Welcome to Zombie Strains the podcast that watches all the Zombie movies we can stomach.

This week, we have an isolated couple in a creepy location reading a forbidden incantation.

“Reach the fiery depths of hell and bring forth the evil spirit of Barrett Otto Bond's place. “

We also have buckets of blood.

And Joseph Cotton...

“I'm particularly pleased with the meticulous and exacting restoration of this dungeon.”

 Wait, this isn't Evil Dead, this is 1972's Baron Blood.

You know, I've seen people act like that in pictures. What do they call them, zombies or something?

Zombie.

Zombie?

What's a zombie?

Well a zombie…there’s um... ...Mr. Bill there’s... ...the living dead.

They are the living dead.

Get me the zombies!

Against an army of zombies, no armies could stand!

The unburied dead are coming back to life and seeking human victims.

I’ve seen the dead rise.

Kill the brain, and you kill the ghoul.

Welcome to Zombie Strains, I'm John.

I'm Andy.

And I'm Brad

We are watching a movie from Nixon 72 not the evil dead though. It had some similarities uh it wasn't quite as gross. So Yeah, this was a movie and seeing Joseph Cotton's name on it was what it really threw me. Uh, did you let me ask you any, I always feel like we're putting you on the spot, but like when we said Joseph Cotton did that mean anything to you. It means nothing to me. Oh, sorry. No, that's right. He was in uh, Citizen King. Okay. And he was in the third man. Uh, so he was a very famous actor like 40s, 30s, 40s. Wow. Okay. And if you haven't seen the third man people like you should see sitting citizen can if you haven't but the third man a couple of times people have said I don't like black and white movies to me and I've said well that's because you haven't watched the third man because it's a great thriller set in the set post for Europe and everyone's watching so I love the third man that I did not make the connection to this movie so yeah. So, all right. Well, producer Brad, I don't think we have any trigger warnings. If anybody have anything zombie related, they want to enjoy or, I don't know, any media stuff that we've been ingesting lately. You know, it's been a pretty zombie free week or two for me. So no. Colony is still rolling around in my brain, which makes me think it was a pretty maybe a better movie than I thought it was. I don't know. We'll see. I'm excited to see Resident Evil. I was at Home Depot this weekend and know they have the giant skeleton there. Yes. And I went inside in the decorations. They had they had a whole bunch of cremlins decorations, but I didn't see any zombies for sale. I think they were looking, but they weren't prominent if they were there. which gremlins do they have, the Maguire, or the... Oh, no, no, they had the evil gremlins. Oh, okay. To be expected. To be expected, but... Okay. Well, let's just get to it then. Produce a Brad. How did we get to bear in blood? All right. Bear in blood was released in Italy in February 1972, and in the U.S. in October of 1972. It's Director of Emario Bava, and this is the second Bava film on Zombie Strange. The first was the 1961 film Hercules in the haunted world. You know what's different about this movie, I just realized, it's not dubbed, it's live action English. I think it's dubbed, but it's English to you. It's really well. Yeah, it's English to English, not English to Italian or English. No, let's match the words. Yes. Although I read that somewhere, one of the, I think it's Netflix, one of the streamers is going to use AI with their dubbing to make different languages match. Oh, God. I'm sure that'll go great. Something to watch for. Baba started his film career in the 1930s as a cameraman and then became a cinematographer. He directed his first film Black Sunday in 1960. Black Sunday and Baba's 1963 film Black Sabbath are considered two of the best horror films of all time. Bob is credited with creating the template for the Jala films that followed beautiful women, extravagant locations and mysteries and over-the-top murders. So curious about this, because I don't think he actually directed Jala films, but he inspired it. And when I look at like, I know the name Mary O'Bava, but when I look at this list of films, like there's so many I haven't seen, and but he's such a force because of his, you know, I don't know. I feel like I'm missing something. Is there something he directed that's not here that I should know about, but I don't know. I think he's sort of a little bit forgotten in comparison to other Italian directors like Dario Gento, but I think they were heavily influenced by him. Okay, that's fair, because he seems to be sort of, he, like you said, he did to, of the greatest horror movies ever made, but they're before this one, so this is he's kind of, slumming it is not the right word, but he's certainly not like, this is not his A game of horror, you know. Now, and these were not big budget films. They were, they were shot in a way to make them look big, but they were not big budget films. though it I'm struck again like when we watched the last one blood of is it was a blood of gasoline or yes what I was struck by is how how much you can get out of just have living in Europe and having a great location you can just shoot at and that happens in this movie too. Well, we just talked about his influence. You can see his influence in American films, too. Friday the 13th recreates the famous murder from Bavas Bay of Blood, where our couples and bed together and both are impaled by a single spear. Nice. All right, so let's talk about the cast because of all the films we've seen, this has two really high profile actors. Joseph Cotton played Baron Blood and Alfred Becker. He was born in 1905 and was a New York stage and radio actor in the 30s. The New York became good friends with Orson Wells and Cotton was one of the original members of Orson Wells' Mercury Theater Company. Cotton is the second inaugural member of Mercury on zombie strains after George Colores, who we saw in the 1959 film, Woman Eater. Oh my gosh, this is better than woman either. I can say yeah, yes, but if you remember him that guy was also had a lot of presence too. And so you can tell that that these mercury guys were really good actors and he appeared in two episodes of fantasy island. I see he did. I can, you know, I can totally see that, too. I think a lot of actors from the 40s and 50s towards the end who wanted to keep acting, the place they could go to was fantasy island or the love bone. Yes. Cotton started many of the stage in radio plays Mercury Produce in 39. He starred with Katherine Hepburn on Broadway in the Philadelphia story, which became a big hit. He then moved to Los Angeles and was in many classic 40s films, Citizen Kane, the What would it be like, I hate to keep interrupting you, like Orson Welles is a legendary director. Like every director sort of has their people, right? Like James Cameron, like, Jeanette Goldstein was in like all of his movies in the 80s and early 90s. Like what? So like she's one of Cameron's people, but like what it would it be like to be like one of Orson Welles people, and you just get to be in those movies, you just listed like that's crazy. Maybe just don't appreciate it at the time. Well, I don't have it in front of me, but he was in a third well's film that he co-wrote with Wells. So I think they liked each other and respected each other a lot. Alright. Cotton between 1941 and 44 started in four best-picture nominated films. But Cotton himself was never nominated as often cited as the greatest actor, never nominated for an Oscar, which is kind of too bad. It is, because he's so, I mean, again, Andy didn't know who he was, but I'm just kidding. He has a couple of Alzheimer's on his resume. Yeah. And by the 50s, Cotton was acting on TV, including Alfred Hitchcock presents with supporting roles in films. And by the late 60s, Cotton went to Europe to star and spaghetti westerns. And this led to Italian horror films in the 70s. In addition to Baron Blood, he was in Lady Frankenstein and Screamers. And his last two credits before he had a stroke in 1981 were the love boat and an Australian horror film called The Survivor. Does it ring a bell? No, no, I didn't know about that. I was pretty sure it wasn't the TV show because it's 1981. But I had heard of that movie. Yeah, I don't know that one either. Elki Summers played Eva and she was born in Germany, but would discover it in Italy by famed Italian director of Vittorio de Sica. She started acting in Italian films in 1959 and quickly became a sex symbol. She appeared several times in playboy magazine. And in the 60s, she started appearing in Hollywood films. Her biggest movie is probably the 1964 Pink Panther sequel, The Shot in the Dark, with Peter Sellers. And unlike a lot of our female superstars on this podcast, she's still alive. She's still alive. Just as a reminder, in a shot in the dark, she played Maria Gambrelli, and I just remember how Peter Sellers said that they were over and over in the film. She started to Mario Baba films Baron Blood and Lisa and the Devil. In the 70s, as she wasn't getting as many roles, she was in the Hollywood Squares, the Love Boat, and Fantasy Island. And then after the 80s, she kind of went off a return to Germany and did films there and her film roles diminished. And I think she was also a painter. She did art as well. And she's short, it's been her time doing that. Which sounds pretty great. Hopefully she saved a lot of money for making movies and could just be an artist for 20 years or something. Now, Baron Blood is tied to the hoax, the well to hell. If you guys heard of that? No. Is that the Russian... It is. Yeah. Excavation. Yeah. I have heard of that. So the story goes that in the 80s, Russian engineers were drilling in Siberia and discovered a deep cave nearly nine miles below the Earth's surface. Curious, they lowered