**THIS TRANSCRIPT WAS A.I GENERATED AND MAY NOT BE ENTIRELY ACCURATE**

Harry-Scott Sullivan:
You are listening to death by DVD. This is the first episode since Halloween has come to an end, and I'm going to be honest with everyone. I'm feeling a little bummed out. Now, I was scrolling through Twitter the other day and I saw someone had posted, I'm feeling some post Halloween Depression. I liked it, I laughed. It was a cute Twitter post.

A couple hours later, I got a notification. There's some comments on this post. So I went and I read them and lo and behold, there's always one asshole that's got a shit and the pie they left. But I'm going to call a tacky comment and I don't know any better term to say it's a gatekeeper thing. And what they commented was, that's bullshit.

There's no such thing as post Halloween depression. Halloween is 365 days a year for me. All right. Ooh. Well, I have some points to make. One. What? People like the things that they like. It doesn't affect you to let people be bummed out over the things that they want to be bummed out over. It does not affect you.

Three. Where do you get the pumpkins all year round? You say you live Halloween 365 days a year. Where the fuck are you getting pumpkins all year round? But I don't know. I just think that's such a I mean, it's a callous attitude, but it's just shitty. And it's not even about letting people like the things that they like, or letting them be bummed out about the things that they're bummed out about.

But Halloween 365 days a year, I enjoy the song by Ministry. I'll give you that. But I consider myself a horror fan. I would probably say a big horror fan. I mean the show and everything like that. In fact, I think I can say honestly that I have watched a horror movie every day this year so far, and I get the concept.

I get living Halloween 365 days a year. My house is filled with horror decor and Halloween decorations that I never take down. I've got pumpkin lights up year round, skulls, skeletons, the whole nine yards. It looks like a Halloween store all year round. Still doesn't feel the exact same to me. I love it, I love gothic stuff. I love horror stuff.

I love spooky, spooky stuff. If I could have it my way, I'd have an all black room, but it still doesn't feel the same. You see, in October especially, you know, I'm speaking as an American, products change. There's a little bit of mystification in the air. The whole month doesn't quite feel like every other month. Every candy company put something ooky spooky on its label.

Even beers. I mean, you've got seasonal beers, but there's a brand. I don't know why I'm going to explain what this brand is, because everybody knows what it is. Natural light. They put out a special canned this year. Natural Light. Same beer. Spooky Can.

There's something falling about October. Nearly everybody is able to disbelieve in life. Just for a little while. And you finally get to that one day. And even parents that earning costumes that are walking with their children trick or treating, there's a magic to it. There's disbelief of reality, really. The world is filled with witches and goblins and monsters and ghosts, and everyone is in costume.

Everyone is different. For just that moment, for that brief little period of time on Halloween night, but the entire month builds up to that. I'll use the term again. There's mystification deciding if you celebrate Halloween. I mean, there's the Jehovah's Witnesses. Nothing against those guys, but they're not a Halloween person. So October is just October to them. So the Jehovah's Witnesses decide.

You spend your month with anticipation. You're looking at costumes. You you decorate your house, you buy candy. You have that anticipatory feeling. Are there going to be trick or treaters this year? But the whole month, I feel has a magical sensation of suspended disbelief and all and beauty about it. There's something very pretty, I think, about the idea of everyone, whether they like it or not, somewhat coming together over this, that there isn't prejudice, there isn't hate, there isn't all of the the mundane and awful things that fill existence.

The other 364 days out of the year as to where Halloween. I don't want to say everyone gets to become a child again, because there's much more to it than the child like on and fascination of getting to play dress up and being something that you're not. But for lack of better terms, if you can bear with me, there is something returning to a childlike state, and maybe it's the purity.

Maybe it's the fun of all of it because people forget about having fun. The it's not just growing up, but in general. I mean, some people have really hard lives and they've not had a chance to have fun. They know what it is, but Halloween comes around. It usually can be an experience of upholstered, pure joy and fun.

And I know it's not the same for everyone. There's a lot of tragedies that happen in the world. There's things that you can't control. People experience death and loss just like every other holiday, every other day of the year. So I mean, I'm not trying to single it out and hopefully you're not listening. There's going, I fucking hate that.

I don't believe in what you're saying whatsoever. This clearly is situational. I feel like I probably didn't need to explain the semantics behind that, but there you go. You got them. I believe that's called filler, actually, in the biz. A fucking podcast bitch.

And to me, there's just something negative about the connotation of, yeah, a bunch of fucking amateurs. A little Halloween 365 days a year. All right. Cool. Glenn Danzig that's fine. Man, but some people enjoy the month. Some people enjoy the feeling of the month. And for death by DVD all month October 2021. We celebrated monster movies. We started in the 1950s.

