All righty. Hello, everybody.
Hey, friends, it is Vincent here from Camp Kaiju Monster Movie podcast.
And this is Patrick from Gaze Do the D podcast.
And we are here for another crossover episode of Magic and Monsters,
where we explore the wonderful world of creature features.
And not just any creature features, those dark films
that came out of the House of Mouse, the ones that make you say, wait, wait, wait,
wait, wait, wait, that is a Disney movie and not only a Disney movie,
maybe even a superhero movie today, we're talking about Morbius.
It is Morbin time, everybody.
Weedles and Kaiju campers.
Here we go.
Well, come to this happy place. Perfect.
Nailed it. You know, it's our second
installment here, Magic and Monsters.
Roger Rabbit was so much fun to talk about. Patrick, feel free to disagree with me.
But I had a lot of fun.
I can't I can't disagree with you.
I you know, I love that movie so much.
And our listeners can know that because it was like a four hour episode
because we couldn't stop talking about Roger Rabbit.
And that's OK.
It is OK. Today.
This week's episode will be shorter, not because
I mean, we could talk for hours and hours about anything. True. True.
But is Morbius the same hat?
Does it have the same depth and richness as who framed Roger Rabbit?
Debatable. Is that heading on?
Sorry, I'm I'm cutting to the end already.
It's not it's not as rich or as deep as I'm trying to be very nice.
This is going to be a theme for me.
I'm going to be very nice to this film. Great. Very generous.
Because I think it's easy to rip apart.
But as we say on Camp Kaiju,
we review the good, the bad and the campy and all strange beasts are welcome.
So that's right. Morbius, you know, if his parents sign them up for camp
this summer, we're not going to turn them away just for being a bad movie.
We're going to say, come on in. Welcome.
There's a game of of monopoly happening over there.
And the other vampires are over there. That's right.
Morbius might be sitting by himself at a table at this camp,
but he is welcome nonetheless. You're right.
So what's up with you in in Disneyland?
I meant that that's actually no pun intended.
I meant Disney Space Land for you in your life.
How's the podcast going?
Thanks so much for asking. Let's see. When last we met, what has been going on?
I've been to Disneyland Paris this past summer, which was a blast.
Highly recommend the overseas parks are just awesome.
They're not to be missed, not to be slept on. Let's see. What else?
I just did. I have to toot your own horn for you, Vincent.
I just did a reading of your show Wolf's Blood at Lake Shore
Players Theater had a blast. Love the script.
Hopefully there's more to come out of the show.
Yeah. Well, thanks for tootin' my horn.
You're welcome. I'll toot yours.
I listened to your holes episode of Gaze Do the G.
Not a monster movie, but a really fun movie, I think, that
has a lot under the surface, too.
So for Camp Kaiju listeners, you know, Patrick and his co-hosts
do review movies occasionally.
And those are always really insightful, good conversations that I would recommend.
Thanks. Thank you, sir.
What's what's going on with you over at Camp Kaiju?
What's exciting? What's going on? What's what's coming up?
What should we not miss?
Well, speaking of wolves, last week's episode
was on Universal's The Wolf Man from 1941.
Yes. Matt and I dig into that.
And this coming month, we have a really strange movie called God Told Me To,
which is like a religious cult film from the 70s.
Supernatural stuff going on.
And then Godzilla minus one.
So we will we're going to have a lot of fun talking about the big G.
Not in not too long. Yeah.
Amazing. Man, The Wolf Man, such a great movie.
Are you excited for the the remake that's coming out?
I am intrigued.
I would say that I I'm here for it.
I'm going to watch it.
Yeah, I don't expect it to be necessarily a good movie.
It's from the same director as The Invisible Man. Right.
Yeah. So yeah, that movie, I do think deserves its critical acclaim.
So I'm like, OK, maybe hopefully The Wolf Man is at that level.
It appears to like the previews that I've seen, it looks like it's going to be
sort of that kind of that same genre of taking, you know, classic horror
story and turning it into more of a psychological thriller instead.
So I'm interested to see where they go with this one for The Wolf Man.
Same. And that comes out in January.
Shifting gears, getting back to vampires a little bit.
Yeah. How about the new Nosferatu?
Oh, that's right. I forgot that that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure.
Nosferatu classic. Another classic movie.
Really creepy.
Already one of the creepiest movies in the world.
So I'm interested to see what they do with this one as well.
Yeah, that's from Robert Eggers.
Did The Witch, The Lighthouse and it comes out Christmas Day.
Amazing. So really, I really feel good.
Holiday movie is Nosferatu.
And then wait for New Year's Eve, you can go watch The Wolf Man.
What? What's happening right now?
Maybe we'll have a we'll we'll be able to get to the movie theaters for that one.
Yeah, I think we have to.
There are Christmas mornings.
That's right. Yeah. Incredible.
Before we continue, I do just got to shout out Camp Kaiju Camp Kaiju's patrons.
Jason, Chris, Sean, Peggy and our anonymous patron.
Thank you for your support.
It allows Camp Kaiju to branch off a little bit and do some fun
collabs with Patrick and Gaze Do the D.
Yeah. Thanks for thanks for joining that family.
And then I guess on the same side, thank you to all of our patrons as well.
If you want to join the Gaze of the D Patreon page,
go over to Gaze Do the D dot com and click the donate button.
And I imagine they can also go to Camp Kaiju dot com
and click your Patreon button as well.
That's true. You can also just find
all the links to that in our show notes.
Wherever you podcast.
And I will add, it's hard for me to ask people for likes
and reviews and ratings on the podcatchers.
But as a producer, I have to I have to do my duty.
So for any of you all listening, if you do like this episode,
go ahead and give us a positive rating and review.
Please. Really.
It would go a long way and we really appreciate it.
It does. It's true.
It does. It goes further than you think it does.
Like it actually does help a lot when you do that.
So thank you in advance.
Yeah. Let's see.
So everybody listening, here's what we're going to do.
