262: It's Alive (1974)

What do you think? I think we're dead meat. Real dead meat. You're dead meat! Go ahead and laugh. Find the final little glasses of business. Dead meat. Welcome to the Dead Meat Podcast. You're horror, save haven. I'm Chelsea. I'm James and we're married and we like to get scared together. Yes, you might notice our setup's a little different this week. That's because we have five feet of horror. I don't know if we've ever tried to cram five feet before. This is the first for us. Turn this into a sweat box. From the new film, Minix, which is out now by the time you're watching this, we have director and co-producer and star, Christopher Paloja. I practiced it right before. We were practicing. And then actor Steven Toblowski. I'm not even getting a complaint. I always kind of go Toblowski. It is Toblowski. Instead of Toblowski. You mushed it. No, it's okay. Chris Perneal, right? Nailed it? Nobody ever gets it. I did my research. Chris Farnel, yes. Thanks guys for joining us. Yes, welcome. We got to watch Minix last night, which is a really fun movie. With a ventriloquist dummy. Don't call him a puppy. He gets mad when you call him that. Fergus. You're looking down because he's right here. I can't believe you brought him on so well. We'll come alive a little bit later. Fergus. He's already made friends with Papa James. Has Papa James made the show before? Oh yeah. He's a frequent recurrent character. My question is for these gentlemen, have you ever been on a show where two puppets have been brought out? Did you ever think in your wildest dream that you would ever be on a show? I've never. It's been like 20 times. Yeah, it's a purgatory. I think they had three puppets there. I guess let's start out by just generally talking horror movies. I'm assuming you're all horror fans? Or at least casual horror moviegoers? I mean you made one, Christopher, so. I am not a big horror fan. That's okay. But I have certainly seen them. Have you ever seen a movie that's like averse to them? Or is it just kind of more a neutral thing? I'm a little averse. Was there a movie that caused you to be averse? Like anything that scared you when you were young? Not when I was young, but my wife and I went to go see The Strangers when that came out. The Liv Tyler. That one will do it. It was so horrific and sad and depressing. I was just like, why did we come to see this? I don't need to see another horror movie. There's the Nile-ism. That one is often sighted talking to people about horror movies. That one is often sighted as one where people say that's the one that has disturbed me the most and that's the one where I couldn't sleep after. Because it's too real. Right. And have you seen a recently that maybe... It's really bumping right now. I know. Sinners. Were you able to catch that? No, I really want to see it. I do want to see it. I don't know if does Get Out count as hard? If we have to take Leprechaun 4 we get to have Get Out as well. We get to claim them both. I have seen most of the Leprechaun movie. Yes! Steven, we were talking about universal monsters. My history goes back. The first horror film I saw I was three. I was three years old and my parents for some reason we lived in Eau Cliff in Dallas. And they drove they never done this ever before since. They drove us to downtown Dallas to watch Godzilla with Raymond Burr. And I had no idea what a movie was. I mean I had no idea. I had never been to a movie before and I thought this was like a documentary. I thought this was like really happening. And I was crying and they had to get me out of the theater and I just thought all those people in Japan. This is just horrible. But then I became really fascinated and we had a show in Dallas called Nightmare and it was a double feature. It was all the classic horror films. And so I could stay up to watch the first one. And that's where I saw Frankenstein, Wolfman. And my goal in life was to become an actor so I could hang out with monsters. I thought they were real. And they are real. But not the way I thought they are. I wanted to hang out with the Wolfman. I wanted to hang out with God Zillens. You know I saw your first movie and whew that was something. He's got a British accent. Good for you. That's where I got it. But I have not when horror film moved from being about a kind of unknown element of the universe happening. Like a monster is created to this personal viciousness slasher films. And things like that I kind of fell out of the horror genre because life was horrible enough. And I really haven't come back to say let me watch this other horror film because they broke my trust. Like the 80's you're talking about like the slasher movies. They broke my trust. It got too scary, too awful, too whatever. But I love the classics still. And they're beautiful to watch. Amazing to watch. The James Wale stuff. Oh my gosh. Fantastic. I would argue they took a turn around. Honestly, I think if you were to think about it from like a psychological point of view I think around 9-11 and saw. There was the torture porn. Like our world, there was a veil of evil that got torn open in the real world where we were like oh shit, people can do awful, awful things. And then to see Saw in the movie theater which I didn't see but it was just all of a sudden it was like the stakes changed. And there was something in a box pre-2001 and then everything's outside of the box since. So it's become like I'm with you guys. I'm not a heart. I think the last one I ever saw was at the Texas Theater in Oak Cliff. You know. And Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And I was sitting in there watching a matinee and at the very end when what Marilyn is like running away from Yeah, Marilyn Burns. Saw Harry or whatever it is. When she's running the amazing scene where she runs like 20 minutes or however long it was I've never seen a scene so amazingly shot and so terrifying a woman got up in the theater, screamed and ran out of the theater. It was the only time in my life I ever saw such a thing and it was the end for me. That was a while. That's why it's my favorite horror movie. That's her number one. It's brilliant. It's brilliant. Because of the way you're describing it where you're like it's so beautiful and I just couldn't anymore. It's like that's why it's so beautiful and awful. It's those two forces where it's like man it's beauty and it's violence. Yeah. That sequence at the end is really incredible. That was at the Texas Theater? Texas Theater. We did the Lesboswold. We did Lesboswold. They gave us a mini tour because we were curious and historic theater. So I would either go to the Wynwood, the Texas or the Wynwood Theater. We called the Texas in Oak Cliff but it's part of Dallas. Very close to where Lee Harvey Oswald lived. Christopher, you say you're not much of a horror fan but your comment about post 9-11 horror is very insightful. We've talked about that a lot in the Star Wars. A ton of academia about that. I have a whole book about it. How like the El Cate terrorist videos they reflected in the hostile and sawed. There's a whole theory that torture porn became a genre in the first place is because we started getting these really graphic photos and videos released at home and horror has to we can't compete with the crap on the news so we have to desensitize to