Re-View: Nightbreed

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In November of 2015, Derek and Jake watched Clive Barker's Nightbreed, expecting Barker's rich, dark story of a man whose serial killer psychiatrist gets him killed, only to have him return as one of a mysterious group of beings known as the Nightbreed, explode across the screen. And while that was pretty much the story, it didn't so much "explode" as it did fizzle with kind of a wet fart noise. You can listen to the original show here.

This doesn't help! I can still smell it!

We could rehash the cast, but the only recognizable name would be director David Cronenberg, who did not direct this movie (Barker did), choosing instead to be the serial killer psychiatrist, Dr. Decker. He's messing with Boone (played by some dumb guy), whom Decker has convinced that Boone is the serial killer. When Boone gets committed, meets a guy who rips his own scalp off, and then runs off to find the mystical land of Midian, which is, for some reason, located under a cemetery in the middle of nowhere, the police and Decker track Boone there and kill him. Like, a lot. But not before he finds Midian, and it is not magical. It is, in fact, kinda bitey and mean, One of its denizens--a Rastafarian demon of some kind--bites Boone and makes him a Nightbreed.

Boone's girlfriend Lori (played by a poodle-haired bland woman), meanwhile, is trying to find out what happened to him. When she is visited by the police and asked to identify Boone's body, she stares blandly at it for a while and leaves. Almost immediately after that, Boone comes back to life and once again heads to the cemetery, where he meets some of the people there. They seem fun!

I told you, kid...The McFlurry machine is broken!

Lori meets up with a woman as she searches for Boone, whom she discovered is alive again, and the two of them go to the cemetery where Boone was killed. The woman gets killed by Boone's shrink, and Lori gets inside Midian, where she meets a Gypsy woman and her Chupacabra child, Mac Tonight, and the Rastafarian guy, who wants to bite her, too. But Boone appears and saves her!

From this point, it gets more confusing, and hard to follow. The one interesting character--Decker--hardly gets any screen time, despite his cool mask, and the rest of the cast talks silliness and jibber-jabber of the quality and quantity Mr. T would prefer to not have.

A visual example of just such jibber-jabber. Come. On.

Instead, we are forced to pretend we care about some of the most unlikable characters ever committed to film. And when it is clear that inundating the viewer with countless scenes of the Rastafarian guy yelling at everyone is not bringing on the sympathy, a gaggle of hillbillies (sanctioned by the local police) mounts an offensive on Midian, because they had the nerve to look different.

Where is the movie about this guy's journey?!

The hillbillies, armed to the gills by the police, show up and start shooting and blowing up anything that moves. Naturally, the inhabitants of Midian do not appreciate this, and they start attacking right the heck back, releasing horrible monsters that start tearing the hillbillies to shreds. It's pretty entertaining, in that respect.

But will they win? Will Boone and Lori get back together and work out the complications of sex between a consenting woman and her consenting corpse of a boyfriend?

Put your thing in my thing and do things, but don't let your rotting, desiccated
thing fall of while it's in my thing! 

And will that moon-faced guy ever get his chin worked on? Also, why is David Cronenberg acting?! He should be directing! You'll have to tune in to find out!

Larry is not impressed with this one. He did not care for the actors, the story, the editing, the sets, the makeup...Any of it, really. And he has every right to be unimpressed. This is garbage.

Jake used to love this movie when he was a kid. Older now, he has seen the error of his ways and has come to the conclusion that this is, as noted above, garbage. It's choppy and just awful.

Derek hates everything except Mac Tonight's makeup. And the Chupacabra daughter. The rest is a mish-mash of poorly edited uselessness. Nobody is good in this, and it's stupid and dumb and he hates it.

So, rather than subject yourself to the movie itself, learn from the guys' mistake in watching it twice and check out this week's episode!

Knights of Badassdom

To listen/download, click here!

Before we get started, there is a section at the end of the podcast where Derek talks about a shirt he had made with his pal Troy Parker's face on it. He explains why and also the interest from others about having one for themselves. So he made a group order form at CustomInk for anybody who wanted to order one. (His big hope is to have at least one of you out there buy one and then send us a picture of you wearing it, because Troy would get a kick out of it.) Anyway, here's the shirt:

Do not let Derek's large head sticking out of it
distract you from the shirt's awesomeness.

So, if you want one, please click the link above. And send us a pic when you get it! Now on with the show...