We are going to run through why we chose Morbius,
our own histories with this film, and maybe we'll get into
the larger MCU and what Sony's doing.
We're also going to going to talk about Supernatural,
the supernatural legacy of Marvel and the comics.
We'll get into the comic history of Morbius.
And then we will talk about this movie specifically,
its production, its release and its reception.
We have a quiz show lined up.
And I this is my redemption tour here because
I went too easy on Patrick with the Roger Rabbit quiz.
I may have gone a little too difficult on that one as well.
So I yeah, the tables are likely going to turn today.
I hope so. If not, I am.
I got I got a regroup here.
And then and then we'll talk about our personal reviews
of this film, how we felt watching it,
if we're still thinking about it, those sorts of things.
I like it. I like it.
Should we get into it? Let's do it.
Let's do it. So why why Morbius?
It's a big question.
What are your thoughts, Patrick?
Well, to be quite honest, a little behind the curtain here,
we didn't actually choose Morbius in the first place for this episode.
Morbius chose us.
Morbius did seek us out after two failed attempts
at trying to watch other movies that no longer exist anywhere in the world.
So unless we want to like buy them on eBay and watch them on VHS or something,
we'd have to pay dollars for 80 dollars.
It's ridiculous.
So we were going to try to watch Watcher in the Woods. Right.
And then we realized very quickly that that doesn't exist anymore.
The TV show still exists, but it's not the same as the movie.
So we skipped that one.
And then we were going to try to watch something wicked this way comes.
But that's also not available anywhere, which is a shame,
because they're both wonderful, wonderful movies that deserve to be seen again.
Only I only know that through reputation, through reputation.
Yeah. So Watcher in the Woods, I wanted to watch.
It's from 1979, stars Betty Davis.
I was right. Yeah. And it's a ghost story.
It's a teen ghost story.
And it has been called the scariest Disney movie of all time.
It's creepy. That's for sure.
But for whatever reason,
I guess Disney hasn't got the memo that horror is the most popular genre.
Disney's buried this movie.
They did. They absolutely did.
DVDs are out of print.
So you can find them on Amazon again for way too much money.
It's not streaming anywhere.
It's a real bummer.
Yeah, I want I would love to dig into why this is, but there's just it's just gone.
Like, there's no real discussion out there around why they chose to get rid of it.
So I'm curious if anyone else knows that there's a story behind it.
I would love to know.
So anyways, all that being said, we then pivoted because we did want to do a Halloween
episode and bring out kind of a creepier movie in the in the Disney realm.
And so we went with a vampire and that would be Morbius.
So we kind of landed on this by default.
We wanted to watch it anyways, but it wasn't our first choice.
But it was a good choice because I have a lot of opinions about this movie.
So I'm excited to talk to you about it.
Same. And I got a shout out.
Camp Kaiju's friend and our mutual friend, Avery.
Mm hmm. At a summer barbecue.
Not too long ago, she she very adamantly requested Camp Kaiju do Morbius.
Interesting. I was really like, I, you know, I'm not going to rule it out.
But here's the deal. I'm going to share with you, Patrick and everyone else.
Yeah. Like Camp Kaiju, we stay away from.
Marvel movies, superhero movies, the same as we do like Lord of the Rings or Star Wars.
Like, are there monsters in these worlds?
Yes. But they're not exactly strange to these worlds, if that makes sense.
Yeah. And it's just like, I don't know.
That's not like a monster movie when you think of a monster movie.
Totally. I get that. It's it's Marvel is its own realm.
I feel like it's not necessarily a horror genre, though you could classify
Morbius as a horror movie within the Marvel
cinematic universe and the Marvel comic universe as well.
So this one does stand out.
I think you and I were talking about this already off camera.
It does stand out just a little bit from the main Marvel world.
And I feel like that's a little bit because it's also a Sony movie as well.
So it's not necessarily just a Disney movie.
Sony actually really produced this movie
and they lean a little heavier into that into that genre than Disney does.
So it makes sense. Yeah. And.
And and what what
Morbius feels different to me, and this is why I'm like,
yeah, I can make an exception in my almighty power that
I'm. Morbius lives more in the world of Blade
the vampire hunter, which have you seen those movies from the
the Wesley Sly films?
Absolutely. Love them. Yeah.
Those movies were among the earliest Marvel movies.
And like they predate the X-Men franchise.
And the first Blade movie was hugely popular.
And I remember watching that I had an idea.
I had no idea Blade was even a superhero. Right.
Those movies aren't made like with that aesthetic we're used to today.
So with I think we would absolutely talk about Blade on Camp Kaiju.
We haven't yet, but 100 percent.
So by that extension,
you know, Morbius doesn't have it that world.
I was like, yeah, OK. Yeah.
I mean, we may not do Venom on Camp Kaiju, but we would do Morbius.
That's fair. That's fair.
And this and speaking of world like, yeah, just nerding out just a scotch
is is that the Blade movies, they were, as you said, created a while ago
before Disney had acquired Marvel and before Marvel had created
the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
And so they live outside of what you consider
currently the Marvel Cinematic Universe, although you could argue
that's different now because of Deadpool and Wolverine,
he does make an appearance there, which is we'll get into that
maybe a little bit later.
But so this whole world of Venom and Morbius,
and you could argue even Spider-Man a little bit, lives in a different universe.
So I can see that this would actually fit quite nicely into Camp Kaiju
and Gaze Do The De. Right.
So can you talk a little bit more about your history of this film
and Marvel as a whole from a Disney point of view?
Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
I think the reason that we don't talk about this movie necessarily
on the Gaze Do The De podcast is because, yes, it is a Disney movie,
but only in that because Disney owns Marvel.
Like Disney didn't really hype this movie up on their platforms necessarily.
It does live on Disney Plus.
But that's only because, you know, they still want the dollars, I guess,
from it, because it is actually a pretty popular movie,
albeit not widely, I don't know, wrecked, critically acclaimed.
It's not a critically acclaimed movie.
I myself personally am a huge fan of the Marvel world,
the whole Marvel cinematic universe.