that. So it's like, alright, let's start shopping off limbs on screen. When reality gets more graphic, horror has to I think there's a human tendency especially in commercial sense, if something's making money, then we go like let's just make it a little more. Let's just make it a little more. I remember when all you can eat places were like big because we like food. Let's have more. Let's have more and then it got to, let's just have gourmet. Let's have it small and gourmet. I think maybe that's where it would go to next. There's her in our horror films, there's Dracula, Frankenstein, just candy. Yes, definitely a reaction to that. We haven't had one since Magic. I mean, not a ventriloquist, because Chuckie doesn't count. Yeah, Chuckie's somewhere around here. There's a lot of Chuckies in this house. No, I think to kind of to Chris's point, I honestly, I think that what you eat, you become, right? You just eat a bunch of junk food, your body's going to break down eventually. And I think what you eat and what you watch and what you read has a lot of the same things. I was always very protective about what I watched and horror films from early on there was artistry and there was something I don't know, like there was something different. I grew up, I mean one of the first things I ever watched randomly is my dad took my brothers and I to go see Bambi at a drive-in theater and I turned around and watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre. They're all watching Bambi and he turned to see and I'm on the back seat watching like all this and my brothers were all 10 years, 11 years old than I was. I watched Friday the 13th, I watched Halloween at home on VHS and I remember watching Night of the Living Dead, like the day for night. So I watched early on but I mean then at a certain point I kind of felt like they were like a portal for us. There's some dark shit coming into my house and I'm closing it. When Steve was talking about how the 80's slash just kind of turned you off, I think a lot of people of the next generation have the same reaction to the torture porn Saw era because they were like, oh I'm kind of into these other horror movies and then that became the mainstream flavor of horror and they were like oh this isn't for me, I'm done. And they check out and leave. Yeah, I knew I could never, I never had any interest in seeing Saw because I kind of had a sense of what it was. Would it, okay we just spent a whole summer covering the Saw films. We love them. Would it shock all of you if I told you that the honestly bulk I think of the fan base of Saw is very LGBTQ heavy? Yes. The fan base of Saw is not what you think it would be. They're very sensitive people who just want the characters to kiss and then they'll also be like, oh that trap was pretty cool when that person's arm got ripped off but I really wish these characters would get together. So have you guys done a deep dive on the psychology then of a horror fan? Oh, of a horror fan. Maybe people who just love the movies. What is the draw to see the the horror? Well I think we get to expel it, you know? It's how we cope with the violence and hatred in the world. It's like we get to engage with it in a safe fictional way and then there's no desire to act on any you know? Yeah, I know there were some. Of course, this was like a really old episode we did. We interviewed someone who goes to those extreme haunts where they can like touch you and stuff. Which that I'm like I can't. Yeah, we don't do those. I don't have any interest in that. But they made a documentary about those and they interviewed, I think a psychologist and they were saying that part of the appeal of those in horror movies in general is those they give you a safe word for horror movies you can also hit stop you know? So for people who especially have experienced maybe trauma or something you know, a past event where maybe something's out of their control or it can be maybe cathartic to put themselves in a situation where they experience fear but have the power to say I don't want to like it's too much and I can make it stop. And there's something very empowering about having the control over your emotion that way. Maybe that's why I'm not so into it because I've had such a bland unhorrific life lovely good life. This week's podcast is sponsored by Brooklyn Bedding. James and I have been in the market for a new mattress for a while. Our old mattress got to the point where if we were sleeping too close to each other the mattress would start to sink in the middle. We were both waking up with back pain constantly. It was bad. Our new Spartan mattress from Brooklyn Bedding came in earlier this week and I cannot believe the difference. 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Again, cannot stress enough how much better my sleep has been this past week with this new mattress and I struggle with bad sleep so I'm being very honest here. Go to BrooklynBetting.com and use my promo code deadmeat at checkout to get 30% off site-wide. This offer is not available anywhere else. That's BrooklynBetting.com and promo code deadmeat for 30% off site-wide. For our show and let them know we sent you after checkout, BrooklynBetting.com promo code deadmeat. So yeah, when we were trying to plot out what we would do for this episode, you know, we pitched maybe talking about a movie and like, I don't know who picked It's Alive, but It's Alive came back to us after we- It's Alive? Yeah. Was it you? Yeah, I guess so. So how familiar were you guys with It's Alive from 1974 made by the late Larry Cohen who has made some fantastic, very socially conscious and pointed movies with commentary. We actually just the other week put on phone booth randomly, the 2002, the Colin Farrell and it was written by Larry Cohen. We didn't realize he wrote it. I saw that when I was reading about him. Yeah. So I'm still, you know. So yeah, how familiar were you with this film? You know, I just remembered vaguely remembered commercials and you know, movie posters for it when I was a kid. And I had always sort of had this little bit of fascination around it and like, what is that? And I knew what the gist of it was, but it was this first time I'd seen it. So it was wild to actually finally see it. It was fun, you know, and such a different kind of way of filmmaking back then in the seventies, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And it was like 74, right? Yeah. So 74 was when I had decided I was through a school finishing graduate school and I decided to drive out to California with my girlfriend. So I was not into seeing movies or anything like this. So I totally missed this film coming out when it happened. So it was a cipher for me. Cipher. Good work. Chris Rad, you seen it? I hadn't seen it. Okay, so this is the first time. So last night, my son and I watched it last night. How old was your son? He's 19 and he's a film student at NYU. Oh, okay. So he was sitting there. We were watching and yeah, it's that whole kind of advent of guerrilla filmmaking where you just get a camera and you go to the... He said every time you see the LA River in a movie, it elevates a film. Yes. And time of cars driving through that thing, we're like, yeah. It really... And it's one of those moments where it's kind of why Hollywood has the sheen and the feel and the