Flatliners

01/19/21 • 59 min

2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

Thanks to Hailee for submitting a request for this week’s tribute to Joel Schumacher, who passed away last year. Stylistically, Flatliners in some ways is the quintessential 90’s movie, including this ensemble of young up-and-coming stars at their prime. Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, with even a Baldwin brother thrown in there for good measure.

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Flatliners (1990)

Episode 244, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

Todd: hello and welcome to another episode of two guys and a chainsaw. I’m Todd and I’m Craig. We continue our tributes, the reef this month by paying tribute. You to a director, who’s put out some very notorious films over the years, definitely made his stamp on cinema and has had a very, very interesting past.

His name is Joel Schumacher and he died of a heart attack last year. And today’s film that we’re reviewing is a request from one of our listeners, Hailey. She wanted us to do Flatliners. Now, Flatliners, I think is one of those films that Joel Schumacher did just before he started doing Batman movies, I think.

And. I believe it was Kiefer Sutherland that called this movie St. Elmo’s funeral or the breadth

Craig: breakfast club dies. Yeah.

Todd: And you can kind of see why this is, this is sort of like a nineties brat pack movie. It certainly doesn’t start any of the original brat pack, but it’s got Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin bacon, Oliver.

What’s his name? Oliver Platt Pratt Oliver. Oliver Platt and one of the Baldwins. Yeah. And, uh, so you know, these guys, especially, um, this was a few years after Joel Schumacher did the lost boys and we have reviewed the lost boys in the spoon on the show before. And, uh, we had nothing but great things to say about it.

It was certainly his previous work with Kiefer Sutherland. I think that brought, that helped him bring Kiefer Sutherland back into this movie to do. A very good role. I think this, he said that the reason that he chose Kiefer Sutherland for this role was just his intensity coming through as sort of our main protagonist, if you will, of this, otherwise, you know, it’s, it’s a, it’s a ensemble film really.

Craig: Yeah, well, and, and Schumacher and Sutherland worked together several more times after this, too. I think that they must have had a really positive working

Todd: relationship. Yeah. You know, I, I’ve always known the name, Joel Schumacher. I’ve known that he’s done a lot of movies when I was going through his Uber guar man.

So many of these movies, um, were not only mainstream heads, but some of them have really left a profound impact on me. He did a Batman forever. Which, you know, Tim Burton did the first two Batman movies and Tim Burton really is credited, I think could be credited with bringing superhero movies really back into the mainstream.

After Superman. He just took Batman. The idea of the dark night. And really gave a style to that movie. And remember, God, remember that movie when it came out, it was huge. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it was an event and it was also a superhero movie, like we’d never seen before. And certainly Batman, like most of us had never seen him before on screen, dark and brooding.

And the style that he brought to that film was just incredible. Then he followed it up with Batman returns and Batman returns. He was given a hundred percent creative control over that. Tim Burton was, and it didn’t turn out so well for him. Um, it just wasn’t as popular. It wasn’t as highly regarded. It didn’t make as much money.

Although I think it’s a great movie, actually. I really like it. I do too. Then the reins were handed over to Joel Schumacher for the third one, Batman forever and yeah. Once again, he just added a whole new style to the franchise with Batman forever. Jim Carrey was the Riddler in that one. And I remember just really enjoying that, really enjoying the style that he brought to it that still had some of that darkness, but add a little bit of comedy and color to it.

I felt like. Anyway, it struck a pretty good balance. And I haven’t seen that movie in ages, but I do remember

Craig: liking it. I remember enjoying it at the time, but if we’re going to be honest, I feel like Joel Schumacher is kind of credited with killing the Batman franchise for the time. Certainly

Todd: was with the followup to that.

Right. Batman and Robin, which was. A nightmare of a movie. I mean, you’re right. Is, is actually put on the list as one of the worst films ever. I don’t think it deserves that,

Craig: but, but it was really goofy, like really goofy, you know,...

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Flatliners (1990)

Episode 244, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

And. I believe it was Kiefer Sutherland that called this movie St. Elmo’s funeral or the breadth

Craig: breakfast club dies. Yeah.

