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#150. The Substandard on Halloween and Exotic Swing Sets
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Dudes Chatting — Horror movies, franchises, and the golden age of the slasher: The episode opens with the boys discussing their weekends — JVL's batting-cage-and-cheesesteaks trip to Philly, Sonny's harrowing encounter with an overly complicated "exotic" tandem swing at a local playground (which promptly gave his daughter a head injury), and Vic's experience seeing The Empire Strikes Back performed live with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, including a spirited debate about whether Han Solo's behavior toward Leia counts as "problematic." The bulk of the episode is a wide-ranging discussion of horror films, prompted by Sonny's review of Halloween (2018). Sonny explains how the new film directly sequelizes the 1978 original and pointedly mocks the idea of trying to psychoanalyze Michael Myers — every character who attempts it gets killed. JVL, who has never consumed horror, asks probing questions about the golden age of slashers and whether iconic villains (Freddy, Jason, Michael, Leatherface) have been supplanted by a more situation-based modern horror. Sonny argues Freddy Krueger is the most interesting of the bunch because he actually talks and has a concept behind him; Vic is haunted by Halloween 3: Season of the Witch and the Nightmare on Elm Street series. The group also discusses the Pet Sematary trailer, the disappearance of gratuitous nudity from horror films, and Rob Zombie's atmospheric style. Vic closes with a correction: Neil Armstrong taught at the University of Cincinnati, not Purdue.
Reviews: Halloween (2018) (Sonny, and Vic as Gene) — Sonny calls it effective for what it is and praises its critique of the "blowback theory" of villainy, comparing it favorably to Rob Zombie's demystifying remakes; Gene gives it four stars. The Hate U Give — declined to review.
Box Office: Halloween debuted at number one with $77.5 million on a reported $10 million budget; A Star Is Born second with $19 million; Venom third with $18 million.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00He is a killer, but he will be killed tonight. Happy Halloween, Michael.
Vic00:00:28Hello, and welcome to another edition of The Substandard, sponsored by Quip Electric Toothbrush and Warby Parker. I'm Victor Matus, along with Sonny Bunch and Jonathan V. Last. I'd like to remind you TheSubstandard is available on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. Just look at a podcast and search for Substandard. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, and leave a review. Gentlemen, how are we? JVL. Hello, boys.
JVL00:00:54How are you doing? I am mostly recovered. From my weekend away. Where did you go? I went up to Philadelphia. Oh. With my best friend, the Wershovenist pig. He is expecting baby number two. Two, oh my goodness. And this was our little weekend getaway. He came down from Nueva York. We talked about baby stuff. It was like a baby moon. It was basically a baby moon for us. For two dudes. And we ate a lot of food. Good. Played a lot of tennis. Went to some batting cages. Hey.
Vic00:01:35On consecutive days. It was like a dude week. How long were you away for? Two days. Did it feel like two hours or did it feel longer? It was just great.
JVL00:01:45We may have gone to a comic book shop or two or seven. We may have gone to some baseball card shops for Flash. I will say this. I am not in tremendously great shape right now. But even if I am, I am not in a great shape right now. Even accepting that, hitting a baseball uses all sorts of weird, weird muscles. Yeah. And having foolishly gone on consecutive days and hitting about 150 balls each day, on day two, my hands basically were like flippers. Like I couldn't even, I couldn't hold utensils. I just had to eat with my, I was like. Just shoved your face into the trough. Yeah.
Vic00:02:28Feedback, you need a feedback, I got that.
JVL00:02:30I was like Danny DeVito in the Batman, the penguin version of Danny DeVito.
Vic00:02:35I hurt to twist, all sorts of strange, strange muscles. You were lucky that you didn't hurt, you were lucky that you didn't aggravate any sort of back thing. That would be the worst.
JVL00:02:45I would say my performance in the cage was pretty, pretty good, even up against the 70 mile an hour balls.
Sonny00:02:53I did okay. Well, you're used to seeing them from Flash.
JVL00:02:56No kidding. I did think to myself. So when I. When I was, so, you know, you like to move around on the speeds and when I was getting the 60s thrown at me, I did think to myself, a 10-year-old boy with this coming at him, also having the knowledge that maybe it's down the middle, but maybe it's at his head, it must be terrifying. Yeah. Because it's pretty quick. Yeah. Pretty, pretty quick. So it was, it was great. Great. It was great. How are you?
Vic00:03:23Did you get cheesesteaks while you were there or no? 100%. Good.
JVL00:03:27There were, I would not say. I would not say that I did all the carbs, but I did many of the carbs.
Sonny00:03:31There's no carbs in cheesesteak. What are you talking about? Many, many of the carbs. Is that cheesesteak place that's out, that was out on, what was that, Rhode Island Avenue? Oh, back in the day. Do you mean Tony Luke's? Yeah. Tony Luke's, the one that's under the underpass? Maybe. I don't remember. Under the overpass? There was one that was out kind of on the edge of D.C. that we used to go to at the Standard.
JVL00:03:51Oh, the one, I believe. You went on a pilgrimage there with Goldfarb. From Philly, who just moved down here and decided to start, and they got all their rolls from the Amorosa Bakery and all that. I do not believe they're still there, but I don't know. Man, that place was great.
Sonny00:04:09What about the dishwasher? You teased us with a dishwasher update last week.
JVL00:04:14So my colleague Jim Swift sent to my house a real deal decibel meter.
Vic00:04:21I thought you were going to say he sent you a dishwasher.
JVL00:04:23And I have not used it myself. My lovely wife, however. During the weekend, as I was gone, kept sending me pictures of it as she held it next to the dishwasher with a tickling 53, 57, 62. And she then was tweeting about this, and the good people at Bosch Global were like,
Sonny00:04:43please email us. We can help.
JVL00:04:45But I'm like, how are you going to? What time is it? How are you going to f***ing help me unless you just give me a better dishwasher? But I don't think you make a better dishwasher because I went and paid all the money to get the best dishwasher. You make.
Sonny00:04:59So what would these?