Larry couldn't make it to this week's recording session, so Derek and Jake had to pull a movie out of their collective behinds to watch because they couldn't do a Re-View without all three of them there. Fortunately, Jake had one at the ready, in the event of just such a situation: Knights of Badassdom, starring Ryan Kwanten, Steve Zahn, Summer Glau and Peter freakin' Dinklage! Not to mention Jimmi Simpson, Danny Pudi, Brian Posehn, Josh Molina and countless others.

A group of LARPers (Live Action Role Players) is playing a campaign in the forest, and the group's wizard, Eric (Zahn), is about to reveal the cool old spell book he bought on eBay, but the ceremony is interrupted by a group of paintballers who attack them and chase them off. One of them picks up Eric's book, which was dropped in the melee, and looks inside. The book attacks him, leaving printing tattooed on his face. then it disappears and reappears in Eric's van.

The next day, we meet Joe (Kwanten). He is living what he believes to be his best life. He has a job he likes, good friends and a girlfriend (Margarita Levieva as Beth) he loves enough to write Doom Metal songs about. But when Beth breaks it off with him because she thinks he isn't doing enough with his life, Joe takes an immediate downward turn and goes home to write power ballads while he drinks himself into a stupor.

Beth: The cause of all the problems. AL OF THEM.

Fortunately, Eric and Hung (Dinklage), Joe's two best friends, sympathize with him and decide what he really needs is a distraction. In the form of enough weed and whiskey to make him pass out so they can dress him in armor and take him to a big LARPing festival going on that weekend.

When Joe comes back around he is only moderately surprised to find himself at the festival, but still isn't happy about it. Eric and Hung explain that they brought him there so he can have some fun, and he relents. All that needs to happen now is for the host, Ronnie (Simpson), to allow Joe to participate, which might be a problem because Joe once caught Ronnie masturbating to a D&D Monster Manual and told everybody about it. Ronnie agrees, but says that they have to resurrect Joe's old character with a spell that will transfer a different former player's "life force" to Joe. Eric agrees, hoping it will allow him to become a 27th-level wizard.

Ronnie never got the hang of the Vulcan salute, so he became a LARPer.

A pentagram is made, Joe is placed in it, and Eric pulls out his new spell book, singing the words from a random page.  When a jewel on the spine of the book starts to glow, Joe starts to worry, and rightly so, because it turns out that the spell Eric is singing is meant to call a lesser demon to Earth. Oh, and the book is a real spell book written by an actual wizard hundreds of years ago. This is why you should always be aware of eBay's return policy.

Joe is concerned, but the others are less so, especially Hung, who has taken a bunch of mushrooms and is ready to fight. Eric is more concerned with becoming a 27th-level wizard, as well as trying to sell contraband actual medieval-style weapons out of the back of his van. And Ronnie just wants the campaign to go well.

And Gunther (Bret Gipson) wants to slay monsters.

At first, nobody notices when one of Ronnie's guys disappears. They start to get suspicious when a female "sprite" (formerly a "faerie") is killed, and someone who looks just like Beth is found eating her throat. But when Ronnie and another LARPer, Lando (Dani Pudi) sees Demon Beth kill Hung, they tell Eric, Joe, Gunther and Gwen (Glau), who take matters into their own hands and call the police. Well, Eric, Joe and Gwen do. Gunther runs off into the woods, ready to make battle with evil. He's an odd guy.

It turns out the police are the guys who attacked Eric's group with paintballs at the beginning of the movie, and they want to really take the LARPers down hard, so they gear-up and head down toward the park.

At the same time, Eric decides that, since the spell book brought the demon out, maybe he can sing it back to wherever it came from. So they track Demon Beth down and he sings at her. Unfortunately, he sings the wrong spell, causing her to turn into Abominog, a Hell Lord.

You've changed, Beth...

Ronnie takes a look at the book and realizes that it is written in the ancient language and tries to find the correct spell to send the monster back. The roar of the beast awakens Ronnie's minions, who think the big Battle of Nevermore is supposed to start, so they get up and take the truck with a papier-mâché dragon mounted on it out to the field, where the other LARPers are preparing for battle,

The monster arrives at the same time as the dragon truck, and the monster quickly destroys it. While they watch, Joe takes a moment to ask Gwen out on a date, because timing is everything. But will they be alive later to go out? Will Ronnie find the right spell? And what about the paintball guys? Will they save the day?

No, they will not.

You'll have to tune in to find out!

Derek was pleasantly surprised. He really liked this one, but really...how can you not? He is also certain that Steve Zahn is some sort of ageless immortal. And Peter Dinklage can do no wrong.

Jake is also a fan. He has seen this movie numerous times, and he was waiting for just the right moment to spring it on the guys.  He is also a big fan of Dinklage, who, again, can do no wrong.

