HOUSE is One Crazy Rad Haunted House Horror Movie!

In Episode 28 of Secret Level, we revisit the 1985 horror comedy House. The movie was directed by Steve Miner from a story by Fred Dekker and a script by Ethan Wiley. This was a wonderfully terrifying haunted house movie that features monstrous elements that stuck with us ever since we were kids! We love this movie and thought it would be fun to dig up some little-known details about it and how it was made! It was also a blast rewatching again and we make sure to include some amusing commentary about the horrific craziness of the movie! There’s a lot of stuff we didn’t know before we started researching this and we hope you enjoy the episode!

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Transcript

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And recording. We're recording. We're recording. Look at us. Billy, look at us. Look at us. Do on a podcast, Billy. Yep. Look at us. Do it. This is crazy. Looking at we're still doing this thing. Yeah. I don't even, I don't even understand. We've got people listening to us, so that's cool. That's awesome. Yeah, I like it. I wasn't sure if anyone would listen to this thing, but people are listening and I, I assume people are enjoying. I hope so. That's why we're doing it. We haven't heard anything negative. I, I haven't, I have heard nothing. Negative five stars though. Five stars. I've been hearing positive things. Nice. From family members, cuz they're the only ones I talk to. But I haven't, you know, I'm not seeing anyone posting on Facebook or Twitter that you suck. You jerk asses. Yep. Um, yes. So that being the case, maybe I was way off on the impression. Let's just say that's it until we hear from him, and then we'll go from there. I really hope we didn't offend him, cuz Joe Dante literally has made some of my favorite films. I know, I really wanted to know that. Anyway, that was just a random little side thing, but yeah. Yes. All right. All right. Here we go. Dude, I'm really excited for this one, cuz You don't know anything about movies? Well, Joe Dante did, uh, reach out to us to tell us that we were way off, way off actually. Case I was thinking about that the other day. Okay. Now, when I did that podcast, and I don't remember, I haven't re-listened to it yet, but I was, isn't that the podcast where I did my impression of Joe Dante, the director through the whole podcast where I did this? Like when I did the, when I was quoting him, wasn't I doing a voice? this is a real paradigm shift from when I was a kid. When I was a kid. This was the scary of the scaries. Like this movie scared me so bad, I had a hard time coming back to it as a teenager. And now I look at it and I'm like, It's way more sad than it is scary. It's, you know what I mean? It's sad that it's also very entertaining and funny. It's, it's, it's like one of the first horror comedies, like, not first, but like, I'd say it's one of the first horror comedies that I saw right as that introduced me to this genre that, hey, horror can be super scary and pretty funny too. kinda silly. Yeah. Like I attribute William Kat's character in. To kind of like be like the precursor to Tom Hank's character in the burbs. The way he Oh yeah. The way he reacts to things. Yeah. All right. All right. You know what mean? Before we go any further? Yes. Sorry, before we go any further, we're teasing. We are teasing the conversation that is coming. Hello, I'm Joey Par, editor in chief of geek tyrant.com and host of Secret Level, and joining me today is the ish Billy Fish. And I am the editor in chief of Your Minds Dude, that's awesome. I hope so. Yes. Yeah, that's what I do. That would be amazing. My mind could really using Editor Inchi. Well that's what I'm here for. I get paid the big bucks for this. I won't lie. And in this episode we are going to talk about the classic 1985 horror comedy House. Beautiful. It is a beautiful film, isn't it? It's so much better now than like, like we were talking about. I thought it was scary at first. Yeah. But now. George Wen's timing in this movie is, is just classic. It's top notch. Let's talk about, let's just go through the cast list real quick. Yes. Director and cast list. Yes, please. So, well, first of all, the movie was written by Fred Decker. Mm-hmm. the guy who wrote Monster Squad. Yeah. Boy. Yeah. And a few other projects over the years, but we're talking about the eighties, so we're gonna stick with his eighties resume. Right. it was directed by Steve Minor. Mm-hmm. and it stars, William Cat as our main protagonist. You would know him from the greatest American hero. The greatest American hero. Yep. He plays Roger. That's great show. Yeah. Oh dude, we're gonna get into that cuz that's the only show that I've ever known that they changed the main character's name in the middle of the series. Yes. It also started, George went, George went of Cheers. Norm. Norm from Cheers. I love that. He's in this movie. Joey and I were talking about this. It is so funny. He's so, he's so funny. He's so great. He's so nonchalant about everything. He's just so laid back. And the thing is, is, Okay, my quote is from him. It's a conversation between him and William Kat. But I told this to Joey before we even filmed or, or talked about this. It's still one of the classic comedy lines I've ever heard, but we'll get to that when we get to the quotes at the end of this. Oh man, you're gonna make everybody wait. Yes. There is this great scene though, with George went near the beginning of the movie after Roger Cobb moves into his aunt's old house And he is like, he recognizes that it's Roger Cobb, right? Oh. And out of his back pocket, he pulls out this novel that is just falling apart. It like drops it on the ground. there's no covers, there's no spine. There's, I'm just like, he's carrying this book around with them. Just for what? This, this book, this, this broken spineless book of Roger Cobb, one of his books. And, and in a very frantic way, he is like Roger Cobb's savior in this movie. Yes. Yes. But we'll, we'll get to that. Richard Mul, who plays Bull on Night Court was in it. Yes. He was a younger version of Bull was in this, and I, dude, I always thought he was the, the largest man alive. Any, just from Yeah, I know. He just was so, he was bigger than life. He had a bigger than life thing. Uh, size and voice. And this just his presence for sure. Yep. And, and this means nothing to you, but it means a lot to me. Um, the realtor in it is a guy named Michael Enzyme. Dude. The realtor is amazing in this movie. He's, he's, and he's only in it for like five minutes, but he steals every scene that he is in Well, you know what's crazy about that? I know him as Mike. My only acting gig that I ever did was like this six part series of teaching kids in Japan, How to speak English. Uhhuh was like hooked on phonics. Okay. Where I would have to read these lines and they would say it in Japanese and then I would read it in English. All right. And it was me and Mike Enzyme. He was the adult voice in it. That's amazing. I did not know that, Billy. Right? Isn't it crazy? That's so like, awesome. When he popped up on screen, I was like, Hey, that's Mike. And, and Jessica's like, What? And I was like, I worked with that guy for like three months. I, that was, it was crazy. I loved it. I, I loved that scene where he