essence that it does are movies like that. Because there's so much familiarity. Like I'm curious where that house is. Because you know that house exists? Yes, I was trying to look for shooting locations, but this movie is... Way off the grid. Yeah. It's too weird because they keep changing the geography. For us, folks who live in Los Angeles, we kind of know the neighborhoods we're driving. Yeah. So, you know, they would be driving in the flats like I'm going, okay, he's in the valley. Wait a minute. Now there's Tree is everywhere. He's in the... Wait a minute. Now he's down. You know, so they kept editing where the car was and it never made any geographical sense in terms of Los Angeles. Yeah. Because they were talking about the Santa Monica Hospital. Yeah. Right. I was like, what? Say what? What's going on here? Yeah. But yeah, besides Larry Cohen, I mean, the score is done by... Right. Psycho. Give me a break. Yeah. I mean, the guy wrote for Citizen Kane. He was one... Citizen Kane and he was Hitchcock. Yeah. He was Hitchcock's composer and he's doing It's Alive. Yeah. I mean, really, he's saying like just bring... Yeah, he's like, I'm gonna do my rent. I'm free. What have you got? I'm free for the next two hours. Just bring me anything. But I may be incorrect of this, but I think he did die in the same year. Oh, did he? I think he died in 74 to look that up quickly. But I think it could have been what a way to go. Alexey, what a way to go. I mean, he could have gone with a Hitchcock, but he went with... It's a Larry Cohen. It's alive. Oh, God, that's so tragic. Yeah, I was surprised when I read what his resume was because I was fairly unimpressed with the music in the film. And also the lack of a soundtrack through so much of it. You know, just lack of Foley. Yeah, like a tanker. But there is except for when they're walking through the sewers. Because it's like splash, splash, splash, splash. Oh, the Foley in the sewers is someone with a bowl of water. Just... Taking their hand. And the only time they have a microphone is when he's giving that really emotional speech to the baby and all you hear is the water. Yeah. What is he saying? Oh, yeah. Bernard Herman's filmography is nuts. Kate Fear, the original Kate Fear. Is he North by Northwest? North by Northwest taxi driver. He did... Which does not have a score, famously, at all. But it's like bird noises. It's alive was not his last film. Oh, God. His last film was the sequel to It's Alive. No! It lives again. There was a sequel. There's two sequels we've never seen on. Wait, did anyone go to the sequels? It's Alive was the last film he did while he was alive. Oh, okay. They had it. On the other side, it's more posthumous. It lives again. They were re-arranged and resressed. But it's still funny that that is literally the last thing on his list. That's when you gotta be careful. You gotta be careful when... You gotta read the paperwork. You gotta watch that resume and see what the last thing you did was. Can you imagine if you made your choices based on, like, what if this is my last thing? Yeah, you gotta make sure your last movie title isn't an accidental punchline to your life. Or make sure it is if you want to go that way. That's kind of fun. Yeah. It's funny. Yeah, I mean, Larry Cohen, like I said, a lot of his work has to... It always touches on things that he thinks are wrong with society. It's often corporations and governments and bureaucracy. But here, there's a lot of environmental stuff going on since the 70s. There's a little bit of corporate stuff going... Oh, yeah, the one scene. We get the medical representative coming in concerned that it's their birth control that caused this to happen. I thought it was pretty old. Radiation. Yeah, I mean, you have some guy who knows nothing about radiation saying, if you've been hit with large doses of radiation... Right. I keep that little private thing, just got some radiation. I mean, nobody knows so much. You've got a bag or a camera. Yeah, nobody knows so much. Radiation. We have some granite right now. He's talking about there's a character who's freaking out about lead being and everything, which like... Right, with a pencil. Yeah. The 70s. And they're like, oh, I mean, look at that smog out there. It doesn't matter if we're eating it or breathing it. We're getting it anyway. Is this like Rachel Carson era? Yes. Probably, yeah. Yeah. I mean, 74LA, that would have been like stay inside. It's that smoggy, right? Yeah, it's one of those days. Yeah. Late 70s to... Well, yeah, probably the beginning of that. Well, Stephen, you said you moved out here that year. Do you remember it being way smoggier? No, well, I thought it was very nice. Because I was coming from Dallas and from Illinois, you know, and now there was an ocean and all that there. Sure. And Michael Jackson was doing no matter if it's wrong or right. I mean, so I thought the world was just great. Yeah. You know, I had no problem. There are a lot of, I mentioned non-professional people giving professional advice in this movie. And that's kind of what Los Angeles was when I came out. Yeah, I know. Everybody was a professional about something. So I wondered if Larry Cohen was affected by those people that everyone knew everything about everything without knowing anything about anything. Yeah. Yeah. I think California and LA especially have always been kind of a draw for like new age or that kind of like, yeah, people who know better than established science kind of. The Pasadena. The Pasadena of it all. Sure. The thing that kind of freaked me out about the movie because I'd never seen it before is that so much of the movie is like nothing that exists in the real world. And I mean, usually in science fiction, you have a base of the world and then you have not the world. But all the, everything was wrong about the hospital. Yeah. You know, everybody smoking cigarettes in the hospital, walking around smoking cigarettes like the husband, he just walks back to any part of the hospital. Yeah. Wait, wait, you know, anybody could go anywhere. All the rules are broken. There are, there seem to be no rules. And I don't think that was meant to be commentary. I think they just weren't careful. All of his movies, I have this in my notes. Larry Cohen movies are literally just populated with people that feel like they're trying to be real people and failing at it. Like that's kind of a common thread of people behaving in ways where it's like everyone's a bit off. Yeah. Even the kid. Like even the kid was a little like, he's like, he's almost wise beyond his ears. He's like an actor, but then he's pretending to be an actor. Like I was like, what is he exactly? And even like, I mean, we don't have kids, but even the beginning of this movie is the wife waking up and being like, it's time for me to have my baby. And then just a very relaxed, just like, being dressed. He kind of like really put together. Bumps into her. Like grabbing at her. Yeah. She's like, oh, stop. But like, I always imagine it's like, oh, shit, it's time to go. And it's like a rush, but they like take an hour to pack up and get ready to go and drop a kid off. She's dressed in her finest. Yeah. It was a weird tone. It's they dropped the kid off at Charlie's. I don't know who Charlie is. Who is Charlie? Who is Charlie? Wasn't he an uncle? Did