260: House of Wax Revisited

What do you think? I think we're dead meat. Real dead meat. You're dead meat! Go ahead and laugh, you guys. Find the final little glasses of business. You're dead meat. Welcome to the Dead Meat Podcast, your horror safe haven. I'm Chelsea. And I'm James, and we're married, and we like to get scared together. And I'm James, and we're married, and we like to get scared together. And you're not seeing double... Oh, that's actually appropriate for this movie. Sometimes we repeat ourselves. Sometimes we repeat ourselves. Such as today, when we're trying something for the first time, we're revisiting a movie previously covered on the podcast. Yes, because the original episode was... In case you didn't see the title of the episode, somehow House of Wax, the remake of a remake, which our episode came out, I think in 2018. It was. It was the first year of the podcast. The first year of the podcast. Okay, so that feels appropriate to revisit. And it's one that people still email me about, tweet at me about. This is one that people, out of every movie we've reviewed on this podcast, is the one that I think really got under people's skin that we didn't like. Yeah. It's House of Wax. And so, you know, we've talked about this for a while now, doing this episode, like revisiting it, because I think back then, I know that I was much more cynical towards movies, and like, I knew... If I knew a movie was supposed to be bad, I was more inclined to be like, this is a bad movie. Fuck this movie. And now I feel like I can appreciate films on a broader basis. They don't have to be masterpieces for me to enjoy them. And so we want to take another look at this movie that so many people do enjoy, and that we... See if we gave it a fair wrap. Yes. And it's been in the conversation too, just the discussion of when we like stuff versus when we don't like stuff. It came up a lot in response to the Stranger Things episode. I saw a lot of people bringing up the House of Wax episode in terms of just how people feel when we don't like something that they like. It's so... This movie's so funny that this is the one that really makes people feel stuff. Well... Yeah. Uh-oh. Well, no, here's the thing. We've been talking about doing this episode, and so we finally watched the movie. I had a decent time watching it. I had a better time this time. It's still too long. Jesus Christ, it's too long. It's too long, but I didn't feel as impatient with it. No. I think the biggest change is that I'm a Dalton fan. I like Dalton. Oh, I enjoy Dalton too. Big Dalton fan now. Yeah. But here's the thing. We watched the movie, and I took all my little notes, and I was like, I'm not gonna re-listen to the old podcast because when I do kill recounts, for instance, I don't watch the old ones. I just want to approach it with fresh eyes and completely new slate. Yeah, and I... Today, I had a commute. I got stuck in some traffic, and I put on the old episode. I just had a hunch. It was like, I should listen to this. And boy am I glad I did, because, man, I do not have an original thought knocking around in the skull of mine. Yep, and you told me to do it, so I also did re-listen to the old episode, and I'm a little concerned about today's episode because all the things I wrote and the brilliant jokes that I had and the incisive commentary, we already fucking did. It's crazy how... This is such a weird thing that I don't think you really get to experience unless you do something like what we do, where you have a record of things that you've said years ago, where I don't remember saying any of this shit. And last night, we're sitting on the couch. We're cracking jokes. We're making jokes with each other. This is good, this is good. I'm saying, oh, you know what? I think that this sign on the building is a reference to this, and I Google it, and I go, oh yeah, I totally think it is. That's what you said eight years ago. And that's something I said in the episode, where I don't remember saying that at all. It's crazy. And I think people who maybe don't have records of their thoughts just assume wrongfully that they remember everything they've said or they'll have listened to the old episode way more recently than us, and so they're like, no, but you said that, remember? And we're like, no, we don't. That's why when we play the Dead Me Out of Context game, it's like, dude, I don't... Fucked, yeah. So... It's like, if your brain's a computer, it's like you empty the recycling bin, you know? Well, it's like RAM. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You gotta clear your memory cache, clear the cookies. Yeah, this shit's being stored on RAM, not on the hard drives, let me tell you. So I am a little concerned. I'm gonna be honest. This'll be a good exercise, I think. This'll be good. We're gonna stretch our brains and try and not make this the Psycho 98 of podcast episodes, where it's just the same shit. Just, it looks... My voice is a little different, because my voice is different, for sure. Or it just kind of looks different. Yeah. I have... You have Molly instead of Lucy. I have longer hair. Yeah. You know. Molly is the Anne Heshes butthole of... Yeah. Because you are a little asshole, Molly. Yeah. Also, fuck what was I gonna say? It's interesting, though, because it's been long enough that certain things have changed just culturally. One, I talk in the episode about how much it's gonna suck when culturally we are nostalgic for the 2000s. The 2000s. Baby, we are full on in 2000s nostalgia. Dude, we got a fucking blue... We got early 20-somethings nostalgic for the 2010s. Like, it's a little too soon there. Too soon. Zoomers, calm down. Yeah. I don't think we should ever be nostalgic for the 2000s. Maybe certain things. Parts of it. Parts of it. And then early 2010s were kind of cool. I miss LMFAO. I miss Party Rockin'. I'm nostalgic for that. I guess like, recession music was fun. I can't think of much else that I get really nostalgic for. The other thing is, though, that that is an all-time or episode, the original House of Wax. It's really good. It's a good episode. I was listening to it. I was like, this is Fix Your Script. Fix Your Script. Came from that. Fix Your Fucking Script. No, because we have to have parallels, James. And themes. Themes. Fix Your Script. Is it for us to care more about her? Didn't work. Cool. Competent directing. Fix Your Script. Fix Your Script. Fuck you. Fix Your Movie. The jokes were good. Obviously, I still want to make them. I enjoyed listening to it more than I thought. I have such an aversion listening to old episodes. I was shocked that you were willing to do it. Yes, whenever I have to pull clips from old episodes, I make an editor do it because I hate doing it so much. It's an anxiety thing. But I was like, no, I need to this time. I'm just going to force myself. And I was surprised at how okay I was with it. It