00;05;44;08 - 00;06;06;02
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We moved all the way up into the 2000s, and I had a lot of fun doing that. I loved the feeling it gave me. I got to sit down and I got to watch monster movies. What's more fun than that? I mean, really, especially during October. And that was really the the point of doing those is here's some movies that you can sit and find to watch that are not the exact same ones that have played on AMC's Fear Fast for the last eight years.

Well, I don't really want it to end, and I know it's not October anymore. The feeling is gone. Halloween is over. We have to wait until next year. And honestly, there is something a little shocking about the 1st of November. How immediate Halloween ends now Christmas lingers for a little while. Thanksgiving lingers for a little while, especially because you've got all that food in your fridge so you can't help but have Thanksgiving 2 or 3 days in a row.

Christmas kind of the same thing. Easter, I guess Easter just is Easter. New year's is obviously one fucking thing, but Halloween is just dead immediate. It turns midnight, it's gone. So it's just like, fucking get the pumpkins, throw them out, burn the decorations. No more ghosts. Don't believe in ghosts, hate them. Fuck skeletons. Nope. All gone. And what happens to a spirit Halloween store at midnight on October 31st?

Do they just, like, disappear into the multiverse? They're gone. They're gone the next day. And I hear all the time that they have these like 30, 40, 50% off sales the next day after Halloween. And I've driven around looking for them. The vacant buildings they were in are just gone, like they've been sucked into the earth. Halloween just disappears on November 1st.

Well, that's not happening on death by DVD this year. We're going to extend it one more night, one more episode. We're going to talk about monsters. I mean, it's not the last time ever. This is a horror podcast. We're bound to talk about monsters again. But for the sake of our month long monster extravaganza, a monster meltdown, we're going to do it one more time.

And the whole point of my rant isn't trying to attack anybody, and the people I'm discussing on Twitter aren't celebrities. It wasn't any one specific. In fact, I don't. I honestly, I don't even think I could tell you their Twitter handles, but it was the exchange of words that made me think in general, don't be a dick. Is it so hard in your day to just not be a dick?

You're sitting with your phone in your hand on the internet, scrolling through people's comments, and you're just being a dick? What is that getting you? And really, I don't think that's a real horror fan. I don't think you're a true horror fan. If you're going out of your way to make fun of somebody for how they feel, especially about Halloween or horror in general, it doesn't fucking matter.

Absolutely. Everything is subjective. There's a lot on the show where I've said, I don't like things, I don't, I hate them. There's very few things I hate in this world. I can name them, actually John Cougar Mellencamp, Billy Joel and Jay Leno. Those are really like the three things I adamantly can say. I hate in this world. Not fond of Denis Leary either, but that's a different story.

I love the movie Suicide Kings, though. Denis Leary, Christopher Walken, Johnny Galecki, Jay Ma I just feel a true horror fan would respect another horror fans feelings because you guys like something that's in common. You're part of the mutant fam. You're one of the rare few freaks that enjoys this type of stuff. Try and look at it this way.

If someone is bummed out because Halloween has ended and you feel that you live Halloween 365 days a year instead of being an asshole, how about you message that person and give them tips and tricks that they do? Can live in your filigree? Fancy world where it's always Halloween. I just have gotten to really questioning people. Why is it so hard to not be a dick?

Why is that the first, easiest thing to do is to just be an asshole to a complete and utter stranger who likes the same fucking thing you do. So really, this episode is dedicated that random person on Twitter who got made fun of.

Because I'm with you, I'm bummed out. You wait all year for it and the feeling is just I. It's hard to explain. If you feel it, you understand exactly what I'm saying. But the 1st of October rolls around, and it's like a Christmas story, I guess. I mean, Halloween really is Christmas for the counter-culture, the horror scene, whatever the fuck you want to call it.

Horror fans in general, that, I mean, the October 1st comes around and you hear the music in your head, you know it's going to get spooky. The leaves suddenly start falling differently. Every piece of candy you see is a ghost and goblin on it. You can't help but feel some sort of on wonderment. And if you don't? Well, I hate to say it, but you just might be an asshole.

No events or all of the events either. Or take it as you want to. I think my point has has gotten made. I think I've gotten that that drawn out long enough that it's understood by everyone. So let's go back to what I said a couple of minutes ago or hours ago, however long this has been going on already.

Monster movies were going back to monster movies. The whole point of my rant is about fun. The month of October you build up to Halloween, even if you just wear a costume to treat, which is what I did this year. It can be an immense amount of fun. I had so much joy seeing other people, seeing children have joy.