they say uncle? I feel like he was the uncle. But we, and Michael was like, is it the wife's brother or the dad's brother? I took it that it was the dad's brother. I don't think it's ever spelled out. I mean, we missed uncle. So we were like, who's this random dude that they just dropped the kid off. And they say Charlie. And I'm thinking, oh, Charlie, it's like his friend from school. And then later it's the reveal that it's a grown-up man. But they dispelled any sort of shenanigans. Like right off the bat, he was like, let's go. His way of like getting the kid into the house was safe. Yeah, it was like French toast. Yeah, he was like, let's go. Let's go get some grub. And you're like, OK, Charlie's safe. Yes. And then he was like, I think like weird going on. I did think though, did you guys hear the one comment where she's like, we talked about aborting the baby eight months ago. And so there was this, there was a very interesting, then Roe v. Wade is 77. Yes. And you've got David Lynch 77 with a razor head, which is fatherhood anxiety. And this was very much like a fatherhood anxious movie. And you know, the same year as this was the original Black Christmas, which I don't know if you've seen it, it's a slasher. But the main character is pregnant and she wants to get aborted. Her boyfriend is very angry at her and he's like a potential slasher. So yeah, it's very much. Yeah, that's very common thread in horror movies at the time. Yeah. And then, yeah, right. So you've got like abortions, a hot topic in horror movies at that time. And also a little bit, I think this is more like a sixties thing, but I can imagine that kind of like panic is still seeping into movies in the early seventies, the Thalidomide. I don't know if you remember that, but Thalidomide was a medication prescribed to mothers for like morning sickness in the sixties, I think fifties and sixties, but it caused crazy birth defects. That's where the term flipper baby comes from, because babies were born with like no arms. Interesting. That's 100 percent then. Yeah, because that's what the exterminator was like. We were killing cockroaches and we sprayed them with a chemical and now they're super cockroaches. Yeah. So the theme was like. Yeah, just post-war industrialization, like everything's moving so fast. So soon. What are we all? Yeah, is Agent Orange in life? Agent Orange, yes. A topic of discussion. So chemical warfare is a big deal. Interesting. Yeah, you have soldiers coming home having kids who've been exposed to Agent Orange. Oh yeah, that was a stranger thing to talk about. That happened in Stranger Things. So therefore it happened in real life. I thought when the boss orders Jack three eggs in an English muffin. Yes. And then fires. And where are the eggs? He's not coming back. Oh my God, that guy. I think it was a joke, right? It was meant to be a joke, I think, from the boss. It's really hard to tell in a Coen film. Everything's just off. I was like, is he being nice? Like I was like, oh, he's getting him breakfast. He's at a hard night. He's taking care of him. Maybe. I mean, I thought so at first. And then based on Jack, is that the character? I mean, those reactions. Is it Frank? Sorry, Frank. Frank, his reaction told me that he knew he was joking with him. But maybe he missed the phone action. I was completely thrown by the boss. Wonder what kind of organization is this because everybody's kind of wearing sport coats and suits, but the boss is wearing like a jogging outfit. And who was the set decorator of the boss's office? It looks like a circus tent. It's like, get some stuff in there that looks like an office. And nobody thought about the logic of it. So they have a hat rack next to the boss's desk. So you have the door on the other side of the room. So someone's going to come in with their hat, walk over, and the boss never sits behind it. He sits on his desk, always perfectly. And they have a painting on the wall. And then they have an indoor tree in front of the painting. So it's like, so you're going like, who is the set dresser? It's like, OK, let's just put that little van Gogh kind of thing. And then we'll just, yeah, he brought a tree in here and put him from the picture. It's like, no, no, no, it makes no sense. It makes no sense at all. And the boss seemed like a spawn of Satan because of it. He was an interesting character. I was mostly surprised. I mean, I was mostly noticing and he was just sweat level. I mean, so much sweat. A lot of red skins here. Like just people like blood rushing to their face. Just everyone looks very creepy. I'll just bring up a movie thing. You'll know. When you're in a movie and they're doing sweat, the whole idea is they have to make the sweat consistent to what it is. So in this, you have a lot of sweat at the end. A lot of sweat at the end. He's wearing like blue pajamas or something. He's wearing blue pajamas. And you could tell that they took the spray bottle of Windex and sprayed it at exactly the same places each time. Like under the arms and down the back. The guy looks like a salamander in this blue thing with the stripes. And I'm going like, they just squirted him right before this shot because it's kind of different from the shop before. But it's in the same place. They just squirted him. And I'm just looking at where they squirted him. It's adding to the mystique of this like PR firm that Frank works at is the woman he talks to. I think it's his boss's secretary is wearing this all purple knitted kind of wrap jumpsuit, which is fine. But then a woman walks by wearing the exact same thing. But in lime green. It's very culty. I don't know. Or like kind of they look like like Star Trek kind of characters almost when it's that matchy matchy. Yeah, the sport coat that our lead guy wears. What was his name? Frank. Frank. The clothes he wore were kind of fancy. And I remember, I don't know if you remember do like you work on a cheap movie. You know, what they'll say is we'll pay you but you could keep your wardrobe. Now we'll let you keep your wardrobe. And I thought maybe he picked this very, very nice sport coat. And he wears it in almost every scene day or night. I'm thinking like I'm keeping this one. Because the shirt that he chose when the kid was being born was nice. Oh, that paisley. Oh, yeah. You get to keep your wardrobe as part of the deal. Yeah. So I mean, Frank gets fired because of this incident that happens after they go for the kid to get born. Yeah, listen, we're a PR firm. You can't have someone working here who's mutant baby killed a bunch of jellys. Which also, Colin Farrell's character in phone booth. Also PR guy. Larry Cohen just like shared. And how did the boss find out about the baby? Oh, the radio. Right? The doctor called him up. The doctor called him up and says to our leading guy, well, I told him because he knows things. Or he can wait, I have that quote in here. I missed this. I saw they like they broadcast it on the radio. The doctor, the doctor, the doctor didn't know. I remember the PR boss saying I have connections. I have connections. Yes. Right. Yes. He has connections. You know, he has connections. I spoke to the hospital. They give you information? I got connections over there, you know. Something like the guy, your guy, the guy who works in your office just had a month. Just destroyed