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To Watch Pile After Dark Podcast Transcript Episode 5

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The To Watch Pile After Dark Podcast Episode 5

Good evening, horror lovers, this is Justin McNamara and is like to welcome you to my 5th episode of The To Watch Pile After Dark, where I’ll be looking at my 47th favourite horror movie of all time.

They say that New York Pizzas are the best in the world, and what better way to celebrate the Italian influence in New York then with this film…

(Trailer)

The New York Ripper, known in Italian, and you’ll have to excuse my horrendous attempt at the language, as Lo squartatore di New York tells of grizzled New York policed officer Lieutenant Fred Williams (Jack Hedley) who is in the midst of investigating two murders, one involving the hand of a prostitute found in a park and the other of the murder of a cyclist on a ferry. These murders have two things in common: the victims were beautiful women and witnesses claim the murderer sounded like a duck.

Williams talks to the pathologist, Barry Jones (Giodarno Falzoni) and discovers that there was a murder with similar circumstances the previous month, which leads him to one conclusion: there is a serial killer in New York!

At a press conference he announces his idea but is warned by the police commissioner (Lucio Fulci) that to avoid a city-wide panic, he should avoid further press announcements. He is told that whilst he was at the press conference, a man with ‘a voice like a duck’ had called him.

The man with a voice like a duck continues his campaign of murder, but also terrorises Williams with a series of phone calls and even murders his frequently visited prostitute, Kitty (Daniela Doria) meanwhile, we, the viewers, are subjected to several red herrings and examples of just how sleazy 80s New York was,..

The New York Ripper was directed by Italian horror legend Lucio Fulci, who, after several zombie films, decided to take on a human killer in a tribute to Alfred Hitchcock. Whilst it’s probably not very Hitchcock, it does make an attempt at a New York styled hard-boiled detective story… even emulating the sexism of those pulp stories, though THIS story might seem excessively anti-women, in actual fact, Dardano Sarchetti, co-writer of this film, claimed that all the violence towards women in the tale came from Fulci, himself.

Antonella Fulci, Lucia’s daughter, has claimed that this to be untrue, siting that the killer in this film doesn’t hate women, he hates beauty and his madness has led him to murder only those that are beautiful.

As I researched this film, using everything from Wikipedia to my many horror film related books, I discovered that a film that is so repeatedly described as ‘nasty’, ‘misogynistic’ and ‘excessively violent towards women’ wasn’t one of Britain’s so-called ‘Video Nasties’. Upon further investigation, legend says that it was rejected by the BBFC and director James Fermann demanded it be immediately exported back to the rights-holder in Italy so neither the distributor or the BBFC themselves could be charged with having banned material. Honestly I reckon that sounds like one of those stories that makes the film sound bad and that’s used to expand its notoriety so it becomes the sweetest of forbidden fruit.

As a teen I worked in a video shop on Sunday afternoons, and Fulci’s heavily edited films were always on the cards as a watch. Honestly I don’t think I watched much else other than Fulci zombie films and Dawn of the Dead, and because of this I became a Fulci-phile, but I didn’t get to see this film until I managed to get my hands on an Australian release DVD copy from Stomp in about 2005, and I loved the sleazy griminess if it immediately. I then bought the Shameless Screen Entertainment DVD and was pretty upset to find it was cut, but I then bought it again when they rereleased it in a less cut version, and then a third time from them on Bluray.

I appreciate it’s not for everyone and the first time I watched it I was stunned by how raw it is. It’s like a Giallo, which is probably my favourite type of film, but rubbed in the dirt. The story is well below average, and the concept of a killer who ‘sounds like a duck’… well, I’m sorry, but ducks don’t speak, and I guess it was too difficult to get permission to have the characters say ‘talks like Donald Duck’.

The litigation fingers of the House of Mouse are looooooooong.

Apparently Fulci once told his daughter that the reason he chose the voice of Donald Duck is that Mickey Mouse was too law-abiding.

So why is this film particularly in my top 50? It is a combination of a love for Fulci… even his worst films are better than a lot of so-called A movies, well, they are certainly far more interesting… a love of Giallo, no matter how bad and a love of American slashers, which I feel this lends itself a lot to.

Thank you for joining me for this episode of the To-Watch Pile After Dark. Please, subscribe and give me a five star rating, and also check out my movie review blog at www.towatchpile.com and listen my my other podcast, The Nerds of Oz.

Until next episode…

The To Watch Pile After Dark Episode 6 Transcript

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The To Watch Pile After Dark Episode 6 Transcript

https://anchor.fm/towatchpile/episodes/Episode-6—Horror-Film-Countdown-46-e5jftp

Good evening, My black-hearted friends, to the latest episode of The To Watch Pile After Dark, my name is Justin McNamara and this is number 46 on the list of my top 50 favourite horror films.

