Nightbreed (1990)

A safer Ontario means more police and prosecutors making sure my car doesn't get stolen. It means building new jails that keep criminals behind bars. And it means there's no need to worry when I play at the park. We're making every corner of Ontario safer to make all of Ontario safer.

That's how we protect Ontario. For all of us. Learn how at ontario.ca. Pay for by the Government of Ontario.

You've been lost in the woods for hours now stumbling around in the dark. You come around the bend and see two people roasting marshmallows over a roaring fire. They see you coming into the clearing and jester over to pull up a log. Welcome to Campfire Ashes, I'm Paul.

And I'm Jess. Join us as we tell each other our originally written spooky stories around the campfire and then dive into the lore and legends that inspire them. Is it something that goes bump in the night? Is it something menacing lurking past the tree line?

Or is it just weird and otherworldly? You'll find it here on Campfire Ashes. You can find us on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, or right here on the geese gate network. Are you a fan of young adult novels?

Have you ever wondered the stories behind the people who wrote your favourite young adult novels? The Join author Eric J Brown. And Elizabeth Lube of Netflix is the Circle. Every other Tuesday on YA OK.

Available on all podcasting apps. We're back with another episode of Horror Movie Night. And this time Scott is up to bat with Night Breed, a movie that has way too many cuts. And we had to all agree to just watch the 2B version of it.

Now, this is a new made. I thought that the Cabal Cut and the director's cut were significantly different in my... Because I knew that the actual cut was there. And then I was like, OK, there's the Cabal Cut.

And then there's the director's cut. No, I immediately went and grabbed the director's cut off at 2B because I was like, oh, that's gotta be the definitive edition. And then Matt messages us and goes, so are we watching? What version are we watching?

And I said, well, probably the Cabal Cut, right? Because I thought that it was the one that I grabbed. And then I looked at the link description and said, Director's Cut, and I was like, shit. And I was like, hold please.

And so I went and did way too much reading about something that I was way more straightforward. I didn't check on B.B. That was my mistake. Because reading, I didn't have to be along with watching the movie.

It was much clearer that the Cabal Cut doesn't really exist anymore. It doesn't matter. Because Screen Factory made the director's cut and they got all the good shit from the Cabal Cut. Oh, so that's what I have for Screen Factory is actually the director's cut.

Did you watch on two-year? Did you watch your debut? I watched it on two-year just so that we were all locked in on the same. Now, this was my first time watching the director's cut.

Because the last time I watched this, I think I was, I mean, it was before you and I started podcasting Matt. So it's been at least 14 years. So I mean, I'm assuming this is nobody's first watch. But it's not my first watch.

I'm not sure if I've ever actually seen the theatrical cut though. It used to be an only TV a lot. It's like if I play the box. I was going to say, I've seen the, so I own both the theatrical cut and the Screen Factory Blu-Ray.

Is your theatrical cut the DVD? The DVD is just the original theatrical cut of the film. If I was to put on one of them, I would put on the Blu-Ray director's cut. But like you Scott, I saw this for the first time on TV.

I saw it on Monster Vision at the time, Joe Bont-Riggs's show. And I'm going to say a little bit of a controversial take is like, I never fully loved this movie. I always think that there, each version of it I see is better than the previous time that I watched it. I think what my hot take is that these characters, the monsters of the Nightbreed, just feel like weird in a lame 80s fantasy look of the makeup versus like, guess what?

That's what this fucking movie is. Yeah, I know. But it's like when you're coming off of like, oh, this is written from the guy who wrote Hellraiser, like I just wish that they looked a little bit more horrifying. So I come off Miley Cute and Cuddly and a lot of the show.

And like, Oh, Naka, the guy with the Boss-Interior, you know, like I don't quite understand his powers, because all the Nightbreeders supposed to have powers, but whatever. It doesn't matter as much as like, so this movie is really a lot. This is, this to me is when Barker really started to feel like he didn't want to do splatter anymore. He wanted to do Dark Fantasy.

And so I've never read Cobalt. I was going to read it for this. And I just, okay. And it's honestly the only book of blood that I haven't read.

I have a copy and I just haven't gotten to it. I tried to read I Magica back in the, you know, in high school days, I couldn't get into it. I don't like his Dark Fantasy. I don't like Dark Fantasy.