made me feel nostalgic. Yeah. So that was fun. Oh, another thing culturally that has changed. And I just need to say it because I'm really excited and proud of this man. Damon Harriman, actor Damon Harriman, back when we recorded the original episode. He was about to play Charles Manson. He was a future Charles Manson. And now he's a two-time Charles Manson. Now he's a two-time Charles Manson. In Mine Hunter and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. And he's a one-time Robbie Williams manager in the film Better Man. And he was in the movie together as the neighbor. That's right. He's great in that. What else did we just see him in? Yeah, he's doing real well. He's showing up everywhere. He's doing better than most of the rest of this cast is nowadays, I think. He's a character actor. Being a character actor is the way to go, man. Yeah. You get roles like past, you don't, you just evolve with the time rather than growing out of your role that you're... Okay, he voiced Cabal in the Mortal Kombat movie. And he is going to be in Mortal Kombat 2 as Quan Chi. What the fuck? Really? Yeah. Oh, shit. Wow. Damon. Quan Chi, dude. Is he going to shave his head for that? Damon Harriman, anytime you want to come on the podcast, open slot for you. We can talk about whatever you want. Yeah. Especially Better Man. Especially Mortal Kombat. But especially Mortal Kombat and Better Man. Robbie Williams' chimp style DLC in Mortal Kombat. Yes. Mm-hmm. Netherrealm. Get on it. Please, Netherrealm. I guess let's get back into House of Wax from 2005. The movie made by a bunch of talented people as we discussed previously. Yes. Okay, let's see. The director of Orphan. Yes. Did he also do Orphan 2? No. That was a different person. Orphan 2 is crazy. I love Orphan 2. Orphan 2 is great. Yeah. Now they're having orphans. I'm so excited. It's very much in the Saw universe of camp where we just ignored that it doesn't make any sense in terms of... It is pretty Saw-like. And Gressel, maybe you would be into Orphan. I think you would be into the Orphan movies. That's the one with the... Didn't you do Orphan on the podcast? We did. We did the sequel. Yes. I think where the adult woman pretends to be a child. Yes. Yes. Fuck. Damn. It's fine. Even if you know... Which I knew that going in, it's still... Yeah. I don't think you knew that in the first movie, going in. Yeah, I did. I don't think you did. That's the whole thing. No, it's not. It was a mystery. I'm pretty sure that you didn't go in. It's the whole thing is that it's a mystery and it's a fucking mind fuck. Yeah, but I saw it not when it came out. I don't know. I don't know about that. I don't know about that. I think you were blown away and I think it's... Your mind is retroactively decided that you knew it going in. Oh, he also directed Black Adam. The Rock movie? Yeah. That changed the power structure of DC? Yeah. That ended up actually being like the best grossing DC movie out of all the ones that came after it and people kind of owe rock and apology for that. Wait, really? At the time it was seen as a failure. In retrospect, it did way better than everything that came after it. Really? DC-wise, yeah. Not the new Superman. Not the new Superman. It said failed to break even at the box office. Yes. Oh, just because it was so expensive. Yeah. Okay. I also did the woman in the yard, which I didn't see. Oh, yeah. Did you see it? Yeah. Horrible. Really? Horrible. Horrible. One of my least favorite horror movies I've seen in the past few years. Very dull and then the end message is like, what the fuck? It's bad. That makes me kind of curious about it. No. You think it's not entertaining but bad? It's boring and then at the end you're like, did that movie just say what I think it said to say? No, it's bad. Okay. That was dookie. Oh, he's got an upcoming movie with Neltyger free in it. Okay. I think needs more recognition in general for her first Omen performance. Did she just miss the best actor nominee for us at the awards? I can't remember. I think she just missed it in that fucking song. Just because that year was crazy in any other year. Yeah. But she's incredible. So I can't wait to see what else she's up to. This movie could have gotten a prime rib nominee for best kill. Yes. Good kills. Which kill do you think is the best one? Hard to beat Paris Hilton. I kind of think the Jared Padalecki one is my favorite. With the face? Yes. I mean, I talk about this in our original episode, but it's one where when you think about it, it's so fucked up. Oh, yeah. No, it's really traumatizing. And it's so, I think, unique. The pull through the head is great. Yeah. You know what? I feel like this one, this episode, I feel like almost everyone has already heard the original one. So I don't think we have to go plop by ploppy. Yeah, I agree. Let's get a little more Lucy Goose. Yeah. Paris Hilton gets killed by someone chucks up fucking pulled. She gets javelined through the head. Through the head, pins her to a wall, and then she falls forward with the pull and then slides further down the pole. And then it gets pulled out through the back of her head. It's real good. Yeah. I just think the wax, like him being a wax figure and then Dalton coming in and being like, oh, buddy, I'm going to get you out of here. No, no, that's a different thing. No, I know. Is it also like a, hey, is that you? And he just starts poking and prodding at his face. And peeling his face, but then he starts being like, oh, I'm sorry, dude. And then he keeps peeling it. He keeps peeling it, which to be fair, I bet it's really satisfying. Yeah, it's like dried glue on your hand. Yes. You know, especially if you get it a little bit on the nail, then it's the sweet spot you're peeling it on. Or like one of those baby footpeels. Yeah. Where if you can get it all to come off in one spot. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're in one piece. You ever do a baby footpeel, Gressel? Baby footpeel. Do you know what we're talking about? I vaguely know what you're talking about. Baby footpeel is you, you get a plastic little booty. Oh my God. I know. So I got distracted and covering the dog's eyes because Lucy just came in. She wants in here so bad. I know. You know that dog can smell her. We're making progress. You know the dog can smell her. We're making progress. Yeah, this is the furthest she's been in. Nice, Lucy. Good girls. Good girls. It's a new year for both of you. Baby footpeels, you get a little plastic booty. It's filled with not like a boot. It's filled with chemicals. It's filled with chemicals. Question mark. And you put it on your foot and you tie it off and then you sit there with it on your foot for like, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes. Yeah. And then you take it off, you wash it off, and then for the next like two weeks, dude, your skin is just. What is the utility? Then after you