Friday the 13th Special
Movie Wars is back, and in the lead-up to our official relaunch this October, host Kyle is celebrating Friday the 13th with a special episode! Joined by stand-up comedian and film critic Matthew Blevins, they dive deep into the question: Why does the Friday the 13th franchise have such lasting power? With 12 films, over 10 directors, and more than $460 million at the box office, this iconic horror series has left an indelible mark on pop culture. From its rise in horror history to the enduring themes that keep Jason Voorhees alive in the cultural zeitgeist, this episode explores it all. Tune in for a killer discussion that every horror fan will love!
Transcript
Kyle Castro (0:1.184)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a very special little kind of special uh—you know, celebratory Friday the 13th special surprise. I've got a dear friend here. This is your host, Kyle. I've got my friend, comedian Matthew Blevins with me. What's going on, man?
Matthew Blevins (0:14.614)
Hey Kyle, how's it going, man? It's great to be here for the Friday the 13th edition of the podcast, man. I'm here for it. Let's go.
Kyle Castro (0:23.202)
Yeah man, tell us who you are.
Matthew Blevins (0:25.592)
Uh, Matthew Blevins, I'm a comedian. I started out my comedy trajectory in the Omaha and Lincoln Nebraska area and, uh, started out there, did my first like six years, what I call undergrad work in comedy. And then I moved to the Nashville area about, uh, what was it like January of. Shit. I've been here almost three years now. Okay. Yeah. 21 and,
ee, I was, it started in like:You know, those were always fun. then slowly, but surely I kind of got more confident in like expressing my critical opinions about movies. And so I get involved in these threads where we would, uh, you know, analyze the films of Andre Tarkovsky or something like that. then eventually a position came up on the Toronto based, uh, web publication, web publication, uh, next projection.
and they were kind of integrated with Toronto International Film Festival and Tiff Bell Lightbox. And so it was really cool. So I just thought maybe I could submit and get to write for these guys. And then over time, I had a lot of successful columns and I became a senior editor there after a couple of years. I never got any kind of like...
Matthew Blevins (2:11.734)
monetary stuff from film criticism or any sort of like fame, but I had little bits of notoriety. Like I had texted you about cool things like waking up one day and finding out that Edgar Wright had retweeted my review of The World's End. And it's like, oh, wow, that's, that's really cool that he even read something that I wrote or Lloyd Kaufman called me condescending one time. That was kind of interesting. was, I was a Troma fan, but he's, he's like,
Kyle Castro (2:35.854)
You
Matthew Blevins (2:41.351)
Your stuff is really well written, but it's a little condescending and then he called me Roger Ebert jr. So I'm not sure I don't know if that was a compliment or if that was a slam But then he said I should maybe I should advise on return to class of Newcomb High 2 Which it's my greatest regret in life that I never advised on that script so then Yeah, I interviewed Tommy Weezoo as well. That's like that's
Kyle Castro (2:47.160)
Ha
Kyle Castro (2:57.066)
uh
Kyle Castro (3:4.750)
That's incredible.
Matthew Blevins (3:10.008)
out making stuff. And so like:Maybe I wasn't being hated enough as a film critic and then like lean into like steer into the skid. I'm thinking IRS, like maybe that'll be my next move. I'll just be a tax collector or something.
Kyle Castro (3:50.648)
Yeah. A lot of self -hatred with you. lot of, uh, lot of pseudo masochism with the things you choose to do. You know, maybe, maybe go work at an ice cream shop for a week. Just kind of find the joy out there.
Matthew Blevins (3:54.560)
Yeah!
Matthew Blevins (4:4.886)
I don't know. That sounds exhausting. Finding joy sounds exhausting to me.
Kyle Castro (4:7.622)
It does.
Kyle Castro (4:11.692)
Yeah, I agree with you. think, yeah, I think there is a there is always with stand up comedy and I love how you linked it back to your criticism career because stand up comedy like they're like, had a week like that, you know, I had a couple of weeks where I had a couple of bangers back to back, you know, performances, great gigs. And then I had one where I was like, I'm done. I'm cooking. I'm cooked. I'm never doing this again. You know how it is. And then a week later, like you're back at it like, I guess I'll go out there and do it again.
Matthew Blevins (4:33.242)
Yeah. Yeah. I think eight years in right now, week to week, I'm not sure if I am a comic anymore most weeks. And it's like, oh, I have a show this week. I guess I'm a comic this week. So let's go to it. I can't stop writing. That never goes away regardless. But yeah. And so primarily my love of film came from then this is true.
Kyle Castro (4:46.882)
Yeah.
Matthew Blevins (4:59.604)
I would scour HBO and Cinemax and whatever I could find all night long when I was a teenager to find things to masturbate to. I just sometimes they just play good movies the whole time. I became as I became a cinephile like they buy like Doom Generation is a prime example. It like crosses both boundaries. You get to you get to do both. You get to see a great Greg Araki film and you get to masturbate to Rose McGowan.
That can be problematic, I don't know.
Kyle Castro (5:32.536)
Yeah, yeah. Hey, we all have a journey, No, that's cool. That's cool, dude. Well, right on, man. Well, dude, I'm so glad to have you. And at the end of the episode, we'll talk about where people can find you. You've got a lot of great bits out online. I'd love for people to get access to your old editorials and your criticism work. That's fantastic. So I'll just start why I wanted to do this. I don't love cliches.
You know, and when Friday, I found out there was a Friday the 13th coming up, I just felt like I haven't talked about Friday the 13th in a long time. And, uh, we're not a horror podcast and I'm going to talk about this later, but horror is such an interesting genre. I would put it out there with Star Trek, you know, and Star Trek has, um, there's such a specificity to it. And like we did a couple of years ago on the old version of the podcast, we did a Star Trek episode of the reboot and I was scared to death because I like knew I was, I was putting my toe on the water. Like I'm a smart.
film person. I wasn't a critic, but I credit myself for my analysis. I understand a deep level. I'm a huge fan of philosophy, and I feel like that carries me a long way with my love of film. But then there is genre -specific love in groups, and I would put diehard horror fans out there. They love detail. Yeah.