I don't. He's very verbose once he gets away from his, basically after books of blood, he doesn't know how to shut the fuck up with his books. And like, that's fine. I think a lot of people like that.

I don't like that. I read so much Stephen King in junior high school that like, if you get too wordy, I get bored. I'm like, I get it, but I also don't need these character studies. And so I think that Nightbreed really is kind of the bridge between what Clive Barker was doing in the 80s and what he was doing in the 90s and 2000s.

And that's one of those. It is a hot and cold thing. It is able to have the ripple effect through other media, like with the comic book series and with, I mean, everything out of video game, but just still continuing, like the ability to continue with story and other mediums, I thought was like, this feels ripe for where there are other things that I think would feel clunky or, and I mean, that's coming from somebody who didn't, didn't read a lot of the Nightbreed comics. I had like, I read like one or two, but just the fact that they exist and have the ability to explore this world more because like, the movie is so ripe and wanting to do that.

And so like Barker is just, there's so much in. I think that's too expensive. He's supposed like visually. Yeah.

And in written word. I think that he throws a lot of the screen and I don't really think that Clive Barker is a very good director. It's fine. I mean, I am a huge, huge Clive Barker fan when it comes to his work, to his horror work.

I think that I think books have led us untouchable. I think it's some of the best horror I've ever read. Like I've said that before and I'm being very clear now. I also don't love this movie.

Like I picked it because, you know, like it's got an anniversary. It's turning 40. It's turning 40 this year, right? Or is it 1990?

It's turning 35. It's also pretty iconic. Like it's not like it looks good. It looks good.

It's one of those box arts that like, yes, always stuck out in the video store and had a very cool like blue palette. So the book star, which I think the director's cut artwork loses a lot of. I do not like the artwork that Screen Factory did, which is like this animated like this cartoonish like main character when he has the blue lines all over his face yelling by a flame like no, the like almost lost boys looking. That's why it worked for us.

Right? Yeah. It was like cool dudes. I want to hang out with this night.

Yeah. Do you think that do you think your earlier experiences of the movie taint the existence of it now? Like do you think that like that is not is it or do you like this? You better understanding of it now.

Yeah. So much more now. This is my first time watching the director's cut. This is only my second time watching the movie.

My least favorite part is Cronenberg. Honestly, like Deckard, I could give less of a shit. I don't. Oh, see.

Well, okay. See, I the serial killer of it all is very dumb in my opinion. I just want to see more monster X man. That's what this is.

Yeah. Kyle, I heard a little clicky clack. What did you do? You just said I was going to wait till somebody said the magic word, which was Cronenberg.

So I went with possessor. A printed Cronenberg. Oh, perfect. Dude, isn't it great.

I was so. I was a YPA from a shinker brewing company, but I've been holding onto this one because I was coming on the bike. If there's one beer label you got to see, you got to join the Patreon. I mean, it's just I'm not going to describe it, but it's possessor.

Yeah. And you know what? Possessor will absolutely do when it turns 10 because there's a lot of hanging dong in it. Actually, less hanging dong in more erect dong in it than I've ever seen in any other non-porn film.

And I have Destil Brewery, The Haze Between, because I feel Midian is quite a liminal space. I like that. Very nice. You know, so I really like the director's cut because it shows you a lot more of the night and then you can see the street, which is what I come for.

You know, like that's one therefore. It does still have awkward little cuts where I mean, because what they did for the director's cut is they found all of these lost reels and they put them. A lot of them were actually at Barker. I'm sorry.

They found them on the lot and then Barker had like audio tapes that he could use to put them. He had them at his house. So they reassembled it and that's how the director's cut came to be. And I think that it's more fluid and it works better, but it still has a lot of awkward cuts.

Honestly, it makes no sense when the police chief or whatever, that maniac, isn't dead. And then the priest who is now been mutated into a night breed blows him up. It's just like a very odd cut. And there are a bunch of those, but this is way more seamless than the original cut for sure.

And the call cut was trying to do a lot of these things and they were missing things. So I mean, I find that this is a more cohesive experience, but I still think that the story itself is trying to do a lot and that is to its detriment. So really, I think this is kind of a turn it on and turn your brain off and just enjoy the view kind of movie. That's the, that's what I pull most from my appreciation of it, I think is because it does feel just like, oh, it just invites you into a world.

