0:00

Hey there, it's Dan, reminding you that

0:02

the flophouse simply could not happen without

0:04

the supportive listeners like you. We

0:07

provide the nonsense for your ears while

0:09

you're commuting or doing laundry or performing

0:11

life-saving brain surgery, and you provide

0:13

the funding that keeps us pumping at the show

0:15

week after week. It's a

0:17

symbiotic relationship, so won't you be the

0:19

venoms to our Eddie Brock and go

0:21

to maximumfund.org slash join and

0:24

become a sustaining member? As

0:26

a small thank you at the $5

0:28

a month level, you'll get access to

0:30

Max Fund's back catalog of bonus content,

0:32

including years of flophouse material. Here's

0:35

a free taste of just one of this

0:37

year's bonus episodes. Dan, what

0:39

do we do on this podcast about bad movies?

0:41

This is a podcast where we talk about a

0:43

bad movie. This one was 1997

0:47

spawn and boys at 1997

0:50

bottled, distilled and bottled up and

0:53

given back to me years later in a

0:55

form that I can say I didn't like this at the

0:57

time, but now I'm kind of nostalgic for it. There's

1:00

nostalgia truly is the sweetest balm

1:03

that takes the crap of yesteryear

1:05

and turns it into the delicacy of

1:08

today. Only for the

1:10

people who knew it was crap originally

1:12

though. Yeah. Yeah, it's as if Red

1:15

Bull aged like wine. How

1:18

do you know it doesn't? We gotta try.

1:20

All right, find me some hundred-year-old Red Bull.

1:24

I said that like I was the host of Family

1:26

Feud. Show me hundred-year-old Red Bull. Sorry,

1:29

zero people said that. Most

1:32

of them knew it's not a thing that exists.

1:34

Yeah, most of them. It's exciting

1:36

that we're in Los Angeles because we're out to

1:38

tell you a story about the war between heaven

1:41

and hell as represented through

1:43

some of the worst CGI ever put

1:45

forth in a movie. Should

1:48

we talk about this movie Spawn? Let's talk about Spawn. Before

1:51

we talk about the movie Spawn, I want to talk to

1:53

you about the... so who here is familiar with the comic

1:55

book Spawn? All

1:57

right. Oh, okay, not bad. Spawn created by

1:59

Todd McFarlane. One of the founders of Image

2:01

Comics, the story of a guy who goes

2:03

to hell and comes back with a cape

2:06

so big it blocks out the sun. I

2:09

mean, I kind of like, like, I feel like

2:11

modern superhero design is so keyed around not having

2:13

capes that he's like, what if, what if he

2:15

was more cape than character? I

2:18

feel like he kind of helped kill capes because he

2:20

used up all the material. And they design more heroes.

2:22

They're like, I wish I could put a cape on

2:24

him, but I can't. So I guess. Spawn wasn't here

2:27

yesterday. Blame me out. Blame me out. Excuse me, do

2:29

you have any red cape material? Sorry, Spawn was

2:31

here. Oh, I don't have a tale to tell you.

2:34

What's this guy with the living chain farting

2:36

all up? I kept saying, is that enough

2:38

cape? And he kept saying, more cape. Yeah,

2:42

I was standing next to a table and like,

2:44

say when? He just didn't. Yeah.

2:49

So let's talk about it. Okay, the

2:51

movie starts as every good movie does

2:53

with a voiceover over CGI flames as

2:56

we are told the story of how

2:58

the Lord of Hell Malabolgia, a

3:00

character who has a design that didn't look great

3:02

in the comics and looks even worse than a film. All

3:06

the demons in this are either are super

3:08

weirdly shaped. There's really only two of them. Malabolgia has

3:10

a huge pot belly and a big head of red hair

3:13

and a long jaw that goes out way

3:15

farther in the bottom than the top. Yeah,

3:17

I mean, I mean, I

3:19

kind of liked the way it looked in the

3:21

comic as silly as it was, like it works

3:24

in a way there that it doesn't work here.

