40. Steve Beck - 13 Ghosts

0:00 This is one take. We are recording. Yep. We're recording this whole time? Yeah. Yeah, we are. Take a drink of delicious Lacto Cooler, sponsored by Voodoo Brewing. Is that what today's episode is sponsored by? I think it should be sponsored by Voodoo Brewing. They don't know it, but. Yeah, they don't know it, but they are. Delicious Lacto Cooler for the 12-year-old in you that enjoyed Hi-C Ecto Cooler and wants to drink it as a beer. Go find it now. Damn, it's good. It is. It's good. Very good. Why do you think horror remakes have such a tough time? I guess probably because the original has made such an impact when it first comes out that remaking it is kind of looked down and frowned upon by people. Right?

0:49 That's the way I feel anyway. Yeah. I mean, think about this. And I get it. Studios, you've got an IP. You've got to keep it going. You do. And you can't. You can't just keep cranking out movie after movie after movie before you have to reboot it for a new generation. Yeah. But let's be fair. The Nightmare on Elm Street remake, I thought it was all right. I didn't like it. You didn't like it. I did not. Well, most of society did not. Yeah. They're with you. The remake for Halloween. Which was fantastic. Fantastic. I'm kidding. I like the look on your face when I said that. I just wanted that reaction from you.

1:31 Yeah, we're going to have a conversation. That was horrendous. But 2009, we got the Friday the 13th remake. I really liked it. So I think it's weird that we can't figure this out. We just can't get a proper remake, more or less. Yeah, I think another thing with the remake, though, is... If it's been 30 to 40 years, okay, maybe. Well, yeah. If you're trying to remake something that was just done 10 years ago, 15 years ago, what are you doing? What are you doing? That's the problem with all the current remakes. Correct. Okay. Well, let's talk about one that I think does work. Okay. Let's talk about a film by Steve Beck, his 2001 hauntingly good remake, 13 Ghosts.

2:40 hey everybody i'm jeff johnson i'm david burns and this is a film by podcast uh dave yeah Not our typical studio setup. No. Our audio might be slightly different, but I dig it. I love when we can do this this way. It just feels more personal. It does. I agree. A lot of fun. Speaking of fun, it's October. This is the month that we look forward to all year long. My favorite time. We're not a horror movie podcast. However, we just talk about a lot of horror. Movies in this one month. We save it up all year long, and then we just can't say no to a lot of them. Yeah. But I've been having a great, great time. I know we're going to have an even greater time next weekend.

3:26 Oh, you know it. We are just a few days away from Scarefest weekend. Chomping at the bits. In Lexington, Kentucky. Yep. The Super Bowl of horror conventions. Without question. Yeah. Without question. Yeah. So much to do. I can't wait to get down there. I mean, because, yeah, we're working. We are. But it's fun. We get to have a lot of fun. We do. You know. The producer isn't that much of a dick. He's like, hey, let's all just go meet people and get autographs and have fun. We don't have to do that many interviews today. I feel like I can't comment on that question. No, you probably shouldn't. Let me comment on our newest Patreon member. I'm talking to you, the real KD. This is Kevin Davis. He is... Dave, this is someone... I know he's a surely you can't be serious listener discovered us through our buddies, Jason and D. So guys, thank you.

4:23 Thank you for that. Um, Kevin, I met him at Shirley fest, uh, Shirley fest one. Actually, we just, we just came back from Shirley fest three. Kevin is one of the coolest guys. Nice. He's one of the coolest guys. Got one of the biggest hearts. Uh, one of the funniest guys you'll talk to. Uh, I gotta, I gotta point this out. We had the best conversation. Uh, we're staying me, Kevin, Chuck Brian from the cinematic flashback. And Jason Colvin of Surely Can't Be Serious podcast. We're staying in the guest house. And when I say guest house, it's kind of like the size of the house that you and I grew up. It's huge. And we kind of jokingly refer to it as the MTV Beach House. Kevin had, unbeknownst to all of us, Kevin had hooked his YouTube TV up to the TV.

5:08 So it's just playing movies. And I was like, what is this? And we get back one night, Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price is on. And I'm like, guys, I'm all excited. And they're like, what? So I'm explaining that The Last Man on Earth was the first version of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend. We had the Omega Man. We had the Will Smith I Am Legend. But the Vincent Price one is the original. It is by far the best one. Oh, yeah. It's a classic. And I'm like, why would this be playing? And Kevin's just like, oh, yeah, this is– I hooked up my YouTube TV account. Just happened to be in Kevin's list.

5:49 So we're like, hell yeah, Kevin, thank you. Because what happens is if you hit play on one of those, the algorithm is just going to put something else on. Oh, yeah. And I didn't want to go to bed because as soon as that one hit, it was like The House on Haunted Hill. Oh, wow. Vincent Price came on. The algorithm was like, what Vincent Price movies can we show you for free and just keep cranking them out? Awesome. Yeah. Shout out to Kevin Davis, our friend. The real KD. Thanks. Who has one hell of a YouTube TV account. So thank you, Kevin. Yeah, thanks, Kevin. Yeah. And thank you for joining Patreon, by the way, buddy. Yeah, appreciate it. Yeah. We got to send him some fun stuff. We're going to need to, yeah. We will. We will.

6:31 Steve Beck. I can tell you three things about this guy. Probably not too much, right? I can't tell you a whole lot about him. And we might get to that. But Dave, before the movies, he was an award-winning commercial director. Oh, okay. You have seen his work in commercials for products such as McDonald's, Gatorade, and Chevrolet. Oh, okay. Now, you're probably thinking, maybe not. I don't drive a Chevy, and I don't eat McDonald's. Both correct, by the way. Well, I will tell you that you are familiar with him, and not because of 13 Ghosts. He spent several years working for ILM as a visual effects director. Ah, okay.

7:16 All right. Yeah. I think you like some of his movies. He worked on Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. For sure. The Abyss, which we covered on our Patreon. We did. Go back to, that was May. We did a Mother's Day special for the voice of reason, Amber Lewis. We did The Abyss for her. Her son Liam joined me for a good talk. He did a good job too, by the way. How about The Hunt for Red October? Oh, yeah. Another good one. Steve Beck, visual effects director on all three of those. And there's others, but I wanted to hit the greatest hits there. And while 13 Ghosts is his directorial debut, he retired from directing after his second feature a year later.

7:59 Only two films. Yeah, which was Ghost Ship. Okay. Which I like that one too. Yeah, it's Gabriel Byrne, right? Correct, yeah. Okay. It was good. But... Where'd he go? Where'd he go? I don't know. I like both of his films, so I'm curious in why he decided to just stop directing. Why do you retire after two years as a feature film director? Yeah. And I'm sure both films weren't like gangbusters when it comes to making money at the box office. Well, okay. But. So, I mean, this film, it made $ 68 million on a budget of $ 42 million. Okay. It took second place at the box office opening weekend. What was it up against?

8:41 K-Pax. Huh. I remember that. That Kevin Spacey movie where it was like, is he or isn't he an alien? Yeah. Which I didn't like that film at all. No, I don't think anyone did. Yeah, I know. But that was the number one movie. I don't know how that's possible. To 13 ghosts. And I'll remind you, it came out in October. This is celebrating its 25th anniversary this month. Interesting. What was society doing? 25 years ago, we all went to the movie theater and we were like, Hmm, 13 ghosts? K-Pax. Emotional, maybe he's an alien, maybe he's not. I know I was seeing 13 ghosts in the theaters, so I don't know what everybody else was doing.

9:23 I can't remember if me and you saw that together or not, because, you know. I think we did. I think we did. Yeah. When it was like, let's lock up the store, like we were at the Suncoast Motion Picture Company. Yeah. Let's lock up the store, let's head to Showcase Cinemas and check it out. The one sheet, the poster alone for this was awesome. Do you remember it with like, It was like all these little photographs that created like the face that was kind of screaming. Yeah. The trailer? Mm-hmm. I watched the trailer for this. I got the Scream Factory, the collector's edition. Yeah. Watched the trailer. Trailer is good. It is. I think it opens up with a junkyard scene, doesn't it, the trailer? It does, yeah. Yeah. And you can tell we're in the MTV generation with this trailer because we've got the music. We've got that cool blue. We were getting away from the 80s blue tone, which I still love.

