Episode 24: “DILFs Next Door” (w/ Bryan Fuller!)

*This week the queerwolves are joined by producer extraordinaire Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies, American Gods, Star Trek: Discovery) to talk the final third of the queer vampire holy trinity of the 80’s: FRIGHT NIGHT!   In this episode Nay treats herself with cursive, Mark can’t say “figure,” and if you know even a single thing about Michael you won’t be shocked to learn that he brings up Married with Children.   Plus, in Tea Time we sip on PEN15, ONE DAY AT A TIME, RUSSIAN DOLL, and the return of Brennan’s Llorona Corner.[1]*

## **Trivia**

Notes: "Tonight we come to you from the Men's Wearhouse, where manservant Bill buys all of Mister Dandridge's sequined signature looks, like 'Trenchcoat Alley DILF' and 'Smug Fruit-loving Ski Instructor.' Mmm mmm mmm *mmm*!' But guys, there's a new neighbor who just moved in next door…"

Topics brought up during the episode: *Pushing Daisies*, *Dead Like Me*, *Hannibal* (TV series), *Freaks and Geeks*, *Death in Venice, The Damned,* the Aero theater, *Final Destination*, *Final Destination 3*, production history of *Fright Night*, John Travolta, Jamie Lee Curtis, *Perfect* (film), Bollywood remake of *Fright Night*, Bryan's dogs on Instagram

## **Tea Time**

**Nay:** Watched it snow in Los Angeles

**Mark:** Half of season one of *Pen15*, *Ludwig*

**Michael:** *One Day at a Time* on Netflix

**Bryan:** Two episodes of *Russian Doll*

**Brennan:** *La Maldicion de La Llorona*, *Las Lloronas*

## **Pride Float**

**Mark:** Soooo, I was about to ask, "Does this film get a Pride float?" And I'm like, this movie gets…

**Nay:** A full Pride?

**Mark:** It gets a whole circuit party, I think

**Michael:** Yeah! It's a rave for sure. How about you, Bryan?

**Bryan:** You know, it's interesting. It feels like it's one of those parties where you don't know it's a gay party until…

**Michael:** Until you see like...

**Mark:** The witching hour?

**Bryan:** Not until you're putting a wooden stake into somebody's chest

**Nay:** It's like when you grow up and you're like, of course my best friend as a kid was gay, 'coz gays find each other

**Michael:** Yeah!

**Nay:** And they don't know it

**Mark:** Or bat sonar

**Bryan:** I wasn't allowed to play with other children

**Nay:** You were never a child

**Bryan:** I was seminated in the husk

**Michael:** He's had those glasses since he was a little kid

**Nay:** Absolutely!

**Michael:** I love those glasses by the way

**Nay:** Me too

**Mark:** Listeners, Bryan is sporting a rather fashionable and excellent pair of glasses for you, but you can't see it. Well, you'll see it in the picture

**Mark:** So that conversation about the Pride float, we were just like, "What is there to say?"

**Nay:** We were just like, "Yeah." I mean, I would like there to be a whole…

**Michael:** Does it get an alley party?

**Nay:** Yes! How about a *whole* vampire alley party?

**Michael:** Oh, perfect!

**Nay:** Because all vampires are kinda gay

**Michael:** Absolutely

**Bryan:** The alley's the hottest scene in the movie, right? It's…

**Michael:** Yeah

**Nay:** Yeah

**Mark:** We've not even discussed, though, Amy and Jerry, the *Basic Instinct* scene

**Bryan:** Oh my God, yeah. She was blossoming, she was losing her ribbon, her dog show ribbons

**Mark:** She really was

**Bryan:** They flew off of her head

**Michael:** She was really blooming

**Mark:** Best (clap) in (clap) show! (clap)

**Michael:** Oh my God

**Nay:** Whatever blows your hair back, mmmkay?

**Mark:** Yeah.

**Bryan:** And it had Ali from *Friday the 13th Part 3*

**Michael:** Oh yeah, that was him in the bar, wasn't it?

**Mark:** Mmm-hmm

**Bryan:** And it was the first time I had heard the term "chicken" when describing (sotto voce) young attractive people

**Mark:** Oh, that's right

**Michael:** That's one part that the movie gets wrong

**Bryan:** "You want chickens, you go someplace else."

**Mark:** Is Ali the leader of the gang in *Part 3*?

**Michael and Bryan:** Yes

**Mark:** So it's Ali and Fox and who else?

**Bryan:** Ali and Fox and…

**Michael:** The dude with the cigarette

**Bryan:** Oh, God…

**Michael:** Smokin' around gas the entire time

**Mark:** Yes

**Bryan:** Loco!

**Mark and Michael:** Loco

**Mark:** Loco's been smoking around gas, he's crazy

**Michael:** It is

**Mark:** And I always love Fox, 'coz she kind of dressed like Jodie from *Today's Special* gone horribly bad

**Michael:** (softly) Oh my God

**Mark:** Does anyone remember *Today's Special*?

**Bryan:** Mm-mmm

**Michael:** I *do* remember *Today's Special*, yeah

**Mark:** That was a Canadian thing, but I think maybe...

**Michael:** No, that aired here. I think it aired in Cleveland

**Mark:** All right

**Michael:** I like that he hung around in the barn in *Friday the 13th Part 3* for like an hour

**Mark:** Oh, Ali?

**Bryan:** He came back to…

**Michael:** Get his arm chopped off?

**Bryan:** To be hashtag Blackrifice so she could get away

**Mark:** Yes, exactly

**Michael:** Well, this movie introduces two Black characters and they're immediately killed

**Mark:** Yeah

**Bryan:** Which movie?

**Michael:** *Fright Night*

**Bryan:** Oh yeah, the bar, mmm-hmm

**Michael:** And then the other bouncer

**Bryan:** Well, the police chief…

**Michael:** Oh, right, the detective

**Bryan:** Who is also the police chief from *Ruthless People*

**Mark: *What????*** Shared universe!

**Bryan:** Shared universe!

**Mark:** Although he does kind of get to yell at Charley in a way that felt vaguely satisfying 'coz Charley's tactics for getting people to believe him are *not so great*

**Bryan:** He yells. He's just yelling

**Michael:** He screams at everybody

**Bryan:** He's shrill

## **Quotes**

**Mark:** (to Bryan) You're so formal. You're so polite

**Bryan:** Well, we haven't gotten to the nitty-gritty yet

**Nay:** Do you know what I watched *today*?

**Mark:** What?

**Nay:** I watched it snow in Los Angeles

**Bryan:** *Ohhh!* Where were you?

**Nay:** I was in Boyle Heights. It snowed for a solid two minutes, it was so strange

**Michael:** Yeah, I was at lunch and the person I was with was like, "Is it snowing outside?" And I looked at my phone and I was like, "Well, it's fifty-five degrees." But we turned around and it was snow

**Mark:** (faux chipper) It's fine. I'm sure that's fine!

**Michael:** Yeah, that's normal

**Nay:** *Weird*

**Bryan:** Was it Elsa from *Frozen*, is that who you were having lunch with?

**Michael:** (sarcastically) Duh!

**Mark:** I feel like we're like, (faux chipper) "Who's been watching a neat TV show?!" (normal voice) And Nay's like, (deadly serious) "I saw global warming." And I'm like, "I saw *Pen15* on Hulu. It was good."

**Mark:** The Egyptian is doing a Visconti retrospective for the next few months so I saw a four-hour…

**Bryan:** Isn't that a cookie with coffee?

**Nay:** Biscotti?

**Mark:** (Basic white girl voice) "Um, I'll have an affogato with a side of biscotti."

**Mark:** I saw a movie called *Ludwig*, which is probably the most insane movie I've ever seen about the closet

**Michael:** It sounds like a horror movie

**Mark:** It's about King Ludwig the Second of Bavaria, and he basically was a closet case who was driven completely insane by the strictures of the monarchy, and it's four hours of pure Visconti opulence and like him going completely insane and him turning into basically Michael Jackson in Neverland, like creating his own, like building castles and then a swan grove, where he just hangs out with swans and invites male actors and he makes them perform monologues from *Romeo and Juliet* for him while he just drinks himself to death. It's the most fucked-up movie

**Bryan:** You're Leda(?) today

**Mark:** *Yes, exactly*. It's so crazy, and if you have y'know, an attention span and you wanna see some fucking crazy stuff….

