Hello, everybody.
Welcome to Camp Kaiju monster movie podcast.
We are your hosts, one Vincent Tannum and one Matt Levine.
And we are talking about all of our favorite monster movies.
The good, the bad and the downright campy and asking if they stand the test of time.
Traditional Kaiju creature features, space invaders, the supernatural and everything
in between.
All strange beasts.
Welcome here.
We're back.
The hiatus is over.
Matt and I are back in the podcasting chairs here in the Twin Cities, ready to broadcast
all over the world.
We see you, Sweden and our 2% listener base.
We see you and we thank you for showing up.
Ooh, nice.
I, they're probably clamoring for us to talk about troll hunter, which is Swedish, right?
Maybe it's Norwegian.
Oh, and now I'm going to make Sweden mad at us.
I can't remember.
I take it back.
Nevermind.
That's, that's good.
Good to hear though.
We have a fan, a very small fan base in Sweden.
That's cool.
Yeah.
So we have a very small fan base in Germany.
I will, I'll, uh, reveal a bit of our analytics to, to you all.
Get a peek behind the curtain here at Camp Kaiju.
So let's see.
Logging into the analytic website and we have our audience tab.
Ooh, sorry.
We have 3% of our audience is in Sweden.
2% in Germany and then 3, sorry.
Then we have 1% in the UK, 1% in Australia and 1% in Canada.
Oh, nice.
We'll be taken over the world before you know it.
Only a matter of time.
The day the earth stood still and then Gort blew us all up.
But Gort was just trying to be a diplomat.
He was just trying to be a peacemaker in the first place and we didn't listen to him.
That's why.
It's not Gort's fault.
That's what I'm trying to say.
Sure, sure.
Um, no, it's good.
It's good to be back.
It's good to talk about this stuff.
Um, Matt and I have a lot of great ideas for season four.
Um, it's a revamp.
We've built a great listener base and we're very, so appreciative of all of you for sticking
with us through the hiatus.
Um, especially our Patreon members.
So we're just hoping that, you know, we're going to throw a bunch of stuff at the wall
here.
Hopefully you enjoy it.
And if you don't let us know.
So we stopped doing it.
But, but, uh, we are, we are excited.
I think our international fans will appreciate it.
I think, uh, we're, you know, keeping them on their toes.
We're bringing in new things.
So I'm I for one, I'm excited to, uh, bring in some new developments.
Yeah.
And before we talk about, uh, what we've been up to for the past six months, I mean, I'm
sure we've, I'm sure you've watched a lot of great movies, uh, monster or otherwise.
I'm sure you've been up to some creative endeavors.
Uh, let's, let's just talk about what we've been up to after that.
Um, we will reveal our menias mailbox as well as some additional bits and segments that
will be new this season.
Oh, thank you to our patrons, Jason, Chris, Sean, our anonymous patron and Peggy.
This is for you.
So we appreciate the support.
Indeed.
Thank you.
All right, Matt, what do you, what the hell have you been up to the past six months?
Oh man.
What, what have we been up to?
Let's see here.
Um, uh, some, some job changes over the last six months.
Uh, I'm well, I don't know if I should say my professional affiliation and not that it's
like, uh, you know, uh, under wraps or whatever, but, oh yeah, like I'll just say that I'm
doing marketing copywriting, which is not the most creative writing in the world, but
it's still writing and I enjoy that kind of work.
So I'm grateful to be doing that for my nine to five job.
And then still writing about film writing, creative fiction on the side.
Um, in late March, I self published a book called the laws of inheritance.
Um, so yeah, trying to get that out there, trying to promote that a little bit, getting
some reviews placed, hopefully going to have a reading sometime soon, although I haven't
quite figured that out yet, but, uh, the name of the book again is the laws of inheritance.
I got to put that plug in there.
So if you're interested, uh, check it out, I would call it a work of political horror
that is a well-timed for an election year in the United States.
So the little elevator pitch that I'll do for that.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
It's, uh, it's exciting.
It's going well.
Um, my partner and I are having a little commitment ceremony.
We're calling it our in it to win it party.
Uh, sometimes we also call it a pseudo wedding, whatever you want to call it.
That'll be fun.
That's happening in a couple of weeks.
Um, so that'll be cool.
Looking forward to that.
Um, yeah.
Aside from that, hanging out, watching a lot of movies, happy to be back on the podcast.
Yeah.
What movies have you watched?
Uh, let's pull up my letter box here real quick.
I have been trying to watch as much as possible, which is great.
Although they, you know, it's easy to kind of forget about some here and there.
Um, I will say right off the bat, the best movie that I've seen recently is a French
movie called Celine and sorry, let me say that again, Celine and Julie go boating.
Uh, it's from the early seventies.
It's a very surreal movie.
It's about two women friends who kind of stumble into what they call a house of fiction.
It's this weird manner where, uh, this kind of like melodramatic story is like playing
out over and over again ad nauseum.
And they're kind of able to sort of like work their way into this like weird parallel fictional
space and kind of take over, take it over a little bit.
Um, so yeah, really great, beautiful, strange movie.
It's kind of very postmodern in the best way it's directed by Jacques Revett.
Um, very, very good.
Uh, so yeah, I saw that I saw one recently called some came running by Vincent Minnelli,
a classic Hollywood movie with Frank Sinatra.
It's really, really great.
Uh, ashes and diamonds, a very good Polish movie, a post-war movie, uh, from the fifties,
I think maybe it's the late fifties.
Those are the first three that come to mind right away.
I have to confess, I have now watched a ton of monster or horror movies, but I'm excited
to get back into it.
I was trying to, you know, save it for, for the podcast.
So I looking forward to it.
Yeah, I get it.
Um, I need a, I need to switch it up.
Sometimes I'm watching so many movies, so many horror movies, science fiction films.
Sometimes I'm like, you know what I need?
A 1930s screwball comedy.
Yeah.
Like design for living.
I know we talked about that recently by Ernst Lubitsch.
That's another one that I saw not too long ago.
Um, but yeah, totally.
You just got to switch it up.