10:14 I do, too. But we had a little bit of it, but we also had the quick... The Michael Bay type of action was starting to hit. The quick camera cuts. Yeah. I don't know how this movie was not a massive success. I don't either. It's a puzzler, that's for sure. Yeah. I want to give you a quote from Steve Beck. Did you find any? No, I'm telling you. I don't know if the CIA could find out anymore. What I've given you is what I've given you. Wow, okay. There's just not a lot to go on. What's going on, Mr. Beck? Where are you at? I don't know. He's a good director. He is. You know? Let's talk about this movie, though. Yeah. 13 Ghosts. I'll be honest. Even on the rewatch, I was like, hold on. What's going on here? The plot's a little convoluted.

11:00 It is. I'll be fair. But break it down for me, Dave. Five words. Our now famous five-word synopsis. If I was going to ask you, what is 13 Ghosts all about? What are you going to tell me using exactly five words? Are you ready for this? Are you sitting down? Okay. A family discovers 13 ghosts. Well, okay, that's a massive cheat. Hold on. Hold on. Judges, throw the flag. I have said you can't use the title in the five-word synopsis. I know. You have failed miserably. I felt bad about mine. Well, what is yours? Mine.

11:41 Mine. Desperate family inherits 12 spirits. Okay. That's a good one. That's because that's what happens. That's actually not bad. Yeah. So I'm not going to complain about that one. I didn't use ghosts because I can't say ghosts because that's part of the title. So then just swap out my ghost to put spirits. We've got it. See? You guys swap out 13. Yeah. I'm ashamed. You're usually really good at this, man. I don't know what happened. Yeah. Were you drinking the Lacto Cooler. When you came up with that? I could have been. Maybe. Yeah. It is delicious. It is very delicious. Listeners, as we record, we're drinking Voodoo Brewing's Lacto Cooler.

12:23 It's beer, but it tastes exactly like Hi-C Ecto Cooler from like, I guess it would have been like the late 80s. The late 80s, I would think. Yeah. It's like neon green. It's delicious. And it's very good. Dave must have had too much of it when he was coming up with this five-part synopsis. It's totally worth it, though. Highly recommend. It is. It is. I'm not even going to hide the fact that I'm drinking right. Now. So, like I said, we talked about how the movie did when it first came out. And it's fair to say, it definitely is a cult classic. It is, yeah. Released back in 2001, like I told you. David, can you take us back to your introduction of this 91-minute Fright Fest? And I'll remind you, Tony Shalhoub, He's starring in this as Arthur Criticos.

13:10 Criticos, yep. He describes this movie as a theme park ride, or rather, it probably should be a theme park ride. That would be a very interesting theme park ride, if you ask me. Yeah, can you take me back? Because I think we did see this together. But do you remember your reaction when this first came out? I do remember because, and I know we're going to get to this a little bit later in the podcast. Obviously, this is a remake of a, was it 1960s, I believe? And we're going to get around to that. So I had already seen that version of the film. So when I knew this was coming, I was like, oh, cool, a remake, an updated version of this one. And, of course, I was already a fan of Matthew Lillard, who was in this film, who wasn't at the time because of his success in Scream. So going to see this one, I already had in my mind what this film was going to be about. And it does have some themes from the original film. But obviously they've changed it, updated it a little bit more, you know, because the 60s was clearly outdated.

14:11 I'll tell you what. Because I've seen the original. And a lot of the cast members, like Shannon Elizabeth, we're looking at you. We're always looking at Shannon Elizabeth. Of course we are. But, you know, she had no idea this was a remake. They were halfway through filming when someone's like, oh, yeah, this is a little bit different from the original. And she's like, the original? No. And then she chose– like I watched an interview with her where she says, I chose not to go back to my hotel and watch it because I didn't want it to inform on my performance or what I was– Influencer, right. She didn't want to have any kind of influence with it. Yeah. But for people like Kevin Davis, the real KD, who are supporting us on Patreon, how about this? How about later?

14:56 We're always going to take that– what is it? Third break. Yep. Let's go a little bit longer there. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about the original. The original, sure. The 1960. Yeah, we weren't happy to. Okay, we'll talk a little bit about that. I'll tell you what. Let me give you this. Let's do top five horror remakes. Oh, I like that too. Let's do it. All right. So Patreon members, first off, those of you supporting us on Patreon, thank you very much. Yeah, thank you. We will have that. Well, they're listening to this ad-free anyways. There are no commercial breaks for the Patreon listeners. But we will have a little extra content for you. That will be coming up later. For those of you not listening on Patreon, you can start. Go to www.patreon.com slash afilmbuypodcast.

15:46 For as little as $ 3, you have access not only to the show, which is usually early, ad-free, and with bonus material. Dave, what is there, like $ 40? Something episodes that are exclusive to Patreon. Sometimes we do Patreon requests. If you're a Patreon member, there's a movie, a director, an actor. If there's something you want to say, I'd like you to do that one. We do that too. There's a lot of content. A lot of content. And you're like, I don't know. That's three bucks. That's a lot. Try a seven-day free trial. Sign up for free. It's easy. And even if you're like, I'm not paying anything. You can still sign up as a free member because, Dave, we Occasionally drop.

16:28 We do. Free episodes. Free episodes. We do. That are exclusive only to Patreon. So check that out. And for you listeners on Patreon already, we'll have some original stuff from the movie. And we'll do top five horror remakes. How about that? All right. Well, let's talk a little bit about this cast and crew, Dave. Let's do it. So Tony Shalhoub. Shalhoub? Shalhoub? Shalhoub. Shalhoub. Thank you. Thank you for correcting me. Arthur Criticos. Mm-hmm. This guy, the down on his luck. He's the patriarch. Lost his wife. He's got the daughter, the son. I won't get into it now, but if we're this far on hard times, how are we affording a live-in babysitter?

17:10 Wouldn't you think to be the first thing that goes? Part of me was like, okay, someone needs to watch the little boy. But Shannon Elizabeth is clearly at least minimum 18. Oh, yeah. At least. Not like she can't babysit the kid. Right. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not going to nitpick this movie nonstop because it's a fun movie. But what did you think of his performance? Are you liking it? Because I think he dials it up a little too much every now and then. He does, I feel. I mean, I can connect with him in the beginning of it and not to say too much about the opening. of how they introduced the credits with that and how they're just spinning around the room. Okay, we'll come back to that.

17:54 Put a pin in that. We'll put a pin in that and come back to that. There's a reason I want to talk about that. Okay, okay, good deal. I'm glad we're both kind of on the wavelength of that because that clearly stands out. But yeah, I mean, the guy's down on his luck. He doesn't have a lot of money and he's given this mansion, house, in a will because he lost his uncle who his uncle obviously wanted nothing to do with him. Mm-hmm. And so I think Tony did a wonderful job in this role. He does. Yeah. When he gets to the house, I feel like he's too helicopter parent. Okay. Am I wrong in this? No. Well, he doesn't... But it's like 10 minutes into the house.

18:36 Mm-hmm. That little boy. I don't even know. I don't remember his name. Yeah. Because. Tony's– we just got to find the kid. He refers to his son who he's frantically searching for. As soon as we find the kid, like are you his father or are you a park ranger? What's your relationship to this little boy? Yeah, he's a little high strung. A little. As soon as we understand what's happening in the house. But in the end, he takes ownership, right? He does. He's going to sacrifice himself for his kids. Yeah. So I'll give him that. Yeah, okay. We can give him that. Yeah. He's fun. Shannon Elizabeth. The lovely Shannon Elizabeth. We've bumped into her a couple times at some cons recently.