sensors to see what was there. The thermometer's read a thousand degrees Celsius, but more importantly, they lowered microphones, which recorded this. So, the American tablaid papers ran articles about a hole to how, the Trinity Broadcasting network played that recording and they used it to prove that there was a hell and these were the screams of the tortured in hell. Okay. Internets loose have now taken it apart and they believe and they claim that it is really mixed and looped segments from Baron Blood and this is the portion from Baron Blood that Oh, that is the best twist you have produced for us yet, producer brand. That's pretty amazing. Baron Blood didn't make a lot of money in Italy, but it was a financial success in the US, which led the producers to bring back Bavla and give them more creative control for a few more films. Those are the facts I have, should we jump in to the movie? I think so. It's your turn to drive Andy, but I have thought. a lot of mixed feelings about this film. I do too. This was a pretty compelling watch and I think we're going to have mixed and interesting observations I think about this as we go through. Yeah, one compliment I'll give it right out of the gate is you get so jaded by seeing formulaic zombie and horror films. It's a rare film we get to watch, despite it's overall quality where you don't know exactly where things are going. Right. Yes. That surprises all the way up to the end. I don't know if that's good, but it certainly was intriguing. That is one of the best things based on the last, you know, why don't you know, 70 movies we watch. That's one of the best things you can do if you don't have the budget or maybe the text on the expertise. Right. At least just do something that keeps the viewer off guard. Yes, it really goes a long way. And there's really something about Bob is casting choices here. Something I noticed, but I'll mention it at the appropriate time when it comes up. So. So, hey, John, before we get into the nitty-gritty of barren blood, do you dare to give us a 30-second overview of this movie? Yeah, it's super high level, a young American comes back to the homeland in Austria, where he meets some friends of his family. He's investigating the legends around his supposedly horrible and horrifying, great, great, great ancestor. uh... as he gets closer and gets inside the castle where he supposedly lived under the uh... nickname barren blood he has an incantation that he reads allowed summoning barren blood and setting the events of the film in motion the rest of the movie is trying to figure out how to banish barren blood before he kills too many people Baron blood realizes that the only people who can banish him are our hero Peter and his lovely new acquaintance, Eva. And if they are killed then Baron blood cannot be banished or returned to the grave. There's a twist at the end about who Baron blood is. And then we'll let you know what happens when we get there. How's that for a summary? That's perfect John. All right, let's jump right in guys. So I always appreciate a horror movie, especially when that's going to lean into a lot of melodramatic trappings. I always appreciate it when they open with something that is the opposite of that. And this movie opens with a very modern mundane sequence of air travel. You say modern, but the plane is pan-am, years 40 maybe. So yeah. So by the way, the plane is a 747 just to point that up. Yeah. I only have a couple rabbit trails. I'm going to take us down and I'm going to take us more down one bite. No. Are you guys old enough that you remember flying in a Boeing 747? You know what? I have never flown in a Boeing 747. And in fact, when I was like 26 and I went to Europe, it was a giant plane, but it was a DC 10, which was like 10 across. And so even then I didn't get the flying to 747. So I did once. My grandmother took me back to Scotland and we flew on one. So yeah, I do not. remember flying on a 747. But so the 70s is when the 747 came into like pop culture, yeah, as a cool plane. And the reason it became a big deal is it's a huge plane. It's way bigger than anything you've flown on, like even if you do international flights these days, it's a huge plane. And it, uh, it was a really luxury experience. And you see that in the opening That has been going steadily downhill over the last 50, 60 years. He's the experience of air travel. I don't think anyone will disagree with me. Yeah, the cool thing about the 747 is it had a second floor. You could go up a staircase and there was like, it's depending the plane could be reconfigured in a number of different ways. But in the luxury version, there was like a bar. Yes, in fact so this won't help listeners very much but Brad and John I'm going to send you in our chat a couple of photos of what a 747 could be configured to have so if you'll check the chat and maybe just describe for listeners what you see. Oh, my, it's a 70s lounge with orange carpet and a drink table in the middle. What, what would you like to add there, Brad? I have a comment about the colors. What, the drink table is leopard print like this. And I think the, the postory on the, on the seats is tiger. tiger print. Yeah, and also they have very like there's one woman in allowed outfit, but the other people are in very flat. There's a red, a yellow and a blue, which remind me exactly if the Star Trek yellow red and blue, which is probably not what they were going for, but that's it does look incredibly like a Star Trek set. There's a couple other photos. I don't know if you can see them, but there's one of a piano. Yes, a whole piano. And people I mean, I don't think this was every 747, but in the 70s, early 70s, air travel hadn't been deregulated yet. So it was very expensive to travel on one of these, but it really was a luxury experience. Yeah. And so I think it was later in the 70s or early 80s that it was the industry was deregulated and it's been just a, the customer experience you might say has been on downward slouch, ever since Delta is offering you a higher fare for, I think, two extra inches in some of their seating arrangements. So yeah, we can say that with confidence. All right, well, the 747 is mostly used for transporting cargo these days. So the cargo, which is objectively treated better than you are when you have to fly somewhere. All right, anyway, that was a long digression. So let's get back on track to bear in blood. A man gets off the plane and this is our protagonist. This is Peter Kleist, John, do you want to tell us what are our impressions of Peter from the first couple of minutes that we see him here? Okay, so you guys this is the thing I'm gonna do now because I can't stop doing it since I've done it This is who does that guy remind me of? She's ready. Okay. He reminds me very specifically of Kyle McLaughlin in Dune Oh, can you see it? I can see it. Okay. I can see I don't think I would have thought that on my own, but I can see it. All right. But he has that he's got a pale skin. He's very sort of he has that sort of flat effect that Kyle hasn't that film and the blue eyes. Yeah, but he's wearing a turtleneck and a blazer and he's like cool 70s guy. He also has blue eyes and that's actually one of the things I want to bring about casting here, which we can talk about as we go if we want. There's a lot of zoom-ins on people, a lot of close-ups, a lot of, you know, sudden sharp zoom's onto people's eyes and stuff. Every character that gets a close-up in this movie has either blue or hazel eyes. Period, there's nobody with brown eyes, green eyes, just ice blue, one hazel, who's the witch. And I thought that was fascinating, because I, I mean, the three of us don't have blue eyes, do we? I do. I do, yeah. I have blue. Oh, well, there you go. Maybe that's But I thought that was interesting. Nobody with brown eyes or anything like that. Well, Peter is an American who has just flown to Austria. He's taken a break from his graduate studies to research his family history. And he, it turns out he's related to a barren from 300 years ago. Yes, it had a castle here in Austria. He's met at the airport by his uncle Carl, who he's not met before. Then Carl is a local. He's like a professor or something, right? Yes. Okay, so he's like one of these horror movie professors who who studies like our tinge with the supernatural. Yeah, one point they go into his classroom and he's there's some sort of physics stuff going on on his blackboard. So yeah, the castle that the Baron lived in so they they had over to this castle which is in the process of being renovated to be a tourist hotel right yes can I say can I call out the car here it's a Mercedes Benz I'm not sure which one it is because now we're getting to the point where there are multiple sources so anyway I think this is a Mercedes Benz 280 and I was fascinated I do. His dad had a maroon colored Mercedes, and I think it was one of these. A 280 or the slightly nicer one. It could have been a classic car like it might have been older than that, but it looked like it was one of these kind of cars. And this car is used. There's a couple of oples in a couple of oaks, so I can beatles, but most of the cars in here are just Mercedes sedans. So anyway, that's the light colored Mercedes. There's a white one and then later there's a dark colored one. Light one we see first is then 68 and then the next one is a 69. Well, you guys, I'm about to out myself as a sheltered ignorant American because I noticed so the driver is on the left side of the car in this movie and I had thought that most of Europe, the driver was on the right side, but it turns out that's only the UK and a couple other countries. you drive on the side we're used to in America in Austria. And little trivia fact, this was actually enforced by the Nazis during the the Nazi annexation of Austria. actually I drove her Mercedes in Austria once when I was remember that trip I