And like, even if you don't fully understand, nobody fucking fully understands it. That's a whole pull. Like that's like the point of it in some regards. And that's what also causes so much of the friction between the night breed and the regulars or just the regular human race and then this confusion.

It's just like, and it also just feels so poignant now that it actually is helpful to turn your brain off and just feel like the emotion of what's happening here. And like what's happening within this realm and in this world. I think I felt that now more than ever. It's probably like my third or fourth time watching it now.

And again, I've only watched the director's cut, but I do feel like it does. It's best watched surrendered to it in a lot of ways. Yeah. Listen, I can actively say that this is my second favorite Clive Barker directed movie of the three that he directed.

This is my second favorite. What is your first favorite? Well, obviously it's Hal Razer. It's Hal Razer is like unbelievable that that is a first time director behind the helm of that.

And then the last one he did was Lord of Illusion, which is is. You know, so now we've discussed all three of his directorial. I do. We did do.

Right. We've done the first Hal Razer, right? Look at that. Only done the sequels.

God hit the letter box. Right. Well, he's doing that. I'm going to give you guys a little bit of information that I found very interesting from the plethora of trivia on the IMDb.

So night breed. This this really colored my viewing of it because I watched I read this at the beginning of my watch of the director's cut and it made me love it so much more because was Brian the curtain for listeners were discussing this in June, which is pride month. It's not coming on till July. I picked it for July not not thinking of it as a queer movie by speaking it for July because of it being a very sweaty movie.

But this has been characterized as a very queer movie. And in 1997, Harry M. Bensoff, the author Harry M. Bensoff, I don't know.

He called it one of the first war films to make an explicit connection between monsters and the activist politics of the queer community. So it's crazy when you think about really that made Okasha, I think that's how you say their name, the guy with the Jack Russell or not Jack Russell, the boss interior. Also that dog was one of the production assistants. It wasn't just the higher dogs, literally just somebody's pet.

Love that. Very funny. Hell yeah. That PA must have been stoked that their dog was going to be this movie there.

Yeah, twice. Besides just being a PA, I'm a part of a movie, which I mean, well that's made my own dream. But just having your pet picked randomly to like blink to work and be in the movie. Yeah, yeah.

It gives you an extra job, but you're like, hell yeah, it's my pet. Yeah. You have to have your dog at work. Right.

Doesn't work the same for kids. I don't know if it's a dog safe or work time. It doesn't work for kids. It can work for pets just fine.

It's a lesson. Jotarowski called Nightbreed, quote, the first truly gay horror fantasy epic, which is just so funny to me, you know? And then somebody else said that it's like, oh, it's so obvious. It's so blatantly obvious that Nightbreed's culture is gay.

It's queer. And I'm like, you know, maybe because I watched it when I was younger and I never piece it together, but like when you watch it with those glasses, it's like when Okasha gets beaten to death by two cops and the black detective doesn't stop them. Pulls that toe backwards. Oh, like he reaches for the foot, the boot and pulls it back.

It was when I said point it earlier, Scott, that is literally the scene that I was like, that's the most poignant thing that I've seen. It's so sad. I don't know. It's so sad.

It's pretty rough. It's just crazy that it is. I mean, it's not crazy. We shouldn't like, sorry, I'm going to rant just a second here because I did feel this so strongly on this viewing, but there is something to be said about what I almost said, which was like it's crazy to think this was 35 years ago when in actuality this has been something that has been happening and poignant and traumatic for longer than we can even say.

It's crazy that it's only this long ago because it's been consistent. Like it's not like, yeah, so I've been actively trying to stop myself from saying that because I think it's so common for us to try to basically other the experience of the thing that we think is far behind. Yeah. Yeah.

And I just felt that I'm glad we got to this moment. I don't know if we were going to, but I was because like it can be like a weird X-Men like horror thing, which is like also like a super fun way to watch it. I just, I caught that scene in that moment and I was like, fuck. Like I was like, that is super strong.

But also, but like not to write off anything, even saying it's just like a weird X-Men thing. Like the X-Men is also about rights. Yeah. Yeah.

I think it's a great parallel because you know, they were literally made to be a civil rights discussion in common before. Yeah. You know, oh, and by the way, it's Ohnaka. I don't know what I was saying incorrectly before because I hadn't read it, but it's Ohnaka is the name of that character who gets beaten into death but kicked to death by cops.