JVL00:05:00Well, maybe, but maybe it's just a defective best dishwasher. Have you considered this? It says 39 decibels right now. The only thing I can think of is that what they mean is that 39 decibels at a resting state when it's not on.
Sonny00:05:13Well, you can get things that are broken and do not work properly. Like if you get a sub-zero fridge and, you know, it won't get below 40 degrees or whatever.
Vic00:05:22Perhaps it has to be on sub-zero then. It's not sub-zero. Maybe it has to just be on flat. It has to be on fluffy carpet or something, you know, to muffle it.
JVL00:05:32The rinse. It is 39 decibels if you put a mattress over the front of it while it's on its cycle.
Sonny00:05:40Well, did you email the Bosch Global people yet? I have not had it. Because where do they say it's 39?
JVL00:05:42I've been a little busy with work. But I plan on doing that at some point soon because I'm sure the people from Bosch will be tremendously helpful.
Sonny00:05:51Yeah. That's huge. That's what we need. That's, I mean, appliance companies always. If my experience with other appliance companies.
JVL00:05:58over the course of my adult life is any indication, the people at Bosch are going to not rest until
Sonny00:06:03they've made this right. There's going to be the guy who shows up in the white hat. Good evening, governor. How can I help you with your dish problem? How are you, Santino? They're German, aren't they? I probably shouldn't have been doing like a Swedish.
Vic00:06:17Yeah, you were doing Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. That's what you were doing.
JVL00:06:20Are they, Victorino, is Bosch Swiss or German?
Vic00:06:24I thought it was Swiss, no? German.
Sonny00:06:28Maybe they were once Swiss and the Germans took them over.
Vic00:06:33It's hard to tell if it was a Canton or a Bundesländer. Yes. Sonny. How are you?
Sonny00:06:39I'm fine. I'm fine. I went to a playground this weekend with my lovely daughter. Things I don't do. Oh, with a child. With a child. So they didn't have to call the police.
JVL00:06:48Wow.
Sonny00:06:49I mean, you got to scope out the good spots, you know. But there was a kind of swing that I'd never seen before. And not only was there a kind of swing that I'd never seen before, there was actually a sign up that says, we have put this new swing out and we want to get feedback from you, from you, the public, about how the swing works.
JVL00:07:09This is the most Arlington slash Alexandria thing ever.
Vic00:07:12If you wonder where the tax dollars go, there you go.
Sonny00:07:14It's very, very much about, it's like an episode of Parks and Rec. I don't have a picture of the swing, no. How do you convey your feedback? So let me, well, there's like an email address. The guy who, like the Parks and Rec guy, like the Leslie Knope of Alice, the city of Alexandria, has his email address. Anyway, I haven't emailed them because I don't really feel like doing that, but I will complain about it here. How this swing works is there's like a, you know the baby swings where you put them in and it's like a little bucket kind of? Yeah. They're like stick out. And then you have like big kid swings that are like just the little paddle. Sure. This combines them. So you've got like the little kid swing in the back and you've got like a little area that is, it's not floppy. But it's hard. It's like a little. So what you're supposed to do on these things is one person sits on the front swing and then you have the child in the back and you swing that way. And so basically. Oh, yeah, I've seen these before.
JVL00:08:10So it's kind of like, the problem is.
Vic00:08:12I saw one of those in Thailand.
Sonny00:08:14The problem is that most people, and I saw like. Oh, you can do this clothed. I'm sorry. You do this clothed. With children. Oh, with children. Oh, okay. Everyone, sorry. That's still Thailand, I guess. That's Gary Glitter. But the, but like, I watched four or five different people use this before I, before I myself gave it a shot. And every single person, the first thing they did on was stand on it, was stand on like the, the, the big kid swing. I can see. And try to swing it that way. And let me tell you guys, that's not how it's supposed to work. It's terrifying. And you're like, you're basically like about to catapult your child out of the thing. So it, it, it is, it's a fascinating little experiment in people not reading directions. Directions are right there on the side. And you should need to have directions for a swing. Exactly. The swing is, exactly.
JVL00:09:03The swing, the swing is so complicated if you don't read the, the, and this is. In other languages too.
Sonny00:09:08This is, this is what I would tell the city of Alexandria if I were to leave a comment, is that your swing is too **** complicated.
JVL00:09:14It is too complicated.
Sonny00:09:17Did you come up with a viral-ish tweet to do this? No, I, I, no, I, I didn't, I didn't, I wasn't sure what to say exactly. I don't want to, also, I don't like to tweet about my family. I try to, I try to keep it to myself. I try to keep them out of it because people on, on the internet are terrible. They're nuts. The internet's a garbage dumpster fire of awful trash people. Yeah.
JVL00:09:36Did your lovely daughter enjoy the swinging experience here?
Sonny00:09:39Or was she just like, yeah, let's go do something else, Dad? Well, she didn't like it because here's another problem with it. So, like, when you, you know, when you put a child into a swing, it's just like there, there are chains that come down and hold the little bucket, whatever it is, the little bucket seat.
JVL00:09:54Yes, the bucket.
Sonny00:09:54And you put it, but this thing has a metal bar that goes over the top of it because it needs, I don't know if it needs more support or if it needs, that's how it connects to the, to the other part of the swing. But it's got like, it's got like a hard metal bar that goes on top of it. So, I went to put her in and I banged her forehead.
?00:10:11Right.
Sonny00:10:12Right on the top of it. Because I wasn't, I was like, I'm just trying to put her in like normal. And so, she didn't like that. Another reason why the fancy swing is not, is not the best.
JVL00:10:20Maybe, so maybe what you're saying is she would have enjoyed the swing more if she had a more competent father.
Sonny00:10:24Yes, if she didn't have a concussion and she didn't have somebody standing on the swing about the catapult her into the sun, it probably would have been better.
Vic00:10:33What do you think the, the feedback is going to be if people send emails?
Sonny00:10:37I don't know. That's a good question. I don't know what, what sort of sicko would actually email the city of Alexandria about this, as opposed to just complaining about it on their podcast. Yeah. Ah, very good.