said where I took a DC 10 to Europe. We rented a Mercedes to go from to go into Austria and I drove it there. This is another side tangent but my daughter just sent me videos today. She had a long weekend. She is in Paris. and she drove for the first time and they're coming back today and they return in the car and it's near the arctic triumph and if you know that there's a giant traffic circle there yes and so she sent us videos from the back seat while she's driving and everyone in the car screaming and she's like guys because of trade and I think they went around like two or three times once intentionally and once because it couldn't figure out how to get out That looks so terrifying. I now associate it with a scene from one of the John Wick movie. Oh yeah, I told her to go watch that now. You'll appreciate it. Well, the castle at any rate that they're driving to in this car is cloakly known, Peter is told as the castle of the devil. Which is a subtle sort of name to give a location. Did either of you guys Google up what this location actually is? I did not. I did. Did you Andy? I did. Here's what I found. It is the Berg pardon my pronunciation. Is it Cruisinstein? Okay, thank you. It's an Austrian castle from the 12th century that's been used in a ton of horror films due to its dramatic appearance. Most recently, it, I think was featured in the Witcher show. Oh wow. Wow. All right. At the castle, they meet our other main protagonist. This is Eva, one of Carl's students who is, uh, who is, remind me the actress's name. Okay, summer. And that's right. So she and Peter are going to be our protagonists and they are going to become a love interest couple part with her the movie. And she runs in the castles like an archivist or historian or something, I think. I think she's a rent like she's helping them do renovations. Yeah, but she seems to be interested in the history and cataloging thing. She's like a consultant who has knowledge and healthy. I'm do it. Do it accurately. Yes. Yeah. So we here, this is where we first learn the legend of Baron Blood. And he sounds like sort of a Dracula knockoff. He did a lot of him in palings and all that sort of thing. Yes. And we get our first sort of horror movie moment right here at the beginning when Eva goes down into the basement, which is like a, it's full of creepy paraphernalia. Would you say, including one of those coffins and Iron Maiden. Yes, which will be, which will become quite important, gruesomely important later in this film. And while she's down there, somebody locks her in there. And what happens, John? She screams. We're going to zoom on her face and she screams like she's being murdered and it turns out it is just the local caretaker fritz who's a bit of a jerk. Yeah. Enjoy scaring people. Fritz seems like a jerk and maybe possibly Yeah, and what we have to say is, she sees like a head on the table, like with a, with like a metal torture device on it, and then it turns out it's just fritz pretending. And he stands up and laughs. I thought when they started that I was going to have to review all of our films. It had heads on tables and rekind them all. I don't have to. Because it was a fake out. It was a fake head on a table. Correct. Man, you know, they, yeah, we've had a couple heads on good. good heads on table scenes in various ways. Anyway, but yeah, I mean, the point of this besides to give you a little scare is to show you all this creepy torture dungeon, which is going to be central in this movie. I have to say, Ava's has a fantastic horror movie protagonist, a scream. It's great. 100%. I should have, I should have gotten an audio clip of it because it's a good one. So moving along that dinner that night they get invited over so Peter and Ava get invited over to Carl's family's house for dinner and a number of things Happen here Carl has a daughter named Gretchen who's really creepy looking who is incredibly creepy looking Yeah, it's like I haven't thought after this first scene with her I was like she is somehow the devil. She has to be involved Spoiler that's not the case, but I was pretty sure. So yeah, the movie keeps zooming in on her The way they zoom in on her and stuff like that really look makes her look creepy and unsettling anyway she's going to be a little bit important later in the movie, but here is where we first hear kind of the full legend of Baron Blood and the story of how he was put down. Baron blood was, I guess, he had this rain of terror back in the 12th or no, not in the 12th, 16th, 1600s. Yeah. Yeah. This rain of tear and he impaled lots of people and he liked to torture people and then he was put down by a witch named Elizabeth Hola or however you pronounce that. Holly, they say Holly kind of in the movie. So we'll say that. Yeah. and she put a curse on him that like condemned him to hell, but she also, with some motivations, like kind of struggled to understand throughout this movie, she left behind an incantation that could be used to bring him back into the land of the living. So, and it turns out by a startling coincidence that Peter has this incantation. So let's hear our first audio clip Elizabeth the Huller the Witch and this incantation. Oh, but before I show you this, suppose you tell me what you know about Elizabeth Huller. As legend has that she was a witch, put it the stake by the Baron because he, he was afraid of her. Is that all? Well, no, before she died, she put a curse on him, promising he would suffer a hundred times as much as any of his victims and he did die a horrible death. then burned him in his own chambers. Fortunately for the castle's storm extinguished the fire before it spread too far. The Baron's body was never far. But Elizabeth Holly left an incantation that would bring him back to suffer again and again. This is it. Looks authentic enough. Yeah, so this is interesting. You said there's a mixed motivation. They say it there, it's just very odd. An incantation that can travel through the ages to bring him back so they can torture him some more. Is that, that's basically your motivation they lay down, right? That's the goal. She wants him to be summoned out of hell so that he can, my cover, crappy time and get killed again. Is that it? I think that's it. I have a question though. Is this our first witch? Like I think there was one in a Santa movie, but I'm not just she was a witch, but we have two witches here and they're actually on the side of good in this movie, which is a normal, which is a very modern trope, but it seems to me like a horror movie from the 70s they could have done the lazy thing and not have the witches be on the side of good, but that's not the case at all, they save the day in this movie. Yeah, that's an interesting question. We've certainly had various men doing magical stuff. See, might call them warlocks, I guess. Yeah. But zombie movies have been pretty short on witches, like female witches. I think you're right. I can only think of that one in the Santa movie who is a more stereotypically evil witch. I walk with a zombie, if you recall, when the beginning when the woman has her job interview, she's asked, do you know anything about witchcraft? Ah, okay. That's right. Well, what a pleasant coincidence that Peter has had this incantation since he was a kid. So he seems to not take it seriously, but in a minute he's going to insist on reciting it. So I think this movie doesn't do a fantastic job with this, but we do get hints of Peter being torn between being like a modern sensible person. and someone who is really intrigued by the idea that he could summon back like an ancient ancestor. Well, what I found interesting is when he's doing it, when he's reading the incantation later, he feels like I have to see what happens. And I didn't really put it together until you just reminded me he had had it since childhood. It feels like he's living at a childhood obsession. Which then makes it make more sense to me than it did when I was watching it. So the long, so where this all goes, coral warns him not to mess around with the occult basically. Right. But where this all goes, we get a lot of zooming in on that creepy kid. And then Peter convinces Ava to head up to the castle to read that incantation to summon Baron blood. To do that, they have to go into the room where the Baron was killed. And so he has two incantations, one which will summon Baron blood and a second which will banish him. So they go in at midnight with an oil lamp. So again, this castle is very like if you think creepy castle, it's a very over the top castle. The lighting is really dark and moody and they're using an oil lamp to see and they climb up into this turret. There's creepy horror movie stuff at this point. I've really felt this film had a ton of hammer horror energy to it. And the exact same thought this feels very hammer, uh, but not quite because it's it's groovy and modern, right? Like the hammer films we watched were sort of set in the past in a way where this sound is very much set in the the time it was made. But yes, I got the same hammer vibe too. So, Ava is not super thrilled to be participating in this ritual, but Peter kind of propels them along. And let's hear, I always like it. We can actually play a clip of some good old Satan summoning ritual. So, let's hear it. Ready? Ready. Gunexathor, oh, ma! I'd be teach the old Elizabeth Holly. Reach the fiery depths of hell and bring forth the evil spirit of Baron Otto Bonquise to this. The chamber of his torture death. Wow. What is he waiting for? Maybe he doesn't like us, huh? that's kind of great. It is kind of great. So John, what happens once they complete the summoning? Yes, so the shutters above them, the window shutters start to shake and the handle on the door starts to wiggle, like someone is outside the door trying to get in. And they're really freaked out, so they read the second incantation and everything stops. Yes, you'd