Seeing the parents with these children have joy. Talking to people like this, this distant concept of fun. I faintly remember what fun was, but could you explain it to me? And Halloween is fun. The feeling all of us had just a little while ago on October 31st. That was fun. So let's get back to it. Let's try and do something fun.

But I felt I had the perfect movie. It's not scary. I'll admittedly say it's not specifically a horror movie. Kind of. Kind of is a horror movie. All the main characters are monsters. But I think it's time for the unveiling and my introduction. I am Harry Scott Sullivan, your host, and we are going to be discussing 1991 Frankie and his pals.

Directed by Gerald Cormier, written by Gerald Cormier and Al Huna. Now, Gerald Cormier is not a well known name in the annals of exploitation history, but he had made several films before this one, most notably a film from 1974 called Terror Circus, also known as Nightmare Circus and the best title barn of the Naked Dead, which starred Andrew Prine.

Good old Andrew Prine. We need to Do an Andrew Prine episode of Death by DVD. Some Prine Pride, baby. If you are not aware of the epic work of Andrew Prine, that is your homework. Go check him out, run to Wikipedia, read all about that guy, and look up his movies because there is a cavalcade of good ones.

Well, good quotation mark. You are listening to death by DVD after all. It's questionable what's good and bad on this show, but usually I have a monstrous amount of information about who did this movie and how the movie was filmed, and what happened during the era that it was being filmed. And not this time. I don't know much about this guy.

There's not much that I was able to learn about him and enter vision. Put this out on DVD last year, and through that DVD you learned, unfortunately, Gerald Cormier or Mr. C, as he was affectionately known as, passed away in 2017. His body of work, I hope someday there is more light shown on to. I would love to read more and learn more about this guy, because the movie we're going to talk about, I'm not going to lie to the audience.

I will not lie to you fine people. I'm not going to say it's a particularly good movie. It's pretty goofy. Bad. I mean, you could go. I don't want to be insulting right off the bat. It's a bad movie, but I feel everyone that worked on it kind of can acknowledge and understand. Like, yes, this is a very goofy, bad movie.

But sometimes, more often than not, to be honest, bad movies turn out to be really good. They turn out to be really good because of the heart that was put into them, the soul that was built into them, the work that was put into it. Not always are they the most believable things. And Frankie and his pals certainly is not a believable movie at all.

But at the same time, yeah, it kind of is. It's a movie that I don't think could figure out if it was going to be a late night TV sort of thing, or a nudie cuties sort of thing, and it ends up being a hodgepodge of both of them mixed together, and it's complimentary toward itself. But I don't want to get into this episode.

And if you've not seen this movie, you sit there and think that this is your average shot on a studio horror movie. There are a lot of different things. This movie is very, very different than most of the ones that we have discussed on this show. This takes us back to something more of the Vice Academy feeling. But it's no, it's nowhere near as sleazy as that.

It's got adult themes, but mind you, this is a 1991 movie, so the adult themes are not as questionable then as I think as they are now. And besides from some misogynistic humor and I would say a very abhorrent depiction of African, the movie is kind of harmless. There are some characters that are shown throughout the film that I think are very southern depictions.

It's a fucking California film of African Americans that it doesn't fly, doesn't feel right, doesn't come off well or complimentary whatsoever. But again, it is of its time period. That's not an excuse. I'm not trying to fucking make an excuse for that. But again, it's not really it's not like this movie was released by Miramax, you know? So all of that aside, Frankie and his pals.

Now, if you've not heard of this movie, I don't blame you. The DVD that intermission released was actually created from the original VHS. There is no master, and it's questionable if there actually ever was a master tape, but it's unavailable. It's lost. So that says something about the status of this movie. I really don't think outside of some video stores in Redding, California, that this really got what you would call a release.

I may be wrong, and I am all the time, but I don't think that this movie ever was released. Released. I don't think it was shown on television in the 90s. I don't think it got a theatrical run. There were screenings of it, I'm sure, but aside from a very small area in California, this movie's legacy is very, very tight.

I mean, not like in 2002 when people said, that's tight and they meant cool, like it's really small and tight and go, why the fuck do I spend time explaining semantics? When you understood me, I guarantee the audience completely understood what I was saying. Oh wait, yeah, I explained the whole filler thing earlier. Sorry, but this movie's beginning, middle and end are filled with insanity and it's immediate.