peel off all that dead, calloused foot skin, you got a real nice baby soft feet. But why? Because it feels good. And then you try to, we always try to get like the biggest piece possible. Well, sure. Yeah, that I understand. I don't even care about the end result. I do it for the process. This is one of our gross couple activities is we'll do baby footpeels together in time. So our skin starts peeling at the same time. And then we sit there like a gold thing or gold member and peel off our skin. Just comparing the size that you get because of your foot. You can get a pretty big. You can go up a little bit of the ankle. All you couples out there, you're looking for a fun budget activity. And it's like five bucks on Amazon, dude. Make sure that you're not planning to wear open toe shoes anywhere for the next couple weeks because you're going to be shedding skin flakes everywhere. Anyway, I just think also the reason I like the Jared Palak you want is because it uses the wax. Yeah, it uses the wax. Like you're not going to get that specific kind of kill in any other movie. Whereas the pull through the head, I could see that being done in like a Friday movie. Even the location of the Paris Hilton kill seems very out of place for this movie. It's this random garage in a factory or something. A mill. They it's kind of blinking. You miss it. And we did blink and miss it in the original episode. But they say in near the very end, the police are like, well, we found there's this abandoned factory where the brothers were taking the cars of people that they also see is like a bunch of phones because she's like it's the wrong turn stash of all the previous victims stuff. Right. Yeah. And this movie, yeah, it has the wrong turn element. It also we must have watched this before diving into tourist trap because this movie's very very tourist trap, which is fantastic. Tourist trap is great. Could use a remake. And wax work. Oh, I guess a little, I guess. Yeah. I mean, just because the wax, the wax. Yeah. We also ragged on the soundtrack a little bit in the original. I'm like, we tried to be like, I think it was just the matter of being cynical because we're like, well, we like this music in other contexts than this. It's like trying to know this soundtrack is great. I think maybe we're a bit more removed now, too, from just, I don't know, maybe it feels even more nostalgic now. Maybe. Yeah, I guess. It's a fun soundtrack. It's very of its time. It's very of its time. The 2000s. Yeah. Got the emo rock, got the industrial stuff going on, but I love it. Yeah. It's good stuff. Yeah, I do, too. I feel like I had thought Dalton was more of like a sex pest, but he's not. He's not. He's just weird. Yeah. He's just kind of a guy. I compared him this time to every scene he's in because he does kind of serve not no purpose. He is just kind of there to be the he's there to serve Chad Michael Murray's character in terms of like you think that Chad Michael Murray did this thing, but actually it was Dalton's fault and he's taking the fall for a kind of thing because he's actually a good guy and he's also the weird comedic. Yeah, he's the guy. Yeah. He's the Jamie Kennedy of this group. Yes, absolutely. I forget. I think it's the scene with the truck where when they throw the bottle at the headlight and Dalton screams that he's like, yeah, that's right. No, he literally like limp biscuits it. He's like, what? Yeah. Yeah. What? Yeah. Yeah. And he's wearing that crazy yellow outfit that they're all. They did like the makeover. Yeah. And they're all so close to saying the Epsilon about it. I'm shocked that we don't get a hard F in this movie. But that scene looks like when you're playing a video game and a cut scene happens and you forget to take your character out of the stupid outfit they're wearing because he looks so weird compared to everyone else. And Dalton's chill. My favorite little scene with him in it is when he is in the car with Nick who's Michael Murray. I need to stop just saying his full, his given name when it's Dalton and Nick in the car and they're talking about Wade, Jared Cadillacchi. And they're like, oh yeah, it sucks that, you know, he's a jealous boyfriend and blah, blah, blah. Dalton's also kind of into. And Dalton's into Elijah Cuthbert. What's her name? Elijah Cuthbert. Charlie. Kate Carly. Yeah. He's like into Carly. He's always like, do you think maybe Wade and Carly will break up and maybe I can have a chance? And Nick is like, no, it's not going to happen. Also I guess I kind of like Wade. Yeah, he's like, Wade's not too bad. And Dalton's like, yeah, I like Wade. Yeah, yeah, Wade's not a bad. I like Wade. And it's a cute little scene where they're like, yeah, Wade's not a bad. It's sweet. Yeah. I think it's a sweet little character moment that. Wade was actually the most annoying one to me this time around. I hate Wade. Yeah. We hated him last time too. No, I think I think I think I defended him more last time. But here he's just seems very much like a like a child in a six foot five man's body since he's Jared Petalacchi. It's I think that's what makes it more stressful is he's so tall. He's a big guy and a big guy that wants to just walk around and touch everything. He's touching everything. He's so stressful. In fact, you know what? His death is symbolically appropriate that Dalton accidentally sloths his skin off by touching it because it's like he spent the whole movie touching shitty shit. Yeah. Now Dalton can't stop touching him and ripping his skin off. Yeah. You know what? I think that's maybe what they were going for with it. You know what? Freedgenius. You know what? Good, good script. What's that going that far? We still have the dead end that is Paris Hilton's question mark pregnancy. That's right. As I said in the first pod, so it just feels so indicative of like a first draft script that they forgot that there was this like hanging chat of a plot line where it's like maybe she's pregnant. Maybe she's not. Never gets to tell a guy about it and then gets killed. I think the only reason it stayed in the script is to get her to turn off the music. But she doesn't turn the music off. The one who killed the Vincent who kills that. Oh, Vincent turns. Oh yeah. I think it's playing outside. Oh, you're right. Never mind. There's no reason to fix your script. Yeah. I wonder if it's literally then is it just to give her and Carly a scene of them being friends like talking about something talking about something. Yeah. That might that honestly might be it because besides that and the conflict of like your boyfriend wanting to stay back when you're going to move to a big city and your brother's a troublemaker. I guess we can talk about Paris Hilton being maybe pregnant. Yeah. Beyond that. Like why is it? I guess. Yeah. To make her more sympathetic. I don't know. Her character again really doesn't do anything except for do that