think that would be enough for Peter. But yeah, I liked that, you know, structurally in this movie, I like that we had like a fake out summoning. Yeah, we're going to get a real one in just a minute. So they're very freaked out, but they assume that Fritz must have fritz the caretaker who played a trick on Ava earlier must have been screwing with them by rattling door knobs and making scary noises. Peter is still pretty intrigued and Ava is Ava is pretty shaken up by it. Yeah. So, and the next morning, though, they learned that Fritz had been fired. That's right. He had been fired after playing that prank on Ava, so it couldn't have been him making those noises. So, dump, dump, dump, pretty spooky, huh? So, he does come back later. So I just thought he got fired and came back to be a jerk. Yes, well, I think he I think in fact he did come back to be a jerk, but we'll get to that in just a second. They do a little bit of exploring the next day. Peters convinced that there it must be a secret passage around that chamber where they did the ritual. And in fact, they find a some secret passages through the castle walls and they explore around a little bit and they find this hidden room. where they, um, they find a painting of Baron blood, but the face has been scratched off. Everything except the eyes is not visible as if someone was trying to, you know, deface the portrait. But it has the effect in this movie of not letting us identify what Baron blood looks like. So we won't be able to maybe recognize him when he shows up later if that makes sense. are supposed to be very arresting, but when they zoom in on them, they almost look like real human eyes, but they don't like to move around. Right. It's very strange. And I guess that's what it's supposed to be disorienting, but it's both fake and in my real, you mean physical 3D eyes, not like painted realistically. Yes, exactly. And so that's a very odd choice. I wasn't sure how I felt about it. It was, yeah, the whole, the painting bed is a little odd, um, but the piece is something that doesn't happen and I think is what's frustrating about it. Yes, exactly. But Peter really wants to do the indentation again, because even though he knows Baron blood was a monster, he just is obsessed with the idea of being able to talk to one of his ancestors. So he does the incantation again, but this time things go a little bit Well, I think it's important to say in an effort to provide more light and make the situation less scary, they build a giant fire in the fireplace. Oh, that's right. And if you didn't see what was coming, the second you saw that fire, like I got a bridge in Brooklyn, I wanna sell ya. this is another thing to this movie's credit. They do at points to a really good job with shadows in this movie. This scene in particular has a great shot of Ava with half of her face in shadow, like the lower half of her faces in shadow. It looks great. For any shortcomings this movie may have like Mario Bob and knows how to shoot a movie and shoot the scary scene. Like So, scary stuff happens again when they do this incantation a second time, but this time we actually see a little bit more, so we cut over to a graveyard and what do we see, John? We see Baron Blood emerging from the ground. Yes, and the smoke machine is going quintipple time. There's fog everywhere. It's actually pretty impressive. And I wonder how they did it. Like I have heard in older movies that the often fog is not actually fog, because fog is so unreliable and often like it's smoke. It looks like actual super thick fog sort of envelops the courtyard in this giant castle complex. But then we come back to we then it then it starts again like it started last time where the shutters in this room begin to shake. Yeah, we do get a pretty tantalizing look at Baron blood for most of this movie. I thought Baron blood was our zombie. Yeah, this turns out not to be the case. I think Baron blood is probably better categorizes like a revenue. I was going to say that exact word, Andy. We've been doing this podcast too long. Yes, but Baron blood looks pretty gnarly they spent some time on his special effects. Can you want to describe what he looks like? He's dressed like a pilgrim almost, right? He's got a big floppy hat. with a wide brim and it's kind of a tall hat and he's wearing sort of one of those jackets the buttons at the top with some gold trim around it and he's got boots in a cloak. But his face is all slashed up and, and Narlie. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty gross, I would say. Yeah, I'm, it like we, We continue to see a progression in how gross they can make corpses or corpse like things in movies. Yeah, we get some progress here. That's for sure. Not maybe we have a lot of it in some other ways. Yeah, so yeah, so but back to Peter and Ava things are going crazy. The wind is blowing something start tampering on the door bright red blood starts pooling in under the door and we get a really cool special effect. right. So I'm not the only one who thought this was cool. This really worked for me as a special effect. The door starts to bulge inward, but in a way that like it looks like a balloon inflating, yeah, except you totally buy it. It's it's really actually kind of great. Yeah. And it looks like it's about to burst inward, but that it's that it's bending like some supernatural forces I've seen that effect in real life, which maybe you have. Have you guys been to Disneyland or Disney World? No, never, not in a while. The haunted mansion, the doors inside the mansion, do that. Oh, really? Oh, really? Oh, cool. Well, he clearly got the idea here from Baron Blood. I'm lucky you have to see which came first of all in a second. It's probably haunted mansion. 1969. Oh, okay. There you go. All right. It must have just been in the air at the time. But yes, when they get the door open, there's nobody there. However, something disastrous has happened in the midst of all this chaos. When the shutters blew up open and the wind was blowing in, what was blown into the fire very unfortunately? The parchment with the incantation on it. the incantation to send Baron blood back. Yes. Now, I have a question. They showed two pieces of parchment go flying. One goes into the fire and one goes up like on a shelf or something. And I was convinced the whole movie that somebody that was really going to happen is somebody was just going to stumble across the the second piece of parchment and that was going to solve the problem. But that was not a thing that happened in this movie. It's forgotten about after that. this is another scene we've discussed many times I'm pretty sure that actor is interacting with real fire as he's like reaching in. He's reaching in to try to grab the parchment like really close. I was surprised. I think when he yelled, oh, I think there was a real hour. I think so. Well, now Baron blood is here and he ain't going back. So we get a little the first of several Baron blood kills. So Baron blood is in the modern world and he's on the loose. We cut back to him and he's staggering through the graveyard. He's in his pilgrim outfit. He knocks on the door of a nearby door. It's the home of a doctor. Yeah, the doctor lets him in. And I kind of like this scene, the doctor sees his face and is like, oh man, we got to get you medical help right away. right where the blind man invite him in sort of kind of thing yeah. exactly. And I like that Baron blood plays along with this for a little while, yeah, before then eventually stabbing the doctor to death. Right. And then Baron blood, then we see a kind of random clip of him killing a random drunken guy who's wandering around the castle grounds. That's right. We're later going to learn that several people start going in the vicinity of the And one is a character we haven't mentioned, which is like the guy super the actual supervisor of the renovation like the architect of the engineer. he goes he gets killed by Baron blood which will get to a second but the thing that really bothered me about his death is in the middle of this castle somebody put a coke machine yes yes well they are yeah so Peter and Ava they don't know that Baron blood is out there but they have a pretty bad feeling about what they just did and so they try to warn Carl Peter's Uncle Carl about this of course he doesn't really believe him and that night though the Baron continues is killing spree and who I didn't catch the name of this guy he's kills it's like a worker in the in the castle right yeah well he I think this is so the first guy he kills is I think this architect this guy leading the renovation the second one he got the guy by the coke machine right yeah Yeah, and this, I just wanted to say, you know, again, we can, we're getting Narlier kills. This movie's kills like one or two other movies we've seen recently, feel like we're really moving quickly towards your, um, Friday to the 13th, where like the kills are kind of set up in an elaborate, yeah, cool way. And he snaps this guy's neck. And then he hangs him. from like a bell tower type thing very dramatically. It's kind of cool. It's going to just to set the scene. There's a big spiral staircase, and there's a rope that runs down the middle of it, and he hangs him with that rope. And the thing I couldn't help thinking is, he's there for a long time, and I'm thinking about the actor wearing a harness. Hang you from a fake rope. It would be with a fake hanging. For like a long time, having to like tilt his head sideways and stick his tongue out. Like there's like multiple shots But Baron blood has a motive here that isn't just to sneak into the castle he used to live in and kill people there. Baron blood sneaks up into that secret room that Peter found earlier and underneath a hidden panel, he pulls out like a chest full of gold and jewels. So yes. Baron blood is a very rich undead monster at this point. At