In the early 2000s, a young man appeared in the horror landscape who was one of us, which of course means genre fans hated him… but not me. I immediately became a fan of Eli Roth the second I watched this film…

(Play trailer)

Cabin Fever was released in 2002 and tells the story of 5 friends, Paul (Rider Strong), Karen (Jordan Ladd), Marcy (Cerina Vincent), Jeff (Joey Kern) and Bert (James DeBello) who decide to have a week away before they go to college. They pick a remote cabin in the woods so they can have absolutely no disturbances. March and Joey intend on spending the week screwing, Paul intends on finally sealing the deal with Karen, which he has been trying for years, and Burt… well Burt just wants to get drunk and shoot animals with his rifle.

Unfortunately, those plans fall apart when the local hermit (Arie Verveen) turns up with what appears to be some kind of disease, and terrorises the friends, mainly due to the fact that Burt accidentally shot him earlier that day and didn’t tell the others.

In defending themselves they accidentally set him on fire and he dies, but not before infecting the water supply. Slowly but surely, one by one, the infection spreads, and panic sets in amongst the friends. The infection is horrific too, insomuch that it is a flesh eating virus that starts by melting your insides, resulting in a bloody cough, and ends in a full body meltdown.

Which of the friends will survive this horrific virus, especially in a town full of racism, mistrust and suspicion… will ANY of them survive.

I have to start by pointing out the real clever thing about this movie: even though the killer is a horrific, Necrotising Fasciitis, no one, and this is a massive spoiler so stop the podcast now I’d you haven’t seen it…no one actually DIES by the virus. Even one who carks it in this film, dies by the hand of someone who is panicking!

This film appeals to two of the film fans that live within me, just as it did the first time I saw it when I reviewed it for the now defunct Australian cult movie website Digital Retribution.

The first is the one that likes the facile teen comedies of the 80s and the other who digs the so-called ‘body horror’ films. The cast of this film actually fit the first fandom perfectly, as the cast are from such TV shows and films as Boy Meets World, Not Another Teen Movie, American Pie and Never Been Kissed, and the second love, well the special effects team took care of that love perfectly, probably due to the fact that Eli Roth’s script was based an experience he had where he apparently contracted a skin infection whilst working on a horse farm in Iceland from rotting hay.

There is also a legend that the sound mixer on the film John Neff was an actual victim of the real virus, and was hospitalised for 13 days with it, and he claimed the make up effects were quite accurate to what he had witnessed.

I first learnt about this film from an issue 33 of Rue Morgue magazine which interested me from the get-go. I was very excited when this film hit the Australian shores and I was a champion of both it, and of Eli Roth even though a large percentage of the genre populace weren’t fans, which I found preposterous as he seemingly was being accused of being a poseur when all I could see was a guy who, like me, loved horror, loved the 80s and wanted to make movies.

Unfortunately, to date I have only made one short film, and it was just for fun. If the opportunity arose again I’d probably jump right on it!

Roth very much wears his influences, both from a writing and a directorial aspect on his sleeve. His script emulates the 80s movies that he clearly loves, with not just horrorific elements, but also with a wry sense of humour and so many scenes are clearly riffing on scenes from Dawn of the Dead, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Night of the Living Dead and others, occasionally to somewhat comic effect. I’ve liked other films of Roth’s as well: Hostel amps up the teen comedy at the beginning and descends into a far more violent second and third act, and is the poster boy for the so-called ‘torture porn’, and Green Inferno, which is a far more complete film (even though it does have one ridiculous element that is out of place) which is a love-letter to the 7os and 80s cannibal flicks.

The funny thing I have found about doing this podcast is that it’s forcing me to rewatch films that I haven’t watched for a long time, and it’s probably been ten years since I saw this, so the revisit was one I completely enjoyed. I spend a lot of time on my website the To Watch Pile watching movies I’ve never seen before that occasionally I forget to rewatch epic stuff from the past.

I’d like to add a warning: I am talking only about the 2002 movie. There was a remake done in 2016, produced by Roth but directed by Travis Z aka Travis Zariwny with a script adapted from Roth’s by Rudy Pearlstein, and I can’t stress enough how much you must avoid that film. It is terrible.

Thanks you for listening to this episode of the To Watch Pile After Dark. Don’t forget you can see the transcript of this episode, and my movie reviews at my blog www.towatchpile.com. Also, listen to my other podcast, The Nerds of Oz, available wherever good podcasts can be heard. Please like and subscribe to the To Watch Pile After Dark, and throw me a review if you have the opportunity.