is showing the house and they're in the, in the shed. And he is, he picks up this harpoon gun in the middle of a conversation and like accidentally fires it off of the harpoon. Just barely misses. Roger's head and like sticks out of the post, the wooden post next to him. And he is just like, Oops, sorry about that, Oh, and then he just goes on talking like, nothing ever happened. Nothing happened. And Rogers just looking at him like he did almost just shoot this guy through the face with the RP gun. He laughed about it, which is even better. All that happens. And then, okay, but first, okay, we have a lot to talk about in this one cuz I really enjoy what we're gonna get into. But first I need to know what did you do this week? All right. All right. Uh, by the time we've posted this, the Lord of the Rings, has been out on Amazon for a few weeks already. Mm-hmm. at this point, I've only watched the first couple episodes. Yes. And I just want to say, Because this show is getting review bond by internet trolls, and it's pissing me off that people are hating on this show because, so good is like one of the best fantasy series, actual real, full on fantasy series that I've seen in a long time. And I'm like, this is an amazing show. I just am like, they're watching a completely different show than I am because it is the. Beautiful, visually stunning series I've seen. The writing is great. The story so far is great. The acting is fantastic. The acting is amazing. Like I am just completely blown away by this show. This is good character development and I'm vent venting right now. I am, I'm You are the venting mood because it, it is just one of those things where I'm just like, ugh, why are trolls being trolls? Like, why it, it makes me sad. Mm-hmm. that people can't watch this and enjoy it. It makes me sad that people would rather see, I don't even see how they're seeing anything bad with it. Right. But how they're just missing the greatness of what this series is delivering and it's exhausting. Yeah. I understand. No, it's, to me, they're like cinematic masterpieces cuz they're like movies in each episode. Oh, it's so, Yes. You know what I mean? It's beautiful, Billy. It is. Uh, um, I'm really excited. I'm glad there's a five year plan on this. I'm ready for the five pieces. I am too. I am 100% on board with the Lord of the Rings. The rings of power. Damn. The trolls. I don't, I just, I can't, It's just such a don't understand show. It's, it's amazing. And that's, that's what's what's killing me, dude, is that we are getting a new story. And it's not new. It's something that we've heard about, There's been mentions of this. There's been little drops throughout the story, the whole about what's happening. Yeah. And this whole series. Because Amazon only owns the rights to the Hobbit and to the Lord of the Ring's trilogy. That's it. They don't have the rights to anything else. Warner Brothers has some rights to some stuff. Uh, the similar in the, the Toka estate won't even put, won't even let anybody touch that. Right. Right. They're keeping that to themselves. They are saying, No, you are, we are not gonna give you this. So this series is being built off of the appends from the Lord of the Rings like, Yes, the appends. And they have done a, the fantastic job so good. It's beautiful It's hard living online these days. It is because it not only gives the positive people power, but it gives the negative people power also. So we just gotta ignore them. What about you, Bill? Um, I got into that and I also finished season two of only murders in the building. Oh, nice. Um, like you, you know what I'm talking about on this. I have a sweet spot for Steve Martin and Martin Short. Yeah. They're by faves. They're fantastic. And just to see them together and it feels like they're at their, where they were when they're in top form. Yeah. so I just, I'm enjoying their banter with each other. they make Selena Gomez look really good in this. And they, they build her up, which is good. The side characters are fantastic. It's really well written. It's nowhere near to the rings of power, but it is still a really fun show, and I'm excited for season three of that one. Yep. So, so on the house synopsis I two house, Here we go. Let's go. A v Vietnam vet turned to horror novelist returns to his boyhood home to find that it has been invaded by ghosts and ghouls. That's it. That's it. That's, that's all they gave us. That's a synopsis, everybody. What they don't tell you is that, Well, the Vietnam Vet, his name is Roger Cobb. He is a horror novelist and he was married with a child and while living in the house, his child disappeared in the middle of the day. He was just, Roger was just trimming some hedges. Looked down at his son, his son smiled while he was playing with some toy cars. He looked back and started trimming the hedges again, and immediately looked back to his son who was gone. Oh. Oh. He was in the pool. In the pool. So they're running around in a panic, like, I can't find him. I can't find him. And then they find him. It's like splashing around in the pool. Roger dives in, save him, and then nothing there. And then his Aunt Ms. Hooper, she, she gets all freaky, you know, with like Ed Billy during that scene where they're mm-hmm. being interviewed with the police and stuff and they're, they're like trying to figure, I was like, uh, Roger's like, I saw him, he was in the pool. I dove in and he was gone. and then the, you know, Miss Uber walks in mm-hmm. looks at the cop and like put, gives him this big like Cheshire cat smile, right? Mm-hmm. And then, and then she's like, It was the house. It was the house that did it. And then there's the wife that kind of pops in is like, shut up your old bag. And then the, you know, his aunt just like, makes this like, like joke about it. Like, Hmm, touchy. Like she just lost her kid. Yo babe, her kid is gone. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, no one are these two guys separated. Right, right, right. I don't know. It was, it was, it was awkward and I really didn't get the point of her reacting like that. Yeah. But the movie started off with, uh, kid delivery groceries to the house. And I kind of wanna talk about this because, Well, couple reasons. First of all, the kid, the opening shot was fantastic. Yeah. First of all, the kid walks in and he presents himself. Hello? It's me Grocery Boy, Yep. That's exactly what he says. It's me. Grocery boy. Grocery boy. Not have a name. No. It just made me laugh because you'd think that this kid, if he was comfortable enough to walk into her house to drop the groceries off that mm-hmm. He and Miss Hoop would be on like, on a first name basis kind of thing. So they like, Hey, it's me, Ryan, I'm here with the groceries. Right? Not, Hey, it's me, grocery boy. but he walks upstairs and all of a sudden, Miss Hoop comes swinging in a frame. She had hung herself. Now, when I was a kid, this is the first time I had ever seen anyone hang themselves. Oh, definitely. And it kind of, I think, messed me up a little bit because that visual of the old woman hanging is something that has always been severed into my memory. It's something that comes up every once in a while for no reason. It's something that comes up in dreams that I have still, over the years as I've grown up like Ms. Hooper hanging. Has kind of like embedded