3:26

Yeah. But it did feel like Tom McCrllan

3:28

was like, what's going to be really scary is if

3:30

all of the proportions are really weird

3:32

and like they don't like what if

3:34

his jaw didn't match the top of

3:36

his jaw? Yeah. You make it

3:39

hard to bite things. It looks like a hyena man. I

3:42

guess here's some fun facts from special

3:44

effects mastermind Steve Kostanski. He says first

3:47

the 3d model they used

3:49

was originally for American werewolf in Paris. And

3:53

oh yeah, it's pretty good news you can use. And

3:56

also that they originally made like a rod puppet

3:59

that they just had. end up scrapping and not using but I have

4:01

a picture on my phone of that so I can show it to

4:03

you after the show. Wow, cool. Get it to me.

4:06

Individually to everyone here after the show. Yeah, come up to Dan

4:08

and I'll send it to him and then he'll show you. If

4:10

you know the password I guess. Yeah. Let's

4:13

airdrop it to all of you. Yeah. Yeah.

4:16

Just turn your security off. Oh man. I'm

4:19

just gonna put some out. Making Malvulsia even scarier is

4:21

that they could not get his mouth to animate properly

4:23

for talking I guess. So he just opens his mouth

4:25

and the voice of Frank Welker does Dr. Claw, yeah

4:27

Dr. Claw from Frank Welker

4:29

who's done a lot of voices but he's doing the Dr.

4:31

Claw voice here. He got his doctor. He got his doctor.

4:34

He's not just Mr. Claw. He's a

4:36

medical doctor actually. But his doctor is

4:38

in English literature. That's the thing. Yeah.

4:41

So here's the thing you have to imagine. You

4:43

have to imagine that Inspector Gadget

4:45

was in a battle with the devil all that time.

4:48

That's all for that teaser but I wanted

4:50

to let you know that we'll be dropping

4:52

at least three more bonus episodes throughout the

4:54

year focusing on the flopography of Schlockmeister Graydon

4:56

Clark whom you may remember as

4:58

the director of the mutant cat film Uninvited

5:00

that we covered in our first episode with

5:03

Gillian Flynn. First we're gonna

5:05

tackle Joysticks, a trashy 80s

5:07

sex comedy set in the most sensual

5:09

location of all, a video arcade with

5:12

an iconic performance from future White Lotus

5:14

star John Grease as King

5:16

Vitiate. Then we'll discuss one of

5:18

the two movies both released in 1990 about

5:21

the Lombata. This one, The

5:23

Forbidden Dance. This is the

5:25

one with future Mulholland Drive star Laura

5:27

Herring as an Amazon princess who comes

5:29

to America to use the power of

5:31

sexy dance to save the rainforest. And

5:34

then we're gonna cover Star Games, the only one of

5:36

the three I haven't seen but it

5:38

features a late-life performance from Tony Curtis

5:41

and the video box has some kind of

5:43

sad clown in like a space triangle. He's

5:45

trapped in the Phantom Zone so I'm very

5:47

excited to see what is up with that

5:49

clown. On top of that, no

5:52

guarantees just yet but I hear rumblings

5:54

from Stewart that he wants to run

5:56

another campaign of his popular flop tales

5:59

actual play. RPG series,

6:01

which you can only hear in our bonus episodes. And

6:04

just to give you a taste of some of the bonuses we

6:06

put out in previous years, there's

6:08

our Bratz DVD commentary, our

6:11

Cats DVD commentary, a Country

6:13

Bears commentary, a live

6:15

Battlefield Earth show, a couple of

6:17

crossovers with the Greatest Generation podcast.

6:20

We did some bad TV episodes and stuff

6:22

like Small Wonder, Rubik the Amazing Cube, Studio

6:24

60. We did a

6:26

whole episode that was just Radio Zork. Look,

6:28

I cannot list them all, but if

6:31

you want access to this library and more

6:33

importantly, want to keep the show you've

6:35

loved and or tolerated going all these

6:37

years, head to maximumfun.org/donate

6:39

to become a member at

6:42

the $5 or more level.

6:45

And to all our listeners, whether you support the

6:47

show financially or can't quite swing it

6:49

right now, thank you so much

6:51

for listening. We quite literally do

6:54

it because of you. Thanks.