Vic00:10:46Victorino, how are you? I'm great. I'm a little tired, but I'm great. We were up a little bit, the whole family was up a little bit later last night. Thanks to your tip from back a couple of weeks ago, which was. The Greatest Showman? No, no. No, that's on my list. Believe me, it's on my list. The Empire Strikes Back at the Kennedy Center. Oh, you did it. We did it. How was it? It was really great, particularly because it's a great movie. I mean, it just is a great movie. I mean, the writing, it's also, there's a lot of action in that movie. In my mind, you think about all the time that Luke spent.
JVL00:11:18Much like the first man.
Vic00:11:20Much like the first man. It's a little bit different. But, you know, in my mind, when you're, you think about all the time that Luke spends with Yoda, which is actually not a lot of action. Not that much time. There are these little interludes. The training was quick training, by the way. Luke's training was very quick. And then, of course, it gets interrupted. And the rest of the time is, with Han, I mean, everybody's split up. But it was really good. And so the National Symphony Orchestra did a terrific job. Played the score live. Yeah, they played the score live.
JVL00:11:47The Imperial March Alive. It must have been awesome.
Vic00:11:50I mean, that's what everybody was waiting for. Everybody's waiting for, right after the line about the Imperial probe droid gets destroyed and said there's a good chance. The Empire knows we're here. And then you see the conductor. Raise the baton. Yes, and then boom, boom, boom, ba-da-dum. And just everybody gets excited. Yes, and it's such a powerful brass section. And it's all the way in the back because otherwise you would drown out the strings. But, I mean, everybody's involved in it. And it sounds exactly, exactly. I mean, it's every note from John Williams is played. And so, I mean, it's hard to believe. You take for granted after a while watching the movie that it's not a soundtrack from coming from a speaker, but rather directly from the instrument into your ears. And that's the weird thing. And it was great. And people, so people would clap as they do during concerts at certain segments, even though the movie is ongoing. And they have the dialogue. They have subtitles because it can get a little bit drowned. When they filter it, it's a little bit, you hear it less, obviously. But it's playing.
JVL00:12:54They're playing the dialogue, not only subtitles.
Vic00:12:56You're playing it. And it was fun. People laughed. Weird watching the Han Solo parts with Leia and his very Me Too attitude towards her, you know, his approach. Problematic. Very problematic, you know. What do you mean? Oh, you know, he's, you know.
JVL00:13:11I know is now problematic. You can't.
Vic00:13:13No, before that, you know, he's trying to put the moves on her, making her feel.
JVL00:13:18Come on, kiss me.
Vic00:13:19Making her feel very uncomfortable when she's trying to repair the falcon. It's rape culture.
JVL00:13:24That is not rape. She's a powerful figure. Well, she pushes back. She's pushing back until he forces himself. Because she's the leader of the rebellion. You know what? He's a subordinate, not her superior. This is not a Weinstein thing.
Sonny00:13:37It was.
JVL00:13:37This is like the pool boy putting the moves on Kathleen Kennedy.
Sonny00:13:40She's been captured in this Millennium Falcon. She's on some stranger's ship.
Vic00:13:45He corners her until C-3PO comes to the rescue. Yeah.
Sonny00:13:48He looms over her.
JVL00:13:50Harrison Ford looms over Carrie Fisher on those scenes.
Vic00:13:52You know, she would. Didn't he? No.
Sonny00:13:54Just another reason that the rebellion is disgusting. There you go.
Vic00:13:58Sex perverse. But people did actually, jokes aside, people did clap at the I love you, I know line. People just did. So you have all the fans that were there. So that was great. I mean, the writing is great.
JVL00:14:09Question. Was Hoth awesome?
Vic00:14:10Yeah. But you know what's funny is watching the at-ats in their stop motion. It's so different. But you don't mind. I mean, you know, the way they move. It's dated. But I'll tell you what's worse is the 1997 editions.
JVL00:14:24Oh, it had the editions? Yeah.
Vic00:14:25So it's 1997. But luckily, it's not as bad, obviously, as Return of the Jedi or Star Wars.
Sonny00:14:32And you basically just have the shots of Bespin, right? Yes. Cloud City.
Vic00:14:36But it's so funny because I remember seeing it in 97. Oh, look at these new additions to this, you know, high-tech.
JVL00:14:43You hated it then, right? Because I hated it in 97.
Vic00:14:47Return of the Jedi, I hated the additions to, which I thought were awful. But this one, I didn't mind it. It's so much more noticeable now, the Cloud City scenes that Lucas added in 97. Because they don't look, they look very, they just look very fake.
Sonny00:15:01They're terrible. They look dated because they're using 1997 CGI. That's exactly right. It is actually kind of fascinating to look at the various insertions into the movies now with the distance of time. Because if you look at those 1997 A New Hope scenes, like on Tatooine, like outside Mos Eisley, they look awful. Really look awful. And some of the stuff works. Some of the stuff I thought worked then and still more or less works. Like the additional shots of the X-Wings on the approach to the Death Star. Like some of that stuff is actually okay. And I wonder how much of that was done digitally and how much was done with actual models. I don't know. But it just, basically everything that they added is terrible. And it looks worse.
JVL00:15:52Maybe the answer is they just need to re-specialize it again. They need to do another. With 2018 technology. And then it'll be G.I. technology.
Vic00:15:59They've got to bring him back for that. One of the other interesting things, of course, is I was curious what people would be wearing to this. Because on the one hand, it's the Kennedy Center, right? And there's other things going on. So there were people who were dressed up. There were people in sort of black tie. You know who I saw was Bill Kristol. He was like, is that Victor Matus? What's he doing here? Was he wearing black tie going to the opera? He was going upstairs to the terrace. I guess his wife was meeting him. He was meeting him up there for some sort of piano trio concert. But he had just flown in from L.A. So he's dragging his suitcase through the Kennedy Center. And he doesn't stop. I guarantee you he's falling asleep at the show. There's no way. I mean, he came in right from the plane directly to the Kennedy Center. So I saw him there. So there are people who were dressed up fairly nicely. And there are people even in the concert hall where I was that were dressed normally. I'd say there are a lot of the fanboys who were wearing Star Wars-themed T-shirts that look like they haven't been washed since The Empire Strikes Back. When it was first on. And they were allowed in. Yes, in T-shirts and stuff. And kids. A lot of the kids came in costumes. Halloween costumes. Yes, exactly. And speaking of Halloween, over the weekend, Halloween took the top spot at the box office. That's like an alley-oop. That was an alley-oop. I'm coming down the court, Nick Van Exel. I throw it up to Shaq, and you throw it right in. Oh, man, that was great. $77.5 million, followed by A Star is Born at $19 million, and Venom in $18 million in third place. Halloween's budget, of course, was reported at $10 million. So it's kind of like The Nun and The Conjuring series. Horror has these amazing returns. Your thoughts, Sonny?