itself into my brain. Like that visual kind, screwed, screwed me over a little bit. Right. it didn't ruin my opinion of the movie. I still think the movie's great. And I, as a kid, I remember just like, oh my, like I remember I was in shock. Like I didn't know what to think. Like Oh my gosh, I've never, as a kid, I've never seen anything like that before. Right, right. It was intense. Yeah, it was intense For a kid, it, it is a shocking scene because it's like a jump scare cuz it comes from out of see like swings into frame. Yeah. Where you just think it's a nice fine room and then there, there she is. But, and Billy, I think we're gonna get to your quote a little early here and I'm sorry for that. It's okay. Because I just wanna talk about Miss Hoop here for a minute. Yes. A lot of people have a lot of different opinions on Miss Hoop. Understandably. You've got the guy at the funeral that is like, she wasn't crazy. She was a good woman. Right? But then you've got George went saying, Go ahead, give him your quote now, Bill. Oh man. Hold on, hold on. Let, let me, I don't wanna misrepresent my quote cuz this is, um, the way it goes is fantastic Hey, it's great to have a new neighbor, woman who lived here before was nuts. Biggest bitch under the sun. Just a scene. How old hag really wouldn't be surprised if someone just got fed up in after, You know what I mean? And Roger says, she was my aunt. He said, Heart of gold though. Just, uh, a saint. Really? Uh, such a beautiful woman for her age. just a heart of gold. Heart of gold. It's just funny though, because then you've got the realtor too that has his own opinions on her, and so it was like throughout the whole, uh, film that you just get these different opinions on the type of person Miss Hoop is. Well, some people liked her. Other people thought she was a complete nut. And I just thought that was funny. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of was on the horrible person, train with that one. The way she reacted after the kid went missing. Yeah. Mr. Jimmy. And of course there's all the paintings in the house, the creepy ass paintings, which we'll get to. Yep. We'll get to that. Yeah. But I don't know, This was a great, this was a great movie and I, I, I watched it twice. Oh, me too. In preparation for this, cuz I watched it and I'm like, My gosh, that was so much fun. And so I'm like, ah, I'm gonna watch it again. I, I like the fact that the. The monster or the, the, the ghosts in the house took on his biggest fears. You know what I mean? Yes, yes. One other person. We're gonna get to that. But yes, I, I, that just made me feel good. Cause it was like, it wasn't just a normal, Hey, I'm a scary ghost. No. This ghost was so mene that it was taking on his biggest fears and throwing it in his face. Yeah, exactly. And before we get in the meat potatoes of this thing, there's so many funny scenes in this movie. It seems to just make me laugh. And season also make me question certain aspects about what the hell's going on. Uh, for example, when he is staying in the house mm-hmm. this woman that he just met who jogs around the neighborhood, Oh my goodness. Total stranger all of a sudden shows up one night with her kid. It was like, Hey, take my kid and watch him. I am going to trust my kid with, with you a complete stranger. She said he dude, she said he looks so kind in your eyes when she met him. The dude look crazy as shit. I know he's trying to bury a ghost in his backyard. Yes, yes. I'm like, that's the guy you want watching your kid. I mean, come on. And then he chases the kid around cuz it's got a, a disembodied hand on his back and he trying to get Exactly. And you know, and then he is and then traps him in the bathroom. And then there's, then he is like, when he brings him out, he is like, It's okay, I just had to take him in the bathroom. I helped him like, You just helped this strange little boy go into the bathroom. Oh my gosh. It's just, there's a lot of funny stuff for that just made me laugh. But while they're staying there, and this kind of goes back to our last episode, Billy. Mm-hmm. the boy gets kidnapped by two garbage bell kid characters. Oh my gosh. Which I pulling'em up the chimney, right? Yeah. When I saw that, I'm like, Oh my gosh, they're garbage. Bill kids That's what they, they looked like they totally did fold the eyes and Yeah. I was like, And then you never see those ghosts again. Yeah. That was what the, Where'd you come from? Did those kids die in that fireplace? I have no idea, man. I don't know. The house was crazy. They were creepy. It was nuts. Yep. Like this kid. And the best part is, is this kid smiling as two ghosts are trying to pull him up the chimney and Roger's hanging on his feet at the bottom of the chimney. And this kid's just like, this is the best time I've ever had. Surprised he didn't get his arm sockets pulled out. That's what I was saying. I was like, this is too much. So, but I loved it. I loved it. Yes. I loved the ridiculousness of it. Oh, my favorite. When he goes, uh, all home alone inside and all its full army paraphernalia. Oh, it's great. Oh yeah. He comes jumping outside and George Win is out there with his dog on the lawn. Uh, he just always seems to be there. Not always when you want him there, but he's just always there. And then there's the whole thing where he is like, I gotta get back in because of, And they, and earlier in the movie, they had this big conversation about solitude, Yeah. And it's funny. Because that word solitude, whenever I hear it immediately goes back, my mind immediately reverts back to house. Like, Oh, I learned what solitude meant from house Oh, man. Oh, with all this craziness, how I, how'd they come up with this is my question. So this was actually Fred Decker's ideas and I, and, the idea was originally inspired by the Twilight Zone movie. Okay. After seeing that film, Decker and his friends got together and they wanted to make their own independent anthology movie. Okay. That was kind of their plan. The project was never completed, but Decker used. His idea for an unproduced segment of that film for House. And that's kind of where House was born. So Decker wrote the screenplay as a traditional horror film at first with, there was no humor in it at all. The humor was added later on. And, uh, that was added by Ethan Wiley, whose background was in practical makeup effects. Okay. And, but he went and took the script and punched it up with some comedy. And that's how that came about. When, talking about this and a, this was all, there's a documentary out there, and Decker talks about this and he says, My additional idea for a directorial debut was this. A guy goes into a house at the beginning, At the end, he comes out and in between is the scariest shit I could possibly think of. He said it would be a straightforward haunted house movie, and I would film it in my parents', a hundred year old Victorian mansion in Maron County, California. This is his original plan, but for some reason, I was putting off actually writing the screenplay. This might have been laziness or fear of tackling a politically, dicey, thematically ambitious premise. Or maybe I was just too busy with my day job writing Steve Miners Godzilla, King of the Monsters 3d. Steve had negotiated with Toho for the Rights, the Big green guy, and had passed over many better known