Larry watched the movie at home and told the guys he liked it a lot, although he had a few issues with it. He straight-up hates the "gorilla gang," a group of guys in cheap green gorilla suits.

So grab your Bag of Holding and your foam sword, don your Cloak of Power, and check out this week's episode!

Re-View: Armageddon

To listen/download, click here!

Something like eighty years ago, two-thirds of the guys got together to watch Michael Bay threaten to destroy the world (again), in the form of the movie Armageddon, starring Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, Billy Bob Thornton, Steve Buscemi, Michael Clarke Duncan, Will Patton, Willian Fichtner, Owen Wilson, Peter Stormare, Ken Campbell, Keith David, and host of other well-known actors.

Bored gargoyle is bored.

Unfortunately, due to a weather issue at the time, Jake couldn't make it to the recording of the original show (which you can listen to here), so it was left to Derek and Larry to sit through this incredibly mediocre film. But now we've fixed that with the first Here Be Spoilers Re-View, where the guys re-watch four films that one (or more) of them couldn't be there for the first time around! And, boy howdy, is it a good thing Jake could make it this time, because he had a lot to say about it.

Anyway...

A giant asteroid is hurtling toward Earth, which is incredibly inconvenient, because that's where we keep all of our stuff. And so, it is up to Billy Bob Thornton, a NASA bigwig, to figure out how to stop the asteroid from hitting the planet and killing everything. Even puppies and kittens! Stupid asteroid.

After all plans are shot down as "unrealistic," it is decided that training a team from an oil platform (Bruce Willis and company) to fly up to the asteroid, drill a hole in it and drop a nuclear bomb in there to blow the whole thing in half is the best thing they could come up with. Go ahead and read that sentence again and let it sink in. We'll wait.

The Wrong Stuff.

So NASA sends people out to bring the crew to Washington, D.C., to teach them how to make a hole in something that isn't full of oil. After a whopping eight days of training, they are all tossed into a couple of shuttles and launched into space, where they will first connect with a Russian space station to fuel for the rest of their journey. Within minutes, Ben Affleck causes the space station to explode, almost taking both of the shuttles with it. They don't have all the fuel they were supposed to get, and they kidnapped the one inhabitant of the station (Peter Stormare).

Lev is not putting up with your shenanigans.

The next part of the trip involves a slingshot maneuver around the moon so they can sneak up on the asteroid(?) and land on it so they can make the hole. Poor navigational choices result in one of the shuttles crash-landing, leaving only Affleck, Duncan and Stormare alive. The other shuttle lands twenty-six miles last the spot they were supposed to, meaning they will have to drill in a spot where they are definitely going to have a hard time, because Michael Bay thinks getting things done the easy way is for whimps. They unload their drill--the Armadillo--and start drilling, breaking stuff on the machine almost instantly.

Over at the other shuttle's crash site, Affleck, Stormare and Duncan are determined to find the other crew and make a hole in something. To temporarily satiate Affleck's hole-making jones, he uses a machine gun inexplicably mounted on this piece of outer space drilling equipment, to make a giant hole in the side of what is left of their shuttle. Then off they go, searching for the others.

Gunfire in a pure oxygen environment? Okay!

Back at the main site, Steve Buscemi goes slightly insane and starts shooting things up with their own drill-mounted machine gun, and gets duct taped to a chair for his troubles. A quick call from Earth gives William Fichtner permission to wave a gun around at people and try to detonate the nuke before they have a deep enough hole where it will be effective. Bruce Willis, who it seems is not a fan of being all exploded for no reason, objects and convinced Fichtner to wait until they make the hole deep enough.

Still nowhere near the drilling site, Affleck's group finds itself with a conundrum: there is a big old canyon they have to cross, but there are no convenient bridges nearby. Obviously, they need to get across, but how? well, duh! You "Dukes of Hazzard" it across, you stupid moron! Wow. How dumb can you be?

We're sorry. We're just lashing out at the overwhelming dopiness of this film.

This is real the reason we're mad.

Anyway, Affleck and Stormare get the Armadillo ready for the jump, while Duncal straps in and says the Lord's Prayer over and over. And then they're off!

At the main site, things are going pretty good, but still taking a lot of time. And then tragedy strikes! Again! This time, it's a gas pocket that causes an explosion, sending that crew's Armadillo floating off into space...with Ken Campbell still inside! What are they gonna do now?!

You'll have to tune in to find out!