And I even like this side of the Marvel world to this little bit of a darker side.
I'm a huge fan, actually, of the Venom movies.
I really, really enjoyed those movies.
I think that they sort of hit the nail on the head
with those movies from a Sony perspective,
because they also got that a little bit of the Disney voice in there, too,
that just sort of clever silliness that Venom is.
And then the Spider-Man sort of homecoming universe, a huge fan of.
I think those movies are just pitch perfect.
They're absolutely incredible.
But they lean a lot more heavily into the Disney side of Marvel as well.
And so that's part of why that is, too.
Legal reasons. Sony owns it.
Disney doesn't own it.
But they do have a stake in it. Anyways.
And then there's the Morbius world as well.
And it's just, I don't know.
It's not my favorite movie, but I'm interested to talk about it.
But I love this world, but I feel like they missed the mark on this one
in inviting Morbius into this side of the Marvel world, if that makes sense.
They didn't go very far.
They almost tried to make it its own movie.
And so it feels very far away from the Disney universe.
And that's why I think a lot of people forget that it even exists in the Disney world.
Does that make sense?
It's kind of a long, roundabout way of saying, I don't know if it fits necessarily in the Disney world, in the Disney canon.
Right. Well, technically it may exist.
This character in this movie exists in the MCU.
Yeah.
You almost feel like it doesn't.
Yeah, I don't. Yeah, it's yeah.
It's like a distant, distant cousin, I feel like.
But didn't quite get on the invite list to the wedding or something.
You know what I mean? Like, they're just not quite there.
Now, admittedly, I have not seen the Venom movies.
I have not seen Madame Web.
These other Sony projects.
I'm not interested in Craven the Hunter.
Here's the deal. Yeah.
I you and I talk about this a lot.
But for listeners.
Like I grew up in Marvel, not like I am currently looking at several reference books on Marvel characters on my desk.
I have so many comic books.
And up until Infinity War, I watched all those movies.
Yeah. Right. When they came out, I love the interconnectedness.
I love this idea of emulating what the comics do so well that you can have Black Panther show up in a Thor movie, which may or may not have happened.
But in the comics that happened all the time. Yeah.
But then since that film, I just kind of fell off.
For me, I couldn't keep up with all the output that Disney was was creating with the TV shows and like everything was so connected.
Yeah. That I was a little intimidated by the mass.
It was critical mass. I was like, I can't I can't do this anymore.
It's a lot. Yeah. It's a lot.
So I love comic books. I love Spider-Man more than anything.
That doesn't necessarily. Shed over into the movies.
So back to my original point. Yeah.
Sony makes these Venom movies more obvious. There's a Craven the Hunter movie coming out.
The Andrew Garfield Sony pictures. I wasn't I didn't enjoy those as much as the Sam Raimi one.
So especially with Sony, there's a vibe. There's an aesthetic there that I've never really been a fan of.
I totally get that. I totally get they they they they knock it out of the park a lot with specifically with the Spider-Man movies.
I think with the Venom movies, they get on base with it at least. They don't necessarily hit it out of the park.
But then for me, anyways, specifically, Madam Web and a little bit more obvious, it's like they didn't even show up to the ballpark.
They just sort of did their own thing. Like, I don't know.
I'm trying to I'm beating this metaphor to death. But great base.
So, yeah, I totally get it. It's sort of like DC for me.
I love the DC comics, but the DC movies, there's been maybe one or two that I've been a fan of the rest of them.
It's just an aesthetic thing that I did. I just cannot latch on to.
There's something that's just they just don't quite get like a human interest involved enough or something.
I don't know what there's a disconnect for me with them. And that's I think what I have sometimes with Sony as well.
There's just a little bit of a disconnect. That's a good way to put it.
But anyways, towards the end of this episode, how that disconnect happens in Morbius, I would love to hear more specifics because I can I can point to things to with the script.
Yeah, direction. Yeah. Well, so.
So, OK, so we're talking about talked about Blade a little bit.
The darker side of Marvel Comics and like you, I love that darker side.
Marvel and, you know, people ask, you know, you when you ask people about comic books, you instantly think about superheroes.
But comic books have a long history in horror stories and the macabre and the supernatural.
I'm getting off a little bit of tangent here, but in the 1950s, there was a huge pushback against the comics industry from parents and religious interests.
And there's like a huge like congressional hearings about censorship in comic books and whether or not these are appropriate for children, because a lot of these comics at the time in the 50s, the most popular genre was horror.
And the artwork, I think, is gorgeous, but they depict like flesh melting off of bones and cannibalism and yeah, it's member mints, which, you know, could be you could.
What is what is what is child appropriate? That is just the question they were debating at the time. Yeah.
The very conservative America that it was a good example of that is sort of the Tales from the Crypt comic series. If you want, if you want some imagery that you're talking about, I think anyways, was where you're going with some of that is like, just look up some of those images.
And that's exactly what what they were bucking against, I guess, because they were quite macabre for sure for kids.
Yeah, I think Tales of the Crypt started in the 50s. It did. Yeah.
Nineteen and 1950, I think. There you go.
You know Mars Attacks, the movie? I do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you know that was based on a series of trading cards? Oh, you know what? That sounds familiar, but I wouldn't have like known that off top my head. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah.
I was just doing a Tim Burton dive and that led me down Mars Attacks to the trading cards, which were from the 1960s. The same thing like Tops, the Tops Trading Card Company got in a lot of hot water over the artwork of these Martians vaporizing humans.
Sure.
Now it's just like, I don't know. I look at Mars Attacks and I'm like, that's so entertaining. It's so imaginative. For sure. But at the time, controversy.
Well, for sure. I mean, if you think about it, because they were terrorizing Americans, I think was part of it. Like it was specifically like terror. And then during that time, you know, there was a lot politically going on.
And then they were like, we can't have kids celebrating American terror, which I get it. But yeah, I don't know.
A lot of censorship happening for sure.
I think if I think American terror is like the great name like for a band or haunted house.