strip tease where I was right. That camera is like giving her a colonoscopy man. Yeah. Those little beauty shorts. Yeah. It's like it's up there. Yeah. Very long strip tease. You got the reference to the sex video when it's the night vision of her possibly giving Blake a blow job. I guess juries out on whether or not it actually happened. Do you feel any strongly way around it now? No, I do feel like she was looking for the chance. I think the blow was happening. Then why does she holding the chapstick? She had it within reach. And so when she saw that they saw her was like she thought fast. She came up with. She yeah. Yeah. Improvise that. So she's going down on him and holding chap like she's not holding. Did she plant the. No, no. It's like in the it's like in the ashtray section of the car. Oh, like it's just there. It's there. She had used it. Probably had just used it before doing it. Give it a little bit more. Oh, you know, lube there. And so she had said it there, got to work and then she sees that her friends see her and she'd like quick quick thinking. Yeah. Grabbing it is like I was going for this. Okay. I think that's what happened. Thinking of like a 2005 like lip smackers. It just tastes like a blue raspberry. No, wouldn't that be sticky? What was the sticky one with like the. Oh, no, you don't want to use that. Juicy tubes. Oh, no. It's all. Lancome juicy tubes. I have juicy tubes in my pubis. Yeah. No, you don't want to be using that before. You don't want to. No. Remember, I'm sure we've talked about lipstick parties on the podcast before. Lipstick parties. I mean, I, I don't know if we've ever talked. Yeah. They, I don't think they were a real thing. I don't think that's, I think that's a snopes.com. It was like a moral panic thing. Yes. That's what I'm saying is parents. Do you know, do you know lipstick parties? I think that's the thing where parents in the 2000s would get an email that's like R.E. forward forward R.E. Lipstick parties and it's a chain like letter describing how teenagers are having parties in the same vein as like pill parties where you, everyone brings pills and you mix them in a bowl and just take handfuls or whatever. This is like parties where every girl wears a different color lipstick and. And you try to get like a rainbow. You get her. Yes. Were they rainbow parties or lipstick? I don't know, but also that makes no sense. And also you. You'd really have to like, you know, it's kind of like oil painting. The layers matter. The order. It's also when you think about it, if, okay, I'm thinking about this too hard now, but if you want a true rainbow. Spectrum like. Like Roy G. Biv. Yeah. You'd have to coordinate how far it's going in your mouth. Yeah. So red would have to have a full spectrum. Yes. Yeah. Someone who doesn't have a gag. Violet kind of gets off easy. They can just do like just the tip. Yeah. Like red lipstick to the girl who doesn't have a gag. Do you know what I'm saying? If you want like a full rainbow. Yeah. Right. Anyway. Yeah. I don't think that has ever actually happened. Maybe. I mean, I'm sure it has somewhere. I wonder why we don't get big sponsorships from reputable companies. Just kidding. We love our sponsors and they're great and good companies and fine products that you should use using our codes. We did talk about the incestual undertones. The insane chemistry between our main. The Folger commercial esque relationship. It is Folger's coffee commercial chemistry. Oh my God. Yes. It is your my Christmas present this year chemistry. Wow. Which I always have to point out and bring up and remind people that the girl in that commercial is Jeffrey comes his daughter. Jeffrey comes his daughter. We still have not been brave enough to ask him about this. My dream is to be comfortable. Like maybe after a convention at a bar. Well, we've all had a few. I know. You know, and he's having his like white wine sprinters or whatever he would feel brave enough if Barbara was there. Barbara was there. I would I would make Barbara ask because I want to know all about it. Yeah. I think if we I think if we bought him a beer maybe maybe you tell us all about it. Yeah. What are you maybe not even seen it? Who knows? Like what are you talking about? And I show it to him because I have it literally saved in a playlist on YouTube. That's true. Yeah. Of weird commercials. This week's podcast is sponsored by Brooklyn Bedding. 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For a limited time, Nutraful is offering our listeners $10 off your first month subscription and free shipping when you go to Nutraful.com and enter the promo code DEADMEAT. Find out why Nutraful is the best selling hair growth supplement brand at Nutraful.com Spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L dot com promo code DEADMEAT. That's Nutraful dot com promo code DEADMEAT. We didn't talk about last time how Wade is talking to his sister. No, no, made it the mistake again. Wade is talking to his girlfriend about, he says, your brother and his yes man referring to Dalton. What does that mean? You're yes man. I feel like you only have a yes man if you're in like a position of authority, you know, like a CEO or governor or something. I think Wade likes to project a lot of things onto people. And what do you think he's projecting here? I think he just is jealous of everyone and everything that moves around his girlfriend and just sees. I thought you were going to say everything that moves and so that's why he has to touch and move everything. Yes. I just think he is jealous of her brother and just sees her brother's friend as somehow an enabler of her brother. I don't know, existing. He does, as we point out, get mad at people for finding his girlfriend hot. Yes, which is a red flag ladies or anyone really. Yeah. That's not just a ladies thing. No. That's an anyone thing. Yeah. If your partner is getting mad at you because other people are finding you attractive, especially if you're just like existing. If you're just existing, that's a big red flag. And yeah, that's a no-no. But I mean, it makes sense. He doesn't. He likes things that pretend to be other things and he likes small towns as everyone just keeps hitting him with. They keep hitting him with their barbs. It's like no one really likes Wade. Why are they all friends? See, that's a 2000s horror movie friend group thing. It is. 2000s horror movies. I think modern horror movies are a bit better about this. I think we're getting better at making friend groups a bit more believable. Yeah. Where 2000s movies, I'm like, all these people hate each other. What are we doing? Or if you have a case or it's like the focal point of it, like with bodies, bodies, bodies where it's like, they all hate each other, but like that's the point. Yes. But you believe that they all hang out. Yeah. And that's just a toxic friend group. We're often put in situations in 