Jake, who was not there for the original show, is glad he missed it the first time. It is dumb. All kinds of dumb. But it's a fun kind of dumb, although the romantic story between Liv Tyler and Ben Affleck is completely unnecessary. Man, is this movie dumb!

Larry is not happy because this movie is way too long. By his conservative estimation, a solid forty-five minutes could have been cut from this film and made it much more watchable, and that specifically includes cutting the Affleck/Tyler animal cracker bit.

Derek agrees with both of them, in that it was too long and also stupid. As an added bonus, he's pretty certain you could replace the entire cast with the cast of The Office and dramatically improve the quality of the film. Who would Dwight play, though?

So put on your space suit, fire up that annoying Aerosmith song, and listen this week's episode!

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead

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Oh, Lloyd Kaufman...What would we do without your Troma Pictures and your Toxic Avengerses and your Classes of Nuke 'Em Highseses? As much, much younger people, we at the Here Be Spoilers Podcast used to enjoy your kookie hijinks, goofy songs and disgustingly graphic gore. To be honest, we still sorta do. And we can't help but notice, Lloyd...Lloyd? Are you still listening? As we were saying, Lloyd, we couldn't help but notice that the quality of the dialogue is improving. But that's about it.

Such is the case with this episode's movie, Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead. It's the story of a man and the love he has for a woman, and the love she has for another woman, and the Native American spirit-possessed zombie chickens who want to kill all of them and their friends in a fast food restaurant that is built on an ancient burial ground. You know...That old story.

The man, such as he is, is recent high school graduate Arbie (Jason Yachanin), who is quickly established as a talented dry-humper by his girlfriend, Wendy (Kate Graham), as they vigorously make out in the aforementioned burial ground as the movie opens. As things get more intense, they decide to forego clothes and just have at it. As they do, a number of hands pop out of the ground and begin to grope both of them, and neither appears concerned, even when one of the mysterious hands sticks a finger in Arbie's butt so deeply that it breaks off inside. Arbie's cool with it, and it seems to help his mood. Said mood, however, is quickly destroyed when Wendy spies a man (John Karyus) with an ax in one hand and his junk in the other. The axe hand isn't too busy, but the other is going to town, ruining the passion for our two teen heroes. Wendy runs off, Arbie yells at the guy for screwing up the moment, and the guy keeps crankin' his hog, choosing to sniff Arbie's left-behind underwear over Wendy's. Strange dude.

Four years later, Arbie visits town and finds an American Chicken Bunker restaurant opening in the same location. He also sees that there is a huge protest being organized by a lesbian organization called C.L.A.M. (Collegiate Lesbians Against Mega-conglomerations), of which he discovers Wendy is now a member. As is Wendy's new girlfriend, Micki (Allyson Sereboff), who is prepared to kick Arbie's ass. Arbie, distraught that his former girlfriend now prefers women, storms into the store, demanding a job from the manager, Denny (Joshua Olatunde), who hires Arbie as the new "counter girl". (He assures Arbie this is just a "term of endearment," but when Arbie is given his uniform, it is clearly a Girl Scout-sort of uniform with a tutu and, for some reason, a thong.) Thus Arbie enters the world of fast food!

Our heroes...?

Among his new co-workers are Jose Paco Bell (Khalid Rivera), Humus (Rose Ghavami) and Carl Jr. (Caleb Emerson), whose love of cooking chicken is matched only by his love of having sex with those chickens before they are unthawed and fried. Also, Carl Jr. looks like Screech from Saved by the Bell. And his buttcrack ends somewhere between his shoulder blades. We wish we didn't know that, but he has a tendency to display entirely too much bike rack throughout the movie.

Anyway, Denny opens the store, and their first "customer" is Crazy Ron (Ron "The Hedgehog" Jeremy), who comes in to yell a dire warning to everybody there. It's mostly incoherent, and we have speculated that Ron Jeremy had not been cast in the movie, but just happened to be there and thought he was in a real restaurant, and when this happened, director Lloyd Kaufman had the camera roll anyway, hoping to catch something he could use. But other than Ron, nobody else wants to come in, and Denny is distraught, worrying he has thrown away his grandmother's money on a place nobody wants to go to.

Remember to che your food.

In the kitchen, Paco is preparing some of the meat (grinding chicken heads and claws into a meat-like paste) while Humus does her hourly prayer by the time clock. When Paco decides to add some "spacial sauce" (yes, it's exactly as gross as you are imagining), a frozen possessed chicken attacks and pushes him into the grinder, spraying the kitchen, and the praying Humus, with blood and entrails.