When the movie begins, if you're paying attention and you're reading those opening credits, they are some of these silliest, if not the silliest credits I've ever seen. But it sets the mood for the movie. You see how much fun they're having when this film starts. You can tell it's shot on video. You see the opening credits in the words Frankie and his pals roll over in this big, cartoonish looks like it was done on an old Apple graphic.

You know what you're getting into when the credits begin, you get stuff like the zapper grip ologist or the sound man who is also producer is the editor for this movie. The Grip from hell. Here's one I really, really like holistic readings and post-production services. And of course, when it comes to the cast, they're referred to as the important ones.

The extras and be cast the less important ones. That's funny and that's fun. I don't mean to say this in a way that would dog indie filmmakers, but when you're making a cheap product and you know it's a cheap product, if you can poke fun at it being a cheap product, the audience is going to relate to that more.

It's going to take the edge off. You're not going to have the asshole sitting there going, oh man, this is so fucking cheap. They're going to laugh at the aspect of going, well, at least they know it's cheap. So you win the edge. Lords over by doing something like that. And I don't know if that was the intent or direction of this movie, because I think the point of this movie is honestly just to have fun.

I said earlier, I don't think it really knew the direction it was going into it. I don't think the production crew knew what direction it was going. Do. Are we making a nudie cutie? We're making a family friendly movie. Are we making something for kids or is it for late night TV? It ends up being a mix of all of it.

When the movie begins, you've got this very first scene of a crazy mad scientist that's on the phone with a general, and they're discussing a time machine, and he's got a very buxom, ditzy assistant that's rubbing up all over against him. And you go from the credits to that, and it's like, okay, what have I gotten into? At any minute?

It feels like people are going to start having sex at the beginning of this movie has the air and feeling of a very, very, very, very cheap porn. And I'm kind of surprised it's not. It almost might have been more successful and gotten sold if some people fuck, which they do. But I mean, like, you know, dick and balls and close ups of it all, again, with the semantics, dicks and balls and close ups of it all sounds like the name of a great biography.

I just don't know who. And after this introduction scene with The Scientist, the movie begins. We've got two grave diggers, one telling the other about monsters that are trapped in this cave inside a mountain. Why are there monsters trapped in a cave inside a mountain? Well, there was an avalanche.

And they ran inside the cave to hide from it. That's our explanation. At that point, we cut it flashes to the monsters inside the cave, inside the mountain, and we get to meet them. We meet Frankie, which is sort of self-explanatory. Drac, a vampire hump the hunchback.

Wolfie again, I feel this one is self-explanatory. And mummy, who has a little creature named Apophis that lives inside of his stomach. A little puppet monster.

And when they show a path as they do, it's video tape. Remind you they do these cuts of the mummy, and then they've imposed a video shot of the monster, the little puppet moving inside and out of him. It's beyond even the cheapness of Power Rangers episodes. I'm talking dirt cheap here, but hardly. There was a whole production crew.

This was a deeply professional shoot. Astoundingly enough, the more you know. And then at this point, we cut back and forth between the monsters and the grave diggers until we are introduced to the mayor and city council members of the town. French Gulch, California, and they are discussing a massive death that the town only has ten days left to pay.

All of this together leads us to the movie's plot, which, remarkably, is followed all the way through. And I've got to say that's impressive because most Blumhouse movies can't do that. But this freakish shot on shitty monster adventure movie, which is a stretch to call it, that, manages to do so. I'm not trying to blow this movie up.

I'm not trying to, like, sell a copy of it to you because it's out of print. Before the recording of this episode, though, I jumped on eBay and it's affordable. I actually think you can get it cheaper on eBay than it was when innovation put it out, but I'm not suggesting our audience go out of their way to find this movie illegally.

But if there's a will, there's a way. So this grave digger, he mentions law of hidden gold lost in to the town. Meanwhile, the monsters are playing poker, which I possibly could be looking too deeply at this. But all of these monsters are out wandering around the mountain. There is an avalanche, and they got caught in the side of the cave, but they all have playing cards.

Dracula has its coffin, the mummy has a sarcophagus jumper, even has a cot and they've got tons and tons and tons of canned beans.

Now what type of cave is this? Was it pre stocked or did they just. Were they carrying all this around. I questions that we shall never receive an answer for. Probably questions. I'm the only person that has ever asked and ever will ask. So the monsters are playing cards and Humpty puts up a mysterious map that he was carrying with them the entire time.

Up for a bet. So the town needs money. There's a rumor of hidden gold, and the hunchback has a map, and we are off to the races.

This movie easily could have been, late 80s, early 90s Roger Corman children's film. Young adult film like monkeys. But it is not. It is totally different. It's the same sport, but a different league, so to say. Which I just did, thinks they're getting really interesting here, which is a good thing because it's the beginning of the movie, so that tends to help.