that point though, he's interrupted and we get those movies probably most dramatic kill where Fritz that jerk caretaker has snuck back in to like to rob the police or something like that. And he stumbles across Baron blood who knocks him out and halls him down into the old torture dungeon and puts him in the Iron Maiden. That's right. And there's a pretty extended, you know, gruesome scene where Baron blood slowly closes the Iron Maiden on Fritz. And it's not like gross, but I have to say it's a pretty, you know, It's pretty good horror movie kill. Would you agree with that? I would and just to make sure we know what happened like later bear and blood like checks on them to make sure Yeah, yeah, yeah, and he's got that the spikes have stuck through his face and stuff. It's pretty it's pretty gnarly And the spikes are covered not just in blood, but like oozing clear It's like all sorts of stuff mixed in there. It's pretty gross The blood in this movie, like at one, you mentioned earlier, and at one point there's blood that comes under the door. Yeah. It looks like paint. It has the viscosity of like a thick paint. It's not blood like at all, but it's also great. I read an article just recently about the history of horror movie blood and they would purposely make it, you know, to be brighter and more like into stick jump out at you on the screen more, but it looks so fake. To me, it pulls me out of the movie rather than thrill me about whatever. I feel like I had one of the things I wanted to say about this bit. just that remember, like the St. Andrew's Cross in Tomb of the Blind dead, the Iron Maiden is a product of a Victoria fevered Victorian imagination rather than an actual historical torture device that was used. But hey, they're fun. So, all right, the next morning the police are here and they found the dead architect who is who barren blood left hanging from that stairwell. They haven't found fritz and he stays in the Iron Maiden the entire movie. Yeah, so at some point I was like, are they going to smell this guy like how do they come back? Yeah, and I don't want to I don't want to be down on the police here, but I mean, I They don't see a big word. They very hard. They don't see a new trend all that hard, but anyway, obviously the police are going to, you know, the police in these movies never believe that something supernatural is going on. No. And the police, I think suspicion falls on fritz because they haven't found, they don't know that fritz is in an Iron Maiden right. I think for most of the movie, the police believe that fritz angry at being fired came back and killed somebody. Well, that is really kind of the first half of this movie and the movie kind of switches gears at this point because out of nowhere we get a new character who is introduced. We switch to scene and we're at an auction scene in the castle and the castle is actually being auctioned off. Yeah, they don't say it explicitly, but like I think. now that the architect leads sort of restore is gone and the murders have taken place I think the project has been abandoned because they originally were going to turn it into a hotel and okay I think everyone's walked they don't say it explicitly but I think this auction is a way of telling us is the audience okay they were turning into a hotel but after all this we're giving up and we're just selling everything that makes sense and I was confused about it. There was a big sign on the as people drove in that said auction. It was all in German. And I don't think it said what John said, but because of that sign, the sign before was hotel coming soon. Yeah. And this replaced it to say that it's an auction. Yes, and the first item that's being auctioned any, it's a bunch of TVs or something. Yeah, like hundreds of large screen. old-fashioned TVs that they were going to put in all the rooms. Yeah, yes, that's right. That's right. So they're doing this auction and the final item being auctioned off is the whole property of the castle itself. And the person who win, it was like a silent bid. And the person who wins the castle is a new character. And this is Dr. Becker. John, will you describe Dr. Becker? Yeah, he looks like Joseph cotton because he is Joseph cotton. But you don't know what Joseph cotton looks like. He is an elderly man. He's still got all his hair, but it sort of broil-creamed back. He's in a wheelchair and he's wearing an amazing next scarf under his shoes. Yes. But how do we see him first time? How is he introduced? He's wheeled in. You see a crowd and he's sort of to the back and he's gliding through. See that like everyone else and you don't know how he's moving. That's right. That's right. And then you see his wheelchair, somebody's pushing his wheelchair. And it's the mysterious doctor, Becker, who for some reason has bought this property. Yeah, he's come out of nowhere. As if he just appeared in this world, you might even say to buy his castle, wink, wink, yeah. Right, right. So, I don't know if this movie knows that we all know who this is or if it thinks I'm not sure and this is if I have I mean there's several criticism to have this movie and we don't and I really want to tear it down, but one of them is sort of motivations and and character expectations right like like bear and blood is motivated by it. by a chest full of treasure but clearly he's already wealthy because he just bought a castle and and we don't really know why Peter wants to read the incantation so like I knew who it was but I'm like but this doesn't really it's not convincing I guess is what I would say people's motivations are a little lacking in this movie including this one. I assumed that Baron blood used the chest full of gold to buy the castle, but then what does he want? Like, I don't know what Baron blood wants other than to terrorize the world. For me, he's the bad guy who uses own money to buy his own castle. Why would he just give people away? So I have a thought, I actually like what the movie did with Baron Blood's motivation, but we need to get to the end sequence from you to talk about it. So put a pin in this and don't forget to ask me. Okay, well, instead I'd like to go on a random tangent about the new Teen Titans, the comic book from the 80s. I was convinced watching this movie that, hey, there's a villain in the new Teen Titans called Baron Blood, and then I looked it up. And no, it's brother blood first of all and second of all somebody else thought that because they listed an old teen titans comic is the first appearance of barren blood. So I felt somewhat vindicated. Anyway, carry out. Well, this, okay, so remember we have Alfred Bucker. Yes, definitely not barren blood. Definitely not and he doesn't even have a German accent. He's so not barren blood. He took his an American accent. That's right. Well, he kind of starts being creepy around Ava and his mannerism is kind of like is kind of like Dracula, you know, Dracula's in his like aristocrat mode, you know, he's he's kind of cool and swath but a little bit. uh, overbearing and creepy. I kind of like this, this type of villain. But anyway, he invites Ava to come meet with them to discuss the restoration of the castle. And so she got does. She does that and they have a kind of a long extended sequence. I, I was looking for an audio clip from this section to share with you listeners, but I couldn't quite find one that worked. But they have some good exchanges where Ava, tells him the story of Baron blood and she tells him the whole deal that she tells them that she thinks that they summoned him and critically she tells him that she's pretty sure she tells him that they lost the incantation to send Baron blood back, right? But she says that she is pretty sure there is another way to banish Baron blood. She just can't remember it. That's right. So Baron, or I mean, sorry, Alfred Becker is like, oh, what's telling us? I think that's the whammy honor, like in a weird way. Yeah. So I was going to ask what happened here. So then while she's inspecting like a tapestry, she has the sort of psychic experience. What is happening here? It becomes disoriented. It almost seemed like vertigo. Like he tries to get her to go to like the banister. that leads down to the court yard or like to the the floor below and and then he like does something that makes her unsteady like she's going to fall and she sort of collapses before she flips over the banister. Okay, so he was maybe trying to get her to topple off the banister. I think so. Because I think with that, well, I, you know, I'm jumping ahead in the movie, because I know from later in the movie that the next which they run into tells them like the only people who could banish Beren blood are the people who summoned him. So therefore, I am reverse engineering the logic that Elki Summer is one of those two people and he's trying to get rid of her. Okay. That makes sense. This I got a praises movie where it does cool stuff. There is a great camera shot in this scene where Ava is up on the balcony looking down and the camera pans up behind and above her to show you the lower level of the the cathedral or the chapel or whatever it is it looks great yeah again there's like there's real talent here i mean i i think we're gonna conclude that this is not a great movie but like there's there's talent behind this it feels like all the pieces are there it just didn't quite come together Yeah, we are moving along. We are getting towards the end, believe it or not. So Ava goes back to our work room. We get a jump scare there because Baron blood is there in his gross, mutilated zombie look and incarnation. And so she runs and there's a really trippy scene of her sprinting through these narrow castle corridors as Baron blood pursues her. there's a the crazy like kind of psychedelic zooming in and out of very apparent blood space. Yeah. That I enjoyed. There's this moment which made me laugh, but