BIG DADDY DISPATCH: NOVEMBER 2023 (Patreon)

Dispatch Eighty October 31st, 2023

Greetings WHM Family!

This year is FLYING BY! We just wrapped up our annual Spooktacular and all of a sudden the leaves are changing, there’s a cold snap in the air, and we’ve got the We Love Movies month to contend with! And contend with it we will, with a massive output of comedy shows on both the main and Patreon feeds (see below for the full lineup). We’re really stoked to share all of this with you fine folks!

Oh, and if you’re looking for more WHM content and you missed our LIVE Streaming show on Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (pictured above), you can still catch the replay until THURSDAY of this week! And then that video is gone forever! So get your tickets here!

Banner Credit: We Hate Movies The Big Daddy Dispatch by Felipe Sobreiro

Image Credit: Screencap from our Live Streaming show on Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter

LIVE SHOW ALERT

TRI-STATE AREA, are you ready for a kick-ass holiday show from your favorite podcast? Well, they’re not available. But we are! This December, We Hate Movies is doing a live episode on Tim Allen’s 1994 grunting Santa picture, The Santa Clause at White Eagle Hall right up the street from Steve’s apartment in Jersey City*! This is going to be a great time at an awesome venue talking about a shitty movie, which will get everybody in the holiday spirit. Our last New Jersey show sold out, so you definitely do not want to get left out in the cold for the live show on December 7th! Get your tickets now!

*Steve’s address is not available even to the highest level of Patreon subscribers.

LAST MONTH ON WHM

Episode 699 – Exorcist: The Beginning

Following another sequel no one wanted in Saw V, the boys head back to the Iraqi desert to meet a young Father Merrin, who is inspecting the uncovering and excavation of a lost temple when a series of Pazuzu-adjacent occurrences starts making him wonder if he’s maybe on the losing team. Why does this movie look so bad even before the CGI kicks in? Is Renny Harlin the right choice for a subtle, tense horror-mystery? Did we not have better things to offer Stellan Skarsgård and the best of the Brosnan Bond girls in the early 2000’s? And no, the Schrader version isn’t good either.

Episode 700 – Bushwhacked

To celebrate their 700th episode, the fellas get together to talk the much-talked-about outdoors comedy Bushwhacked, starring Daniel Stern as a complete scumbag who must take responsibility for a pack of boy scouts while also on the run from corrupt cops and his one-time employer. How quickly would this guy be killed or arrested in real life? Would this film be made better by a Lord of the Flies-type situation? Wouldn’t this be like the biggest story of the year over all media? Plus, an appearance from everyone’s favorite bald actor Jon Polito!

Episode 701 – The Exorcist  (Patrons Only)

For this month’s WLM episode, Andrew, Chris, Eric, and Steve head to Georgetown to help Ellen Burstyn and a pair of priests pull a powerful demon out of young Linda Blair, who insists that there are mothers in hell sucking cock all the time. How is this movie still this unsettling after so many years? What would you do to secure an invite to Detective Lee J. Cobb’s night out at the movies? Do you send apology notes to people after you vomit on them while possessed? Rest in Peace, William Friedkin!

Episode 702 – Pumpkinhead

The gang heads out to the middle of nowhere to witness the resurrection of the titular graveyard monster thanks to aggrieved food-store manager Lance Henriksen, by way of a woodland witch when a pack of teenagers accidentally kill his young son in Stan Winston’s directorial debut. Why is there a world-class motorbike course right next to Henriksen’s food shop? Did the guy forget to read the fine-print when he sold his soul for a small local massacre? Does Pumpkinhead go in for pranks or is he all business when he’s summoned? Prepare thyself for several scenes with Buck Flower as a well-respected pig farmer and witch knower.

Episode 703 – The Purge 

Andrew, Eric, Steve, and Chris get stuck in a labyrinthian high-end house with Ethan Hawke and his shitty family while a bunch of homicidal Patrick Bateman wannabes try to break down the door on American Murder Night. Why does this one suck and the sequels mostly don’t? Why does your child have the master key to your all-important security system? Can we get a little more world-building beyond the New Founding Fathers? Watch out for Houdini the Dog “Catcher”!