You have to have to, you know, enjoy movies in many different ways because they offer a
lot of different kinds of pleasure.
So, um, but yeah, I've been missing the monster movies.
Can't wait to get back into it.
Yeah.
Well, I just went down so many, I guess, rabbit holes of different sub genres and I, and I
was able to get through a few different franchises when I was taking care of Ada, my daughter
now she is going on six months, but when she was a newborn just sleeping all the time and
I would watch a movie like all the time that didn't last forever.
Um, those of you who have raised a newborn and slash baby understand that, um, there
you'll get into a rhythm and a routine that will last three, four days and then it completely
switches on you and you re and then it's like, Oh, now, now my kid doesn't sleep ever and
I can no longer watch a movie whenever I want.
So it's just, it was just like total readjusting of expectations.
Um, but it sounds amazing to just like, you know, have Ada in your arms and like watch
a movie like on mute or whatever with like the captions on like that.
I can't imagine like a, um, a sweeter way to watch a movie.
You know, I watched the entire alien franchise, including Prometheus and, and Romuald, no
covenant.
Yeah.
Um, the entire series on mute reading captions.
That means Ada is going to be a huge horror slash monster movie fan when she grows up,
which is great.
Can't wait to see it.
Same here.
Oh yeah, I, I finally saw the whole alien series.
Um, I went into a, a deep dive with the classic universal run of movies from the 1930s and
forties.
I read a bunch of books by great horror authors.
Shout out David J. Scal and Tom Weaver.
These are, uh, film critics and writers who know their stuff.
So I'd recommend their books, very prolific writers.
Um, I would also let you all know, I went down a huge silent movie kick, monster movie
kick, um, the works of FW Murnau.
Like, um, he did not direct Caligari, but he directed Nosferatu, Faust, um, Metropolis
was Fritz Long.
I mean, and so many Lon Chaney pictures, Todd Browning.
I'm going to nerd out about, um, silent movies a lot on season four with a new segment that
I'll reveal later on.
But yeah, just like a lot of different facets that I went down zombies recently, I finally
saw Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead.
Classics.
What do you think about Dawn of the Dead?
I haven't seen it in a long time.
I remember liking it a lot though.
Probably even better than Night of the Living Dead.
I think it's funnier.
It has like a dark sense of humor.
It's very satirical about, you know, capitalism and commercialism and whatnot.
It's really great.
Yeah.
A lot of great moments.
Um, I have to see Day of the Dead, the third in that, in that series.
Um, but I also saw Return of the Living Dead.
Have you seen that one?
I don't think I have, to be honest.
Is that like in nineties?
Am I right about that?
No eighties, mid eighties.
Okay.
Yeah.
Um, it's a horror comedy.
Okay.
It's a little gory, but very, I don't know, very fun.
I'd recommend it.
I need to keep on going with that series.
I did see Day of the Dead a long time ago and I've seen the more recent ones, although
they're kind of not so recent anymore, but Land of the Dead.
And I think Diary of the Dead is the other one.
Yeah.
Um, which are okay.
I mean, I think the first two are still the best, but, um, yeah, it's a, it's a strong
series.
Love George Romero for sure.
Yeah.
I mean, and what a sub genre we've talked about.
I walked with a zombie and white zombie actually on the podcast and the Voodoo Haitian zombies
compared to the Romero zombies.
Couldn't be more different, but there's a line in Dawn of the Dead where I forget one
of the main characters, the African-American, um, he, he talks about how these zombies are
just like the ones his grandmother told stories about in Haiti.
So like even Romero pulled in the Haitian Voodoo roots for Dawn of the Dead, which I
was like, ah, I really appreciate that.
Yeah.
I kind of, I, you know, like I said, I haven't seen it in a long time, so I kind of forgot
about that element, but, but I love that like historical context.
There's a movie from a couple of years ago called Zombie Child.
That's also a really fascinating.
It's not really a zombie movie, despite the name.
It's more about, you know, uh, the history of Haiti and kind of like the negative effects
of colonialism and whatnot.
So it's a, yeah, it's a, it's a really good complicated movie, but it kind of also like
brings out that connection between the zombie sub genre and the history of Haiti and Voodoo
rituals and stuff like that.
Um, yeah, it's a, it's such a fascinating, um, uh, you know, line of thought or whatever
that's been in movies for, you know, almost a century now.
Yeah, seriously.
And you know, what's a really great documentary I have to plug.
It's called a horror noir, a history of black horror.
It's based on a book by Robin R. Means Coleman.
She's a professor of film cultural studies, I believe.
Don't quote me on that, but, um, the documentary was produced by, um, by Shudder.
Yeah.
Anyways, it's a great crash course on the history of black horror movies and aesthetics
from the 1930s, right?
We had King Kong, which was more problematic in its depiction of African-Americans, but
then it, you know, goes into the 1970s, black exploitation films like black Ula and, and
others, um, it's just, it's just really great weaving like all the celebration of black
depiction in horror movies alongside the problematic depictions of black horror, of black culture
in horror films.
And Jordan Peele's on there and a bunch of other filmmakers of color.
And yeah, I don't know.
I don't know.
It was just really great for someone who didn't really know that side of monster cinema.
Yeah.
Would recommend.
That sounds great.
Uh, another movie that came to mind when you were talking about that is ganja and Hess.
I don't know if you've seen that movie that was on the documentary.
Fascinating.
I love it.
It's a strange mix of not only a vampire movie, but also black exploitation, which you just
mentioned and then sort of like European art movies at the same time.
It's a very bizarre movie.
Really, really great, which I was thinking about bringing to the podcasts.
I don't know if it's going to happen this season.
Stay tuned and find out, but hopefully someday we'll talk about that.
And I'd love to.
I'd love to talk about mean black Ula's maybe the one we've all heard about.
But here's the movie called Sugar Hill from 1974.
And it depicts.
Zombies within this story of a badass female named Sugar Hill.
I'm not familiar with that movie.
That sounds great, though.
And next on the list.
Sugar Hill.
Yeah.
