Episode 25

full
Published on:

26th Oct 2022

Jacob's Ladder - You Know, For Kids

When you think horror movies for Halloween, Jacob's Ladder may not be the fun choice, but it's one of the first movies that comes to mind when we want something to really scare us. It's effect on the genre my be unmatched.

Also: The Knock at the Cabin trailer, Scott's Review of Devil in Ohio, and the terror of driving through remote parts of the US.

Find Us

Twitter - https://twitter.com/LastClerks

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thelastvideostoreclerks/

Facebook.com/lastclerks

Subscribe to Podcast:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-last-video-store-clerks/id1619037600

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2c2ui17JePSCB6WjlWgy2o?si=TBLDrE8DS4GkY1ZJUTayXQ

Everywhere: https://the-last-video-store-clerks.captivate.fm/listen

The Last Video Store Clerks website

Copyright 2024 Last Clerks

Transcript

Jacob's Ladder

[:

Does this hold up? And just, what the hell is a good movie? Anyway, I'm Frank Roll. I've Scott Moran and we are the last video store. Watch this thing. Test tube, baby . There were some hardcore jokes in that. I remember watching that when I was at the video store. Mm-hmm. and being like, Oh shit, baby, these kids.

And I like put it on. I was like, This is not for children. . Some of these fucking jokes are, So whatever year that came out is when we went to go theater at the movie theater. I didn't see that in the theater. I saw it on a VHS tape, but a cousin's house or something like, Oh, that was at the theater. The theater.

In West Virginia [:

Uh, sidekicks was dark kind of sad. You think so? I was about to call him Jonathan Landis.

It's like food fusion, but with movies. Seaquest was dope. Dsv was, it was called dsv, was it? I've never re-watched SE Quest, but oh, when I had my third security job, I was able to watch Netflix while working. Netflix wasn't fully developed yet. It just stopped. Like it didn't have all, Oh, they hadn't put it all up yet.

ight episodes of like random [:

Some of my old man shows that I watch. Mm-hmm. , they, it says season one and two, but in. Seven and eight. And I don't know why they do that cuz they're like two seasons and it's one, two. But if you actually look up that series, it's season seven and eight. Very misleading. Yeah. That's annoying. Mm-hmm. your shit together.

Netflix, you'd think they could do it. I actually watched a Netflix series this week. It's more of a. What I always think of as like a, a shitty mystery novel show. Okay. You know, like a grocery store, mystery novel grocery store mystery show. There are a lot of 'em. There's a lot of BDC series that are just murder series or like Woman was Raped and it's lots of court stuff or something like that.

l Devil and stuff. Mm-hmm. , [:

No. Fuck. It's like a fucking saltine cracker of like satanic cult shows. Is it the lifetime version of a Satanic cult show? Kind of what's weird is it has good directors, like good directors all the way through bigger horror directors. You know, not ones that you'd be like, I recognize that guy's name, but when you look 'em up you're like, Oh shit, that's Netflix.

I was catching up on John Oliver. He was in the middle of one of the stories and he just random knock against Netflix. It was like someone else who gives us something. No one absolutely asked for, like absolutely no one asked for, you know? Yeah. That devil in Ohio thing looked good. It was just, you know, the hinge of a sci-fi movie or a horror movie.

Mm-hmm. is you did your fucking research about the thing you're talking about. Hmm. or you know, enough about it to write this thing and it sounds like somebody just threw together what a Satanic cult would be. Damn. And so it's real loose. That's awful. That's, I didn't expect much. I had some hope for it. I will say this.

At one point he [:

What I, what I enjoyed a lot more was while Kelly was outta town, I watched a bunch of haunted history. The History Channel one, Haunted history. Yeah. I don't know if I ever watched that one. It's good. Does it have reenactments? Yeah. . I like reenactments. Is there any actual footage? No. I mean it's like historical.

You know, like they have like the fucking, the Rooke colony and stuff like that. Gotcha. You know? Gotcha. It's cool. It's a history channel show. I would love that. I would love that show. It's just haunted history's. Yeah, it's just hauntings of, It's mostly where I grew up in the Northeast, you know, , like that area's terrifying.

I'm not going that far. Just [:

Highways is highways, man. I'm sticking to the main roads to stay away from horror movie scenario. I went to visit my stepdad and my first stepdad in West Virginia. Mm-hmm. . And uh, I was like, I'm gonna take the scenic route. I am terrified, , and I'm from here. Yeah. You drive through some of those little towns and the whole population was like, come out on the porch and be like, Car, car, car, car.