and better writers to give me my first break. Break in the Hollywood Saw minds at some point it occurred to me, what if my Twilight Zone and my Scary Haunted House movie were one and the same? What if my protagonist is the Vietnam Vet and the reason he's going into the house is to exercise his personal demons once and for all the heck with my patto guys. Can I quote Patto guys anthology video. I had a real movie idea. Now enter Ethan Wiley. Ethan was my college roommate and remains one of my best friends. And at that point, Ethan Wiley came in. This is one of his best friends. They've written, they, they wrote, they wrote plays together in college. They collaborated, he pitched his idea for House, And Wiley's response was, he says, immediate and enthusiastic sounds great. Let me take a crack at it. And he finished that script in roughly the time it takes me to go to the bathroom is what? What is what? Uh, Decker. Decker said. Oh, so Decker was the story man, not the screenplay man. He was the idea man behind the movie. Yes. I said, I said he was screenwriter earlier, but he did work on the script though. They did play around with it together. So, yes. Anyway, Okay. Q, Ethical dilemma. Here, My buddy had done what I had been too lazy to do. He actually sat down and wrote the damn thing. Now I had a script and a house to shoot in. All I needed was financing. There was one problem that was not that I didn't like the script, only that it veered for my initial vision in a rather dramatic way. It was a comedy, what I had conceived as a gritty black and white William Frederick and style character study Come Balls Out of the core film was now a tongue in cheek Mad magazine style effects, heavy hooten nanny with goofy neighbors and a comic and comical monsters. I had a decision to make, should I tell Ethan I wanted to make a different kind of movie and endanger the friendship. I decided to seek another opinion, preferably a professional one. I chose my boss, Steve Minor, who loved House at First Sight, and as it turned out, was looking for something of his own to direct. He showed the script to Sean Cunningham, who it seems had access to that pesky financing. With the understanding that Steve and Sean would support me directing something else in the future. I let my baby be adopted and raised by others. If you'll part in the ridiculous analogy. Thus, House was built two ironic footnotes. The film that ended up being my directorial debut night of the Creeps was a tongue in cheek mad magazine style comic core film, and its talented. Second unit director, some guy named Steve Minor. There you go. Yep. Yeah, it look, if you're looking at it in a serious way, I can see how some people would be bothered by this movie, but if you realize that it's just supposed to be funny. Yes, it, it hits all the beat. Exactly. And New World Pictures. Didn't understand that this would be a comedy, but they were pleasantly surprised with the end result. And Steve Minor had options with other studios. He, you know, there was a point where it was at 20th Century Fox, but at the time they were just giving him so many notes. But when it came to New World Pictures, they backed him on all of his creative decisions and gave him the creative freedom that he wanted, which is what was necessary. Exactly. So Decker kind of went on to talk about his involvement with the movie, saying that he. Solved a few last minute problems, but mostly he was the, and I quote grinning bystander for my first big screen credit. It was pretty awesome to walk onto the stages at Rally Studios, which was across the street from Paramount Pictures, where this entire set of Roger Cobb's house was built. And so he just gotta go spend time there. There's also, he talked about, there was a hilly jungle, Vietnam jungle that was at the studios that they had built. He says, I watched them shoot several of Big Ben scenes, both before and after his demise. But yeah, he says he was excited to be there and you know, especially at the time, he was mostly just a college student. Like he was still like in the process of learning the art of filmmaking, right. So, and also he's talked about House two, which we'll probably eventually talk about, but he says that was even more fun since Ethan and I were shooting at the same time at the Culver Studio Studios in Culver City. He says, I was doing the Monster Squad and it was like college all over again. If I had a few spare moments I nip over and watch. Ari Gross battling the gun slinging zombie. And Ethan would follow me to my sound stage and watch us blow up Wolfman. It was a time I remember with great fondness. It does sound like a lot of fun. It does. And especially when you got those two other movies going on at the same time, House two and the Monster Squad. That would be fantastic to go back and forth between the two. Yeah, I mean, it would've been, making movies like this back in the eighties must have been fun, like making something like the Monster Squad and House and those movies. There's just something about those and they, and they, they have this lasting power to them where they're always just fun to watch no matter how many times you watch'em. You know what I mean? Right. I really hope we do house two after doing this one. Cuz that was a fun movie too. Oh yeah. We're we're gonna get the house too. We're gonna get the house too for sure. Now the first screening for industry professionals after the movie was made was a disaster. Of course it was. Nothing worked. So Director Steve Minor still knew that they had something special, but that first cut just wasn't it. So he ended up taking it back to the editing room and four weeks later after that, he came out with this final cut, complete with its musical score, solid, tighter editing. And it ended up being a big success. Everyone liked it. So whatever that he did to that second cut was like a huge plus for him and everyone who worked on that film. Right. So a lot of films that were coming out in the seventies, eighties, and nineties, some of the major themes that these films dealt with was the mental trauma of the Vietnam War. And this movie dealt with that in a very interesting way, right? Because it did it different than all of those other movies that were coming out right? Well, it took a, it took a more, um, with the comedy, there was a more serious turn to it. Yeah. So you had these serious aspects. Seriously, Roger Cobb was dealing with post traumatic stress disorder, right? And it was, it's interesting to see how they handled that in this movie because not only was he dealing with real mental effects of, of being in war, but he was also dealing with the tragedy of losing his son, being separated from his wife and seeing just these crazy creatures and monsters running around his house, torturing him, basically. Right? And so you've got all of these things, these nightmares, flashbacks, and it's just kind of like coming to a head. Right. Well, he's trying to build it all up to write this book and it's affecting him a lot more negatively than he expected. Yes. So he is at, while he's at the house, and I don't think we talked about this earlier, but he's Oh, that's true. Yeah. He stayed in the house so he could write his book, which is a book based on his experiences in Vietnam. And at one point he's signing books and when he tells one of the, uh, one of