it was also great. So, set a punctuate a lot of this stuff. Mario Bottle will boom, fast zoom onto somebody's face. So what it does it is three times in succession on Baron Blood's face. I think it's just the same piece of film looped three times. Like boom, boom, boom. I think so. Yeah. And it is both funny and also really effective. So yeah. All right. I want to speed us along because I feel like I'm getting a little mired in details here. Yeah. My last little thing about here is when you're running away, you're in a castle. You're running away from Baron blood. Don't go. Don't don't run up into a tower. Like, I mean, that's just, that's just horror movie 101. Yeah. Don't go further into the castle. go out of the castle, presumably she knows the layout because she's been working there for a couple of years. So I was a little disappointed at her running in more inside. So Peter shows up kind of coincidentally. He hears her screaming and he runs up there. I don't think he saves her so much. I don't know. I don't know why Baron blood didn't kill her. But anyway, he kind of quote rescues Eva. uh... then he drives her home and then out of nowhere they declare their undying love for yeah yeah i was so like i'm pretty sure that uh... uh... people have been through a traumatic experience don't immediately want to make out with another person but i don't know everybody's different Yeah, I mean, if you are being chased by Baron blood, do you know who are you to judge you know what I love is that we're in a horror movie where someone's been summoned back from the dead and can change places with a with an avatar in a more modern form and the thing I'm complaining about is people making out after a traumatic experience like this is like yeah anyway carry on So Eva returns to a room though, but the horror is just starting because she finds that the electricity has been cut. So Baron blood has rapidly figured out like modern telecommunications infrastructure. So Baron blood lurches out of her closet where he's been waiting for her. She escapes out the window and there's a pretty long Uh, long and not that exciting chase scene through the foggyest night you could possibly ever imagine and again, it looks good. It does. But it's too long, you know, like, yeah, it's just again, the two pieces aren't coming together. Yeah. So she escapes. She makes it back to Carl's house. And the next day, they are conferring with Carl. And he is. Carl is starting to believe them. Carl is again, the professor. He's Peter's uncle. There's a little bit of talk here about ESP, which doesn't make any real sense for the movie. But I think it was just because this was like peak era for like psychics. Yeah, and it's sort of like, we still do this in modern movies where we take something some modern thing like nanotechnology or whatever and then say it explains all these things from the past, you know, like, like this thing explains what where rules really were it feels like that we're using ESP to explain how which is actually worked, you know, right, right, right, so but Carl. Carl proposes that they don't have the incantation that can banish bear and blood anymore, but he proposes, hey, what if we use a medium to get in touch with the witch that cursed bear and blood and find out if she can help us? So they go to a medium and there's, there's kind of extended scene here that I'll, I'll breeze over here. But basically the medium says, yeah, only Elizabeth Holly can help you. So they all go to the location where Elizabeth Holly was burned if a steak 300 years ago. There's some kind of cheesy special effects that go silly Elizabeth Holly appears. And then she speaks through the medium. And let's hear a little bit of what she has to tell our heroes. I would tell you what the hell you're doing. You have the power to hold the cross towards you. To make him suffer again. The agonies of hell. He knows it. He knows it. Before it's too late. Okay. I do love the 70s mysticism here. She's wearing like a calf tan and she has like giant like wrist bracelets. She's like super witch. It's kind of amazing. Yeah, it looks great. She looks like our elementary school architecture. That's what she's talking about. So I must have got that clip because of the nice great scream at the end. That's out of nowhere. I'm not sure who was during this screaming. But this continues a long tradition of people in horror and fantasy movies who could just tell you what to do, but instead they're really vague about it. Yes. So what Elizabeth says is that Peter and Ava have the power to banish him. And she says, she says that barren blood can only be vanquished by the people he has already destroyed right so she could say more clearly what that means but instead our heroes are going to accidentally stumble into its meaning and a few minutes here yeah and i want to go with the logistics of that because there's two things going on here but anyway we'll we'll get there sure thing well we're barreling towards the end here um later that night barren blood comes and i think it's implied that he kills the medium is that right i wasn't sure i think so but she seems to take one for the team like she doesn't scream or run away she's strong they sure like crossing her wrists and then that's it uh yeah so i'm not sure i think probably yes but I kind of like that. I kind of like the idea that she knew that having given the hero as the info she needed, she was kind of sacrificing. Yeah, she was making herself a target of Baroness. Honestly, what I thought here is that nice Peter, another one, like nobody asked you to come here and read this incandation. Nobody asked you to come in this witch, and now she's dead. Like, like, thanks a bunch, dude. Like, So that there's a scene where they talked to the police who doesn't believe their stories again that I want to mention just for one reason. First of all, this is where we learn that, yeah, a bunch of people been vanishing in the vicinity of the castle lately. But there's a portrait on the detectives wall. Did you notice this John? I did not. So you know how in several of our movies, including one fairly recently, like on the wall of the detective or the police station, on the detects as well. I guess I kind of assumed that was a kind of American thing. But no, it's like a global thing that you put your picture of your head of state on the wall of your government buildings. This is Franz Jonas who served as the federal president of Austria until his death in 1974. And here at Little trivia, what language was federal president, Jonas, a passionate advocate for, I'll say English. Brad, do you want to guess? Esperanto Esperanto. Yes. Yeah. So oh, 1970's never changed. John, I don't say this to be insulting. You seem like someone that might have dabbled I mean, I knew what it was. It was a proposal in the 70s to create a more colloquial language that could be used across cultures, kind of, but like a common people's language. Do I understand it correctly? I think so. I think it's older than the 70s. I think it's quite a bit older than that. However, yeah, I actually know someone in real life who speaks Esperanto. Oh, really? Who do they speak it to? other Esperanto speakers and conventions, I think. Okay, very much. Anyway, we're almost done listeners believe it or not. They abruptly remember that, oh, hey Carl, doesn't your daughter walk by the like death castle every day on the way home from school? So he's like, oh, yeah, I can't believe I forgot. So there's this, this movie is kind of action, tense action scene here is they are to intercept Gretchen the school girl before Baron blood can ambush her as she walks by the castle. It's kind of a big fake out like Baron blood does kind of chase her around a little bit, but then she's but they just find her and she's fine. anything else before and then the next thing is like kind of the movies end game scene. Is there anything that haven't brought up before we get to this movie's finale genre Brad that we need to talk about. I don't think so. I think you're most of it covered. All right. So the we are all set up for our final thing. Oh, at some point. when they were talking to the medium, they were given an amulet of some course. Right. I didn't mention that anyway. So, Gretchen, the creepy girl, has told them that she is the one that figured out that Dr. Becker is actually barren blood. And she just says it. But yeah, like don't you see, And so they have a little discussion where they're like, yeah, maybe is Baron blood and so Gretchen is like the day of sex mocking in this movie because Gretchen out of nowhere is like Didn't that didn't you guys Don't you guys think that maybe that amulet you got might be used to destroy Baron blood so they're like What a great idea. So they go to confront Becker and say they interject something about the young lady here. Which I think is interesting. In the 70s we get this sort of. and 80s it's a lot and maybe it's sooner but you know in our next podcast I'd like to explore this it's the creepy child with the secret wisdom yeah like like this is a trope throughout movies in the 70s kids just knowing stuff like uh like in the home and i think there's a kid like this and you know what i mean it's just yeah yeah it is a trope happening at this time the creepy kid who has like extra sensory perception or something So equipped with us knowledge, they take that amulet and they go at night for some reason or at dusk to confront Alfred Becker. And I do really like a good scene where everybody in the scene kind of knows what's going on, but but they're not letting on if that makes sense. You get this in like James Bond movies, right, where the villain is talking to James Bond Yeah, my favorite version of this in a modern film actually is in the first Tom Holland Spider-Man movie when Michael Keaton the Vulture is giving him and his daughter a ride to the prom and answer