Welcome. Look at all these wonderful, wonderful faces altogether.
Hello. I don't know if everybody knows everybody, but Naomi Osborne, Patrick Kazaki, Frank Olsen.
Welcome. Hello, everyone. Hello. Hello.
Happy early holidays. Yes.
Same to you. Patrick, I'm not sure if we can hear you.
Oh, Patrick, I think there was something.
You're very, very quiet.
And there's like a bit of a lag too.
You're so quiet.
You're quiet as a door mouse.
Well, what we'll do tonight is just hang out.
I have some questions and Matt does too.
Just like, you know, get us talking about things and we'll we'll do our normal intro
and then just kind of ask you all to introduce yourselves and your involvement with Camp Kaiji over the past year.
And yeah, just have fun.
Cool. Can you guys hear me better now? Is it better?
Yeah. Yes. Wonderful.
I just threw the microphone in the garbage, so we're good now.
Nice. Yeah.
Vincent, I don't really have any questions.
I'm sorry. I didn't know that I was supposed to, but I can come up with some real quick.
If you could come up with a question and pull your weight around here.
I'm slacking off. Yeah.
Should I find trivia questions about, like, some of the movies that I brought to the podcast this season?
Yeah. OK, I'll find something.
OK. All right.
Um, well, let's go ahead and get started.
Well, hello, everybody, and welcome to Camp Kaiji Monster Movie Podcast.
We're your hosts, Vincent Hannum and Matt Levine.
And we're talking about all 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.
And who are these strange beasts we have in our room?
Terrifying indeed.
Oh, everybody, it is our our holiday party extravaganza season five announcement season four celebration.
And to help us with that, we have some past guests from season four to help us out.
We have Frank Olson, Naomi Osborn, Patrick Kazuki and maybe some others will join us, too.
But welcome friends and fiends.
Thank you. Thank you. Happy holidays to you, too.
Thank you for being here. Yeah, thanks for having us.
It feels like an old time Judy Garland Christmas special right now.
Just you never know who's going to show up.
Yeah, you never know.
I am going to break in the song at some point, so that Judy Garland is really going to come through pretty soon.
OK, this way, are you going to have yourself a merry little Christmas?
Oh, I don't I love that song and I want to ruin it for everybody.
So maybe not that one.
You're really pointing out the episode.
Maybe the trolley song from Me Me in St.
Louis, which is my second favorite movie.
I don't know if I'm lyrics, though.
This makes me think about
maybe maybe monsters in our favorite holiday Christmas specials.
Santa himself, is he a strange beast?
Frosty the snowman.
Who else is out there?
Well, we got Krampus.
That's for sure. We got Krampus.
I think, yeah, we've got.
Let's see.
I just watched a film with Martin Starr, that guy who was in like Freaks and Geeks.
He did a movie called There's Something in the Barn
that is about him and his family inheriting a property in Norway,
like a beautiful rural property, and they're wanting to turn it into an Airbnb.
But there was like a folkloric type elf that lives next door.
And it's also a holiday movie.
So I guess I would include that one in the pile as well.
I'm just thinking of it because I just watched it.
Wow, that sounds cool.
There's something in the barn.
Yeah, that's in the barn.
Kind of zany, but it's fun.
You know, it's a good palate cleanser.
I feel like when you watch a lot of really sweet, sentimental films
over the holidays, you have to kind of pepper in some other type of films,
you know, be it holiday or not.
Totally.
What about the bumble from Rudolph the Red Nose reindeer?
Oh, such a good one.
Such a good one.
I was sort of scared when I looked up and I saw that on the screen all of a sudden.
What happened, Frank?
And even by the bumble,
I can't believe we had that on the ready to like, I know we're not a visual podcast,
but to just come up with a photo of him, like, that's awesome.
I have a nephew who was like terrified of the bumble when he was a little kid.
And we always thought it was hilarious because he's like, you know, obviously not
actually scared at all. But but apparently he was in the nightmares of my nephew.