Matthew Blevins (6:46.956)
Yeah, yeah, they'll get they'll get mad at you if you get details incorrect and I have had the actual Polish diaspora on me for getting a detail incorrect in a documentary one time, but you don't like that pales in comparison to messing up a horror reference. So, you know, we have to tread carefully here.
Kyle Castro (6:51.724)
Yes.
Kyle Castro (7:4.845)
Yeah.
played by a D level actor in:Matthew Blevins (7:17.048)
Yes.
Matthew Blevins (7:22.018)
Yeah.
Kyle Castro (7:31.810)
So I don't wanna be cliche, but you know, I was asking myself if I did a Friday the 13th podcast with one of my comedian buddies, what would that sound like? And to me, the first thing that came to mind is what's the staying power? You know, the visual of Jason Voorhees when you hear, hey, there's gonna be a Friday the 13th this week. And the first time I heard that, the first thing I thought of, that bloody hockey mask. You know, you would be hard pressed. You could name a bunch, but you would be hard pressed to find no matter how cinematically.
poorly done those movies are and how inconsistent and how bad the timelines are it is hard to think of a more recognizable icon than that hockey mask. What do you think about that?
Matthew Blevins (8:7.916)
Well, yeah, and it's interesting that it's got embedded in us as far as like the motion, the lumbering, and that character wasn't even what is embedded in our mind until like movie six. You know, it wasn't even until three that he got the hockey mask. And so that's so fascinating to me that this franchise had been like six movies deep and it's still...
defining the cultural consciousness in a certain way because that like you hear Friday the 13th and you have that imagery from you know from sequels that were way down the line
Kyle Castro (8:47.222)
Yeah, it's wild. it's, it's, can probably, you know, bang your head against the wall and think of a few examples like that. But to me, I mean, you'd be hard pressed to find one that's more, you know, visceral. I would, I would even put it up there, obviously not in quality with the Godfather, but the Godfather has that kind of cultural cache. I mean, you've got like, you've got mail. It's a constant reference from Tom Hanks. I mean, it's referenceable across the board. Um, and so there are very few things in the, in the cultural discussion that have that level of cache.
Um, you know, and so I was thinking about my own experience with these films. You know, it's, think I started off with a lot of people. Now I'm a little different. My parents were both like alcoholics, crazy people. They let me watch whatever I want. I watched RoboCop like twice a week as a kid. And that's still to me is one of the most. Yeah.
Matthew Blevins (9:28.091)
Yeah, no, my dad took me to Robocop in the theaters and I think I was like five and Just I couldn't pick up my toy guns because I thought it had 209 was gonna gun me down So yeah. Yeah, I think your dad and my dad could have had a beer together for sure
Kyle Castro (9:33.635)
Yeah.
Kyle Castro (9:39.180)
Yeah, yeah.
Kyle Castro (9:44.268)
Yeah. And they probably would have taken us to see, you know, a Friday the 13th movie together. I mean, you could probably argue Robocop's more violent than the first two Friday the 13th. I mean, it's just, it's seriously. Yeah.
Matthew Blevins (9:48.664)
Probably.
Matthew Blevins (9:52.864)
Oh, dude. Oh yeah. Don't even get me started on Verhoeven. I mean, I love that guy's work and, and, you know, Robocop and the being traumatized in a movie theater is probably a part of that, but like Starship Troopers, I, you know, I watch that every year. I still go back to that.
Kyle Castro (10:5.132)
Yeah.
Kyle Castro (10:9.710)
Yeah, RoboCop's my favorite of all time, the movie wars fan base. They're tired of hearing me talk about, you see the poster back there. I've seen it over 200 times. I'm just a diehard. But you know, I watched Cobra with Sly and The Rambo, like I was young, but for some reason, my alcoholic parents were principled on horror movies. I don't know if you have this visceral memory, but do you remember going to the video store when we had them and the horror section was in the back corner and you would, when you could sneak away from your parents?
and look at the boxes and the covers. And I just remember seeing Freddie, that one 3D cover, think Freddie five was that five, that 3D cover of his claw coming out, but that mask, that hockey mask on the cover. And I honestly think that in and of itself was enough. And you said something in a text to me that was very interesting. You talked about the primordial kind of that, that violence, that tendency that's in us, that draws us to wanting to be scared and witness violence.
Matthew Blevins (:Mm -hmm.
Kyle Castro (11:6.636)
I thought that was really interesting because that curiosity alone was enough for me to spend a lot of mental energy figuring out how can I see these movies? Like how? When and how can I see what that movie is?
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah, yeah.
Matthew Blevins (:Absolutely. And the other thing that I think gives the mask a lot of power specifically is the, you you dehumanize the figure and then you take those eyes away from it. And now you've got like just the notion of evil chasing you at every corner and it's never going to give up. So, I mean, that's going to resonate forever.
Kyle Castro (:Yeah. Yeah, so continuing my story, I, I, so I, when I did finally get to see them, I think I was, I think I was 12 when I actually finally started getting them. And I did like them. I liked the, I think the, the cache of the, of the kind of that experience, that, that forbidden fruit, like I'm not supposed to be seeing this, like carried me through, I think, that carries you through a lot in your youth, you know, with movies.
And, but eventually I would get on and we also had a great conversation about Texas Chainsaw, which is actually of the, if you want to take that core, I'd add scream to that conversation with Ghostface as as more of a modern version, which is a satire. But you know, Leatherface is my guy. Like I love Leatherface because the storytelling, the Tobe Hooper story, it's, it's just so interesting. But you know, I finally worked my way through those and really remembered loving them. And in my adult life, I'm now with four kids. I'm 37. My kids range from two to 10. I'm a married man.
Matthew Blevins (:Oh yeah.
Kyle Castro (:I'm a family man. I'm a comedian, you know, and I wouldn't want my kids to hear my comedy, but I'm a family man. I think we're very similar in that way. And, you know, so I decided, hey, I'm going to do a rewatch and it wasn't for this podcast. It was just random. was last year. That might've been one of actually one of those COVID rewatches where I was like, God, what am I going to recycle this time? And I just remember thinking like, yeah, the Jason is cool. Like seeing how he changes from
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah, Yeah.