Sonny00:17:41Box office. I have no enormous thoughts about the box office. I mean, it is surprising. It is surprising to see it make this much money.
JVL00:17:52Not to anybody who was reading Richard Rushfield over the last few weeks. No, but I mean— Because a month ago, he— He had a little colloquy of marketeers who all said that they thought this was going to be making a run at the highest grossing R-rated open ever. Wow. And that this thing had been tracking to the moon. Yeah. Yeah. Close to— Not it, but it was way up there.
Sonny00:18:17Close. Very, very close, yes. Well, it's not that close to it. It made like $120 million or something. I'm sorry, fall. Fall. Or seasonal. Size is seasonal.
JVL00:18:27Whatever. The point is— It was almost the highest October. And only because of Venom. Right, right, right. Venom. Venom.
Vic00:18:35Venom. Yeah, amazing. So, did we all see The Hate U Give? That also came out this weekend. Sonny, how about a review of The Hate U Give?
Sonny00:18:42I would rather— What is The Hate U Give? The Hate U Give is— See the trailer. I think you don't even have to see the movie. See the trailer? It's the woke movie about police brutality against the African-American community.
JVL00:18:54This sounds like my kind of thing. Since I'm anti—
Sonny00:18:57You would probably really love this movie.
JVL00:19:01Is this a documentary? It's woke.
Sonny00:19:03It's anti-police. No, it just—I couldn't imagine actually watching this movie. I just can't. Are you going to—you're not going to review it? Not going to review it.
Vic00:19:12It's out now. Not going to review it. Okay, so you saw Halloween. You obviously reviewed that for The Beacon. I did. I saw JVL. Did you see it?
JVL00:19:19I did not see it. Did anybody else see it? Maybe.
Sonny00:19:24Yes! Yes! Yes!
JVL00:19:27I've been waiting for this. I've been waiting for this all week long.
Vic00:19:33Allow me to take a stab at reviewing Halloween. Michael Myers is back with a vengeance. He has done some terrible things, and I'm not just talking about Shrek Forever and the Love Guru. Oh. He has escaped and is coming after Laurie Strode, played by Jamie Lee Curtis. I wouldn't want to be trading places with her. Michael Myers is back with a vengeance. Michael Myers is truly dangerous. Why can't people get it through their thick skulls before they get it through their thick skulls? Well, let's cut to the chase. This movie really goes for the jugular. Michael Myers is like me after I eat a bowl of chili, silent but deadly. I give Halloween four stars, and that's the Critics' Corner.
JVL00:20:22Gene. Thank you, Gene. I've missed you.
Vic00:20:27It's been a while. And I think Gene had read your review, Sonny, about him being the silent killer, and that gave him kind of this idea that he really doesn't say one word. No. No. So how about a real big boy review?
Sonny00:20:43Halloween is a direct sequel to the 1978 original. That means that they are wiping out the previous ten films of sequels and remakes.
JVL00:20:54The continuity is out?
Sonny00:20:56Continuity is out. Well, the Halloween series has always been fascinating because the continuity has never mattered that much anyway, really.
Guest00:21:04I mean, they...
Sonny00:21:05See Halloween 3. There was the Halloween 3, which was the anthology movie, and then they, you know, I mean, they retconned Michael Myers into being the sister or the brother of Laurie Strode. It's always been kind of... So this is directly a sequel to the original. And it's a Halloween movie. It's a Halloween movie. There's not a ton you can do with this concept. It's people getting killed. I thought it was pretty effective insofar as that is what it is. It's an interesting movie in that it feels like it is often in dialogue with previous iterations of the series. This is a movie that kind of openly mocks the idea that we should understand. We should understand Michael Myers, that we should get inside his head, and we need to know what he's thinking as he's committing these murders. Every character who does this, from the new Loomis to the podcasters, the movie opens with a pair of podcasters going to Michael Myers and bringing him his mask and being like, talk to us. Tell us why you did this. And Michael Myers just stands there silently. Everyone who tries to get inside his head and understand what he did. Gets murdered pretty brutally and violently.
JVL00:22:31How old is Michael Myers?
Sonny00:22:32Michael Myers is 60-something. He'd be at least 60. 40 years later. But he has aged. He's not supernatural. No, no, he's not. I mean, he's supernatural in that he's supernaturally strong and, you know, whatever. You can't kill him. That's like Uncle Drew. You can't kill him. But he, so anyway, it's, the movie is fine. The movie is fine for what it is. Again, there are a couple of interesting. Ways that the movie has changed over the years. For instance, in this film, the only nudity in it is a flashback to the 1978 original. Which I find pretty, I mean, it.
Vic00:23:13And it's obscured. It's not.
Sonny00:23:14And it's kind of, well, yeah, but I mean, I think it's basically just a shot from the original. Yes, it is. From the original movie. And it is, and there are, there's like a makeout scene, but it's very chaste. Like the girl. The girl has her clothes on. The guy has his clothes on. It's already a hard art. It's hand over the top. And it is, it's a fascinating way in which Hollywood has gotten very skittish about.
Vic00:23:37Yes, they have.
