Is Prime’s Carrie Remake Too Much of a Good Thing? | SVU

0:05 After years of being homeschooled, a sheltered teen girl starts at a public high school and is soon humiliated on social media. But what's this? She's got telekinetic powers? Look out, mean girls. It's the new limited series adaptation of Stephen King's Carrie on Prime Video. I'm Jordan Hoffman.

0:26 And I'm Matt Singer. With more movies, more series, more stuff going straight to streaming than ever before. It felt like the right time for a podcast that keeps track of it all, and that podcast is Film Spotting SVU. This week, we've got a review of Carrie, plus some related streaming recommendations. What will we recommend this time? Movies that were later expanded into limited series? Movies about Bible-thumping moms?

0:56 Movies about the prom? Movies about people named Carrie? I don't know.

1:02 Going to YouTube and watching the band Kansas play Carry On My Wayward Son over and over and over again.

1:09 Okay, spoiler alert, that's Jordan's recommendation, but stay tuned for more. And, ooh, a Stephen King movie game. You have to say your line.

1:21 If you want to do it. It's all coming up. Wait, let me get that. It's all coming up on PhilSpottingSVU.

1:30 Welcome to Film Spotting SVU, I'm Matt Singer, and later in the show, The Rec Seg, our recommendation segment with streaming recommendations inspired by this week's review. This week's review, of course, is the new limited series version of Carrie. Plus, we have a listener request, and this is a good one, a listener request for a lesser known horror comedy. Maybe a Splatstick movie? Splatstick? Have you heard of Splatstick?

2:00 I have now.

2:01 It's slapstick.

2:02 Yeah, I got it.

2:03 It's splatter. Yeah.

2:06 Splatstick. Yeah.

2:08 Have you heard about this?

2:10 And also a Stephen King themed game hosted by producer Sam. But first, Carrie. Carrie on my way once on.

2:21 There'll be blood, pig's blood when you are done.

2:25 I hope you all had a good holiday season.

2:30 Please say hello to Carrie White. Make her feel welcome.

2:34 Hi.

2:35 I'm Sue, by the way. Hi. That's a really nice dress.

2:38 Thanks.

2:39 I made it.

2:40 Sure did, didn't you?

2:42 So what do we do?

2:43 Oh, so this is your first day, like, ever.

2:47 I was schooled at home.

2:48 Till today, I mean. Oh, I love that for you.

2:52 Few debut novels have had more of an impact on the world than Carrie, the 1974 book. By one Stephen King, an English teacher from Maine who became one of the biggest and most prolific authors of the 20th and 21st centuries.

3:09 He's still cranking them out.

3:10 He really is.

3:10 He's still typing.

3:11 Think about this, Jordan. In the time it will take us to record this episode of Film Spotting SVU, he will have released one novel, two short stories, he will have recommended two books, and four movies that he's watched in the last week. I mean, he is a machine, that guy. He really is.

3:29 And probably screaming about the Red Sox, right? Isn't that his thing? It's possible.

3:32 It's possible.

3:33 They lost. They're out of the playoffs.

3:34 Oh, they're long gone. Yeah, they're long gone.

3:36 Terrible.

3:37 That's fine. Carrie features many of Stephen King's favorite themes, supernatural powers, man's inhumanity to man, terrifying coming-of-age stories. And its tale of an unpopular high school girl who gets revenge on her bullies using telekinesis has been adapted to the screen many times before. There's the 1976 adaptation, which was a major breakthrough for its director, Brian De Palma, and its star, Sissy Spacek. I'm going to assume we've both seen that one. Is that correct?

4:09 Okay.

4:09 It got a sequel in 1999. Do you know the name of the sequel, Jordan?

4:14 I do. Do you remember?

4:15 It's called The Rage, Carrie 2.

4:17 That's right. That's right. Have you seen that one?

4:19 No.

4:19 No, me neither. Okay, it got a TV remake in 2002, a film, TV film remake in 2002. Have you seen that one?

4:28 No.

4:28 No, me neither. And then it got a big screen remake with Chloe Grace Moretz in 2013, which I did see.

4:39 Who was in the TV one? I don't even know.

4:41 I'm not too sure. The only thing I know about that one is that if you find the probably long out of print, like DVD or home video version. They made the cover look almost exactly like the cover of the Brian De Palma carry. I think in the hope that a dumb person or just a person who's not paying too much attention might accidentally mistake it for the De Palma and buy it and then take it home and be like, what? This isn't the 19th century. You know, like, yeah, you gotta be careful. Now, We are not talking about any of those carries.

5:16 No, but P.S., there was another. There was the musical on Broadway.

5:19 Mama, I was so scared. And they all stared. Then I started crying. I thought I was dying. Mama, please.

5:30 If you look at the list of flops on Broadway, it may not be the number one. There are some that truly never opened. They just did previews and closed. This, I think, probably... They did a couple of previews, three or four nights, and hung it up.

5:45 But it's one of the most notorious Broadway productions. It is the Broadway version of something like a, I don't know, Battlefield Earth or Gigli. One of the most notorious fiascos that ever.

5:59 A true Max Bialystock production.

6:01 Yes, he might have been on the list. He might have been in the playbill for that one.

6:04 That's right.

6:05 Okay, but we are talking about the new TV miniseries remake of Carrie on Prime video. This one developed by Mike Flanagan, the modern horror master who has previously adapted multiple King books, Gerald's Game, Doctor Sleep, The Life of Chuck. Flanagan, in this case, maintains the basic premise, but he also...

6:29 Changes it a little. He tweaks the backstory of Carrie's family. He updates the story to the world of social media and online bullying. Now, we should say, Jordan and I have each watched three episodes. Is that right? There are eight total episodes. We, because the show launched just a couple of days before we were recording, we were able to watch three of the eight so far. But at least from what we've seen so far, there's some sort of hint that that there is almost like a conspiracy or some sort of mystery surrounding Carrie and her powers and this mysterious group that's like, keeping tabs on her.

7:07 We're going to get into that. But it is a limited series, and Matt and I are gentlemen with limited time, so we didn't actually watch all eight yet. But probably those of you listening, unless you're unemployed, you probably are only watching the first few now, too. This is a new show.

7:22 That's right. And actually, that was what my question was going to be for you here, Jordan, as we begin our conversation.

7:28 Please do.

7:30 We had only had time to watch three of the eight episodes.

7:33 Mm-hmm.

7:34 Are you now planning, now that your professional obligation is done, are you feeling interested to find out? Are you going to follow through and find out what happens? Because it's a real mystery. What could possibly happen at the end of this show?

7:49 There are two reasons, 2.5 reasons that I anticipate we're watching, dedicating five more hours of my life to carry the Amazon Prime video series Reboot by Mike Flanagan. The reasons are this. One, I am kind of curious to see how this Professor X school for carries is going to fit into the storyline because we've only gotten a whiff.

8:16 We've only gotten a whiff, like a one minute scene in episode one and like a 15 second scene in episode two. So I want to know what that's all about because I am impressed that they've expanded the world and I have some theories. And then the other reason is I am very, very fond of the lead performance by this young girl by the name of Summer H. Howell, who plays Carrie. And Sam will know this because before we even started watching, I was like going on a fake rant about how I was going to yell and scream.

8:50 This is true.

8:51 Because.

8:52 And I'll get into it right now. The original Carrie, of course, Sissy Spacek. Actually, I've never read the original book Carrie, but I respect Stephen King and some of his other stuff, obviously. But in Carrie the book, Carrie is described as chunky, pimples all over the place, and hairy-armed. Not what we would call conventionally attractive. Now, when they made the first movie, they cast Sissy Spacek, who is, of course, a very beautiful woman. But she does have, and this is to her great credit, she has an unusual look. That's what made her Sissy Spacek.

9:31 Absolutely.

9:31 And the movie shot her in ways to exaggerate her unusualness. But, and then, yeah, Chloe Grace Moretz and everything. Ever since then, they cast a hottie to talk like the characters in the current Carrie.

9:46 Yeah.

9:47 And the new one, I'm like, oh, they made a new Carrie? Like, who did they cast? So I'm like, first of all, I'm like, oh, she's probably 30, and she's probably Australian. Well, she's only 22, so I'll give them credit. And she's Canadian, so. But I Googled the actress's name and I looked at her. I'm like, she's a model. She's an attractive girl.

10:07 You were furious about this. You were ranting and raving.

10:10 I said, where's my fat, pimply Carrie? That's what, that's, I mean, it's 2026. Representation is important. Carrie, now I don't want to get into like supposed to, because I respect Mike Flanagan as an artist to interpret Carrie the way he wants to, as he's done by introducing this sort of Professor X element to it. But it's like, come on, like how many other Carries you're going to get?

10:31 Give us the pimply, gross, hairy arm Carrie. Do it. Nevertheless, I watched the show.

10:37 Yes.

10:38 And they did make, Summer H. Howell, she's playing 1415, and what they do with her hair and makeup, they make her look, she really does look 1415, and they make her, she's still a beautiful girl, but they make her look awkward. I don't even want to say homely, because she doesn't look homely, she's beautiful, but they make her look awkward, and I'm not saying it's they, it's her.

10:57 Summer H. Howell is an extremely talented performer. She's really, really good, and I immediately began to really like her, like her Like this new Carrie, she's different from the old Carries. I mean, she's got more screen time, if nothing else. And like every time society gives her one, it's like, oh, my heart breaks for little Carrie. Like I want her to do well. So success, success. Success to Flanagan, success to Summer Howell. I mean, you know, you could have done the right thing and done the casting right.

11:28 I love that you're such an absolutionist about the way Carrie should look after you openly admitted you've never read the book.

11:36 Well, I never read the book, but I know, I know that it's supposed to be. I know, I know. You know what? But I went on the Reddit, the Stephen King Reddit, and they've been screaming about this for months. Like, where's my fat Carrie? Carrie's supposed to be gross. I don't want to say gross. That's immature of me. But like, you know, hairy arms and pimply. Awkward 15-year-old who's like fitting into her body. That's the whole point of the story is about, I mean, is the story really about telekinesis and whatnot? No, it's about changing into society and- Puberty and all those things. Coming of age.

12:09 Puberty, whatever the word is called.

12:11 Yeah, all that stuff.

12:12 Yes, of course.

12:13 So none of the visual representations have actually latched onto that.

12:17 It's like being a mutant in a world where there's no X-Men to guide you, essentially. If I can put on my comic book hat for a minute. I think the other thing that's crucial, though, to... her casting, and I agree, Summer Howell is really good in this show. She's excellent. And I think a lot of the performances are very, very good.

12:38 The mom is great too.

12:39 The mom is great as well. Yes, I was going to say she's outstanding as well. Is that it's putting aside the physical component, one of the changes that Flanagan has made is that it's not about that she's like, you know, that her peers don't just accept the way she looks or she looks different. This girl has basically been confined to a house for her entire life as the show begins. And so that's what kind of marks her as different as she goes into this school. She is completely naive and innocent.