Episode 704 – The Devil’s Rain with Ben Worecester

With Steve off starting his own cult in Europe, the boys welcome back longtime friend of the show Ben Worcester to talk about this sleaze-adjacent cult curiosity, in which fated brothers Tom Skerritt and William Shatner must take on an all-powerful devil-loving Ernest Borgnine and his church of black-eyed Satan worshippers. What medical con games are Tom Skerritt and his wife running when they’re not saving their family? Is goat-faced Ernest Borgnine the best Ernest Borgnine? What’s the local governance of this ghost town that Borgnine owns? Also, keep an eye out for John Travolta, playing against type as a young man helplessly in thrall to a powerful cult.

WHAT ARE WE WATCHING?

This is a space for us to talk about some NON-We Hate Movies related content that we've shoved into our eyeballs in the last month: TV, Movies, Cartoons, and Sports (maybe?). Just about anything that isn'tpornography.

Andrew:  Laundry list of horror titles incoming, although I have to say, there were a bunch of movies this month that I took a swing on horror-wise, and they were real let downs. Here we go:

Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings— It’s a sequel-in-name-only situation, but don’t let that stop you. I had a fun time with this. Completely changes the Pumpkinhead myth, there’s no mention of Lance or anything from the first one, but there are some great kills and Roger Clinton playing “The Mayor” while wearing a hilarious cowboy hat and doing a dumb voice. Would recommend!

V/H/S/85 — It’s well documented at this point that I’m not a Found Footage guy, but I do try to give certain ones a shot every now and again, and the V/H/S series is one such case. Although, after this latest entry, I dunno how much longer I’m going to give this series a shot. Like all of the previous V/H/S films, I find myself interested in maybe one or two of the segments, but the rest are trash. This one was no different. I liked Scott Derrickson’s “Dreamkill” sequence, but just found myself wishing it was a standalone feature and NOT found fucking footage.

The Boogey Man— Totally confused as to why this movie was put in Shudder’s 80’s Classics section, because it’s a completely forgettable, slow-as-hell, kind-of-nothing movie. A few okay kills, but sorry, evil mirrors don’t really do it for me. This feels like five ideas from other movies stitched together.

Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight — This is a good-ass horror movie right here! After I finished it, I instantly regretted putting it off for so many years. Great cast, entertaining as all get-out, it’s just a fun, fun movie. Kinda wild they fell so hard on their face with Bordello of Blood.

Trick or Treats— Back to trash town. This movie is like 85% sequences where this babysitter falls for stupid, little, horror-related tricks the kid she’s watching pulls on her. There’s kind of something there if the movie was literally just a kid innocently playing these pranks and the babysitter goes so mad she accidentally kills him or something, but no. There's also a bunch of crap with the boy’s father breaking out of a mental institution and coming home to exact revenge, while the mother and her new boyfriend, played by a one-scene-only David Carradine, skip town to play a MAGIC SHOW in Vegas or some shit. Yeah, dumb as dirt.

Chris: Door: Against all logic, this 1988 stalker/home-invasion stunner does not have a massive cult following. It deserves one, and I think the only reasonable explanation is that it was nearly impossible to see legally until recently. Teeming with unexpected and emotionally weighted details, as much in camera placement and auditory design as in performance and dialogue, the movie goes to great lengths to complicate the stalker-victim dynamic without overworking the material, making the film’s well-to-do matriarch as much a symbol of wealth-induced class-anxiety gone extreme as a dazed bird trapped in a cage of cold yet comfortable domesticity, willing to even look to a dangerous salesman-gone-psycho for a kind of erotic escape and emotional liberation. Much credit goes to the film’s director, pink-film hitmaker Banmei Takahashi, but the film belongs to his off-screen wife, Keiko, who positively electrifies the lead role of Mrs. Honda and renders even seemingly mundane phone calls into sudden storms of stressed nerves and spilled-over passions. A true hidden gem. Seek it out – it’s on Hoopla.