And that does not make you feel safe. This is fucking terrifying. Well, you know, Texas isn't super friendly every. Once we thought it would be a good idea to go to sleep right after work and then leave for the road trip at midnight. It seemed great in theory, but we went through some of those small West Texas towns, 2, 3, 4 in the morning.

ee on front porches in those [:

And I was like, Nope. Fuck no. Fuck no. Not nothing here. Nothing for 50 miles. We fucking go. The fuck, man. I don't need a conductor. I don't know. . And what's he doing? I'm just standing straight up on the porch. Where's your tray? . Oh, man. But now I got, Did you do any movies? I did. Uh, let's see, American Wear in London.

, I think. I've never really [:

Uh, not gonna do it though. Dead man on American Werewolf in Paris. the paper's. Josh, but American War Wolf in London is fucking. Those fucking dream sequences are great. It's been a long time. And then, uh, I watched a, Oh, Black Widow. Black Widow was the other movie I watched. I haven't seen it yet. It was one of the better Marvel movies.

It's right where I had to hit pause on Marvel. It was a nice jump back in the timeline. Mm-hmm. , I would be down to watch some Marvel movies that were made in between the timeline we already have in the. There's plenty room. Yeah, plenty to fill in side stories cuz this felt like an off series, like in a comic book where sort of an event series, but it's what's gonna lead to an event series.

s here and you know when all [:

And so you have to read inside all things. And they beautifully did that with the movies. And uh, now I'm more interested in seeing stories, just individual stories where the whole thing gets taken care of in one movie. We know all about the character. We don't need any setup, we don't need backstory, anything like that.

This was good. Florence, Pew and, uh, what's his name? Place Hopper on Stranger Things. He was fucking. So funny with a Russian accent.

He's right between the Fat Hopper and the Rip Hopper, which you haven't ever seen or like, uh, Hellboy ripped. Okay. You know, he's still got the gut, so it's like perfect timing. I forgot I watched the new Hellboy already, to be honest. I can see how you could forget. Yeah. And then other than that was just Series I, I made Kelly watch Aunt Man for the first time, cuz she'd never seen it.

at one too. For some reason. [:

I watched Wanda Vision. I watched Lokey. Uhhuh, I watched Rings of Power. Totally caught up on all those. And Loki is the clear. Lokey. I did not have any desire to watch it, but I was like, I'm gonna give it a go. Fucking Owen Wilson is great. It's a buddy cop doctor who time, travel time crime thing with Lokey and Owen Wilson with a mustache.

I can't, I do Marvel and batches. I was going back through the timeline cuz Disney Plus has it all in timeline order. They have the chronological order, which is great. Mm-hmm . So I went through and I was like, Don't care. You care about that? Maybe care about that a little bit. Loki was the one I was the least interested in watching.

king thing. Couldn't stop in [:

It's great you have so much more time to watch things than I do. Fucking, I just dosed down, man. I don't look at my phone a whole lot or anything like that. I'll just, uh, I don't think about what I wanna watch for very long. Yeah. I just go for it. And that's been what I've been doing lately. What'd you watch?

Not as much . Um, I did watch a cartoon with the kid. The little one I put something on for her. HBO Max, uh, DC League of Super. It's really fun. The adult humor was spot on. It's DC so the characters are there and I love how the characters are portrayed in this one. Like the actual superheroes, you know, not just the Super Pets , but lots of laughs.

pening. I like the happening [:

But the rest was fine. Well, and I feel like Mark Wahlberg was still finding himself a little bit at that point. I think he's funny in that though. He is. What we always kind of joke about on the side are his facial expression. If you try not to take him so seriously. He's fun. Well, he has this look that's like, I know you can't see it, Scott.

It. It's this like frustrated, confused mouth, open, cock down a little. It's like Mitch Kramer grabbing his nose and dazed and confused. It's like his character tick. He's trying to be serious. A little more dramatic, but it's just this face like, Every time we watch it, I'm looking for Mark Wahlberg's face.

ne role playing horror game. [:

Was it good? It had promise. Is it worth a try? So I did. That's, you know me, sometimes I, I left turn on you towards the end of a movie where you're like, Ugh. And I'm like, Oh my God, this is dumb. If you have spare time. There was parts of it that blew me away. This fucking awesome. They had some, you know, newer kind of original music in there.

She did great. The lead actress, and it was like her featured, first featured role, da da da. Like they made sure to give her credit at the beginning of the movie. I was like, Cool. But she really did good. She freaks you the fuck out. Makes you feel uncomfortable. When a character makes me feel that uncomfortable job well done, you know?

In murder house? She was her [:

Yes, she. Made me very uncomfortable through the whole movie , and it was part of why it was so good. Yeah. Is she's so like strained and awkward, you know? Mm-hmm. . Well, this main character, Casey, she's a loner. I got a little stressed out thinking about it. There's a weird situation with whatever parent, I think it's the dad.

She lives with, I don't, You couldn't even begin to guess what the fuck's going on there. Well, I mean you can, but it's, They keep it vague, but the whole thing is you post videos of your transformation or what's happening as you're going to the World's Fair, look it up. And when you see the cover, what they have is the picture on the thumbnail now on HBO Max.