**Michael:** I watched something similar, it's called *One Day at a Time* on Netflix

**Mark:** I watched that, too! It just took me forever

**Michael:** I feel like I've talked about this before, but I freakin' love that show. It's so funny and it's so sweet, and the acting's brilliant. I mentioned this a million times on the show that I'm looking for fluff right now because the world sucks, and it's fluff, but with substance at the same time. And I really wanted to bring it up, too, because Gloria Calderon-Kellet tweeted this week that she pitched season four to Netflix and they're like, "Great, we love it! But we don't know if we're gonna do it."

**Mark:** That's what it's been like every season

**Michael:** Yeah, every season. So, audience listen to it, because it is such a gem, it's talking about shit in sitcoms that no other sitcom's doing right now. It's still very of the school of Norman Lear, he's still a producer on it. And Justina Machado is so good

**Mark:** The greatest

**Michael:** And Rita Moreno's great

**Bryan:** From *Final Destination 2*?

**Michael:** Yeah! I just watched that recently, too!

**Bryan:** She survived. She was never in danger

**Michael:** Mmm-hmm.

**Bryan:** She was always gonna live

**Michael:** She was gonna have a baby… but *One Day at a Time*, so funny, so great. And they talk about *shit*. #MeToo, sexual assault…

**Mark:** They cover it all

**Michael:** Drugs...

**Mark:** Pronouns, you name it. They run the gamut

**Michael:** Great show

**Bryan:** I saw two episodes of *Russian Doll*

**Nay:** Nice

**Michael:** Natasha Leone…

**Bryan:** It's great! Natasha Leone is fantastic. It's as good as everybody says it is, at least…

**Michael:** So far?

**Bryan:** I thought so

**Mark:** She reminded me of…

**Bryan:** Anybody else see it?

**Nay:** Mmm-hmm

**Bryan:** Have you seen the whole thing?

**Nay:** Mmm-hmm. I watched it all at once

**Bryan:** *Oh.*

**Nay:** Yeah

**Michael:** How many episodes, is it like eight or ten?

**Nay:** Just eight. It was *so* good

**Bryan:** Digestible

**Rich:** Is it like *Happy Death Day* or is it completely different?

**Michael:** Oh, hi Rich!

**Mark:** Oh, hi Rich!

**Nay:** Hello!

**Mark:** Bryan's friend Rich...

**Michael:** Bryan's friend Rich is here, our studio audience

**Mark:** We have audience participation now with this

**Michael:** Yeah, I love it. Such a nice voice to hear on the microphone

**Mark:** Please introduce yourself

**Rich:** Uh, I'm Rich, Bryan's friend

**Mark:** I see

**Brennan:** So, um, Producer Brennan over here. In the corner

**Mark:** Oh, hi Producer Brennan!

**Brennan:** Is it time for my patented Llorona Corner?

**Mark:** Oh my God

**Michael:** (sighs)

**Bryan:** What is it?

**Brennan:** I've been watching a bunch of movies starring La Llorona, which is the Mexican folk legend of a woman who killed her children and…

**Michael:** Didn't I give you my Netflix password?

**Brennan:** And now she's a ghost who drowns children who, well you know, go out after dark in the river.

**Michael:** Yeah, there's a big-- New Line's coming out with a big budget one here soon

**Brennan:** Yeah, there's a new one coming out, and. It. Looks. Fine.

**Michael:** Yeah. Not a great trailer

**Brennan:** So I'm watching all of the movies starring La Llorona…

**Mark:** I love that you say, "Starring La Llorona," like she's Lady Gaga.

**Michael:** This ageless...

**Mark:** And they're like, "Oh, La Llorona, what's your next film?" And she's like, "Well, in this one, I drown *three* kids. So it's a real departure for me, and I was really nervous."

**Michael:** Brennan, I was listening to today's playback with Dave Holmes and Matt McConkey, I didn't realize how funny you were describing the last one you watched, though

**Brennan:** I'm really funny

**Michael:** How the last thirty minutes-- it was a movie, but the last thirty minutes, was literally she couldn't touch the kids that she needed to kill so she was essentially Scooby-Doo-ing…

**Brennan:** Yeah, she was like rolling his ball into the street trying to get him hit by a car

**Michael:** So great. I was like, "How did this not register when I was in the room with him?"

**Bryan:** It's more effective if it's a sailboat

**Mark:** That's true

**Brennan:** So. I didn't get to do one last week, so can I do half of one really quick and then my full one?

**Mark:** *Go*

**Brennan:** Okay, in 1963, we got *La Maldicion de La Llorona*, which in English is *The Curse of the Crying Woman*, because the names of all these movies sound like Billy Wilder comedies

**Nay:** Right

**Brennan:** That one kind of ignores all the folklore in favor of this old dark house story of this beautiful niece who comes to visit her aunt. There's always a beautiful niece. And her aunt is in service to this ancient witch who's *kind of* like La Llorona, but not really, and then it ends in a fistfight between two men who are barely in the movie and I'm like, "Why do I care about this?" *But*, when she assumes her evil form, she has no eyeballs and it's a really creepy effect

**Nay:** *Whoa!*

**Brennan:** Yeah. But what I really wanna talk about is…

**Bryan:** Those two eyeballs behind you, are those the eyeballs that she's missing?

**Brennan:** Maybe

**Mark: *What?!***

**Brennan:** I should call her. But the movie I wanna talk about is from 2004 called, you guessed it, *Las Lloronas*…

**Nay:** Oh shit, now there's more than one

**Brennan:** This one, it's interesting…

**Michael:** Is that like *Urban Legend*(s) with the title thing there?

**Brennan:** Sort of. It's kind of, it's, there's kind of an esteemed subgenre of drama-- it's about three generations of women and how they interact with each other, and it's less of a horror film and more of a melodrama, but it's *such a melodrama*

**Nay:** Anything with three generations of women talking about how they interact with each other is probably a horror movie also

**Bryan:** Are they drowning each other?

**Nay:** Yeah, right. If you got my grandma, my mom and me together doing that shit...

**Mark:** So it's like *The Hours* of La Llorona movies?

**Nay:** Yes. Exactly

**Bryan:** Wasn't there a room filling with water in *The Hours*?

**Mark:** Yes

**Bryan:** Did the children drown in there?

**Mark:** That was… wasn't that Julianne Moore, she's like, (breathy voice) "We have to bake a cake for daddy!" (as the children) "So he knows we love him?"

**Bryan:** I've never seen it, it just seems sad.

**Mark:** It's *real*…

**Michael:** Yeah

**Nay:** It's very sad. Watching it is… (sighs)

**Mark:** Brennan is like, "I wasn't finished!"

**Brennan:** Oh, no! I'm used to-- my point is, the pin is in it and it's comin' out. So, basically…

**Bryan:** Are you talking about a grenade or a boil?

**Brennan:** Both

**Nay:** That's a good question

**Michael:** Good question

**Brennan:** With telling a story about La Llorona, it's really easy to kind of lean in on these kind of negative tropes about hysterical women and things like that, but this movie *was* written and directed by a woman. It was directed by Lorena Villareal, who actually gets a "Special Thanks" credit in *Roma*, I don't know why.

**Mark:** Oooh!

**Nay:** Hmmm

**Brennan:** But she's pulling some strings somewhere…

**Michael:** (Alfonso Cuaron) has his reasons

**Brennan:** Oh yeah, just, I haven't been able to ask him

**Mark:** She knows what she did

**Brennan:** But this movie really focuses on-- kind of the central thesis of the movie is La Llorona is the ancestor of these three women, and she killed her kids so there's a curse on this family that any male child that is born will die during an eclipse

**Nay:** Perfect

**Brennan:** Yeah. So basically the thesis of the movie is that any men in their lives are going to die, or leave them, or torment them in some way

**Michael:** Oh, that's cute

**Nay:** Mmm-hmm. It's realistic

**Brennan:** Yeah, it kind of posits that death is probably the best answer for this… it's a very low-budget movie. I don't want to oversell it, I really really enjoyed it, but it's got, you know, it's pacing sometimes, it's very cheaply made, but it's a beautiful movie. The melodrama goes *all out*. We've got guns being pointed at each other in two different instances, we've got multiple cases of incest going on…

**Mark:** Oh, okay

**Brennan:** A priest gets pushed off a bicycle...

**Mark:** I love that you sound like Stefan at this point

**Michael:** (laughing) Oh my God!

**Mark:** (as Stefan) "This movie has *everything*: Priests falling off bicycles…"

**Michael:** Yeah, the priest coming off the bicycle *after* the molestation

**Brennan:** Yeah, it's got a lot of very cute men in it…

**Mark:** Okay

**Brennan:** Including Miguel Rodarte, who's an actor I really like. And I *straight-up* sobbed at the end of this movie.