six doctors. Just ripped their throat. Maybe you want to fire him. Yeah. It's not good for optics. Yeah, I mean, that's, we haven't addressed it directly. Yes, they have the baby and it kills the whole delivery room of like five people. Well, it's a mutant baby. It's a mutant baby. It's a mutant to see it really. It's a mutant baby. Yes, designed by Rick Baker. Oh, yeah. Which I always actually, when I saw that, I was like, not Baker's best work, but you know. But you know what, I thought it was better than I thought it was going to be really. Oh, okay. I thought the baby was better than what I was expecting. Well, they definitely keep it like 12 frames a second. You only see it per-per-per-sighting. You don't get much of a chance to see the baby. Which is fine. Yeah. But I just love how this baby's born. It kills all the doctors. It disappears. Quickly. Yes, very quickly. And we jump. And we jump so fast. And then the cops are like. To make you wonder, what happened to the baby? The cops come and they just find all these dead bodies and they're like, that baby killed them. Like that's the first thing. Yes. They're not even like, oh my gosh, who could have done this. Something else came and took the baby. There's no mystery. They're like, your baby killed them. Your baby. We're going to find that baby. We're going to have to put him down. We've never seen this before. But we're pretty sure. Do we talk about the Keystone cops? About the fact that like 20 dudes show up with rifles. Like the best moment is when they come around the corner all pointing their guns. At the real baby. At the real baby. The regular baby. Right. Great clip out of context that I want to post somewhere. Larry Cohen has a lot of weird lines in his movies that work so wonderfully out of context to the point where we covered, um, was it the stuff? Yeah. It was the stuff on this podcast and one of the quotes from that, I joked that it would be a great yearbook quote for high school seniors and a lot of people have used it as it. Which one? From this other, the stuff. And it was like, it's everybody has to eat shaving cream once in a while. Everybody has to eat shaving cream once in a while. This quote from this movie is. Hunting and killing babies doesn't seem to be my specialty. Hunting and killing babies doesn't seem to be my specialty. Just to have someone say that. Right. In a strength delivery. Right. And then the reply from his partner then was like, your wife's giving you a hard time. Maybe you should, maybe you should quit. And my thinking was like, wait, didn't this just happen like within the last 24 hours? It's happening very fast. Like it's all happening so fast. And he's having an existential crisis about a career choice because he's chasing one baby and his wife is complaining and the other guy. Yeah. Like there was a lot packed into the timeline. I mean, even on the way home from the hospital after the baby has killed all those people. It's already on the radio. On the news. And they're doxing it. They doxed him. They doxed him fast. You know what? And our sources say it was this Frank Davis guy. And here's his dress. And he does the dress. And I love it. He's like, they said my name. Damn it. They used my name. Like it's like this great epic line. Yeah. And the cops keep insisting on calling it an animal. This poor dad is just like, look, it's a baby. It's my baby. It's a human being. Please stop. It's a human being. And they're like, okay, fine. We're going to hunt and kill your baby like an animal. And he says, that's okay with me. Yeah. At first he's like, fine with me. Yeah. And you know what? That kind of read to me as like, it's almost like shame is a theme here. Like the dad doesn't want to be known as like the dad of this mutant child. And so he's doing everything he can to be like, no, no. I'm with you guys. I'm against the weird frequency. That's not mine. Yeah. That's not mine. That's not ours. He tells the son, like that's not, you know, That's of no relation to us. Yeah. And obviously, you know, by the end he has a change of heart, but the whole movie is him trying to like stuff down those paternal instincts and just be like, I don't want to be cast aside for caring for this thing. He's like, how does it reflect on me? Yeah. He doesn't want to lose his job for it. He doesn't want to lose these accounts. How about that change of heart though at the end? Yeah. It's, it gets very touching when he realizes it's frightened and he, I think that's the moment he has the father child connection and it's sad. It's, it's, it breaks your heart. Yeah. And it is the Frankenstein kind of moment. He talks about Frankenstein earlier. Oh yeah. I think that's very pointedly brought up the whole like, he says something about like, Who's the monster? Yeah. Like, which stop? Yeah. Something like that. Well, he says, no, I grew up reading, when I read Frankenstein, I read it thinking that Frankenstein was the monster. He was like, but what I realized is that the doctor who made the monster is the monster. Yeah. Right? And it's, it was a poignant little moment in the movie that would otherwise be frivolous. Yeah. That's the thing is these movies can be like with Cohen, they're cheesy and ridiculous, but like, there's a little bound underneath the surface. Yeah. You could dig into it a little bit. Cohen walks the tightrope. Yeah. And I was like, what's the story about? And this is okay, but it's just so much about what the man was going through. Oh, sure. And I'm just thinking like, what about the wife? What about the mom? I mean, like, twice? Yeah. Like, what about the wife? Oh yeah. Yeah. It's just like, calm down. Yeah. Her story is tertiary, you know? It's just like way down the line. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, yeah. It's like the dad, the detective, the doctor from the university. Charlie. Yeah. Then the son. Yeah. Charlie. Those are my friends or whatever. Yes, literally. Yeah. Cohen movies are very, they're very male-centric movies. They're, like, there's definitely a through-line of like, very flawed men just trying not to snap. And that's definitely his kind of writer's signature. And like, it's something I personally, I like about his movies. It's like, what I kind of expect from them. But you're so right. It's like, so what is the mom doing this whole time? Because she kind of almost died. Yeah. She gave birth to this thing and we don't even get to see any sweet payoff. Yeah, and we even have her. You know, it's this really, it's hard to watch. She's like something's wrong and they're not listening to her. They only kind of start listening once her husband comes in and starts advocating for her, which is something that that happens. Yeah, I think that's the most like sympathy that the the film makes sure to give for the mom is like that. That opening scene when she's giving birth, she keeps saying there's something different about this one and they are just ignoring the hell out of her. Oh, I know. Oh, it's just a big baby. You've done your part. Now let us do on. Exactly. Yeah. Didn't the doctor have a cigarette like while he was... Probably. Yeah. He's like, everybody's smoking. ...we got this. Yeah. It's gonna help the baby come out quicker. They had one bizarre moment where the nurse was taping the mother. The mother was taping the mother