19:24 We have, yeah. Just a sweetheart. She is. You know. So this is 2001. So she is red hot off of the Nadia role in American Pie. Yep. And I think she had done Scary Movie at that point. That sounds about correct. She kind of cameoed as Scary Movie. Yeah. So she's still kind of finding her way. I really appreciate the fact her and Tony Shalhoub. Shalhoub. Man, why can't I get that right? I don't know. Damn you, lacto-cooler. See, it's not just me. They're kind of sharing rides back and forth to the airport and the hotels and all that kind of stuff. And they're kind of creating, they're kind of shaping the father-daughter relationship dynamic, kind of creating backstory for them. And Steve Beck's allowing them to ad-lib a little bit. Shannon's said, this guy is an amazing director. He was wonderful to work with.

20:20 We got to ad-lib a little bit and kind of develop our characters a little bit. So I think that's fantastic. Me too. She's a lot of fun to watch in this movie. She is. And I'm genuinely terrified for her when she gets attacked. You know, that's one of the coolest scenes I think it's one of. The coolest scenes but it's just it's it's hard to watch it is because it never looks fake no it does not at all I mean she there's some physicality to the role obviously yeah um you know because and I know Dave I know we're gonna talk about the cinematography here in a minute I know we're gonna talk about the set pieces which are Oscar winning in my point in my point of view but she is a lot of fun um I'll say with exception to one moment, incredibly believable as like the big sister, oldest child. I'm all in on Sheena Elizabeth.

21:16 I'm curious about this one moment. Okay. We'll get to it. Okay. I don't want to jump the scenes just yet. Okay. Fair enough. There's one that just bugs the shit out of me, man. Okay. We'll get to it. All right. Sounds good. Can we talk about your buddy? Oh, yeah. Matthew Lillard as Dennis Rafkin. This is one of those amazing roles where– The guy starts off clearly as a villainous type of role. He's kind of a weasel. He is. But then we like him. I mean, the beginning, the opening in the junkyard, which I know we're definitely going to talk about, I'm a fan of Dennis immediately.

21:57 Oh, yeah. Absolutely we are. But it's amazing what he does with this role because Lillard's always like, I think he's one of the funnest things to watch in any Matthew Lillard movie, right? Very animated, very. That's because he puts his heart and soul into everything. You're right. You hit it right there when you said he's animated. Yeah. That's what I love about his performance is because he can really make sure whatever character he's doing, he's able to pull out that personality and it just embraces it completely. And he does it here as well. And you're right. When we meet him in the junkyard, you're kind of like, who is this guy? You know, I don't want anything to do with him. Matthew, why are you playing this guy? And then you meet him again when he's playing the, what, the electrician?

22:44 The power company guy. The power company guy. In disguise. Yeah. And then when he goes in and then as he's sneaking around and basically scared to death because he kind of figures out what Cyrus did with the house and then eventually tells the family who he is. And really becomes a hero, right? He does. I think so. Sacrifices himself, you know? So I think Matthew was perfect. Okay. So I know there's one more person we're going to talk to. We'll mention him here as we talk about this scene, but we got to jump into this junkyard scene. Yeah. The opening 10 minutes of this movie is spectacular. It is. So, and what is it about junkyards that make for a great setting in horror films?

23:29 Nightmare on Elm Street, I'm looking at you. Nightmare on Elm Street, Dream Warriors. Yeah. I'm looking at you, Christine. Yeah, Christine's another one. Hey, how you doing over there? I'm looking at you, Cujo. And then recently, Dave, can't talk about Matthew Lillard. Well, we can talk about Matthew Lillard, but the Carrie series. Yeah. Creepy moment in the junkyard there too. But this junkyard scene, super scary. And I'm 10 minutes in, I'm like, This is going to be, like to Tony Shalob's point, it's a theme park ride. Can you tell us, though, what is Dennis? What is his role? What is his function?

24:16 See, that's the thing. They never explain his power in this movie, right? Yeah. He can touch something and he can, I guess, kind of see. Into the future a little bit, but he can also see something that represents whoever he's touching. Yeah, he can see into your past and he can see into your future. But they never explain it. And I don't understand exactly how he, like what his purpose is in catching the ghosts. You know, I don't know. I feel like. If he touches something that maybe it sends a signal to the spirit and the spirit gets attracted to it, maybe?

24:58 Because in the junkyard, he touches something and he gets upset. He's like, oh, they said nine. There's so many more bodies here. Arthur, or not Arthur, Cyrus Criticos, the benefactor, is like only nine while he was alive. He's been busy since then. So they're there to catch this ghost, right? The juggernaut. The juggernaut. Mm-hmm. And all hell breaks loose. Oh, hell does break loose. Yeah. Okay. So if you can't tell me exactly, if you can't really define the job that Dennis has. How can you? What about this paramilitary team of Ghostbusters that's working for Cyrus? You mean the fodder? The cannon fodder?

25:39 The cannon fodder. Because that's basically what they are? They've all got the company uniform. They've all got the see-through raincoat looking jacket. And everyone has their, hey, I'm the guy that, that touches the gizmos and works the dials. And I'm the guy that sets this trap and. But they get slaughtered like lambs, dude. Yeah. But how did they like, what's the job? How'd you get this job? How'd you get, how'd you get there? How'd you get hired? Were you at, I mean, did Bill walk into like the temp agency and they're like, look, I've got a, I got custodian at the elementary school. I've got paramilitary ghost claimer. Sure. Hold on. What's that pay? Well, there's going to be some overtime.

26:19 So, okay. And who built the ghost trap? Well, okay. So I think it's safe to say Cyrus. Cyrus, the estranged uncle. He's the man with the money. Super brilliant. Super brilliant. And who are you going to get to play super brilliant, slightly eccentric? Who better? Of course. F. Murray Abraham. F. Murray Abraham as Cyrus Criticos. He's got the whole thing is his idea, right? He's been trotting the globe, catching these... These ghosts, these spirits, because not the Book of the Dead, not the Necronomicon, but it's got its own name. It's got its own name. We all know what it is. Yeah. It's a big, ugly book written a million years ago that you should not be reading passages from.

27:05 Clearly not. But it takes 12, like, I think they refer to the ghosts as the Black Zodiac. These murdered, well, they were murderers in their lives, but then, or they murdered, they were murdered, or they, I can't, Some of them are murderers and some of them aren't. Some are not. Yeah. Okay. But they all die a horrid way. We know that. And it takes all of these. It takes 13 of them to unlock the power, the ultimate power of the book. Yeah. This machine uses them to. The house is a machine. Yeah. It's an incredible house, but it's actually a machine. Yeah. And it uses these spirits in order to unlock that.

27:46 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so a little convoluted. It is. I don't even care, because the movie's just fun to watch. It's just fun. It's entertaining. Yeah. And what a shock. Look, we're not going to do spoilers, because it's 25 years old. This opening 10 minutes, can we talk about the way to make an entrance after Murray Abraham? And by the way, has he ever played a nice guy? I don't think so. Ever. Ever. This antique car rolls into the. The junkyard. He steps out at the perfect time because the wind catches. He's wearing a cape like he's Dracula. He's got the cane. He's got like the David Burns cane. He's got to make an entrance.

28:27 That fancy like silver-headed cane that you got as like a collector's item. He just looks awesome. He's got to show command. Yeah. He's in charge. He does. He clearly does it by everything. He absolutely does. And it's such a shot because when the shit hits the fan and the juggernaut's there and he's– wiping out his team. Yeah. And they're trying to trap him. Everything slows down. We catch the juggernaut. And then Matthew Little looks up and is like, and there's Cyrus with like a fan motor blade stuck through his neck. He's dead. And you're like, did they just kill F. Murray Abraham?