13:14 Right.

13:15 You know, has been homeschooled. That's like the nice way of saying what she's been. She's basically been a prisoner in her house for the first 14 years of her life. And so the outcast-ness of her comes from a different place. And it makes it different. It gives it a different spin and a different flavor to this show that I appreciated because we are just remaking it yet again. And as I ran down all those lists of Carrie- We've had a lot of Carrie. We don't need another Carrie.

13:48 If you are going to make another one, I think this is the right way with a big asterisk that I do want to talk about. This is the right way to do it. Update the material. Because a lot of this book and a lot of Stephen King books that he was working on in that time, so much of them are kind of frightening, kind of prophetic texts about you know, angry teenagers lashing out at their classmates.

14:17 And I think to do this now in a, like the world that we live in and not address things like active shooter drills, which is something we see in, in, in the mini series. Like, I just think it would be, Not as naive as Carrie, but kind of pretty. It wouldn't be very useful as a text to make it now and not in some way address our world. And so I do give them credit for updating it in a smart way and making it not even just like making it allegorical and keeping it set in the past.

14:52 I mean, they're talking about this stuff, Instagram, online bullying. All of that is in the show and I think used in a very smart way.

15:01 Yeah, well, that's the thing. They expanded. So in my memory, the mom is just like a religious fanatic. Here, they've made her a religious fanatic, but also a kind of a conspiracy nut. She's afraid of cell phone towers and the state, and she's kind of one of those types.

15:20 Yes.

15:21 I think that's new, and that's good. I mean, and yes, there is the sequence of we watch through Carrie's eyes an active school shooter drill, which I got to say, I mean, I've actually never really thought, I know that schools, it's very sad that schools start with school shooter drills from day one. I've never bothered to look into, because I do not have a niece and nephew, but I don't have children. So I've never asked myself, what are those drills like for kids? So this is the first time I've seen one in a movie. I don't know how realistic it was. I mean, Carrie, they certainly, They amp up the action and the suspense. But it is something that's weird. And then, of course, Carrie doesn't know

16:04 what the F is going on. And then the school principal, Matthew Lillard, who's actually quite good in this, he's like, look, it's because of this. And she's like, and people just know about this? Right. And it's pretty true.

16:15 It's accepted. That's the thing, is that she is so innocent and so oblivious that you get to use her character, or Mike Flanagan gets to use her character- to kind of observe the lunacy of this world that we all live in now.

16:33 Yeah.

16:33 And that we just kind of accept and that like it's becomes mundane and every day to have active shooter drills for these teenagers. And I thought that was, again, a very smart use of this character and the concept, not just to get to the point where we're going to cover her in pig's blood and there's going to be fire and telekinesis. Like, It's a very thoughtful update and adaptation, and I give.

16:59 Him a lot of credit. Yeah, the character, I mean, I hate to, I mean, Sam, you might want to fire up the sound effects, but, I mean, she's kind of like Data when she walks into the school.

17:07 Oh, boy.

17:09 Come on, who thought it? Don't tell me you didn't think she was like Data.

17:12 I will say this, and I feel really bad about it. I did not think about Star Trek in any context at any point during the three hours that I watched Carrie so far, but.

17:23 Yeah.

17:24 Last night, I saw a motion picture by the name of The Social Reckoning. And the thing that the performance of Mark Zuckerberg by Jeremy Strong kept reminding me of over and over was, I was like, he's doing Data from Star Trek. Because he's like so robotic.

17:42 Yeah.

17:42 He's inhuman.

17:44 Oh, please, Data's an android, not a robot. But go on. I'm so sorry.

17:47 My apologies. To data and to lore.

17:53 Lore.

17:55 B4. And B4.

17:56 My apologies to the data clan. But yes. Now, I did say I had an asterisk. Can we get into my asterisk? I'm curious about that. I want to get into that asterisk. Let me tell you. Maybe I should have phrased it better. We watched, as we said, three hours of this television program. There are five more hours to go. God bless anybody who has enough time to watch eight hours of Carrie in 2026. Yeah. Look, I have a job. I have this podcast. I have a family.

18:36 I have children I need to take care of. I do not have time for this. And this, did you, do you think, now we watched three episodes and we're generally pretty positive on this.

18:46 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

18:47 Do you think this needed to be eight episodes?

18:50 Could we have not?

18:51 I don't know. I'm not saying I want a movie.

18:53 I'm saying, could this not have been four episodes?

18:56 That we're going to find, I feel like it's all dependent on this new thing that's so far just been danced around, the Professor X school of Carrie's. Now, what we've been alluding to is that there's a couple of scenes when Carrie does some light telekinesis. People are like, huh?

19:16 Things shake, things move, a car slightly hovers.

19:20 And there's like, I felt something over in Smallville or whatever, something's going on. And even one young woman goes to report to somebody behind a desk who's only shot from behind. So they're going to reveal it and it's going to be some famous act. It's going to be like Jamie Lee Curtis or something. So we don't know what that's about.

19:38 I have a theory and somebody else had this theory also. And that's funny because some people listening have watched all eight already.

19:45 Right.

19:45 They're going to be able to fact check you. Be careful what you say.

19:48 No, but I think what... potentially could be the case is that Flanagan is planning to expand this into a Kingverse.

19:55 Right.

19:56 And that school– I alluded to Firestarter earlier, which is not one of the more successful Stephen King movies. But Firestarter had a– like a, like a group, like a, like a, I don't know. They're like an MK ultra thingamajig where like all these people were being tested on and that's how they got on loose. I think, I think they're actually called the group. I forget what they're called.

20:18 And so I have a, I have a suspicion that this is going to connect to that. And that's going to be like a conduit to like all, all the King stories that haven't been made into modern limited series on Amazon yet. And I think that this is going to reveal that. I mean, we'll find out, you know, soon. And so if that's the case, or even if they just do something cool with it, then yes, I'll give it the eight episodes. But you're absolutely right. As of now, it's just building toward the prom debacle, which is actually how the show opens. It's all a big flashback. It opens with the explosion.

20:56 Well, with glimpses. Glimpses, yeah. And again, I think that's not a bad choice because we all know Carrie, the ending is the most famous part. Why? And I suspect that when you get there and here I'm speculating, which I shouldn't do, but I suspect when you get there, it's not going to be precisely what you expect it to be based on the earlier movies. I bet you there's twists that you don't see coming, maybe involving some of those, you know, the, the, the professor X group.

21:25 I love that.

21:26 We're going to see, we're going to see, but, but I do hear what you're saying and you might be right. I'm going to, I'm going to move forward. As I've mentioned earlier, I plan to watch all eight and I will report back whether it passes the Singer test. There is what my little asterisk about it is I do like the way it's shot. I like, there's some clever use of editing. When they cut between Carrie and some of the other girls, like you think– they'll cut to a close-up of Carrie, then a close-up of something else.

21:54 You think it's still Carrie, then they reveal, oh, no, it's one of the other girls in the school. There's a lot of that stuff. There's a lot of good use of music by bands I've never heard of, like kind of these indie pop bands that are like– I don't know. Olivia Rodrigo-esque, but like, you know, I've never heard of any of them because I'm not in the demo.

22:14 And it's good. I mean, it works well for this show, but there is a real change. And we're going to talk about this when I get to my rec seg later. There's no sleaze in this at all. Like this, like I don't, like you could show this to I don't know that you should, but like, if you have like, you know, used to be a horror movie, like Carrie was like teens would watch it and be like, I'm not going to watch that with my parents. Ew. Cause it's, you know, like, you know, horror movies used to be sleazy.

22:43 There's a lot of nudity in Carrie, right? I mean, there's no nudity in this. There's no sleaze. There's some scenes of them hooking up at a party, but it's like, it's a pretty chaste view and that's a change, but that's not just a change in this. That's a change in, horror films in general right now.

23:01 Okay.

23:01 So that's like a different thing.

23:04 You're calling for the return of sleaze. You want more sleaze.

23:08 It just struck me when I was having a conversation with somebody else is like, remember, like to compare this to De Palma is crazy with the split screens and De Palma had so much juice back in the 70s. Sure. But, you know, there's a reason why we still talk about the De Palma movies, and a lot of them is the sleaze. I mean, the guy was, and he's still with us, he's a scumbag. He's a great, disgusting man.

23:31 And all of his movies are repulsive, and that's why we like them. Sitting in the dark, watching them. You know? Blowout. Body Double, especially. All that stuff. And Carrie, also. You know, the most famous scene other than the... the fire at the end is when Carrie has her first period. And by the way, did you notice all of the episodes of Carrie, the show now, they're named after classes like social studies or phys ed.

24:00 Foreign language.

24:01 The pilot is called first period, which I thought was very clever.

24:05 Very clever.

24:06 So they do have that scene and they have the plug it up, plug it up bit, but it's, you know, it's, it's shot just like a regular film. You know, when you think about how De Palma shot that, it's in another world. But Mike Flanagan is not De Palma.

24:20 That's all there is to it. And this is television, which, I mean, not that you can't make an extravagantly visual television series, but generally, even when they look good, they're being, you know, it's like you're shooting for weeks and weeks on end. You have to make eight episodes in this case. You have a budget. You got days you got to make.

24:39 You have to move. Yeah. And it kind of lends itself to A good looking show, but a show that isn't as visually dynamic, certainly as a Brian De Palma film.

24:50 I think what you just touched on is like right now in a lot of culture, it's like for many people, they think of film and TV as all the same medium. And they're still not. There still are big differences between film and TV. And that's what this is here.

25:06 And I think one of the big differences is getting back to what I was saying. Like people complain if a movie is longer than an hour and 45 minutes. but they will watch eight hours of Carrie. And I, and I'm saying this because I watched the first episode and I was like, that was a great pilot episode.

25:25 I'm intrigued. And then I watched two more hours. And as we said, Jordan, this like tease of whatever this mystery element, this new element, this mythology that's been grafted on, what was the amount of seconds that you said that we got?

25:39 Very few, very few.

25:40 Maybe 15 seconds, you know, like, So you watch two more and it just feels like, honestly, what made me wonder was, was there a point where this was supposed to be a shorter series? And then they got picked up for more and they had to almost like, it just feels so stretched out. There's good stuff in episode two and episode three. The characters are good. The writing is good. The performances are good. But it is– it did– I was already feeling like we're kind of spinning our wheels here.

26:10 A little bit. I have stuff to do. I got to drop the kids. I want to read a book. I got to go pick up my kids. I got to go– yeah.

26:14 I got to go talk to Jordan.

26:16 I got to go this.

26:16 You've nailed it.

26:17 I mean you've nailed it. I mean for many people and I am– if I were– if someone held a gun to my head, are you a movie person or a TV person? I'm a movie person. But for many people, the real hook of TV is the characters. I love the characters. I want to hang out with Carrie. I want to hang out with Sue, the nice girl who's sort of caught between. I want to see more of Chris, the mean girl. the hunky boys, I mean, that's what it is. They just like hanging out. I mean, that's what it is for me with Deep Space Nine. I just want to be on the promenade with Odo and Quark, you know?