and she says because she writes on the side. Yeah. You know, so the nurse is trying to be a writer. Mm-hmm. So get out of this medical profession and go into show business. She's hiding a tape recorder under a napkin. Yeah. And the mom's like, what's under that? Nothing. Nothing. I think it's a tape recorder. I was the only registered nurse and I I writtled along the side. I'm writing on the side. Cut to it was how Larry Cohen recorded sound while filming. There was clean no boom. I mean again, it was like everything was done in post. Except for a few key scenes. There was one thing too that was interesting that I thought was Japanese related in in like Japanese monster movies. Anybody could go to anybody and ask him anything. So if you're a civilian, you could go up to the head of the Japanese army and go, what's happening? He's Godzilla. He too tough, you know, and they will do that and you could talk to anybody in the same thing in this movie. You could go to anybody. You go to the chief of police. You go to the head of. You go to anybody and anybody can ask anybody anything and they'll talk to him. Yeah. And that's real fiction. Yeah. Yeah. There's no like red tape or anything or like barriers. Yeah. Sure. I'll talk to you. We're going to bring the police in here now. Yeah. It makes the whole thing kind of feel like a big costume party where there's no, you know, everyone's just wearing cop out. Yeah, they're not really. Yeah. They're just wearing cop. Yeah. Like the eight cars go. Yeah. And from one camera angle and then they show the same thing different camera angle to think it's more, but it's really just the same shot used twice. And I wonder, I wonder because the baby was so funky, right? The baby was so funky. I wonder if there's a chain of disaster that comes from that is that is that they had to shoot the baby a lot in the dark, you know, and because they shoot a lot in the dark, it creates a lot of illogic in the police coming into the school. You know, nobody turns on any lights. Oh, why does nobody turn on any lights? So how do they even know to go to the school? Yeah, yeah, to go to the baby. They're all in the dark with flashlights and let's just turn on the lights to find the damn baby. But no, you know, because the you can't film that baby. Yeah, you can't film that baby under light. I mean, the opening, the very first shot of the movie is even like it's all those twinkling lights. It's a bunch of flashlights. Yeah. It's always that baby's always going to be in the dark. Yeah, you're right. I was thinking of Jaws, you know, I was like, you don't see the shark for so long. And they're pretty much on an evil, even footing. Jaws. Very similar. They come up and say, no. Jaws was 75. I think Jaws was actually inspired by it. Yeah. I want it's alive, but they didn't show the baby and it's alive. We don't have to show the shark. Yeah. This week's episode is sponsored by Ali. We here at Dead Meat know that Molly isn't just special to us. She's special to all of you. 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Why would you think, Stephen? Well, after I got through all of it and kind of decided should I have vodka now or later, you know, I thought okay. They were saying, and that last scene where he's with the baby, I'm going like, man, he pulled the Stanislavski out on that thing. You know, it was like, oh my God, it isn't a logical connection between man and child, between who you're trying to bring up. It's not a logical connection. It's a connection that's bigger than we are. And you have to acknowledge that or there will be catastrophe or disaster. And if you acknowledge it, there is a path forward, no matter what that path may be like this child years of orthodontics. And who knows. But you know, there is a path forward if you accept that there is a bigger love in the universe than you could see. Well, and also they threw the R word around in the movie. They did, yeah. Quite a bit. Which we don't use anymore. Yeah. Yeah. It was a little bit. Phil from accounting has a. I think that I think that to your point, there were so many families that were experiencing again through Agent Orange and with that, like there were so many things that are happening. And if you do have a kid that has done something where you're just like, why is my child different? I think that culturally, this is a crazy story, but the Kennedy's Joe Joe Kennedy. Yeah, Rosemary. Rosemary. Yeah. She had, she was dyslexic and because she couldn't read and was slow to learn, they lobotomized her. And so I think because America had this, the industry of institutionalization and it was anything that deviated from the norm was deemed dangerous, wrong, inappropriate, taboo. It's weirdly a groundbreaking film to be like, even if your child is a hideous, carnivorous, murderous fang boy. Love the thing. Yes. Love the thing. And it's not just to hide them away. There's also a case in the British royal family too. I think Queen Elizabeth had two, was it cousins? Where the royal family like never acknowledged them. And it was just the thing where they were kind of like tucked away and like kept out of the royal family kind of thing. And you know, in this movie, they don't have the option to do that with this baby. It literally breaks out of the. The birthing room and they spend the whole movie trying to find it. And it's broadcast. Right. I would have loved to have seen, I had a little bit of explanation as to why it was so blood thirsty. You know, why it, because it also like milk too. Oh, and meat. Like a whole freezer of meat. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, it was the biggest jump scare of the movie for me when he is in his fridge and then he closes the fridge door and there's my identical brown fridge. It was almost like the classic horse jump scare setup where you're like in the mirror door and you close the door and there's something there. But it was another fridge. Yeah. Yeah, she was. That got me too. Yeah. When he closed it, I literally was like, oh, there's another one. I didn't expect that. And then he opens it. Just to show us that the meat. He's like, no, it's a freezer. I know you were thinking, do fridges? No, no, fridge and freezer. Well, let's talk about, maybe it's a little bit. Yeah. But I want to see Fergus. I think Fergus needs to join us. Fergus, come here, Fergus. Do you want to hold Fergus? Yes. Go ahead. Go ahead. Oh my God. Yeah. Animated. Speaking of children. I mean, does he feel like a member of the family at this point? The brothers, my sons. Hi, everybody. So my sons are like, Micah in particular will tease me and be like, how's your son, Fergus, doing? Really? Yeah. He's not my son. That's fascinating. It's so, we have a friend, Kira, who, her dad's Tony Gardner, who he does make up and he puppeteers Chucky. And she literally, she'll call Chucky her brother. Chucky pays for a lot of groceries. Yeah, exactly. But it's weird how that happens. Like these little guys start to take on a very human. What was the name of the screenwriter of Mimics? Mark Oakley. Okay. You said that he's a grade school friend of yours. I've known Mark Oakley since first grade. Wow. Amazing. Which is wild. So did he write the script with you in mind as well? So I used to do all these weird, like, glass breaking. And like, if you wanted to hit