Puppet Master: I spent some six or seven hours of my life that are gone for good watching the first five Puppet Master films and I do not have much positive to say about the experience. I have been assured that things get considerably worse after the fifth one, with at least two of the subsequent volumes being directed by A Talking Cat!?! auteur David DeCoteau. I am willing to believe that, but I really can’t imagine things getting much worse. Only the first and third have any business being seen by the public, and I credit most of that opinion to the puppet animators and the appearance of the great Paul Le Mat in the first one. Anyway, that drill-head doll sure does drill a few people, and the all-black-clad stabby doll sure does stab a few.

Vampyros Lesbos:This is my first Franco film and I get the distinct feeling I’m not a Franco guy. It’s certainly got some interesting ideas about the Stoker text and female desire going on, but I felt bored for quite a lot of this, despite the appreciated bounty of naked women. There was a similar number of nude bodies in Jean Rollin’s Fascination and the plots are not entirely different, but I found Rollin’s direction far more immediate and alluring than Franco’s throughout. I’ll give a few more titles a look, who knows? I started out thinking Fulci was insanely overrated and have since dedicated myself to seeing everything he’s directed that is available for civilian eyes.

When Evil Lurks: I was mildly entertained by Demián Rugna’s much-touted Terrified but felt that the brutal, dread-inducing first 30 minutes outweighed the more playful elements of the second half. Six years later, Rugna has returned with this absolutely thrilling vision of demonic possession run amok in a small Argentinian village. The director’s swift-yet-effective delivery of dread and blunt, chaotic bloodshed has developed significantly from Terrified, and I am now wildly impatient to see what Rugna does next. The actual story of When Evil Lurks, involving a pair of brothers who may not be smart or principled enough to deal with their own demons or similarly hell-sent and powerful entities outside of them, could use a mild hemming or a fuller view of the spread of the demons and their lore, but this is a mild hang-up. Few films have made me hoot loudly with disbelief this Halloween season as much as this bad boy.

Eric: Totally Killer(2023) – Had its cute and funny moments but didn't really do it for me. The premise was a bit too Hot Tub Time Machine instead of horror. Also, the Max Headroom mask kinda threw me off kilter, but I can see it working in a better, sharper movie.

Unmasked Part 25(1988) - This is a weird one, folks. You all know the hockey-mask wearing murderer named Jackson who starred in the “The Hand of Death” movies, right? Well, now you will in this contemplative horror dramedy that borders on copyright infringement. Jackson kills but that's not all he is, he thinks, he has thoughts on literature, and he loves. Bizarre, British, and the unmasked Jackson looks like Jason meets the Ninja Turtles. Fascinating enough and on Tubi.

Heaven and Hell(1980) – Ever wanted to see what it would be like if a Shaw Brothers kung fu movie went to Hell? Well, here you go, from the master of the genre, Chang Cheh. I think I read this was shot over years so it's a bit scatter brained, but features many of your Five Deadly Venom favorites. Plus "plough hell," where you got to plough hell, well... they ram you with ploughs. Really weird and a good one to mix into a horror marathon to change gears for a second.

Hell Has No Boundary(1982) – A Shaw Brothers contemporary outing about a female police officer possessed. It's a wild one as well and features some crazy stuff! Some nasty stuff, folks. This movie and Heaven and Hell I have to shout out Justin Decloux of the Important Cinema Club podcast for turning me onto.

Extraction (2020) and Extraction 2 (2023) – Catching up on Netflix sludge and I think the first one works better than the sequel. There's I guess slightly more to believe in with part 1 than part 2, where you have to buy into not only all the dumb guy stuff but also the dastardly villainous brothers which might have worked if they were portrayed with more charisma. There's some good action, but a lot of bad CGI action too, so these are firmly so-so no matter what you think of the “plot.”

Warrior of the Lost World(1983) – Had no idea this was an MST3K when I watched it recently but I actually had fun with this, which stars Robert Ginty (The Exterminatorhimself) as basically just the Road Warrior. Post-Apocalypse. Italy. Motorcycles. That's cinema, baby.

Steve: Well, I spent a good portion of October in Paris, France (EVER HEARD OF IT?) so that whole thing cut into my horror viewing, but I did get some good watches in:

The Boogeyman (2023): Yawn. A total snoozefest that feels completely anonymous (which is a drag as the source material is listed from Stephen “Clickity Clack” King himself). We follow Yellowjackets and Book of Boba Friend’s Sophie Thatcher through ill-lit houses as she tries to piece together the mystery of a monster that caused David Dastmalchian to take his life in her family home. It’s a PG-13 horror film that’s bereft of scares, characterization and intensity, but don’t worry, there’s TRAUMA abound!