You know, and it's also very interesting because we have this idea that that Boone never really consummates his relationship with Annie. You know, it's like, she's like this hot singer and I think her name is. She actually sang that Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, and Angry Song live. That's her voice.

Yeah. I was saying a creature feature this past convention, which she was the, she was at a acoustic opening act before Beach paper. Okay. Yeah.

So she sang that song live again and she still sounds, I mean, she's 35 years later. I don't know how much he was singing between men and now, but she's still saying the damn thing again. It was, it was pretty cool. Yeah.

That's her singing live in that which Barker put back the entire song for the record. So it's so good. It's like, I was watching, I'm like, I don't remember this song being this intensely like presented, but it's very interesting. You know, I also probably wasn't acutely aware of Clive Barker's sexuality when I, when I was watching this the first time and you know, it's, it's such a funny little, just like, I think that these things are important.

I think that this is a great course. I think that Knight B. Directors Cut is a great course in how to save a film and give it. I'm not saying that this is a great movie by any stretch.

I think that it's a fun watch, but I think that the undertones are still still very important. And I think that they are, and it's sad. It's fucking depressing that we're watching this generational trauma of Clive Barker's when Onaka is getting kicked to death for being the other. And then there's this priest who's like, he's on a war path to kill these others because he's told that they're evil.

And then he realizes they're killing them will be wrong. And then he gets radicalized because of a white guy. Like he gets radicalized because of Decker. Yeah.

That's how I read it. He's like, and Decker is like, I need to kill these, he calls them breeders. And so he's like saying that he is his, his white, this is nothing against Gwyn and Burt. I think Gwyn and Burt are great, like writer, director and just an okay actor.

But I think that character is so much that white hegemonic kind of persona that Clive Barker is railing against, like a psychiatrist who would probably have spent the 60s and 70s when Barker was growing up calling a homosexuality a mental disorder. Yes, right. It's just very, these layers are not, they're not that subtle, right? But like for me watching it now and being like, Oh, it's so obvious once you kind of put those glasses on and I feel, I felt kind of dumb, you know?

No, that's the beautiful thing about fantasy. I think that's why it works on so many levels. I mean, you're watching it as a younger person who, you know, think in a different timeframe and a different like space in your life and then also returning to fantasy. I think that's why it's such a long lasting, like that's why these tales, particularly of fantasy genre lasts so long.

And it's like you have big spans of interest in these, in these stories because I think they get layered and like that's what good like fantasy, that's what good sci-fi, that's what good horror writing is, is when you can layer those things on top of each other and then be able to return to it. So it's like, it's so cool that it gets to evolve and live in how we watch it in a different way. So I want to jump back to the decker side of things real quick because when you were like, my least favorite thing is decker and I made a noise. It's not because I dislike, I agree with you that the serial killer side of things is like whatever.

I just think that the mess that he wears is dope. Like I'm like cool. Cool. Cool.

I want to like stress that my favorite character design in the whole damn show or the whole damn movie is whatever fucking mask they decided to throw over decker whatever he's like in serial killer mode. It is really good. He can also stand like he stands out against these like monsters like deckers mask is one that I remember more than some of the like the lower like or the you know the side monsters or the nights the side night breed is like that mask is so fucking good trick or treat studios put out that mask a few years ago and it was sick. You know, you're followed all the same folds of it too.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's I agree that deckers character design is perfect.

I and I love the knife. I love that you know it's I love the layers. I just feel like so there's this thing that a lot of splatter horror was doing in the late 80s by the late 80s which is where they were doing the serial killer meat supernatural thing. It doesn't do it for me because I don't want to read that right.

But because I find that I find the serial killer part uninteresting. The funny thing about all this reason why I wanted to circle back to that specifically is I found it very interesting that the the horror writer duo skip inspector. Do you have you guys ever heard of skip inspector? Yeah.

I think that they are probably the premier splatter horror writers from the 80s. They have cameos as corpses in the hotel room scene. So they're literally just getting his pals to be in the movie. It's so great.

So if you if you look at at the cast it's you know a lot of writers and directors who are in the movie also I mean you have at least two of the centipites from Hellraiser in here. Doug Bradley plays Dirk and O'Naka who we were talking about earlier is played by the same actor played butter ball in the first two stories. Are you so the boss interior played butter ball? O'Naka the tattooed member of the night breed it says Sam Bamford.