2000s horror movies where it's like, everyone's just kind of ragged. I don't know. People, I guess, were kind of like that too. Yeah. 2000s suck. Always just razin' your friends. That's an evil time. Don't be nostalgic for that. We lived it. It sucked. Except for blockbuster films. Yeah. Maybe had their heyday in the 2000s. Yeah. And product design was cool. Like the, what's this, is a Paris Hilton's boyfriends. I forget the character's name. Blake. Blake. His little radio. Cousin Bobby. Yes. From my cousin Skeeter. Cousin Skeeter. Cousin Skeeter. Not my cousin Skeeter. Oh my God. Skeeter. Yes. But Skeeter's the lawyer. Skeeter's the lawyer. Ooh. That's, I like it. Do you remember Cousin Skeeter? Gressel? The puppet? With the puppet. Cousin Skeeter was a puppet? All I can think of is Skeeter from Doug. No. No. No. Although both black characters. Yes. That's true. Skeeter, definitely. Yes. Definitely black. Yeah. Hey, Skeetface. That's what Roger and Colm look like. Yeah. Yeah. You call him Skeetface? Yeah, we call him Skeetface. His first name was Mosquito, right? It was Mosquito Valentine. Yes, that's right. I believe it was his Christian name. Mosquito Valentine. Wow. Yeah. Mosquito Skeeter Valentine. Skeeter in quotations. Yeah. That's a nickname. And yeah, Skeetface. His dad wasn't Mr. Dink. No. Dinks had no kids. That's why they were Dinks. They were double income no kids. Did we just blow your mind? The viewers are like, what's done? Cool hair, Roger. I like the way it's all nice and pointy. Yeah. What do you know, Skeetface? Skeetface. Skeetface. But yeah, because not my cousin Skeeter. Although, movie I want to watch. With the power of AI, we could make it happen. We could make that tonight, dude. We could make it tonight. Forget everything bad I said about AI. Yeah, if it didn't give us my cousin Skeeter. It gives us my cousin Skeeter. Torch the fields. Pellute every town we need my cousin Skeeter. But Blake's radio is, they show it so briefly, but the way it looks, I got such, I got just hit by a wave of nostalgia because it's this kind of white, bubbly looking stereo. And it's like white and orange. I feel like so many products in the 2000s were either white and orange or white and lime green. And that color scheme just, I felt my stomach flutter a little bit. It just made me feel just a certain kind of way. There's that, what's that aesthetic name that Frutiguer Aero? Yeah, Frutiguer Aero. It reminded me of that. And I miss that. Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah, that's like the bubble max and stuff. Yeah. So product design and stuff. I do miss about that time period because stuff was just really nice and kind of. That was around when we were doing the see through technology, the transparent plastic thing. I think a little after that is after that, but yeah, stuff was still really colorful and everyone's phone was different. Like everyone had a different phone, which is fun. Yeah, as you can see in this movie with the pile of them. Back here in 2005, it was still easier to write around cell phones, I think. Yes, correct. Which is convenient. And another 2000s thing I want to point out in this that I'm glad I didn't point out in the last episode because I don't know how I didn't, but there's an outfit in this that is so 2000s that I'm surprised hasn't made a comeback. Not the track suit. Not the track suit. Maybe it's just, it's two 2000s to make a comeback. Like how we've gone through like 80s nostalgia and stuff, but there's certain things that are like two of a decade that they'll never make a comeback. You know what I mean? The dress as a shirt with jeans and a jean jacket. Yeah, that sucks. That's bad. I miss it. No. I miss it. You don't love a good going out top. That's what, yes, or it's a long, uh, ambiguously kind of is it a dress? Is it a top? Not sure. It's usually a, it's got spaghetti straps or a halter and it's usually very sparkly and it's maybe mini skirt length, but you usually wear it with jeans. No, cause that usually flare jeans. It feels like, like it's, it's like a Disney movie where like a seven year old gets transported into an adult woman's body and gets to dress herself. Very much so. It feels very limited too. Yes. It feels very, when you look at old pictures of red carpets of like the MTV movie awards. Yes. And it's like Hillary Duff at the 2006. Team choice award. Yes. And she's got a page boy hat on. And yes, I do kind of miss it though. Simpler time. No, I mean, what's great about those pictures and those times is that everyone is, there's some awful choices, but there are choices that these individuals are making as opposed to everyone being done up by the same publicist approved fashion things and everyone looking so put together and like polished. Like I like seeing messes. Also way more people and this isn't even just the 2000s thing. This is like going up to way more recently people wearing like just jeans on a red carpet, except for maybe like the Golden Globes and Oscars and stuff. Like even now, like we went to the Five Nights at Fridays to premiere and it was like everyone's dressed to the nines for that. What are we doing when you look at pictures of movie premieres from like 10 years ago even you would see people wearing an outfit like at least not 10 years ago, but you know what I mean, like more casual, casual dressy. Yeah. Well now social media so it's a social media thing. So you want to look good and get more shares and clicks. Yeah, yeah, that drives that. Oh, I wrote that in our original episode I said Dalton would have been great on YouTube. I've updated that to say Dalton would have been a great kick streamer. Kick streamer? Yeah, it's like the it's like Twitch's dark twin. He does have a red hat here. Yeah. Wearing it prominently and it's just like sometimes he just seems a little off. Yeah. It's like their friendship to him is a charity. Yeah. Yeah. I love this actor. He's so fun. Yeah, John Abraham from Scary Movie. He plays Bobby in Scary Movie and will he be in the new one? I think he is. I think they're bringing back the whole gang from first couple ones. He's such a fun actor like in this. I love that when he enters the house of wax he takes his hat off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, he's a gentleman. If you're going indoors, you remove your hat. It's so funny. He in this, he's so kind of he's just a goofy looking guy, but I think in Scary Movie is attractive. I mean, he's made up. He's a short king. He's a short king. I mean, I love a short king. Little guy. Yeah. But also a note. We began watching this on Amazon. Okay. Yes. We got to the point where she's sticking her finger out the great when she's like trapped underneath the road and the bow sees it. Also, why didn't she like grab something just bang it against the great to make noise for him? I don't know. But bow sees her little finger point point now. Like