There you go.
We're going to start it. We're going to start it now.
So in 1971, Morbius makes his debut as a character in Marvel Comics, specifically Amazing Spider-Man.
And he is dubbed Morbius the Living Vampire because he's not a true vampire the way Dracula is. And Dracula, mind you, is a character in Marvel Comics based on the literature.
Right.
So Marvel loves a good vampire and how Morbius gets his power. He's Dr. Michael Morbius. And this is reflected in the movie, too.
He's a Nobel Prize winning scientist and he is afflicted with a blood disease where he's like losing blood cells.
And he needs and he's trying he comes up with like some sort of serum or antidote that replenishes blood cells.
But here's where it differs in the comics. In the comics, he also goes through like an electroshock therapy.
And that combination of electroshocks and this blood serum creates an out of control sequence that turns him into a vampire in the sense that he now needs to feed on the human blood to replenish the blood he is losing because his blood cells are they keep dying.
Right.
So. So that's that's Morbius. That's his beginnings. He he's an antihero traditionally in the comics.
Right.
Not a villain per se. He tries to only feed on the blood of the bad guys.
But a really interesting development in his story and his relationship with Spider-Man is that he as Michael Morbius, he realizes that Spider-Man has radioactive blood and he becomes convinced that it's this radioactive blood that will cure him of his disease.
So that's why he always has runs it run into Spider-Man.
He's always trying to drink Spider-Man's blood.
I love that attracts that totally tracks. Absolutely.
It's so interesting. Very interesting. I love you know I have to say I do love a good antihero sort of a vigilante kind of a character. I think it's a there's so many interesting places you can go with it.
So I I do like this character on on the surface. I think that there is a depth there that can be explored. I hope maybe is explored in a different way under under different care.
Yeah. And just thinking out loud is like this character is really interesting. Is is there enough character though for him to lead his own movie his own franchise or and it's no diss to the character.
Is he better suited as a supporting character in a Spider-Man or a Blade movie.
I think yeah I think that's that's where I would have put him. And there's a lot of characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that they have been trying to like create vehicles for that it's just like this is no years.
This is a supporting character. This character is much more interesting when they're part of a different story because there's there's not enough to go around.
That's you know there's just not enough to really skews the pond flesh out here in in a full length feature film. It just it doesn't quite work for me.
There's yeah maybe it could have. I don't know under again under better writing and better care but not not here not now.
I would have loved to have seen him you know team up with Blade or something or even team up with Spider-Man in a in something.
You know I think that would be really cool even if they have their differences. That's always an interesting like sort of a buddy comedy kind of thing.
Two opposite characters are fighting against the same villain. Yeah. Imagine. I mean first of all I think it's wildly awesome that Spider-Man has a vampire character that he battles with.
So yeah like I see here's the difference in tone like. So we have a vampire character and this is a problem I had with Morbius the movie is that it's rated PG 13 and you really don't get any sense of violence.
Like there's no blood in this movie. Sure. It's all very mild and in a vampire movie. Come on. You got to show us the blood. Like that's why we want to see a vampire movie. Right.
Does that tone fit within the Marvel Sony Spider-Man tone that they have curated so carefully.
Right. And yeah I think that's a really good point. There is something inherently sort of grotesque about vampire stories and they don't do that here because of you're right the tone the sort of the world that they're creating is a violent world but it's not a bloody world necessarily the way that that that Blade was.
I mean there was actually a blood ball in Blade right like an entire scene was covered in blood which is incredible to see. But here yeah it's just it's a different world and they have to tame it down a little bit.
And so maybe that is probably part of it too that they can't go where you want them to go with a movie like this just because of the world that they sort of box themselves into which is not a bad thing but maybe he just doesn't need to live there then.
Right. Boxing them in boxing themselves and I think is a great way to put it. Yeah.
There is talk of a blade a new movie. Do you know more about that.
Not enough they've they've been toying with it for a while and teasing it for a while and like I said Blade does show up in the Deadpool and Wolverine movie which is incredible.
So I don't know enough about it. I can't remember the name of the actor who's going to play it so it is in the works it is happening I think it comes out next year or maybe in in two years.
But as far as the storyline I don't know anything about that. So you know more to come. Same ma maha shala Ali. Yes.
Has been at least preliminary cast as Blade I think he'd be an excellent choice. I wonder and I hope that with Deadpool and Wolverine being rated R.
Yeah Disney is willing to go there with a new blade. Yeah. Hey maybe a new Morbius. Yeah I agree. I think they have to at this point but blade like I know one's going to want to see it and they're going to be expecting you know Blade.
Blade is a badass character and it gets things get weird with blade and so I think they have to do it. Otherwise what's the point in bringing in rebooting it.
Right. A blessing and a curse that those Wesley snipe at least the first the first one I know is critically popular the second one is directed by Guillermo del Toro.
So it still is like a really well made movie. Yeah but I don't know if it's popularly regarded and the third one I know isn't really talked about. So I don't know. Yeah. Either way for better or for worse.
There's a standard that I hope Disney reaches with a new blade movie. Yeah I have a feeling they will because of what they've done with Deadpool.
I think that they're they're happy to lean into that as long as they market it correctly. Yeah. Well speaking of marketing films. Yeah. Why don't we get into the production history of Morbius a little bit.
Is there it was not a straightforward reproduction for this film. No no it sure was not and it was on hold for a very long time as well.
You want me to get into it or do you want to. Yeah you can get into it. Sure I mean so from from my recollection and from what I've read so it was released in 2022.
Right under Columbia Pictures in association with Marvel Entertainment and Sony like we already said just like the Venom movies and the Spider-Man movies it was it was intended to really be a part of that world.
And in fact I think way back in when it was being conceived in 2018 or 2019 when the rights were purchased I think Sony originally purchased the rights intending Morbius to be a part of the blade world and then he wasn't.
And then they intended to give him his own movie and that never happened and then we fast forwarded a while to 2019 when Jared Leto.