Sonny00:23:38Kind of casual nudity and that sort of thing. It's one of the things I like about Rob Zombie's Halloween is it's just like, it's just tits everywhere. It's just everywhere. Rob Zombie does not, he wants to see attractive young people naked, but also unattractive old people. He basically just likes people to have their clothes off in his movies. You know, the Rob Zombie Halloween is a... H2O, H20. No, no, no. That was, that's a different one. This is the, this is the remake. So the Rob Zombie remade Halloween in 2007 and 2009. There was Halloween, Halloween 2. That's right. And in Rob Zombie's movies, which again, I think this new one is kind of in dialogue with. In Rob Zombie's movies, the first hour of the film, the first hour of the hour and 50 minute Halloween movie is all about Michael Myers' childhood. It's about him being bullied. It's about his... His stepfather being mean to him. It's about... And then, and, you know, it tries to explain Michael Myers. It tries to give us a reason why he's this awful serial killer. And, you know, he, it's basically, I put it, as I put it somewhere, I can't remember. It's the blowback theory of Michael Myers. It's like, we made this man by being cruel and mean to him. And I like, I can understand why this would appeal to, to people in a, in a post 9-11 kind of situation. But the, the, the, the whole thing just doesn't work. Because it demystifies Michael Myers. It makes him less scary. He's not, he's not a terrifying person.
JVL00:25:02Thank you, Sonny.
Vic00:25:02I watched it and actually, you know, who was in the theater was Joe Shoftal.
JVL00:25:07That's his, our colleague from the freebie. That's his kind of movie too. He likes horror. You guys went together? No, no, by chance. But I didn't know he was going there. Did you sit together? No, he, we're assigned seats.
Vic00:25:16I sat in the back. I sat in the back. I do not need crazy person behind me wearing mask. Okay.
JVL00:25:21Even though they, they, no masks. Where, which theater did you sit in?
Vic00:25:24AMC, AMC Courthouse. Oh, okay. You know. So I sat. I sat in the back. But, you know, and it's been a while. I thought about this. It had been a long time since I actually went to see like an outright horror film in a theater. And I don't remember, because I don't even want to count Hostel, for example, which is just torture porn. It's, you know, but I mean like a scary movie. And there's so many that have come out that, but I don't remember seeing. So it's been a while. Did you go see It? No, no, did not. And so I sat there and I have to admit there were a few moments where I was a little bit like tense, nervous, like, ooh, I can see where this is going. And then, but you know what I did? I would look above my glasses where my vision is blurry. So I can just, just to brace for a few seconds before the jump scare or the fake jump scare. And then, you know, the jump scare after that. And so I would do that, you know, to blur the vision, because if I'm looking through my glasses, every little gory detail I'm going to see, and that's because I'm wearing my brand new Warby Parker glasses. That's right. Warby Parker is founded with a rebellious spirit and a lofty goal to create boutique quality eyewear at a revolution. At a revolutionary price point available exclusively through Warby Parker's website and retail stores, glasses start at $95, including prescription lenses. Warby Parker is eyewear with a purpose. Almost 1 billion people worldwide lack access to glasses. This means that 15% of the global population cannot effectively learn or work, which is crazy because glasses were invented 700 years ago. We should be on top of this. Warby Parker partners with nonprofits like Vision Spring to ensure for every pair of need we believe that everyone has the right to see. Warby Parker makes buying glasses online easy and risk-free. What? Yes, our Home Try-On program allows you to order five pairs of glasses shipped directly to your door where you can try them on in the comfort of your own home. You can try the frames for five days before sending them back using a free prepaid return shipping label with no obligation to purchase. It's 100% free and so easy to do. Sunglasses start at $95. Including polarized lenses available with prescriptions starting at $175. Warby Parker sunglasses feature premium polarized lenses that are scratch resistant and provide 100% UV protection. So I did the Home Try-On. I got five pairs sent to my house. It was very easy. And my wife and my kids were the judges. I kind of liked...
Sonny00:27:49Did you do a little fashion show?
Vic00:27:50I did. I liked one that was more slate but made me, they said, look like a Bond villain, like Dr. No. Which Bob Kagan used to call me because I used to have the thick black frames. And then there was another one that was interesting called The Barnes. And it was larger, a little bit more retro, and tortoise shell. And I couldn't help but think that it was maybe dedicated to Fred Barnes. Named after Fred. You know, everybody loved Fred's glasses. But I settled on the Eaton. I was really surprised it actually fit my head based on the parameters I give. And all you have to do is upload your doctor's prescription because I'm not typing in what my doctor writes. I can't read what she writes. But they understand what it is.
Sonny00:28:32Do you have to, like, take a picture of it? Yeah. And you, like, send a PDF? Take a picture and you upload it on the website.
Vic00:28:36That's it. It's very, very easy. Warby Parker has the free home try-on program. Order five pairs of glasses and try them on for five days. There's no obligation to buy. It all ships free and includes a prepaid return shipping label. Head to warbyparker.com slash substandard to order your free home try-ons today. Glasses start at $95, including prescription lenses. Lenses include anti-glare and anti-scratch coatings for every pair you buy. A pair is distributed to someone in need. That's warbyparker.com slash substandard to order your free home try-ons today. Also, do you have an iPhone X? Make sure to download Warby Parker's app where you can use their brand new feature, Find Your Fit. Find Your Fit uses the iPhone X's true-depth camera to map and measure key facial features. Using these measurements, Find Your Fit recommends approximately 12 Warby Parker frames that are likely the best fit. For your face, the process is seamless and takes only a few seconds.
JVL00:29:57For your face, the process is seamless and takes only a few seconds.
Vic00:30:27For your face, the process is seamless and takes only a few seconds.
JVL00:30:57For your face, the process is seamless and takes only a few seconds.
Sonny00:31:27For your face, the process is seamless and takes only a few seconds.
JVL00:31:57For your face, the process is seamless and takes only a few seconds.
Vic00:32:27For your face, the process is seamless and takes only a few seconds.
Sonny00:32:57For your face, the process is seamless and takes only a few seconds. For your face, the process is seamless and takes only a few seconds. For your face, the process is seamless and takes only a few seconds.