Kyle Castro (13:2.126)
movie to movie like that was interesting but it maybe I was missing that that forbidden fruit element of it because it just didn't do the same for me and maybe I'd lost some of that and also I also went back to Friday sorry Nightmare on Elm Street and I went back through some of the Texas Chainsaws not all the old Texas Chainsaws are good but the first three I really enjoy and we also meet Matthew McConaughey that way you know with Texas Chainsaw 3 which is really interesting but I
Matthew Blevins (:Oh yeah. Yeah.
Kyle Castro (:those other ones did still resonate, especially the first Texas Chainsaw and the first like four Nightmare on Elm Street are so strong. And so I'm thinking, but still somehow Jason has the same if not more level of stay power. And so I thought through a few reasons for that and feel free to challenge my thinking on this. But I think my first theory about this is that primordial soup thing. I think people...
You know, I said soup, the primordial, whatever. can't help, I can't say primordial and not say soup. But that, that carnate instinct, right, is there that, that blood lust, that being scared, especially with friends, like we're all joining together and that's good. That will always be a psychological thing with movie lovers is that joining together to, shit our pants. That's, there's a lot of power in that.
Also, one thing, and I watched the Crystal Lake Memories documentary, which I have to add that all the Movie Wars listeners know that I have this list of movie documentaries, which are often better than the movies. And that was this Crystal Lake experience. It was better than the movies. It was so enjoyable. And they talk about this, but the profitability of those movies was so wild. Get this, Friday the 13th won $500 ,000 to make. To date, the entire franchise has made about $500 million.
A lot of those, I think it wasn't even until, you know, three or four. I don't quote me on this because I don't have the numbers memorized, but they surpass a $1 million budget and even five, which ruined the franchise to a lot of people is kind of where it dips. But people kept coming back. I think they only made like 8 million opening week, but I think it only cost $750 ,000 or something to make. Again, I don't know the specific numbers, but Paramount, they were very profitable. So even if they didn't kill it, which, you know, I think three and four.
when they opened were number one at the box office. So they did have some that were bangers. I think they made 49 or something. I can't remember on four. It was a wild number, but the profitability. it's like, well, who cares if critics like it and who cares how many seats we fill because at the end of the day, we're still making a ton of margin on these. Um, so that's part of the staying power. Also, you know, you hear Quentin Tarantino saying, and a lot of directors and movie people will think this, the eighties is a lot of people consider it to be one of the worst decades in filmmaking.
Kyle Castro (:You know, I think the 50s, 55 to 65 because, know, we almost had the collapse, which is how we got Godfather because they wanted to take a risk and revive. know, movie theaters were on the verge of mass bankruptcy in the early 70s. And so we got a mass revival with the Brat Pack. That was kind of the last time. But the 80s were kind of seeing we had was a lot of money, but a lot of stupidity and cocaine had a lot to do with that. Watch any Chevy Chase movie halfway through. It goes off the rails. It's because they were doing coke and that's that's well documented. Right. So you have this.
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah.
Matthew Blevins (:Well, you know, as bad as the 80s were, the home video market just offered some really fascinating and artistic stuff that was just different than anything that you had ever seen before. And I think some of these slasher franchises kind of fall right into that and where the, but a lot of those, the cover is more intriguing than the movie will ever be. But you know.
Kyle Castro (:Yeah, you cannot under, you know, Matt Damon just in an interview about that, about why movies struggle now, it's because the second wind that movies got on DVD and VHS was enough to, if a movie wasn't profitable in theaters, could get it there and get it to more, if not more profitability wise. And that's when you saw, you know, I think it was, don't quote me on this, but you might know, but you know, I think it was mid 80s when a VCR became affordable.
Cause when they came out, was just like everything else. Like, how the hell am I going to get one of these? But there was this, there was this almost, uh, you know, magical process to go into the video store and getting a VHS and the grain and, you know, and that, that gave these movies a lot of life too.
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah, absolutely. I remember actually we used to rent a VCR. That's how old I am, I guess. We'd have to go rent a VCR and then there would always be like one movie for the kids and then one movie for the folks or whatever and you'd always have to sneak down and try and catch that. They always sucked though. That's the only, like the better the cover, the worst the 80s movie, I think.
Kyle Castro (:No.
Kyle Castro (:Mm And if you somehow accidentally ruined that VHS, you were out 80 bucks. You were, like, if you remember that, like, rewinding and accidentally, like, overwinding or breaking it, they were gonna charge you $80 at the video store to replace that thing. We should sue those people. I think they, yeah. What's the statute of limitations on that? I think that's highway robbery to charge in the 80.
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah, yeah
Yup.
Matthew Blevins (18:3.542)
Yeah. Let's go back in.
Matthew Blevins (:Captain Video, you've had it too good for too long. We're coming back.
Kyle Castro (:Yeah, we're coming back. I know you've been bankrupt for a long time, but I want my what's $80 in 1984 today with interest. But yeah, my last point, we hit on this earlier, but also I think when you pair and balance out the profitability, which the studio, when the studio has a motive and they have the power to execute that motive, they're going to make their money. But then you have the horror fan contingency. And one thing they talk about a lot in this, in this crystal light memories documentary, which I highly recommend.
is that horror fans will, you in the early days of the internet, a lot of the predominant message boards were horror fans, but Friday the 13th fans had these very specific message boards in the early, back when message boards were not on, because we didn't have social media yet, we'd have to go to these message boards. You probably had a lot of experience with those because of your criticism career.
Matthew Blevins (19:3.421)
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you'd find little subsections of humans that knew nothing except they were very highly specialized about their thing and very highly ravenous about like defending that against like outside intrusion. So I imagine, yeah, whatever subculture Friday the 13th, like it was probably more terrifying than any of the films in the franchise.
Kyle Castro (19:8.002)
Mm
Kyle Castro (:Yeah.