Signed on to do the movie and then things were back on track with a with a solo movie. And again they were they a lot of the writing and a lot of the production from what I understand they were really trying going to put this in the Spider-Man sort of universe in this world.
And then for I don't know why but for some reason in editing or something they got cold feet on it or something because they pulled out almost every reference to blade and to Spider-Man into that whole world they just pulled all of it.
Which I think left some plot holes in the movie if you if you really watch it you're like wait this it feels like something else was supposed to be here, but it's not so I don't know what happened.
So anyways back to the production though so 2019 things are under underway it was supposed to be released in 2020 but of course the COVID-19 pandemic happened and no one really wanted to see a movie or if we're ready to see a movie about a guy who uses bats I think was it was bad marketing.
Just really bad timing for for bats in general in 2020 and 2029 and then it got pushed it was supposed to then be released 2021 and got pushed again and then was finally released in March 2022 to not great reviews.
In fact it had a huge this is pretty funny a huge sort of like underground campaign on like YouTube and stuff people making fun of this movie and memes and and all that stuff and so it's so much so that Sony re-released it a year later I think or like six months later and it did just as poorly.
Like it's not that it was going to get people to come see the movie like come see how bad this is and people were like no no we already know that it's bad for not going to watch it again and so yeah it did not do well I think in fact it worldwide even to date it hasn't even hit the 200 million mark for for proceeds so not not not doing great not doing great.
Yeah I know in my own research like it is one of the worst reviewed receptive received superhero movies out there.
Think about any of those fantastic four films it kind of ranks in with the legacy of those movies.
Now here's the thing I'm gonna I'm gonna say this right now.
Yeah, I didn't think it was that bad.
I totally did a train wreck.
And you know what I got a movie that was a little boring, but it wasn't a sloppy film like it was. Yeah, I've seen poorly made movies.
Fair, fair. I know you know what, in all honesty I don't disagree with you. It's not like the worst thing that's ever happened. Obviously it's not even the worst thing in Marvel that's ever happened. So it's, it's a, it's a fine movie but it definitely.
It doesn't. Here's the thing for me it doesn't add anything necessarily to the Marvel world. I didn't go away from this thinking, I can't wait to see what happens next, or I hope they incorporate these characters into this world, it just was its own thing and it, it just kind of petered off for me I just I lost interest, a lot during the movie.
But it was, there was a lot of good actors in it, there is some interesting fight sequences or some interesting stuff happening with the camera work and CGI work.
It just, yeah, there was just a lot of plot I think for me definitely was just the writing and the conceiving of the movie is where it really jumped the track for me.
Yeah, yeah.
I have more to say on that but yeah fair.
Yeah, you mentioned the, the memes that came out of this.
I think that's, that's a little bit like the legacy of this movie. Just as a big joke, which, you know, here we are talking about it so like you know Morbius is welcome to the party.
Even if he's sitting by himself.
I do want to ask you before we get into our quiz show. Yeah.
What, how does this compare to Madame Web, because I've seen, like some reviews of that, that movie seems like a poorly made movie.
It's editing and I don't know, but I haven't seen it you've seen them both.
I have, I have unfortunately seen seen both of the movies.
So, interestingly, written by the same people. So, Matt, Sazama and Brooke Sharpless, I think is his name, wrote both of these movies.
And where it differs is definitely Madame Web was absolutely a horrifically written movie, like the, the script has so many plot holes, it's just, it's the dead dialogue as well if that makes sense like there's just no life in this movie at all.
In, in what they're saying they're not creative in terms of phrases they're not. It's just, it's almost as though they just took pages from the comic book and threw them on a page and said that'll, that'll work, that'll do it.
It just wasn't much thought put into it, and you can, you can see that a little bit here with Morbius. Morbius however, for whatever reason, is a better written movie.
That being said, it's not a wonderfully written movie. There's, there's lines in there like, this is the one that bothered me the entire time. They kept trying to sell this phrase of like, were the original Spartans, the few against the many, and I'm like, no, I think the Spartans were the original Spartans, like that's just a bad line, it just doesn't make any sense.
What do you mean the original, the what?
Right, right. There are so many lines like that, and I can't remember all of them but yeah I was like that.
It's like, it's almost an indescribable thing when you, and you know we're so familiar with, with story structure and dialogue and sure writing plays. And it's just like when you hear an awkward line.
I mean, movies have great actors in them. I mean, some, some not so much but generally have really, you know, people who have been in better things and done really well in them are saying, you can tell you can just see it in their faces of like, I hate saying this line, I don't want to say it's a terrible line.
That was just it the entire time, specifically for Madame Web, it was just bad line after bad line after bad line, with no real plot point that made any sense. More of yous at least had a little bit of a through line that they were getting from point A to point B.
It just didn't always make sense.
You had to do a lot of the work yourself as an audience member.
Wow. Okay.
Won't be high on my list to watch. It's, you know, it's worth it just to like having seen it, like just to complete your Marvel history lesson I guess but it's definitely not one that they're going to return to at all, ever.
All right, well good. Yeah.
Let us go into our quiz here.
I like it.
Here we go. Patrick, how many questions do you have for me.
I have three questions for you Vincent, I have three questions for you. These are multiple choice so you do not, it's not like our typical trivia that we have.
I do. Yes, this is just a quiz show.
And Patrick while you prepare your questions, I'm going to get our tallies from the last quiz show we did. I'm going to see where you're sure you want to look at it, Vincent, are you sure you want to.
It can't be worse than Morbius.
Hey, Patrick, you have three points, and I have 1.5.
That's right, that's right because I think I worded one of my questions oddly, and that threw you off.
Yeah, yeah, so you get one point for each question.
You can say no, do we want to subtract points for any wrong answer. Oh, wow. I, I'm not feeling very confident on this quiz so I'm going to say no to subtraction this time around.
Because you're in a position to say that.
Alright, hit me with your first question.
Okay, so all of my questions are related to vampires in Disney history, Vincent.
Are you ready?
Yes.