Holy shit. That's crazy. You know okay I'm so sorry I got to ask you guys of the of the night breed who is your favorite character design because we're not going to go through the explanation of the plot at this point we've already done this. The one that we stuck out to me is the one that I can only describe as the moon faced one.

Oh yeah. That guy's awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean I I think aside from our porcupine lady who's yes. I gotta say something about her after this.

Yeah. Which has just been so fantastic. I actually like the design of the guy who boond meets in the hospital. He's cool.

Yeah. I was like I really I think maybe it's because I got to see a transition or like a transformation of such but I was like I kind of like you and I like your character more and more as this goes on. I like that design a lot. I guess I also like like the Tim Burtony Beetlejuice eyeballs and claws thing.

That's my guy speaking of Tim Burtony. So I hit play on this movie and I made this comment when we talked about Dark Man. This is the same year. I hit play and I went into the other room to make a quick sandwich while the credits played and it was about 10 seconds into the opening credits music and when I thought oh yeah that's right Danny Elfman did this score because this is prime.

Danny Elfman has one mode. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great score.

Oh it's awesome. I haven't talked about enough but it's because of the Danny Elfman this of it. Not even that is Danny Elfman period but the Danny Elfman. Because it sounds every bit of Danny Elfman.

Yeah. It sounds everything Danny Elfman. It works. Danny Elfman had a hell of a 1990 if it's not a 1989 and a like any of those years only a fine way else to burn everything out of all that music.

He's out of his mind. Yeah. So his compositions career is I mean Forbidden Zone then Pee Wee's Big Adventure then back to school but oh that doesn't count because he okay there's a lot where he just was like in Wango Buingo on the soundtrack. Yeah.

Him as the actual composer is Pee Wee's Big Adventure Summer School Beetlejuice and then in 1988 was Beetlejuice Midnight Run Big Top Pee Wee Hot Patrot and Scrooge. That was 89 and then 1990 listen to these four home runs in 1990. Night breed Dick Tracy, Dark Man and Edward Scissorhands. I would say all three of those regardless of the quality of the film have baller Danny Elfman scores.

Wow. Well the year before was just the one and the next year was four absolute bangers like unbelievable just about swinging out swinging. The Coke was really good in the late days. Really good.

Without a doubt. All right. So how can I do this with my tattoo gun? Okay so the point where I start to see him break away from this because I'm like scrolling through and I'm like all right like horror movie, horror movie, weird movie.

I guess I had no fucking clue that in 1997 he was the composer for Goodwill Hunting and was even nominated for the score. Wow. I think that was the beginning of him like finding a sound that wasn't distinctly Danny Elfman all of the time. Maybe he was just losing his Danny Elfman.

No I don't know because then Sleepy Hollow was like the next year and there's like quite a bit of Danny Elfman. Oh that's Danny Elfman Oscar bait. That was just Oscar bait score. That's what it's Danny Elfman.

That's not genuine. Sell out. So one more thing I got to tell you guys about the Knightbury characters is and Kyle you said something about how this is a really influential movie. I want to say and we've talked about it being an X-Men thing.

Whoever worked on the Agents of Shield ABC show loved the fuck out of this movie because if you ever look up the character design for Reyna R-A-I-N-A she is one of the inhumans. She is Porcupine Lady. She's that bird Porcupine girl from Knightbury and I've always thought that and then when I was watching it I was like holy shit it's exact. It's no longer it's like the straightest homage.

You could ever have. Oh my gosh. It's the eye makeup and the eye and cheek design. That is what she's got.

She's got the spines. You can do the spines in a way that also doesn't incorporate your face that way and that is so purely referencing this. It's wow. That's so cool.

I love it. I think that somebody is listening is going to be like oh they just stole the character design. I think it's a very obvious choice because when Agents of Shield was happening Marvel Studios was not what it is now. It's never been incorporated into the MCU.

It's not really accepted. They did the inhumans shit differently for the MCU than they did in the Agents of Shield show. Yeah, right until Captain America Winter Soldier they were locked up. They were as guardians from the first two Thor movies that showed up on Agents of Shield, the TV show and they were going real fucking hard with Tara Genesis and the inhumans because they had no way to buy the rights for X-Men.