26:46 Red alert.

26:46 Red alert.

26:47 Sorry, sorry.

26:48 So, I mean, it's just you like the characters, you want to hang out with them, and that's always been the appeal of this medium. Why was Friends on for 32 seasons? Friends is moronic. The writing is terrible, but people love the Friends. They want to be one of the Friends.

27:01 The Friends, the writing on Friends was not moronic. There's good Friends episodes.

27:06 There's good Friends. There's bad Friends. I'm saying you want to be in Central Perk with Ross and Phoebe. Keep going. Keep going. Phoebe, Ross, Monica, Jennifer Aniston. That was not her character's name, but sure. She was there. Wait, what was her name? Don't tell me. Phoebe is the blondie. Ross is David Ehrlich. Okay. Joey Joey is and then that was not.

27:34 The name of Jennifer Aniston's character but yes Joey was also there Rachel Rachel Rachel there's Rachel Monica Joey and then the.

27:44 Other guy the other guy who passed away wait shit what is his name Oh, he's like Preston or something like that. But it's something like that, like a Goyish name, like Preston.

27:55 I mean, he has a name. It's a name, but it's not Preston.

27:59 The actor's name is Matt LeBlanc. He passed away. No, that's Joey. Matthew Perry. Matthew Perry passed away. That's right.

28:07 I'm loving this window into your psychosis here.

28:11 And he plays... It's like Preston.

28:15 I'm letting this dead air hang.

28:17 It can just hang forever as far as I'm concerned. He played Chandler. Chandler. Come on. That's like Preston. Give me a break. That's Preston. Chandler. Chandler Bing. Is that a thing? Chandler Bing?

28:29 That was his name.

28:30 That's his name. Chandler Bing. That's a good name for a character. Chandler Bing. All right, good. You did it. So I know from Friends. Right. And I recognize that people want to- I know from Friends.

28:38 It's got Preston and Jennifer Aniston. They're great.

28:41 They're great. I never really watched too much Friends.

28:44 No, I was getting the sense of that now that you say that.

28:47 It was on during the time when I was- It.

28:49 Was on during Deep Space Nine. You couldn't watch them both. I understand. Never mind.

28:53 I get it.

28:53 All right, so let's wrap it up here. Carrie, we both liked it, but you're done. You're not going to watch anymore. Be honest.

28:58 See, this is the thing. I would love to watch one more episode. I want four episodes. Do I want to sit through four more hours to get to the last episode and find out what happens? I want to. I don't know if I will be able to. That's the thing. This is a big commitment.

29:16 It is.

29:16 Aren't you about to go on a plane? You're about to fly to Los Angeles.

29:18 I was just thinking, I didn't want to talk about my plane plans, but I am going on a plane and I was thinking I should put it on my phone and I'll watch it on the plane and see how far I get.

29:27 Oh, can I tell you a quick funny story? Very quick.

29:30 Sam, ready the anecdote sound effect?

29:38 I had a window to a watch this frigging show. And I had like this week's been very, very busy. And I like from X to Y, I'm doing this from X to Y. I'm watching episodes of Carrie. Now, what I did right before Carrie is I went for a regular eye exam checkup thingamajig. It was on the schedule forever. My eyes are doing okay.

29:57 Good.

29:58 But I had my eyes dilated and I couldn't see.

30:02 So how do you know if it looked good or not?

30:06 I had to watch it on my laptop. I couldn't see it on my TV, so I had to watch my face pressed against the laptop.

30:14 Why did we listen to you talking about how not impressive it looks?

30:19 You couldn't see it! I was like a gorilla at the zoo with my face pressed against the glass. I was like, I gotta watch this friggin' show for this goddamn podcast that I do. I look like an idiot, but my eyes have been dilated.

30:36 Next time, make sure your wife takes a picture of you looking like an idiot.

30:39 I need to see that.

30:40 Well, the next time I go to the eye doctor, I'll be sure not to schedule a screening right thereafter. But I hadn't thought about it. Moreover, I hadn't thought about that I had to drive myself home. Now, luckily, I live very, very, very close to the eye doctor. And I had to drive myself back. And I even was like, geez, my eyes are dilated. And somebody said, oh, we can give you reverse dilation drops. And I'm like, oh, great.

31:02 And he goes, it's $ 25. I'm like, what? You're going to upsell me on these drops? Forget it. And then he goes, yeah, they don't really work anyway.

31:10 I'm like, what the hell kind of place is this? That anecdote was so long, Jordan, Stephen King just wrote another book. They just published... Another book. But let's wrap it up. Let's just remind people one more time that this new miniseries version of Carrie is streaming on Amazon's Prime Video.

31:34 All right.

31:35 We have discussed Carrie.

31:37 Now, of course, it's time. To give some recommendations in the recommendation segment, commonly known by listeners as....

32:00 Wrecksick!

32:02 The Wrecksick!

32:03 Wrecksick!

32:04 Wrecksick! Wrecksick!

32:06 Bazooka! Bazooka!

32:11 All right, let's recommend some things you can watch after, because after you've watched eight hours of Carrie, God knows you're going to be like, I don't want to go do anything else with my life. I want to watch more stuff. So Jordan, what do you have for our listeners as your related recommendation for Carrie?

32:27 Yeah, I went big. I went big. So you brought this up that Carrie, Flanagan's Carrie- the thing that makes it really different is that she's not just an outcast. She's a, a, a babe in the woods.

32:40 She's like a complete outcast. She's a shut in.

32:44 She's right. She's a, she's a foundling as they say. So I decided to go to the OG of foundling movies and I had not watched this since college. I saw it on VHS on a little Carol in the film library at New York university and The movie in German is called Jeder Versicht und Gott gegen Alles. Jeder Versicht und Gott gegen Alles. Excuse me.

33:12 Which translates to Star Trek VI, The Undiscovered Country.

33:18 It translates to Every Man for Himself. and God Against All, which is one of the darkest titles you could think of, but that's actually not what the movie was called when it was brought to the U.S., and it is known as The Enigma of Casper Hauser. Probably, Matt, you've seen this one or at least have heard about it.

33:42 I've heard of it.

33:42 I have not seen it, but I do know it.

33:45 It is one of the earlier films by Werner Herzog back when he was in the zone and he was pumping out masterpieces left and right. Movies like Aguirre, The Wrath of God, and his Nosferatu adaptation, later Fitzcarraldo. And the story of Kasper Hauser, if we were German, we would know more about it. He's sort of an urban... myth, who I believe is based on a true story, but nobody really knows the specifics. Back in the day in 18 Blobbity Blue, in some little village in Bavaria, one day a young man just appeared in town square with a letter in his hand explaining that he was raised in a basement, what do they call it, a root cellar, and he's completely unsocialized, and the person who had been caring for him, and caring isn't, you know, basically keeping

34:39 him fed, and that's about it, could no longer do it, so here he is, and it was a social case of, like, here's someone who's an adult, but, you know, has the mind of a newborn, and it's a fascinating thing, And there have been, certainly in Germany, a lot of different adaptations of the story, a lot of interpretations. There have been other films, but the Herzog one is the one that counts for a couple of reasons. Number one, who they got as the lead performer. The lead performer in this is someone who really only made two or three movies.

35:14 His name is Bruno S. He just went as Bruno S. And Bruno S. was someone that Herzog, back when he was really cook and somehow came across, he was a street performer. He played the glockenspiel and he was someone who was abused as a child and apparently spent most of his youth in various asylums and mental institutions. Uh, but he and Herzog somehow formed a friendship and he'd never acted before. And he said, I'm going to make you the star of my new movie. And it's his performance that is so mesmerizing. And the movie itself, it's like, look, it's a story about somebody who's coming in from another world, entering our world totally wide-eyed, much like Carrie is doing.

35:57 I mean, this is Carrie's world times 10. I mean, Carrie at least can speak when she shows up at the high school in Flanagan's Carrie. With this, he barely can say a few words. So it's sort of like that. You're experiencing the world through him and Carrie. The performance is like from outer space because he's a non-actor and he had his own issues. And the movie itself is almost like it's from outer space. Like the tone of the movie, the POV of the movie is just so strange. Now, Bruno S. 's performance, when you first watch it, and I watched it again last night for the first time in decades, at first I'm like, this is terrible. It's like, remember back on Monty Python's series, once in a while

36:41 when they needed an extra actor, they would call in Terry Gilliam to be in a scene. He mostly did the animation and he did some of the writing. He acted once in a blue moon and he's a terrible actor. All he could do was mug and make stupid faces. Terry Gilliam's very talented, he's not an actor. Bruno S is doing like the Terry Gilliam thing at first. You're just like, this guy's terrible. He's mugging for the camera.

37:04 He's doing wide eyes and just like, he looks like a crazy person. How can I take this seriously? After a few minutes, your mind begins to adapt and it's actually a work of genius because you just accepted that this is actually how Bruno S slash Casper Hauser is and it becomes the most incredible film performance of all time because you've never seen one like this before. You've never seen such, it's like, you know, you watch The Room and you think Tommy Wiseau is the worst actor, but eventually you get on its wavelength. It's a little bit like that. Like you just sort of like see the movie through this performance and it's wonderful. By the time this movie ends, you're really on its wavelength. And

37:50 of course, and it's also like shot very, very well. Like, it seems like they went back in time. Like, they found some village in the middle of nowhere, and it's just, like, scenes of. Of Kasper Hauser becoming socialized. Like, at first, he can't talk. He's living in filth, and then he learns... You know, he gets some sponsors, and they teach him how to play piano, and they teach him how to eat properly, and it's a... And then there's... And then there's some story to it, but mostly it's just watching this guy be weird. Like, he doesn't know what a chicken is, and he's freaking out about the chicken.

38:21 So.

38:22 That's my recommendation. You know, Herzog himself is an interesting character. I mean, who knows how... He's kind of like Bob Dylan. Like, he has these myths about his origin. We don't really know how much of it is true. But according to lore, you know, Herzog lived in a very rural community. He had no running water. He had no electricity. He never saw a movie until he was 22 or something like that.

38:45 And he's like, oh, yes, this is what I'm going to do for a living. So he always... All of his films have a very interesting perspective. I mean, he's still cranking them out. He does great documentaries. I would say his glory years are kind of in the past, but he still does a good one every now and then.

39:00 And he certainly, you know, everybody knows his voice and they, you know, even in the Star Wars thing, he's pretty great in that. So anyway, that's my recommendation. Carrie, when I was watching Carrie, she made me think of Data, and then she made me think of Bruno S. from Casper Hauser. Bruno S. and Herzog did one more collaboration called Strozczyk, a movie I like even more. That one I've seen many times, and I will find a way to make that a recommendation on a future.