29:07 That fast? That fast? Okay. Which I don't think he would have minded if that's all he had to do because he's on record saying, He only made this movie for a paycheck. He didn't get the script and go, oh, I got to get this. I get it. You were in Amadeus. I understand. You're not breaking down the door to get to 13 Ghosts. And Star Trek 2. I want to point that out. Oh, yeah. Was it Wrath of Khan? Insurrection. Oh, Insurrection. Oh, Star Trek 2 as in yeah 2 yeah okay i yeah i forgot he. Was in you played a villain yeah shocking. I know you know you you watch uh what was it um last action hero and you're like all right he's he's a cop he's a detective no no You killed Mozart. I kill a lot of people, Jack. I can't keep track of everybody. He is fun to watch in this, though.

30:00 Yeah. And I'll ask you right now, when he shows up in the house and you're like, oh, he's the 12th ghost, were you excited or a little disappointed when you find out, nope, he's not a ghost, it was a ruse? I was excited. Yeah? Yeah. About it. But the more I thought about it, I was like, boy, what a ruse that thing was. That you pretended to be dead in the junkyard. Long time. So you planned all of that? Yeah. And you had everything ready to go right then and there to show that you're dead? But in the end, though, I liked the twist to that, to be honest with you. Okay. Because I thought he was a spirit at first. So it was a pretty good twist.

30:42 Yeah. I mean, he looks the part, right? He does. Yeah. All right. Well, I know you want to talk about the cinematographer. Of course. So... let's take a, let's take a quick break. And when we get back, we will do just that. All right. Welcome back. We are discussing Steve Beck's 13 ghosts. Dave, the effects in. This movie are fantastic off the charts. Yeah. And why wouldn't they be? It's K and B who we've, we've met two of K and B, right? We've met two of them. Two of them. Yeah. Um, Nicotero and Kurtzman.

31:22 Kurtzman. Yeah. All right. Where are you at, Berger? I know. Come on, man. Come on. Show up. This is one of those movies that, you know, you look at some movies that were made around this time period and you look at their special effects and you kind of cringe a little bit. But then you see this movie and you're like, see? Same time period. Yeah. The special effects look incredible. So I know it comes down to budget, obviously. It does, but okay, but this movie... Had like a, what did we say? Like $ 42 million budget. So it means really not that much. Okay. So shame on you, other movies of 2001 that are using effects. Mummy Returns. Oh, that's right. I mean, we love Mummy Returns. We love it, but the special effects are not the greatest.

32:03 How do you see, in 2001, how do you go to the movie theater? You watch what's going on in 13 Ghosts, and you can go to the movie theater and see what is supposed to be the rock at the end of Scorpion King, or the... Mummy Returns. Yeah. I just don't get it. I don't get it either. It baffles me. I think the effects of this one stand up to today. Oh, absolutely they do. Without question. Without question. It looks like it would be made today. I agree. A lot of practical effects. Yep. And granted, this house, which is absolutely incredible, there is some CGI to it, right? Yeah. But they built this thing. Mm-hmm. Out of steel struts and glass. Yep. It's the real deal.

32:48 They build one layer, right? One level. And then what you see, like CGI, like Matt, like, you know, if you've got the behind the scenes stuff on this on a Blu-ray, there's some great stuff with the effects guys where they show you like the, how they layer the components. You know, it's like four layers. It's like, here's the raw footage. Here's this mat, here's this, here's this. And it all kind of comes together and just looks fantastic. But so they shoot, you know, a lot of this house that you see, which looks just, it's a sprawling mansion made of glass and steel. Yep. And it never looks like you're in the same spot. Never. But you are because they shoot everything and then they say, okay, now we got to take it all apart. This thing, it's moving basically. Yeah. And they basically are like, okay, we're going to need a week or two to take it all apart, reshuffle the pieces, and then make it the basement. Great. We'll see you later. We're going to go to the junkyard. So they move the production to the junkyard because basically it's the house and it's the junkyard.

33:52 Because I think even like the little crummy apartment that they were living in, that's like the same soundstage as the house. Yeah, that makes sense. So while they're off shooting the junkyard scene, second unit stuff– They're back there rebuilding the house in a whole different way. And that blows my mind because it's all practical. Yeah. And they're like, you don't understand how heavy these sheets of glass are. I'm sure. And the fact that we've got to move it all, it's just, it was some serious work. Yeah. And see, that's what it comes down when you're scheduling a film. You want to schedule it that way so you're not wasting anybody's time. Yeah. Right? You're moving the cast somewhere else to film them while your construction workers are fixing pieces so they can come back and reshoot other scenes. So it makes sense.

34:34 Absolutely it does. So Joel Silver. Let's talk about why this movie gets made. It is 100% made because Joel Silver is a fan of William Castle. Okay. William Castle, he was a famous writer, director of horror movies in like the 50s and 60s. Primarily known for like the gimmick. Yeah. Angle. Like the 3D glasses. Well, not even, here's what's crazy. he's not even doing 3d. He's on a whole nother level. And I looked into this guy, some of the things that he did, I'm talking about, uh, movies that were filmed with emerjo vision.

35:17 Oh yeah. Illusion. Oh, vision, percepto vision. These things, uh, he did for films like a house on haunted Hill, the Tingler 13 ghosts. Uh, you mentioned 3d. So the, the, the thing here is, uh, In the movie, they can't see the ghosts without using these special glasses. Right. Big missed opportunity. This didn't come out in 3D. No. Okay. And the original didn't exactly come out in 3D. It was the blue and red cellophane. But the gimmick, the illusion was use the red and you can see the ghosts. But if they're too scary, use the blue and they'll disappear.

35:58 So I know when they released the movie, they did like a. A 3D thing, like when the original came out. Yeah. You know, where you could buy it. They did like a 3D thing, but... Percepto Vision. He did this for the Vincent Price movie, House on Haunted Hill. Shout out to the real KD. Kevin Davis. Who we got to watch that because of him. I don't know if you remember those old Vincent Price movies, but. I remember some of them, yeah. At the end of it, like there's a skeleton with red glowing eyes and whatever. Percepto Vision, they had... a skeleton that was, had red glowing eyes, like a physical skeleton that was hung from the rafters. And at that scene in the movie, it was supposed to swing down over the crowd and scare the shit out of everybody, which, which it did. But then after a while, people like, they said kids were like, they would like, Billy would tell Jimmy about it. And then Jimmy, and then the game became like, let's see if we can knock it down.

36:58 They were throwing candy boxes at it and stuff like that. So short lived, but, uh, And then you got stuff like– oh, I'm sorry. That was a Merjo vision. Yeah. Okay. Percepto vision. He did that with a tingler. I never saw that one, but apparently it had to do with people getting electrocuted or something like that. It was like a creature that attached to your vertebrae and would give you like a shock or something like that. Oh, gosh. I see where this is going. And this is the day– this is back in the time when you didn't have movies opening up everywhere simultaneously. Right. So it's like, okay, he would send a crew in. They would rig– several seats in this theater, like, you know, randomly with this buzzer. And when that, that scene happens, it's supposed to send like a little jolt, like a joy, like a joy buzzer.

37:42 Kind of thing. Nothing that's going to hurt you. Right. And then, you know, you, you're watching the movie and then all of a sudden you get zapped and you jump out of your seat. So I like it. This guy was, was famous for doing a lot of things like that, but Joel Silver, big fan. So he decides I'm going to get the library, you know, And we had some other remakes. We had a House on a Hotel remake. Not great, but he was a big fan of 13 Ghosts, and that's why we're watching this. Fun fact for you, James Gunn, not listed anywhere, obviously. No. But did uncredited rewrites on the film. And you've got to think, this is James Gunn back when James Gunn's writing Scooby-Doo. Yeah. Or working on Dawn of the Dead.

38:26 Dawn of the Dead, yeah. Before he takes over DC, basically. Right. He's come a long way. He's come a very long way. One more thing for you, Dave. In August of 2023, Dark Castle announced that 13 Ghosts was going to be remade into a series. That was three years ago. Where's it at? Where's it at? Why is it not here? I think right now, if you think about what's going on right now, we've got the Carrie limited series on Prime. We've got Crystal Lake on Peacock. Yep. Apple had, what was it, Widow's Bay? Yep. The horror movie limited series, like eight-episode prestige TV, is huge.