Now this is definitely reading into things a bit much, but we transition between the monsters, realizing the map leads to lost gold and the city Council's plight of needing money. And it's sort of, who are the real monsters? Who are the real cannibals? You know what I mean? It's that type of deal. Is it the actual monster monsters or the rather sleazy political types?

That is not a difficult question to answer. But the monsters, the. They are the monster monsters. They're trapped inside a cave. We would not have a movie if they didn't get out. And boy howdy, is it a great escape. After eating a ridiculous amount of canned beans, Frankie says, I've got a Ford. The humpback murmurs, oh shit. And probably my favorite line of dialog is uttered by Frankie.

No, it's just a fart. And boom, he finds a hole in the cave. Brilliant. I should you not.

The only thing that I guess I really, truly question, though, when it comes to this movie, is if they had all those beans the whole time, why didn't Frankie just ass blast his way out of there sooner? But who am I to question all that is Frankie and his pals? That ain't for me to do. That's between Frankie, his pals and God.

Freedom for the rag tag. Monster mash up means that they can search for the gold. And the movie has finally begun. Oh, there's this whole plot also with the scientist who is working on a time machine with the really ditzy assistant. And guess what they need? You can guess they need gold to get the time machine working. Of course, gold, but nothing gets neglected as the story progresses.

Oddly, somehow, some freak way, everything works out and the end. But it is a journey to get there, literally for the characters and and you, the audience, the viewer. You will endure the horrors of a terrible monster rap. Frankie learning to fuck farts, a go go. There's a dance party, of course. Why wouldn't there be? It's gone so much.

You experienced so much terrible shot on video, wacky antics, and it's almost to a slapstick degree. And though it's remarkably bad, this really is a marvel of the video era. The specific mid to late 80s going into the early 90s, up to like 95 or so shot on video era. I don't want to say it's insane, because that's somewhat misleading when you say a movie's insane, it's like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

The movie's insane. Yes, that makes sense. But this I it's crazy for lack of better terms. It's much more friendly than something like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's crazy, asinine and crazy. The monster rap, though, it's an atrocity. I love it.

It's just it's so kitschy. It's so tacky. It's in an era where people really weren't familiar with hip hop or rap, or how verses were to the point of rhythmic alternative poetry. And it's it's so goofy. I mean, it's a honky rap. It's a white guy's attempt at rap, and it's about Frankie and his pals. So it's about a farting Frankenstein and his Wolf man friend and Apophis and the mummy.

And it's just ridiculous, I love it. I think this is a bold statement here. I think it's better than the John Waters rap and Cecil B demented Cecil B demented. Sorry, I just can't help it. Love it. It's just so simple. Everyone wants the gold, the monster's got the map. And then the next 60 minutes is brain rotting silliness.

It's the equivalent of candy. Really. This movie is like the equivalent of coming home on Halloween night with a big satchel filled with candy and sitting down and going into a sugar coma and just rotting your brain and your teeth. This is a huge piece of candy. Laffy Taffy the werewolf is a premature ejaculate for Frankie, apparently is a dance machine.

It just it has everything. It goes everywhere. It goes to the most bizarre and unnecessary places. It's really like a carnival of a movie. It's just a deep fried Snickers bar. It's completely unnecessary. But you still want to eat it. Or on the other side of that, you're completely and utterly fucking disgusted by it. Nothing to do with it.

And I understand, you know, I'm out here doing an entire episode about a shot on video movie from the early 1990s. This is not everyone's cup of tea, but also we're doing a long term Andy Milligan show on here, so you don't really get to win. When you listen to death by DVD, you don't get anything that you want unless you email us.

You can get a death by dvd.com. You can suggest a movie. We got a whole play set up on our website where you can suggest a movie. You can chat with us, you can cut that and email us at death by DVD. At death by dvd.com. What do you want to hear on the show? If you don't want to hear more like Frankie and his pals, let us know if you do.

Bless you. Thank you. And regardless, no. I'll take everything with a grain of salt and probably continue doing movies like Frankie and his pals. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk. Let's get back to the show with Frankie and his pals. You're kind of bombarded constantly with with fairly juvenile humor, but come on, I'm not trying to defend the era that it was made in, and use that as an excuse as to why this movie is bad.

It is a time capsule piece, but not really either. It's just a goof bucket fucking movie. I think one of the best parts of the movie, though, is that no one questions that these monsters are walking around town whatsoever. Because the movie takes place on Halloween.