I mean, is that where the Sugar Hill gang got their name from?
If so, that's awesome.
I don't know.
Cool.
Just a couple of white guys want to talk about some exploitation films.
Yeah, not not my expertise area of expertise, I will say.
Although, yeah, I mean, like sweet, sweet backs, badass song, the spook who sat by the
door.
There are so many great movies in that subgenre for sure.
Blood is red.
Voodoo is blue.
Sugar is sweet.
Revenge is sweeter.
I'm passing second.
Meet Sugar Hill.
No, please.
Not a place.
But a brand new face.
My friends call me Sugar.
The Foxiest.
Looking for anything special?
Sexiest.
Deadliest chicken town.
The mob took Sugar's man away.
And now, she's gonna make them pay.
I want them dead.
With a voodoo priestess called Mama Matrice.
I know what you can do.
The power you possess.
How strong is your hate?
And Baron Samdy too.
My particular special, a drink that I'm famous for.
The zombie.
This is my domain, a kingdom of the dead.
And an army of undead behind her.
Each death has had something to do with voodoo ritual.
There's nothing that Sugar can't do.
Use it.
The mob has never seen anything like Sugar Hill and her zombie hitmen.
Let's talk about our own show a little bit.
And Camp Kaiju, I just want to say we have some collaborations in store.
And first and foremost, I recently guested on a fabulous podcast called Monster Kid Radio,
produced and hosted and written by a gentleman named Derek M. Cook.
Huge monster movie fan.
And we're talking about the classics, universal, poverty row, Ed Wood, like think about 30s,
40s, 50s, horror movies.
Anyways, Monster Kid Radio is a great podcast.
They've been going for 13 years now.
And I got connected with Derek.
I had been a longtime listener.
He said, why don't you come on the show?
Not only that, why don't you come on the show and talk about your three favorite Jack Arnold
films, which I died because Jack Arnold, for those who don't know, really directed some
quintessential sci fi movies from the 1950s, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Incredible
Shrinking Man, It Came from Outer Space, and a couple of others that are must see monster
movies.
So that was a lot of fun.
I'd love to have Derek on our show.
He's a really great guy.
A really great show.
Yeah, I love that.
Has the has that episode gone live yet?
Or is it still coming out soon?
No, it did.
It.
The episodes that we're recording are this episode on May 14th.
And Derek's episode with me dropped May 11th.
So it is available.
And in fact, those listening stick around to the end of this episode and we'll play
a preview of the Monster Kid radio spot.
I did.
So Derek was kind enough to give us like five minutes of audio to share.
Amazing.
I can't wait to listen to that episode in full.
That's so cool.
It was a lot of fun.
Yeah, I you do like, you know, way more about like, you know, like classic 50s sort of like
creature features than I do.
Jack Arnold is somebody that I like, but I'm not very familiar with.
So this is a perfect opportunity for me to kind of, you know, brush up on like a blind
spot for me.
But I love what I've seen by him.
Yeah.
And he has some some diamonds in the rough, like the ones I mentioned are probably his
most well known, but he has some that are deep cuts that, you know, the budgets were
low.
He wasn't working with these were these were B movies.
So they didn't get all the studio love that they should have.
But but in that he did some really great creative work.
Yeah.
I, you know, I always admire directors or producers, writers, any kind of film artists
who can take limited means and resources and make something really kind of like creative,
unique, subversive, kind of like under the radar with that.
It's so impressive to be able to do that.
And Jack Arnold did a lot.
He was very socially progressive.
I'll put it that way.
He was making movies in the time of not just the Red Scare of the 1950s, but the Blacklist
in Hollywood in the early 50s.
So a movie like It Came From Outer Space actually says a lot about being being like blacklisted
persecuted.
Yeah.
But like, yeah, being blacklisted because he made it during that time.
So anyways, yeah, I don't want I won't turn this into a Jack Arnold podcast, but there's
a lot of great stuff.
Yeah, I love that you love him so much.
That's great.
And yeah, Monster Kid Radio.
I can't wait to check it out.
Yes, it came from outer space to fill the world with terror, to bring you unforgettable
suspense.
What was it?
Where did it come from?
Who were the all powerful creatures it brought from outer space?
And what did they want on earth?
You can learn the amazing answer only when you see the most thrilling picture in years.
It came from outer space.
In the astonishing realism of three dimension, with objects coming right out of the screen,
so real they almost touch.
We also have a collaboration coming up with Gaze Do The Dee and Patrick Kazaki, the producer
and co-host of that podcast.
Patrick's been on the show before he's actually going to be on this our first episode Godzilla
X Kong, the new empire.
But Patrick reached out to me and asked if I wanted to do a joint episode about who framed
Roger Rabbit.
So we're recording that this weekend.
It should be a lot of fun.
An amazing movie.
Love that movie.
Yeah, and we're going to release that under the Gaze Do The Dee podcast and the Camp Kai
Ju podcast.
So follow both of the shows, but whichever show you follow, you will have access to it.
Synergy.
Woo.
Nice corporate jargon.
Yeah, exactly.
I'm learning.
Well, I don't know if this is a good time to bring it up, but on the, you know, you
mentioned Jack Arnold.
We were just talking about Jack Arnold and like his, you know, his claim to fame as a
maker of B movies.
I feel like we also have to say rest in peace to Roger Corman.
Oh my gosh.
Say more.
You look like man.
What's that?
Sorry.
You look guys him.
Yes.
He's a, you know, a legend in American cinema, especially American independent cinema that
has anything to do with horror.
You know, monster movies, B movies.
He, you know, gave so many wonderful directors and artists and actors their start.
Jack Nicholson started off acting in Roger Corman movies.
Peter Bogdanovich started off directing movies for Roger Corman.
I know I'm forgetting a lot of other names in there.
Martin Scorsese did a early picture for him.
Francis Ford Coppola.
Ron Howard.
Yeah, I think so.
I think you're right.
Yeah.
Joe Dante.
For sure.
Joe Dante.
Yeah.