she's fucking like Danny Torrance trying to communicate with someone and he like goes down and pretends to tie his shoe lays any cuts her finger off with some wire snippers. And we're watching it on Amazon and like the wire snippers go over the finger and then like cuts to another shot of him. And we were like, that's not right. Yeah. Also what tipped us off. There were some red flags. After the opening where there's this flashback to the seventies, there was a cut to present day. But instead of saying present, it said Gaginvaat. And I'm like, that is present in German. What version of this are we watching? I looked up and it's hard to find specifics on the different versions of this film. But I did see that in Germany. Two versions were released, one that was more censored. And so that must be the version that you that we paid money to rent on Amazon with no indication that it is not theatrical version missing three minutes. So we switched to Apple TV and rented it there. And that one had the full glory of that finger getting cut off spewing blood. It's a really good, gory shot. It's very gross. And I usually even like kind of uses the blood to dissolve the super glue on her lips to be able to scream out to him. Makes that because it'd be warm. Yeah. Yeah. It's, yeah, it's gross. But yeah, it's like, I was already watching it this time to be like, no man, like there's a lot I like about this movie. Like the direction there's this shot that's overhead when he chases her out of the church and tackles her. Guess what I fucking called out in the first episode that shot specifically and even the shot at the end when she's beaten him to death with the, uh, is it a bad or what is it that she's hitting him with? Oh, I forgot. Is it a bad? She's hitting him in the head and just crushing his head and it's shot in a really cool way. And I called it out in the last one too. I was like, these shots are really cool. I think we were totally charitable. I do think. I think that the specific points we made were all fair. It was just the overall tone of being like, oh, I hate this. This movie sucks. Fucking fixture script. That was more negative than it needed to be. Yeah. Cause like it is kind of a fun watch. Yeah. It's got dumb characters. It's got great gore. Yeah. It's got really cool. All the whack shit, the production design, the melting at the end. You watch the, oh, go ahead. So I just feel like the specific points and opinions remain the same, but my overall attitude towards the film, even with those specific points is now more on the like, and that was fine. Yeah. I still think it's too long. It is. There's no reason this needs to be two hours. But I feel like we've also seen so many worse moves because like at the end of that episode, I'm like, there aren't a lot of movies that we've watched for this podcast that are worse than this one. And now it's like, we've seen so many. We've watched so much garbage. I've seen so many. Years later, I've seen these eyes have seen so much trash. Yeah. This is a fine little movie. This is totally fine. It's so funny thinking back to, yeah, 2018 at that point, the bad horror movies that I had seen, like I hadn't been really digging through the dumpster, you know, like I just, I didn't truly know how bad it could get. And like I would, I saw it out movies that were so bad, they're good. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about movies that just suck. And I just didn't know. So I guess the, the overton window has shifted. So that's true. Yeah. So people, I think maybe were more seasoned than I was. Or they just saw this as kids. Or they also saw this as children, which is fair. Yeah. Cause if we're covering it in 2018 and our fan base is like 14 or, you know, in their teens at the time, they probably saw this when they were real young. Sure. And left more of an impression on them, left a waxy impression on them. Do you think they use scented wax? No. No. It's just like, no. Just animal fat. Wax or bees. I don't know what kind of wax like bees wax. I don't know. I don't know anything about wax. How do you make wax? You got to know. Why are you just assuming Gressel? I feel like it's, it's food adjacent. Well, bees, I would think bees would be the big house of wax trivia. Let's see if IMDb tells us anything. I don't trust because when it's mountain at the end and he's, he's stepping up the stairs and they're sinking through it and they're tearing through. It's real satisfying. Oh yeah. It's real nice to watch, man. I want to dig in there. There's like nothing. Also, like you were saying, like when he's getting sprayed with the wax and that fucking sawtrap. It looks like it feels good. It's not steaming. It just looks like it's warm. It looks like, you know, those, um, those like wax kind of hand baths you can do. It looks like that. Like paraffin wax. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't mind it. Well, what is paraffin? Paraffin is. Cause I've heard that was the other thing that jumped to mind other than bees. Those are the two types of wax that I know. Is that like petroleum derived? Yeah, I figured it'd be wax that maybe like melts at a lower temperature. So it's not as hot. Due to its low melting point. Yes. Yes. I also didn't know. Well, a few things. Apparently there was a giant actual fight. Like the ending sequence, they is like a real fire. Like on set? Yes. And it got out of control and burnt down a bunch of the studio that they were filming it and it was a whole thing. Like this. Yeah, they were filming in Australia and it was like a news story in Australia. You can read about it. Oh, I feel like you don't want to start a fire in Australia. No, just in general. They, they contained it. It was fine, but like no one got hurt or anything. It just, it sounds, I think they burnt down like a sound stage or something. Hmm. Uh, not enough actual trivia about this online. Um, I am the internet movie Tribune. Uh, friends that we hate movies would say they were filming at Australia's movie world. I think I've heard of which is kind of like a Universal Studios where it's also a theme park. Okay. But yeah, they, uh, caused $10 million of damage. Wow. It took how much money did the movie make? That's a good question. What's the budget? What's the box office on this guy? Oh, I bet it was like, what do you think? Let's take back before we look it up. I'm so bad at box office numbers. I bet it was a budget under 20. Oh, really? For 2000 times. I haven't seen the movie. I have no idea. But, but, but guessing for a horror movie made in 2005. I'm going to say 30. Okay. That's fair. And then it probably made 60. I'm just going to be a little off. I'm going to say 70. I was a 30 70. You're going to say 20, 20, 60. Yeah. What do you got? I'll say $35 million budget. Okay. We're getting real granular here. And I'm going to say it made $80 million. Okay. We're, we're really within