**Mark:** Oh, okay

**Nay:** Awww!

**Brennan:** I was sitting on my couch alone, and I won't tell you what happens, because I know you'll wanna see it, but it was really emotionally wracking for me

**Nay:** You *became* La Llorona

**Mark:** It also could be the fifteen Llorona films you've watched in succession

**Brennan:** Uh-huh. I became *El Lloron*

**Mark:** I've really grown to enjoy La Llorona Corner. I was a skeptic at first…

**Nay:** Yeah!

**Mark:** And now I'm finding weekly, La Llorona Corner is…

**Brennan:** Look, it's your little dose of international cinema

**Mark:** Yes!

**Brennan:** Anyway, I really, *really* recommend this one. Like in terms of a spooky ghost story, this is not what that is, but it was really interesting. And having a female perspective on that folklore was the *exact* thing that it needed

**Nay:** That makes sense

**Mark:** Tonight's film was writer-director Tom Holland's directorial debut, a love letter to everything from Hammer to Hitchcock to the Golden Age of TV horror hosts like Elvira and Zacherle. But hidden within the lighthearted pop elements are enough queer themes to stop a Pride parade in its tracks. Released in 1985 only months apart from gay fantasia themes *A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge*, tonight's movie is for any queer who was both aroused and alarmed by the hot dead next door. Guys, it's *Fright Night*.

(The trailer is played)

**Narrator** **in the trailer:** What would you do if you accidentally discovered the house next door was occupied by something not human?

**Woman screams in the trailer**

**Michael:** That

**Mark:** All roads lead to *Married… with Children* for Michael

**Mark:** If you haven't seen (*Perfect*), *holy shit*…

**Michael:** I've never even heard of it

**Mark:** It is an entire film about the aerobicize craze

**Michael:** Oh, *that* movie

**Bryan:** (as ??) "What's so wrong with wanting to be *perfect*?!"

**Michael:** Can we watch that on your new projector?

**Mark:** I… let me tell you, it is a *time*

**Mark:** *Ahh*, *Fright Night*. You know, this one's a long time coming, and we were saving this for you, Bryan

**Bryan:** *Yaaaaay*! *Thank you*

**Mark:** (groans orgasmically) So…

**Michael:** Oh, God!

**Mark:** Before we continue, Bryan, why this movie? Specifically your pick to come and hang out with us?

**Bryan:** Probably because the time in which I saw it, or experienced it, mid-eighties, or should I say the "mid-AIDS-ies", as it was becoming, was a very layered way of telling stories, and it had such a queer angle to it that it felt like even as a mainstream film, it was really about puberty and the fears that your body changing puts you through. So it felt like something that was more about my experience with it being queer than actually the film, 'coz I'm not quite sure if (Tom Holland) is doing his *Nightmare on Elm Street 2* thing, where he's using homosexual subtext as an element to scare the straights. Like, "This is the scariest thing for the boy next door, who's so desperate to have sex with his girlfriend and is panicking that she won't." Why are you panicking, Charley? (whispers) *Why are you panicking*? (normal voice) So I think there's a lot of subtext going on that I don't even know if the filmmaker intended. I think he laid some seeds in my imagination, sowed those seeds, so my experience was one of full-fledged puberty watching it

**Mark:** Interesting. Before we continue, and to that end, when you sort of bring up AIDS and the eighties, I'd like to throw out some stats about the culture, the temperature of American culture at the time *Fright Night* was released. Because my biggest question around *Fright Night* is, "How is all this an accident? How is the queerness of this movie like, 'Whoops!'"

**Bryan:** "How'd your dick fall on my mouth?"

**Mark:** (talking like his mouth is full) Ohh, mmmm

**Michael:** Awww, I want that dick

**Mark:** In 1985 when *Fright Night* was released, the number of AIDS cases had reached a peak. Figures showed there was an eighty-nine percent increase in diagnoses from 1984. And while queer communities were understandably terrified, the straights could, as usual, be relied on to do the most despite making up less than five percent of all cases at the time. A New York Times article from December eighty-five showed that over fifty percent of Americans favored the quarantine of AIDS patients. A fraction of that group also favored a tattoo to mark those with the disease. Seventy-seven percent wanted to make to make it a crime for gays to donate blood, period.

**Bryan:** You can't have my blood

**Nay:** Exactly right

**Bryan:** *It's mine!*

**Mark:** It's not for sale. Nearly half polled said they would refuse to send their child to a classroom if a fellow pupil was HIV-positive. And President Reagan finally uttered the word "AIDS" at a press conference in 1985, four years after the first cases were discovered. And the prevailing sentiment among Americans at the time was panic. Panic that it was airborne, panic that their children were next. Panic that AIDS would *leave* the urban centers where it was more prevalent and infect the suburbs. Kind of like…

**Bryan**: (whispers) Jerry Dandridge!

**Mark:** Yeah!

**Bryan:** (whispers) Get 'im, Jerry!

**Mark:** *What?* It's kind of clear from Jerry Dandridge's outfits and visitors that he's not a suburbanite

**Bryan:** No. He was wearing Glenn Close's coats from *Jagged Edge*

**Mark:** He *really* is

**Bryan:** That's the same wardrobe, it's the same wardrobe

**Mark:** It's true he's a hard-bitten...

**Bryan:** He can't walk through a door without the shoulders like…

**Mark:** His wardrobe early on in the film, his wardrobe-- because late in the movie he goes full ski Instructor

**Nay:** Yes. Right

**Bryan:** Yes. It's chilly, it's chilly

**Mark:** But early on he really is that like, he's like a D.A. whose case is dead-ending

**Michael:** Oh. My. God! He's a female Dan on *Dynasty*

**Nay:** Yes!

**Mark:** Exactly

**Bryan:** You've got the trench…

**Michael:** You've got the long big fingernails…

**Mark:** Really long, mmm-hmm

**Nay:** Oh, those cheekbones

**Bryan:** Just on the "AIDS-y" of it all, in eighty-five, when I was masturbating at that age, all that was exposed at that time, you know, as a person of that generation was that it was a "gay disease". There was no information on how it was spread, how you could contract it, so I thought it was inherent. So if I had a cut on my finger and I masturbated and I got semen on my finger, I *thought*, "I could've just given myself AIDS".

**Michael:** *Wow*

**Bryan:** There was that little information out

**Mark:** I remember having the same kind of, where it was just something that I was going to develop as a result of being who I am. Like, it's just an inevitability, it wasn't even something that you had to earn?