39:26 I'm sure. Well, you've already, you previously recommended Rest.

39:30 Dawn.

39:30 So and Little Dieter needs to fly. Yeah, you're apparently you're a big Herzog guy.

39:35 That's kind of interesting because I don't consider myself a huge Herzog guy, but this is my third Herzog recommendation.

39:41 You don't remember the things you recommend on the show. There's a nastiness to Herzog. I saw these movies when I was very young the first time, and watching Kasper Hauser again now, there's a nastiness. There's a drunken nastiness to the vibe. I could see people being put off by the films. I think Herzog, his later documentaries, he likes to think of himself as a great humanist.

40:05 He's mellowed a little.

40:05 He certainly has mellowed in his later years.

40:09 Somewhat.

40:10 Somewhat.

40:10 There's a dark streak to this movie, and it's not just because it's dark subject matter. I think there's a darkness to the way it's told. But, you know, I can separate.

40:19 That's because there is a darkness inside all of us and all of humanity. Yeah.

40:25 I was hoping you'd do the voice. Sure. I mean, what did I say the German title was? Every Man for Himself and God Against All?

40:30 Yeah.

40:31 I mean, that's a pretty hardcore title.

40:32 Yeah.

40:32 So anyway, that's my pick for The Enigma of Casper.

40:36 And I'll help you and tell people that it's available to stream on a variety of places. You can watch it on Tubi. It's on Plex. It's on Canopy. It's on Fandor. It's on Shout TV. So there's a bunch of places you can watch this one for free, mostly with ads, but it is available to watch.

40:55 Yeah, I watched it on Canopy with no ads because I have a library card and the print was good.

41:01 I have to watch. I have seen a lot of Herzog movies, but he's made a lot of movies and I have not seen them all. So that's one that I need to catch up with.

41:07 He's like Stephen King. He pumps one out of you.

41:09 He kind of is. That's an interesting collab that we've never gotten that maybe someday down the line we'll get. Now, for my recommendation, speaking of Stephen King, I felt I have to do a Stephen King adaptation here because there's so many of them, but also a lot of them are horrible. And so you don't want to watch one of the bad ones.

41:34 Have you ever seen Maximum Overdrive? Have you ever watched it?

41:37 I have.

41:37 It's so bad.

41:38 It is a hilariously awful film. Maximum Overdrive is the one movie that Stephen King himself directed.

41:44 What is going on? I don't know! You want a war?

41:48 You got one.

41:52 Did he direct it or did cocaine direct it? Who's to say? I don't know. But it's an absolutely horrible movie. I don't know that I would recommend it because even though it has, you know, it has bonkers scenes and moments, a lot of it is just very boring also. But I will say the thing you should watch and what you should do right now, pause the show, go to YouTube.

42:17 And Google, if you haven't seen it, Maximum Overdrive Trailer. And watch Stephen King try to sell this movie to you. He's in it. The trailer is him talking to the camera.

42:29 I've never seen it.

42:30 It is one of the wildest things you will see today.

42:33 I've never seen it.

42:34 Oh, it's worth watching.

42:35 A lot of people have directed Stephen King novels and stories. And I finally decided if you want something done right, you ought to do it yourself.

42:48 That's not my pick, though. I want to make this very clear. Maximum Overdrive, not my pick. You know, Stephen King, prolific writer, a beloved writer, maybe not the best judge of his own like adaptations, of course. He famously did not like The Shining. All the other the best Stephen King adaptations are pretty well known. They do not need defending like Shawshank Redemption, like Stand By Me, like the original Carrie. And a lot of the ones that he was directly involved with also stink. There is one that that it's very fun, but bad is a movie. I don't know if you've seen this one, Jordan, called Sleepwalkers.

43:28 Have you seen Sleepwalkers?

43:30 You know, I don't know that I have. I've seen a lot, but that one slipped.

43:34 Through the cracks. That one is about incestuous cat demons.

43:38 Yeah, I really should see this. I got to watch this immediately.

43:40 Streaming on Tubi and on the Roku channel if you want to take a look. Very bad, but very funny. Funny bad. For one that is pretty good, but also kind of obscure, I am going back to the year 1992 when Stephen King teamed with another master of horror, a master of filmed horror that he worked with a few times in the 1980s and 90s, a gentleman by the name of George Romero. who wrote and directed the film version of the King novel, The Dark Half. And this film is available on a lot of places as well.

44:14 You can watch it on Prime Video, on Fandango, on Canopy, on Plex, on Tubi, on YouTube TV, and on the very real Fawesome. The movie stars Timothy Hutton. He plays an author and an English teacher who writes respected but unsuccessful novels under his real name of Thad Beaumont. He could be named Preston, but he wasn't. And he writes sleazy best-selling thrillers under his pen name George Stark. Nobody knows that he is really George Stark until one day a fan approaches him, having figured it all out and threatening to out him unless he's Unless he pays him.

45:00 He blackmails him, basically. And instead, he decides to go public. And People magazine writes a profile about him and his double life. They do a photo shoot. They put up a fake George Stark gravestone that Thad Beaumont stands atop of. But then, the next day, people around him start turning up dead. all of whom played a hand in the death of, quote-unquote, the death of George Stark. And all the evidence points to him.

45:33 You really don't realize what you're like when you write those books, do you? It's like watching Jackal turn into Hyde.

45:41 The eventual explanation of what's happening here is a little silly, I acknowledge that. But I think the psychological backbone of what's happening here, the metaphor that's being explored here, is very interesting. And Stephen King, of course, used his own pen name for many years, Richard Bachman.

46:00 Right.

46:00 He wrote a lot of novels under that name. And then somebody figured it out, like an amateur sleuth, put all the pieces together, figured out that he was Richard Bachman, and confronted him, and he retired the pseudonym. Now, in the movie... he's blackmailed over this. I think in real life, it was not very dramatic and he just kind of was like, that's okay.

46:22 It was a journalist figured it out. It was somebody from USA Today or something figured it out.

46:27 He allowed them to out him. He was, you know, and that was pretty much the end of it.

46:32 The Richard Bachman story is fascinating because the official story is, I wrote books under Bachman's name because he was already so popular that he wanted to see if it was just press and PR that was selling books or.

46:48 If it was the- Right, what's in a name?

46:49 He had the juice.

46:50 Yes.

46:50 So he wrote these books as Richard Bachman to see if they would succeed or if they would even be published. And the fact that they were published is success enough. But then according to other stories, as we mentioned before, King dashes off so much shit that his publishers are like, no, we can't publish another book. You're flooding the marketplace. You're going to devalue your name. Stop it. So he's like, I got to publish. I got to publish. So he's like, put it under a fake name. And that's what he did.

47:18 And it was always his kind of– I mean, let's be honest. Like The Running Man, The Long Walk are not as good as the ones that he's famous for. And one of those books actually, Rage, he has– let go into.

47:32 He put it out of print put it out of.

47:34 Print purposely because it was like the I'm laughing it's not funny at all it was the favorite book of every school shooter.

47:42 Like all the school shooters. It's basically like a proto school shooter. I mean, it's even more overt than the original carry is.

47:48 Yeah. Yeah.

47:49 So there's no metaphor.

47:50 It's direct.

47:51 Yeah.

47:51 All the school shooters like had a copy of rage in their locker.

47:54 Right.

47:55 And King was like, Oh shit. And so he's like, no, I'm done with that. So of course, if you go on eBay, it's like, you know, $ 300 for a copy of rage, which I could totally understand. You know, it's like, you want the thing that you're not supposed to have, but, Anyway, that's the Richard Bachman story. I don't know. Probably most people know this anyhow, but please continue.

48:11 Thank you. Thank you so much. The movie, The Dark Half, it uses that idea of a pen name to tell a story about duality, about multiple personalities existing within a single person, and how like writing, the act of writing like brings out this darker side of this kind of, friendly kind person and uh the character's wife played by future horror movie oscar winner amy madigan uh even says that watching him right is like watching jekyll turn into hide and this idea that like you know that every person has these sides that they try to hide from view is very fun And, like, even the character, the good character, Thad, Tad.

49:00 I don't know.

49:01 That's a weird name. I'm sorry if your name is Thad. He claims he's not an alcoholic, but he thinks George Stark might be. And I love this idea. And maybe, you know, like, I don't necessarily think, like, when I'm writing that some dark aspect of my personality is a exposed. But I do like when a genre film takes a metaphor, an idea like that, and kind of extrapolates it into something more tangible. Like what if... my dark side took hold of me. What if it could act free of me and what would it do? And how would I react?

49:38 And so this is not a five, a five star masterpiece, but I think it uses this idea in a fun way. And if you're looking for more Stephen King movies, uh, I think this is certainly among the good ones. And there are, as I said, a lot of not good ones. So if you've seen the really famous ones and are looking for one that maybe you haven't seen already, I would check this one out. The Dark Half.

50:04 Yeah.

50:05 Streaming on a million places, including Prime Video and Tubi and Canopy and Plex and many more.

50:11 I saw it back in the day and I have not really thought about it much since. But yeah, I remember liking it, thinking it was pretty good.

50:17 Let's get to our listener request.

50:20 Quick shout out, other better than average kids. I like Cat's Eye. Cat's Eye is an anthology film. I really like that one. And I like 1408. And I like Misery.

50:30 I mean, Misery is a real movie. I think Misery at this point is just so well known. Couldn't recommend Misery. And honestly, well, there's The Shining. But other than The Shining, I think that's– honestly, that's for my– pound for pound for me, that's the best one.

50:45 Yeah.

50:45 I mean, I don't know. I would have to think about it. Christine, The Killer Car. I don't know. I haven't seen that in a while. But anyway, let's close the book on Stephen King.

50:53 And let's get to our listener recommendation now. And do you want me to read the email request we got this time?

51:01 Please do.

51:01 This was actually a message from the Film Spotting Family Discord, which you can join by becoming a member of the Film Spotting Family. And I believe you can get more information about that at filmspotting.net, perhaps, if you want to learn more about becoming a member of the Film Spotting Family and supporting all of the Film Spotting Podcasts. but we had LaCava on the Discord, right? I would be interested in more horror comedy films, maybe lesser known ones that aren't the original Evil Dead movies, The Cabin in the Woods, or Tucker and Dale vs.

51:35 Evil.

51:36 The recent Evil Dead movies have been decent, but they are so brutal without the Raimi zaniness. I'm not really a gore or body horror guy, so I would like to have something that mixes in more laughs with the jump scares. And I agree, like the Evil Dead movies that they're making now, they're proficient, but they don't feel like Evil Dead to me because they're not funny. I agree, I like a little zaniness. Give me a little zaniness, a little comedy. So Jordan... I ask you, what is your lesser known horror comedy?

52:11 I either picked a great one or I failed because I don't know what lesser known is anymore. When I was coming up and when Sam was coming up and maybe even Matt Singer, when you were coming up, this was a basic movie for film heads, for nerds. But I never hear anybody talk about this movie anymore. It's from 1985. And it was, you know, if you liked Evil Dead, you liked this movie too. You thought about it.