That's what caught my attention. It's like, this looks weird as fuck. I haven't looked at HBO Max in a while, actually. Come to think of it. That's why I was on it. And the last horror movie I watched on there was the night. Well, that's why I watched the happening. I thought, Ooh, new things shiny, and I and I saw the happening, but fuck yeah, oldy, but goody.

ready been out for a minute. [:

I wouldn't have been completely satisfied, you know, if it was back in the day or you might have talked yourself into liking it better. I feel like I did that back in the day where I, I went and pick this and shit. Mm-hmm. , I'm gonna like it. It's one of those, it completely lost me at the end. I wanna say, I can see what they were trying to get across.

A lot of things do that to me, but at the very end, I just couldn't think of anything else. But that's what this is coming to. That's how we're gonna wrap. That's how I felt about, uh, Insidious. See, I haven't seen the first Insidious. At the end of Insidious, I was like, Oh, man, doing so good. Was it like the end of apartment 1 43?

ed at the end if they could. [:

And that'll make me wanna watch sound like Frank was confused. I'll tell you, there's a scene in the movie, Creeped Me the Fuck Out. Oh, that's cool. That that was the thing. The night house. I was like, man, by the end of it. And the same with Umma. They both said, uh, You said don't watch it though, right? No, it, it's fine.

Okay. It's just it. I thought you said no. Go it. Absolute review of Umma was, it goes too hard, too fast, and then it stops being scary because you get desensitized. Mm-hmm. , you know, like you come and she's still sucking

I was, I was gonna say something else about we're all going to the world's fair, but I lost it. all. There we go. The scene that I'm talking about that really creeped me the fuck out. It gave me goosebumps the first time I told you that. Just a minute. Ooh, it gave me chills. I'll watch something just for one fucking scene.

gets ya. It's a great scene [:

But there's like parts of it that. They're zingers, man. They're just single chapters following somebody who's not the main character. And I would just be like, Whoa. Did you like the TV movie back in the day? I did. It was good. I did like the TV movie, wasn't it? Cut up in a park? The cast was really good.

Jimmy Smits was really good. Then Jimmy Smits. Yeah, that was one of those finer moments. Was that Marge? Helen Berger? Yeah. . Yeah. Cuz she gets like emaciated, her team falling out. That shit is crazy. But uh, I meant to say, while you were talking about the happening, did you watch, uh, Knock at the cabin door.

ike I was watching a YouTube [:

Mm-hmm. , As soon as I saw that Asian girl, I was like, I've read this book. Mm. This is one of my favorite books. Oh my God. And then I was like, Gay dads. And then every casting decision and everything, like I was like, Holy fuck. That book is primed to be an M Night Shalon movie. Awesome. Because it's like a perfect shamble on ending, which doesn't always happen.

I. I'll m night old, fucking burn the house down, man, it was so good. I'll defend him to the death. It's like Star Wars. You're not gonna get a hundred good Star Wars movies, , but if you get three, it was worth them making that many. No, his storytelling to me is it's different. He puts a lot of effort into the writing and I really appreciate some of those concepts that he comes up.

ow, it's just, at times it's [:

And uh, just, just cuz I haven't seen it in. Being such a big supporter, I noticed that people tend to hate on the village and Lady in the Water. Well, Lady in the Water is, I, I don't even count it. Fucking hate that movie Lady in the Water on tv. See, the only thing I really like is Freddy Rodriguez is one giant side of his body.

Yeah, no, I mean, Bryce, Dallas, Howard, though I used to make fun of my friend who was a camera operator, one of his arms was, it was bigger, bigger than the other one. . No, I mean, and I even enjoy Lady in the Water. I gotta catch that every now and then. Lady in the Water, , Do you remember the preview? Yeah, it would do the whole preview.

aw it, I think I was getting [:

Weird change if. You're interested. The fucking book is called Cabin at the End of the World, and, uh, I guess it's a lot of words or who knows , but that book is fucking is a fucking banger dude. That's gonna be a really good movie. It's the perfect length book to make a movie out of too. Mm-hmm. . It's like a tight 300 pages.

Well, so that preview that you sent me though, everything that they show, I feel like that's going to happen really fast in the movie. They only showed you the beginning. That's the very beginning. It's the very beginning. I, I felt it. Yeah. I promise you that. It's so much to that. No, I felt it. It's gonna be a tense movie.

and uh, it still scares me, [:

When did you watch Jacob's Ladder when you were younger? My mom and her roommate had rented it and while, like I said, between my mom and my dad there was watch whatever you want. When she put this one on and it started, she was like, This is pretty. She kind of gave me a warning, like, If you don't wanna watch this, you don't have to.