Kyle Castro (:Yeah, yeah, and these these fans they talk about in the documentary they'd be as specific as there would be these mega, know threads on these message boards about the apparel Jason would wear, you know, and and the the choice of you know, a makeup choice or a movement. I mean horror fans are very specific. So, you know, you can say all you want about the you know, let's be real the lack of budget
creates, oftentimes creates diamonds. You and I were talking about why Texas Chainsaw is such an incredible film. It's a 10K budget, I think. I can't remember, maybe 15. It was low. Pressure Makes Diamonds, that's a cliche, but it's true. And a lot of the greatest films of all time are the way they are because you face limitations and you have to make choices creatively. That's partially true in Friday the 13th, but a lot of it is the battle with the MPAA.
when you start getting challenges on the amount of violence that you can put on the screen, which is what happened on, especially three and after, that's when the MPAA started really coming after Friday the 13th. And they had to redact so much of the violence. And one thing they talked about in the documentary is how much of the incredible kill scenes, which is what is great about the movies besides Jason, just as an icon, is the amount of violence on the floor, know, on the killing floor, they call it when you edit a film and have to edit out stuff. And...
That is such a focus that when you have to take your foot off the gas with the violence, then you're left with what? The story. And I think that it's really interesting with some of the stories you read, like a lot of these women were subjected to horrible things on set with the nudity and the screens. Like they oftentimes were pushed to do more than they wanted to or what was in the script. And they would push them to do more aggressive scenes.
In fact, Danny, what was his name? Danny Steinman who directed Five. They grafted him from the adult film world. He was an adult film director. He was an exploitation director. And there was, there was a story about how he was coaching these women and directing them like they were adult film stars, not, actresses. And it was very uncomfortable. And because of that low budget setting, I think where in some other areas you get pressure makes diamonds, jaws, you know, Bruce doesn't work, all those stories. This was a situation where kind of grifting
Kyle Castro (:Unknowns it did launch Kevin Bacon. Sean Cunningham did develop a great horror career after this. Like people did launch and have a great career, but a lot of people were subjected to kind of the lack of experience and grift of some of these really bad directors, you know, and these producers that were kind of just profit driven battling. Then their main focus was the violence. And once that was taken away, that story was, that was what you were left with, which is why I think, you know, Texas chainsaw and nightmare and Elm street kind of win because they had more thought.
And I would say existentially more. What do you think about that?
Matthew Blevins (:Well, I think that the sleazeball tactics and all of the gross energy is captured on screen in Texas Chainsaw. like the frames permeate with this just, I don't know, this sense of evil. You feel gross after having watched it. Now, if a frame in, you know, Friday the 13th, part five is one of the cleanest things you've ever seen, it's kind of...
Gross knowing that all of these behind -the -scenes things have gone on and people were exploited for the making of this art so to speak so You know, I don't know how much you can blame any individual or I don't know how much you can blame the entire franchise on any individual entry in it though is these seem to be like unrelated projects in a weird way like the first one is it's essentially the first movie is like a series of of
like kill scenes that exhibit Tom Zavini's brilliance. And it's like a, it's a bunch of ripped off Hitchcock score type things. And then, you know, and then you come to a, a kill scene that's it, it barely, I don't even know if you could call the first one like a slasher because I don't know how many knife kills you get in the first one. You get arrow kills for sure. But yeah, I think that
Kyle Castro (:Yes.
Matthew Blevins (:I don't know, what are gonna do? They were made in the 80s. I guess for what they are, we're still talking about them in 2024. there's some undeniable quality to that, I guess.
Kyle Castro (:Yeah.
Kyle Castro (24:0.507)
Yeah, and I'm so glad you said Tom Zavini because that was my biggest takeaway from all my research and watching that documentary was what an incredible, if you wanna, I think it's interesting, because the lack of chronology, and I kinda got lost there talking about the budget and stuff and the way that the actress is retreated, because I was trying to make a point, and then in classic me form I lost the point. What I was getting back to with this,
was the lack of chronology, the amount of hands, the amount of directors, the amount of people playing Jason. Like even in one movie, three different people are playing Jason. mean, they had like three, it was five, they had a stunt man who got fired and then they had the actor, but then they had another stunt man. So three people are wearing that outfit, you know? And there's just so many people involved. But if you wanna, you could almost argue and feel free to challenge my thinking here. You said Savini and I thought that is the one item.
that may, that not only responsible for the staying power, but if you want to say it goes in the hall of fame, all time achievement award, I'm not talking Grammys or any shit like that. I'm just talking like long -term, Savini's work, the realism of his work is pretty unbelievable. The amount of hours, just to do a knife through the chest, four hours of just layers and layers and blood, it's not just the look, it's the intricacy of his work. What do you think about that?
Matthew Blevins (:I think that it comes from probably his time in Vietnam and having to observe all of these atrocities. If I had witnessed and I had to endure atrocities, would want to make them, I would want to be authentic with my portrayal. I would want to pay them service. I think that's why my comedy has to...
pay service to all of my childhood trauma so much because it had to have meant something. So I think if Tom Savini can make that time in Vietnam mean something and it's meant iconic films across multiple franchises, mean, he's the best. What can you say?
Kyle Castro (:Yeah.
Kyle Castro (26:3.052)
I love that you said that that's exactly what it credited to was he was a Vietnam. He was a documentarian and he photographed and he also was, I guess he was in the medical tents and he was seeing just the worst atrocities during the war. And that's what he gave cadence to. And I guess that's such a good answer. mean, psychologically, he's probably like, I have to demonstrate what this really is. I don't know any other way.
Incredible point. So what do you think so going back to the four points? What do you think is there anything? I didn't think of or what do you think about the just to summarize the the four points that I think really contribute to the staying power would be the the primordial item the Psychological aspect of being scared the unity of being scared with people the mystery the I'm not allowed to watch this Number point number two point was the budget, you know, there was a profit motive. Even if it doesn't perform well, they're gonna make margins
Another staying power thing is that the 80s wasn't necessarily, you when you think of great decades of film Golden Age, it wasn't really competing at a high level. I you had Aliens. I think Aliens was the stiffest release day competition it had, and it did get beat by Aliens on that release. But it didn't, there wasn't a ton of competition in terms of when you think of the Golden Era of film. And lastly, the tenacity and the passion of the horror fan base, the dedicated horror fan base. What else would you add or what do you think about all that?
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah, I think those are good points. The only thing I might add to that are some of the well, specifically on the primordial fear thing is there seems to be a punishment for like the sin. That seems to be a big part of it. Like these teenagers are doing something they're not supposed to be doing and then they're murdered. That seems to be a big part of it. And I don't know if it's I don't know from a cultural Catholic guilt perspective or I don't know where that comes from.
but there might be something to that as well.