52:36 You said, oh, Evil Dead and this. If Evil Dead was Coke, this was Pepsi. But I never hear anybody talk about it anymore. And the movie is Dan O'Bannon's The Return of the Living Dead.

52:48 In the dark of the night, something strange is going on.

53:01 Now, is that too common? Did I fail? Did I fail the test?

53:04 I would say it's not obscure, but it's certainly- It's not a deep cut. I would agree that it was more famous when we were younger, and now I would say it's a little more cultish. Still beloved by real horror aficionados, but I don't know if someone is more of a casual fan that they would- They've probably heard of it. They may have not seen it. So make the case for it.

53:29 I poke around on social media and I see what the young film fans, the film Twitter kids are doing. They never talk about this movie.

53:37 The youngs.

53:38 They never talk about it.

53:39 We're the olds.

53:39 They are the youngs.

53:41 In basic terms, The Night of the Living Dead, 1968. Most famous independent movie ever made. It is a fascinating tale of who owns this movie. It's rights free because they screwed it up. It's been bootlegged a zillion times. Um, the, the history of the Night of the Living Dead is very famous and very fascinating. And most people think of it as a George A. Romero film. And he is the director and he is the co-writer, but there was another writer on it, a fella by the name of, uh, Jim, what is Jim's last name? Jim Russo, Jack Russo, Jack Russo, excuse me, Jack Russo. If you asked him, he was the true creator of Night of the Living Dead. So they had a split. This is why the sequel to Night of the Living Dead is called Day of the

54:25 Dead and Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead. The living is gone. When they had a divorce, they said, Russo, you take the living and Romero, you take the dead. And that was the split. So basically, Jack Russo wrote a book and then it was going to be adapted and then it fell through a bunch of hands and eventually got picked up by Dan O'Bannon, who's very well known for He wrote the script of The First Alien, and he worked with Carpenter on Dark Star, which is a comedy sci-fi horror movie. And this living dead story kind of mutated into something that is very, very darkly funny, but it still has the gross outs, and it has the scares, and it has some dark moments. I mean, there's some deaths in here that are like, holy shit.

55:16 But it's also really funny, and it's very, very... punk rock, 1985, like the music in there. I think it's like the cramps are in there and other bands. And just like, you know, Leanne Quigley is the actress who plays, her name is Trash, if I'm not mistaken. And she, you know, does a sexy dance on top of a, on top of a gravestone with her crazy red hair and her ripped t-shirt and fishnet stockings and all that. I alluded earlier, I said the new Carrie has no sleaze. This movie is nothing but sleaze. There was a time when nobody, when producers and distributors and theaters, they thought so little of horror that there were no expectations. It was just program it, get it in the next Jason, the next Freddie,

56:04 you know, or, or like other just like fly by night, you know, bad dreams. Remember that one? Or like, you know, movies like my bloody Valentine's a little earlier. That was a seventies. Just like, It was just junk, you know, just prom night. There was no expectation to be good. There was this expectation for kids to watch it on a Saturday night. Now, this movie has incredible practical special effects, and it has very, very funny comic timing. I mean, there are bits in here that are like Stooges-esque almost in there. I don't want to say slapstick, but just like the way it's said.

56:40 Splatstick.

56:41 A little bit of a classic. Dan O'Bannon is a really, really clever guy who knew how to stage a scene. The performances are really funny. The lead is Mr. Clue Gulliger, the great Clue Gulliger. He plays like, I don't know, he's the superintendent at a cemetery and all the dead come back to life and they're running around. And it's better than it needed to be. Like all it needed to be was just to have another property in the theaters that week. That had scares that the kids would want to see, but it's actually got a point of view aesthetically and also just like, you know, with the story it wants to tell, it's got like, you know, it's kind of extending the lore of Night of the Living Dead unofficially. And it's got a real punk rock attitude,

57:29 and it just looks great, and it's very, very funny at times. How do you kill something that's already dead?

57:34 Well, how do I know, Fred? I don't know. Let me think.

57:37 It's not a bad question, Bert.

57:39 In that movie, they destroyed the brain to kill him.

57:41 Is that what they did? The brain? Right!

57:45 I didn't get a chance to rewatch it, which is why I'm kind of dancing around the plot of it, and I kind of forgot some of the characters' names. But I do revere this film, and I've seen it a few times over the years. And it was like kind of table stakes for a film nerd back in my day. You know, back when I was in film school, it was like you loved certain movies, you know, and you loved Return of the Living Dead. That was one of the ones that everybody loved, everybody watched on VHS.

58:13 And I feel like this one has sort of been forgotten a little bit. So I want all the listeners to go back and watch the 1985, The Return of the Living Dead, and have a good time with it. But also, you know, there's no AI in this. There's no CGI. It's all real guts and gore and bones and awesome. All actual zombies. All actual zombies and cool t-shirts that are ripped in the right way and fun fishnet stockings and have a blast.

58:39 So it's streaming on AMC +, on Fubo, on MGM +, and on Canopy. And I did look while you were talking about it to try to see, like, well, how obscure is it in 2026? So I looked on Letterboxd. Evil Dead 2 on Letterboxd has been rated 500,000 times.

59:01 Yeah.

59:02 The Return of the Living Dead has been rated... 151,000 times.

59:10 A fifth. Well, a half of that.

59:13 Stick to film criticism. Don't become a math professor or an accountant. But it's less. It's significantly less than half. So, I mean, that's not nothing. It's not 10,000. But I would say if we use that as a measure of a barometer of the youngs, it at least has a smaller fan base.

59:35 Now, Evil Dead 2 is the nay plus ultra of the comedy horror genre. It deserves to be number one. But I'm telling you, younger listeners, when I was your age, it was Evil Dead 2 and The Return of the Living Dead. They went side by side. Evil Dead 2 was always in the driver's seat, and it should be. But this was like right alongside with it. And it definitely has seen a drop off. We're going to change that drop off here. Me, Matt Singer, and Sam on FilmSpottingSVU are going to resurrect, if you will, the zombified corpse of the return of the living dead in 1985. Sure, sure, sure.

1:00:14 Okay, so for my pick... I went with something a little more recent, but I think I should look up how many people have rated this one on Letterboxd just out of curiosity. I'm guessing it's less than 150,000. I, though, really enjoyed this movie when I saw it in 2017. I saw it at TIFF that year. Didn't seem to make a huge impact there or anywhere else, but it is currently streaming on Peacock. And it stars one of our most actors, maybe not the best actor at this point in his career, but still one of our most actors, giving one of his most performances of this era of his career. The actor is Nicolas Cage, and the movie is titled Mom and Dad. directed by Brian Taylor. And the horror comedy premise, like Jordan, I have kind of

1:01:06 picked a zombie movie here. It is a kind of clever spin on the classic zombie premise. And it is where basically like one day out of the blue, without explanation, parents everywhere start trying to kill their own children. Like, no explanation. They just are, like, sickened with this virus-like need to destroy their own families. Their kids are under attack.

1:01:32 And the film mostly focuses on just one family, and the mom is Selma Blair, and the dad is Nicolas Cage. Multiple reports are now coming in of parents murdering their own children.

1:01:45 Listen to me.

1:01:46 We have to get out of the house before mom and dad come home. When I tell you that this is a film about Nicolas Cage as a deranged father trying to kill his own children while ranting and raving and in at least one scene trying to destroy a pool table with a sledgehammer while singing the Hokey Pokey.

1:02:09 Put your right foot in. You take your right foot out.

1:02:14 You do the Hokey Pokey and you.

1:02:17 If that doesn't sound like something you want to watch, I honestly don't know what else to tell you, and I kind of pity you. If that doesn't sound like something you want to watch, what are we even doing here?

1:02:30 You know what I mean?

1:02:31 So the film, as I said, was directed by Brian Taylor. That was one half of the Neville Dean Taylor film. Oh, those guys. And very graphic. Not as graphic as something like A Goody Goody, the movie we reviewed last week on the show. It's not like that bloody or anything like that. But it's not a straight horror movie. It is a horror comedy. And if you're going to make a horror comedy, having a wild, demented Nick Cage at the center is a real asset. Although I will say Selma Blair, she gives it her all. She keeps up with him. She has to act opposite him doing these manic things. And I give her a lot of credit for sticking with him. Mommy, Mommy's here.

1:03:28 Are you two all right?

1:03:30 We're not coming out, okay?

1:03:31 You have to leave.

1:03:33 You're going to open the door! And I will say that, as I think he was even saying earlier, I love a good horror allegory, a good horror metaphor. And I think Mom and Dad probably left a little bit on the table in that regard. They could have done more with that. I'm not sure the movie has that much to say about this. Maybe there's something to the idea of parents trying to kill their children in, you know, in our world where parents seem so oblivious to their kids, like at best they're just absentee or at worst they're like, I don't know, just the harm we're all doing to the world around us or to the world we're leaving our children. Maybe, maybe I'm just being generous and trying to add a little more substance to this thing because

1:04:20 I like this movie and I like watching Nicolas Cage destroy that pool table and sing the hokey pokey. Ultimately, that's kind of good enough for me. So that's my pick for a lesser-seen horror comedy, Mom and Dad, which you can watch on Peacock. And now I'm going to really quickly run down all of the titles we talked about on the Rec Seg. For our related recommendation, Jordan picked The Enigma of Casper Hauser, which you can watch on 2B, Plex, Canopy, and VOD. And I mentioned a bunch of Stephen King adaptations. most of which I do not recommend, like Sleepwalkers, but if you want to watch a really funny, bad Stephen King film, that one's on Tubi and Roku. The one I did recommend was The Dark Half, which is on Prime Video, Canopy, Plex, Tubi,

1:05:08 and YouTube TV. And then for our listener request, Jordan recommended The Return of the Living Dead on AMC +, MGM +, and Canopy, and I went with Mom and Dad on Peacock and Plex, and on VOD... And for a running list of all the films we've talked about on every episode of Film Spotting SVU, go to Letterboxd and look for the list now streaming on Bazooka. It has.

1:05:34 Bazooka!

1:05:34 Bazooka, when you want to stream. It has a list of... It's a list of every single movie we've recommended and discussed on the show, well over 100 titles. And if you want a personalized streaming recommendation... Send a note to feedback at filmspottingsvu. Tell us what kind of movie you're looking to watch. Tell us what streaming services you use.

1:05:57 And we'll do our best to help you out.

1:06:06 Late at night when you've got a stream, click on the app you know is cream. It's a scream, it's cream of the crop. It's right there, right at the top. Go get the app. The Bazooka app. Just use the app. Fill your cinema gap. Your favorite app. You'll catch on in a snap. Your streaming apps. The Bazooka app. Bazooka.

1:06:34 When you call the stream. Bazooka. It's cream. Bazooka. Right at the top of your favorite streaming apps.