I think my dad gave me the same warning. Yeah. Like he was like, This is kind of, kind of intense man. But she, she said, I feel that something along the lines of, this might be too much for you. And they never said that to me about movies. It just wasn't a thing. I got to watch whatever movies I wanted and it was, it scared the hell outta me and haunted me for years.

I remember playing Silent Hill for the first time. Mm-hmm. and thinking about Jacob's letter, which was weird because while researching this movie, I found out that Jacob's letter is one of the huge inspirations. It's like David Lynch movies. Mm-hmm. and Jacob's letter were his whole thing with Silent Hill when he made those games and it, I feel it, man.

luence on the tool videos? I [:

And it came to me. I watched it on an afternoon one day a couple years ago. You know, didn't watch it at nighttime. It was an afternoon movie somehow the last time I watched it, it just popped up on something and I was like, Oh, it's been a. But I thought it was so long once it started going, I remember that.

I remember that. I remember that it was all coming back and I, it came back a little too fast, but I was like, You don't remember everything and you'll enjoy it. And sure enough, I was mouth open at times, you know, I felt like this was a good pick for an off the Beaten Path. Halloween movie too. Mm-hmm. that I wouldn't normally have picked it.

I feel like it influenced a [:

Well, I remember it really affecting me as a kid, especially opening with the Vietnam War stuff. Cause even when you were a kid in the nineties, you knew there were echoes of that fucking, everything was like a joke about a Vietnam vet . But now that we're older, I look back on it, we weren't that far off when we were kids.

That was 20 something years earlier when that ended. Now closer to it then where we are from When Jacobs letter came out. It's been longer from stepdad was in the Army during Vietnam. Mm-hmm. , I don't believe he was there, but, you know, had the threat hanging over him. Yeah. I had an uncle who was in the Coast Guard, but I mean, that's, that was like my mom's oldest sibling in this too.

It was his discharge number [:

Mm. Because out of necessity. Wow. Yeah. But it was a real number from one of the consultants. Yeah. Wow. That's cool. The research in this movie is crazy. I wonder if they would do anything like that nowadays. I don't know. I don't think they would do anything like also hardest movie ever. To summarize, really hard to concisely tell you what this is about.

t attempt. The movie opens in:

Pretty much well up until that point. So his unit is deployed to a village in Vietnam. The unit then attacked almost fucking immediately. And while most of the men are wounded or killed, a few of them lapse into [00:24:00] convulsions and become catatonic, especially little twitchy. Eyes. . He reminds me of the guy from uh, Ernest movies.

Oak. Yeah. his neighbor or whatever. Uh, yeah, I always get 'em mixed up, but that guy's in way more movies now. Anyway, I'll let you go on. Sorry. Ernest does Halloween. Jacob flees for the treeline and is immediately stabbed by band, and then he wakes up in the New York subway after falling asleep reading The Stranger by Albert Camu.

I only put in there cuz I think that's kind of important. After seeing a tentacle protruding from a sleeping, homeless man, he finds the subway platform is locked and he's almost hit by a train full of faceless people while crossing the tracks to the other side to get out. He returns home to his girlfriend, who's a fellow postal worker named JE Short for Jezebel.

me. She was in batteries not.:

That, that was the first thing. Yeah. And she's, uh, Sophia Vergara's mom in Modern Family, . Really? I think that was her last part. Damn. She gives him an envelope that arrived containing pictures of his old life. Finding a picture of his deceased son Gabe. Played by an uncredited Macaulay Caulkin, same year as home alone.

ear? Same fucking year. Okay.:

His reaction to it, his Tim Robbins reactions really fucking got to me. But Jacob squirrels away the picture of Gabe and his wallet before that happens. Throughout the film, he flashes between visions of his family, flashbacks from his extraction from Vietnam, and the present day visions of. Faceless vibrating apparitions and demons.

. His psychiatrist is killed [:

Converges on reuniting with his platoon, visiting a lawyer. Played by the not yet completely bald. Jason Alexander in an attempt to uncover what has happened to them overseas as a whole. The movie paints a picture of Jacob's breaking mental state in narrative form rather than in a linear depiction of events.

acob's letter was released in:

It also features some actors that I totally didn't remember were in this movie. Ving Rames. That was the one that threw me the most off. Ving Rams. V Rams is in this fucking [00:27:00] movie. . Danny Aela, Pruitt Taylor, Vince Twitchy Eyes. Eric Lasal, er. This was right around ER time, wasn't it? Little before. Little before.

Little before, Okay. Also, Matt Cravin, also in er. Who's Matt Cravin. He just had a, a brief stint on ER at some point, but I specifically remember him being on there and I looked it up and he was there. I didn't look at who he was, was he.