his fans that this is gonna be his next book, his fans are like, Oh man, another one. Right? Like, Oh, here we go. but he had as therapy, he had to get that story out and he knew that, and he had, Yeah. Anyway, I, So it dealt with serious subject matter as well. So you've got this comedy, you've got this horror, but then also you've got this real drama, this tragedy behind this guy who watched one of his best friends die. Yeah. And blamed himself for it. Right. and then watching his son randomly disappear in the pool. Kind of like the same thing. Yep. It's just, I could have done something but I couldn't get it done in time. Yeah. But I, I like that aspect of the film too, cuz it did give, it did give some insight into that aspect of, of people's lives. Right? Right. Absolutely. People, you, there are people that can relate to that kind of thing. Um, kind of moving away from that and going into some special effects stuff and some monster stuff because monsters are always cool. I had no idea until now that the monster that comes barreling out of the closet Right. Was designed to look like the na palmed bodies from Vietnam. With bullets for fingers. That's crazy. It was a perf, It's just said to be a, it's said to be a personification of his Vietnam experience. The faces in it were actually all part of the people that worked on the film too. So there multiple faces on this thing? Yes. Like and, and like there's a meaning behind it. Like this is, this is his monster. Right. His Vietnam monster come to life in physical form. Attacking him like that is some deep crazy shit. Right. I'm just really upset cause I liked that monster and we barely got to see any of it. It was just, Yeah. Barely in and out, in and out. But there's a lot of work to win in designing that thing. So there, and that monster was called the War Demonn by the way. Okay. And. And it's just was this giant puppet that was 18 feet long and it was operated by 15 people. Crazy. Yeah. So there are a lot. That's a lot. Yeah. And it's only there for not very long. Right. I think you got less than 10 seconds of it total. Yeah. Cause it flashes out and scratches in the first time and then it comes out and grabs him the second time to bring him back. But that was it. That's all we got. Yeah. And it's funny, I learned that the special effects shop that did all the monsters and this stuff, they started off at a storefront working at a storefront in a mall in the eighties. Okay. They ended up getting booted outta that and then they ended up doing the rest of the film in the backyard of creature and special effects designer James Cummins. Crazy. So all that stuff was made in a backyard. Hey, those. They were eerie and they definitely fit what the movie was about. So they did a great job. Exactly. When talking about the designs of the film, uh, James Cuman said he wanted to create an environment that would compliment Cobb's nightmares with its manifestations in describing his attempt to design the creatures for house, He said, While we hope the creatures are frightening, we want to cut down on gore and shoot for something more. Surrealistic, he went on to say the overall feel of the motion picture is that the character of Roger Cobb is experiencing things in a surreal, dreamlike way. So we constructed the beast to achieve a fantastic, almost cartoonish quality, which worked perfectly. Everything in it you got. I mean, I won't say the, the, the war demonn was cartoonish. That was legitimately terrifying. Especially as a kid. I right that thing. Scared the hell outta me. well, all the monsters did for crying out loud. Like the big freaking lady in the, in that suit, that dude, that's what scared me. The old, ugly lady was like, a, a nightmare come to life, man. Holy crap. Yeah. Like seriously it was, That's what freaked me out as a kid. Like when she comes popping up behind the table. Yeah. And normally that but that high pitched, digitized like voice. Yeah. Like I can't do it. It was so weird. No, that's good though. But it, it say your prayers I love it. You know what I mean? Like it was, I was wild man. That was so crazy. And, actually speaking of her, Kane Hotter was the stunt coo coordinator on this film. And Kane Hotter was like a, uh, friday the 13th, Uh, he played Jason Ford. He's play Jason. Yeah. So he's, he's done, he's done stuff. And he talked about an experience where he was actually in the suit of the, the big ish fat lady, the, the monster lady. Right. Uhhuh And at one point he was in that plastic bag that Cobb had wrapped the lady up in that he was trying to bury when the chick came down on him trying to bury. Yeah. And when he beat that with a shovel, Because there's that scene where he just starts beating the hell out of it. Right, Right, right, right. Hotter was in the suit, and he said he was beating him for real, like hard What? Yeah. He's like, It looks great. I have no regrets. But man, Yeah. I took a beating on that one. Yeah, he was hitting that thing hard. Anytime she'd turn around you'd just nail that thing. Hell, it was wild. But yeah, that, that lady was just scared the freaking hell outta me, dude. And then you've got the, the fish, the, the sword fish. And it's a simple, simple prop. Right, Right. But it's effectively terrifying, Right. When it's like flopping back and forth with that starts squealing that, that, that blood curling scream coming out of its mouth. Oh my gosh. It, it worked well. I mean, I thought it was great. Like it kind of reminded me of the original Evil Dead Yep. The way it started doing that. Um, Yeah. I thought that was cool. It took a lot of really great elements and put it in a movie that was also funny. Yeah. And then back to the whole trauma aspect of it, right. When he shoots the thing and, when he, you know, when he shoots the thing with a shotgun gun and then all of a sudden it transforms into his, into his wife. Right. You're just like, Whoa. And he's like, freaking out. So now it's like, I just killed my wife. Right. You know, like, and so he's, now he's, his emotions already are going even. Exploding even harder now. He's not honestly going through every dealing with everything he went through in the past with Vietnam and what he's doing now in the present and what happened with his son. Now he's dealing with the fact I just shot my wife and killed her. Right. And the cops are on their way. Yeah. Yep. Ugh. Oh man. I just, it, it has really well thought out tense scenes and I appreciate that. Yeah. So there are like these moments of serious, frightening, creepy things, and then it goes back into this comedy aspect of it that, that just, that relieves you as an audience viewer. But yeah. Yeah. I love, Yeah, so, so much fun. Oh, oh. And kind of on the off thing, kind of on the other side of the visual effects that aren't really creatures. You've got those gardening tools that are going around flying, flying around the house. Oh my gosh. I think that was the only thing that I was like, I rolled my eyes at. Because here's the thing. Here's the thing, Billy. Here's the thing. Okay. As a kid, I never looked at gardening tools the same way again, Good point, good point. They could come off the wallet at any time. Time Becausecause. My parents had this shed in their backyard and they had a bunch of gar, a bunch of evil, rusty looking, gardening tools back there, and I always, every