**Michael:** Like it's another step in the… Jesus Christ!

**Mark:** *Ooof*!

**Bryan:** So it was heavy! These are heavy issues that were happening at the time this movie was coming out, and it came out in such a way that clearly I don't think (Tom Holland) was exposed to as much of the heaviness in the public eye of what a gay person would be experiencing in those four years leading up to it. And so, the fact that he wove such a queer angle into the story was interesting. He was looking for a new angle into a familiar story that bounced off of, "Vincent Price learning that there are vampires, and where does that go?" He added layers to it, and I think that's admirable. It's not often, people don't dig that deep often enough

**Mark:** Very true. And that sort of dig is reflected in, I think, Jerry's sex life, I think in sort of the variety of it-- that's the thing I remember, when I saw the movie as a kid, I remember being fascinated with the fact that, "W-wait…"

**Bryan:** "You don't have to choose!"

**Mark:** Yeah. I-- there's so many. His fridge is full of, he's just got all kinds of...

**Bryan:** Well, the first victim was a man, that they found at the rail station. And then it starts the rotation of prostitutes

**Mark:** Well, it's like fancy hostesses from New York restaurants, I guess

**Bryan:** Was that actually in the biography on the news?

**Mark:** No…

**Bryan:** That they were like, "Cindy's missing. She's a hostess…"

**Mark:** "At Indochine." But no, it's…

**Michael:** (chuckling) "Cindy's missing."

**Mark:** Yeah, from manservant Bill to you know, to those women he invites over for window nookie, 'cause it's always very strategically-- there's something exhibitionist about it, specifically Charley barely has to do any work

**Michael:** He just turns around

**Mark:** Yeah

**Bryan:** But setting the stage for Charley's-- you can go full on Queerwolf and interpret this movie from a fully queer perspective of here's Charley, who's this angry kid, *he yells at everybody*! *He's always, "Why are you yelling, Charley?!*"

**Mark:** Yelling

**Michael:** At everybody

**Bryan:** Everybody gets yelled at. And you have poor Amy, who's like-- he is, he's D.R. territory with as aggressive as he is being with her, and that bad and pressuring her into sex, and she has a pattern of enabling these guys of saying "No" and then she surrenders, which she...

**Michael:** She feels guilty

**Bryan:** Gets later, and it's like, "What are you doing? There's a lot of things you're saying here that are problematic." But mainly you see a guy trying to force his sexuality on a woman who's not comfortable with it…

**Nay:** 'Coz she kinda gay

**Bryan:** Because she's Marcy D'arcy. She's kinda gay!

**Michael:** Yeah. She lez.

**Bryan:** And that's prevalent throughout the casting of this picture. When Stephen Geoffreys, Amanda Bearse, Roddy McDowell...

**Michael:** Every character can be *looked at* as gay

**Bryan:** Yes

**Michael:** Every single one. Including the mother

**Mark:** *Including the mom*. We're onto you, Sharon! ...I don't know her name

**Michael:** Marcy D'arcy (sighs) I love it

**Mark:** There's so many surface things that you could talk about in *Fright Night* and we don't have to do that because they're such low-hanging fruit, but…

**Bryan:** Oh! In my Wikipedia reading I discovered the word "frugavore". Did anyone else come across the word "frugavore" in their research for *Fright Night*?

**Mark:** Oh, yes. That was Chris Sarandon's idea, right?

**Bryan:** Yes

**Mark:** Please…

**Bryan:** So, Chris Sarandon developed different layers for Jerry Dandridge, and one of them was being that he was more sympathetic in many ways, and he was giving Charley a chance. And also, that he was part fruit bat.

**Mark:** They know

**Bryan:** And he, well, vampire bats have a lot of fruit bat in their DNA, so he would be a frugavore, which is…

**Mark:** (laughing) Frugavore. Just the word is…

**Bryan:** I wrote it down! I wrote it down on my pad *in cursive* so the millenials couldn't find it

**Michael:** Oh my God, I can't remember the last time I wrote in cursive. I bet my hand hurt after doing it

**Nay:** Cursive can be fun sometimes

**Mark:** (faux chipper) "For a treat!"

**Nay:** (faux chipper) "I do do that sometimes!"

**Michael:** (fey voice) "Sometimes I just sit down with a good book and write in cursive."

**Nay:** It's kind of meditative

**Brennan:** (off-mic) Don't write in a book! (on-mic) Don't write in a book!

**Michael:** A notepad...

**Nay:** A *notebook*

**Brennan:** Not a copy of *The Notebook*, the Nicholas Sparks book, right? You mean an empty...

**Nay:** I mean, I would wipe my ass with that

**Michael:** Yeah, I would write all over that. I'd write a better book on top of that

**(Everyone laughs)**

**Mark:** So… All right, I'm bringing out the long cane

**Bryan:** Oh, God

**Michael:** Yay!

**Mark:** Wheee!

**Mark:** So, as you were sort of talking about before, these teens are this...

**Bryan:** There is a lot of sexual tension going on

**Mark:** Yeah. There is just this roiling mass of sexual confusion going on. Like you said, Charley…

**Bryan:** Emphasis on confusion

**Mark:** Extreme confusion, especially in the part of Evil Ed, well, or maybe not. Evil Ed sort of comes off as vaguely sexless, as just this sort of undefined kind of...

**Bryan:** He's wearing a muscle tee

**Michael:** Yeah….

**Mark:** Yeah.

**Bryan:** That's rough trade

**Mark:** (deep voice) **Truck stop!!!**

**Michael:** You had mentioned Charley was kinda yelling at everybody, but I felt like the three teenagers were kind of, Amy as well was yelling. I thought they were either all angry or Ed was like, crazy giggly 'coz none of them wanted to…

**Bryan:** (as Evil Ed) "Groove"

**Michael:** Yeah. None of them wanted to admit what they were feeling, which is, "We're a queer trio, we can be queer together," but no one wanted to make that first move. They could've had a queer posse, and but like, they were all reacting-- Amy was like, I thought she was yelling at Charley the entire time, shoving a burger in his face 'coz he's watching the news. I just thought there was a lot of gay angst going on that none of them knew was going on

**Mark:** Listen.

**Michael:** Rough trade

**Mark:** My theory, my pet theory is that Amy is just really angry because she was styled by a dog groomer the entire film

**Bryan:** There's a lot of ribbons!

**Michael:** Brian was like, "Why does she have a bow in her hair?"

**Bryan:** Not just one!

**Mark:** So many ribbons. She has a full Shih Tzu bow in her hair…

**Michael:** Yeah, and her and Jerry have the same haircut

**Mark:** It's not… yeah, it's really-- poor thing

**Nay:** That was a good tweet

**Mark:** Speaking specifically about Evil Ed, the thing, especially for queer audiences, one of the most famous sequences of the film is the alley, in terms of so, y'know, Charley and Amy have this push-pull kind of thing that's constantly going on. And then all of the sudden, out of the blue, you have a full-on seduction. Well, seduction is actually a continuous element of the film. There's a performative aspect for Jerry Dandridge with his victims *directly* in view of Charley's window…

**Bryan:** Well, all of that seems to be bait

**Nay:** Mmmm

**Mark:** Oh, completely!

**Michael:** Yeah!

**Bryan:** And he even… he gives Charley a chance. He says, "I give you the chance I never had. You can turn away, just keep your mouth shut and everything will be good between us." I'd be like, "We're good, Mister Vampire!"

**Michael:** "Just keep doing shit in front of that window."

**Nay:** Right

**Mark:** "So, are you gonna be doing this at nine, like, every night?"

**Michael:** (in unison with Mark) "Every night?"

**Bryan:** I might have some moral quandaries with like, y'know…

**Michael:** The murder

**Bryan:** The bodies piling up, but I'd be a teenager and I wouldn't be *that* sensitive to it. You're a teenager, you're a little crazy

**Nay:** Yeah. You're like, "This is a reasonable thing to do."

**Michael:** Yeah. "Give me a show. My mom won't let me-- I can't buy porno yet, I'm too young"

**Nay:** Yeah. "My frontal cortex isn't even fully developed. I'm not thinking about the long term fucking situation, yeah."

**Bryan:** So, would you have? Would you have if he gave you that chance? Like, "Just don't say anything and I won't kill your mom and we'll be friends and I'll just be your neighbor who kills people."

**Nay:** Agh, I mean, *probably* as a young person. I feel like I was manipulated into a lot of shitty situations, you know, so probably. I dunno. Now? No. But then? Sure.

**Michael:** Now, I'd be like, "Well, who-- what kind of vics are we talking about here?"

**Nay:** *O-kay*. Yeah

**Bryan:** The vapo-rub?

**Michael:** "What kinda people you takin' out?"

**Nay:** Yeah

**Mark:** I'd be like, "Are you gonna wear the trenchcoat?"

**Michael:** "Do they all wear MAGA hats? 'Coz that's totally fine."

**Mark:** Well, so to that…

**Michael:** (chuckling) Vapo-rub

**Mark:** How did Vapo-rub come up?

**Michael:** (laughing) I don't know!

**Nay:** 'Coz you said "vics"

**Bryan:** Vic**k**s

**Nay:** And you said, "Vapo-rub".

**Mark:** I missed that boat

**Mark:** So, seduction. Jerry Dandridge is very much about seduction, he's very much about trying-- at the beginning, he's not specifically trying to antagonize these kids, but rather pull them into a fold, and in terms of Evil Ed specifically, it's, it's not even subtext, it's just text.