They were like okay we're going to do inhumans instead of X-Men and that's really what the inhumans were. They were like oh this is a possibility and so they threw away the entire Agents of Shield in human saga. It's basically like an alternate reality that's never going to get touched in the TV shows that they're making now or the movies because now they have the X-Men and it was super fun. Well the first three seasons were super fun and Bill Paxton wasn't it man.

It's so crazy to see that actively happen. You know let's have this property actually be like it's not going to work for the future but the future is going to progress. Like it's not a hard stop for anything. It's just like a deterring thing and it's like well Marvel is not going to go but it's just this story is going to stop here or not existing.

They went so hard with it that it became terrible and I had to turn away from the show after I like season four I guess but they went into like this sci-fi it felt very Stargate. You know like it wasn't really loving it but in any case Nightbreed is horror X-Men. Inhumans is Nightbreed. This is this is queer horror if you don't like it you probably turned off by this point so.

Listen to the rest of this show. You know what it never has there been an episode where I feel confident to say this before we even go to the double features. You know if you're listening to this content and you're liking it give us a five star review because there's going to be a whole lot of one stars coming after this episode. For sure.

You've been lost in the woods for hours now stumbling around in the dark. You come around the bend and see two people roasting marshmallows over a roaring fire. They see you coming into the clearing and jester over to pull it along. Welcome to Campfire Ashes.

I'm Paul. And I'm Jess. Join us as we tell each other our originally written spooky stories around the campfire and then dive into the lore and legends that inspire them. Is it something that goes bump in the night?

Is it something menacing lurking past the tree line or is it just weird and otherworldly? You'll find it here on Campfire Ashes. You can find us on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music or right here on the G-S8 network. Are you a fan of young adult novels?

Have you ever wondered the stories behind the people who wrote your favorite young adult novels? Then join author Eric J Brown. And Elizabeth of Netflix is the Circle. Every other Tuesday on YA OK.

Available on all podcasting apps. Do you know too much about your favorite musicians pet cat? Are you maybe one of those people that just has to watch every TikTok and Instagram reel from your favorite actor? I don't know.

Kind of sounds like you have a pair of social relationships. Well, if you're curious to learn more about how these kinds of relationships form and function and how we find meaning in them, you should check out the newest season of Indefensive Fandom. For season three on the podcast, we'll be taking a deeper look at the relationship between creators and the fans. In the era of social media, fan conventions and constant access to our fandom's favorite actors, there are social relationships abound.

In season three, we're taking a deeper look at this phenomenon and even branching outside the world of TV. As the host, I'm especially excited to dip my toes in the world of music and fandom, so I hope you enjoy this new season launching April 1st. You can find Indefensive Fandom wherever you listen to podcasts, part of the GeekScape Podcast Network. Scott, you know, besides making people watch all three seasons of Agents of Shield as your double feature with my followers, would you make people watch for the double feature?

Now I know, guys, I know that I was edging you towards Midian by saying that my double feature for this is digging up the marrow. Rewatching this and looking at Baffomay, Baffomay is like statue that then comes alive and there's like the painted on light show and everything I got to say, I'm going to go with the keep. Both of them are very awesome, dark fantasy and neither of them make any goddamn sense. It's a good call.

It's a good call. I talked about how these creature designs just always left me wanting, but what I'm going to watch is a movie that has very similar characters with creature designs that I like way more. Best of case two. I knew that was the case two and I was going to be so mad if you didn't.

Amazing. I was thinking about a lot of things, but honestly, what I wanted to watch after this was just Raw Head Rex. I think that like it's not a game. It's a very like fine movie.

It doesn't even touch some of the stuff from the story, which I thought was so, but it also kind of works for that reason. So I think like matching like Clive Barker is fucking like what I would probably imagine is this magnet, Obis, as far as like touching on all the things that he does. Raw Head Rex is like somebody adapted a Clive Barker story and didn't know about anything other than that there was a monster, which honestly kind of works. So all right.

Well, if you like the show, like I said, please actually seriously give us some five star reviews. We could use that after this episode. I'm sure. So many of the things that I I discussed, things that I watched and read while on my international trip.

I think I have two more, one bad, one good. And I'll do that as I have been doing. Yeah. I actually have two good ones.

So I have the first one is a book that TikTok suggested to me that I liked didn't love because it wasn't what I was expecting. It's called The Luminous Dead by Caitlyn Starling and it is a sci-fi drama. It's this woman, it's in the near future on another planet and this woman is a cave explorer in kind of like a bio suit, like a almost like a power suit. It's an enhancement suit and she's going into this cave to map it.