Well, no, I mean, was he the LSD Cook? Is that who that was in er? No. Who's Matt Cravin. Oh yeah, he's the, He's the, Sorry. He is the LSD cook. Yeah, you're right. Sorry. I was like, there was an LSD cook in er. It's like a joke. Also, Kyle Gas was in this movie from Tenacious D. Really? For one second. And Louis Black for one second.

ck up. That was Lewis Black, [:

You shocked me. Yeah. No way. I meant to pull it up so I could show it to you again and just see. You be like, Whoa. I'm normally good at that. You know, you watch something older, you think, Well, I was like, Was that fucking Lewis Black? And I like looked it up for, See, I didn't get that at all. I was looking for the people that I didn't see in the big names in the opening credits.

It's one shot of him. I didn't realize so many people were attached to this movie at all. . It's crazy. Like I remember Tim Robbins and I remember Elizabeth Pena, but, uh, fucking Ving Rams that fucking threw me for a loop in the beginning of it, opening with the war. It was no saving private rhyme, but it was gory.

Until I saw this movie, my notion of what war looked like was mash

t Craven. Not related to Wes [:

He's one of those dudes. He's just there. Yeah, he's one of those dudes. He's, he's around. He's just, He's reliable. He's there. Yes. I feel like I saw more of like political roles, like he was that dickhead politician guy. Yeah. For. For sure. He's been in some stuff as, uh, Administrator . Yeah, administrator number two,

But Bruce, Joel Ruben wrote Brainstorm. Do you remember that shit? Brainstorm with Christopher Walking. It's Natalie Woods's last movie. No. What's Brainstorm? Yeah. Oh dude, it's wild. Uh, well, we'll get to that. . I'm gonna log that one away. . Uh, he wrote Deadly Friend. Oh, really? Mm-hmm. , Was that that one? The West Craven?

I'm not saying I checked the [:

I wonder if that one is, I scrolled through that whole list today. I didn't see that one. Hmm. But I. The cover could be who knows what, You know, Maybe I just didn't lock in on the title. Oh, okay. But he also wrote ghost. Really. He also wrote Deep Impact and he wrote the time. Traveler's Wife adapted it. Mm.

Indecent Proposal Lolita, the:

To make movies about people cheating on each other. Yeah. Unfaithful. Diane Lane. Yeah, Y . Yeah. Fatal Attraction though, man. That was the movie he did before Jacob's Letter. That was Glen Close. Michael Douglas. Yeah. That shit freaked me in. I always get 'em mixed up. And then there's the one that was the [00:31:00] comedy with Armand Desante.

What was Fatal Instinct. Oh yeah. Fatal Instinct. Was that Sean Young in that? Oh, maybe. I don't remember. I think it might have been Sean, but it was Armand Desante. What's fucked up is I'll remember that over the real movies. I liked that one. Back in the day, Fatal Instinct. I almost forgot the name again.

Yeah, I forgot about that. That was kind of pre all the scary movie movies and stuff like that. Definitely. Yeah. That was mid, if not early 90. Fatal instinct. I haven't thought about that in years. No, It's a winner. I can't believe he directed deep water. That's wild. Makes sense though. When you read the rest of his movies.

ottom, just so great. And for:

Everything was when they. Any special effect in this movie is [00:32:00] the moment they shot it all that shaken head shit. That's frame rate magic. He did it really well. No, it was so good and it holds up today. It didn't give me that, Oh, this is kind of dated. You know? I didn't get that feeling whatsoever. No, it's still so dark it, and it looked clean.

It was very smooth. So good. Yeah, I was really surprised at how well this. The tone is exactly that thing that scares me about the late eighties, early nineties. Horror movies we're about three or four years away from the really bubblegum horror starts coming out, you know? Mm-hmm. we're six years from teaching.

Mrs. Tingle, but , Yeah. Or seven? Seven, eight years. Nine. Nine, I believe teaching. Mrs. Tingle was 99. Was it really? I think so. Okay. Disturbed behavior was disturb behaviors. 90. I believe. Okay. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, so that was that lot. The faculty, Lot of horror movies. Mm-hmm. , When I think about things that scare me, it looks like Jacob's letter almost every time.

I [:

The metaphor of that the guy that fixes your back is the one who just, who puts you back on track and sends you on your way. Well, I, so, Well I was thinking the time period this was supposed to be taking place, you know, what eighties on a postal worker's salary, is it like really acceptable to go to the chiropractor that often?

It seemed like he was a family friend. I'm not tearing it down the storyline in any way. I was just like, Man, could that have been, let me be the explainer. Lewis knew way too much about his life to not be a family friend. He'd been a part of his life for a long time. Very much. It makes perfect sense. No, no, no.

s fucking dead. And the lady [:

A horn, and some weird s scabby shit. That was real gross. Yeah. All of the gore. Fucked up in this. I wouldn't poke half of it with a stick. Mm-hmm. , . No fucking way. In the subtleties, You know, you mentioned the shaking heads and the subway with the tail, and I watched the behind the scenes stuff for this. Did you see that?