Kyle Castro (:Yeah. Yeah. And especially, well, and I mean, to take that further, it's such a great point to think they're all high school kids and young age college kids. And I, couldn't pay me enough, Matthew, to go back to high school. I mean, if you offered me $2 million to go back to high school, I'd say, I'll just stay right here. I'm not brutal. And, and so one thing that's really interesting is that you see the archetypes that they try and they don't do a great job. Like, like, you know, but also bullying was a different thing back then. So they have a different, like we talked about before we hit record was time and context is so important to every
movie when you're judging it. But you know, when you think about, you know, I don't know about you, but some, sometimes something will happen. And I'll randomly think about the person who kicked my ass in high school or the cheerleaders that made fun of me, but they're now trying to sell me Plexus on Facebook. You know, it's like, but you called me a fat ass in high school and now you want to sell me your pyramid scheme products. That is something very real. And you said punish the sin is, I mean,
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah
Matthew Blevins (:Ha
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah.
Kyle Castro (:I don't know about you. was a loser, which is probably why I'm a comedian and a movie podcaster and I'm not an investment banker. You know, and I'm not saying I would want to see this level of punishment, but subconsciously it's like this idea of that, like the people that were so horrible and harsh getting that, you know, the jocularity, the people that went to the dances, you know, like, you know, again, I would never want to see what happens in the movies, but I do think there's
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah, same. Yeah.
Matthew Blevins (29:5.869)
Yeah.
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah
Kyle Castro (:The fact that it's specifically on high school age kids acting and treating each other the way they do, it is kind of a little triggering for me, because I, you know, high school sucked.
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah. Yeah. And I think high school will always suck as long as there are high schools and there are teenagers, high school always suck. And so that will always resonate. you know.
Kyle Castro (:They're not recruiting. They don't have to recruit the assholes. They're not they're not putting up signs. Yeah, they're not they're not short
Matthew Blevins (:No, they're - Yeah, no, - No, apparently they're setting up franchises all over the place, I -
Kyle Castro (:Yeah. On our tax dollar. Oh, that's beautiful. I love it. Cool. So let's go into, so the Movie Wars crew, I polled you and thank you for your responses. I would love to hear your response, your gut response here. I just put out there the key slashes and I'm going to stop using Instagram polls. I'm going to use Survey Monkey because you can only do four. It's so stupid. I wanted to add Ghostface to this. I wonder if Ghostface would have gotten any love, but 44 %
Matthew Blevins (:Yup.
Kyle Castro (:was the leader here, Michael Myers, in terms of favorite slasher. That's really interesting to me, because that is what inspired the, at least created the foundation to make Friday the 13th. 33 % Jason, 22 % Freddie, and this hurt me, and I think it's gonna hurt you too. 0 % voted for Leatherface. And we have on TikTok, 66 ,000 people, and on Instagram, we have 2 ,800 or something like that. Nobody. I love you, Movie Awards. Yeah, very.
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah, that's surprising. Yeah, but yeah, I don't know. Leatherface himself is not as iconic maybe as the first Texas Chainsaw movie is. mean, Leatherface is just a part of that weird family. I don't know, maybe there's just something that doesn't resonate with people on that instantly recognizable, iconic level.
Kyle Castro (:you
Matthew Blevins (31:7.092)
I was really surprised about the Halloween movies coming out on top,
Matthew Blevins (:No, I think I cut out. Am I still there?
Kyle Castro (:You're still there.
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah, I think I dropped you there for a second.
Kyle Castro (:Yeah, heard, the last thing I heard was I was really surprised. And then you froze.
Matthew Blevins (:I really surprised that the...
Matthew Blevins (:the Halloween movies did as well as they did. I wasn't anticipating that that would be the people's favorite. I really wasn't.
Kyle Castro (:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think you're right. I think on the Texas chainsaw thing, it's because it's a group effort. I think if you really do love Texas chainsaw, Leatherface is the, he's doing the work. He's the body guy, he's the enforcer.
Kyle Castro (32:2.508)
Let your camera refresh. think your camera is having some... No? It's all good, man. I got the time marker down and I'll...
Matthew Blevins (32:4.010)
Yeah, I apologize about that.
Matthew Blevins (32:9.153)
There we go.
Kyle Castro (:Are you using your phone? Oh, that's cool.
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah, it's the best looking one and the app was only like 13 bucks and like it blows any webcams I've had out of the water. it's like, carry this. Yeah, I carry this iPhone. Yeah. Yeah. So the poll results, sorry about that.
Kyle Castro (:I should have done that. I'm using a webcam now.
Kyle Castro (:It's all good. No, this is, yeah. No, yeah, I agree. you know, there is something about being first to market, you know? That's always a big thing, you know? And I would say too, it's also the most complete franchise when you compare, I think. think the entries aren't all perfect, but at least, and I feel this way about Alien too. I feel like Alien's one of those franchises, although it's not perfect and it goes off the rails, it still sticks around the lore.
Halloween does a better job of that than all the other ones. Because as much as Texas Chainsaw 3 is fun, it's out of control. It makes zero sense.
Matthew Blevins (33:2.380)
Yeah.
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah, I I was there a recent Halloween adaptation that actually was good? I haven't gone back to them.
Kyle Castro (:Yeah, they did the ones, I think they were released straight to, I think during COVID, right? They did three of them and the last one was absolutely horrific. It was a joke. But the first one, Halloween Kills, I'm trying to remember what, but yeah, they did, yeah.
Matthew Blevins (:I thought I remembered some sort of cultural resurgence around Halloween fairly recently and I thought maybe that was why. it's kind of like Romulus where alien all of a sudden is culturally relevant to people who aren't nerds again for a little while. you know, I'm a prom... Yeah, that would do it. That would do it.
Kyle Castro (:And they brought Jamie Lee Curtis back.
Kyle Castro (:Yeah, yeah, that's that's an interesting thing. They've stayed pretty close. I would say the nightmare in elm street What happened to them was the pop culture? Like it's insane how popular like they had the music videos and the cd and their
Matthew Blevins (34:7.400)
Yeah, right. I was a child and I had Freddy gloves and the mask and the hat. Why is our five year olds running around with this stuff?