**Bryan:** My God

**Mark:** And it's-- I remember that scene kind of frying my motherboard when *I* was a kid

**Bryan:** I masturbated to it *so many times*

**Mark:** And what's *fascinating* to me is that Tom Holland is like, (as Tom) "What? You could sort of look at it as Evil Ed being a bullied gay kid, but I just saw him as the nerdy kid who liked EC Comics." (normal voice) And I was like, "***What?!?!?***"

**Michael:** That was attracted to Charley's next-door neighbor

**Mark:** "***Sorry?!?!?!***"

**Bryan:** Are you projecting Stephen Geoffreys onto that role? Is that, is that part of it? 'Coz he's distinctly queer, and that performance is distinctly queer

**Michael:** Right

**Bryan:** I remember watching it with my oldest brother and *that scene* came up and it made him so uncomfortable. And he pointed at that, at Stephen Geoffreys and was like, "That guy's weird." Like it was setting off his gaydar, and it was so upsetting to him, and he could just only articulate that he didn't like him.

**Mark:** I can see the experience that you're describing, both from your perspective of like, I'm projecting, that maybe you were unaffected by it, but that *sucked* to hear your brother say that

**Bryan:** I just thought it was insightful, like, "Oh, he knows." 'Coz I was keying off of it. *I* knew that it was a gay scenario and it had queer resonance, and I think *he* did too. Not necessarily that he was identifying with it, or that it was turning him on, but that he could identify that it was a human thing happening that made him uncomfortable

**Mark:** Interesting.

**Michael:** And you were masturbating to it

**Bryan:** And I was masturbating-- in front of him

**Mark:** In front of him?

**Nay:** (groans)

**Mark:** (as Bryan's older brother) "That guy's *weird*!"

**Nay:** (as Bryan) "Yeah man!"

**Mark:** (as Bryan with a deep voice while also making fapping sounds)."**Yeah! Totally! He's so weird!** **Super-weird!**"

**Michael:** (as Bryan's older brother) "Bryan, why are you naked?"

**Nay:** I love Mark's masturbation voice

**Mark:** (deep voice) "**Gaaaaaahhhhhh!**"

**Nay:** (as Mark's masturbation voice) "**The best bath I ever had!**"

**Michael:** Oh my God! (as Mark's masturbation voice) "**Best bath ever!!**"

**Mark:** At the same time though, I have to admit, there is like this baby gay Bobcat Goldthwaite kind of vibe to Stephen Geoffreys…

**Michael:** Yes! One hundred percent

**Bryan:** Yes!

**Mark:** That has always made me uncomfortable

**Michael:** A little bit

**Mark:** There's kind of like, something twitchy, like, "Raaah!" whatever about him that I was always like, "Is that me?" And there was something so kind of…

**Bryan:** Exposed?

**Mark:** Yeah, there was a kind of um, nakedness to his-- he's *so vulnerably* gay

**Bryan:** He is a vibrating Judy Garland of gay

**Mark:** And so, it always made me…

**Michael:** "Vibrating"!

**Mark:** He always made me very, um, he tweaked me out a little

**Bryan:** Well, if you're experiencing any sort of like, closeted attitude, or self, you know, closeting, I would imagine somebody who's so clearly out…

**Michael:** Yes

**Bryan:** And so demonstratively gay…

**Mark:** Yes

**Bryan:** Makes you uncomfortable

**Mark:** Absolutely, it absolutely did

**Bryan:** Like it made my older brother uncomfortable

**Mark:** It drove me-- like Laurie Strode back into *that* closet, tie it up with string!

**Bryan:** Oh, you should be Laurie Strode going, (as Laurie Strode) "Keys? The keys?"

**Mark:** (in unison with Bryan as Laurie Strode) "The keys?"

**Bryan:** To let yourself *out* of that closet!

**Mark:** (as Laurie Strode) "Tommy, let me in, it's me!"

**Michael:** (as Laurie Strode) "The keys!"

**Mark:** (as Tommy Doyle) "Who is it?" (as Laurie Strode) "It's me, Tommy! Open up the goddamn door!" (normal voice) I like that she just bitches him out. (as Laurie Strode) "Lemme in you little shit!"

**Michael:** Takes him ten minutes to open the door

**Mark:** (as Tommy Doyle) "Okay!" (normal voice) He like rubs his eyes. Ahhh!

**Brennan:** Hey, Mark, did you want that alley scene? 'Coz I have the clip

**Mark:** Yes, please! Play it, thank you!

**Bryan:** Oooh, the alley scene!

**Michael:** Oh no, you're not gonna start masturbating, are you? Bryan starts masturbating….

(The clip of Jerry seducing Evil Ed in the alley is played)

**Brennan:** That *breathing* (in the clip)

**Nay:** *Right*

**Michael:** (to Bryan) I thought that was you

**Mark:** The breathing, the *music*

**Bryan:** The music is *so...*

**Mark:** That's like stick it in music

**Bryan:** *Elm Street* leather bar…

**Michael:** It *is* titillating for sure

**Mark:** It *is*! So…

**Bryan:** I think of amyl nitrate when I hear that

**Michael:** I smell poppers

**Mark:** That's the sound that, yes…

**Nay:** Ratch

**Mark:** That's the sound that poppers make when you open up that bottle of Rush

**Nay:** My face is so warm

**Mark:** I don't even mind the headache! So, this is weird. So, yes, of course we love it. In 2019 that scene is campy and frothy and fun, but in Eighty-five, though, if we put on our Eighty-five goggles, and of course (to Bryan) you had a very specific response to the film, it was very exciting, very titillating to you. But it's also trafficking, at least for a straight audience, in some of the most hackneyed stereotypes of gay men. That doesn't...

**Bryan:** Antique dealers

**Mark:** (laughing) Antique dealers. *Trenchcoat enthusiasts*

**Michael:** Live in a house

**Nay:** Shoulder pads

**Michael:** "We're fixing this house *up*."

**Mark:** Of course it doesn't disqualify it from being loveable. But for many, it was even cherished as an illustration of queer quasi-romance. But, you know, in horror, the line is thin. Where for you guys does homophobia end and representation begin, around *Fright Night*?

**Michael:** Hmmm. That's a good question.

**Mark:** Because *Fright Night* can be like a very, "*Oooh!*"-- I was watching it again sort of with that question in mind and I found myself a little bit, "I love this!" But I'm also like, "Okay. That's… goodness…."

**Bryan:** Well, I guess what I was wondering if when (Tom Holland) was saying to his actors, you know, when you're cleaning his hand, do it while you're on his knees, so it looks like fellatio...

**Mark:** He intended that, didn't he?

**Bryan:** Yeah, he did. The actors were like, they watched the movie and then they were like, "*Ohhhhh!* I get it now!" But I don't think they got it at the time

**Mark:** "Oh, *wash his hand*!"

**Michael:** "I was blowing him."

**Bryan:** But I think that (Tom Holland) clearly wanted to include that in the conversation of the movie, whether or not he was using it as a weapon of fear or just layering for the characters, I honestly don't know

**Mark:** Yeah

**Michael:** I'm glad you asked that question, because watching it this time my one thought while watching was...

**Bryan:** Were you triggered?

**Michael:** No. I was actually like, "I wish this movie was embraced a bit more than say, *Nightmare 2*."

**Nay:** Mmmm. Mmm-hmm

**Michael:** You know, *Nightmare 2's* always the queer horror movie that's the queer horror movie, and as Sam Wineman said in that episode, it's like, yeah, "The queer horror movie that all your straight friends love," y'know?