Vic00:34:27For your face, the process is seamless and takes only a few seconds. For your face, the process is seamless and takes only a few seconds. For your face, the process is seamless and takes only a few seconds. For your face, the process is seamless and takes only a few seconds. For your face, the process is seamless and takes only a few seconds.
JVL00:36:57For your face, the process is seamless and takes only a few seconds.
Vic00:37:27For your face, the process is seamless and takes only a few seconds. For your face, the process is seamless and takes only a few seconds. For your face, the process is seamless and takes only a few seconds. For your face, the process is seamless and takes only a few seconds.
Sonny00:39:27For your face, the process is seamless and takes only a few seconds. The one we haven't mentioned so far is the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, which I have always thought is the best of all these. It's like the most creative. It's the most actually scary, I find. Yes. Like the idea of falling asleep and not being able to tell the difference between dreams and reality.
Vic00:40:13It's a great concept. It's much like Body Snatchers in which if you go to sleep, you die. But this is much more explicit. I'd rather go to sleep in Body Snatchers than, you know, get puked.
Sonny00:40:22Just wake up as a pod person. Yeah, that's fine. You would be fine as a pod person.
Vic00:40:26Half my day is like that.
Sonny00:40:27As a pod person, I don't really have anything to contribute anyway. I might as well just be a pod person. Just go through the motions. We still eat.
Vic00:40:33Do the pod people do RG? No, that's the thing. I don't think they do. I bet they don't have to. I bet they can have all the RG they want.
Sonny00:40:41Well, they probably just don't want to eat. They just want to take in their food. You know what?
Vic00:40:44They would know I'm faking because they'd be like, that pod guy is eating way too much. Why is he eating so much? He's not one of us. And Nightmare on Elm Street, though, is much scarier because it comes in your dreams. And that's very effective for an audience. To think that he'll come in your dreams. And the worst thing about it, that was a Mattis Family movie, actually. And I actually did not watch, initially, the death of Johnny Depp. Oh. Because I really didn't know who he was at the time, but it was sympathetic to his character. I liked him. And I thought, oh, no. And I don't want to see him die. And it's an awful death. Yeah. It sucked in my bed. Yes. And there's blood dripping through the ceiling downstairs. It was terrible. And you were right about this movie not having the classic nudity of the old movies. And that's a general theme of most movies now, where you just don't see gratuitous sex anymore.
JVL00:41:37Why is nudity, like, gratuitous nudity, such an integral part of horror?
Sonny00:41:43Well, because it's the, what is it? The sex and death impulses. Sex and death impulses. Colliding into orgasms of blood. Interesting.
Vic00:41:54I guess. And you bring your date, and the date gets scared. And there's a lot. There's a little bit of, you know, there's titillation. Frizzle. Well, yes. Frizzle. And they're grabbing through your arm and things like that, I imagine. But they don't do that anymore. And one of the movies I was thinking about was actually Jason Goes to Hell, which, in fact, was not made in the, it was, like, in the aughts. Yeah, that was, like, 1990 or 91. And that had one of the most explicit gratuitous sex scenes where a, put this this way, a woman gets impaled, and then she gets impaled.
JVL00:42:26Hey, man.
Vic00:42:26Oh.
JVL00:42:27Question. Yes. So we are in a golden age of horror, much the way the late 70s were a golden age of horror.
Sonny00:42:37It's, I, okay, go ahead.
JVL00:42:41My question is, is it fair to say that the golden age, late 70s, early 80s of horror was really based around iconic characters like Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, Pinhead, Leatherface? Well, it's funny, though. In ways that today, it's, the horror seems much more situational. I mean, we have Jigsaw, and I guess.
Sonny00:43:07Half of those characters, though, were 80s characters, right? I mean, like, you have Michael Myers, and you have Leatherhead, and the Texas Chainsaw Masker, but, like, Friday the 13th, the first one was 1980.
JVL00:43:17Right, so it was the late 70s leading into the 80s, right, which is the golden, maybe I only think of that as the golden age of horror because that's when I was looking at the ads for all these things. I'm thinking to myself, you could not pay me enough to go to that movie.
Sonny00:43:30But the problem is, all those movies are bad, right? We can generally agree that most of those films are bad, with the exception of, like, the first Texas Chainsaw, which has a kind of Grindhouse pulpy appeal.
Vic00:43:41I remember coming across Halloween 3's Season of the Witch, which has nothing to do with Michael Myers, and everything to do with, like, evil corporations slash mad scientists. The Silver Shamrock Company wanted all the kids to wear the pumpkin mask, and they had the little microchip, and then the microchip was connected to a Celtic curse, and then they tell you to watch the movie. That happens. That happens, as you know, which is all very real, plausible so far. And they say, watch the screen, and then all of a sudden, inside your mask are all sorts of bugs and snakes eating your face, and they showed a kid, and it happens to the kid, and it's awful! Sorry, I'm going to hear some of it. It really affected me. That really seemed to disturb you. It did. You can see it on YouTube still.
Sonny00:44:26It depends on what we're talking about when we're talking about, like, great horror movies. I mean, you have, like, Rosemary's Baby, right?
JVL00:44:33I'm not saying these are great movies.
Sonny00:44:35I'm just saying the golden age of the slasher, certainly.
JVL00:44:40The genre was built around characters. You know, the idea was we've got to find a character, and then we can build a movie around it. You know, the leprechaun. We'll just get the leprechaun. We'll build a movie around it.
Sonny00:44:49Yeah.
JVL00:44:50Whereas the horror movies of today are much more about situations, right, like the torture porn movies, which are horror, are all about ideas and scenarios, not...
Sonny00:45:01Or, like, the conjuring characters.
Vic00:45:02The conjuring, which is now... How many movies connected to this now?
Sonny00:45:05Like, six? 85. Or, like, The Witch, or, you know, Hereditary, where you have kind of... Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. You definitely... It is weird that you have this kind of... We live in an age of franchises, and there are certainly... There certainly are horror franchises, like the Insidious movies, and... And for a while, The Ring had a good round a little bit. There were a couple Ring movies. But, yeah, you're right. I don't think that we have, like, an iconic horror villain that has... And maybe that means the horror movies today are more sophisticated. Yes.