Craig: Yeah, well, and, and Schumacher and Sutherland worked together several more times after this, too. I think that they must have had a really positive working

Todd: relationship. Yeah. You know, I, I’ve always known the name, Joel Schumacher. I’ve known that he’s done a lot of movies when I was going through his Uber guar man.

I felt like. Anyway, it struck a pretty good balance. And I haven’t seen that movie in ages, but I do remember

Craig: liking it. I remember enjoying it at the time, but if we’re going to be honest, I feel like Joel Schumacher is kind of credited with killing the Batman franchise for the time. Certainly

Todd: was with the followup to that.

Right. Batman and Robin, which was. A nightmare of a movie. I mean, you’re right. Is, is actually put on the list as one of the worst films ever. I don’t think it deserves that,

Craig: but, but it was really goofy, like really goofy, you know,...

Previous Episode

Tenebre

For the second of our tribute series this month, we’re killing two birds with one stone by honoring two people we lost last year.

John Saxon was a longstanding veteran of screen and TV, with more than 200 credits to his name, perhaps most prominent in the horror community for his role as Nancy’s mother in the Nightmare on Elm Street series.

Daria Nicolodi may not be a household name in the USA, but as a frequent collaborator and lover of Dario Argento, she had a role in some of his most notorious Italian horror and giallo pics, including a star turn in Deep Red and as the co-writer of Suspiria.

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Tenebrae (1982)

Episode 243, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.

Todd: hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, here we are three weeks now in today. The new year. And after our new year’s episode, we said that we were going to do some tribute episodes, tribute to the people that we lost in 2020 that we weren’t able to get to in 2020.

So last week we did David Prouse who had played Darth Vader in the earlier star Wars films. And, uh, this week where we got a twofer, two people who are, should be pretty well known to the horror community, maybe one more than the John Saxon and Aria Nicolodi both died last year, John sax and I believe of pneumonia, but anyway, Daria Nicolodi is.

A fixture in some of the most popular of Dario Argento films. She is the writer of Suspiria. She was supposed to star in that movie, but, uh, she got an injury and they brought in someone else to star in that film, but she did write the picture. Um, and that’s. Pretty significant because she was in a relationship with Dario Argento.

They have a daughter together, AZA Argento, who is an actress and writer and director in her own. Right. So she was in quite a few of his films. In fact, he met her when he was casting for deep red and she ended up starring in it. And that was the beginning of their relationship. She’s been in a few movies, actually that we’ve done, we’ve done deep red, we’ve done phenomena.

And she started an opera and we did opera as well. So, uh, today we’re going to do another Dario Argento movie, Tena Bray. Many people say this is one of his best films. And it also happens to have a role for another actor that we lost last year. John Saxon. John Saxon may be more well-known to the American crowd has been, has over 200 film roles and television roles to his name, very striking kind of leading man type guy in the early sixties, played a ton of different roles and then had quite a bit of a turn at horror.

He was, of course Nancy’s father in nightmare on Elm street and reply reprised that role a couple times during the series, a black Christmas, one of our all-time favorites. He is the police, the detective in there. And in this film, he plays a role that honestly, I he’s played a lot of stuff. Right. And I have not seen hardly any of his.

Huge repertoire of films, but the horror ones. So I’m used to seeing him as a very more somber, serious kind of driven guy and all these police roles. So for me, anyway, it was really nice to see him have a role as a literary agent in this movie where he’s just kind of, um, Schmoozing smiling, energetic guy.

And I was a side of him I hadn’t seen before. So even though his part isn’t so large in this film, I think it’s a fitting tribute considering we’ve done some of his more popular ones already, you know, Craig, uh, you know, uh, I love Argento. We’ve done four or five. This will maybe be the fifth film of his that we’ve done so far.

And I believe that when you come into these Italian horror films, it’s a bit of a mixed bag for you. Sometimes you really like them. Sometimes they’re a little too weird. Uh, sometimes they’re quite frankly quite stupid, but Argento is a little bit higher on the top of the pack with his films. And this is definitely a classic Argento.

Jolo. Uh, right down to the gloved hands and the killer POV and the mystery. And then one of his calling cards, usually the mystery solved by something that one of the characters needs to go back and remember, you know, something they saw that they had to kind of piece together. And I was really hoping that that would be the case in this one.