39:11 And they're all a success. They're all a massive success. Yeah. So we know where this is heading. Give us more. Someone at Dark Castle, if it's in development already, they better put some pep in their step. Yep. Because now is the time. You're going to miss the opportunity if you don't. Yeah. The iron is hot. Okay, Dave, I know there's a scene that you and I both want to talk about. There might be a couple scenes, honestly. But let's take another break. When we get back, we will talk about the scene. Welcome back. Dave, I don't even know where to begin with some of the amazing scenes in this movie. I'm going to pivot. you know, in a weird way here, but before I do, I want to talk to you first.

39:53 Okay. And before you give me the scene, cause like we always do this, like, you know, tell me about a scene, like, you know, why are you giving a, why are we talking about this scene? Is it for the cinematography? Is it for the performance? Is it, is it the pivotal moment? Did it, did it piss Amber Lewis off? Like, you know, why are we talking about it? But to be fair, is there, cause I know this, this might've been difficult. Is there, do you, is there any other scenes before, before you talk about your scene, is there any else, anything you want to talk about? Like, like, You know I hate honorable mentions. I do. But just shout out a couple other scenes. Well, I mean, this is a horror movie. Yes. So obviously, when you go to see a horror movie, you're looking to see what kind of cool deaths we can have in a horror film. So clearly, there's a couple of them in here that I think are absolutely outstanding scenes, even with the special effects they have. Obviously, you know one of them is the lawyer.

40:42 The lawyer. Getting split in half. I'm looking at my notes right now. My handwritten notes as I watched the movie. Yeah. I wrote, lawyer's death. All caps. Unbelievable. I underlined it. I put three exclamation points. That was incredibly well done. What is it about– okay, so we've seen this trope before where, wait, did that person just get sliced in half? Or that person– because it's like there's a moment, there's a pause. Yeah. And the person looks a little confused. They look a little, did that just happen? Mm-hmm. And then you start to see like the bloodline and then it slowly happens, right? Yep. Well, so this house, which should come with some serious warnings.

41:25 Yeah, it should. Because the glass, you know, these walls move and the doors snap open shut to keep the ghosts contained. First off, the lawyer's a scumbag. Yeah, he deserved everything he got. Well, he walks in. Okay. Let's not put the horse before the cart. So. Shalob's got a family. Everything's great. He's a teacher. He's got this wonderful house. Accident happens. Wife, mom gets killed. And then foreclosure. They're in this crummy apartment. So this lawyer shows up. Cyrus's lawyer. In the event of his death, he's going to show up and find a benefactor, whoever, whatever.

42:06 Why does he walk into that apartment like he's loose his mouth for? He just looks like a scumbag. He does, yeah. He just looks slimy. Yeah. So I have no sympathy for him. None. Never. Nope. And even as he's taunting, who is it, the angry princess? Mm-hmm. As he's going back, because clearly we're quick to figure out, oh, he's in on it. Yeah. As he goes down in the basement. When that piece of glass, when that glass door shuts on him, and he's like, it looks like he's stuck, but he's also confused. Yeah. And then you find out that he's been sliced. In half. In half. Yeah. Horizontally. Yeah. It's so cool when he just starts sliding down the glass, like the front half of him, and it's like making that... Like you just sprayed Windex on a window and just swiped at it. And then the other side of him is left there.

42:54 Yeah. And you can see everything inside. I think this might be one of the best things can be ever created. I think so. And let's not forget the nanny's remark. Did the lawyer split? Did the lawyer split? Yeah. Yeah. Got to have some fun moments here. You do. Absolutely. Yeah. He's gone missing. Did he split? Yeah. He sure did. I would think even the other one, Kalina. Yeah. When she gets... They don't show her. Yeah. But you see her in between the glass getting squished. Oh, gosh. Hers is worse because it's like a slow... It's not like she's cut in half. No. She's pressed to death. She's pressed to death. And my understanding is they actually shot... The special effects of her getting squished. Okay.

43:34 But they had to remove it because they were thinking they were getting an NC-17 rating. I can believe it. Oh, yeah. Me too. Because it's one of those things where it's like she just kind of stops the gears. Mm-hmm. But it's mashed just enough to be disgusting. Yeah. And again, I'm... And again, she just got everything she deserved. She did. Yeah. I kind of be... Honestly, I got problems with that scene. Oh, do you? No, I'm sorry. Not the scene. Okay. The character. The character, I do. Okay, so she's... That one makes no sense to me whatsoever. She's... Okay, so she shows up at the junkyard at the beginning with her boyfriend. Mm-hmm. And they're kind of like the... I don't know. Greenpeace? Greenpeace. Tree huggers. They're like activists. Yes. For ghosts. Like she... They want to protect like the.

44:15 The ghosts? The spirits? They want to. Protect like the... I don't know. Like the integrity. Sure. Let them rest in peace. Sure. Okay, yeah. I'm like. Who's funding her? Do they have day jobs? No. They don't have day jobs. Where they're like, hey, Cyrus is going to be at the junkyard going after the juggernaut. Let's go pick it. I don't get off target until like 9.30. My shift ends at 9.30. What am I supposed to do? Call in. Call in sick. That's right. Where are they going? How do they eat? I guess. I guess. Her motivation, everything, the character just bothered me because it really wasn't there or it wasn't explained. Well, yeah.

44:55 So you're saying she obviously we find out quickly when she– well, she shows up. That's another thing. So she was in the house and you're like, how did she get in the house? And she's like– and she explains it away. Like don't– I snuck in when the glass was shifting. It's too late. It's already closed. Well, that sounds like bullshit. And then you figure out, okay, well, she was there from the get-go because she's in on the whole ruse with Cyrus. Yeah. Are you telling me that she went and found a guy? The guy Damon, right? So she found him. They're working together. And that's like a long con just to kill him. Just to kill him. You know? We don't know. I don't know why. No, we don't know. It's not like he had the book or it's not like he had the vital information.

45:37 Right. They're just there. Yeah. And he wasn't going to rat her out or anything. We don't know. We don't know. But then later she's like, oh, I killed Damon for you and I did this for you. And it's like, Why? What is her motivation? I don't know. I know we're getting off on a tangent here. We're supposed to be talking about scenes. But her character bothers us. Yeah, her character bugs the shit out of me. Yeah, as it should. I don't think you need her character at all. At all. It serves no purpose to the story. No, it doesn't. All right. This movie would move on without her. I want to move on without her right now. Yeah, let's do it. Okay. Dave, give me a scene. What's the scene that you did want to talk about? First off, why are we talking about this scene? So the reason why we're talking about this scene, and we already kind of touched base on it a little bit earlier when we were talking. This is the scene where Arthur realizes there are ghosts.

46:21 Okay. And that is when Kathy gets attacked, right? Oh, that's hard to see. And she tells him that put the glasses on so that he can see what's going on. And then when he puts the glasses on, he realizes, holy crap, there are ghosts and she really is being attacked by this thing. Yeah, the– What was it? The... It wasn't the. The jackal. The jackal. The jackal. Yeah. That's the scariest shit. So that entire sequence of her being attacked, her being dragged, her being lifted into the air, them trying to grab her, pull her away, Arthur realizing the ghosts are real, so much was happening in that scene. That was, to me, that's the pivotal moment for Arthur to realize we are in trouble.

47:02 Yeah. Because at this point, he's just... He's trying to find the kid. Yeah. Yeah. His words, not mine. This eight-year-old who, is this kid like the first podcaster? He's creating like his own like true crime. I guess he is. Documenting with his little tape recorder. Tape recorder thing, yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, again, if he just would have listened to his dad. I know. We wouldn't be in the fix. Not at all. But it's a great moment because he's completely disillusioned. Yeah. There are no such things as ghosts. None. Let's just find the kid so we can get the hell out of here. And then his daughter is like, you don't understand.