At the same time, American Chicken Bunker owner General Lee Roy (Robin L. Watkins) arrives with several dancers and the company's mascot, a guy in a chicken suit, to see how the opening is going. He and Denny go into the kitchen and discover Humus and a gooey pile of Paco meat. They tell Humus to clean up the mess, and the General suggests turning the Paco meat into Sloppy Jose sandwiches, one of which gets possessed by Paco's spirit and begins to dispense wisdom to Arbie. He also demands that everyone say Paco went on vacation. Arbie, who had been in the basement storage area talking with the guy in the chicken suit (Lloyd Kaufman) about the General keeping chickens in concentration coops and how the building this restaurant has angered the Native American spirits buried here, returns and asks where Paco is. When he is told Paco took the day off, he accepts this almost immediately, despite the enormous pile of ground meat and guts with a Paco name tag on the floor.

Paco?!?

In the basement, Carl Jr. starts having sex with a frozen chicken. Really, there's no subtle way to say it. And he is really enjoying it. At least until it bites onto the end of his penis and refuses to let go. Screaming, he runs back up stairs, just as Humus has finished cleaning the kitchen area until it is spotless. Carl Jr. runs in, chicken still attached to his business, and sprays blood, gore and something green all over the place, including onto a row of buckets filled with fried chicken. He begs Humus to help him and falls over. Humus grabs her mop and rams it right into Carl Jr.'s butt, forcing it out through the other side, ripping off the tip of Carl Jr.'s penis with the end, where it sticks.

When Denny and the General return, they see the mess, blame it on Humus, and then take the buckets of fried chicken out to the protesters outside. Micki and Wendy start creaming at the General right away, but after trying the chicken, Micki changes her mind and suggests everybody eat the chicken, even though it is covered with green goop and bubbling yellow bits that, as you will recall, came from Carl Jr.'s body. Ick. But they crowd agrees and mobs the restaurant, including a guy named Jared (Joe Flishaker), whom Arbie believes is the guy from the sandwich commercials that lost a lot of weight. Jared demands food, and Arbie delivers, including a veiny egg that Jared scarfs down immediately. Jared reacts poorly and has to rush to the bathroom, where he straight-up wrecks the toilet (and walls and ceiling...you get the idea), and a smaller, skinnier version of himself escapes from inside.

Triangle of Power!

Arbie checks on Jared and discovers the horrible mess just as Denny comes to check on Arbie. Disgusted, he tells Arbie to clean up the mess, and he does, but not before performing a too-long musical number.

Wendy, now finding that her girlfriend has given up the fight against conglomerates, is conflicted, unsure whether to return to Arbie or keep fighting the restaurant. However, the decision is taken from her control when she discovers that Micki was planted in the C.L.A.M. organization to trick them into becoming advocates. It turns out Micki and the General were lovers all along! Wendy forces the General to eat some chicken, and he immediately has a bad reaction, running to the bathroom, where he lays an egg, after which it hatches and the chicken inside attacks him. He bites its head off, gets sprayed with its green blood, and turns into a murder chicken himself. Then he hunts down Denny, whose head he rips off. Dick move.

Mom? MOM?!?

Out in the main partof the restaurant, the customers and other employees have turned into chicken zombies, and it looks like Arbie, Wendy, Micki, Humus and a priest (Brian Cheverie) are about to die when the mascot shows up, strapped with an M-16 and ready to take down some murder chicken zombie people! He shoots zombie chicken General and then pulls out more guns (which he stores with the kids' meal toys), and tells Arbie that the two of them are the same person, but he, the mascot, is the older version. Almost immediately after, Denny comes back to life as a zombie chicken and bites off Old Arbie's nose, turning him into a murder chicken, as well.

But now that Old Arbie is a zombie chicken, will they survive? Will Carl Jr. return, waving his mop handle penis around? Will Wendy's running ever stop being funny? Will Arbie figure out a way to avoid the fate that his older self fell to? And how will they keep the zombie chickens outside from coming in?

You'll have to tune in to find out!

Derek thought this one was okay, but not great. As with any Troma film, you have to watch it for what it is, which is a low-budget trash flick. And on that score, it does its job. There are some dialogue highlights that really help it along.

Larry has an unhealthy appreciation for this film. Even taking Derek's advice about seeing it for what it is, Larry's enthusiasm for it is disturbing. It's very worrying, to be honest. We're thinking of having him committed.

Jake agreed that it wasn't terrible, especially because some of the jokes in the dialogue, but he also thinks there were too many poop jokes. (On this point, all three agree.) He also enjoyed the ending, which was quite a twist.

So put on your tutu, chug some meat steroids, and listen this week's episode!