The wave? Oh, the wave, Yeah. At the, at the, Would you call that the caboose on in, in the back of the tray? Yeah, the back of It's the, the last car. Yeah. That wave spooked. even today. I saw that. Uh, and you know, that's close to the beginning of, that's the beginning of the movie. That's the beginning. That's where we're dropped into the actual story.

eah. And she fucks the devil [:

Yeah, that scene really held up. How about when he finished? She shoots that horn out of her mouth. The horn out of the throat. . I was like, Whoa. They went there. I read that they auditioned 200 girls, different actresses for this, including, uh, I can't remember all of 'em, but Julia Roberts was one of them. No shit.

And that got turned down in favor of her was Rosie Perez. One. That would be likely if there were 200. Billy . Sorry Billy, but there were some other, like big Annie McDowell I think was on that list. People who, no shit. Yeah. Auditioned for this and didn't get it. It was a good pick. Picking her, not the obvious pick.

one point he mentioned I was [:

Yeah. Oh, the, We're jumping around a lot. But that's scene. Yeah. Where he wakes up in bed with his wife, with the wife white, and you're almost like, Oh, it was all a dream. None of doing that to you in this movie. Felt cheap though. No, because I wanted him it to all be a dream right then. Mm-hmm. and I was really rooting for it.

When he wakes up in that fucking bathtub again, he looks so that's why you didn't notice it was Lewis Black, Cuz that it was intense expression on his face is he did riping. So good. So good. You felt it in, I had this realization at nine years old that we're gonna. And it freaked me the fuck out. Not many people could have pulled that roll off like he did.

choice was Tom Hanks and Tom [:

You did the research. Did Jacobs Ladder win any awards? Not that I found. Yeah. It actually, uh, it was in post and production for so long. Mm-hmm. , because the film studio. Had no faith that anyone was gonna like this fucking movie. That sucks. And in fact, I didn't get a solid answer for it, but I think the sun was added after the fact.

Wait, Sun was added, Gabe, or at least it happened at some point during production. They were like, We have to redeem this man somehow. It's weird cuz that's a consistent, you know, line in the story. , if they added it later, they did it very gracefully. If they didn't, I think it might have been a change from the original screenplay, because I know that the original screenplay was pulled back from religious imagery.

s sense. I think it even has.[:

That frame rate head twitching thing. I haven't seen asylum in a while. They lost me at hotel. I If you jump hotel and go to the next one. Was the next one free show? No. Free show was pre hotel, was it? Yeah, it was. They lost me at free show. With the singing? No, they lost me at hotel, but then I came back for whatever the fuck came next.

Kevin was, I think maybe the best, What I also think was inspired by this movie was the jacket, maybe a little too much. The jacket with Adrian Brody where the doctor, he was putting him in that fucking, uh, yeah, I rented that one without knowing anything about it. When it was a new release at the video store, I.

No, I was, I was fine with it. I thought all of his indie movies were gonna be awesome, because that one was good. No, no, no. , no. The next one I watched after that, which I could not tell you what it was, but it's probably a good thing. I've, I've completely managed to erase it. The next one that was at Hollywood, I was like, Oh, yes.

most say that the jacket was [:

Oh, that is very similar. A lot of similarities there. Well, the whole parody thing when he's getting, uh, wheeled through the basement of the hospital for x-rays, you know, when he looks over and sees a smash bike, you know, they did something, beer fest. When they're walking, Oh my God, that wasn't Beer Fest.

Yeah, they did the whole thing where you'd look over and see weird shit. And I mean, there are similar scenes in other horror thriller movies that are like, you know, you're passing through this fucked up, like weird sideshow esque, fucking underground, whatever, you know, cesspool of weird shit. Um, but , when I saw that, I thought a beer vest with the dude on the little tricycle.

a minute. I mean, there's no [:

Like really done. Right? It's like if North wasn't a kid's movie, . I'm only making that reference cause I It's just like that. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz I just made it . Well there's an Ambrose beer story that was, uh, a Twilight Zone episode as well called Occurrence at Elk Creek Bridge. Mm-hmm. . And uh, it's about a guy who is hung and the rope breaks and he gets away and he makes it home and he's like with his family, it ends with the rope snapping his.

And the whole thing took place as he fell in that split second. And I, I feel like this was channeled into this movie. Mm. That's a really old horror story, like Civil War era. They did it so well in this one though I wasn't, I was really to watch the end is to relive it, even knowing how this is gonna end.

as how many times is he told [:

If you look at. Angels deconstructing so you can move on to paraphrase . Yeah. No, he said it much more eloquently than me. Yeah. And it was, it wasn't a movie for me to watch right before I went to sleep last night. . It also fucked with my dreams. It last night, I didn't have a nightmare per se, but I had weird fucking dreams.