A sense of lead to four minerals because one of the things that they do on this planet is mine, the minerals and then sell it to the galactic federation. And the only person that she has contact with is another woman named M who is basically her boss. She's telling her where to go in this cave system. And there is this kind of grab-o-aid type indigenous creature or like native creature to the planet that is a threat when you're in these tunnels.

And it's really more about like these characters, these two women and what motivates them. It's really well written. And I felt like I was hoping for a little bit more supernatural and or sci-fi but it was still very good. I recommend it.

That's your kind of thing. But some straight schlocky. I think it was early 90s, maybe very late 80s horror. I read down on the farm and that is by John Sturr.

I don't know if I'm saying his last name correctly but it is he was a Michigan writer and it's based in Michigan. And it's about this family who on a farm and the milking parlor, which is where you milk the cows, is built over a demonic alien centipedes air space craft, which is basically a giant egg. I don't know. There's no other easy way to explain it.

The evil centipede creature, which is like eight feet long, ten feet long, whatever it is, is also it just loves evil and hates love. And it can control people's minds. It can hypnotize them when it makes eye contact and make them do evil shit. And it was a really wild ride.

Down on the farm. Down on the farm. Yeah. And the last name is Sturr, S-T-C-H-U-R.

And it's a quick 150 page read. I had a good time. I really thought that it was going to be like, I don't know. I like to tell you guys that I read the nursery.

Another one of those like, you know, like paperbacks from Hell. I don't recall that one. Okay. Well, the nursery was very bad because it was like.

I mean, it's in keeping with the large chunk of the paper bags from paper bags from Hell. It was very depraved shit. And it was like incestuous kind of shit that I just did not. I really, I fast forwarded through a lot of pages to get to the end.

And it really ended in a stupid fucking way. This book kind of started to give me a similar feel of like, okay, this is like a sexual kind of negativity and the characters to their credit and to the writers credit fought the evil demonic centipede alien in a good way. And it never really veered off. There's gore.

There's some sex, but it's never to the point where I was like, oh, this is too much for me. So yeah, down on the farm. I want to check it out if you like evil alien centipedes. That sounds like love.

With a human face, by the way. Of course, maybe worse. That might be worse. Don't say it like it's like, oh, with a human face, it'll be fine.

Yeah. I'm going to be super quick on this, but Hulu at the time they were recording this dropped three days ago, a new predator film that is an animated anthology. Oh, yeah. Predator, killer of killers.

And this shit ruled. It is literally just three stories of different predators coming to Earth against different ancient civilizations. And it's done in that spider-verse style animation where it's like almost like a stop motion, but not quite. It's just really cool.

It's a hard R brutal, like the opening scene before the predator even shows up. You're just watching Viking's fight and there's the there's like a scene where like they get a shield stuck in a door and then shove someone through it so it's like the capitates. I'm like, it is fucking gnarly animation that you're seeing. It's cool.

And it's like 80 minutes. You know what I mean? Like it is a quick, easy breezy watch. I hope that this kind of unlocks a new way of doing predator and alien movies where it's like, look, we don't care about the humans.

We don't care about the human element. Give us some cool anthology films where we just get like bite size stories with these creatures. And we're going to be fucking fine. And like they all have to be animated like this, but like I think I'm more on board for like 10 more anthology films inspired by alien and predator than I am for most just like standalone movies about those characters at the site.

What you're saying? I was going to say I was like, that's going to make a motherfucker care about predator. Like at all is to like presented in that way. And also to talk back even to the night breed comics.

I mean like there were so many aliens and predators and alien birds, predator comics that did exactly what you're like asking for in a movie that were just like one off like this is where they are in this point in time and it's just like it's of course it works because it worked. It like because that's the way it should be presented. That's awesome. I remember Rebecca McKendry pitching that she would have loved to have done a Hellraiser anthology series just based on the comic books because the comics had so many stories that were just like, Hey, here's the tale of this other guy who's in hell and like what did he do on earth?

Very, very creepy show. Very easy comics. Yeah, exactly. I mean, watch the shit out of that.

Do you like dimensions? Yeah, I think I mentioned. No lines. New lines just like putting out films in 2000s is basically a way like that you could do it now is to do it as an anthology.