So everyone is in costume despite how wacky absolutely everything is, there actually is a sense to all of it. Somebody actually put forth effort into not leaving plot holes and Frankie and his pals, and it's successful. There aren't any. I mean, aside from why were there so many cans of beans in that cave? But that is the type of hero we need.

It doesn't matter how cheap the movie is, it doesn't matter what the production is like. It doesn't matter if the movie's been sold yet. The attention to detail is always appreciated. And I mean it really is. It changes this movie, the fact that somebody paid fucking attention to it. There is continuity, and when there isn't, there's scenes that make fun of the lack of continuity that they call it out.

Something I said at the beginning of the show. They were aware of what they were doing. They were aware of how cheap this product was. They laid upon themselves with it. So the audience wouldn't hit them back. They took the hit that the critics in the audience usually would do with that expectation. This sucks. This is cheap. You fucking make fun of it yourself, man.

It draws the attention away and it helps the production because the audience can get past it. I got past that, so I feel like you can too. I keep talking about how it's cheap, but it's really not that cheap. I mean, there's a real production crew behind this. It is shot on video, but they used proper equipment. Sound was recorded the right way.

There were apparently investors in this movie. It just didn't happen. But for the sake of you, the audience and this episode in general, I don't think going through Frank and his bowels scene by scene is going to be the most entertaining thing. You just got to experience the ride for yourself. I can't explain to you how big Frankie learns to fuck, or why they call him Big Frankie.

That is an experience you 100% must have for yourself. I will say Frankie will be mummy and hump or rock out in the key of acts, and it's almost as bad as the rap, so that means I love it. It's like early White Zombie. But you see, Matt is good, and good is bad. Apparently on this upside down ass show, when I say I hate it, it's fucking great.

It's so terrible, I love it, I said earlier, a bit sarcastically. This is a bit of an adventure movie, but it really is. You see, they get out of the cave and they go to the town of French Gulch, where it's Halloween. So there's parties going on everywhere, and with a runtime of one hour and 27 minutes, there's got to be something more than monsters.

Escape from a cave and look for gold farting, fucking and a funking. It's got it all. In the end, though, everything works out. Sort of. The town gets its money. We find out that the time machine works, but our heroes are sent off somewhere into the future or the past.

And I, with deep regret, have to say, unfortunately, there is no sequel available yet. The adventures of Frankie and his pals are unknown, but they're still out there somewhere, just like Doctor Sam Beckett, who is leaping to this day.

Have ever woken up and felt a little strange? Displaced like you are not yourself? Look in the mirror, doctor Sam Beckett could have leaped into you. God damn it. I love Quantum Leap. I really do really, really love Quantum Leap. Might be my favorite show. There's just so much goddamn hope. There's just so much goddamn hope. With Quantum Leap shot on video, movies are usually not what you would call very good, and this one is absolutely no exception.

I will say it is terribly fun. The fact that this was written, produced, finished. To me, that's astonishing, but sort of, I don't know, it's kind of marvelous. Sometimes something is just so laughably bad you can't help but enjoy it with with like a heartwarming sense, like, fuck, these people set out to make a movie. And they did.

They did. They finished it and they made it. I can appreciate that. And the farts I appreciate especially all the farts.

I personally am a really big fan of regional films, and this particular movie isn't exactly in that category. I mean, it is and it isn't. And at some point in the near future, we're going to be starting a whole long running series about regional films on death by DVD. And we'll explain this more then than we will right now.

But when it comes to California categorizing and coming up and looking, is this a regional film? Is this not a regional film is really difficult because one California is fucking huge, and two, so a lot of fucking people that live in that really fucking huge state. So it's it's it's difficult to discern because when it comes to a regional film, obviously it's all in the title.

It's a film is made regionally somewhere. That usually means like, let's talk about Boggy Creek for a seconds, a Texarkana movie. Everybody in that movie was from Texarkana. It was locally produced. There was no other money aside from things deeply inside Texarkana. So that's what makes Boggy Creek a regional film. Let's say it one more time because it's fun to say Texarkana, Texarkana, Texarkana just sounds fun.

I mean, I know it's between Arkansas and Texas, but Texarkana just sounds like some fruity fun drink with pineapple in it. Give me one of those Texarkana with a little umbrella in it. I like saying it. Texarkana I mean really this this is close enough. Frankie and his pals. It's close enough to a regional film that you if you enjoy that sort of thing.

If you're into that genre, if you have a passion for that type of film, you easily can understand why I think Frankie and His pals is charming. I think it's a charming movie, and I mean, fuck, Sleepless in Seattle, that's a charming movie, right? I mean, that's what people would say about it. This is a different type of charm.