Alright, in the Nightmare Before Christmas, what toy do the four vampire brothers create? Is it the shrunken head? Is it the zombie duck? Or is it the jack-o-lantern in a box?
Zombie duck.
That is correct.
Yes.
Good job, good job.
Woo. I like it.
I love that part of the movie.
It's so great. That's such a great movie.
Yeah.
Okay, I have one point.
Ding ding ding.
My questions largely relate to Morbius.
Ooh, okay.
But Marvel in general.
Great.
Okay.
I'm going to give you the easy one.
Though it may not be clear in Morbius, from which country does the character originate in?
Is it Romania, Greece, or Bulgaria?
Oh, goodness. Okay.
So you're asking where does Dr. Morbius hail from? Is that the question?
Yes, his country of origin.
Okay. I want to, for some reason Bulgaria is in my head, so I'm just going to go with that one.
You are incorrect.
Ah.
It is Greece.
Greece. Interesting. Yeah, that was not clear. A lot of things weren't clear in this movie, and that was one of them.
But you know, I almost gave it up earlier because you're talking about the Spartan lines, 300.
Oh.
Knowing that they're in Greece in the beginning.
But like you don't know they're in Greece?
I didn't, I wouldn't, because he has an American accent and his friend Milo has a British accent.
And so why would they be in Greece? It doesn't make any sense.
It starts out, so it starts out not making sense. Great.
Absolutely. Jared Leto is so American and Matt Smith is so British. Yeah.
So weird. Okay.
Alright, well, it's not your fault. It's the writing.
So I'm ready for my second question.
Okay, here we go. On Friday the 13th, 2000, Vincent, this Disney Channel original movie was released,
featuring Caroline Rae playing a woman who's been set up on a date with a mysterious man who turns out to be a vampire.
Is the title of this movie, My Date with Dracula? Is it Mom's Got a Date with a Vampire? Or is it Love at Stake?
Oh, I tell you, I wish it was Love at Stake. But is it My Mom's Got a Date with a Vampire?
It is. Mom's Got a Date with a Vampire.
Alright.
I tried so hard to come up with a worse title, but there's nothing worse than that title.
I mean, it tells you what it is. It really, it's the whole plot of the movie. It's right there in the title. You don't have to watch it.
Maybe next time on Magic and Monsters.
That's right. Amazing. Alright, let's go with my next incorrect answer.
Well, I don't know. So the actor Tyrese Gibson, well he's a musician, but he's playing the agent Simon Stroud in Morbius.
Now in the trailer, this character was featured with a robotic appendage that never appeared in the final film.
Appendage? Okay.
What was this appendage? A leg, an arm, or a neck?
What? A robotic appendage. Oh man, neck is so obvious, but because of the, but oh man.
I really want it to be the neck, but I think he probably had, we've had, we have too many robotic arms in Marvel, so I feel like it's probably a robotic leg.
No, it's the arm. It is the arm. They can't get away from robotic arms in Marvel.
They're everywhere. Everyone's got a robotic arm in some movie. I wonder how many movies are out there with a character with a robotic arm. I bet there's a lot.
Winter Soldier, Iron Man, there's more than one.
Doesn't the Punisher, does the Punisher have a robotic arm? No, I don't think so.
I thought he had something, anyways, but yeah, amazing. Alright.
Let's see, we're on to question number three. I'm batting zero right now. Okay, here we go.
So Disney has a full animated show featuring a young girl vampire, which aired for three seasons.
What was the name of that show? Was it The Littlest Vampire? Was it Vampirina? Or was it Dracula?
No idea. Not a clue. I'm gonna say, what was the first one? The Littlest Vampire.
That's just the cutest name, so I'm gonna go with The Littlest Vampire. It is a cute name. It is not The Littlest Vampire, though.
It is Vampirina, and it's actually a really good show. I highly recommend it. Highly recommend it.
For all ages, there's musical numbers in it. It's great. It's wonderful. Alright. When was the song?
I think it was on, I think it stopped airing like two years ago, so it's like five-ish years old. Vampirina. Vampirina.
Alright, my last question. Once upon a time, Count Dracula, desperate for blood, attacked this farm animal that later became a vampire.
This creature became a foe of Howard the Duck, and later an ally of Deadpool. What is this vampire's name? Is it Hell Cow? Hell Horse? Or Hell Swine?
Hell Swine. Oh, that's so good! Hell Swine. See, I know that you're very clever, and so I think you're trying to throw me with Hell Swine.
But it does sound very Howard the Duck-y, so I'm going with Hell Swine. I wish. It is Hell Cow. Hell Cow.
Oh, they missed a mark on that one. It should have been Hell Swine, because it sounds like Van Helsing, so they could have named it Van Helswine.
That would have been incredible. Incredible. Well done. You got me. You got me on this one.
The Hell Cow, formerly known as Bessie, was attacked by Count Dracula, became Hell Cow.
That tracks. Howard the Duck. That's a movie we should maybe consider doing as well. Forget about that one.
I have yet to see it, but again, I know it's one of the worst movies ever made. It's wild. It's wild. It's burned into my memory. That's for sure.
A cool character, though. Howard the Duck. Underrated. Yeah, totally. I have a Howard the Duck little action figure of all.
Adorable. Yeah, that's funny.
Too good. Too good. Okay, well, let's just dig into a little bit of what we liked, didn't like about Morbius.
So let me ask you, like, what works for you in this film?
Such a great question. Not a lot to choose from. No, I'm just kidding. So I did actually really enjoy the character, although I have things to say about it.
Milo. I think his, the nemesis in the character who is also in the movie, who is also his friend, turned out to be his enemy later on.
I think that's an interesting plot line. I don't know enough about the comic books to know if that was, if they invented that for this movie or not, but maybe you can answer that.
But I found that character really interesting and intriguing. And maybe that had a lot to do with who was it?
Chris Smith, who played it, who's Matt Smith, Matt Smith, sorry, Matt Smith, who played it, who's great, who's who was wonderful in the movie, given some not great lines.