And he's a great actor to Joe Dante and you can like see that in Joe Dante's movies, you
know, Bogdanovich like, you know, I'm a, I'm a big fan of Bogdanovich and his first feature
Targets.
It was a Roger Corman production.
It's really fascinating story where they had some footage of a, an old Boris Karloff movie
that Roger Corman told Bogdanovich like, put this footage in a new movie.
You have to write a new script for it, but you have to use this footage.
So like come up with whatever you can.
And Bogdanovich made this great weird thriller where it's very self-reflexive, where Karloff
is like an older actor who like wants to get out of the movie business.
And then there's this kind of mad killer sniper who's targeting him at this big movie premiere.
So it's, it's a crazy movie.
I know I'm maybe talking a little bit more about Targets than Roger Corman right now,
but just like what a, what a legend to like give so many artists their start.
And like they, you know, he had, he had this knack for just like finding talent and like
nurturing these great artists.
And he, you know, Roger Corman made a number of really awesome movies himself.
His adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe movies, especially are really fascinating.
The Raven is really good.
The Mask of the Red Death is really beautiful and really strange.
I love that movie.
But, but yeah, I think what I admire most about Corman is like his, you know, his ability
to like find talent and nurture some of the best filmmakers of the 20th century.
It's amazing.
He left, it really left a stamp on American movies.
And that's not an understatement.
And he was 98 when he passed away last, no, not less than a week ago.
And he was working up until the end.
I mean, there you can find interviews with him from this past year.
I mean, he was very, very active in the industry with the rise of home videos and then cable
movie opportunities.
He continued producing the new version of the B movie, which was just the direct to
video.
Dino, Croc versus Sharktopus, like all those like off the wall, crazy titles.
He was probably behind them.
And that's in the 21st century, let alone when he was doing in the 1950s.
Right.
Yeah.
At the very least, he was like a, like a figurehead of like those movies or like an inspiration
to them, you know, even if he didn't like play a role in the production of them.
Like, yeah, I feel like any B movie after the 1950s or 60s, Corman is kind of like the
godfather of that kind of movie, you know.
And then his one of his most well known movies is Little Shop of Horrors starring Jack Nicholson
is in it.
That obviously was turned into a very successful musical, The Little Shop of Horrors, which
was turned into a movie itself in the 1980s and the Guthrie Theater here in Minneapolis
is producing it this summer.
Wow.
It all comes together.
It's amazing.
It's like it was meant to be.
I love that musical.
I love that movie.
I can't wait to see it on stage.
Yeah, I would love to.
I've never seen the original though.
So it's now is a great time to do so and pay homage to Roger Corman.
Yeah.
What I'm going to do with this episode is I'm going to intercut it with trailer clips
from Roger Corman movies.
Oh, cool.
Yeah.
So this will be a little tribute episode to Roger Corman.
Take it easy, Dracula.
What do you think I'm carrying here?
My dirty laundry.
Where a man eating talking plant gives homicide something to think about.
I didn't do it.
Do what?
Whatever.
Ever see this man?
Man.
I see pictures.
Why are you so nervous?
Oh boy, you kiss good, Audrey.
Oh, I guess I just have a good kisser.
Now you will do as I say.
Yes, master.
You will go out and find me some food.
Yes, master.
What's the matter?
Don't you like me?
Too bony.
Too roly.
Nobody ever told me that before.
Beef is better than veal.
You're such a dodo.
What do you call this?
Chopped liver?
There you go.
Thanks a lot.
What you hunting this time?
I'm gonna shoot some pigs.
Target's. A movie about a war inside a man's head.
Hey, what are you doing?
Peter Bogdanovich, the director of The Last Picture Show,
takes you for a rollercoaster ride through the canyons of a disturbed mind in Target's.
I have a light! A light!
Stay in there! Get down!
Oh, boy, there's somebody shooting at me!
Open the window!
There's a sniper in here!
What turns an all-American boy into an all-American killer?
I love it, man.
Yeah, I mean, rest in peace. If you love movies, especially horror movies, you have to love Roger Corman.
You sort of don't really have a choice, you know?
I know.
And there are some others from that time, like B-movie, horror movie directors, like Herschel Gordon-Lewis and stuff like that,
directors like that, who also were amazing, but you have to give credit where credit is due.
Corman, you know, built that subgenre in a way.
Yeah, prolific. Do you know William Castle?
Yeah, yeah, for sure. The House on Haunted Hill, awesome movie. Love that one, Vincent Price.
Yeah, and I've seen some other movies by him, too.
Homicide or Homicidal, that's what it's called, Homicidal.
Yeah, I haven't seen that one.
It's kind of a ripoff of Psycho, but it's like really weird and unique in its own way.
That movie's really cool.
Cool.
13 Ghosts is fun.
Never seen that one.
It's fun. The Tingler.
Great title. I've always wanted to see that, yeah.
It's kind of gross, but in a gnarly way.
Okay. Yeah, I need to see more of his stuff, too. Does he have one called A Bucket of Blood? I think that's...
No, that's Corman.
Okay, gotcha. Another one I have to see, man.
Last Corman movie I'll recommend that I recently saw. It's called X, The Man with the X-ray Eyes.
Another great title. I haven't seen that one either.
It's trippy. Ray Milan, and it's in Technicolor, and it's kind of freaky, too.
All right.
Well, I can't think of a better way to get back into monster movies. I know maybe not all those are monster movies, but you know, Roger Corman Festival.
I'm going to have to do that soon.
I like it. Roger Corman Fest. You got my festival ambitions percolating now.
Yeah, it's good to get back into it. Season four, baby. It's going to be fun.
True terror is the soft, cold caress of the raven's wing.
Your hands are so cold.
A woman whose desires transcend reality. The mysterious powers of black magic, these you will explore.
Now, what is it you need?
You got some dried blood over the bathroom house.
A raven will take you careening through the darkest of dangers into the ominous mystery of a master magician's evil castle.
Afraid, my dear?
I offer you a choice. The secret of your hand manipulations or this against this.
Well, don't you stand there doodling.
This is no answer.
Very well then. A due to the death.