This is a very kitschy, strange level of charm. This is like it's not anywhere near similar to a John Waters movie, but it's like a John Waters level of kitsch. I feel this is the type of movie that John Waters would show people. Yeah, this is something that it's not offensive, really, but it's kind of just astonishing that it's and I don't I think I said this early on, I don't mean this as an insult or an assault on anybody that was involved in this movie, but it's just so fucking bad.

It's just it's it's unbelievably bad. It's an adventure story about a monster who farts his way out of a cave, and they go exploring for gold. It's got these, like, weird rawhide style Western tactics from old TV shows. It goes into this adventure thing. There's a lot of sex. There's a lot of blue humor. But I still.

I'll stick with what I said at the beginning. I don't think it's terribly inappropriate, but it's not really appropriate. Like, I don't know who the fuck you'd want to show this movie to. I don't know who. I could sit down and say, hey, you want to watch this movie? And you can you can lie to people and explain to them what it's about and try and trap people into doing it.

But I don't know anybody personally in my life that would want to sit down and enjoy Frankie and his pals. I did, because I'm fucking white, I don't know, I mean, really, I and I, it's all I do. I sit and I watch stuff for this fucking show, and I come up with things that we're going to talk about and what's going to happen on this show.

A good portion of my life. I'm stuck behind a screen watching movies of all shapes and sizes. I watch Palme d'Or winning films. I watch independent horror films. I try to keep up with what's new and what's coming out, and who the new stars are and what everybody is and do, and it gets, it almost gets insulting to a point.

It just feels like you're getting beaten with the media. Death by DVD, beaten by Blu ray, slaughtered by streaming. And you find something like this, and you sit down and you watch it. To me, it it's meditative. Almost. It erases all of the anxiety ity of keeping up with the Rotten Tomatoes scores and what movies hep and who hates why you sit down and you can just kind of zone out for me.

I remember an era of watching ridiculous films like this on late night TV and having a great amount of enjoyment doing so, and if you can go back and capture that feeling, it's absolutely great. If you can, it might be lost upon you because it is a shot on video movie about a bunch of fucking monsters that are looking for gold.

A bit goofy and pretty bad. No millions of dollars behind the movie. Clearly the production, the actors were almost all local people. They were all friends that had come together. They had worked together before. They had done productions and plays together before, and they created this Frankenstein monster of a movie, pun intended. The movie itself didn't even have a real shooting script, which I hate defending this movie, but it all works out without it.

It didn't need the shooting script. It needed the idea. It takes about 30s to explain what happens in this movie. So at that point, the script could have just been jotted down on cocktail napkins. It wouldn't have made a difference, but I do definitely feel I have more questions than anything. Like, for example, what market was this movie made for?

Who was this movie made for? It had investors. I mean, did they ever try to sell it? Besides, we roughly have an idea for a market, and if they did, what fucking idea of the market was it around this time period? Comedies like those are really successful in Asian countries, and that's what most of the cast had been told.

We're going to sell it somewhere in Asia. It'll it'll run on Asian TV. That's a big fucking, you know, pull of places that you can't just an Asian. Which one? There's a lot of them. Which TV station and of course, everyone that was involved with this at some point in their life had had been a lesbian, had had worked non professionally.

So all the actors, for them, this was their first big experience on a film set. This was them getting to feel like movie stars. And when you get to work on a movie, it doesn't matter how fucking big it is, it doesn't matter if you know that it's going to be sold somewhere. When you're an actor, when you're working on the film, it's really important to you because you're working on it.

And at that moment in time, you're a movie star and it's just like Halloween on October 31st. You're whatever, you're a pirate, you're a ghost, you're a goblin. Me, I went to Silvio Dante from The Many Saints of Newark.

The Sopranos prequel. You get to be whatever you want to. So while this movie is being made, I don't think any want to sit down and question, well, when's it going to come out? You know, when am I going to see it? Who's what audience is this made for? Which is kind of a shame, because the movie, I wouldn't even say fell into ambiguity.

It was just a fucking period. I personally had no idea what this film was until seven made it available, and I read the description and thought to myself, well, that sounds like something I'm going to deeply enjoy. And I
It's all the wonderful David Gregory behind the big screen with seven and and her vision. So pardon me, I mean, really it makes me wonder. And I'd like to know if this movie existed outside of one California video store for the last 20 years. And it is kind of strange that it didn't go on anywhere, though, because I've said multiple times, yeah, sure, it's a bad movie, but there's nothing particularly indifferent to the majority of shot on video regional films.