**Bryan:** The "Bohemian Rhapsody"...

**Mark:** Of queer horror

**Michael:** So, you know, there are those moments that you talked about, but they don't resonate, they don't stand out to much me as much as like, *all* of *Nightmare 2*

**Mark:** Interesting

**Michael:** So, I wish it, and maybe I'm a little off, but I wish it was embraced more by queer horror lovers, because…

**Mark:** Well *Nightmare 2* has Meryl Streep*,* so

**Michael:** But there's something to be said about Jerry and his, what did you call him, a manservant?

**Mark:** Manservant Bill

**Michael:** It's also kind of like a domesticated couple, too, and they just live in the same house y'know, and they're just there, so y'know...

**Mark:** Okay, let's talk about manservant Bill

**Michael:** Although he says, "I'm his roommate," which is such Eighties slang for, "He's butt-pounding me!"

**Mark:** Okay, so if manservant Bill is serving as the movie's Renfield figure…

**Michael:** I love the way Mark says "figure"

**Bryan:** "Figerr"?

**Michael:** Yeah. Go ahead

**Mark:** (tentatively) Figure?

**Michael:** Yeah, I always love it

**Mark:** What? I don't understand

**Michael:** Okay, nevermind

**Mark:** (weird voice) "Um, Mark's here. I feel funny now." (normal voice) So Renfield fig-- person, persons…

**Michael:** Oh my God, I shouldn't have said it

**Mark:** Are always so important to vampire lore. Now, is the "Vampire's gay" phase before he meets his Mina always necessary to paint him as a sexual other? The Renfield figure exists to go, (as Renfield) "Here I am, your slave and you're going to turn me. You know, any time now…" (normal voice).But eventually the vampire's like, "Yeah yeah yeah, 'coz I either found like my reincarnated blah blah blah," and they sort of nod to that with Amy, which is kind of hilarious…

**Nay:** Who's also Chris (unintelligible)

**Mark:** Yeah, centuries ago, same dog groomer stylist

**Bryan:** I don't know if that elevated the story

**Mark:** Which part?

**Bryan:** The reincarnation. I don't know if it did

**Mark:** I don't think so

**Bryan:** The makers of *The Fog* remake? Clearly thought it did. Because they roped in that reincarnation

**Michael:** Oh, that's right

**Mark:** That's right

**Michael:** I've only seen that once

**Nay:** Me too

**Michael:** That was enough

**Mark:** That was the Maggie Grace running away from fog, right?

**Michael:** Yeah, and Tom Welling

**Mark:** Yeah

**Michael:** Yeah. And Selma Blair as Adrienne Barbeau. I forget what the character's name was

**Mark:** Going back to the Mina-Renfield love triangle, whatever, there's always a Renfield. In most vampires the Renfield is never turned, the Renfield figure is a eunuch in some way, shape or form. But in *Fright Night*, Bill is-- this is how I interpret it, that Bill *is* turned by the end of the movie, because he is revealed to not just be, like, a roommate, y'know…

**Michael:** Yeah

**Mark:** Maybe he's a-- he can hang out during the day early on because he's disposing of bodies and shit, but by the end, he turns into, he is a vamp

**Michael:** He is a creature

**Nay:** Yeah

**Bryan:** So is that like, are you supposing that he was changed into a vampire *for* that night or…?

**Mark:** Mid-film? Something?

**Bryan:** Or he's another creature that's neither vampire nor human

**Mark:** That is the other sort of takeaway that we can have, but since this *Fright Night* doesn't seem to introduce any other...

**Michael:** Creatures?

**Mark:** Varietals of creatures, I, yeah, I am left to sort of assume that he transitioned from human to vampire

**Michael:** Off-screen?

**Mark:** I dunno!

**Bryan:** I just thought he was just like a different kind of thing

**Mark:** Okay

**Michael:** Well, yeah. Doesn't he, like the green goo, no one else had that, right?

**Bryan:** The green goo came when he got staked, right?

**Mark:** Mmm-hmm

**Bryan:** He got staked

**Michael:** And it was like, (makes a sizzling sound), like it could burn a hole in the ground

**Nay:** I was like, that was a million dollars worth of…

**Bryan:** Was it?

**Nay:** Not just the slime

**Michael:** But the prosthetics and stuff?

**Nay:** Yeah, for the whole movie

**Michael:** Great effects

**Nay:**

**Mark:** Okay. So basically we're all in agreement that we're ruining my fantasy that Jerry turned Bill

**Nay:** Yes

**Bryan:** I didn't-- you know, I think he was already-- they've been together a long time, I'm sure they're entertaining a throuple idea

**Mark:** Yeah

**Nay:** Yeah, like, "Who (unintelligible) who?"

**Bryan:** Yeah

**Michael:** Maybe they figured a way he could hang in the sun?

**Mark:** Listen, V.B.D., Vampire Bed Death, and you know…

**Michael:** Is it possible that it was just not thought as deeply as we are right now and it was just a twist?

**Nay:** Possibly

**Bryan:** Fuck you, Michael!

**Mark:** Yeah! You know, we don't have to do this! We can all just go home!

**Michael:** (fey voice) "I'm leaving!"

**Mark:** Just go home

**Bryan:** I could watch episode three of *Russian Doll*

**Nay:** (softly) *Stop*…

**Michael:** Go watch *One Day at a Time*

**Mark:** So, I mean the green goo, I was like, "Okay. Green goo. Hm!"

**Michael:** Yeah

**Bryan:** He's just a different kind of creature

**Nay:** Yeah

**Bryan:** Because what I think we're seeing is a spectrum of vampiric manifestations…

**Mark:** That's true

**Michael:** They all had a different kind of thing, like Ed turned into a wolf

**Bryan:** (in unison with Michael) a wolf

**Michael:** Um, yeah…

**Nay:** Like, I am not…

**Michael:** And Marcy D'arcy grew long hair

**Bryan:** She did

**Mark:** Well, she turned into a Pez dispenser, like her…

**Bryan:** We call that "snake jaw" in the business

**Mark:** She's like a flip-top. It's terrifying. Her mouth is…

**Michael:** I love it

**Mark:** Speaking of Amy's transformation and infection, obviously that's a function of regular vampire lore and the sort of sexualizing of the innocent virgin being turned. Or is it thanks to *Fright Night*'s sexually confused state of perpetual frenzy, is it coded as a by-product of what happens when heterosexuality isn't *allowed* to assert itself? You talked earlier about how Charley wants to fuck, and then Amy doesn't want to fuck *until* Charley *doesn't* want to fuck, and then she's like, "*Fuck me, Charley*!!" And he's too busy looking at Jerry…

**Michael:** Fucking

**Mark:** And it's just…

**Bryan:** Why is he looking at Jerry?

**Mark:** And heterosexuality is never allowed to finally just sort of come on in

**Bryan:** Plant its Seed

**Mark:** It's… yeah. So, it's, I dunno, I ran out of…

**Bryan:** Mmmmmmm

**Mark:** *Whew*! Is that the sound they make? The straights? When they do the sex? (uncomfortable groans)

**Nay:** You don't remember all the sounds from *Sliver*?

**Mark:** Ugh, blocked it out

**Michael:** What *were* those sounds?

**Mark:** I don't know. There's a lot of crying. I remember Sharon (Stone) cries a lot in the movie

**Bryan:** Wouldn't you?

**Brennan:** She had a full-on panic attack

**Mark:** Yeah, yeah. If fuckin' like, Tom Berenger was constantly throwing himself at me, I would cry through sex too

**Nay:** (while laughing) Did you see that tweet? I forget which one of y'all tweeted us, but it's like, "The tub was empty and then (Sharon) filled it up with one long squirt."