There's something inherently a little off about claymation animation anyways.
And so I can see the fear factor there.
Yeah, totally.
My dad always tells the story about how the first movie that I saw in theaters
with him was The Little Mermaid when I was four years old.
And the part where Ursula grows to like immense size
scared me so much when I first saw it in the theater that I was like
screaming and kicking and crying and my dad had to like carry me out of the theater.
So I feel like that's why I love horror movies so much
because of Ursula and The Little Mermaid.
I was scared of ET when I was a kid, but it wasn't the way ET looked.
It was the way ET sounded.
And I heard something later when someone was talking about scary movies, like
if you're if your kid is scared, just tell them to close their ears,
because that's really like what makes horror stick with you sometimes.
And so I was really scared of ET, but I saw it.
I'd watch him, but like on mute, I'd put the screaming parts on mute.
Yeah. Well, I was scared of this.
Sorry, Vincent.
The one I was scared of as a little kid is Ghostbusters 2.
My parents took us to see that and my brother was also scared.
There's a scene early on in like a courtroom.
I don't remember exactly what's happening, but there's like ghosts
flying around a courtroom and we were like terrified of that.
And so my parents who paid, you know, like
thirty dollars or whatever for the tickets at that time.
We're probably really happy that, you know, we only made it
like 20 minutes into the movie.
I think about that all the time with my own kid now and
like even Gremlins Matt and I were just talking about it like
we all enjoyed that as kids.
But still, how young is too young?
Because there are some frightening, I think arguably frightening images
in that movie.
So my daughter is only one.
I'm going to hold off a little bit, but
maybe just like one year, you know, two years old,
I think is a fair age for Gremlins.
Totally. I think you need to build the sweetness with Christmas
and the traditions to have the scary stuff really like do its work, you know?
Like that's the beauty of the mashup of of holiday
horror or holiday scary stuff, you know?
Mm hmm. Totally.
Well, I was going to say earlier that Mike Swan is on his way.
His better half, Adrian, texted me and said that he's on his way
and he's sorry he's late.
That sounds correct.
Is he lost in cyberspace?
I have a cool image of him just like, you know, a digital version
of Mike Swan, just like trying to find Zoom.
Like Max Headroom.
Oh, wow. That's in my head right now.
Wonderful.
Well, you know, for for for those of you who aren't
in this Zoom with us right now, but you're listening wherever you are.
Happy holidays to you.
We hope you've had a warm one.
And we just want to thank you for listening to Camp Kaiju almost
on a weekly basis these past six months since we came back from our hiatus.
We are going to me and Matt are going to reveal our first
slate of movies for season five.
And our seasons are an annual or like a yearly a year long.
But we're only going to reveal the first six months up until June.
Otherwise, it gets unwieldy.
I don't know what I'm going to want.
Be interested in watching 10 months from now.
We're going to play some games.
We're going to have trivia.
We're going to quiz our guest hosts to see if they're really up to snuff.
And we're going to drink a lot of eggnog, or at least I am.
There may or may not be whiskey in this.
And we want you to rate and review Camp Kaiju wherever you listen.
Send us positive ratings.
Our show has really grown a lot over the past year.
And I'm not just saying that like it's it's really inspiring.
And we see you.
We see that you're out there.
So thank you. Keep leaving us.
Keep leave it. Keep.
This is the whiskey.
Keep leaving us listener comments at Camp Kaiju at Gmail dot com.
Our Facebook page, our Instagram.
Or if you'd like to be a featured voice on the show, call in.
Leave a voicemail at 612-470-2612.
Tell us all about your favorite monster movies and memories.
Your favorite Christmas holiday.
Other Yuletide monster movies.
And check out our website CampKaijuPodcast.com
for more reviews and special content.
Matt, do you want to thank our patrons for us?
Yeah, thank you, patrons.
We really do appreciate you.
We're very grateful for your support.
Let me shout you out here real quick.
I'm frantically trying to write some trivia questions.
So let me just open Google Doc again real quick.