1:06:47 Okay, before we start our game, I did just look up on Letterboxd. Mom and Dad has 60,000 ratings. Six zero. So less still than it was 500,000 was Evil Dead 2. 150,000 was Return of the Living Dead.

1:07:00 Mom and Dad.

1:07:00 60,000. So we're getting smaller.

1:07:07 It's still 60,000.

1:07:07 Honestly, it's more than I would have expected.

1:07:09 I'll be honest.

1:07:10 I mean, I've never heard of this movie and I am aware of things, you know, horror films that debut at TIFF are in my orbit. And this one, a lot of things slip by. There's so much content. You know, it's time for a podcast that keeps track.

1:07:23 Of it all.

1:07:23 And that podcast is?

1:07:24 And that podcast is Film Spotting SVU. That's right. I want to do one more thing.

1:07:28 I got to get something else off my chest. I feel bad because on the last segment, I think I said Thad is a weird name. What if we have someone named Thad listening?

1:07:37 It's not a weird name. I have a friend named– I know a Thad. He might be listening.

1:07:41 Thad is not a weird name. I just don't know how to say it, and I feel self-conscious.

1:07:45 It's about me. I grew up with a pair of twins. They were identical twins. Thad and– And one of the men was Thad.

1:07:52 What was the other's name?

1:07:54 And the other name, other one, was named Chad.

1:07:57 I was going to say, it's kind of wrong.

1:07:58 There's no way it doesn't rhyme.

1:07:59 Chad and Chad.

1:08:00 Well, I think Tad, most people, I believe that many people who are spelled T-H-A-D go with Tad.

1:08:08 Right.

1:08:09 But the Tad that I know, and I don't know him super well, but I know him a little bit. I've certainly met him once or twice. He's a very, very, very nice guy.

1:08:17 I'm sure he's lovely I have never interfaced with a fad and I feel I just feel honestly I almost feel like I'm like I feel like I'm talking like this like Daffy Duck like fad and I felt weird about it I felt weird about me so to the fads out there it's not you it's me and i apologize be be your fad self we love all fads yes all fads welcome okay yeah i wanted to just get that off my chest now you're a righteous person let's proceed it's game time get your game face on sam you're in charge what are we doing we've already teased.

1:08:52 It's stephen king that's right did.

1:08:55 We spoil the whole thing by talking about sleepwalkers and.

1:08:58 These other things? A little.

1:08:59 I mean, not spoiled, but sometimes I realize like, oh, you kind of maybe in your research around a rec seg maybe have done a little groundwork.

1:09:09 That's good.

1:09:09 That's going to help me because, as I said, otherwise I do not know– I am not a Stephen King aficionado, and I've read very few of his books– And I only interface with him mostly through movies and shows. So I don't have an advantage here.

1:09:24 I think you both will have an advantage in that I think most, if not all, of these titles are early King adaptations. So like 80s, maybe 90s.

1:09:35 We got it.

1:09:36 I'll tell you. So the name of the game is called If You Come at the King, You Better Not Miss.

1:09:41 Of course.

1:09:42 Now, these are movie adaptations. So the answers will be movie adaptations of Stephen King stories, novels. that, like Carrie, either got sequels or were remade, or both, as Carrie has sequels and has been remade, as we've discussed. I give the clues, you buzz in. Let's test those buzzers. So we had so many issues last time. You can't groan groaning. I think I got it. It's not a buzz.

1:10:11 Laying down the law here.

1:10:13 I'm going to try to lay down the law here. So that's pretty simple.

1:10:18 So what are the answers?

1:10:20 The answers will be the original film. Sequels would have been made after it. It might have been remade. But what I'm looking for is the original film. title and they all.

1:10:31 Have to have had remakes or sequels so if it was a one and done it's not on this game.

1:10:36 Right that's correct okay and what are the clues what is there i'm.

1:10:39 Just gonna give you various clues various clues okay okay all right let's do it you'll know i think there's only one that honestly the.

1:10:47 Silence of the lambs.

1:10:49 Waiting for that silence of the lambs correct.

1:10:54 Ladies love what was it ladies love law enforcement.

1:10:59 Law enforcement okay all right okay number one last week's game this film came out in 1984 subtitles of some of the sequels there have been eight of them i've just let me read some of the sequels titles okay the final sacrifice Urban Harvest.

1:11:19 Yeah, oh, I got it.

1:11:21 The Gathering.

1:11:22 Oh, yeah.

1:11:24 Fields of Terror.

1:11:25 Yeah, yeah, that's good.

1:11:28 That would be Children of the Corn.

1:11:30 Children of the Corn is correct. Originally came out in 1984. The tagline was, and a child shall lead them.

1:11:39 Remade.

1:11:40 Twice, in 2009 and in 2020. Eight sequels between 1992's Children... I can't believe it took till 1992 for Children of the Corn 2, The Final Sacrifice.

1:11:50 Children of the Scorn.

1:11:52 And 2018's Children of the Corn Runaway, colon Runaway. The original is currently streaming on Prime Video.

1:11:58 Was there really that much to say about Children of the Corn? That's a lot.

1:12:04 Well, I mean, corn is a staple product of this country.

1:12:06 I mean, it's... I think I was reading about it.

1:12:09 My God, they're poisoning the ethanol!

1:12:12 And even 84, it was made for a remarkably low budget and was still kind of effective. And I think the low budgetness of children in corn is probably worth a part of the appeal.

1:12:21 I mean, it is a striking image. I just don't know that there's enough meat on that bone for eight sequels or however many you said. Please, meat on that cob.

1:12:30 What are you talking about?

1:12:31 I don't know if there's enough kernels on that cob.

1:12:34 Now, Children of the Corn is based on a short story. It's not even like a novel. It was like, I think he dashed off, you know, on the way to the supermarket.

1:12:41 It was really just the title. It was just Children of the Corn. Run with it. Run with it, Hollywood.

1:12:46 I have seen Children of the Corn. I have very little memory of the children or the corn, but I did see it.

1:12:52 And I don't think I've ever seen any of the remakes or the sequels.

1:12:56 All right.

1:12:56 One nothing, Matt Singer. Number two, the tagline. The most fun you'll ever have being scared.

1:13:05 Yes.

1:13:06 Creepshow.

1:13:08 It's Creepshow.

1:13:09 Well done, Jordan.

1:13:10 That's funny. I was going, I think it might be Creepshow, but I'm going to wait and hear, I was too slow.

1:13:16 So not based on any existing King material.

1:13:18 Took me a minute to remember that they did. There were sequels. There was, yes.

1:13:22 Scripted by King, his screenwriting debut, in fact, directed by?

1:13:26 George Romero is another.

1:13:27 George Romero, correct?

1:13:28 One of the other aforementioned Romero-King collabs.

1:13:32 It was based on, it's an anthology film like Cat's Eye. I think one or two of them may have been pre-existing stories. I think it's a hybrid. As with Cat's Eye, some of them were pre-existing night shift stories. I could be wrong, but I think it's a mix.

1:13:47 The poster, probably one of the posters of the 80s.

1:13:50 Absolutely. That's why, yeah.

1:13:51 Absolutely.

1:13:52 What a great poster.

1:13:52 Immediately saw it. When you said that tagline.

1:13:55 Unforgettable.

1:13:56 Creepshow 2 came out in 87, not directed by Romero, but written by him, based on material by Stephen King. That's on Prime Video. The original Creepshow, available VOD. Creepshow 3, I think people pretend doesn't exist, but came out in 2006. No King, no Romero.

1:14:13 Skippable.

1:14:14 Okay, 1-1.

1:14:15 I mean, that poster, just in case people don't know, it's like a movie. It's a box office. It's a box office.

1:14:23 Yeah, ticket office.

1:14:24 The ticket salesperson behind the box office, but the person is like a skeleton with their eyeball coming out and they're holding with their creepy bony hands a ticket to buy a ticket to Creepshow. It's pretty great.

1:14:35 I'm going, wasn't there a recent remake? There was a TV show of Creepshow. There was a Creep TV show. on Shudder a few years ago. I knew that they had also, I don't know if that counts for the purposes of if you come at the king, you best not miss, but... There may be some TV adaptations thrown in here. Okay.

1:14:56 All right, number three. It's all tied up. The tagline. See, this is the thing. I think you guys are going to jump on this.

1:15:02 Tagline.

1:15:04 Sometimes.

1:15:07 Oh, no!

1:15:08 Pet Sematary.

1:15:09 Oh, wow!

1:15:10 Wow! Sometimes dead is better.

1:15:15 Sometimes dead is better.

1:15:16 1989, Denise Crosby.

1:15:20 Don't do it, Jordan.

1:15:21 Don't do it.

1:15:21 What do you want from me, Sasha Yor?

1:15:25 Red alert.

1:15:26 Screenplay by King based on his 83 book directed by Mary Lambert. Now, this is something I was so glad to have cleared up for me. The movie Pet Sematary. Sematary is spelled S-E-M-A-T-A-Y. S-E-M-A-T-A-R-Y.

1:15:42 It's an Inglorious Bastards.

1:15:44 This came out when I was young enough that I have forever been confused.

1:15:48 You thought that was how to spell it?

1:15:49 Not that I knew. I thought it was an alternative spelling that was permitted.

1:15:54 Right.

1:15:54 Oh, like a British thing.

1:15:55 Yeah, like a British thing.

1:15:56 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:15:57 I have that with words from comics, like the comic book character Havok spells his name H-A-V-O-K, but the word Havok is spelled with a C. I have no idea why they changed it.

1:16:10 Spell dark side for Sam.

1:16:12 There you go. There's another one. Or magic, the X-Man magic with a K also. I don't know why they changed the spelling of these things, just.

1:16:20 To confuse children. Just to confuse us. But the spelling was intentional. The book title is spelled that way. It was inspired by a real life sign that King saw painted by children. Pet Cemetery.

1:16:31 Yeah.

1:16:32 That's all it takes for a kid. He sees a sign, he writes a book. It's amazing. It's so good.

1:16:35 And the Ramones, of course, did the song, which is remarkable.

1:16:39 Followed up by 1992's Pet Sematary 2, also directed by Lambert.

1:16:44 And there was a remake of that recently.

1:16:46 And there was a 2019 remake of Pet Sematary. Jason Clarke, Amy Simons, John Lithgow. That's right, Jason Clarke. And also another sequel, 2023's Pet Sematary colon Bloodlines, a prequel set in 1969.

1:17:00 God.

1:17:00 Bloodlines.

1:17:01 Many Letterboxd reviewers of the 2023 Bloodlines like to quote the original movie's tagline by saying, sometimes dead is better, even as far as, yeah, boom. Okay, 2-1, Jordan. Number four. This is a 1984 film. It's based on a 1980 Stephen King novel. The cast includes Art Carney, Martin Sheen, George C. Scott, Louise Fletcher, and Heather Locklear.

1:17:30 What? Wait.