a narrow range here. No one's taking big swings, but let's see. All of us assume the movie made money though. Oh, for sure. In 2005. In 2005. In 2005. It made money. You go, you just go to the movie. You just see movies. You go there and you're like, what's playing? Yeah. Give me a ticket for that thing. Right. It's seven o'clock, whatever. Budget 40 mil. Oh, okay. Box office 70. Not great. Yeah. But how did the DVD sales? Oh, oh, it probably cleaned up. I bet it turned a profit with DVDs for sure. We'd be getting another Dungeons and Dragons movie if we had DVDs. Oh, absolutely. Lutely. That would also clean up. Mm hmm. Yeah. I didn't realize it was a Australian. Part Australian film. Mm hmm. Yeah. Based on the wax works by Charles S. Belden. Yeah. The story. I thought it was based on. So it was nominated for best adapted screenplay. Right. It's a story that was made into a movie that was made into another movie that was made into this movie. But it sounds like this doesn't have a ton to do with the original film, right? Correct. Okay. It's like that, uh, that, that movie coming out that Mr. Burns is. Yes. This is the Mr. Burns of host electric play. Are you familiar with this? I heard about this. Yes. I'm so excited for that. I am excited about it. I'm so excited. I've always wanted to see that play. I'm a boots Riley doing. Yeah. I think, yeah. So it's a play and there's going to be a movie adaptation about it. And the play is that it's post apocalyptic survivors put on a stage version of the Simpsons episode Cape Fear. Correct. To entertain themselves. Yeah. Like right after the apocalypse and that's like decades later and that's like centuries later. I think so. Yeah. It's how that story evolves. It's, it's a, so it's going to be a movie version of a play where it is an adaptation of a Simpsons episode, which is a parody of a movie that is a remake of another movie based on a book. Yes. It's great. I don't think you can get deeper than that. Yeah. The Tik Tok review. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. And then that Tik Tok review gets adapted into a film. Yeah. One point that I didn't say eight years ago. I'm digging deep here near the end of the movie when the fire is happening. Vincent has been cut off from the others, uh, from, from the other twins by the fire that they, and he grabs a mattress and I think I assume he's going to put it over the fire and walk over the mattress, but instead he just carries the mattress through the fire. I found that funny. Yeah. And I did not comment on that last time. I think last time we were comparing Vincent to looking kind of looking Michael Jackson asked, I said this time Tommy was so. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Updating our references. Yeah. I'm just changing the reference a little bit. He's got the like blank wax face. Yeah. The long hair. Is it kind of like, is it, uh, kind of slip knotty a little bit? Like, yeah. Like a little, he's like a little bagoulish. A little bit. Yeah. A little bit. A little bit. Do you think the piano that Jared Paddlecchi plays when they break into the wax? Yeah. Do you think it's wax? I did have that thought. No. Cause how on earth could you make it sound like a piano? Like every string inside is wax. There's no way. Well, you were saying that because there's the animatronic wax figure that opens up. That's impossible. I feel you think that they would wear down the wax with the really. Yeah. I don't think you could make an animatronic figure out of wax. It would just totally degrade after you don't think that you could set. Imagine there's a lever, some kind of lever action for the animatronic and you don't think you could set the end of that lever in enough thick wax to be able to handle repetition. I don't know. I don't know enough about animatronics or wax figures to confidently say. I feel like there's gotta be a hard wax, right? Because I mean the house of wax is built. Somehow stands in Florida. In the Florida heat day and night. And yet the exterior walls are apparently made of wax. Entirely. There's not even like support beams. No. Because when it melts, it melts completely to the ground. How did they build? I just have so many questions about the logistics of the house of wax. How on earth? Because yeah, it doesn't even have like studs or anything. Like how is there a second floor of this house? It's a two story at least. Or she rungs up the stairs as it's melting. How does this exist? I don't know. But you know what? Human ingenuity. We saw they can make bridges and put the foundation underwater. Oh, yeah. We watched that Brooklyn Bridge documentary. Very good Brooklyn Bridge documentary. Sand dogs or whatever they were called who like died down there. Yes. In the what are those in the? Oh, yeah. The things that they the K-Sons. K-Sons. Inside the K-Sons. So good. Do that shit's fucked up. It's insane. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. So I don't know. Maybe we could build a house of wax. Yeah, we could build the Brooklyn Bridge. I bet we could build an art deco house of wax. Yeah. Who knows? I would say we could do that. It is interesting watching the credits of this because there are so many people on this movie who were just credited as like wax technicians. Like there was just so much fucking wax in this movie that they have people who are very specifically credited as like people who worked with the hair that was put in the wax figures and like very specific parts of dealing with all. And I just think that's so interesting. You think those people go to sleep every night thinking about that paycheck, the best paycheck they ever got before they had to go back to the Ren fairs and. Like there can't be that many people on this earth who like know how to do that kind of stuff and they all have to work for Madame Tussauds, right? Oh yeah. I guess there is. You know, they're all praying for another franchise opening of Madame Tussauds. It's scary how realistic Madame Tussauds has gotten, I think. Yeah. You think it's past the point of Uncanny Valley or whatever? No, like they look so good now. It's because we can like pass the Uncanny Valley. Yeah, yeah, we can like 3D scan everyone. Oh, I guess that's true. Well, then doesn't that feel like it kind of takes the art out of it if you're 3D scanning it and then like how much hand carving is still going into this? I'm not sure. You know, because I I I almost fear that they are 3D scanning people and then 3D printing molds of the wax and then just pouring it in and calling it a day. I don't know if that's quite how it works because that would take away, I feel the entire fucking point of being impressed by a hand carved wax figure that looks close to like a person. Yeah, so that you get the rock standing next to wax rock and you're not sure which one it is. Yeah, sure. I'm not sure. Not sure how. I feel like we need to do an investigation