Kyle Castro (:Yeah, yeah, it's really that's a great question. And I think I think that that kind of makes sense. I guess the zero percent leather face does make sense because, know, I think when you think back, it is it is a group effort. Yeah, I think that makes sense. My stack rank would be leather face personally, just because I have such an affinity for the original Tobe Hooper film. I just have a love it's in my top 50 of all time. I just think there's so much about the fact that that was a ten thousand dollar film. That's incredible. I would I would then go Freddie.
I would then go Jason and then Michael. And then I would, I would probably put ghost, ghost face at the bottom of that personally.
Matthew Blevins (:Oh, at the bottom of the list. Yeah, the first Scream movie is such a powerhouse of a franchise film, I mean, but you know, Wes Craven, he was already well established by that point. So I guess it had every right to be well established. But I, you know, I just, I think that my ranking is very similar to yours. I think Texas Chainsaw is up there, I think for the John Larriquette.
monologue alone. think it's just I'm being facetious but no I'm trying to think if you're if you're throwing ghost face in there I'm probably gonna put that. Alright so we're gonna we're gonna start at the top we're gonna go
Kyle Castro (:Yeah.
Matthew Blevins (:We'll go Leatherface and then... And then Freddy, just because Freddy was a smartass and Freddy had better punchlines than Jason did. And then you've got, probably for me I'd put Ghostface and then Jason and then Halloween at the bottom for me. just... I never had a lot of love for that franchise. I just couldn't get into it.
Kyle Castro (:Yeah. And Robert England of the group, I think it's interesting. Robert England does the most acting and does a lot of it. He has to actually act. He can't be silent. He is, and he's a damn good actor. I mean, he's actually a Shakespearean trained guy. He doesn't get a lot of credit and he poor guy. He, this is, this is who he is, even though he's a Shakespearean trained classic guy. You know, this is one of those things where his typecast got a little out of hand and no one will ever know anything else he's done.
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah.
Matthew Blevins (:Zombie strippers?
Kyle Castro (:I don't even know that one and I'm an England fan, so. But yeah, I think that's interesting. Yeah, and I think this is kind of an improv thought, but I was just thinking about one of the issues with all of these franchises is when you get so many directors, so many hands transitioning and then they have to like take consideration the chronology and Friday the 13th, they don't even care. Like in Freddy vs. Jason, there's this whole part in documentary about how like they make a 1200 mile drive overnight, you know, to get from
Crystal Lake from Ohio, you know, like they just literally don't feel like they have to care. And, know, and you think about like, I think it's Halloween five or is it Halloween six? That's the curse of Michael Myers. And then they get into the satanic cult, you know, the baby and the baby's born. Like whenever they, and they did this in Freddy versus Jason, when they start to kind of get into the psychology to me, Jason's a, he's a piece of wood who swings a machete. There is no psychology. Myers, I could see it a little bit.
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah. Great.
Kyle Castro (:But, and this is where Rob Zombie, mean, Rob's violent, too much violence, and I like violence, but just too much hyperviolence, but too much psychology in these, in what really are dead pieces of wood holding sharp instruments. I just think that's, you can almost say that's where all these franchises kind of go. Mine is Freddy, go Caput.
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah. Yeah. And Freddie has that charisma that is appealing. that is, think what makes it even more compelling is to have even for, especially coming from the eighties, you've got this like zany, almost cartoonish villain, but he's still just as funny and just as terrifying today as he ever was. Now for something like that to hold up from the eighties until now, that's, it's, I guess it's just a credit to Robert England's performance more than anything.
Kyle Castro (:Yeah, he deserves a lot of credit. So moving on just to the entries themselves. So you actually did a, you did a pretty recent, you know, discovery on these. Was there one, was there a top and a bottom for you of the, I think we're 13 entries in, if you count Freddie versus Jason. Was there anyone that stuck out as a great and one as a, just the worst?
Matthew Blevins (:I do have a couple of notes here that I thought were important.
Matthew Blevins (:Or what was it? Jason takes Vancouver can kiss my ass. I think that was funny.
Kyle Castro (39:5.930)
I'm so glad you said that. I'm so glad that was that was not New York and there were like five scenes they did in Times Square alone and then everything else is Vancouver. That's it.
Matthew Blevins (:It was awful. Mostly on a boat. Six, I love Six. That was fun. I don't know. It's like I can go back and rewatch Six anytime. I think Four, think Corey Feldman, I think that's where he broke his brain.
Kyle Castro (:Mm
Kyle Castro (:Yeah.
Yeah, I love those notes. And the only reason I don't go Manhattan slash Vancouver as the worst is because the redemption factor is Kane Hodder. And I actually, this is an interesting piece. Like until I watched the documentary, I always knew that Kane Hodder was beloved. In fact, when they didn't cast him in, in Freddy versus Jason, it was a huge controversy. Like for not just him, but the fan base. It's because he really was the first person to act as Jason. He wasn't just a stunt man. That was his origin was he was a stunt man, but
He was the first one to say Jason needs distinct movements. He needs a persona, know, a physical persona. The deep breath, the slow head turn. Like, he implemented all that and he made that rote as part of the character. And so now that I've kind of studied it more, I get why the fan base, the diehard horror fan base is so prone to love Kane Hodder. So that's the one redemptive factor and I agree with them on that.
Jason goes to hell to me though, even though it has Kane Haunter, was awful. It was awful when I was a kid, and it was awful now. It's just this, you know, and they talk about this, anytime they, Jason wasn't featured in a Jason movie, they went, that's what ruined the franchise the first time around with Five, with New Beginning, when it turned out to be the ambulance driver, which by the way, what a, please, please, just a random, I get it, him being someone else isn't the problem. It could be somebody else, but a random ambulance driver.
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah
Kyle Castro (41:3.872)
I just... And the fan base turned after that.
Matthew Blevins (41:4.482)
Yeah.
Matthew Blevins (41:8.146)
Yeah, I'd imagine. I think you should spoil that in like the intro or promo for this podcast so no one has to be subjected to five ever again.