Quoth the raven, nevermore.
August 14th, notes of experiment designated X. Experimental subject, myself, James Xavier.
X, the most fantastic experiment you have ever taken part in, presents Ray Mulan in his most challenging role since his Academy Award winning Lost Weekend.
X, the man with the x-ray eyes.
Are you all right?
It's like a splitting of the world. More light than I've ever seen.
The field was light.
X, the man with the x-ray eyes, tries to help the most desperate in our society and enjoys all the delights of secretly studying sexology.
Headache?
No, it's just my eyes.
A doctor with the power to see what others cannot believe.
He could overcome the unknown, save lives, and invade the glamour gambling casinos of Las Vegas and defy the goddess of chance.
Don't draw. Don't draw.
Next card's a face card.
Harry, you better go for the sheriff right now.
Yes, freeze! Freeze!
Now push up your sleeve.
No!
Got something over here!
An experiment they couldn't control
Wade, what's going on here?
has unleashed
What the hell was that?
The ultimate predator.
Carnasaur II.
What is this?
I thought of a way to bring back dinosaurs.
Come on, move it! Move it!
We found a nest.
Dozens of things have started breeding.
We're safe in here!
Attention all personnel.
Evacuation group is on the surface.
Proceed to emergency exits immediately.
Angrier. Deadlier. Hungrier.
Carnasaur II.
Extinction is a thing of the past.
Okay, okay, we'll get to our, we will reveal our ten titles between July and December here real quick.
But first, some nuts and bolts.
Give credit where credit's due. Our patrons, we, we, you're good enough to thank twice.
Jason, Chris, Sean, our anonymous patron, and Peggy.
And for all you out there, if you want to be a patron,
you can contribute as little as five dollars a month and you get discounts on our merchandise, events, personal thank yous, even priority comments.
So with merchandise, please visit CampKaiju.threadless.com and it'll take you to our merch store.
T-shirts galore.
You can get our, any one of our logos on stickers, buttons, magnets.
You name it, it's pretty much going to be on Threadless.
A lot of cool stuff. I didn't really know what was going to be on there before I took a look, but it's it's pretty cool.
Yeah, Matt, if you want a shirt or anything, let me know.
Okay.
I, yeah, for sure. I'll, you know, I want everything on there. One of everything is what I want, but I know I probably can't do that.
So I'll, yeah, I'll let you know for sure.
Only if you're a patron and only if you're giving us fifteen dollars a month.
Well, I mean, it's worth it, of course, to support my favorite podcast. So I might have to do that.
All right. If any of you are interested in sharing your thoughts about Camp Kaiju or your favorite monster movies, you can reach out to us at CampKaiju at gmail.com.
Our YouTube page, Facebook, Instagram, all those links will be in our show notes.
As well as the Kaiju hotline, we have a number, a phone number I promise not to ever pick up, but you can leave a voicemail.
And that is 612-470-2612. We would love to feature your voice on the show.
I can't wait to see what sort of messages we get on there, like just hopefully like long rambling diatribes or like odes to the best monster movies ever made.
You know, like I just can't wait to see what happens or like.
Is your refrigerator running?
You better catch it like that. Yeah, that's the thing. Yeah, like crank calls.
Yeah, I will probably get some of those. Yeah, even that'll be fun.
This show turned into cranky anchors. That's basically what we're going for. Yeah.
Oh, throwback. Yeah.
What else? What else? What else? Oh, this is a great time to talk about our trivia.
Trivia, trivia, trivia. We're going to do trivia on a podcast.
We're going to try. Can't believe it. Yeah. You love trivia, right? I do. Yeah, I really love trivia.
Yeah, all kinds of trivia. Trivia Pursuit, you know, bar trivia, trivia mafia.
I go to a lot of their events. So, yeah, can't can't get enough. Yeah.
Well, her name is Naomi and she hosts a bar trivia once a month in the Twin Cities.
And we got connected on Instagram. She's a huge movie buff.
And her trivia is about movie trivia specifically.
So I said, hey, why not once a month you come on Camp Kaiju, you pitch one trivia question to our listeners.
Now, listeners, listen up. So what Naomi will do is give you the question.
You will then have a week to write in your answers. It's OK.
If it's not OK, if you cheat. But if you do, it doesn't matter because whatever answer you put out there gets your name into a hat.
And then on the show, we will draw one lucky winner and that lucky winner will get some free merch from our Threadless store.
Now get this. If you call in on the Kaiju hotline with a guess, that gets you in the hat twice.
Oh, man. So why not call the hotline?
It could be your 20 minutes of fame, your moment in the limelight.
And then you just doubled your odds to win something. Indeed. Yeah. Yeah.
I love it. It's such a good idea. We'll see how it goes. Yeah. Yeah.
Also, if people cheat, we will know. We're watching you. Whatever you do.
Like if you look up the answers on Google, we will know.
So I just want to throw that out there. Don't do anything untowards because Vincent and I will be aware.
We're watching. You can cut that out if you want. No, it's creepy. I like it.
Cool. Okay.
Me as mailbox. We have a whole backlog of fans who wrote in over the past six, eight months even that I think we need to get to.
So we'll just read a couple here.
First and foremost, Matt, I'm going to skip ahead down to our bottom. So David Ruffalo, it's Ruffalo.
It's I hope I say that right.
Longtime fan. David often comments on our YouTube page.
Anyways, this was just a month ago. He commented on our Mothra episode.
And he said, always been a fan of Mothra and never really viewed her as an antagonist.
And now that Pluto has the Godzilla Channel, I always binge watch the rebirth of Mothra series, which kind of gets silly after the first one.
But they're still enjoyable, particularly as you see her powers grow from movie to movie.
The Godzilla Channel also plays American Japanese versions of the original Godzilla.
And sadly, in my opinion, the additional footage of Raymond Burr really ruins the flow of the movie.
And you can catch Yon Gari on either Tubi or Roku for free.
Thank you, David. That's a lot of great pro tips for us.
Yeah, absolutely. Can you remind me what Yon Gari is? I have not seen that.