JVL00:45:48Maybe they are just more sophisticated as... In a way. Propositions. I guess that's what I was trying to get at a little bit, but not knowing anything. Because I am just a voyeur. In the whole horror scene. Because I don't consume it. I'm always interested in it. Yes.
Sonny00:46:01Because I'm interested in why people respond to it the way they do. There's certain things that I'm finding to be... There's the Babadook. What is that? The Babadook. What is that? That was a good character. What is that? You've got to see the Babadook, man.
Vic00:46:12One of the things that I find very tired of the new big hit movies, they all do this, is... And it's like, it's... They all do this now. You see, you don't even have to see the movie. They show it in the trailer, where you see the image of... You see the image of some scary being, and then they fast forward, and all of a sudden they speed up the frame, and it runs right towards you. Every movie does this now. They do a lot of... I get that. But you know what I'm talking about.
Sonny00:46:39Yeah. The first time I remember seeing that is... Do you remember the House on Haunted Hill remake, with like... Who was in that? Omar Epps. Yes. Really? And Jeffrey Rush.
Vic00:46:49I took a stab. Jeffrey Rush. I took a stab at Omar Epps, and I got it.
Sonny00:46:52And Mrs. Pete Sampras is in that. Oh, that's right. And it does... It does this kind of thing where you have like the weird figures, and then like, speeds
JVL00:47:00them up real quick, and then like... Oh, it's right out of your face.
Sonny00:47:02That always creeped me out, man.
Vic00:47:04It did, but now it's just this... Yeah. First time, the first five times, okay, that's really cool, but now it's like, ugh, I know what's coming next. She's running at you.
Sonny00:47:13Yeah, this is one of the reasons I kind of like Rob Zombie horror movies, and he is not... I'm surprised he doesn't get more critical love than he does, but the sort of things he does are like, they're very atmospheric, and they're very based on... They're very much based on set design and character design and musical design, and they don't rely on the jump scares of the Conjuring films or the Insidious movies. It's not a lot of like, here's a loud noise and a scary flash of an image. It's a lot of building tense scenes that people can't really escape from. Anyway.
Vic00:47:45When you went to see Halloween, did you get a trailer for Pet Sematary with Jason Clarke? I did. Did you have... No, thank you. Yeah, no, okay, because I saw... Did you see the original Pet Sematary? The Pet Sematary movie with a no-name cast, with the exception of Fred Gwynn.
Sonny00:48:00Well, but also, no, Tasha Yar's in that. Denise Crosby, right? Yes. Yes. Oh. Yeah. God love you for pulling out Tasha Yar.
Vic00:48:08Wow, I saw that, yeah. Tell me about the Pet Sematary trailer.
JVL00:48:11I mean, I like Jason Clarke. Does it look just too scary for you?
Sonny00:48:13No, but I mean, it's a movie about a little kid dying, and they put him in the Pet Sematary and he comes back as an evil spirit.
Vic00:48:19The train, not the train, the 18-wheeler. The truck, the 18-wheeler.
Sonny00:48:23If I have to see that more than once, once was enough. I don't want to see that. When the kid happens. I read Pet Sematary for the first time when my daughter was like two, and I was like, well, I've waited 34 years to read this book. Sure, this is the perfect time to do it now.
JVL00:48:38Yeah, it's about pets. I was like, terrified.
Sonny00:48:39It's okay, it's just pets. Awful.
JVL00:48:41No. Tell me what happens in the tractor trailer. If you could bring-
Sonny00:48:45In Pet Sematary, the pre-see is a family moves to a rural Maine home that is situated, basically, in front of an Indian burial ground that kids use as a pet cemetery. If you put your pet there, it comes back to life. But it comes back evil. It comes back evil. And so the family, they have a two-year-old kid. Spoiler, I mean, for this 30-year-old book and movie. Gage wanders out in the street and gets whacked by a semi-truck and distraught with grief. The father puts the child in the Pet Sematary, and Pet Sematary sends him back, and he's evil. Evil little boy. And he kills-
Vic00:49:24You gotta kill him again. Yeah, he kills Fred Munster. That sounds like not a fun movie.
Sonny00:49:29No, it's really disturbing. It's really disturbing.
Vic00:49:33Yeah, no, he kills Fred- So I have two questions for you boys. JVL.
JVL00:49:40One, can I get a greater sign on Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees? Oh. Two, can I get a ranking of the iconic horror slasher? Or protagonists. Or villains, I guess. What are anti-heroes? Do any of them ever- Do people wind up rooting for Mike Myers and Jason and Freddy later on? I imagine in Freddy vs. Jason. By number five of these installments, are people in the audience secretly like, yeah, I want to see how Freddy kills this guy. Let's go, Freddy. In the way that when you're wrestling, in professional wrestling, there's a whole class of people who are just rooting for the bad guys. Because they like Roddy Piper and they want to see Roddy Piper.
Vic00:50:26The problem is, it's not 100% of the time that the victims are people you'd like to see killed. If that makes any sense. You know, when somebody goes on a murder spree, if the people are not likable, then you don't have as much problems seeing them die. Many of these movies are people you do find sympathetic, so it's less- It would be disturbing to root for them, I think. I don't know.
Sonny00:50:49Michael Myers is greater sign, Jason Voorhees, because Michael Myers was first, and Jason Voorhees- 78. Though I do appreciate Jason Voorhees. Who was, remember, not actually the villain of the first Friday the 13th. It was Jason's mother. Yes. Jason Voorhees was not until the second one. Oh, I did not know that. Having never seen either of these movies.
Vic00:51:07There are a lot of mother movies like that. Carrie. Yeah. And I believe Happy Birthday to Me. You don't want to- Okay. Let me just give you a tip about Happy Birthday to Me. Two tips. One was, when you're bench pressing, make sure a girl doesn't drop a weight between your legs, and then you break your windpipe. Okay, that's- That's number one. And number two, don't let anyone feed you any food with a skewer. Okay. It's your mouth. Keep that in mind. All right.
Sonny00:51:37Freddy, greater sign, Leatherface, greater sign, Michael Myers, greater sign, Jason.