And it was in fact, which is fun because whenever you’re watching a mystery, you do kind of want to have a. Fighting chance at being able to figure it out. Right. And so I have confidence most of the time watching his films that. At least as giallo pictures that when there’s a mystery involved, I pay really, really close attention and try to figure it out by the end.

I ha...

Next Episode

Orca

Ennio Morricone passed away last year, leaving behind music scored for more than 400 films and television – which made him the most prolific composer of all time. His score for Once Upon A Time In The West is one of the best-selling film scores of all time, at an estimated 10 million copies sold.

Needless to say, we had a lot to choose from for our tribute episode to this legendary contributor to cinema history, and indeed we have already covered several films he has scored, such as The Thing, The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, and Exorcist 2: The Heretic. We chose the Jaws knock-off “Orca” because...well, it’s a movie we’d always wanted to check out. And boy, were we pleasantly surprised.

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Orca (1977)

2 Guys and a Chainsaw, Episode 245

Todd: hello and welcome to another episode of two guys in the chainsaw. I’m Todd. And I’m Craig, once again, this week, we continue our series of tributes to people who we lost last year in 2021 person. I think about midway through the year. Last year may not be known to too many people, but you’ve definitely heard his music.

Ennio Morricone and he was a pretty famous and extremely prolific composer of film scores, especially during the sixties and seventies. Uh, well into the eighties, starting out, of course, in Italian cinema and crossing over into a ton, a ton of productions. And so, uh, yeah, we lost him last year and we have done some films, uh, on this podcast that he has scored and he did in fact score a couple geology picks that, uh, I would love to get to, but knowing that, uh, Craig would probably send a glove to kill her to my house, to murder me.

If I made him go through another jello pick. Eventually so soon after we did Tena Bray a couple of weeks ago, uh, I decided, uh, to pick one that both he and I were very interested in seeing, and this is 1970 sevens Orca, the killer whale, basically a jaws knockoff produced by Dino de Laurentiis, who specialized in this sort of thing.

The, I guess the story that I read was that a dealer entas called Luciano. Vincent. Zoney a writer that he collaborated with or worked with quite a, quite a lot in the middle of the night and was like, Hey, we need to do some kind of jaws thing. And the guy had admitted that he had seen jaws and started to research killer whales and found that there’s a lot of subject matter.

There there’s a lot you can play with on the killer whale angle. Maybe even argue that they’re a little more dangerous than great white sharks are. And so they took that and ran with it and came up with what I think. Ends up being I’m more Moby Dick than jaws. Yeah. It has its moments. I was really excited to see this movie just because it’s the film that I grew up hearing a lot about, you know, we just kinda knew it was there.

Maybe it showed up on TV every once in awhile knew about it as this jaws knockoff, I always intended to see and never got to see until now. So, uh, here we are, we’re able to talk about the movie, talk about the score behind it and tribute to Ennio Morricone. How about you, Craig? Had you seen it? No,

Craig: I hadn’t.

Uh, like you said, just like you, I had been aware of it and had thought that it was, you know, kind of a jaws, not. Off whatever killer whale, terrorizing people in this small community. When we were talking about, you know, doing this tribute, you did throw out a couple of things and to be fair to me, I said, we can do whatever you want.

If you want to do another giallo a week. Yeah. I’ve

Todd: been married long enough to know sometimes when people say something

you might want to think twice about, uh, following them down

Craig: now. No, it’s fine. You very graciously said. And I just said, I’ve always been interested in seeing this just because I knew it existed. And I don’t know. I it’s not as though I necessarily. Heard a lot about it. I just knew that it was out there and I just expected that being a jaws knockoff, that it was going to be bad.

And that’s what I said to you. I’m like, dude, pick what you want. Orca is going to be bad. I want to see it eventually, but it’s going to be bad. And then I watched it. And I didn’t think it was that bad. I

Todd: thought it was perfectly fine. I mean, to be honest, you’re absolutely right. It’s probably better than a lot of the sequels to jaws ended up being.

Craig: It is. And really in terms of. A lot of things, really, there were things that I really liked about it. Like there’s a lot of real life whale footage and underwater photography, and it looks really good. And even the fake whales that they use looks shockingly real. Like I read...