somebody like, and the guns, I mean, literally, those are all terrible sound effects, but they turned into impersonations and then over the years. Like the guy from police academy? Kind of. Yeah. Yeah. That's where I got it from, to be honest with you. Yeah. That's fun. I used to make a ton of noises and Mark was always just like, how do you do that? So he wrote this screenplay and it was really more like magic and it was more about a ventriloquist puppet. But I was, I said, listen, Mark, there's, I don't think ventriloquism, we should hang our hat on this thing talking and me talking and I said, but I do impersonations. So let's just incorporate that and at least we can have fun with. So it was all very tailor made kind of part. Okay. Jump in there and do my thing. This was your feature directorial debut? Yeah. Yeah. This is the first. How'd it go? I think it went, how'd it go? Success. It was a heck of a lot of fun and just to have done the thing, I was thinking about how we're talking about it's alive and we're talking about it a little bit in tongue and cheek. If we were talking about, you know, bridge over the require or something else, there'd be a lot more reverence, but I think the fact that this guy made a movie and the fact that there's a social commentary at all and the fact that it was made in 1974 and 50 years later, we are discussing it. I think that's a pretty cool thing. And so like that, I think mimics who knows how you guys are going to like it or not like it or looking there, you know, who knows, but we did a thing and we had a lot of fun doing it and I'm so grateful like these gentlemen who I've known for a long time and you know, professionally answered the call and said yes and it was a very quick 15 day shoot. We shot it in Reno, Nevada, which is my hometown. And then I think the coolest thing is like my dad, who has, he's 86 years old, he just turned 87 this week. Wow. Oh, it's my first day. And he has congestive heart failure and so we don't know how long we've got him for, but the doctor said five years, that was 10 years ago. Wow. And he's like, he's so old, it just keeps on going. And I was like, you know what, I'm giving him the last line of my movie. I'm going to capture him on digital celluloid. And like, let's just, and so we have this really cool moment where at the end of the movie, the MC Jerry, is my dad Jerry. Oh, really? And he says, hey, Andy, his dad's name and his brother's name were Andy. And so he's kind of like saying hi to his dad and his brother as he moves off. And so for me, that was a... Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. It was just a cool thing to be able to do. Yeah, that's cool that like he says 86 and he's in that. He looks great. I wouldn't have guessed that. Chris, you play a late night host in the mix. Did you do any like studying any specific inspirations? I looked at some old clips of Johnny Carson. Carson, for sure. Yeah. You know, I grew up watching Carson, so it was, he was in my head, you know, for sure. I feel like a late night host is a really fun role to play. It was fun. Especially, yeah, maybe not nowadays, but we all grew up watching those shows. And, you know, absorbing those mannerisms and that way of speaking. So just be able to do that is a lot of fun. Yeah, it was. It was a cool part. I love your character's son. Oh, my God. Just looking at his house. Yeah. His son. Oh, that's your actual son. It's my actual son. Yeah, Mike. Mike is the film school kid. Oh, OK. So he watched It's Alive with you. Yeah, he's the only one. Yeah, he's a part of this interview. Effectively. And a part of the movie. That was a big deal for him to work with you. That was he had a lot of fun. Oh, that was a cool scene. And he played a I can't we call him a douchebag official. Can we say that? Yeah, yeah. He's a fuck boy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It was one of those things where he was like, did the hair and kind of hicky made a hickey and went for it. But I remember working with you and thinking like you actually could. You remember when they used to guest host late night shows? Yeah, yeah, yeah. People would guest host. You would actually crush it as a late night host. I think the voice and everything. It was like, I mean, being there in the moment with them, I was like, you should actually this would not be a bad gig. I know Kimmel still does that. Oh, there you go. Guest guest hosts. How do you know these two? All right. Do you guys want to tell how we met? Just run. So Chris and I did a ABC sitcom back in 2006 called Miss Guided. Judy Greer, Ashley Kutcher produced it. Oh, Judy's the best. We love it. Judy. And then Steven and I did a movie years ago called Atlas Shrugged 3. OK. There was the. How many Atlas Shrugged? There was a trilogy. I mean, it's a long book. It's a huge book. I think we we closed it. We closed it down for the last. They changed the Dagny Taggart character of different actors. Each movie, John Galt. I played John Galt. So like you was just. You also who is John Galt? I was your dog. We got. Oh, shit. And so we worked on the on the movie together and it was. It was a love affair from the from the word. Get we didn't we had scenes, but you did most with Dagny, right? Yeah, yeah, most most with her. But we did scenes at night, I remember like in a part. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're something when I forgot all my life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was it was very dark. Yeah. And anyway, it was we were in 2023. We filmed this in 2024. So Mimics was. Mimics was filmed in 2024. So we had just gone through the strike. 2023 was a relatively slow year for the industry. And then almost to punitive levels, 2024 was even slower. Yeah. And so just I think I just got really lucky that these guys were available and willing to jump in and, you know, they said, yes. So thank you. Thank you. Oh, yeah. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I'm Stephen. You're yeah, you provide such warmth to the movie. And so being there to provide that warmth and then knowing it was a horror movie, I was like, it's going to suck when he. I know. You know, he's like, you know, the formula at a certain point. I think being a horror fan sets you up for so much heartbreak because you start to know the formula and you're like, you meet a character and you're instantly like, oh, I like them a lot. They're don't get attached. Don't get attached. Yeah. I had a lot of horrible experiences in my life that set me up for this this movie. I had heart problems and I had to have triple triple bypass surgery. And it was very much like. It's alive. Very much like, you know, they came in and there's this whole routine where they knock you out and where they put you out. You know, the first they come in, it says, now it's going to be party time. And they give you a shot and you go where you don't care about anything. And they said, now the next thing we're going to do is a little more serious. And we're going to give you a shot in your neck. And you won't be able to talk or move. And you go, huh? Yeah, that's right. So don't don't worry about anything. And they make you unconscious, conscious, but you can't move. You're paralyzed. Just trapped in there. You're with the pause button. You're paralyzed. That's terrifying. You're