having a conversation and they realize that's where they realize that they do know each other that that one of them spider-man and went that's a really great scene. I could watch just that scene over and over again anyway. Yeah, sorry, that is a degree. So they kind of banter back and forth and Becker takes them outside to show them how he has started decorating the castle to make it look like it to make it look like it did back in its glory days. Yes, so Dr. Becker is our kind of guy. He's the guy that would go back and watch the really gnarly cut of. tombs of the blind dead with all the gross stuff in it like that with that you and I missed Andy because he's put up a realistic looking mannequin corpses to hang outside as if they've been impaled by I don't know bear and blood or something. Yeah, he's like turning into a horror amusement park. I assumed those are real bodies. Oh, maybe. What do you think Brad? When you look at them, they don't look like they're dummies. When the camera shows them, they look real. And it's like, they're, he did some hunting we didn't see. No. Maybe he just pulled them out of a graveyard. In any case. For that. Yeah. and the the heroes are all like wow those are some real realistic looking mannequins you've impaled up there on the tower yeah so uh that's pretty creepy and so so I had assumed those were real people and so let's talk about Baron Blood's motivation and why I found this a little bit delightful it is If it is very stupid for varian blood to return to life after 300 years and immediately start impaling people on this publicly accessible castle in the modern day. And so that's very stupid, but instead of like a plot hole, I actually like it in my head canon. He doesn't understand that you can't be a just a murderous tyrant who impills people, your enemies on the castle walls. This is not, there are some flaws in my head, Canon version here, such as that he has learned how to, the importance of telephone wires and stuff, right? So he's done some research, but in his research, he hasn't realized we're living in a different He doesn't know this, but he's going to be arrested in like three days as his reign of, he starts up his reign of terror in the middle of modern Europe in a tourist location. Yes. That didn't he, right? So after that, he takes them down for the final showdown. He's like, why don't you all come down into my torture dungeon where I'm going to show you all the cool renovations I've done to the torture dungeon. So they all go down there and They start fighting while you forget the part where before that he plays the sound, I think that Brad played earlier, which is supposed to be the sound of the torture dungeon. He's like made a recording of a torture dungeon in progress that he's going to play for people who come down here. yeah there's a cool like bloody skeleton on a rack down here yeah so i don't know if he's been uh he's been busy he's been busy yes anyway he gets down there and it kind of comes out like the yeah he's actually barren blood and our hero's attack him Now, I was a little disappointed because this whole movie they've been setting Peter up to be obsessed with, like, what he could learn from talking to his ancestor Baron blood. And I was kind of hoping that the movie would lean into this and have Baron blood be like join me, Peter, and I'll tell you whatever you want to know. And I kind of play on his obsession, versus his love for Eva and loyalty to his family, but they don't, they get into a fight. Baron blood, it turns out he doesn't need that wheelchair, of course. and he chucks Peter and Ava off to the side and Carl tries to shoot him, the gunshots do nothing. And they all wake up in his torture dungeon, right? So the Baron is cackling and he's getting ready to impale Peter. He has Carl on a rack. Ava has been left like not secured in any way. I don't think, which was a mistake. Yeah, next to the Iron Maiden that still contains fritz. That's right. So why don't you tell us so it all looks like our heroes are about to die in Baron Blood's reign of terror is going to continue forever until one thing fortuitously happens, John, why don't you lead us home? Yeah, so Eva has the amulet that the witch gave her. And she has a, I think they even play the sound back only those that that he has destroyed can destroy him or whatever it is. So she just puts the emulate on fritz and it starts to smoke and he wakes up. And then that summons actually a bunch of other people that the Baron has killed. And they all descend on him and kill him. Forrociously. Well, our heroes escape. They basically, they rise as zombies, which is why we're talking about this movie in this podcast. So, Fritz, the Iron Maiden victim rises like a slow walking zombie of the sort we've seen before. Yeah, through the door bursts a bunch of other people. I had assumed these were the people that he had impaled upstairs maybe there. Maybe he has more victims. But they all come in and they swarm barren blood. They strap him into his own torture stuff. and it's implied that they're going to, you know, relive the torture and burning of barren blood that happened 300 years ago. Right. And then the movie ends with some John team music and role and that's a wrap on barren blood. Yes. All right. I think we should just get into the questions. Yes. Okay. John. Yeah. I do have more thoughts. I'm sure they'll come out here as we discuss. John. Let's go through our traditional questions designed to place barren blood in the family tree of zombie cinema. All right, in barren blood, is there a hero party? Yes, the professor, Eva and Peter. How do they do? How many survive? All three of them survive. But if you know them tangentially, you're a great risk. Yes, what kind of zombie strain are we dealing with in this movie? Okay, so these are cursed zombies. Kind of likes zombies have more to out there. They are part of a cursed involving barren blood and they're brought back by magic. And they're all part of this dark curse created by Elizabeth Holly 300 years ago that is sort of circular. What do you think about that? Yes, I would agree. Can I say about her plan? So it's specifically stated on numerous occasions that barren blood is being summoned out of hell. Yes. Like, is it not as bad in hell as I, as I think it would be for barren blood? Well, perhaps not. You heard the sound. You heard the sound of the bread later earlier. So I guess so. No. Yeah. It is that like again, the motivations and how this movie works is all a bit. I don't know. It just doesn't quite work. Right. Yeah. So are there any new strains or zombie firsts in the portrayal of our zombies here that we need to take note of? I feel like witchcraft zombies might be a first. Okay, because the woman in the Santa where we summons blue demon, he's technically a zombie, but these look like zombies we think are zombies. Yeah. And they get summoned by a curse by a witchcraft and a curse. So I think Yeah, the zombies are more tall. They were cursed, but there's no explanation of where the cursed came from. Here it's very explicit. Yes. Yeah. All right. Is there a zombie hoard in this movie? A very small one very briefly. Yeah. So a small but effective one. Yeah. I'd say. Yeah. How are zombies destroyed or killed? I don't think they bring that up. I don't think they can be. Hopefully something happens. You know, maybe because you wouldn't want zombies running around in the castle either. That's not ideal. Better than bear and blood, but you know, not maybe perfect. So my hope would be they serve their purpose and I think they're all going to burn up when they set Baron blood on fire, where it has his implied. Um, so, uh, okay, can zombies return to being human in this movie? Uh, no, they're dead. They're super dead. So no. All right, John, at the beginning of this podcast, you identified four pillars of the zombie film. Let's find out how many of them are in Baron blood. In Baron blood, is there an apocalypse? No. Is there contagion? No. Are there tough moral choices? That's it. Yes, I will say yes because the witch is making a moral choice. She knows she's gonna die and she chooses to participate anyway to help end the curse. So I'll give that one a yes. I like that. I think this movie wants There's a hint of a moral choice in Peter's decision to press ahead to try and summon Baron blood. Yes, out of curiosity, even though he very explicitly knows that Baron blood was a monster. Right. All right. That might fall under people making dumb choices. Yeah, I was going to say yes. The first time I can see you the second time. I don't know. Yeah. And lastly, does this movie feature loved ones turning against you? not really I don't think because nobody loves Dr. Becker. So no, I'll say no, not really. Yeah. All right. Well, you might have your own set of questions from me now, John. I do. And we're going to go through our 70s questions and I'll be curious to see, because this was released for an American audience, even though it's an Italian director. And so I think, you know, we talked about regional But I think the line is blurred when it comes to Italian American movies. It's not as simple as it's made for one culture or the other. So I think maybe American questions apply in some form. So let's go through 1970s American questions. Does this evoke the terror of crime, lawlessness, and anarchy? I don't think so. No. It's different than like your Omega Man or other movies where the zombies are a stand-in for vagabond youths, breaking windows and looting stuff. Right. Well, how about this? Does it push the boundaries of on-screen violence and sexuality? I think it does. So sexuality, no, not so much. Apart from some revealing outfits, there's really no sexuality in this movie. I do think this isn't as gross as say I drink your blood, but it's pretty gross for the for the iron maiden bit alone, you know, I get to serve special mention