See you next time.

Podcast Transcript – Episode 4

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Greetings, gore hounds, to this, episode 4, of the To Watch Pile After Dark Podcast, where we are counting down my 50 favourite horror films! This episode sees us at film 48 out of 50, and it’s the first full length feature film from Christopher Smith…

(Trailer)

Unfortunately that trailer doesn’t tell you much, especially the title of my 48th film, which is 2004’s Creep.

Creep tells of strong-willed professional Kate (Franke Potente), who is leaving a work function early with an intention to sneak into an A-lister party where she is setting her sites on George Clooney, who is supposed to be there.

Unfortunately the friend who she was supposed to leave with goes without her and she’s left to catch a train to the destination, but she is a little drunk, and tired and dozes off on the train station, awaking to find the last train, HER train, has left and the entire station is abandoned.

Another train turns up regardless and she jumps up on it, only to have it stop deep in the tunnels and for her to find out that she’s not alone. One of her workmates, Guy (Jeremy Sheffield), a man she rejected the advances of at the party, has followed her to the train and high on drugs, attempts to rape her, but the rape is stopped when he is dragged off the train by something in the tunnels.

Very quickly, Kate discovers that there is a monster in the tunnels, a misshapen creature who murders those stuck in his tunnels at night. The victims pile up as Kate seeks assistance in her plight, but everyone she asks for help from ends up and the wrong end of the creatures wrath, A creature we discover to be named Craig (Sean Harris) who lives in the abandoned rooms, offices and doctors surgeries that were built in case the aristocracy ever had to retreat underground during a war, but he knows about the human race only through the things he has observed by what happened in the rooms and he copies them…

The attraction for me with this film initially was the appearance of Potante, who I had really liked in the films Anatomie, Blow, Run Lola Run and two of the Bourne films. She’s atypical of the regular types that end up in these roles insomuch as she a actor of great skill, her characters always have a great tenacity and she doesn’t disguise her accent.

But this wasn’t all that attracted me to this film, it was the location, which I must expand upon.

My first ‘proper’ job was in the city of Sydney, and from my humble house in the suburbs, I had a fairly decent trip into work. I read hundreds and hundreds of horror novels in my time going back and forth, and like most people of those tender young ages, I dreamed myself to be a great horror novelist… it must be easy, right?

Anyway, when the trip got to the city, the train would go into the subway or underground or whatever you want to call it, and I’d stop reading and look out the window into the darkness. The idea of these dark caves under the technological wonders of modern society always were alluring, and my ideas for novels merged my experiences, with those of fantastical characters made out of hive-minded slugs and weird, sex-obsessed mutants (influenced by Shaun Hutson and H. P Lovecraft, no doubt).

When I first saw this film over ten years ago, when I reviewed it for the now-defunct Digital Retribution website, it reminded me of those days, both the experience of the tunnels, and the monsters living within them. I felt like Smith had reached into my skull and pulled out my idea and then thrown an actress that I really liked into it.

Sure, it’s is reminiscent of the 1972 Gary Sherman film Deathline, but only so much in its location. Smith claims that he had never heard of that film, and the differences are enough that I have no reason to not believe him saying that… especially when you consider it’s not necessarily a well known example of early 70s UK horror.

As I do these To Watch Pile After Dark Podcasts I am rewatching the films and honestly I wish I had have placed this higher as I hadn’t watched it for a while. The story is gripping, the gore is plentiful and the antagonist is disturbing, though like all good horror movies, there is that one scene that will make almost everyone wince just a little bit… and the rest cross their legs in terror!

It should be pointed out too, that Craig is played by Sean Harris, who played Ian Curtis of Joy Division in the docudrama 24 Hour Party People, Solomon Lane in a couple of Mission Impossible flicks, and Fifield in the surprising Alien prequel, Prometheus. This role could have been disappointing in the hands of a lesser actor, but Harris’ physicality brings something to the role.

If I am to point out anything that isn’t great about this film is the make up Harris has to wear. It’s a very generic ‘mutant’ make up that at time, under some light, just looks like a thickened cake mixture has been stuck to the poor actors face.

Smith went of to direct other interesting films as well, the follow up to this being 2006’s Severances, 2009’s Triangle and 2010’s Black Death, all films also worth checking out.

So that’s is, we’ve Creeped around all we can and this episode must come to a close. Thank you for listening to the To Watch Pile After Dark Podcast, and please, check out my other podcast, The Nerds of Oz, and my horror movie reviews at www.towatchpile.com. I’d really appreciate it too if you like the podcast, give me a 5 star rating and leave a comment.

Until next time,,.