But the character itself, I thought was good. And I also, like I said before, I like, I like an antihero.
I like a conflicted character who is trying so hard to be good, but can't help it, but be bad sometimes in that he needs to drink human blood.
And I think there's a lot there that could have been a better movie. And I think I appreciated maybe the characters more than I appreciated the movie itself.
That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. What about you? Yeah, I in the beginning, I loved actually, I actually I think I might have liked everything up until.
Michael becomes more be as the vampire. I feel like the tone was was campy in like a good way, like a so bad.
Sure. Sure. It was like mad scientist feels going on the hubris, the science.
I'm going to create this blood serum. And it was like very like that's what you read comic books for.
Anyways, you just like, yeah, this feels good. Yeah.
I'm going to stick with the good I liked. So there's some there's a little Easter egg for horror fans.
The ship that they that Michael Morbius is experimenting on that's parked out in international waters.
It's called the mark. It's called the Murnau or the Murnau.
FW Murnau was the director of the original Nosferatu. Oh, interesting. OK. Yeah. Yeah. So for vampire fans, you're like, I see you.
I like it. I like it. Yeah.
Is that it? That's it. No, I like it.
Like I agree with you. Like there's a lot of interesting ideas being presented. Yeah.
In fact, including I picked up on this. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
The conflict between Milo and Michael seems to be Milo's resentment that because they both have this illness, this like degenerative illness.
Milo's resentment that Michael, as he as Milo says, doesn't accept who he is.
That's repeated often in this film.
And when I see two male characters, especially vampires, having that kind of conflict, I wonder if there's not a subtext of Milo is interested in being more than friends with Michael.
And Michael's just, you know, for whatever reason, not engaged in that way.
Yeah, there's definitely. Yeah, there's definitely some sort of a underlying tension between the two of them that doesn't really get revealed.
Yeah, I think that. Yeah, I think that's interesting.
But but the movie doesn't explore that. It doesn't like invest in its stakes. No pun intended.
It's just it's just very flat movie. Yeah, it has.
Yeah, ideas that it doesn't like who gave these writers a job.
Twice gave him another job from Adam Webb. Yeah, right.
I don't know. It's just so interesting. I'm going off a little bit like in the playwriting world, in the theater world. Yeah.
Right. A script. It's never just produced. It goes through development and with people who give you critiques and feedback and and they'll see an interesting idea and they'll challenge you to go deeper into that idea.
Flesh it out. But I feel like with movies, you just write a script and they and the producer goes, All right, that's this is it.
I'm going to film this movie and like, I don't think there's that kind of development phase. Yeah, I don't think I don't know. But I don't. Yeah, there was just there was there's a lot of easy stuff that they missed in this movie.
I feel like with plot like they just could have added a couple more lines that would have explained something else or but you mean they just didn't quite get there for whatever reason.
And like silly stuff was missed to like the doctor who was helping them and was really sort of obsessed with this friendship and not obsessed but was really wanted to see them succeed and et cetera.
Like just cinematically, they didn't age him though. Like once they like he was the same age the entire movie, even though these characters had aged 20 years in the future.
The character never changed. So it was like that that was a really weird miss to not do anything with that character or explain why he was was so smitten with these boys.
You know what I mean? It just didn't it didn't quite develop the way that it could have and the character Milo the fact that they changed his name in the very first scene of the movie made zero sense to me.
Other than they forgot what his name was or something because he was named his name is Lucius or Lucian or something who is a character in the Morbius world in the comics.
And it would have been cool if he was that character then but then they just fully changed his name.
He goes with it and then goes with the name Milo and they everyone calls him Milo from the nun didn't make any sense to me.
Not a lick of sense and and and how about in the beginning the very beginning it's like a prologue. Yeah. Yes.
Dr. Michael Morbius he goes to a cave of vampire bats in South America and you're like ooh what's this like Indiana Jones thing going on. Right.
And then it said then it cuts to New York City and it says or wherever it cuts to and it says 25 years earlier.
Mm hmm. Now this whole movie I'm expecting it to end where we began at the cave.
Because that's what happens when you say 25 years earlier never showed up again didn't even go back to the cave.
Like it was didn't make sense. It didn't make any sense.
Did make any sense. Everyone was like he didn't tell people what he was doing with the bats or where they didn't not a lick of sense.
And then suddenly the bats are in his office and that didn't make it like how did how did all of these bats get into this enormous office that apparently is the size of a building and no one saw it happen.
Like everyone was just blind to the fact that he had constructed an entire vault of bats and these bats live in like this glass case didn't make any sense.
The bats can't survive that way. They live in caves for a reason. They're in like he's got them kept in like they can't even hang anywhere.
They're just flying around constantly flying. They just never landed anywhere. They had no branches to land on.
They had nothing at all. It was it didn't make any sense in like a fluorescent lighted room is just those bats are going to die.
Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. It's it had it's like I said it's such a promising character and storyline that they just missed fully missed the mark on in this one.
They're not enough good things to talk about. Unfortunately, no one more bad thing I'll mention because it I didn't catch it like Morbius sits down at a coffee shop with Martin is his co-scientist
and also apparently love interest, which it was almost like, oh, we need them to kiss. So so people think that they're in love.
Yeah. So they kiss it like towards the end and you're like, OK, sure. But they're sitting at a diner and Morbius like Jared Leto sticks his hand out over a cup of coffee and then like acts like he got hurt.
Like, oh, then then he's like, just joking. I'm not that kind of vampire.
And I went, I don't get it. Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. Like, what does the coffee have to do with with that?
But then in hindsight, I was reading about the movie and apparently he was sticking his hand out in a ray of light through the window and by the light.
You see, that's poor direction because you don't understand that that's what he was doing. Yeah. Yeah.
Where was the director that craft that moment visually? It's just one of many. Weird moments that don't land jokes that don't make sense.
Yeah. And you're just baffled by it all baffled. That's a great word for it. Baffled, baffled, baffled, baffled.
Amazing. Amazing. So, yeah, there we go. Morbius. There it is.