1:17:32 One of the actual taglines, not maybe the most common, but an actual tagline used in promotion of the film, if you get on her bad side, you're toast!

1:17:43 Yes.

1:17:44 Was it fire starter?

1:17:45 It is fire starter.

1:17:47 Yes.

1:17:48 Yes.

1:17:48 This is the one I, it's Drew Barrymore and David Keith. What are you talking about?

1:17:53 Drew Barrymore's performance so much. You didn't remember all the other people.

1:17:56 I just did. I didn't mention those two because I knew it would give it away. Yes, exactly.

1:18:01 Um, and when, because when you said sheen, sheen is another one.

1:18:05 I know. I thought I might get one of you. I thought you might jump at it.

1:18:10 Okay.

1:18:10 Yeah.

1:18:11 Uh, The original Firestarter streaming on Paramount +. It's tied to two remade by Blumhouse in 2022.

1:18:19 Yes.

1:18:20 Not well.

1:18:20 And you're right. R. Carney is in it.

1:18:22 I do remember R. Sometimes dead is better in Firestarter 2.

1:18:25 Yeah.

1:18:26 That was a rough one.

1:18:27 The remake is available on Netflix and VOD.

1:18:29 2-2.

1:18:31 Three more to go. Number five. adapted from a 1979 King novel by Jeffrey Boehm, the screenwriter, who wrote Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Lost Boys, Lethal Weapon 2 and 3, and now streaming on Bazooka the Phantom, recommended recently as part of a rec seg. So again, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. 1979 King novel, later adapted later after this feature film came out, later adapted in a TV series that ran for six seasons between 2002 and 2007. What year did the movie come out?

1:19:05 So the movie, I have.

1:19:06 Not mentioned that. Oh, you haven't said that yet.

1:19:08 Okay, sorry, sorry.

1:19:09 I believe it's, I'll say it now, 1983, I believe.

1:19:13 Okay.

1:19:14 The tagline, he can see the future, but can he escape it?

1:19:18 Oh, damn it.

1:19:20 The Dead Zone.

1:19:21 That's right.

1:19:22 The Dead Zone, David Cronenberg, currently streaming on Paramount +, AMC +, and YouTube TV.

1:19:27 That's right.

1:19:29 Is gonna break!

1:19:30 Yeah, it's so good. It's so good.

1:19:34 The ice is gonna break!

1:19:36 The ice is gonna break!

1:19:42 The TV series that ran for six seasons.

1:19:46 Wow. It's supposed to be good. I've never seen it, but it's supposed to be very good.

1:19:49 It ran on the USA network. USA.

1:19:50 Right, right.

1:19:51 Characters welcome.

1:19:52 Yeah.

1:19:52 Starring Anthony Michael Hall.

1:19:53 The thing about The Dead Zone is that was the moment. That was the film that took christopher walken from being a good but perhaps a little bit quirky actor and made him christopher walker he had already won the is what is gonna do what i don't i don't forget the rest he had already won the oscar so he could do what he wants and he he that you could see him transforming in the film i've studied the dead zone uh a bit I really like this movie, and I didn't win. And Matt is leading. It is a good movie.

1:20:27 Martin Sheen, also in this film.

1:20:29 Yeah, that's why you got me before.

1:20:30 And thank you for talking about that, because that one, I go, and what one is he in?

1:20:34 Oh, The Dead.

1:20:35 Yeah, I put it in my mind, and it definitely helped me there.

1:20:38 Along with Tom Skerritt, Brooke Adams. Yeah, really good movie. Good movie.

1:20:42 Okay, 3-2, Matt. How many questions are there total?

1:20:45 There's two more.

1:20:46 Two more.

1:20:46 So you could win here, I guess, mathematically with this one.

1:20:49 No, I will tie here.

1:20:51 Number six. Based on King's second published novel after Carrie.

1:20:57 Eh. Yes. Salem's Lot.

1:21:00 Wow. He's not messing around.

1:21:02 Good job. I said I was going to tie.

1:21:06 The novel published in 75. The movie, which starred James Mason, Bonnie Bedelia, and David Soule. It played in theaters internationally in a two-hour cut, but of course, actually showed on TV, on CBS, in two feature-length installments.

1:21:21 Mm-hmm.

1:21:22 Directed by Toby Hooper.

1:21:25 Wow.

1:21:25 That's right. Yeah, the three-hour cut is currently available on VOD.

1:21:29 And then there was a sequel, I know.

1:21:30 There was an 87 sequel.

1:21:32 Return to Salem's Lot?

1:21:34 Okay.

1:21:34 I've never seen that. It was remade as a two-part miniseries in 2004 with Rob Lowe and Donald Sutherland.

1:21:40 Hello.

1:21:41 Wow. And then remade as a feature in 2024 with Lewis Pullman and Alfred Woodward. That's right.

1:21:45 That's right.

1:21:45 There was a lot of Salem's Lot.

1:21:46 God, they have remade all of these movies in the last five years. IP, baby.

1:21:52 My understanding of King's life is that he was working and he was still teaching and he's working on Salem's Lot. And then Carrie goes nuts and he's just like, oh, I can quit my job. I quit. And it's like, I can continue doing this not in the middle of the night.

1:22:06 Wow, look at that. Yeah.

1:22:07 Anyway.

1:22:08 All right, so this is one that I don't think I knew existed. I'm hoping one of you does.

1:22:13 All right, this is exciting.

1:22:15 We're tied?

1:22:15 We're tied. It's 3-3.

1:22:16 It's the last question. It's game point, match point.

1:22:19 Absolutely. The game is on the line. This is a 1995 film. It's based on a 1972 magazine short story by King that was later included in his 1978 collection Night Shift. The tagline, it has a crush on. on you oh anglin oh what is that movie called ted levine in the cast directed also by toby hooper can i 1995 i'm gonna i.

1:22:48 Is it called i like i buzz is it called the mangler.

1:22:53 Wow the mangler i'll give you a plot description It's.

1:23:01 Like an evil laundry machine, right?

1:23:02 A laundry folding machine has been possessed by a demon, causing it to develop homicidal tendencies currently available.

1:23:09 But wait, there was a sequel to The Mangler?

1:23:12 The Mangler 2, 2002. Oh my God.

1:23:15 Tagline.

1:23:15 Oh my God.

1:23:16 Tagline. Not as creative. Tagline. You've been mangled.

1:23:21 Yes.

1:23:23 He's phoning it in.

1:23:25 Okay, this is interesting.

1:23:25 Phoning it in.

1:23:26 Interesting trivia. Lance Henriksen says, is in this one, came out direct to VHS in 2002 in the dawn of the DVD era, but it's currently only available on VHS and via the internet archive because all DVD copies have a glitch that omits two minutes of the film which just so happens to include the death of one of the characters. It's during the scene in the gym for all you Mangler 2 fans out there. There also was a- They mangled the Mangler 2! It was mangled. You've been mangled, DVD.

1:24:06 And there actually was a Mangler Reborn in 2005. That one's available.

1:24:11 There's no way that's real.

1:24:12 Do you think Stephen King knows that there was a Mangler Reborn? That's a great question. I mean, If you bumped into old Uncle Stevie up there in whatever Maine and he's drinking his chowder, talking about the Red Sox and screaming about Trump.

1:24:26 Well, it's got to be one of those things of people digging in and be like, what can I acquire that has Stephen King's name on it that is so cheap? And it's like The Mangler, a magazine.

1:24:34 Nobody's made this one yet.

1:24:37 So, okay, Matt, well done. It looks like we've got another Portmanteau.

1:24:42 Maybe or maybe not. We'll have to see. Who knows?

1:24:45 You took it. That was fair and square. And then originally you were worried. You didn't know enough King. That was a close one. But you have been crowned King. I mean, I never would have.

1:24:51 Gotten that if I hadn't been looking at Letterboxd this week at different adaptations. And I saw, what was the mangler? And the laundry folding machine. And then that's... But yes.

1:25:03 Yeah, I thought when you said 90s and based, like I thought thinner because thinner was kind of, I.

1:25:08 Think that was a Bachman. The Lawnmower Man? The one that I was thinking of was Lawnmower Man, which did get a sequel.

1:25:15 Oh, did it?

1:25:16 Beyond Cyberspace. Right. So that was the one I was expecting. And then when you said the tagline, I was like, nope, that's not it. That's not.

1:25:26 My understanding is The Lawnmower Man, the movie, which of course is a masterpiece, has nothing to do with the short.

1:25:31 Story except for the title. Nothing whatsoever, supposedly. I've never read... It's like they took the title and that's it.

1:25:37 Oh, it's Jeff Fahey. It's not Billy Zane. It's Jeff Fahey, The Lawnmower Man.

1:25:41 I did see The Lawnmower Man.

1:25:43 It is something.

1:25:44 I have not seen it since... Since it came out. The cable days of the early 90s. I would be curious. I was going to say, I would be curious how it holds up. And then I opened the page on Letterboxd and saw a picture of Jeff Fahey and Pierce Brosnan with both giving blue steel.

1:26:04 It looks like they're in Tron, but they look like Tron suits.

1:26:06 And they're wearing Tron suits. And I'm like, wow. Can we review The Lawnmower Man on FilmSpottingSVU, please?

1:26:13 Well, I can't wait to see it.

1:26:14 It's on Prime and Tubi.

1:26:17 There you go, Prime. So I can't wait to see how Lawnmower Man ties into the new Carrie on Episode 7.

1:26:23 They're going to go beyond cyberspace on Carrie.

1:26:28 Job Smith is The Lawnmower Man.

1:26:32 A man.

1:26:33 Joe!

1:26:34 Come on, boy, let's go. Grass is waiting for you. with the mind of a child.

1:26:38 Yeah. Cyboman. He came to see me.

1:26:40 Cyboman comics, right? Yeah. Cyboman. Okay. Big, big time. Uh, thank you to bazooka listeners and bazooka players. Now let's talk about what's coming new to streaming because he got a stream theatrical releases available to rent and buy. These are things that are just still in the theaters or just left the theaters. They cost a few bucks, usually like 1499, but you can rent them. or by them, Buddy, which was by that wacky guy, Casper so-and-so. You know, he's probably most famous for that viral video, Too Many Cooks. Buddy, a magical singing orange unicorn, holds its cast hostage in a surreal TV show dimension. As he becomes more and more demented, I bought a ticket to Buddy. It was going to go. And then it was that big ass

1:27:26 storm that hit that mega nor'easter. And I stayed home. And so I never went. So I'm going to see Buddy on streaming like I'm supposed to. Next, Practical Magic 2. You got your, oh, what's her name? Sandra Bullock. I love her. And the others.

1:27:41 You got Kristen was in that one. And Jennifer Aniston. They were all, the gang's all here on this long awaited sequel.

1:27:46 I heard it wasn't. I heard it wasn't particularly good.

1:27:48 It was not very good, no. I did see it, and it was pretty lukewarm.