47:43 She's almost having like a Roddy Roddy Piper, they live moment. Put the damn glasses on because he doesn't want to do it. And she's lifted into the air. She's lifted into the air. Before he even has the glasses on. Hello? I just watched her get violently drugged backwards. Yeah. No way that's happening, you know. But something did it. And then now she's lifted off the air. Yeah. I think I'll try the glasses on. Sure. And then I'll see the scariest thing ever. Because the jackal is like this demon. Creepier than Juggernaut, in my opinion. Oh, the jackal wins for creepiness. Yeah, absolutely. Because it's like, clearly he's from like... I don't know, 1700s? Medieval, maybe. Medieval times? He's got the square.

48:25 Like a torture device. Around his head? Well, you see it in movies that take place in the 1700s and stuff like that. Like the insane asylums. It's like that box that's on their head with the bars so they can't bite you, they can't hurt you. Yeah. Did anyone not think about getting a headbutt from one of these things? But it's just creepy as hell. It is. It's got like a Jester's look. Yep. You know? And then the nails... I'm genuinely terrified for Shane Elizabeth. Oh, absolutely. It's one thing to see her getting like the scratch marks on her face. But then it starts clawing at her clothes. Her shirt gets clawed open. And you know, like, hey, it's 2001. We got to have a little bit of gratuitous.

49:07 Of course. And I'm glad that it was tasteful. I'm glad that it was. Because, I mean, the angry princess is walking around stark naked. Yeah. You know, that's enough. Leave Shannon Elizabeth alone yeah but scary moment it really was she is doing amazing job there because when it's all over and she kind of regresses she because she's like daddy and she like bears her face in a in a Tony in Arthur's chest and she's terrified she's upset. You know this kind of scene really takes an actor who knows how to perform against nothing Because this shows you how good they are at their performance when they're able to pull something like this off. Because if you've seen a scene like this being actually filmed behind the scenes, they really don't have anything to go off of. They're just being directed by the director to say, hey, this is what's happening. This is what I need from you.

49:57 And that actor is able to pull that out of themselves and perform that. So the fact that Shane was able to do such a tremendous job in this performance just shows you how involved she was. The next time we see her... At a con. I want to talk to her about 13 years. I agree with you on that. I wish we had by now. I know. We should have. Yeah. I just want to say, great job. Yep. Scene I want to talk about. You alluded to. I told you to. Oh, yeah. Back off. That's mine. I told you to put a pin in it. The opening tracking shot. I want to talk about it because it is brilliant and at the same time infuriating to And for that reason, I'm choosing it. The reason I want to talk about it is because it pissed Amber Lewis off.

50:43 Here we go. Here we go. Amber, who we love, she's the voice of reason. I don't know that this pissed her off, but if I was Amber Lewis, it would piss me off. Okay. So let's talk about why it's amazing. This 3D tracking, this tracking shot. The 360 degree spin around the room, right? Yep. And we start with like happy family looking outside this beautiful house. Or I'm sorry. Husband and wife looking outside the window at their kids playing. And then we're slowly moving. And you're hearing dialogue. You're hearing dialogue. Things happening. Sound effects. Yeah, you're hearing dialogue kind of hauntingly in the background. Yep. The camera is keeping the same pace. And the room is slowly devolving into ugliness. And by the time it wraps, it comes full circle. Arthur's sitting there. Now he's sitting there alone. He's looking out the window of the shithole.

51:40 There are past due notices all over, just peppered all over the bulletin board behind him. And we know in this, what is it, two minutes? We fully understand a family had a great life and there was a fire. Mom got caught. Didn't make it out. Mom dies in the fire. He loses everything. He just falls apart, right? They lose everything. Yep. And now they're stuck in this dingy little apartment with the live-in, unexplicably with the live-in nanny. We got a bunch of past due notices, but we can afford it. But we can afford a nanny. We can afford a live-in nanny. Yeah. So I love the shot because it tells you everything you need to know about this family in two minutes with just minor pieces of dialogue.

52:29 And it's a title sequence. And it's a title sequence. Yeah. One of the best title sequences ever. Mm-hmm. Why would it piss me off? Yeah, I'm curious. Okay. Why does it piss you off? Here's why it pisses me off. And James Gunn, please, please don't be part of this scene. It's the writing. It's the writing and the acting. Okay. I'm going to be fair. Well, I'm going to be firm. I'm going to be fair. Dave, you grew up in a family. We all did. Yeah. You had brothers and sisters. Yeah. I did. What bothers me is just this is such a Hallmark movie moment because you've got a man who and a woman. They're doing like the Folgers choice coffee moment. They're holding each other. They're looking out this, this bay window into the backyard. And I'm to believe that a teenage girl who's like 18, 17 years old, 18 years old is playing the, I'm going to get you game with her eight year old brother. And they're just, they're not, they're, they're just kind of doing this weird shuffle side to side, back and forth. not moving. And that's the, and she's like, and like the dialogue, she's like, and I feel bad for Shane Elizabeth because she had to read the dialogue, but it's like, she's like, you're the best little brother ever.

53:46 And he's, and he's giggling and laughing. And I don't know. I never played. That's not how siblings play. No, it's not at all. You know? And more importantly, they're looking out the window at their kids and he's like pointing like, like, hold on. Like, You're not at SeaWorld. Like she can see. And he's like, look, look at him. Look, look at, you know, it's like, okay, well, they're just, they're acting like idiots in the backyard. And he's just like, this is the, you know, it just, it reeks of just cheesiness. Okay. It doesn't have to be like that. It could have been, she could have been doing a school project, like collecting leaves or she could have been laying out. I don't care.

54:31 And he could have been bugging her. And she could have been– they could have been playfully like, oh, you're– I'm going to get you. And I don't know. It just seems so– just so forced. Man, I totally missed all this. And I get it. I didn't see this that way. We need to know that they're a happy family. We did. But it was bad writing. Okay. And it wasn't the best acting in that moment. No, it wasn't. So that's why– All right. Fair enough. It didn't piss me off. It pissed Amber Lewis off. That's the great thing about– It's a great thing about that choice. I'm sorry you're pissed off so much, Amber, about that scene. Yeah, Amber, we're with you. It's terrible. Dave, how about we take one last break before we wrap things up?

55:13 Unless you're a Patreon member. Unless you're a Patreon member. If you're a Patreon member, we're not going anywhere. For the rest of you, go join Patreon. Yeah. Little is three bucks. What do you got to lose besides Patreon? Three bucks. Three bucks. That's all. Come on. Dave, I'll tell you what. Someone signs up and they say, hey, I signed up. I listened to 13 Ghosts. Signed up on Patreon. Not a fan. I'll give them their three bucks back. There you go. That's a great deal. It's evidence now, right? Yeah. You don't even need the special glasses to see. You don't need special glasses. Yeah. You've got it. All right. Well, for those of you listening that aren't listening on Patreon, we will see you in 90 seconds. But for you Patreon listeners, let's just keep going.

55:54 Let's do it. All right, Dave, we are back. Steve Beck. We talked about this being his directorial film debut. A year later, he makes Ghost Ship. Which is good, too. Which is good. Yeah. And then he retired. They're gone. You kind of really don't have any avenue to go, like, let's talk about an underrated Steve Beck. Because even if we're talking about his ILM work, The Last Crusade and Hunt for Earth, these are not underrated movies. No, they're not. How about we do something else? Okay. Sounds good. Let's talk about Tony Shalhoub, Shannon Elizabeth, Matthew Lillard, and F.

56:38 Murray Abraham. And don't worry, I'm going to slow these down. Let's talk about whether it's either their best performance or your favorite performance. And I'm going to guess we're going to agree three out of four times. Interesting. All right. Well, let's start with Tony Shalhoub. Okay. Shalhoub. Sure. That's only the ninth time I've done that. Just call him Tony. If Tony... If he ever hears this... And this isn't the first time we've talked about him. No. Brad and I talked about... He's fantastic in a movie, the Mark Wahlberg rock movie. The movie Pain and Gain. He's the guy that they kidnap. He's the guy that owns the gym.