time I walked in it, it was always like my imagination was go straight to house and be like, Man, if these things come to life and start freaking floating around trying to kill me, I'm just gonna die. And you know what? I'm glad I never went into that shed, because your house was already haunted at that time. I didn't want to add to that. So, but it's, it's, it's crazy though. It's like so many things from this movie stuck with me throughout my life and like, I seared into my brain. I, I still even, like, even to this day when I see gardening tools with sharp edges and like hedge clippers and the sickle or a ho, uh, you know, all that stuff. When I see one, it's like my mind immediately reverts back like, Oh, house Right? It's so stupid. But that's what I do. It's so weird. speaking of weird scenes, so remember when. The monster pulls. Uh, the first time he, when he pulls Roger into, uh, the closet and he goes to that Vietnam scene. Yes. And George, Wes character's supposed to be holding onto the fishing line to bring him back. Yes. And then some point loses it. Yep. And then we go to a full scene where he's in Vietnam and all this stuff. And when he comes back out the closet, if you look, George went, has full on, gone into breakdown mode. he's chugging a bottle of Jack Daniels. He's got snacks everywhere. There's comic books everywhere. And you could tell he was just resigned, like, How am I going to explain this shit? I was in this dude's house, he disappeared. What do I do? So he just resigned himself to lay on the mattress that's on the floor and drink himself to death. Now I'm glad you brought that up, Billy, Because this scene mm-hmm. is William Kat's favorite scene in the movie. Really? He talked about it, uh, in the documentary that was made for the film and how he just loved George Wit's reaction to him because in that scene, before that takes place, he invites Harold over to his house to help him. Cuz the first time he brought Harold over mm-hmm. nothing happened. He like had him there to like show him the monster when he pulled the door open, nothing was there. And he is just like, Ah, crap. He's all decked out in this military gear. All that stuff. The second time around when he brings Harold over, one of the first things is he does is he takes those goggles and he puts'em on his, he puts'em on Harold's head. yes. Harold's like, what kind of like, and he loves George Wents reaction to everything that is going on in that scene. While Ka is saying all the dialogue, it's Harold's reaction that is so funny to everything that is being said, because he is like, Remember that monster I told you about? Well, it turned out to be a raccoon and I got it trapped in the closet right now. It's in there right now. He explains like how the, how this is all working and stuff like that. He's like, it hands him this harpoon gun. It's like when, when I open that door, when I open that door, Harold, Which the fire, that thing right between the eyes, he like knocks him in the face. He took his finger and he knocks him in the goggles. Right, Yep. And he just gets so serious and so over hyped and you know, and he is just building this raccoon up to be something so si serious and deadly. It's so sinister, right? Like this raccoon, you cannot miss Harold. You cannot miss, like you have to get this thing and you have to hold on. Right? And, and Harold's just like, his eyes are just like, you know, his face is just shaking and nodding and, and affirmative to, to what he's saying, Right? Right. And so Harold's reaction to when he opens up that closet and that monster comes running out and that Harold's face just like burst into like fear of craziness is just one of the best things ever. It is. I love it. And that's what I'm talking about the, even though it's got its comedic elements, there's a lot of jump, scare, real reactions to these things. Yeah, it's fantastic. Yeah. Seriously. Uh, one of the other things that I really enjoyed in the film is where he goes through the bathroom window. Oh yeah. He like breaks it and there's this complete blackness and he's like, repelling down in the darkness and this like crazy bat skeleton comes out of the dark. I'm like, Oh man, I love that design. That thing's so creepy. Cool. And then what, what always got me is that when he cuts the line, when he is hanging on the rope and the the bat skeleton thing cuts his line. Yeah. And he falls. I was like, Dude falls a long way, dude. Forget it, man. Again, it's one of those nightmares, dude. It's one of those surreal nightmares that they were trying to capture with the movie. Like we all felt that feeling of falling, like all of a sudden something breaks and like you wake up in a jolt. Yep. And you're like, That's crazy. Like it hits right in the visceral senses, man. You're like, Oh man, I would hate for that to happen. Yeah. And oh, I don't know if you noticed, but in one of the paintings of Uhhuh, the unfinished painting in the storage shed with all the tools and stuff, that painting depicts basically the story of what is happening. So it's got the kid in the window. Yeah. Which is creepy as hell. You've got the clock that strike that has the, the heads or at 12 o'clock. The garden tools are in there and everything. So it's like everything that is happening is like in that painting, like Right. With the, an like walking into the light, which is just terrifying in itself, like Right. So, uh, just a few tidbits of information to go through now. The books that Roger wrote. Oh bro. Yes. The book titles. The book titles, the best book titles, out of anything. The first one is blood dance. Mm-hmm. I want a t-shirt of the second one. Sword of bad. I need that shirt so bad. Cause I just wanted people to go. What? It'd make a great t-shirt though, dude. And I think the only people that would get it is if you went to like a horror convention like Monster Peruz. You walked around with a T-shirt that said Sword of Bad on it. Only true horror fans would understand what that meant. Yeah. But well, like I have my Steven King rules shirt and the only person at ComicCon that got it was a security guard. Yeah. Like I wore it all through the convention and the only one that got it as we're checking in, he goes, Oh hey Monster Squad. Nice. I was like, Yes. Finally somebody. But yes, I'm gonna have to definitely look into a sort of bad shirt. Yes. And if it doesn't exist, then we can just make one. Yeah. We'll just have to make it. If our friend free is listening to this, which I'm sure he eventually will, you should make a sort of bad t-shirt design for us. Please. And thank you, please, and thank you. Yes, I would appreciate it. let's see. The four sale sign at the beginning of the movie has the name of craven Realty is obviously a nod to West Craven. Legendary Horror Director. Glen Close and Sigourney Weaver were considered for the female lead role on the. I thought was interesting. Neither one would've worked. I think all the casting ended up being perfect in this movie. Yeah. I mean, Sigourney Weaver already, you just see Sigourney Weaver. It's like she would just go in there and just kill everybody and like Right. Get Roger out of that situation. when you think of Sigourney Weaver, it's like she's not gonna deal with any crap. Right. Actually, Glen close also, I, she's just got that crazed I'm not gonna be taken down. Kinda