**Michael:** Oh yeah! I saw somebody tweet that

**Nay:** Funniest fucking tweet

**Mark:** *Oh!* Okay

**Michael:** Just *one* squirt

**Nay:** Just one long squirt

**Mark:** *Wait, what?!*

**Michael:** And then did you tweet back, like, "hashtag LaCroix"?

**Nay:** Yeah, I was like, "Hyper local. Farm to table." I dunno. I dunno. I just thought of that tweet, it was so funny

**Michael:** (chuckling) "Farm to table, hyper local."

**Mark:** Back to *Fright Night*...

**Bryan:** Did you know Charlie Sheen auditioned for Charley?

**Michael:** No way!

**Mark:** That would've made an interesting film

**Nay:** I would've loved that, actually

**Bryan:** He wasn't ready

**Nay:** Right

**Michael:** He *was not* ready. Any other names that you know? That's interesting, I didn't know that about...

**Bryan:** Well, I know that William Ragsdale, from my Wikipedia digging, William Ragsdale…

**Mark:** *Herman's Head*…

**Bryan:** He and Stephen Geoffreys were remembered by the casting agent because they came in for Rocky Dennis in *Mask*

**Michael:** Oh!

**Mark:** Right

**Bryan:** And Stephen Geoffreys came in for Anthony Michael Hall in…

**Michael:** *Sixteen Candles*?

**Bryan:** *Weird Science*

**Michael:** Oh, *Weird Science*

**Bryan:** So they were both remembered from those respective roles

**Mark:** Stephen Geoffreys was shocked, apparently, to find out he was not being asked to audition for Charley

**Bryan:** *Yes*

**Mark:** Which would've been fascinating

**Bryan:** Strange

**Mark:** Yeah. And I was trying to be charitable

**Bryan:** They were like, "We already had Charlie Sheen in here. We know where this is going."

**Mark:** Stephen Geoffreys, his death scene specifically, is really protracted…

**Michael:** It is

**Mark:** It is deliberately lengthy, and there's something though, that sets it apart…

**Michael:** It's painful

**Mark:** *Fright Night* is thoroughly enjoyable up to that point, and but then I think that death scene specifically sort of…

**Bryan:** It's heartbreaking

**Mark:** Yeah. It really puts the movie on a different shelf

**Bryan:** Well, it is, it's strange to see an older gay man, who's only in his early fifties being dressed up to be twenty years older

**Michael:** Right

**Bryan:** Watching a young gay man die miserably on the ground, and being incapable of helping him, and it's hard to watch that and not think about hundreds of thousands of young gay men dying miserably on the ground with no one to help them

**Mark:** Ooof

**Bryan:** It's powerful, it's powerful

**Michael:** It really is

**Bryan:** And really, what they're doing in a way it's prosthetic masturbation, because you're like, "***Look at these effects! Look at this fucking werewolf, holy shit!!***" And they're forcing you to watch every level because they wanna make sure that money goes on the screen. But as a strange result of it, they created one of the most poignant profound moments in horror, for a character's death. That scene makes me cry, and *Fright Night* is not a movie that warrants my tears

**Mark:** It's a, well, if that sequence makes me think of anything, it brings me back *to* 1985, 1986 and watching news with my parents, and when they would show AIDS wards, and the faces of the men in those AIDS wards, and my mother would turn and look at me. I remember she would always look at me, because my mother, like nothing gets past her, she fuckin' knew. She was like, "This little queen."

**Bryan:** Ha-HA! (sing-song) "I see you!"

**Mark:** She was like, "*You see that*?"

**Nay:** (as Mark's mom) "You're gonna get the AIDS for sure," okay? You little slut."

**Mark:** (laughing) "You little slut."

**Michael:** (as Mark's mom) "You little tween slut!"

**Mark:** (as his mom) "I see you on that bike! Ridin' around."

**Michael:** (as Mark's mom) "No seat on."

**Nay:** (laughing) "No seat on."

**Mark:** Gross. Gross guys. So yeah, McDowell's choice to just radiate empathy in that sequence is *so* wrenching

**Bryan:** And it calls back to, there's a few really profound moments between this young gay man and this older gay man in this movie. The bonding when they first go to recruit Peter Vincent, and then the sordid "meet" back at his apartment

**Mark:** The hook-up gone wrong

**Bryan:** The hook-up gone wrong. Where, "It's me, let me in! You trust me," and no, "I'm here to end you." And it's-- end you in a way that *to me*, communicated an interesting self-loathing for the Evil Ed character, to then project that upon this older gay man, who purportedly had "wisdom of the ways of the world" but couldn't save him from this horror that he was infected by, and turning that rage against him in that moment. It's all really, *really powerful* meaty stuff that-- the movie did not set out to hit that hard, but it did

**Mark:** Yeah. Because hearing you talk about all these different sequences, I come back to the question, "How is this an accident?" Like, how can it be an accident? I guess sometimes accidents just happen, obviously, but it really-- when you look at *Fright Night* as being more than the sum of its queer parts, it's just mind-boggling, a little bit

**Bryan:** Oh, it really-- and I think the core of its queerness goes to the Evil Ed-Peter Vincent relationship. That's-- you have these two gay actors at the center of this story, you can't help but project a sense of queerness on it, and it's already there (whispers) because (unintelligible) rejection. (normal voice) It's getting loud in here

**Michael:** Well, the tone in that moment is so serious, and different than the rest of the…

**Bryan:** Well, it is the trick gone wrong

**Michael:** In his death scene and in the moments leading up to Ed's death, the tone completely shifts for me, it becomes a very serious…

**Bryan:** A loss of life, this is a young person's life!

**Michael:** Yeah, and to me that kind of reads to me he knew what he was doing in those moments, and like you said, it may just be putting the effects on screen and getting your money's worth, but the tonal shift is so pronounced and so obvious that it leads me to believe that Tom Holland did have, he *was* saying something in that moment too, because it is such, it kinda-- watching it this time as an adult, you kind of stop and go, "Fuck. This isn't a happy-go-lucky film right now," you know?

**Bryan:** No, no. It's a child begging for its life

**Michael:** And from that point on, it kind of, it's almost kind of jarring for them to kind of try to go back to the initial tone of the film, too, for me

**Bryan:** But I think Roddy McDowell is your Toni Collette, is your actor that's holding your hand and going…

**Michael:** "It's gonna be okay"?

**Bryan:** "We're gonna navigate these turns, sister." And he takes that as the impetus for his character to then...

**Michael:** Finish?

**Bryan:** Have faith and carry on, because he saw what this is really about, and he experienced a real death in a way, that when he killed Ed...

**Michael:** Well, the moment with the cross is completely connected there

**Bryan:** Yeah

**Michael:** Yeah.

**Bryan:** Poor Evil Ed

**Mark:** (sighs)

**Michael:** Bryan, I want you to come on every week

**Mark:** I *know*!

**Bryan:** Are we done? Is that-- are you shuffling me out the door?

**Michael:** No! No!

**Mark:** (chuckling) Just get out!

**Nay:** Just about

**Michael:** I'm just thinking out loud

**Bryan:** I'm just opening the door

**Nay:** Don't gotta go home, but…

**Mark:** (Valley girl voice) "I have to go let my dog out!"

**Mark:** Did anyone read anything about the film's original ending?

**Michael:** No

**Bryan:** *Yes!*

**Mark:** Shall I provide a summary?

**Nay:** Yes, please

**Michael:** Yes

**Mark:** Furthering the gay subtext, originally the script featured a radically different ending, which was revised prior to filming. As Charley and Amy lie on the bed making out, heterosexuality (grumbles) affirming itself…

**Bryan:** (as Charley) "Is this right? This doesn't feel right. Shouldn't… okay…"

**Michael:** (as Charley)."Where's your penis?"

**Mark:** (as Charley) "Why are you wearing two jumpers, Amy?" (normal voice) As Charley and Amy lie on the bed making out, *Fright Night* comes on TV, the Peter Vincent show, and Peter Vincent declares, quote, "Tonight's creepy crawler is *Dracula Strikes Again*. Obviously about vampires. You know what vampires look like, don't you? They look like this!" Charley and Amy are horrified as Peter begins to transform on the television. Once his transformation into a vampire is complete, Peter stares into the camera, says, "Hello, Charley," and then the picture freeze-frames and the credits roll. Um…

**Bryan:** I'm not mad at that. *At all*

**Mark:** First of all, yeah, that could've been a fun ending, and also I don't remember is it still in the film Peter Vincent getting bitten?

