone who I'm a huge fan of. I'm not gonna say it's unfortunate. Everybody has problems.

His problems are his own, and he just makes his problems visible for the rest of us to see and have to deal with. You don't have to deal with it well or ignore it however you want to interpret it. But Randy Quaid is an actor who I have always found an immense amount of intrigue in what he brings to the roles because he always makes interesting choices. He always brings it no matter what it is. Like I said, he steals the show and Independence Day and he's like a second tier character in that movie.

He is someone who in playing online games with my friends and having to create a username My username for the longest time has been Eagle twenty Fox two, which is literally in reference to Independence Day and his character. He as an actor made an impression on me at a very early age because Independence Day and then seeing him in Freaked. If this isn't mentioned in his like best of performances as an actor, I would be surprised. But I know that he has a long list of other things I have not seen him in that I'm sure he's just as good in. And he's getting to play basically a lead in this as opposed to a second tier character or a cousin Eddie or anything like that.

And I mean, the little boy is still the lead. But I always go back to that thing when they're talking about the dark and what he does with his finger. You really like the dark, don't you, Michael. You can be yourself in the dark, but you know there's one dark place that we have to be very careful in, you know where that is, and brings up to his head, you know, to imply that this is the darkest place. With his smile and his face and just what he's doing with his hand, I'm like, man, you know you're talking about making choices and that that acting choice in that scene is just great.

I mean, I love him too as an actor, even in something like the last Detail, one of his first roles, all the Cousin Eddie stuff, this and numerous other things, you know, I can still enjoy what he's doing on screen. I love Cousin Eddie. He's one of the great film characters, like shitters Full, and he's great in every version of those movies that he's in. He's a standout because that character is just such a grating individual, and you everybody knows people like that. The other thing that always cracks me up about family like that, Right.

Randy Quaid was also a rep player on SNL for like six years, which is a weird thing as well. To think about the season that he was in in with Anthony Michael Hall and Robert Danny Junior, that weird one off season. That was the first season that I actually watched from front to back because I was old enough and I knew a lot of those people from right Brat Pack movies and other things. I remember that season fondly just because it was the first that I could actually like stay up for and watch or record because we had a VCR and saw every episode of that season. That was the first time that I was able to do that, and so I have a lot of love for that really weird, really awful season of Saturday Night Live.

We're going to be seeing another Randy Quaid performance here pretty quick on our Chasing Chevy podcast because he's in Caddy. He's in Caddysheck too. I've actually seen a fair amount of Randy Quaid this year. I saw Last Picture Show for the first time. I saw What's Up Doc for the first time, which is his first and second performance.

And like I said, I mean, Freaked is so high on my list of everything. And he was also in Golia's Ghosts, which is it was a Melosh Foreman film. So he has a weird career that has spanned fifty sixty years. And I'm sure he's it hasn't been anything since twenty eighteen. But you know, I mean again, when you have as many quality entries into your filmography as he does, you don't have to make anything else.

You can live on the things you've made already. He holds his own up against Jack Nicholson in a nineteen seventy classics, So got to give him credit it's fair. Well, when you're not watching Randy Quaid performances, Chris, what's keeping you busy? Over it weirdingwaymedia dot com. You want to plug one of the shows on there instead of your own stuff, do whatever you want.

I rarely plug my own stuff because I feel like you're listening to it already, you know. So on Weirdingway Media you can find so many great shows that aren't just about movies, Eighties, TV Ladies, Feminine Critique. I mean, there are plenty of things to keep you busy. If it's movies, you want to listen to TV shows, seventies TV shows, narrative based shows like Dark Destinations. There's all kinds of stuff over at weirdingwaymedia dot com, including the Culture Cast, which is the movie podcast that I've been doing for almost a decade now.

And I want to put a spotlight on Noise Junkies over on weirdinwaymedia dot com. So go check that show out. Yeah, Noise Tunkies is Fine'm still wait from my invitation Heather drain Father Malone and who's the third host? HP? Check that one out.

Check out Culture Cast, Projection Booth, Wake Up, Heavy Camber, Jem with Sean all Over at wordingwaymedia dot com and Don't Forget Anything can Happen when You Wake Up Heavy Active back at the at the at the ATA, and can do it then Before that, they were leftovers to be wake Up Heavy is a weirding Way Media podcast