paralyzed. And then they take you into the next room, which you keep moving closer and closer to death. And then the guy whispers in your ear and goes, now we're going to get ready to put you out. Is there anyone you would like to say goodbye to? Oh, what? If you want to say goodbye, you just think them. You think you're not able to just think and I'll hear it. And I'll be able to go out and tell them you're OK. Everything's OK. And I was I was like, OK, this is just fucking crazy. And and they put me out. And the first thing that happened when I opened my eyes was my wife with just tears just coming down, just tears coming. And so when we were doing mimic, I was thinking like the scene. Very much is is very much kind of like what I went through a little bit, not the Stanislavski, but it's the film version of like shortening it and making it quicker to where you slowly lose every bit of yourself. Except the last thing you lose is yourself. You know, you have yourself all the way to the very end. You lose the ability to move, to talk, to do anything, to gesture. But the last thing I had was love for him. You know, we mimic the last thing I had was. The thought of my my grandson. You know, even though I'm way too young, way to your grandson, way too young to be my grandfather. It's the one thing I would fault the casting. Well, you know, and it's so funny because we could have changed it to father. And the only reason I was like a losing a father. It's not great. Yeah. Losing a father versus losing a grandfather when you've already lost both parents, like the whole thing with Sam is an orphan. And so that he was raised by his grandfather. So I just felt like the dynamic of all this truly was whereas, I don't know. It just but there was a conversation when we when I cast you to make it the father. And I was like, I just feel like the grandfather. But yeah, it was a little artistic license. You have to just suspend the thing I loved about your direction and everything. We didn't really talk about this was in shooting our scenes. You kind of enabled there to be a kind of freedom for us to create kind of our own language of the way we just communicated during the scenes. And I felt like it gave it a familial feel. You know, it felt like we weren't just actor. I felt like we were. Yeah, involved. It's actually really cool because we had this. It was the first day. It was the second scene that we shot. So the very first thing we shoot is Sam and Grandpa walking into the house and where they like and they're looking around and everything's kind of magical. When the new house, the new house, the new house. And then the second scene, the second set up was his couch scene. And the whole thing with the oxygen mask and all of that. And there was there was a lot of intimacy of just sitting there. It was just Alex yelling the DP, who's also our cameraman, and Stephen and I. And we were just kind of talking like it was like a silent film. I'll be like, OK, you know, do this thing and the sun was coming in. And I was really sad and beautiful. There was also what was cool about working with these two guys is they bring so much creativity to whatever it is that they're doing. And there wasn't a lot of direction to give. And, you know, you know, Chris came in and just knocked it out of the park. And he crushed this scene where you're just like, OK, that's exactly right. And so it becomes very easy for me to just make sure the camera is looking and capturing it. And then Stephen had a conversation before we went to camera. And he told me the story about the fishing in the boots. And so that ended up in the script. His line, there's a cost to everything became like the theme because it was unspoken. And then he when he said it, I was like, you know, that's kind of like the bull. There is a cost to everything. And then the line about Virginia that a good woman knows the soul of a man, like a good woman can see into the soul of a man was an added thing. And so when you have actors that are willing to to give you those offerings, it just it changes everything like leveled up the whole movie. So yeah, super grateful for these things. The thing that freaked me out about doing the movie was I had no idea that you did all those voices. I had no idea. And when people watch this, I mean, they could think it's AI or they could think it's something else. But in the room, it's awesome to watch you do all of this stuff for real. I remember there was one quote I always remember, because earlier I thought I'd be a director. I think it was Stanislavski was saying if you're doing a scene and you want the audience to pay attention to what is being said in the scene, you have to do something real. So like in one of the check off plays, serve tea and you serve tea and you're doing the scene and they're drinking the tea, they're doing something real. The audience will remember what you're saying and what you're doing because you do something real. Because he's doing the the underwater stuff. That's nuts. That's crazy. It's real. It's real. And everyone think I go, well, that's just no, it's crazy that you do these voices that you can hold your breath. It's nuts. It's it's absolutely insane. Did you always hold your breath while I was walking? No, I should have. I know I because how long were you a minute and 20? Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. That's underwater. Underwater and we cut it so that it literally I time because I was like, I want it to be if you hold your breath, you can actually and it's it's it's legit. Nice. Where can people watch? Theaters everywhere. Movie theaters. Like every so it's so it's a limited release. So we are in again at the time of this, we'll have a more finite number. But right now we're all across the country nationwide, AMC, Regal, Malico theaters. Yeah, just go to Femdego.com and you can find out to see if it's playing in your area. Great. I'll make sure to have links in the description. And also, it was fun to see Chris just like that that serious turn that after like the cut to commercial break, because I'm just so used to seeing you in comedic stuff like 30 Rock and I love that movie. Yeah. So that moment was like, oh, oh, he can be kind of scary. It's cool to see that. Yeah. I think that about does it. This was so fun. This is a blast guy. This is a great movie discussion. I got so much out of that. Yeah. So much discussion of themes. I loved it. Love that you say that. Yeah. That was so new. Yeah. I don't I'm not giving him back. I love him. This is my son. And it's so cool how Fergus turned up in that trunk that you bought at the estate sale. Yeah. I really know where he came from. It's also cool because like what I found him, that's when the financing happened. Yeah. Yeah. It was weird. No downsides either. Yeah. No. So far it's just been what? You imagine. This is what this is like the turning point for me where I'm like, this is my patronage. Yeah. Well, thank you all so much. Thank you Fergus. Thanks for having us. Yeah. Thanks for having us. I'll have links in the description where you can buy tickets to go see Mimics. Until next time, I'm Chelsea. I'm James. We had Zoran helping us. Zoran's helping us. Thank you Zoran. Thank you Zoran. We love you. You're all welcome. It's the mayor of New York. And this has been the Dutton Meats podcast.