**Bryan:** No, I imagine where you were going with the making it even more queer is that he got bit by Evil Ed, and that's…

**Mark:** Right

**Michael:** Yeah

**Bryan:** Would further my point

**Mark:** I just think that it's neat that in this version, Peter is outing himself on TV, you know, like Ellen. I think it's just really brave

**Michael:** Oh my God! "Yep, I'm gay. Yep, I'm a vampire." Was that his *People* cover?

**Bryan:** An interesting bit, you know, speaking of the queerness of this movie and the making of the sequel, is did you read this bit about who Roddy McDowell and Tom Holland were about to meet with before his untimely death, because he was a member of Carolco? José Menendez

**Michael:** Oh, yeah

**Mark:** Oh wow

**Bryan:** He was going to be involved in filming *Fright Night Two*…

**Mark:** Goodness

**Bryan:** Before his children murdered him

**Mark:** Wow! Okay. There's a little…

**Bryan:** A fun fact!

**Mark:** A little side door

**Nay:** The actual *Fright Night*, yeah

**Mark:** Yeah, talk about an actual *Fright Night*. Wow. That's…

**Bryan:** I thought that was interesting

**Michael:** It is!

**Mark:** Yeah, I had no-- I did not know he was part of Carolco

**Michael:** He was like…

**Bryan:** Carolco

**Michael:** Didn't he run it?

**Bryan:** Yeah

**Mark:** Shows what I know. All I know is Andrew Vajna, which is a name that always made me giggle when I was little, because it's spelled "v-a-j-n-a"

**Bryan:** Oh, "vagna"?

**Mark:** Yeah, "vagna"

**Nay:** That's just wrong

**Mark:** And so when I was younger I would see his name in *Premiere* magazine and be like, (chuckles goofily)

**Bryan:** You almost had me saying "vagina"

**Nay:** Let's all say it, say it right now.

**Bryan:** Vagina!

**Mark:** Vagina?

**Michael:** Vagina

**Bryan:** Vagna

**Michael:** Penis penis penis vagina vagina vagina

**Mark:** Well, it's not funny now

**Nay:** I know. 'Coz it's not funny

**Mark:** 'Coz I'm not like, eight.

**Mark:** Does anybody-- I had DILFs next door growing up, and so *Fright Night* always you know, definitely scratched an itch to say the least, but you know, did anyone have any DILFs next door, or MILFs next door, depending on your-- or stories that you wanted to share. I was just curious. I just wanna know

**Michael:** I slept with a neighbor woman down the street when I was like twenty-one

**Brennan: *What?***

**Michael:** Yeah.

**Brennan:** Mrs. Robinson…

**Michael:** Yeah

**Mark:** (To Michael) You're not allowed to do this podcast anymore

**Bryan:** When you said like, did you just take a nap?

**Nay:** Yeah, you just like…

**Mark:** (as Michael) "She made me soup.."

**Michael:** Yeah. "She made grilled cheese…"

**Bryan:** Did you have sex?

**Michael:** Yeah

**Bryan:** With your penis?

**Nay:** And her vagina?

**Michael:** With my penis in her...

**Bryan:** In her vagina?

**Michael:** In her vagina, yeah

**Mark:** *Wow*

**Michael:** There might have been a case of beer involved

**Nay:** Wow

**Bryan:** Like as lubricant?

**Nay:** Yes. Always

**Michael:** As mental

**Nay:** That's what that is, yeah

**Michael:** Yeah. So, does anyone have any questions?

**Mark:** God, I'm sorry! I feel like-- you're like, "Thanks for bringing up this…"

**Michael:** Oh no, I'm fine

**Mark:** Okay.

**Michael:** It's not traumatic

**Mark:** How's she doing?

**Michael:** She's probably dead

**Mark:** O-kay!

**Nay:** That's what I was thinking

**Mark:** This *is* like *Fright Night*

**Michael:** Does that count?

**Nay:** MILFs or DILFs…

**Bryan:** Did you have any MILFs or DILFs?

**Nay:** I don't think so. I think all the adults when I was a kid were just scary. I wasn't attracted to them

**Bryan:** Me too

**Nay:** Like the neighborhood adults? Hell no

**Bryan:** No thank you

**Michael:** (to Bryan) Oh that's right, you grew up Catholic

**Bryan:** Yeah

**Michael:** I grew up Catholic and was taught to be afraid of every adult…

**Nay:** Which, y'know, yeah

**Michael:** Yeah

**Nay:** Not a bad idea

**Mark:** I wasn't so much taught that I should be afraid of every adult, I was just sort of taught that everything I believed was wrong and I should just never rely on my own instincts

**Bryan:** Oh!

**Michael:** I had a gym teacher when I was ten that was really hot

**Mark:** Oh, yeah

**Michael:** Looking back on it, I was like, oh! Little me was like, (childish giggle) "I was bad today, I guess I have detention with you."

**Mark:** Oof

**Nay:** What a little slut

**Bryan:** What did that entail?

**Michael:** Cleaning the blackboard

**Nay:** Is that what they call it?

**Bryan:** Is that a euphemism?

**Mark:** "With my hair"

**Michael:** "My tongue!" I wanted my friend's neighbor, too

**Brennan:** *What*?

**Michael:** Yeah, he was like this "confirmed bachelor" that lived next door to my friend and her family

**Mark:** A Dandridge?

**Michael:** He was probably thirty, thirty-five. Super-hot. A nurse, I think, so he'd walk out of the house in his scrubs, so…

**Mark:** Dong flappin'

**Michael:** Oh, fuck yeah

**Nay:** Oh, Lord

**Mark:** Sorry. I had to. Like right there

**Michael:** (as the neighbor) "They outlawed  underwear at the hospital I work at." (normal voice) What about you, Mark?

**Mark:** Well, you know, I've talked about this on the *Sleepaway Camp* pod…

**Michael:** Need more…

**Mark:** And I talked about like, counselors

**Michael:** Oh my God, your care package will always be imprinted on my brain

**Mark:** Yeah

**Nay:** So precious

**Michael:** I *know*

**Mark:** Oh, man

**Michael:** MadLibs already filled in with Mark's phone number

**Nay:** Right

**Mark:** Like pictures of me

**Michael:** (laughing) Oh my God, I love it!

**Mark:** Like (as his younger self), "This one's from my class picture last year!"

**Nay:** Oh my Gawd

**Mark:** (as his younger self) "You can put it in a locker I guess, if you have that at camp. I dunno."

**Bryan:** Oh. My. God.

**Michael:** You made him a mixtape, too, didn't you?

**Mark:** I sure did!

**Michael:** Ahhh, I *love it*!

**Brennan:** Do you remember a single song you put on this mixtape?

**Bryan:** Who?

**Michael:** It was this camp counselor that Mark had, what was his name?

**Bryan:** Oh

**Nay:** Jean-Pierre, Jean-Marc…

**Michael:** *Yes!*

**Mark:** Oh man, I'd really have to think about it

**Brennan:** He's reaching through his mind palace

**Nay:** Jean-Sebastian

**Mark:** Jean-sebastién. But he also introduced me to like, *Led Zeppelin III*, that was, that started, I cannot hear that album…

**Michael:** Listen to our *Sleepaway Camp* episode, we talk about camp stories and Mark talks about the care package he sent his counselor, I love it!

**Mark:** I go full Tennessee William's heroine

**Bryan:** Awwww!

**Mark:** Like I literally disappear, the set disappears around me as I go into a psychosexual reverie. It's great

**Michael:** Oh my God, you need to write a play about this

**Mark:** Yeah, I, no, oh God, please. I shouldn't

**Bryan:** I was an early adopter, but not early enough for Insta

**Mark:** All right, settle down

**Michael:** Rough crowd!

**Bryan:** Fuck you, Michael!

**Michael:** Thank you, man!

**Michael:** I want a dog

**Bryan:** Why won't you have one?

**Brennan:** (laughs) That was so accusatory

**Mark:** Yeah

**Michael:** I need to be home

**Bryan:** Mmmm

**Mark:** What's your problem?

**Michael:** In the beginning. I'm sorry! And stop yelling at me

**Mark:** I don't buy it

**Bryan:** Is there anything that we didn't cover? I'm speaking freely now because I'm assuming that you're just gonna cut the *shit* out of this program and no one's gonna hear this

**Mark:** Was there any parting thoughts about *Fright Night* or any parting moments that we didn't…

**Bryan:** Well, you're gonna shuffle things around

**Mark:** No, we're gonna keep it loose, keep it loosey-goosey

**Michael:** Literally zero editing involved

**Mark:** Well, I guess not!

## **Previous Episode**

Episode 23: “African American-cula” (w/ Xavier Burgin!)