Yeah, I think it's a it's a Korean Kaiju film. Remember, we were talking to Ben Cook Feltz about different Kaiju.
Anyways, Yon Gari was mentioned in that conversation.
Cool. Yeah, I knew it sounded familiar.
But yeah, David has a lot of great points for sure. I love Mothra.
There's some of my favorite Godzilla or Godzilla adjacent movies, some of like the weirder, more surreal stuff, I feel like is in the Mothra movies.
Yes. And the rebirth of Mothra series from the 90s is very silly, but really in an awesome way because they just go for broke.
And Mothra and her progeny just have like crazy superpowers. You're like, what is happening?
It's awesome. Man, I yet another little like pocket of Kaiju movies that I have not watched yet, but I can't wait to check out.
I haven't even seen them all, but I've seen the first one and it got me hooked.
Man. Well, yeah. Thank you, David, for for that pro tip. Like Vincent said, I will definitely have to check those out.
Yeah, I noticed we had a comment on Flesh for Frankenstein. I had a lot of fun with that episode.
I liked that movie quite a bit. I think maybe a little bit more than you and Frank Olsen like that movie.
But Larry Jax on YouTube left a comment on that episode.
He wrote, I liked this movie a lot, but it does not translate well to home video.
I saw this at an art house with some sick hipsters and the blood looked more realistic, the gore much more believable.
My advice to anyone watching this at home is to view it in black and white.
Thank you, Larry. I love that comment.
I, you know, like watching that in an art house with some sick hipsters seems like the ideal way to watch that movie.
That's not how I watched it, but I need to do that as soon as possible.
And I can't, you know, it's hard to imagine in black and white, mostly just because I I sort of love like the faded dingy like sleazy looking colors in that movie.
But I bet it would be it would look really cool in black and white.
There is a decapitation scene that's like so bloody and gross and gory.
I like can't even imagine it without color. But but now I want to. It sounds great.
Are the sick hipsters like actually sick like they had a cold or are they sick like, you know, fly cool or just like demented?
Maybe if they're at a screening of Flesh for Frankenstein, probably a little bit like sick in the head, you know, which I mean, that's my kind of people.
That's great. Yeah, I I probably would enjoy Flesh for Frankenstein more in a group of sick hipsters.
Yeah, I know that the companion piece to that movie Blood for Dracula is on the Criterion channel right now.
So I definitely want to watch that before it leaves the end of the month.
100 percent. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks, listeners. Leave us your comments again on any of the social medias.
We'll do our best to feature your voice on the show.
One last segment, and then we're going to get to revealing our picks.
So I mentioned silent movies before I have a new segment.
So just the five minute bit called Silent But Deadly.
Love. Yeah.
And it's just five minutes to spotlight a silent monster movie or horror movie, Monster Adjacent.
There's a lot of really great movies out there that deserve some love.
I mentioned some earlier and I have a whole lineup.
We may have a special guest present those.
By the name of Peter Laurie. Whoa. From the grave, from the grave.
Honestly, yeah, he's hard to get a hold of, but the blob knew who I could talk to.
So we'll see. The blob is a very convenient intermediary to the to the great beyond the spirit world.
We'll have to take advantage of that in the future a little bit more often.
I hope the blob comes back. Yeah, he's he's grumpy.
He's hard to work with, but it's worth it. You know, he's one of a kind, for sure.
The blob episode that Gary Dansu was also on is our second highest is our second most listened to episode of all time.
Wow. I mean, that doesn't totally surprise me.
It's like everybody loves the blob. The theme song is great.
It's stuck in your head for years after you watch that movie.
Yeah, it's I'm not surprised people love it. Yeah.
Good stuff, everybody. Go listen to our past episodes.
Let us know what you think and stay tuned for what's coming up.
Before Karloff and Lugosi stalked the screens, the movies were no less monstrous.
These frightful figures lurked in the expressionistic shadows and danced in the macabre moonlight.
Oh, they laughed. They cried.
They fooled the sensibilities of honest, decent folk.
In the age of silent pictures, these gruesome ghouls nonetheless cried out to the world.
Ghouls nonetheless cried out to the savage humanity that took the breath from all who witnessed their devilish delights.
For in the silence, no one can hear you scream.
My name is Peter Laurie, and I have been resurrected from my grave recently by Matthew and Vincent
to discuss silent monster movies.
You may know me from such films as Esa Blanca and The Raven, directed by Roger Corman.
I have been long dead, but I wish Roger the best and hope that he is alive and well.
I have just been informed that Roger Corman is no longer among the living.
Perhaps I will see him on the other side, but I have been dragged back to the land of the living
to talk about something called Camp Kaiju Monster Movie Podcast with a segment called Silent But Deadly.
Each week, I will be forced to talk about a movie from the 1920s starring actors like Conrad Veidt,
Lon Chaney, directors like F.W. Murnau, Todd Browning, and movies like Metropolis, Nosferatu, and The Phantom of the Opera.
We will start that segment with The Phantom in July.
Until then, I will try my best to find my way back to the land of the dead. Ta ta for now.
So Matt, I think it's time we reveal Season 4 of Camp Kaiju.
I think so. I've been looking forward to this. Yeah, can't wait.
And for those listening, Matt and I have not discussed these movies. Maybe we'll pick the same ones. Who knows? It's a good time.
So what we do know, though, in July, Kaiju-ly, we're kicking things off strong with Godzilla, Kong, The New Empire, followed by?
King Kong versus Godzilla from 1962. Is that correct?
Yeah, I believe it might. It may have been released in Japan in 62 and America in 63.
OK, but either way, yeah, some classic Ishiro Honda. Yeah. Yeah.
Another I mean, well, I was going to say rest in peace. He died quite a while ago, but it was just his birthday if he was still alive.
Ishiro Honda's birthday. So, yeah, I'm excited to do kind of like bookends of like Godzilla versus King Kong, both the original confrontation between the two great Kaiju beasts and then the most recent installment in the franchise.
It'll be a cool contrast for sure. Yeah. A Kong frontation, if you will.