57:20 He's the rich guy. He's so fun in the movie. But I digress. Tony's good in everything. He is. He is. Your favorite... And, you know, whether it's a movie, whether it's– oh, shit, we might not have the same pick. We're not. Whether it's a movie or whether it's TV, what's your favorite Tony Shalhoub? I have a feeling you know what mine is since you kind of like backtracked a little bit there. Go ahead and say it. Mine is Adrian Monk. Oh, okay. Are we correct? Are we the same? We're simpatico, my friend. Okay, good deal. Adrian Monk, eight seasons in the early to mid-2000s. Incredible performance by Tony. Yeah, his OCD is so quirky, it's so endearing, and yet so, like, I just, I believe it.

58:08 Oh, yeah. And I respond to it. I feel more normal, because you know me, we've been best friends for a long time, and Yeah. I've got my. A little bit. I've got a little bit going on. You do. It's all good. It's all good. Yeah. But he makes me feel normal. Adrian Monk makes me feel normal. Yeah. He should, I hope. No, his detective is so good. It really is. And it's filmed really well. USA Network, right? Yeah, USA Network. One of the things I love about this character, too, is... So, my mother is not usually into, like, more modern things. She likes stuff she grew up with, like the old westerns, you know, those kind of, like, Hallmark stuff, for crying out loud. Yeah. But one character she absolutely loves is Adrian Monk. She loves him so much.

58:53 It's such a great show. And don't forget, we got Ted Levine plays Monk's lieutenant. The lieutenant. Yeah. Who does such a good job too. Famous for playing Buffalo Bill in Sons of Lambs. Yep. He's always fun to watch. But yeah. Okay. I knew we were going to do this. be– when I backtracked first, I paused because I was like, wait, is he thinking film or TV? Okay. Because if it's film, it's got to be Galaxy Quest. Yeah. But I mean, come on, man. Adrian Monk. Yeah. Adrian Monk's the best. All right. I knew we had that one. This is the one I think we might be different on. Okay. Your favorite Shannon Elizabeth performance. So the first time I ever saw her is clearly as Nadia in American Pie.

59:36 Yeah. Unforgettable. That's the role that I went with, obviously. Not a bad choice. It's not. No. It's not. Not a bad choice at all. It may be because we covered it this summer, but I got to go with her performance as Justice in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. That's a good one. I love her. She's so fun. She is. Because I like that she is intentionally nerdy. And she's adorable. And plus, we talked about F. Murray Abraham making one hell of an entrance in this movie. In Jay and Silent Bob, when she walks in the movies to Bon Jovi's Bad Medicine, everything's in slow motion. She's awesome. I immediately think Shannon Elizabeth every time I hear Bad Medicine now.

1:00:22 I don't care. Well, for obvious reasons. For obvious reasons, yeah. She's awesome. She's fantastic. I agree. Yeah. She came back, I think it was in Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. Reboot. Yeah. She did. I like that she's part of the VSQ-iverse. Yep. Okay. We got to be the same on this one. Matthew Lillard. And before you give me your pick, I mean, I feel like you've got, amongst all of us, you probably have the closest connection to Matthew Lillard. Like, you know, you've got some great Matthew Lillards. Can you give us something? Anything that maybe you haven't You haven't told us on a pod before? So I can. I mean, clearly everybody knows the one story I told. So I'll leave that to you to go back and revisit that podcast where I talk about that one. Yeah. But recently, last December, Jeff, you know I tried multiple times to get his autograph again for myself.

1:01:13 Yeah, you wanted one for you. Yeah. And it was a debacle in Michigan of getting his autograph. Yes, it was. An absolute debacle. So we knew we were going to see him again in Columbus in December. Yep. We went there. I got in a long line again after waiting a long line the day before for somebody else. But he is totally worth the wait. But anyway, I had been in the line for probably two and a half hours. Two and a half easily. And so many other people have too. His line was really, really long. And it always is. Yeah. So I had my back turned to where Matthew was signing autographs and meeting fans and stuff like that. And I was talking to some people who I've been with for two and a half hours in that line.

1:01:53 And.... All of a sudden, I just hear commotion behind me, and I turn around, and as I turn around, there's a hand in my face. It is Matthew Lillard with his hand up to give me a high five. Yep. He literally knew everybody in that line was getting tired and was waiting patiently to meet him. So he went through the line to make sure to tell everybody, I'm going to get to you. Yep. Give me some time. And he was just so fan-friendly. He is every single time I've met this guy. Wasn't that the– that was the GalaxyCon– didn't he have– I mean, wasn't there a moment where he left? Yes.

1:02:34 He stopped mid– it's not like he goes behind a curtain or anything like that. He makes– he's like Moses parting the Red Sea. He goes through the lines of people. And wasn't that the one where he stopped and was like, hey, I've got to take a leak. Yes. Please. He did. I will come right back. I got to pee. I'll be right back. I'll be right back. You can't– yeah. He's won– well, he'll be at Scarefest weekend. He will be. This weekend. So listeners, if you haven't got your tickets for Scarefest yet and you want a chance to meet– I say you want a chance to meet Matthew Lillard because you're going to get there. You're going to be in line. Forever. Forever. But, Dave, it's so worth it. It is worth it. It really is.

1:03:15 The guy is just, he's all heart. He really is. Yeah. You know, I even told him when he was signing my autograph. You know, I said, you know, I met you a few years ago when you were in Cincinnati. Yeah, Horror Hound. At Horror Hound, and I told him about my nephew, and he literally stopped signing and came over and hugged me. Yeah. Like, thanks, you know, good seeing you again. He's just personable. He is very personable. Yeah. It's one of those, he's like Robert Englund, where Part of the reason you're waiting so long, aside from the fact that there's thousands and thousands of people, is he is not one of the keep my head down, sign, and go, sign, go. Nope. He wants to have a connection. He wants to talk with each person that has waited in line and have a moment with them. Absolutely. I love that. Yep.

1:03:55 That said, your favorite or what you think is the best Matthew Lillard performance? So my favorite. Okay. Clearly I'm not going– everyone's going to think, oh, he's going to say Stu from Scream. It's not. Okay. Okay. It's Shaggy. You want to look at my notes? No. Mine says Shaggy. You picked Shaggy? Yeah. It literally is. And not just the live action version, it's his animated version of Shaggy. Dave, he has done like 20, I think 26 performances, whether live action or voice. Yep. He's played the role 26 times. He is, with all due respect to Casey Kasem, he's Shaggy more than Casey Kasem ever was Shaggy. Yep. And he enjoys doing it. Yeah. So, you know.

1:04:39 And his story behind it of how he got the role of Shaggy. Do you know this? I don't know this. So he went to, you know, audition for this role. Yeah. So he sat in his car and got himself horse. Oh, wow. Before he went into audition because he knew that Shaggy has a certain type of voice. Has a certain. You know. Yeah. And was able to present that to them. Okay. And that's how he won them over. Interesting. Yeah. I want to point out because he's amazing. We love him. Yes. Pretty much, it's fair to say I love him in everything. Yep. And I didn't mention this earlier. Talking about his role as Dennis in 13 Ghosts. Yeah. Are you aware that he hates this movie?

1:05:20 He does. With a passion. He's on record saying it's the worst film ever. And Dave, he did Hackers. I know. I know. I know. You know, and I'm not, listen, I have a, for anyone that's listening, don't shit on Hackers. I'll say this. Hackers is a top five guilty pleasure movie for me. I don't want to like it. I don't care if it's five minutes in or there's only five minutes left. I can't not watch once it's on. I don't know why. I'm not a hacker. It's so cheesy and ridiculous. His role as serial killer is so much fun. But I do want to point out how much I enjoyed him.