JVL00:51:43So you go one, Freddy, two, Leatherface, three, Mike Myers, four, Jason.
Sonny00:51:53Jason is definitely- I mean, Jason is- Freddy is the best of these characters, by far, just as a character. He's actually interesting. Well, he's the only one who talks as a person. Right. Exactly. I mean, there's the-
Vic00:52:04And a story. Well, they all have stories.
JVL00:52:08And Leatherface. I'm surprised you put Leatherface so high. What is it about Leatherface? Again, this is another movie that you could not pay me to watch. I know.
Vic00:52:16In its various iterations. How about with Matthew McConaughey? Did you like that one?
Sonny00:52:20Is that the next generation of Texas Toontown Mascot? Is that Platinum Dunes? No, the Platinum Dunes ones were- The Platinum Dunes were in the mid-aughts, featuring Alexandra Daddario in one of those movies. There you go.
JVL00:52:34Featuring how much of Alexandra Daddario? Not enough, sadly.
Vic00:52:38Okay. I defer to Sonny on this.
JVL00:52:42I'm surprised you don't have, like, totally strong feelings on this. No, no, no.
Vic00:52:46I think I used to, but I need to brush up on it. And speaking of brushing up, Sonny Bunch-
JVL00:52:50Whoa! Alley-oop again!
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Vic00:54:44Thank you very much, Sonny Bunch. I have one correction, which is in last week's episode, I said Neil Armstrong had taught at Purdue, but no, listener and friend Jason Cooper reminds me that is wrong. He went to undergrad Purdue, and he taught at University of... of Cincinnati. So go...
Sonny00:54:58Awful. Just awful.
Vic00:54:59Well, it's no Xavier, you know. How dare you. How dare you mess that up. Okay, yes. Okay, well, thank you, Jason. Just kidding about Xavier. That's all the time we are giving to this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments, tweet us at Victorino Matus at Sonny Bunch.
Sonny00:55:12At JV Last, and I'm telling you to tweet at JV Last. I'm Sonny Bunch telling you to tweet at... Apparently some people were confused because I say at JV Last, and they think I'm JV Last. Okay. But I'm not. I'm Sonny.
Vic00:55:23Thank you. Thank you, JVL. No! Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play. Just type in Substandard on a podcast. We're there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. Until next time. I just have one thought. I don't know if you have other thoughts. I have an outtake. Okay. All right. Mine is I found a cure for gout. Oh. This is very exciting. So last week I mentioned out... Chris Kaldwin and I were at Ambar on Clarendon Boulevard. And then a little bit after that, Kate and I went to the basement restaurant of Ambar, which is called Baba. Did you know that? If you go downstairs... So it's away from the riffraff, which is good because the people that do the Arlington Bar Crawls will never get down there. And it's like we got transported to Central Europe because she lived in Europe. I did. So it was like that. It was fantastic. All these little plates. And I got a little carried away with the sweetbreads, the fried sweetbreads and the short ribs and the risotto. The risotto, etc.
JVL00:56:27Sweetbreads are not actually bread.
Vic00:56:29No, but I'm not going to tell you until you eat it. It tastes delicious. Just eat it. Hey. Gross. Hey, who doesn't love a good gland? Anyway, then I started... It was just the two. It's kind of a date night thing. And then I got that twitch in my big toe, which I know... Ooh, that means the crystals are forming, right? The crystals are forming. I started to panic. And then I said, you know, do I stop now? What do I do? And on their dessert drink list, they had a cherry liqueur from Bosnia. I ordered it. I drank it. It was like a little bit of a brandy snifter. The next morning, no gout. So, cherry liqueur. Bosnian cherry liqueur. I think that I can eat anything I want now.
JVL00:57:07Was this advertised as a gout stopper?
Vic00:57:11I mean, what led you to order this? Ah, because I had known that cherry... I'm sorry, you're right. I jumped here. Cherry juice is a remedy for gout. Really? Yes. This is fascinating. It is interesting. But it's very hard to find. You can't find just cherry juice anywhere, though. This is very hard.
JVL00:57:29Sonny. Sonny, what do you got there, big guy?
Sonny00:57:30So, when I went to see Halloween, I saw it at the AMC Shirlington. Had my nice assigned seats. Got a beer. Sat in my seat. I'm watching, and I notice when I'm sitting there watching, and you know, there's scary things happening. There's shadows and light, you know. And I noticed some shadows on the floor that weren't matching up with the screen. And I was like, oh, that's weird. I wonder what sort of effect this is. And it keeps happening. And it's like things are almost coming toward me. On the floor, and they were, because there were mice.
JVL00:58:08There were mice in the AMC theater.
Sonny00:58:11In Shirlington? In Shirlington. The AMC Shirlington 7. At least two. Maybe more. Almost certainly more if there were two. Did you go to tell the manager? I did not. Well, I couldn't leave, because I had to watch. Because I'm reviewing it.
Vic00:58:27But after, I mean.
Sonny00:58:28No, after I just tweeted at them. What did they say? Did they reply? They were like, oh, we're so sorry. Sorry, we want to take care of this. I was like, and they were like, we'll send you free popcorn. I'm like, I'm going to eat the popcorn at the AMC Shirlington. But, you know, and it's not like I'm paying for these tickets. I'm expensing them. This is not like a money thing for me. It's a disgust with the rodent infestation. So just FYI, at the AMC Shirlington.
JVL00:58:51Is it possible that this is a 4D experience? Well, this is what I would like. Released the mice to heighten the sense of horror during the movie.
Sonny00:59:00I actually posited as such in my review, the top half of which was concerned with the mice situation. Question. Yes.
JVL00:59:08Which did you find scarier? Yes. The movie, Halloween, or the live mice running around your ankles and feet in the movie theater?
Sonny00:59:18Fortunately, they had the recliner seats. So, you know, I've got my feet reclined all the way up. They're running underneath. They're not jumping on my feet. I'm not scared of mice, but I was just a little grossed out. It's, you know, it's gross. I'm sure it's fine. It's not.
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