1:27:53 But I like Sandy Bullock. Did you see The Lost City with her when she's running around in that purple suit?

1:27:57 I did see The Lost City.

1:27:58 What a movie. I love that movie. It's so funny.

1:28:02 What?

1:28:03 It's her and Thor, right? Chris Hemsworth, they're running around in the jungle or something. Sure, but what?

1:28:08 So?

1:28:09 It's funny. It's a great film. A great film?

1:28:13 Yeah.

1:28:14 I had a good time at the movies. I laughed. I love her. I love Sandra Bullock. I love her.

1:28:18 I mean, she's a delight. I have no issue with Sandra Bullock, but The Lost City is a great film.

1:28:23 Wow.

1:28:23 What do you think about The Heat with her and Mary McCarthy? That's all right.

1:28:26 It's better than The Lost City.

1:28:28 I think The Heat is a masterpiece.

1:28:30 Okay.

1:28:30 All right, let's continue. Is that her name? Melissa McCarthy. Melissa McCarthy. Next up, theatrical releases that are coming to streaming, because you got to stream on home box office masterpieces. you waited to see it because it didn't do well in theaters but now you can watch it huge jackson huge jackman okay it did say jackson in the script that's sam's mistake Hugh Jackman in The Death of Robin Hood.

1:28:57 This is by the director Michael Sarnosky, who did Pig with Nick Cage. And he did one of the A Quiet Place prequel.

1:29:05 The A Quiet Place prequel.

1:29:06 Which was quite good, actually. Surprisingly good for a prequel.

1:29:09 This movie didn't get a great reception, but he's only made good things before.

1:29:13 I'm told it's really gross and violent, and who wants to see Robin Hood be gross and violent? Not audiences, because this was a bomb.

1:29:21 This did not do well.

1:29:22 But it's on HBO Max. Now, if you want to see Hugh Jackman covered in blood, here's your opportunity. Also direct to streaming on Wednesday the 15th, Paul Bettany returns as Vision in the limited series Vision Quest on Disney +.

1:29:35 You have to say it like this. You have to say it like this. Paul Bettany returns in The Vision in the limited series Vision Quest on Disney +.

1:29:43 I gotta say, I'm behind on my Vision. I saw the first one, WandaVision. I thought it was innovative. And then there was the sequel, Agatha Goes to Town or whatever it was called.

1:29:55 Agatha all along. Have some respect for Agatha Harkness, please.

1:30:02 I did not watch it, and I gave up, and so I'm never going to see Vision Quest because I'm behind. But it's got Ultron!

1:30:08 James Spader's Ultron is back in Vision Quest!

1:30:14 All right, good. You watch it. Margaret Qualley and Aaron Pierre, very handsome, are in love of your life. What a twosome. I'll watch those two.

1:30:24 That is a pair.

1:30:26 In a movie called Love of Your Life, directed by Rachel Morrison, who had previously made something called The Fire Inside. This is on Prime Video. I don't know anything about it other than what I just read. But if I hear it's good, maybe I'll watch it.

1:30:39 Keep going.

1:30:39 Keep going. Next up, the limited series Crystal Lake. We've already chomped into Carrie. Crystal Lake, of course, is part of the Friday the 13th lore. It's on Peacock. It starts on the 16th. More Friday the 13th. Jason Voorhees in New Jersey. Friday the 17th, the Shudder original Hollow Warrior. That sounds cute. The last girl on Earth and sole survivor of a humanity-ending plague. scavenging the wasteland for supplies on the eve of Halloween. Sounds like things are scary enough for this woman. Now it's Halloween. How much worse can it get? Seriously.

1:31:20 Tune in. Preach.

1:31:21 You gotta watch Hollow Warrior on Shudder. Master Plan. Stanley Tucci plays a legendary thief who sets his sights on the Mona Lisa on Prime Video. I love Stanley Tucci. I'd like to see this. Okay.

1:31:35 You haven't heard of this. It's on Prime Video on Friday. That's why you listen to FilmSpottingSVU to learn these things.

1:31:40 There's so much material.

1:31:42 There's a lot. It's crazy.

1:31:43 There's so much.

1:31:44 There's a Judd Apatow-directed documentary called Norm, The Tale of Norm MacDonald on Netflix. Judd Apatow, this has got to be his fifth documentary about the comics he loves.

1:31:53 Mm-hmm.

1:31:55 I actually saw– Norm Macdonald actually saw perform at Caroline's Comedy Club. Wow. I'm a little jealous of that. I love Norm Macdonald. I never laughed so hard. He was so good.

1:32:05 I will say this, Jordan, not to interrupt. If you would like to know why Judd Apatow keeps making these documentaries about stand-up comedians, you might want to read the book Funny Business– now available wherever books are sold. It covers this very subject.

1:32:19 Because he's done, Gary Shandling was the first one.

1:32:22 He did Gary Shandling. He did Mel Brooks.

1:32:23 He did a Carlin.

1:32:24 He did Mel Brooks. And he's got another one coming out very soon as well. I'm blanking on, maybe it's Maria Bamford, I think. He might have co-directed.

1:32:33 Did he do the SCTV one also?

1:32:35 I don't think he did that one, but I think he has the Maria Bamford one as well.

1:32:41 Okay.

1:32:42 Let's move on. We got more. We got more.

1:32:43 There's so much more.

1:32:45 Sacrifice is coming to Netflix. Sacrifice is Romain Gavras. This is the son of Constantine Costa Gavras, a very famous Greek-French filmmaker who did a lot of big movies back in the day, like Z and State of Siege. This is a new one. And this guy, Romain, the son, he did Athena, which was set in a... I guess you call it a housing project in Paris that went all up in flames and went shenanigans. Very, very good movie, Athena.

1:33:11 I like that one a lot. Sacrifice is with Hollywood actors. This is his first Hollywood movie. A movie star in the midst of an existential crisis is taken hostage by a radical warrior and her devoted followers. Wow. Starring Chris Evans.

1:33:29 Interesting.

1:33:29 Anya Taylor-Joy.

1:33:31 She's always fun to watch. Vincent Cassell, John Malkovich, Selma Hayek, And it's on Netflix. I'm in. I'm going to watch it. And then finally, Tenzing. I'm assuming, yes, it is. This is a biopic about Tenzing Norgay, the guy who led Edmund Hillary to the top of Mount Everest. I want to see this. It stars Tom Hiddleston as Edmund Hillary.

1:33:52 Great.

1:33:53 And Tibetan actor Jendon Funstock. I'm not familiar with him. He plays Tenzing Norgay. This one's on Apple TV. I'm sure they threw a lot of money at it. I'm sure it's shot very beautifully in the snow and... And great to watch. And that's Tenzing Norgay. Yeah.

1:34:10 That's a lot of things to watch.

1:34:12 Yeah.

1:34:12 Holy smokes, that's a lot.

1:34:12 And you're going to watch five more hours of Carrie, Jordan?

1:34:16 Well, I may not get it all done by the next time we speak because I have other obligations, but I'm definitely going to watch at least a few more because I want to know more.

1:34:24 And after all of that, the movie that we're going to talk about on the next episode we think is none of those things. We are planning to talk about the big, I've seen it advertised on Playoff Baseball this week, the new big movie on Apple TV, Matchbox colon the movie. So it stars John Cena. And I assume a lot of cars, little cars.

1:34:50 It stars IP. It stars Mattel is what it stars. I'm sure of it. It was like Barbie made a billion. What's boy Barbie? Matchbox. Done. Sold. Make it.

1:34:59 That's it.

1:35:00 So we'll see. I have not watched an ad for it, and I haven't seen the trailer. I'm not watching the baseball. By the way, your Mets are out. So who are you rooting for?

1:35:08 I would be very happy if anyone basically at this point kind of like, but the Dodgers wins. I want to see somebody who either hasn't won in a very long time or has never won the World Series, of which.

1:35:19 Most of the teams.

1:35:20 Everybody needs to root for the Brewers.

1:35:21 Yeah, I would love to see the Brewers win. The Rays are a great team to watch and they've never won. Rays are fun to root for. So yeah, pretty much anybody. Are the Dodgers sort of like expected to win? I would say they're probably favored to win just because they have so, you know, the money and the players and, um, they are the kind of the, the evil empire of baseball right now. I know you root for the Orioles because you like the hat.

1:35:48 Well, let's get, we'll talk about that next season, but I'm rooting for Milwaukee brewers for two reasons. One, Sam lives within spitting distance of Milwaukee. I don't understand the Midwest cause you live in Wisconsin, but you're close to Iowa. I don't know where you are, but, Also, because of George Carlin, once referred to this team as the Milwaukee Beer Farts. And when I heard that as a 10-year-old, I never stopped laughing. So I've always had a soft spot for the Milwaukee Beer Farts. Go Beer Farts. Go Brewers.

1:36:18 I'm all in on the Brewers. Defeat the stinking Dodgers and make Sam happy. Okay.

1:36:24 All right. Well, if you want to... Oh, I mentioned Funny Business. It is on sale, my new book. And just briefly, if you're going to be in the Iowa City area the weekend of October 22nd through the 25th. I'll be there at the Iowa City Book Fest and Refocus Film Festival. And then if you're in Chicago, October 26th, that's a Monday, Monday night, I'll be at the Davis Theater doing a screening of Step Brothers and discussing the film and signing books. And I believe my moderator there will be the great Scott Tobias, also a member of the Film Spotting family, the Next Picture Show co-host.

1:37:03 Yeah.

1:37:04 Scott Tobias will be talking to me at that event. So hopefully I see some SVU listeners there. And let's wrap things up on this very long episode of Film Spotting SVU.

1:37:18 You know, I know some people listen to this podcast on the bus and sometimes there's traffic. So maybe this is especially for you if you're in traffic today. That's what's going on. It's crazy. The bus is crazy. All right, listen. Let's wrap it up by saying the following thing. Send feedback. And make your shows shorter is the first thing. Send feedback to feedback at filmspottingsvu.com. And feedback is tell us what we're doing right, tell us what we're doing wrong, but also give us your request for the listener request recseg.

1:37:53 On Instagram and Letterboxd, you can follow Matt Singer as he travels to Iowa City and other places at Super Pulse. And on Blue Sky, he's just Matt Singer. And I'm Jay Hoffman on Blue Sky. Film Spotting SVU is produced by Wisconsin's own Sam Van Halgren. We are all part of the Film Spotting family of podcasts, the only family of podcasts worth listening to. More about us and those shows at filmspotting.net. This week's bazooka jingle, uh-oh, the bazooka mash, was produced and performed by the great Andy Wilkowski, who also is a relief pitcher for the brewers. I think Andy Wilkowski and you can, and you could, I'm going to do this. I'm immediately going to learn more about the great Andy Wilkowski by going to Andy Wilkowski.com slash W-I-L-K-O-W-S-K-E.

1:38:50 I'm Jordan Hoffman.

1:38:51 And I'm Matt Singer. Thanks for listening.