Kyle Castro (:Yeah, think the statute of limitations were good. mean, that was what, 1984, 1985? But yeah, and then Jason Go To Hell is just, you get bored. They got bored and they were like, well, let's come up with this really high concept. And they got a good director, a guy that had some interesting, he worked with Sam Raimi, you know, and the director of Jason Go To Hell. And like, he had all this gravitas and then he just threw it away. But I do think the best one is four. And I'll tell you why, four.
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah.
Kyle Castro (:The final chapter, they treated it like a final chapter and you can tell they put a lot of love into it. It's kind of like to me is still the apex of the, of the Jason's appearance. It's when it wasn't so deteriorated that it didn't make sense anymore. You know what I mean? Um, you know, like when they, like later, when he gets hurt in the later entries, you know, he gets caught up in a speedboat propeller and still bleeds a lot, even though he was a corpse for 10 years.
and has no blood left in his body and was revived by lightning yet he's just protruding all this blood into the water. Like this is, again, you can't measure the consistencies as a measure of these movies because that's just not what they care about, but Four felt like, to me, the best filmmaking that they ever did. I think Five, actually, as bad as it is, has some really interesting camera work in terms of how they, the footwork and the way they zoom in on, they feature the legs at the killer. I thought that was the only interesting thing about it. Four,
feels like it would have been a great final, actual final chapter like they planned it to be.
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah, and it makes sense too. If you think about it, it's the first one that had the actual Jason character that wasn't trying to service the 3D effect for the entire movie and just these site gags and which, you know, it lends itself well to the genre because if you think to the first movie, it was just a tableau of Tom Savini kill scenes. But if you put that into a 3D environment, you know, just stabby stabby, I guess it's, you probably could do a lot more with it than they did, but.
Kyle Castro (:Yeah.
Kyle Castro (:Yeah.
Matthew Blevins (:you know, what are you going to do, I suppose, with the technology at the time.
Kyle Castro (:They did that with Jaws 3 too. You remember Dennis Quaid? Like they had to like, when you blew up the shark at the end, the Jaws had to float up to the screen and be like, they were picking their places. Like, well, this has got to be 3D here. They were justifying the expense. Basically it's like they're, they're filming this movie and then three is good. I know it's legendary because that doc scene, that's the first time Jason wears the hockey mask. That's a big deal. get it. But just servicing the 3D element is so annoying to me.
Matthew Blevins (:Mm -hmm.
Kyle Castro (:It's so, but I get it, it was innovative, it was new.
Matthew Blevins (:It's the context thing too. I mean, if when you're going back and watching it on DVD, mean, trying to remember that it's trying to service this goofy 3D effect and...
Which the filmmakers are like, we were trying to use it to tell a story. okay, what story was that?
Kyle Castro (:Yeah, yeah. Now I wanna go back and vomit watching Jaws 3 again. Awesome. Well, I'm gonna close this out with a closing question. I was thinking about what would be a really interesting conversation to close this out on? And I was thinking it's 2024, it's election season, we got the craziness going on, it's a different time and place. My question to you was, and I love that you have the film background you do here because I think the comedy stuff will play in here too. Could this type of franchise take it exactly how it is now?
ver entries and graft it into:is to credit for that chronologically speaking. But let's just take the mores of today. Do you think we could birth, say slasher stuff hadn't happened yet? Is 2024, are we gonna generate this type of content?
Matthew Blevins (:I don't think that you're gonna get people into the theaters for those films in 2024 the way that they are. I don't know what you could do in 2024 to actually scare people anymore. Like augmented reality or like sign up to have someone come to your house and sneak in the back door and just jump out at you, that sort of thing. mean...
A film franchise, I don't know if it would have the power that it had then.
Matthew Blevins (:Like, I don't know. Unless you're starting actual wars, like, you're just not exciting enough to make a movie that's gonna impress people anymore.
Kyle Castro (46:8.962)
Yeah, and now we're video games, you know, and I love video games, but I play my favorite game of all time is The Last of Us. And I was telling a friend the other day, I was playing The Last of Us, they re redid part one for PS5. And like I had to pause, you can do like camera, you can take a picture of your game in game. I paused, I was like, what is that? And I noticed that like they captured the detail of like you shoot with someone with a shotgun and the brain is slowly.
like a slug just slowly trudging down the wall. And I'm just like, my God, like that's the detail. I grew up on Mario, you know? I had an NES. I grew up on Duck Hunt, you know? And this is where we're at in our video games. This is our pretend time, you know, as an adult. This is imagination time. This is how we exert our imagination these days as adults, as video game time. I'm like, and they got brains! I mean, that's...
That's violent. It's so you're right. It's like.
Matthew Blevins (:How can you compete with that on like a flat screen anymore? You could literally, you could just zoom in on any portion of the violence that you want to see or you could, yeah, you just can't compete with that in movies. I don't know if anyone's trying right now, but you know, I love though that I'd say something like that and then eventually something will come out that'll prove me wrong again. And I love that too. You know, I love when a movie comes out and challenges all of those.
Kyle Castro (:Mm.
Matthew Blevins (:uh... conceptions and all of that cynicism again but it's been a long time since one's done that to me
Kyle Castro (:Yeah, yeah, the one I was texting you about in a violent nature, I think is what it's called. And then that's considered like an art house take, you know, on the, and it's very divided. It's weird. I see a lot of advertisements. I guess it did well at can and a lot of people, it's very slow and it's from the perspective of the killer. And you know, when I saw it, I thought it was a Friday the 13th reboot because from the back, it looks almost exactly like Jason, but it is these very slow scenic takes. And it's from the perspective. I haven't watched it yet. I have it on my docket, but
There are people trying to take new spins on it, but when I read the comments, it doesn't reflect what I'm reading. You know, I'm reading the papers, you know, and I'm reading the critics. They're obsessed with it, but the fans, it's basically 50 -50 on the reception of it.