look. Yeah. And, but Dennis, I just, I think that would've taken away from like, somebody like that in that role would've taken away from the rest of the story. Yeah. No, I agree. She needed to be a forgettable background kind of character. Oh man. That's kind of makes it sad for the actress that played the character Well, that that's what we needed though. Like, cuz you didn't want. to be thinking about her. I know I was busting your balls, Billy. Oh, I love my balls. Dennis Fran auditioned for the role of the real estate broker. Hmm. There you go. And you know who Dennis France is, right? Billy? Yes. Okay. Yep. Does everybody else know who Dennis France is? Let's just hope they do. He was in this wonderful little indie film called Bottle Shock. Wow. All right. He was in, Get shorty at a bunch of other things. The guy's done a ton of stuff, but you know who Dennis France is. If I need to explain it to you, get out of town. Get out of town, okay? The film originally ended with an unrelated monster in the pool that needed to be defeated to rescue the boy, right? But the director wondered if the missing boy could be tied to the Vietnam subplot. Roger originally dropped from the rope into the water, found his boy fighting a monster underwater, and then fought to rescue him. Before surfacing in the pool, Wiley, the writer, agreed on minor's point and wrote a new ending, which works wonderfully to bring it all together. Them rising from the pool was the original end, but they added the arrival of a skeleton. Big Ben played by Richard Mole. Yes. Big Ben Billy. Let's talk about Big Ben. Yeah, let's talk about that. Cause uh, I used to be scared of Big Ben, like up until this most recent viewing. He is always like this scary monster. Why is that Billy? Because he's huge. He's huge. These huge zombie skeleton looking dude. And then those on, further review those closeup shots. You can see the guy in the suit talking as the motorized mouth is going. So he is got two mouths. The one inside and the one that's supposed to be on the outside. Yes, it is. It was quite funny, funny. And it's something I, I don't know why I never noticed it before, but I didn't. But yeah, you could see the double mouth. Yeah, it was, it was hilarious. But it did take away. From some of the scariness of him. Yeah. Yeah. But he was great. The guy who was actually in that suit, apparently like the skull mask was like really tied on his face and like was like pressing up against his nose a lot. And apparently he had to be in this suit for a long time and it just really kind of like messed him up. Oh really? Like, Like it was kind of like a mental challenge. A mental pain challenge to get through that for him. Okay. But I kind of wanna go through some lines of dialogue from Big Ben because that guy had some good quotes in this movie. Oh man. Yeah. Yeah. And one that I quoted often when I was a child really was Damn. Come back from the grave and run out of ammunition. Yes. I used that line while playing with my GI Joe's so many times. It's such a good line though. It makes sense. So funny, but like when Ben is chasing Roger through the house, like he is just spinning off one line after another. Like he start pissing me off, Roger you lost Buddy. You know, just like little things. Yeah. Uh, it's funny, when I was looking for quotes, I found this thing that says 100 big Ben skeleton quotes in house 1985. And I'm like, Oh man, a hundred. And I'm like, Oh, there's like 10 right there. Aren't not hundred here. Get outta town. But anyway, you get it. Ben was a fun character though. Oh, I loved Ben. He's probably my favorite part of the whole movie besides George went. They were a package deal. It was great. But during that scene, when let chased him through house, things are fun. Mostly through that, it's mostly playful horror, you know, he is shooting machine guns runs out of bullets. He starts like, you know, grabbing after him. This is one point Roger goes out the window and then Ben sticks his hand up and he is like trying to grab him. And it's just, it's a weird visual, but it's always stuck with me. And then you get this close up of Ben's face where you like, just makes this, ah, Sound, you're just like, Okay. And then at one point he gets a hold of Roger's son and why Ben wants to kill Roger's son. I'll never understand. Like, why does he want to hurt him so bad that he's willing to like kill his son? And at one point he's got the son, he's got his son, he's, you know, in his grasp and he says, I'm gonna kill your little boy unless you kill yourself. Like, what is going on here like this? Demonn goes, really need some heavy therapy Right. Well, I mean, he's always felt, Roger's always felt super guilty because he left Ben lying there to go get help, and then the vie con grabbed him and took him away. Yeah. And he begged and Ben begged him to kill him. Like, Kill me, Roger, kill me. And but wouldn't he understand why he couldn't kill his best friend? Like, isn't that understandable? And apparently this, this ghost was playing, That's what Rogers torment was the whole time. I know, I, I, I know. But it's still like one of those things where it's just like, you just can't help but think about it, it just went deep. The, the demonn went dark. The Demonn, the demonn definitely went dark. Um, it's just crazy how like all these monsters and everything was just had to do with what he was dealing with from the past. And at the same time trying to figure out what the heck happened to his son. Right, Right. Here's my question. Yes. Question. Give me, gimme a question, Billy, because I have an answer for you. How long was his son in the upside down? I don't have an answer for you, Billy. I just don't have an answer. I'm gonna say, know what mean though. It had to have been a few years, right? Because the wife, him and the wife were separated. There wasn't a lot of age difference. It had to have been a year or two. Right. That's what, that's what I think. Because the missing of the sun was still pretty fresh. Yeah. Because there's that moment where he is talking to his wife on the phone. He's like, Oh, why? She's asked him like, Oh, why do you keep doing to yourself? Why did you go back there? You know? Like, it's something, Right. So it, it had to have been fairly recent, I'd say a year or two. Right. So he was there that whole. That's messed up. Oh, Billy, I'm gonna go into like some deep thought here because now I'm like, so the house took the kid, right? But Roger's dealing with the Vietnam stuff and all of the monsters and all of this stuff he's going through are, is kind of a personification of his, of his experience in Vietnam. So why did the house take the kid in the first place? Right? Just to be an evil house? Just to be an evil house. Yeah. Just to be a jerk. Well, and that's okay. So no, actually I kind of have a theory on that. Oh, I wanna hear it go. Okay. Theorized. So I think let it be true. Why? Yeah. I think that's why his aunt killed herself because maybe her demons were dealing with something in her past that dealt with the child and she felt so bad that his child got mixed up in it, that she couldn't take it anymore. Ah. And hoping that he could come in and take him back. Wow. Interesting. Okay. But look at this Bill, I'm gonna take this a little bit further and kind of go in a direction that you probably haven't