1:06:04 recently on mike flanagan's carrie did you know that he's in carrie oh yeah okay he's the principal he plays the principal prominently he's not like a side character that just you get him for one episode he is through the whole series and he's fantastic i know you haven't watched it yet but i'm telling you you gotta you gotta check out you gotta check out carrie it's so damn good i will i don't i can't say that i i like the ending okay it's a weird situation where I think they did seven episodes that were perfect. And then they did an eighth episode that started off really good and then went sideways, at least for me. Interesting. And more interesting, I told someone at work this. They said, did you like it? I said, yeah. I said, you've read the book or you've seen the original movie or the remake?

1:06:50 Yeah, yeah. So I said, you know what happens to Carrie? They're like, yeah. I said, well, I think you would really enjoy it if you watch the first seven episodes and then stop. And they're like, really? Like, not the end? I was like, ah. I will re-watch this again. And into seven. And I will always, moving forward, I'll always stop at seven. Okay. And after you see it, we can have a discussion about it. Okay. We will. Because I can tell you why. Okay. But I don't want to, for anyone that hasn't watched Carrie yet, and you especially, I don't want to spoil why. Well, I appreciate that. I just, moving on. Well, let's not forget too, curious about Matthew Lillard's role in Man of Tomorrow. Oh, that's right.

1:07:30 We don't know. We don't know. We've got guesses. We've got rumors. I know the rumor is that he's playing the Flash. Or Plastic Man. But he needs to be Plastic Man, man. He would be so good as Plastic Man. I agree. We'll see. We'll see. F. Murray Abraham, who was found guilty of murdering Mozart in The Last Action Hero. Again, so what? We differed on Shane Elizabeth, but we were the same on Tony and Matthew. I gotta imagine we're the same on F. Murray and Abraham. One moment, please!

1:08:11 Mozart! 1984's Amadeus, man. Antonio Salieri, right? Antonio Salieri. From Amadeus, 1984. Is it. God help us if we ever did the top 25 greatest performances of all time episode, which would be a challenge. But he's gotta be. In the conversation. Oh, absolutely he is. He's probably in the conversation for top ten of all time. Probably. 1984's Amadeus wins all the Academy Awards, right? It's incredible. I've got a gorgeous– I've got the Digibook version. It's like the director's cut, Milos Forman's director's cut. It's got all the extra stuff and the soundtrack It's so good.

1:08:57 But his performance. I've told this story before. I'll tell it one more time quickly. I remember 1984. I'm eight years old. My dad, famous for taking us to see really awesome movies when sometimes we knew it was going to be awesome. I didn't know that Raiders of the Lost Ark was going to be awesome. I didn't understand what I was looking at because I was too little. And then I saw the boulder chasing the guy and I was like, this is the greatest thing ever. I ran back to the drive-in, my car at the drive-in, right? When dad says, hey, we're going to go see Superman 2 today. I'm jumping. I don't need to be in the pool all day. Let's go. So when dad says, hey, we're going to go to the movies, me and my brother blindly, we're like, yeah! We don't know. We don't know what we're going to see. We go to see, he takes us to see Amadeus. Starts off and we're like, What is this? An outraged eight-year-old. My brother at six, almost six, not old enough to understand that we've just been bamboozled. And my dad leans down and says, I'll tell you what, you just sit quietly, and if you really don't want to watch it after ten minutes, we'll go. Now, I.

1:10:14 Thinking at eight years old, I'm a pretty amazing attorney because we're definitely out of here. We're going. We're leaving. We're rolling. Credit to my dad. Man of his word. My hero. He starts to get up. He grabs me. And I'm like, what are you doing? He's like, come on. We can leave now. And I love hearing him tell the story because in his story, we're more whiny and, oh, dad, please. But you could not tear us out of the theater. We had to watch it. Now, as an eight-year-old, you know, and if you've seen the movie, you know, Tom Hulse, his performance, you know, with the laugh and the flatulence, it's ridiculous.

1:10:54 It is. But when you're eight years old and you're hearing that laugh and all the silly costumes. It's a good time. You know, and he's farting and stuff like that. You're just like, yeah, this is the best movie ever. Yeah. Loved it. At eight years old, I'm a fan of that music. I'm a fan of quality cinema. I'm a fan of F. Murray Abraham. And you won't hear that from the eight-year-olds. I'll tell you that right now. And that's all thanks to my dad. So. Yeah. Yeah. Antonio Salieri. Dave, I had fun talking about 13 Ghosts. Yeah, I did too. Good time. I know we took a couple twists and turns just like the movie does. Yeah. And I'm glad we did. We had a fun time on Patreon. Yeah, we did. I mean, the Patreon episode, the extra stuff. Yeah. For our Patreon listeners. Listen, not too late.

1:11:40 No. Go sign up. You can go sign up. Yeah. That's all I'm going to say about that. Yeah, you'll hear it. You'll enjoy it. Yeah. I ain't going to talk about it the rest of this episode. I'll talk about it next episode. Next time on A Film By, I kind of mentioned this before, we'll be talking with Nathan Basil, the star of Behind the Mask, The Rise of Leslie Vernon. It is celebrating a big anniversary. I got to meet this guy, this gentleman, fantastic guy. We met at Horror Hound back in September. Nice. And got to talking. He heard a little bit about the show, and I invited him, and he was like, I'd love to. Let's do this. So looking forward to that.

1:12:23 If you've seen it, listeners, how would you summarize it in exactly five words? Go to filmbypodcast.com. Give us your answer. You can email us, filmbypodcast at gmail.com. If we use your five-word synopsis on the show, we'll shout you out on the episode. And you'll get some of Film by Swag. Dave, quick shout out to our favorite artist, John Wright. Mm-hmm. John, he kind of, I saw that he released a little sneak peek. Yeah. Oh, yeah, he did. John, I saw at Horror Hound, John did a piece for Behind the Mask. Mm-hmm. Fantastic. Nathan saw it, loved it.

1:13:06 And I told John, I was like, man, I kind of want this. And he's like, that's it. There's one. Mm-hmm. John has got back on the boards. I commissioned him. He's doing a special one-of-one behind-the-mask piece. Nice. And one of our listeners is going to win it. All right. And if that's not enough, Nathan Basil, when we were talking about doing the episode, we're there, and he's like, I'll tell you what. Hold on. He takes one of the 8x10s off his table. you know, kind of personalized it, like did a quote from the movie. Yeah. And that is also going to go to one of our listeners.

1:13:48 Wow. So, uh, that's quite a treat. Yeah. So not only you get to hear the star of the movie, talk about the movie and he's got some other fun stuff he's going to share with us, some exclusive stuff. All right. Um, he, you know, he started to tell me and then he's like, we'll save it. We'll, we'll talk more on the episode, but we got some fun stuff. Uh, and then John, um, Just because we can't get enough of him. He was so kind. You know he did those training cards for Horror Hound? Yep. I was able to snag a pack of them. Unopened pack. The whole set. We're going to give those away to one of our listeners also. This is going to be a big... Three gifts. Three gifts. And three people are getting them.

1:14:30 All right. Come back next Monday, the 26th. We've got the Behind the Mask episode that's going to be hidden. And it'll be your chance to win... Maybe win some John Wright original work. Maybe to win some trading cards exclusive to Horror Hound. Or maybe a Nathan Basil autograph. Join us next week. We will find out. Please join us on social media. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, X, and YouTube. Dave, we have gotten some new subscribers on YouTube. We have. And we're guilty. We have not put a lot of good content out. There's more coming. We've got more coming. Well, Scarefest. Scarefest, absolutely. Man, your Scarefest coverage is going to be awesome.

1:15:12 Yep, looking forward to that. Listeners, if you want to see what happened last year, Dave, we've got three parts. A lot of great, some of your favorite horror stars in those episodes. Compliments of Dave Burns. But Dave, I want to thank you for doing this one with me. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you for splitting a six-pack lacto-cooler with me. It was fantastic. Delicious. Voodoo Brewing, the sponsor that doesn't know they're sponsoring us. And to all of you out there listening to the show, haunting us on social media, and spellbound by our Patreon, we certainly thank you.