The Exorcist: Believer: Oh boy, was this a piece of shit! I was outta town when the boys talked about it On-Screen, so I’ll spill some ink here. I had low expectations for this one, what with David Gordon Green using a lot of the good will from the still truly good Halloween (2018) on two lackluster sequels, but I’m still shocked by how much he screwed the pooch here. We have two (count them TWO) girls possessed this time around and instead of finding a way to make that exciting, we spend most of the movie far away from the possessions themselves and instead get to watch some truly unfortunate performances by actors I like. Aside from running poor Ellen Burstyn’s Chris MacNeil into the ground, the film can’t seem to find an actual Exorcist that the film likes, so we get to bounce around from person to person and religion to religion (don’t get me started) until the film wraps up. You really miss the soulful performance of Jason Miller here. Oh, and William Friedkin’s directing. Oh, and style, taste, gravity, lighting, good taste, good writing… Truly, The Pope’s Exorcist is miles better than this film. Which is saying a lot.

Holy Virgin vs. The Evil Dead (1991): This Hong Kong action/horror mash-up is a lot of damn fun and features a baby-faced Donnie Yen! We saw it at the Spectacle  in Williamsburg during their “The Fist Fright Marathon” and were not disappointed. In it, a nerdy, freshly divorced school master’s entire class of teenage girls gets wiped out by a sex-crazy Demon, which leaves our hapless hero the prime suspect. After that, a whole lot of stuff happens, which includes a lot of fun Kung Fu action and spooky gore effects. Highly recommended.

Meatcleaver Massacre: A total piece of shit that is short enough to be worth your time…This one is an oddity directed (at least in part) by Ed Wood of all people (under a pseudonym) wherein a gang of Manson-esque bikers meet their slow, plodding and violent ends by a (mostly) unseen demon, after they pull a home invasion murder on their professor. It’s stupid city, but at 77 minutes the price is right for one watch through.
NOTE: Only after watching the film and doing research did I find out that there’s an alternate version that has bookending narration by Christopher Lee! Try and find that version! The Lee-less version I saw is on Amazon for rent.

PATREON MAILBAG LIGHTNING ROUND

Here's a fun space where folks on Patreon get to ask us Questions directly. This month's entry comes from

Chris, from Chicago who asks: “As we are now firmly in autumn - are there any movies you associate with a season (autumn or otherwise) or a time of the year?”

Andrew:  Oh yeah, seasonal movies are big in my house. If Halloween is the spooky season for most people, November is Bond season for me. For ages, they would always release the latest 007 adventure around American Thanksgiving, so for years I was brought up getting ready for the new bond by celebrating Bondvember. I’ve kinda fallen off the tradition the last couple years, but I think I need to get back to it. There’s just something about watching a bunch of Bond films in the lead-up to turkey time. It’s all gravy, baby.

Chris: Autumn is the time for old-man movies for me. The most prominent of these in the WHM offices is Sneakers, in which two of the biggest left-leaning movie stars of New Hollywood ease into life after terrorism, espionage, and romance by hunting down a corrupted friend from the past who might destroy encryption forever. The conflict is major but handled breezily, and that’s really what I look for in old-man movies. This goes for even more emotionally substantial films too. For all you cat owners out there, if you have never seen Harry & Tonto, I highly suggest you make the time for it soon. Directed by the late, great Paul Mazursky, the film details a late-in-life road trip taken by the titular retired teacher and cat pair, played by Art Carney and beautiful ginger tabby named Tonto in real life. There’s plenty of drama and allusions to a history of regrets but Mazursky, an absolute pro at making even moments of scathing revelation feel light and manageable, frontloads a feeling of ease and earned carelessness. This is usually also when I do my yearly rewatches of Grumpy Old Men and Wonder Boys, which both easily fit into this theme.