thought about before. Do it. Why the hell didn't they just move the hell out of the house? Why? Going through this hellish experience, why is Roger still sticking around dealing with this crap? Why did I mean, okay, the sun disappeared. I get it. All right. Nevermind. I answered my own question. Yeah, but he's writing the book and he doesn't think he's gonna get his son back. Right? But it must be somewhere in the back of his mind. He had to have been think. Yeah. I answered my own question and I didn't. I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah, you did it See the deep thoughts at the end of the podcast? Yeah, exactly. Uh, alright, here we go. The kid who played Roger's son, Jimmy. Mm-hmm. for legal purposes they had to use twins to play Roger Cop's son, right? Yeah. And producer Sean S. Cunningham. Jokes, and it's a dark joke, but he did say this at one point, It's, it's insurance in case one of the twins get sick or drowns, Oh no, it's so bad. So bad. You can't say jokes like that anymore. Everybody, you just can't, So in an interview, we're almost done here guys. We're almost done. I just wanna get it kind of wrap things up here, but in an interview, Fred Decker is asked, Looking back, is there anything you would've done differently? And he says, as stated, my version of the house was very different than the one they made. But in the final analysis, I'm not sure mine would've been as successful. What Ethan and Steve brought to the project was a sense of fun, whereas I wanted to do something doer and unrelenting and probably kind of a bummer. So it probably worked out best in the end, except of course for Sean Cunningham not paying me the cheap bastard. Yeah. And he said, Just kidding, Sean. The paintings in the house. Mm. There were some, those were, a lot of those were just creepy ass paintings. When you watch the movie, take a closer look at'em cuz you're gonna see some really weird stuff. Uh, Yeah, they were very strange. But when the artist, one of the artists who worked on that, was Richard, he Scott, and he also worked alongside bill Stout and Paul Chadwick. And he was asked if any of those paintings that hung on the walls in that house are still out there. And he says, I've got one left. And that's the one of the swordfish spearing director Joe Dante So there is a painting in there that shows a swordfish spearing director, Joe Dante. But all the other ones were sold over the years, but I guess some of them must still exist somewhere. It'd be cool to find it. Yeah. Uh, the other thing that I just wanted to bring up real quick is the title of the movie in Hong Kong when it came out was not called House. It was called Don't Go Into the Haunted House After Midnight I mean, it kind of covers it. Yep. And also, you know what I mean? I love the poster of the movie with the disembodied hand, zombie skeleton, hand ringing the doorbell. I, Yes, it's a, it's again, one of those visuals has always stuck with me ever since I was a kid. I love that design. Even though that never happens in the film, we never see, uh, dead hand ring a doorbell. It's still just a great freaking visual. We do get to see a dead hand on a child. Ah, that's, that's about it. That's true. But it's not a skeleton hand. It's a chopped off hand of a blue monster woman. Yeah, of course. Was with like crazy red fingernails always like, really made me uncomfortable that that creature just made me feel so uncomfortable. Ugh. Yeah, I get it. I don't know. Anyway. That's house everybody. If you have not watched this movie ever, and there's a chance, some of you may have never seen this movie, you should watch it. It's, it still holds up. It is still a very fun movie. It's still great. And if you have seen the film, it is worth watching again. It's currently on Amazon right now. That's where we got caught up with it. Uh, I also own it on Blueray. I own the Arrow special edition of it, House One and House two, which comes with a great little booklet and lots of special features. So that was a fun buy. Great. Yeah, it's wonderful. Wonderful. But I did watch it on Amazon, but then I took out the disc to watch the documentary on the making of the film, which was very, That's really cool. Interesting as well. So if you get the dvd, you get to watch a documentary too. And I tried to find that documentary on YouTube, but it is not there. So the only place you can watch it is on the DVD special feature. That's really freaking cool. I'm gonna have to pick that up cuz Yeah, that those House one and two is one of my favorite horror movie sequels. Yeah. Duos, I guess. Yeah. Just cuz they play hand in hand. Yeah. You go from the, it, it feels like a seamless transition. You go from, Roger Cobb end of that movie, gets rid of the house, gets bought up and the new owner has troubles too. Yeah, exactly. It's fantastic. And, and who doesn't have in it Billy? It's got John Katzenberg. Yeah. So we got both characters from Cheers in the first and the second, which is awesome. And I love the sequel too, cuz it's like a western it, it, it is a Western and I love it. I love it. So we will, we will talk about that not directly after this one. We have other horror movies you wanna talk about because we are entering Halloween season and we want to talk about horror movies for the next couple months. Couple classic horror movies are coming up. Oh, and before we go, one more thing that I wanna talk about on this movie. The freaking musical score is amazingly creepy. Guys. I love this musical score. The musical score for this film was created by Harry Man, Fred Dini, and he also wrote the music for Friday, the Friday the 13th movies. But anyway, so you could hear the similarities, but I love the creepy ass music in a house, so, uh, when you watch it, just enjoy the music as well. Yeah. I'm excited to talk about stuff, everybody. but throughout this podcast, we kinda gave you all our quotes. We talked about all of our favorite scenes in this movie. Go watch it. Thank you for listening to everybody, as always. We appreciate it. Also, don't forget, follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Our handle is at GT secret level. Yes. Follow us, Leave us messages. Reach out, say hi. Throw out some movie ideas that we could, uh, talk about. It's not like, we're not like hurting for ideas. We've got like hundreds of movies and TV shows and video games you wanna get to, but, uh, you know, we'll just get to it faster. One thing at a time, one thing at a time. We can take things earlier. We're taking requests, everybody. Billy and Joey, you are taking requests. Uh, what also, geek tyrant.com for all your movie news, entertainment, everything. We do it all. Geek tyrant.com. Well, I'm writing like 18,000 articles a day. 18,000. Ah, not really. Uh, I wish. But we are keeping it updated. We've got a great writing staff that is always doing some great stuff. Billy's wife is one of them. Yes, she is. Like, she, she does such a wonderful job for us but again, thank you so much everybody. We really appreciate you listening and stay tuned for next week because we have more cool movie discussions to go through with you. In the meantime. Good journey. Good journey. It's one won. Roger it tricked. It didn't. I didn't think it could, but it did. It's gonna trick you to Roger. The House knows everything about you. Leave while you can wait. No