Like I was like, they had the money and the ability to make money back by just putting out a direct video, but like an anthology version of these hell raiser stories would be the perfect way to do it. Imagine if you will a hellraiser anthology series where all of the stories are live action, but you do an animated pinhead in hell so you can still get Doug Bradley in the booth. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Like you could do some of that like CGI that they do in that which is so realistic. Yeah, something cool and interesting like that. You don't have to get this poor old man made up in all this makeup that he doesn't want to do anymore.

But he'll take a paycheck to stand in a booth for a day and just record doc log like absolutely. All right, Kyle. What is the thing that you watch listen to, et cetera? Well, so Matt per your recommendation.

I watched a season tonight. So which I don't know is the Christian cringe episode going to come out and it will come out about it. It'll be close enough. Yeah.

Okay. So whether you've listened to the whether you've heard the Christian cringe episode or if you even listen to Christian cringe at all, you should. But there were words after this. You're going to hear about it.

The even the night is a 1972 film. It's not made for TV. It's a fucking it's a movie that was made in Des Moines, Iowa. That is the definition of an evangelical scare film.

But and when I say like definition, I actually think it's like a hyperbolic definition where it's like it is like an exploitation film. You know, think about the drug scare films. Like those are like, they're not Christian based. They're like very secular talking about the troubles with drugs and alcohol.

Like this feels like it has the drama and the severity of somebody who's just like, you're just going to die. But the answer in this one is that there is Jesus, but like the road to get to Jesus now seems very, very drastic and far. So like the amount of scare that they're putting into this is crazy. It's all about the rapture.

I'm not going to get into it too much here because I'm sure you and Katie and guests go really deep into it. But it is I mean, it is literally called the first ever evangelical horror film and it is shot and edited at times like something out of like last house on the left. Like dramatic close-ups, weird angles, quick cuts, like blood curdling, screaming. Like it is we later found out what I later found out was the director, writer and co-star of the movie got his start doing production work for the blob.

So he came from like a horror. Perfect. Yeah. Horror background.

I mean, when it's just trying to be rapture scare, it's not that bad of a watch. Anytime that it tries to get a message out to you, the whole movie just comes to a standstill. Yeah, the preaching and the evangelicalism derails literally any momentum that we get. Because we do because it because it works like the open is genuinely as frightening as any opening scene to any other 70s.

Yeah, 100%. 100%. It's up there. It's crazy good because of the twist at the end, which like I know we're talking about a movie about the rapture, but there literally is a twist at the end.

There's a twist at the end of this movie that will fuck you up. I don't know if you know this, but this is part one of a four part film franchise. Oh my God. Carly and I lost our minds.

Listen, I will tell you what this led to literally in the moment, but I will tell you what it like I will report back that it did lead me to finding out that there are other films in the series. Yeah. Very stoked about that. What this immediately led us to was a 1994 one year only award ceremony called the American Christian Music Awards.

1994. It was filmed by the family channel at Walt Disney World. It was all an award show for evangelical Christian music. DC Talk, Michael W.

Smith. There are other bands, but if you don't know what those first two are, you're not going to know anything that I say after that, but it is a crazy award show that is not right for horror movie night, but I've pitched it to Matt and Katie. So hopefully we got a chance to talk about it later. I think we will eventually.

But yeah, if you want to hear about real horror movies and not evangelical ones though, subscribe to Harvard every night. Every week we'll bring you all of your favorite horror movie conversations. Stay tuned next week for more. Horror movie night.

You've been lost in the woods for hours now stumbling around in the dark. You come around the bend and see two people roasting marshmallows over a roaring fire. They see you coming into the clearing and jester over to pull up a log. Welcome to Campfire Ashes.

I'm Paul. And I'm Jess. Join us as we tell each other our originally written spooky stories around the campfire and then dive into the lore and legends that inspired them. Is it something that goes bump in the night?

Is it something menacing lurking past the tree line? Or is it just weird and otherworldly? You'll find it here on Campfire Ashes. You can find us on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, or right here on the TV network.

Are you a fan of young adult novels? Have you ever wondered the stories behind the people who wrote your favorite young adult novels? The Join author Eric J Brown. And Elizabeth Lube of Netflix is the Circle.

Every other Tuesday on YA OK. Available on all podcasting apps. Woo! You're listening to the Geek Save Network.