the iron maiden that's a pretty gross kill and we are seeing more. we are seeing people getting killed like full on screen more than we used to like that architect guy getting his next snap that that's all you watch that it's not off camera like it would have been 10 years ago and it seems more of the point right the point is not to show somebody was killed to advance the plot or create terror the point is to show the person being killed which is yeah which is something that's sort of coming up in the 70s here for us in a way that Yeah, as we mentioned earlier, I think we are, you know, this is, we're clearly moving towards the, you know, the cool, cool era of horror movies. And I wonder, you know, Brad, you're, uh, because we talk a lot about slasher films is sort of the, the, the birth of that. and your comparison of, you know, the point you made about them stealing a kill from Mario Baba, like maybe we're seeing Mario as the godfather of the sort of kill, the kill worship, so to speak, you know what I mean? So anyway, I'll be curious to see how that develops. I got another one for you though, Andy. Does this evoke a divide between new and old generations? I'm trying to decide. I'm a little torn on this one. I think to some extent it does. Peter R. Hero is obviously a member of the younger generation compared to Carl and certainly compared to his ancestor of Baron Blood. He is shown as He is simultaneously a modern man. He doesn't believe in this hocus pocus. And he is an adult, right? He doesn't come across as a child or a young man. He comes across as an adult person. Very much so he does. He does that. Right. Yeah, these aren't teenagers or really young people. So he simultaneously doesn't take this stuff seriously, but he's intrigued by it at the same time. And there is a little whiff of that like Carl as a representative of the older generation saying, you know, I don't take this stuff seriously either, but like just take it from me. You probably shouldn't mess with this stuff. You don't really know what you're messing with. So I felt a little bit, I felt a light shading of that generational attention. What do you think about that? Yeah, I would agree. It's it's not strong. Everybody remains friends, but it is there a little bit. I don't know why Carl didn't give him a lecture about doing stupid stuff. That would have been very appropriate in this movie. Yeah, what about a lack of trust in institutions or authority figures. I think so. The police are in this, you know, in several scenes and they never do anything that's helpful or useful in any way. They don't prevent the crimes. They don't figure out who's doing the crimes. They don't stop the villain as they interact. by the final timer to that they hear as they're interacting with the police. They don't even, it's not, they understand that's not even remotely possible, but the police will help. The only thing the police could do is get in the way of doing what they have figured out on their own that they need to do. Right, this one's by easy. A Vogue anxiety is about the Vietnam War. I didn't pick up any of this, how about anxiety is about sexuality, reproduction, and body autonomy? This is mostly no, except I will just say that impaling is a sexually suggestive way to kill people in a horror movie. So I don't think that's a big accident here. But at the same time, this isn't a movie that's really saying anything meaningful about women's bodies or sexuality. How about economic anxiety and consumerism gone a muck? I don't think so, although it seems to celebrate it, right? Like the big opening sequence on the 747, it doesn't seem to be making an around it comment about that at all. No, I don't think so, you know, I think we're invited to be like, wow, cool, what a luxury experience that is. And later, I meant to do, they do mention like the prices of stuff like when they buy the castle, I think. he buys it for like $600,000 American dollars or something. I don't know. I meant to do some price inflation. Well, they had the prices in pounds, which is weird in the auction. I didn't write for all that. So, but yeah, no, I didn't pick up any big themes of that sort of. And last tensions between urban and rural life. again, not really to the extent that it shows up. It is present in the distinction between like the city boy Pete. I mean, you do get a little bit. Peter is this like outsider city boy from America who comes in. He's a bit of a know it all. Yeah, he comes in and he starts basically meddling with these kind of soup rules, rural superstitions in a way that is obnoxious and that gets a lot of other people killed. Yeah. That said, I can't say that that felt like a real strong theme in this movie. Yeah. No, I don't think so. All right. Well, let me throw it to you so you can bring this podcast home. All right. Our traditional final closing questions, John, would you and I survive I mean, if Baron blood wanted to kill me, no, you know, we're always trying to avoid the thing where like, I wouldn't be in this situation, but, right, no, I think if Baron blood wanted to kill me, I would not survive. So you would end up being impaled on a big spike at the top of the tower, yes. Yeah, I think, yeah, I mean, if Baron, I mean, the implication here is that Baron blood is just going to start praying, left to his own devices, he's going to start praying on like the local towns and villages. Yeah. When we got to that stage, I would be a local who, you know, he comes and kills in the night and impales in his castle. Yeah, he always easily overcame the three all at once. They were together and that one man took him all down. Oh, that's true. Yeah, yeah. So no, I would not survive. All right, John, is this a zombie movie or a movie with zombies? It is a movie with zombies. It is not about zombies. If we don't consider Baron blood is zombie, then it's not a zombie movie. Agreed, yes. John, would you recommend this movie? Firstly, to a general audience, is this just an interesting cool film that people should go watch? And secondly, do you recommend it specifically as something that has value to the zombie loving listeners of this podcast? Yeah, I'm struggling with both those things because I want to like this movie, there's some wonderful bits in it, but not quite enough to turn into a recommendation in either case. In the first case, it's just, it's just a little too weird and and it's maybe does a few things too tediously and in the second case, there's barely any zombies stuff in this movie. So yeah, I would say go watch another Mario Boba movie that is better. That's what I would say. I agree. I I for like the first 30 minutes of this movie. I was feeling real good about it. Yeah. But it just doesn't really pay off in a very satisfying way. Yeah. It ramps up really well. And then it just sort of it just kind of gets turns into kind of a slog to the end. I guess. It's a good example of something we're seeing here when people sort of slum it in the horror genre is, you know, you've got Joseph Cotton, you've got Elkysummer, you've got a famous director who clearly knows what they're doing and it just isn't quite work, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's the sense I think I got of this movie. Most of the pieces were there, but they just didn't come together quite right. So, and I also would agree, there's very little, of interest here for zombie fans. Those are the zombies pretty cool. Yeah, you know, but I don't think it's any offering anything new. They just make it cameo. That's a game. Yeah. Yeah. Good to be able to put it. I forgot you guys. We have started adding a fourth question. And that is wood should my mom watch this movie. And my answer to that is Hmm, my answer to that is no. Yeah, I agree. I don't think, I don't think this is a movie for my or your moms, no. Well, yeah, I don't think so. No, I don't think that's a good recommendation. Yeah, it's the it's the Iron Maiden killing the kind of puts it over the edge. The rest of it. I think mom might be okay with, but yeah. All right. Well, it's time for the scariest part of the episode. And that's where we find out what zombie movie we will be watching next. Our next film brings us not only back to the US, it brings us back to the low budget film world of Florida. And here is a snippet from the trailer, all right? This is Alan. He's such a dear boy. Oh, this is Jeffy. He's so full of fun. Oh, this is Abnya. Isn't she just the sweetest thing? And this is their new friend, Smedley, they're giving him a party. It is coming out party. Oh, the children are having such fun there. Laughing, laughing, and only getting here. One foggy winter evening. In 1971. You ought to be right. here is your poster yeah quite a poster it looks like weekend at bernies with a zambi that's what this poster looks like it's called children shouldn't play with dead things huh Okay, yeah, so it also says you're invited to Orville's quote coming out party. It'll be a scream yours and then it's got this drawing, this cartoon of three people like two weird looking guys and a sort of normal looking woman sitting in a coffin with a dead body and their arms and the dead bodies arms are around them and that's why I said it I have no idea what to expect from this poster. All I know is that this is directed by the guy who directed Porkey's, is that correct? Oh dear. Yes. And a Christmas story. And a Christmas story. So. Let's just say we know he's a wide range. I still don't know what to expect from this movie. All right, everybody. Please join us next time for children, shouldn't play with dead things. You've been listening to zombie strains. We'll be back next episode to talk about another zombie movie. If you enjoyed our podcast, please take a moment to rate us in your podcast Apple Choice. Tell a friend, follow us on Instagram at zombie strains. All of this helps like-minded people find the show. See you next time.