into Madame Tussauds and check to see if it's fraudulent. I feel like that's borderline fraudulent. If it's not hand carved, then what are we doing? Yeah, if they're not a little scary looking. It can be good, but I just want to make sure it's done by hand. Right. You know, after this, after this, we'll go watch some videos on YouTube because I think they do always do little like video vlogs like here's how we did this person. It better be from the beginning. I don't want to see. I want proof. I want proof. I don't want them like just like it cuts to them like shaving off like something that was from the mold. Like how artists now have to do full time lapses of their work to prove that's not AI where they're just like when Coca Cola did that, they released that ad. When they did the ad and they released that other video being like, no, we did a ton of actual work on this. We promise. And people are like, you're not actually doing anything. Like you're just moving the mouse around and not actually. Why is that? We both said we went to the movies. I look for disclosure played. There's a shot in there that looks like that fucking coca-cola. It looks like the Coca Cola. It's like a deer. I'm sorry, Stephen. They're walking up to like a snowman's cabin in that man. Yeah. Sorry, Stephen. Your movie kind of looks like the Coca Cola commercial. Holidays are coming. Holidays are coming. Or maybe the Coca Cola commercial just looks like late era Steven Spielberg. I don't know. I mean, you know, because it's drawn from all kinds of stuff. Oh, you think of like that was part of the things that it stole from? Not specifically the disclosure trailer, but just how thing glossy kind of CG. Anyway, what else? Like I guess like final, final thoughts. I did have more fun with this this time. I think I felt less antsy. And again, just years of doing this podcast has exposed me to so much crap that I think I was a lot more tolerant of what this was. It had more charm to it, I think. Yeah. I can appreciate and found it more charming. Yes. Yeah. I think part of it for me is maybe just because I was so I was straight in the middle of my teenage years when this came out that it's so hard for me to be like so nostalgic for a movie like this because it's it's it's hard to get. Um, I don't know. I just remember how much, how mean this this time period felt. And it's so it's hard for me to fully buy into, oh, this is so much fun because there's always going to be that feeling of meanness to me. All right. I don't know. I don't know how to explain it. I don't think the movie is particularly mean. No, the movie is not mean, but just just like the Paris Hilton of it all and all that. She's back now. She's she's back. She's back. Good for her, I guess. For better or worse, Paris Hilton's back. That's great. I think she's I think she's I think it's less people are excited about Paris Hilton being back and it's more she is symbolic of how women's celebrities were treated then and people are are re embracing her as a as a mea culpa of sorts. I guess as it's not really about her specifically and what kind of person she is. It's more like, oh, she was, you know, very representative of how we treated young women celebrities back then. So let's be nice to her now and give her another chance type thing. Yeah. You know, yeah. It's like Brittany. Yeah. Probably has some some problems, but like we were all rooting for her. Yeah. So yeah, that's a that's House of Wags. Is it House of Wags? How much of House of Wags did we talk about in this episode? I think we talked about plenty. Like I think we talked about it plenty. Yeah. I think we reevaluated our overall kind of fuck you feeling about it. Definitely. Yeah. And have I think we've opened our hearts. I just didn't want to, you know, go over it beat by beat because again, I feel like most of our listeners have listened to that. I wanted to be a instead of listen to this instead of the first episode, listen to both and you get different stuff. Right. Yeah. That's what I was going for. Well, because a lot of my thoughts are still the same, but my overall take away feels a little different. Yeah. I kind of like pointed out the difference in thoughts that I had. So anything I didn't bring up this time, just assume it's still the same as last night. Yeah. Like you wouldn't sleep in a tent until 2 30 in the afternoon. You just wouldn't. No. You'd be so sweaty. Yeah. Grussel, there's a scene where everyone they're like camping out in the on the side of the road that they just pulled over and slept in tents and they're trying to get to a football game because it's like the most important game and they wake up and he's like, guys, it's 2 30. We overslept. And I'm like, not in a tent. You got oversleeping in a tent in Florida, you said? No way. No way. No, not even me who is I will sleep in so late. Not in that tent. Not in a tent. No, not in a tent. So anything I didn't mention, just assume I feel the same because listening to that episode, I was like, oh, fuck. Yeah. Yeah. So there's that. That is our January gift, I guess, to all of you. We've gone and reevaluated the movie. You all said you really like the mailbag episode because it was just kind of a hangout episode. So this is kind of that too. Yeah. With a little bit of movie discussion on top. I just I've been wanting to do a a revisited movie episode for a while. Me too. But now I don't know if I'm a little scared to ever do it again because this was more difficult than I thought it was going to be. Yeah. I'm realizing that my my brain is what it is and it's not an extraordinary machine to borrow from a girl Fiona. But right. It's just it's going to say what it's going to say. And after I've said it, I got nothing else. Yeah, I've got like five jokes. Yeah. And that's why I'm like, trust me, man, right in Kill Counts is hard when you've done it for nine years and you're trying to write different jokes and references. Me joking. Wow. Everyone lights up like the town and cars. Fuck. I said that. It's crazy, man. It's amazing how much the witch you compared it to the the animatronic was the witch as you you compared that last crazy. Every single thing when we were watching it last night, it was amazing where I didn't even remember ever saying that. And I'm saying it again last night to you on the couch like it's the first time I've ever said that. How many how many times in life have we had the same conversation over and over again? Think on that, dear listener. Things to think about and get existential about. We're all just repeating the same five CDs on our player. Same tracks over and over, baby. That's just like this is a good mental exercise. I had fun. Great. Until next week. No, next time. Or next time. I'm sorry. You're still stuck in 2018 mode. Oh my gosh. Until next time, I'm Chelsea. I'm James. And that's Grussell. And this has been the Dead Meat podcast.