Ooh, that will lead to a fascinating contrast.
Oh, man. Just lame puns all the time on Camp Kaiju.
OK, OK. So Godzilla, Kong, then King Kong versus Godzilla.
And then I don't know, should your movie be next or should my movie be next?
Hmm. Oh, man. Good question.
You want to you want to you want to flip for it?
Let's flip for it. Yeah, that's the best way to do it.
I can grab a coin unless you have one.
I don't. That was a that's a stupid thing for me to suggest.
Well, I have one in the kitchen. I'll be right back. OK.
All right. Are you calling heads or tails?
Tails. All right. If it's tails, then you go first.
OK. All right.
It is heads. Oh, I will go first. All right.
So, yeah, starting off in August after our Kai July, I'm going to bring a movie
to the podcast that I've wanted to rewatch for years, but I've been too scared
because it is a legitimate phobia of mine. That is arachnophobia.
Whoo. Yeah, I'm going to have to confront my fears, get over my,
you know, debilitating phobia of spiders.
I did see this movie a long time ago. I remember liking it a lot.
Jeff Daniels, Jeff Daniels, right? Yeah.
Yeah. John Goodman is in it, too.
Some really gross, terrifying stuff in this movie.
And I'm going to have nightmares for weeks afterwards, but that's the price we pay for art.
You know, I love it. That's great.
So we immediately go from giant Kaiju to very small monsters.
Yeah, I love that. Oh, man.
That makes me want to that makes me want to switch it up and do do a do a creature
feature in August. But I'm going to stick to my guns here.
My original choice for August.
The Mummy from 1999, Stephen Summers, Brendan Fraser.
It's celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.
What better time to talk about it? For sure. Yeah.
And Rachel Weiss also, who I, you know, I think like everybody else,
when that movie came out, I had the biggest crush on Rachel Weiss.
So it's you know, like I feel like even though it only came out 25 years ago,
it's already sort of a classic.
Like it's kind of like entered the monster movie Pantheon in a way.
Yeah. So yeah, I'm excited to talk about it. Awesome.
All right. We're off to a great start here. I agree. Yeah. Yeah.
What is September bring us?
I'm taking a left turn a little bit, and I have to apologize in advance
because this movie is one of the most disturbing movies I've ever seen.
It's called Possession. It's by Polish director.
Have you seen this movie? No, you've talked to.
Oh, my God. This is like the really, truly frightening one.
Yeah, it's a rough one for sure. It's really great. Very strange.
There is a monster in it, like a very literal, gross, slimy monster.
But it's kind of a metaphor for a lot of other things going on in the movie.
So, yeah, it's it's it's going to be a rough one.
But, you know, I kind of want to bring some like tough, you know, complicated
cinema to the podcast, not to I'm kind of being facetious not to denigrate
any other kind of movie. But but yeah, I'm excited to talk about it.
I haven't seen it in a long time.
It has maybe the best performance that I've ever seen by anybody in any movie.
Isabel Aijani, who just kind of really commits to this role to a sort of disturbing degree.
So, yeah, possession. Stay stay tuned for that.
So I will be watching that with the lights on.
But I've heard good things about this film.
It is well regarded. I love it.
I think I mean, I think that's why I love Camp Kaiju.
We talk about the fun movies and we do talk about some,
I would say, some mature horror films.
It's rated R, I'm assuming. Oh, yeah. Hard R, I would say.
Hard R, everybody. Leave the kids at home.
But yeah, it'll be a good conversation.
It's a it's a really fascinating movie.
It kind of reminds me of when we talked about the movie, The Untamed on the podcast,
like at the beginning of last year, I think. Yeah.
I mean, it's it's dark. It's a little bit difficult to watch at times,
but really significant, complicated themes.
So it should be a good conversation. Yeah. Can't wait.
What what a contrast. I get whiplash.
Even thinking about the movie I'm about to drop on you.
So it is.
Planet of the Apes, but it's Tim Burton's 2001 remake.
OK, well, it is not well regarded.
But I think in that we can have a lot of fun around what does stand the test of time,
what really doesn't and just, I don't know, have fun with a campy movie,
a bad movie. Actually, it's not great, but I want to talk about it.
I love that choice. I haven't seen it since it first came out.
Twenty four years, twenty three years ago.
I remember not liking it, and I remember liking pretty much all the Tim Burton movies before that
and disliking pretty much all the Burton movies after that.
So it's kind of like a decisive shift in his filmography.
But maybe I'll feel differently this time around. But Burton is a great monster movie director.
But you're right. Like what happened in his career?
He kind of went off the rails. Maybe it starts with this film. Yeah.
Lots to discuss there. We'll find out. Yeah.
OK, October now. Spooky season. Yeah.
I love this sense of whiplash. This is great.
So I'm going to bring the movie The Relic to the podcast. Oh, fun.
Yeah, I'm really excited to rewatch this. This came out in the late 90s, 1997.
I'm pretty sure I don't remember anything about it.
It's set at a museum. I think that's the only thing I really remember.
I watched like two minutes of it on TV recently and I was like, this looks so entertaining.
I can't wait to watch it again. So yeah, The Relic in October for my selection.
That's awesome. It's been on top of my watch list for a while.
OK, more whiplash. This is the theme of season four now. Nice.
I'm going old school. So this year slated for release from Universal is another remake of The Wolfman.
So I said, let's revisit the classic Wolfman with Lon Chaney Jr.
So I'm bringing Classic Universal to the show in October.
That's great. I you know, you might not think it with the selections that I'm bringing, but I've been wanting to like do some like good old fashioned universal like actual.
I mean, these are all classic movies in their own way, but like, you know, bonafide classic monster movie.
So that's a great choice. I can't wait to see it again. Yeah, me too.
I forgot the remake was coming out, too, which I feel like there's like a decent director attached to that. Is that right?
I can't remember who it is now, though. It's Lee Wanel who directed the Invisible Man remake.
OK, I'm actually not a huge fan of him, so I take back what I said, but maybe the remake will still be good.