Anything else to add? Any final thoughts? How would you rate this movie in one? How would you sum it up in one sentence?
Oh, gosh. Morbius in one sentence.
Interesting characters, potential plot line, horrible script, I think is my sentence. What about you?
I would next time I'd like to see a rated R Morbius as a villain with Blade and Hellcow.
Yes, please. That would be an epic movie for sure. For sure.
That's a great note to end it on, everybody. Thank you for listening to us talk about Morbius.
Not one of the better vampire movies, but we do love a good vampire movie here at Camp Kaiju and Gaze Do The D.
So let's talk about let's talk about more monster movies from the House of Mouse.
We don't know what our next movie is going to be. We have ideas. Maybe a holiday film.
Lots of options. Lots of options out there. Let us know. Let us know your thoughts. What do you want us to review?
What are some Disney monster movies that intrigue you that you want to figure out? How did this get made and should it exist?
Yeah. Yeah. And in the meantime, folks interested in Camp Kaiju monster movie podcast, check out our links in the show notes and reach out.
Leave us a positive review and rating and we would be eternally grateful.
Same. Same over at Gaze Do The D. Hit us up on Instagram, GDTD podcast or shoot us an email info at gazedothed.com.
Yeah. Well, thank you, Patrick. This was a lot of fun. And yeah, I hope you have a good rest of your day.
Don't know what you're up to. My pleasure. Thank you, Vincent.
Watch your neck. Don't get bit. This is all Vincent.
Sweet. Fun. We did it.
Yeah. It took me three nights to watch this movie. I had to plow through it. I was like, I just got to get through this one.
It's not the worst. It's not the worst, but it wasn't the best either. It wasn't very engaging.
I wish there was. It's annoying when things are poorly written like that. It's just like, come on, man. That was so lazy.
Yeah, I almost wish there was more vampire action. Like I felt like we just spent a lot of time with Jared Leto being Jared Leto rather than.
So like, did I watch a vampire movie or did I watch a movie about a scientist who sometimes turns into a vampire? I don't know.
Yeah, which I think that's the problem with the movie. It just didn't pick a lane.
Like I'm interested in that conflict of the character who is just like, I really need to eat this person.
But I can't. You know what I mean? And it was just it was it was it was almost hokey that the way that they did that.
I was like, this is actually a really interesting dilemma to have of like, I'm a good guy.
My whole reason for existing is to save people's lives because of their blood illnesses.
And now I have to eat people to stay alive. It's like, what a cool concept.
And then they just didn't play with it, which is like, OK, yeah. What? Right.
All right. Well, yeah. Or we spend more of our precious time talking about this.
They. Hey, friends, real quick, thank you for enjoying my conversation with Patrick all about Morbius.
Please let us know what you think and please stay tuned for our next episode when Camp Kaiju returns to its regular programming.
Matt and I will be reviewing a cult classic called God Told Me To from 1976.
The film was directed by monster movie author Larry Cohen, most well known for his parental anxiety horror film It's Alive.
But God Told Me To does not disappoint.
It has its fair share of uneasy images, complex themes.
This movie centers around religion and sexuality all told within the framework of a detective mystery, kind of like The X-Files.
So if you like The X-Files, check out God Told Me To.
Stay tuned for that episode next week.
And with that said, please enjoy this sneak peek into Camp Kaiju's next episode, all about Larry Cohen's God Told Me To.
I'm excited to record tonight.
It's been a few weeks.
It has. Yeah, I'm excited, too.
Yeah, I won't. No spoilers how I feel about the movie.
I mean, I feel like I kind of want to surprise you a little bit.
Not that it'll be that much of a surprise, probably.
But this movie was not really what I was expecting.
I also watched Q.
I watched God Told Me To and Q back to back.
And I feel like I chose the wrong movie to talk about between those two.
But that's all right. There will be a lot of interesting topics for God Told Me To.
Yes, I would. I can't wait to talk about Larry Cohen's filmography in general, because I watched a couple others.
And because it has been a few weeks, I feel like there's a bit of monster news to catch up on.
What have we been watching? So that's what I'm excited to talk about as well.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
I'm a little sad that October is over with because it's the best time of year to watch horror movies.
But, you know, you can watch horror movies anytime.
It's a fact. I do. It's something I've been doing a lot lately.
Yeah, yeah. As we both do.
I think it's my it started off as escapist entertainment.
And now I feel as if it's progressed into disassociative entertainment.
Yeah, depending on what happens tonight, we may have to keep on dissociating a little bit.
So I'm sure there will be more horror movies coming up. Yeah.
A healthy obsession to have, I think. Yeah.
Truly. Thank you for picking a movie that you had no idea what it was about.
That's fun. That's so much fun to me. We should do Larry Cohen again.
Totally. It's alive or Q. The stuff is not totally a monster movie, but that's a good movie, too.
Yep. I own it, but I haven't seen it yet. I bet you're going to like it.
There's some really crazy like body horror special effects in that movie.
It's a lot of fun. Can't wait. Michael Moriarty is in that one, too, who also is the crook in Q.
Yeah. What do you think about Q? I liked it a lot.
There are some things I could do without, like gratuitous close ups of like topless women.
But I don't know. I guess you kind of get that with this subgenre.
I think the special effects are great. Yeah. I mean, like David Carradine is really good in it. It's a fun cast.
Again, I think the story is kind of sloppy in that movie.
They're like the ritualistic sacrifices and you don't know who's doing them until like the last minute of the movie, basically.
Yeah, that could have been. I wanted that to be a stronger through line.
Yeah. But overall, I liked it a lot. Yeah, it's fun.
I mean, Michael Moriarty, I was like, who is this guy? He's just talking about screen presence.
Yeah. I was in it to win it with him. Yeah, for sure.
He had kind of popped up in a couple of movies before that, like the last detail, the Jack Nicholson movie, which is pretty good.
But then he worked with Larry Cohen a lot and I feel like that's kind of what he's best known for. Cool. He is very unique for sure. Yeah.