It some are better than others. Yes, definitely. I mean, I'm a big fan of Don dolar. I don't think this movie compares to Don Douglas work whatsoever, even though he made very cheap, goofy films. There's a lot going on. There's a lot put into it, even though sometimes he would just remake movies that he'd done previously. Still, there is, a little a quality to it, despite it being a goofy fucking rubber monster movie.

This, I'm not saying lacks any form of quality, it's just a very different thing. And using Don dollar again as a reference, you know, he he made fairly serious pictures. This imposes on itself with its goofiness. This movie acknowledges and understands that we're very cheap, we're very goofy. And it tries to let you go on that ride. It's very fourth wall breaking.

There's a lot of funny scenes where the movie recognizes its own faults, and that helps you as the viewer have a little bit more of a fun time. And I jokingly said a few minutes ago, I don't know who the fuck you'd show this movie to, and I really don't. I always hate advocating some sort of a substance, but this is a
You can smoke a joint to have a beer with, goof off. It really is a bit of an inebriation dedication film. It's something that, you know, with friends. Sure. Maybe find it drinking game every time somebody farts have a shot. Something like that. But it's. I like the fact that this has life. There are so many films in general that regional indie films, whatever you want to call them, that never got the life of Dave.

People were really, really hard on, and it's not a matter of it being good or bad. And I know that's a massive point with criticism and film criticism. Yes, there needs to be a discernment of what is good or bad, or the opinion of what is good and bad. And, you know, you listen to a show like this because you like my opinion.

You want to hear what I have to say about things, and I completely understand that. But there's also a point where you have to get past that, and one have your own opinion for yourself and to realize absolutely everything is fucking subjective. The idea of good or bad doesn't matter at the end of the day, what matters is at some point in time in 1990, all these people got together.

Jerry Cormier made this film and the experience the people had. You can if you find yourself a copy of the DVD that was released by Inner Vision, you can see these people years later, excited, talking about it and how they've shown their friends and their family and thought it was gone forever. It's nice that this has been resuscitated for the sake of art, for the sake of not just film, but in general the the over encompassing idea of art that it exists, it's created, it's it's for people to see.

So when it's lost, that's just so heartbreaking that this thing that obviously was made for people to see can't be seen. So you can think deeply. David Gregory, an inner vision for allowing this movie to be seen by people. Again, if it's your thing. I know a lot of people that listen to the show kind of take word as bond and go find the movies that we talk about and take what we say about them very, very seriously.

So I want to say again, this is a goofy movie. Its spirit is goofy, its nature is goofy. I don't like saying this, but it's a bad film. It's a fucking terrible movie. It's really, really bad. But please don't let that sway you from I said it's a bad movie. Bad as good, good as bad. It doesn't matter because all of it's absolutely subjective.

What's most important is, is it fun? Did you like it? Did you enjoy the experience? Did you have a nice time? Did you enjoy yourself while doing it? Just like Halloween? Did you fucking enjoy that night? Did you have fun with that feeling that on November 1st? If you're feeling a little bummed out, guess what? Most of us are too.

You can live that way 365 days a year. You can be all about horror, but you can also have fun. Never forget to have fun. And this movie from the beginning to end, did not forget to have fun at all. It carried it the entire way through and it made sense. That's one of the few things I ask for that I'm baffled by.

Things just don't make sense at all anymore. You can throw whatever the fuck you want to on the screen and, it's an homage. Just make something goddamn make sense. Write a story and make it make sense. Frankie and his pals that should be motivation to modern directors. Frankie and his pals make sense. Why the fuck doesn't your movie and I'm not, you know, calling anybody out in particular?

I there's literally nothing on my mind when I make that reference. I'm as blank as a fart. It's just in general and not just indie. I mean, I say indie and I'm talking about Blumhouse, so indie. But just like the end of the movie, all the questions that I have, we may never get an answer for. We'll never know.

But I may be the only person who wants answers to these questions. If you have no expectations, I think you'll really enjoy this movie. It's got an awesome soundtrack and it's just completely over the top. It's silly. It's goofy fun. I wish the investors, whomever they were for this movie, would get back together and consider a sequel. I may not be entirely serious about that, but who knows?

And more importantly, who cares? Frankie and his pals. If you can appreciate a good fart joke, then you can appreciate this movie.

In regards to making this movie, Eric Wetherbee, who played Frankie, said, dream big and you know what? That's true. It really is, no matter how silly it is. Dream big. I'm going to leave you fine folks with that sentiment. Frankie and his pals find it, see it, have some fun. And of course, dream big.

I'm Harry Scott Sullivan, your host. And until next time, pleasant tomorrows.