Who knows? Well, I'm a fan. So we even out. Fair enough.
Yeah, we'll have to talk about his movies on the podcast at some point as well, which I'm sure we will when if we see the Wolfman when it comes up.
Yeah. Cool. All right. Classic universal horror. That's that's awesome.
All right. So we're in November, right? November. All right.
So the next movie that I'm going to bring to the pod is called God Told Me To by Larry Cohen.
Yeah, you wanted to bring that last year. I did.
It was one of my I think was actually in like my top list that I wanted to do.
And then I changed my mind the last minute because I thought it would kind of like whatever else I chose would like fit better with like the other movie that month.
But ever since then, like, oh, man, I wish I had stuck with God Told Me To. So we're going to do it this time.
It sounds like a really crazy movie about like a cult leader who is like a half alien, half mutant, I think, something like that.
And I love Larry Cohen. He's like, you know, sort of in the vein of Roger Corman, like strange subversive B movies.
So, yeah, I'm excited to see it. Sweet. Yeah.
Well, we have to get some more classic Kaiju in the mix.
I am hoping by November, Godzilla minus one is streaming because I would love to bring Godzilla minus one to the podcast.
OK, nice. I love it. That's a great choice, because like that's another one where I feel like it's already become become sort of a classic for monster movie lovers, even though it just came out last year.
And people kind of like went crazy for it, like, oh, it's the best Godzilla movie ever, which I I disagree with slightly.
So I'm sure that'll be a fascinating conversation. And I haven't seen it yet.
November will be a year since it had come out. Yeah, I'd love to I'd love to talk about it.
Awesome. That sounds great. I have like a number of movies that are sort of up in the air from my last selection for season four.
But I think I would kind of like to do a more recent one that's also very critically acclaimed, but I haven't seen it yet, which is Attack the Block from 2011.
Yeah. Yeah. I've heard really good things. And like for years for more than a decade now, it's like, oh, yeah, I should see that at some point.
So that sorry. No, yeah, that's that's all I was going to say. Sorry. Yeah. Well, that movie was featured in the documentary for noir.
Right. Yeah. And I know it was kind of critically acclaimed for that reason, like, you know, greater diversity and representation and like kind of like a classic alien invasion format.
So really, really looking forward to that one. Wow. That's a great pick. They're all great picks. But yeah, I just learned about that movie. So that's awesome. Cool.
For December, I'm going to go Christmas themed and I'm finally, finally going to bring gremlins to the show. Yeah. They want to do it for ever since this podcast started.
It's about time we're going to talk about gremlins during the holiday season. It's one of my favorite Christmas movies and one of my favorite monster movies, which is it definitely is a monster movie, but I feel like it doesn't like totally fit into this to that genre.
You know, and like a very neat and tidy way. So, yeah, I can't wait to talk about that. We can continue our Joe Dante love on the podcast as well. Yeah, Dante, a patron saint of monster cinema. Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, like we talked about Corman before and Joe Dante, another director that got a start there. Yeah.
Oh, that's great. Okay. So from July to August, sorry, from July to December, we have a huge, a huge variation in tones and movies that run the gamut from really frightening to really silly.
I love that and everything in between. That's what we talk about the good, the bad and the campy.
Absolutely everything from European art movies to classic universal horror to, you know, great British entertainment in the last 10 or 20 years, a little bit of everything.
Yeah, awesome. So everybody, fans, listeners, write in, let us know what you're most excited for. Let us know.
And if we just called out one of your favorite movies or a movie you didn't like, we'd love to hear from you. And we and we can't wait. So coming up in July, stay tuned for Godzilla and Kong.
Until then, in the month of June, the month of June, we will be releasing the final episode of our Frozen with Fear series, which Max Hannum and Corey Stewart, they do a whole review on the film Cold Skin from 2017.
It's really an independent monster movie about fish people on an island in the South Atlantic.
If you'd like the lighthouse and creature from the Black Lagoon. This is kind of that those two movies put together. Whoa.
Color me intrigued. It's good. It's good. I think I watched it on to be probably.
Then after Cold Skin, we will feature our collaboration with Gaze Do the D, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
And then boom, Kai July will be here before you know it. Man, I can't wait. Season four, man. It's gonna be fun.
I can't wait. Thank you, Matt, for coming back. And you and I could talk about some guests who can join us as well. Yeah, to be determined. Stay tuned for more information about that. Yeah, definitely.
Okay, I'm done if you are. Let's go watch the wolves game. Yes, go wolves.
For hanging out friends, please rate and review wherever you listen. You can also share this podcast with a friend. More monster kids, the better.
Send us your listener comments at CampKaiju at gmail.com, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, links in the bio.
If you'd like to be a featured voice on the show, go ahead and leave a voicemail at 612-470-2612 telling us about your favorite monster movies, memories, what you thought about this show, what you think about the upcoming season.
We're all ears. And please check out our website, CampKaijuPodcast.com for more information.
Camp Kaiju is recorded in Minneapolis, St. Paul with Menia's mailbox music by Ben Cook Phelps.
The contract director with Universal, Jack Arnold is not a household name, arguably. He's not James Whale. He's not Todd Browning. And yet, I think he should be with the care he devotes to his monster movies. They're not just some run of the mill B movie.
And it goes beyond creature. I keep saying came from outer space, the incredible shrinking man.
They're classics of the genre. They really are. You know, plus he was an actor. He did work on the stage. He worked with people like Legosi. So he did more than just direct. He understood actors to an extent. And I'm just I'm fascinated more about him the more of his films that I watch.
I want to know more about what he did in the 60s when he did a lot of television because that's a lot of what I watched over the past few weeks was a lot of his TV work. And again, we'll get to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't don't want to spoil anything just yet.
So when we do a top three episode here on the show, typically what I like to do is I'll mention my number three, then pass it off to you, then my number two, but to you.
The reason I do it that way is because I want to end with you with your number one pick. Okay, kind of give you the spotlight there at the end. So for me, I'm going to say my my third favorite, my number three, my top three lists of Jack Arnold films.
I'm going to go with this Island Earth.