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah, critical, I don't know, I think we're all bought and paid for now too. That was probably part of the reason why I stopped being a critic is that I don't know, I expressed my honest opinions, I guess. And I was once threatened to be sued by a Nigerian filmmaker named Pascala Tuma. He directed this movie at the time it was called The Trace.
and it had Billy Dee Williams in it. I was excited to review it and it was one of the worst things I ever saw and I wrote a scathing review and we had to have a meeting about the response that we received to that review. He threatened to sue and then he started like calling the editorial office and complaining. I don't know if film criticism
Kyle Castro (:Yeah, we were.
Matthew Blevins (:has the guts it used to have back, you know, in like Pauline Kael's day or something like that where people were digesting art and trying to have a discourse about it in an honest and insightful way. And I don't see that happening very often out there. I see a lot of good discourse with film fans and social media and whatnot, but I don't see critics out there that are charging ahead.
and kind of defining the social or like the cultural narrative anymore. And how can you, I guess, with as fragmented as we all are, I don't know how you would do that anymore.
Kyle Castro (50:1.890)
Yeah. No, that's great point. I think that's interesting. Yeah. I know when I read film reviews and I'm just like, I don't know if I can take this. And there's certain cultural high points too. And I feel like a lot of people are just trying to meet. Whether or not you agree with them politically is not my point. My point is that there's popular points in the political zeitgeist right now in the conversation, the social commentary. And you get points by,
hitting on those, you know, and unfortunately, whether that's good or bad, I don't think that should extend to art. Art is always the, you know, comedians, always, when people ask me what writing standup is like, to me, you got a pedestal and you got a subject on that pedestal and the comedians are just changing that light 45 degrees and giving you the new light. That's what art is. Art is the new perspective. It's a perspective that maybe the lesser creative inclined may not pick up on and that's not a...
That's not an insult to the lesser creatives. I'm just saying that's our, that's our role and uh, category. Yeah. No, please.
Matthew Blevins (51:1.464)
Yeah, absolutely. felt, I was, sorry. I was in my days as a film critic. I always thought that my job was to kind of offer that way for other people to understand what I saw in something that they weren't able to see. It's like, you have to bring them to that understanding and you don't do that by like ostracizing 50 % of your fan base or whatever. You have to bring everyone to the water and teach them like.
You can lead them there and let them drink, I guess, but you got to get them there.
Kyle Castro (:Yeah. Yeah. Movies are such great arbiters of the, of the marketplace of ideas because it's, it's visual, it's audio, it's, it's writing, it's poetry, it's everything. It's, it's every, it's every artistic sense you can think of. And, and it's what a better format to challenge and to, like, I love how you said, bring them to the water. And like, this is where the conversation happens. You know what I'm saying? And movies, that's why I think I love them because it makes me think about my philosophy.
makes me think about my beliefs. makes me think, what am I seeing? What am I processing? Is the way I'm thinking of it the way the director meant it? Am I receiving it the way they meant it? And there's such a great conversation internally that happens.
Matthew Blevins (:Absolutely. And then you could get to further that conversation. Does it even matter if you're missing the point entirely? Which is what I told myself to rationalize hundreds of film reviews.
Kyle Castro (:Yeah, it doesn't matter what I
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah, if I got it wrong, does it matter? I had opinions and I said them in words.
Kyle Castro (:Yeah.
Yeah. Well, and you find out too, mean, know, Kurt Cobain's a great example of this, you know, a whole generation of Gen Xers, you know, clung to his, his lyrics, you know, as, some sort of poetic guideline for their lives. But like he openly admitted, he's like, I don't think about lyrics. He's like, I write them last minute. Like when we're ready to record vocals, I write the lyrics and I don't think about it yet. You know, a whole generation of young people, Gen X teenagers subscribe to it as some sort of, you know, you know, mythology.
So all that to say, the artists often don't actually know too, you know.
Matthew Blevins (53:6.188)
Yes!
Matthew Blevins (:Absolutely, and the artists can be wrong too with their own interpretation of their own work. I've seen that before too.
Kyle Castro (:Yeah. Well, dude, this has been a fantastic conversation. I couldn't have thought of a better person to join me for this. So I I look forward to doing more with you. want to, yeah, I want to make sure people know where to find your comedy, but find your other work as well. Why don't you tell the people your social handles, when they can come see you do stand up, where you're going to be.
Matthew Blevins (:Heck yeah man, this was a blast.
Matthew Blevins (:So right now you can check me out on all of the social media at BLEVO comedy BLEVO Co. You know how to spell comedy I try to keep it consistent across all the platforms on that and you can search for Matthew Blevins comedian on YouTube and I've got some stuff out there a couple of comedy specials from a few years ago and then a recent thing that was recorded and an egg restaurant a Christian owned egg restaurant, so
they stopped like I think in:If you email me, I will email you back with all of the reviews because I keep them on my desktop hoping that one day... Here's the sad part. I one time took all of my columns from my Saturday column and put them in one Word file just to see how long it was. And it was like seven novels worth of writing. So I'm just here to let everyone know that...
I didn't just start wasting my life when I started comedy. I've been wasting it this whole time.
Kyle Castro (:Yeah. You're already thinking of your next way to waste it. You know, that's what we do. That's, you know, podcasting. Maybe you should start a podcast. I mean, just, there's so many great ways to waste your time. No, man. Check out the special, uh, very funny individual. I love that your comedy is out there, dude. And I'm so glad that we connected on movies.
Matthew Blevins (:Yeah.
Matthew Blevins (:100 %
Kyle Castro (:For me, you know for the movie wars crew. I'm glad to be back Announcements September 29th is the first recording of the core show of movie wars I got I'm have a series of guests that are gonna come in and serve you guys remember Drew and Phil they started a kind of a venture and Their time is limited but Drew and I my best friend and you guys remember Drew We are gonna do an alien retrospective in November
So we're gonna go through that stuff, but Drew Davis another comedian here in Nashville, Tennessee and Seth Keys as well are gonna join me We're gonna do the crow I'm a die -hard crow fan. I reacted horribly just to the idea of the reboot and Maybe too much. I'll admit it. I was a little emotional because that's one of those childhood, you know novels novelties of mine
Matthew Blevins (56:5.218)
nice.
Kyle Castro (:But starting September 29th, we're gonna start recording that. So in October, you're gonna start seeing the new core show come out. So keep your eye out for that. Make sure you go follow Matthew, check out his stuff and it's been real love y 'all. See ya.