I, I sweat so much. Something was going on. I was uneasy. did Olympia take you, Put you in a bathtub full of ice. . We don't use the ice maker in our fridge. No ice available. Don't get me started on that. It was a weird thing to like take you out. Oh, that ice maker I just want to throw out there. I got a work call very early on in this recording and so I've been pushing it to the back of my mind this whole time, , and I'm like, Fuck you, leave me the fuck alone.

those modes, man. Make it so [:

Um, but yeah, I thought when Jesse shows up in that operating room at the end, like, Oh my God, this is just my brain trying to put it together, and I know there's no fucking point in doing that. Mm-hmm. . But I thought that, how crazy is it that the object of your desire outside of your marriage mm-hmm. is the thing that is sort of the guiding force through.

Purgatory on your way to death? No, and I made a, I made a connection to devil's advocate, how part of the persuasion from Pacino is the muse, the sister. Oh yeah. And then just like the, the women, you know, there's things that, you know, that act as a muse towards your main character. I was trying to turn her into this muse from the dark side, like from hell.

e saying the temptation, The [:

The way that she laughs about the one son that's dead. There's these things that it, I saw the smile, the demonn smile from devil's advocate in the, you know, coworker's, wives, you know what I mean? In the changing room. Yeah. I said, I saw that small creep up on her face and I was like, She is just that much of a villain.

She's, she's, she's part of hell, I thought she was part of the dark side. But then at the same time, if you look at it like. Trying to get him to put all that stuff behind him, then Exactly. It feels different. That's why I couldn't, I couldn't make the connection. It almost like that, uh, how I was trying to make it happen and it would not happen.

though he suspects him. And [:

A lot of this movie felt like that to me. Where your, I don't know what your motivation with that is. Like when he brings her like coffee mm-hmm. at the post office and they have that like moment that felt genuine or when she gets in the shower. Real nice, cute, sweet, dirty,

Yeah, I was trying to do this thing and make her into this, something that she wasn't, It didn't, it didn't weigh in. I wanted it to be there, but it wasn't, cuz exactly as you mentioned, the case wasn't there. It was like almost like she was there because she wasn't attached to all that deep emotion. It was just maybe this woman that he had.

dance floor. To that song . [:

I think it was a James Brown song. It was just a weird song to be there. Yeah. But made sense for in the seventies. It was weird seeing a 1990 movie. Show you the seventies, but also I feel as if we dipped into the early eighties. That's what I was saying. Yeah, maybe a little bit. Cause there was a 10 year gap.

They kept saying 10 years. So even though this was the, His new world. Yeah. Cuz for sure they were 71 in Vietnam. Mm-hmm . And then, so you're right, a couple times they mentioned 10 years. And so I was like, Oh fuck. They did get into the eighties, but I'm like, It still looks awfully seventies. New York grungy dirtiness.

the movie. Those big square [:

I like that. He was just singing. He didn't have a radio, so hey, I wanna say somebody who's driven a big box truck, they couldn't cut out all the squeakies while he was driving. No. Did you hear all the, Did you notice Kelly was actually annoyed by it? The squeakies was like, God, they just let that truck get all squeaky like that.

I appreciate it. You can't handle noises . No, no. I completely understand that. I appreciated. Because that's, that's real. You're in a metal box truck. No matter what you do, that whole fucking thing squeaks while you're driving. It'll squeak while you're stopped . You know what I mean? Yeah. You've got metal sliding doors.

There's no insulation. You know, you are in a box truck. It is what it is. And um, it's one of those little things I've, I've been there. That noise. It was on point. Squeaky noise. Yeah, Squeaky noise. I remember you talking about that in your car in high. Oh yeah. When you have a, you're like, What's that fucking s squeaky noise?

But then that's [:

My first car was at GMC 73 GMC High Sierra Truck. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. , Squeaky as fuck. So many weird noises. Knocking sounds and stuff. Yeah. But I mean, you know, if it was knocking, it needed oil. If it was running hot, let it cool down. Throw some anti-free water in that bitch. I didn't know any of those things.

Then I would just like, maybe it'll go away. Oh, do you re, Do you remember what I had in the trunk of my car? The toolbox? Oh yeah. A case of oil. A case of oil, Yeah. Yeah. Case of oil. A toolbox. Uh, yeah. In the trunk of a fucking 77 cam. That's what it took to keep it running. I think the, uh, the twist of this movie mm-hmm.

k about it then. I was like, [:

Oh, man. And then Kelly thought it was gym equipment. No, it's a letter to Heaven. And, and it's in Genesis, it. The Qurans and I mean it sounds like some religious shit. Well, Jacob is, uh, the son of Isaac's, son of Abraham. So he is the, the patriarch of the chosen people of Israel. . I am . I think his degree must have been in some sort of philosophy or religious studies or something cuz he was a doctor, Doctor of the arts.