Eric: Yes, there's absolutely movies I associate with the fall. For some reason, one of them will eternally be Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and I am not even sure exactly why. I do not rewatch it often, but I will think about it every year around this time. I think it's because I saw it young and the forest environments depicted there reminded me of my own home in the Catskill mountains. There's just something about wet brown and yellow leaves that makes me think of my childhood and growing up in the woods. I also think sometimes of the underrated Ed O'Neill comedy – Dutch! It's a firm Thanksgiving movie, so that's likely why. As far as October goes, Halloween, is right there.

Steve: Agreed with the BIG E, that there’s quite a few movies I try to circle back on in the autumn (when the weather actually warrants it). One such film is Marielle Heller’s Can You Ever Forgive Me? A sad, ruminative, and deeply funny look at a couple of fuck-ups and liars played by Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant both giving career best performances. It perfectly captures New York when it starts to get cold and hot damn is that right up my alley.

NOVEMBER SCHEDULE

Say what? The schedule in advance?! It's the least we could do! By subscribing to this newsletter you get a sneak peek at what we're putting out in November!

We Love Movies Main-Feed Lineup:

Episode 705 – Psycho (1960)

Episode 706 – Batman Begins

Episode 707– Blade Runner*

Episode 708 – Beetlejuice

*FYI: We’ll be covering The Final Cut.

Patreon Episodes:

We Hate Movies – The Hunger Games

Animation Damnation: Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (Full Length Episode!)

The Nexus: Star Trek III: The Search for Spock  (Full Length Episode!)

Gleep Glossary: Grand Admiral Thrawn

MelR0210: 90210“Shooting Star/American in Paris” (s3, e5), Melrose Place: “Parting Glances” (s2, e20)

PATREON RSS BUG

If you’re having trouble with the RSS feed updating or episodes not appearing in your app, Patreon has acknowledged this bug and they have a fix: "Try unsubscribing and re-subscribing via your app by re-entering the unique RSS feed you were given and is on our Overview section of the Creator page. Or try using a different podcast app or RSS feed reader."

Please consult this page and contact Patreon Support if the problem persists. We apologize for any inconvenience you’ve experienced on Patreon and truly appreciate your continued support!

UPCOMING NEWS AND PROMOTION

On Screen Live continues to kick ass apace each and every Monday at Noon (mostly)! We just wrapped up New York Film Festival Coverage and will be offering reviews on new releases, box office numbers, trailers and yes, even special guests! Check it out on our YouTube Channel!

We also have all officially sanctioned VHS Trailer Game episodes up to this point. Eric has also put out great clip packages like WTF Exorcism with Marc Merrin,Dr. Loomis is the Worst Doctor, Dilf Den, George Bailey as Michael Meyers, John Wick-Mentary,  Toby Jones in Bee Movie, Sausage Claus, David! Muppet Hitchcock Presents, and many more! You can also watchthe entirety of our Witchboard episode! Complete with visual gags (most of which are almost funny.). You'll find all sorts of cool shit like Mailbags, VHS Trailer Games, Full Episodes like Rampage (2018), Any Which Way You Can, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Saw III. Like we said above these are great for sharing and introducing folks to the show. There's so much content there we can't list it all here. Just go and subscribe already!

Eric and Ben are back in the the blue and they’re dishing on Hooker family secrets and hanging out at the mall, when they review “Street Bait”  Listen here!

Did you know that Andrew has a website? No, it's not an OnlyFans (yet), it's a cool blog for some musings and Jupin-centric goings on. Lookit that fancy graphic from Raphael Sarmento! Check it out at andrewjupin.com

If you're a fan of the show and a fan of looking sharp, you should check out our merch on our TeePublic store! We have some hot off the presses designs by Felipe Sobreiro and some, like the above, might not be around forever (wink wink)!  We also have "The DILF Den", and a "Crispy Critters" design from friend of the show, Nathan Hamill!  There’s a ton of other great designs like The VHS Trailer Game Logo, Demon-o's Pizza, Egg Lawyer, The Order of the Boop, The Kornkast design and many more, with more to come!

That's going to do it for this month's Dispatch! See you next month for We Love Movies Month!


Take it easy,
Andrew, Chris, Eric, and Steve
We Hate Movies