He had a master of the arts. What was his PhD? It never said, but he had a lot of books on Dante. Mm. On the bookshelf when he was scanning for the cigar box, Dante's Inferno. And is that when you saw it though? The cigar box, That beginning scene in his apartment. It scans over all these things, and then he is reading The Fucking Stranger by Albert Camu, which is, I forgot that initial.

Yeah. And that Kamoo book is [:

So his self defense case goes out the window cuz they're like, This man's a monster. . It's great. Camu is heavy. . Mm-hmm. . Don't read that during to a pandemic. I read the plague at the beginning of the pandemic and not a good choice. Not gonna do it.

Man, this movie fucking held up though. And Tim Robbins kind of would watch this movie if Tom Hanks was in it though, I, I feel like it would've been close. You could've done it. Cuz this would've been right before Philadelphia where he gave a, an amazing performance. Yeah. I believe Philadelphia was 91 90.

if this was not, like you're [:

I fucking love that movie. It's so good. Jennifer, Jason Lee. Hey, On her accent is weirdly attractive to me in that, even though it annoys. Yeah. You know, you, you see a, Yeah. You like, Ah, . I'll bet my pulitz are on it. Yeah. I'm like, where do I think that's hot? Oh man, she does so good. Is that fucking. Paul Newman.

is a failure to communicate.[:

Fuck. That one hit deep until I haven't had water for a little bit. One was just like, I wanted to chuckle so deep and it was like, ah,

But I also, this time, I forgot it was a, uh, them dropping shit on fucking dudes in Vietnam. This movie is so dense that I forgot that was part of it. Yeah. That they all fucking killed each other, even though I'd seen it more recently than I thought I had. Somebody killed Ving Rains

I mean, at that point, who was really dead? Well, once he was back, I was like, This should have been the. He's fine petting his pigeon when Santa Claus steals your wallet, You know? Of you're in hill. Only notes I made as well. I wrote it down and I don't know why I did, but I was like, Well that's fucked up man.

use that's just so fucked. I [:

I knew I was, I wasn't gonna doze after in that one. I still, I want something to really fucking scare me. Goddammit, I will find something will bump me out, is like this scared me. And it was a really good story, a really good movie and a lot of the times the things that spook me nowadays are bad movies.

why do you think I'm into so many of the found footage? Cuz those are the only ones that make me jump still. I can't even remember the name of it. It was a movie that came out two, three years ago. It was. Where it was like it only moved in the dark and so they were like holding a flashlight on it. Oh. Um, yeah.

wl also kind of got me a few [:

Giant crocodiles. Oh, I was gonna say. Or alligators. Yeah. What a. . Um, what did it snout look like? No, I'm . Were the teeth going up or down? Uh, but hopefully I find the one that freaks me out. Until then, we're just gonna keep doing shit. That's fun cuz Next time, for the last week of October, we're gonna watch fucking Demonn Night Tales.

From the Crypts tails. From the Crypts and best movie . But there's some other gems I'd like to just. Over the course of, uh, October as far as I'm gonna fucking watch. But before we get that full fall feeling, we had mentioned people under the, under the stairs outta nowhere. I haven't seen that movie in so long, and that one's not gonna scare me, but I need to see that fucking weirdness again.

om parents. Randy Quaid . No [:

Oh, I saw that as a kid. They let me watch that. There was no disclaimer. I saw this after Twin Peaks, so I was like, They're together again.

God damn. Oh man. I mean, right in the middle of everything, . No. And that kid, he was a mighty Ducks kid, wasn't he? He was a Mighty Ducks kid. In the second one. And the other one is, uh, Squeak or mouse or whatever in Matrix, The one that's in the walls. Really? Really? Yeah. Yeah. He's like the kid on the ship in the matrix.

No way. Where he's like, Did you see the red lady in the red dress? I made the lady in the red dress. Shut up. Yeah. That's the kid in the walls. That's how long it's been since I've seen people under the stairs. I wouldn't even have, I have not seen that since the first matrix came out. Wow. That's a long time.

n night. It'll get it. Well, [:

I still need to get on X files. I know some the truth is out there. Are you gonna find it this time? Maybe that it just depends. You know I've, I guess I trust no one . Thanks everyone for joining us. For the last Video Store Clerks podcast, be sure to leave a rating and subscribe. You can find us on Twitter at Last Clerks Instagram at the last video store clerks, and you can find Scott at dispatches from the pit.com.

Show artwork for The Last Video Store Clerks

About the Podcast

The Last Video Store Clerks
With Frank and Scott
The Last Video Store Clerks try to figure out what a good movie even is in the age of streaming. Are there still Cult Classics with no shelf to put them on? Something is missing. Former video store clerks Frank Roll and Scott Moran aim to find it. Or at least, comedy and a silver lining. What is a good movie anyway?

About your host

Profile picture for Scott Moran

Scott Moran

Former video store clerk, current sci-fi horror writer. Our copywriter, podcast editor, audio engineer, and resident bad good movie expert.