Are they listed on? Yeah, there they are.
So, yeah, thank you again, patrons.
Jason, Chris, Sean, Peggy and our anonymous patron.
Again, we really appreciate you.
Anybody else that's interested in becoming a patron?
Sorry if you just said this, Vincent, but you can go to Patreon.com
slash Camp Kaiju. Totally.
And you get lots of perks.
Matt and I really want to do a live event in the Twin Cities this next year.
So a VIP access to that.
Priority comments, voicemail.
You're sorry to say non patrons, but the patrons are cut above the rest.
So why not join and help us out a little bit?
Cool.
We may even be attending G Fest this summer in Chicago.
More to come about that, though.
Maybe you and I have to talk more about that.
We do. Yeah.
Maybe I didn't mean to let the cat out of the bag.
Sorry. We'll see. Oh, no.
Actually, before we before we continue with our with our game here,
would each of you mind just introducing yourselves
and your involvement with Camp Kaiju over the past year?
I can start. I'm Naomi Osborne, and I've been writing a trivia segment
called The Trivia That Challenged the World for season four of Camp Kaiju.
And just kind of getting to know Vincent and Matt, sharing tastes.
And they've come to my trivia that I hosted Minneapolis a couple of times.
And it's been really fun and I've had a good time. Likewise.
Definitely. Yeah.
I can go next. I'm Patrick Kazaki.
I am one of the co-hosts of the podcast Gaze to the D, a Disney podcast
with an LGBTQ plus spin on it.
And Camp Kaiju and and we have been sort of crossing over lately
and exploring the monstrous world of Disney
with some crossover episodes called Magic and Monsters.
So check those out as well. So much fun.
I'm Frank Olson.
I was on the Attack the Black episode,
which as of this recording is not actually out yet,
but by the time everyone hears this, it will be.
And that's my story.
And I had a 100 percent on this trivia game so far.
Which is no mean feat.
It's quite a claim to fame.
So we have some trivia questions for you all.
Matt, are you ready?
Let's see here.
I have three questions already.
I'm going to try to come up with one or two more so I can.
Yeah, I'm ready basically, but I might try to come up with a few more as well.
OK, OK.
Well, nice. This is very exciting.
So there are four of you aside from me on here.
So I'm trying to think.
I'm trying to think.
Like, you could all be your own team, just play for yourselves
or you could pair up.
How would we deliberate?
Or how would that work if we paired up?
Good question.
I feel like it should be everybody,
every man or woman for themselves, that's what I say.
OK, let's do it.
All right. So our first question is
one I love to to look into is the kill count of certain movies.
So I'm going to ask you which of these titles featured in season four of Camp Kaiju,
which monster killed the most people?
OK.
Now, I have one one quick clarification.
So if you say like Godzilla, for example,
there's like a billion Godzilla movies, you would probably be the first.
But are you just saying like within the movie they were featured in? Correct.
OK. Catch.
OK, so.
And it's OK if you guess the same title as someone else.
It'll be a point system, so whoever has more points at the end
will just add it up that way.
So should people type their answers in the chat or should they just yell them out?
I think you could just say it out loud.
Cool. Yeah. OK.
So. Three monsters, three different movies.
Who has the most on screen kills?
Is it the Wolfman?
From the Wolfman.
Is it Imhotep?
From the Mummy.
Or.
The Cthulhu from 1997's The Relic.
So is it the Wolfman Imhotep or the Cthulhu?
I'm going to say the Cthulhu. OK.
I'm going to go with the Imhotep on that one.
Yeah, I'm also I'm also going to follow suit with Imhotep in The Mummy.
Yeah, OK. Seemed like there was some crowds and stuff.
Yeah, I feel like there was. Yeah.
Sandwall. Like.
Storms and things that happen.
Yeah. Well, maybe I should say confirmed kills.
Oh, because you're right.
Imhotep does bring, you know,
fire, fireballs and locusts, right?
I'm sticking by my guy.
I'm sticking by my guy. Yeah, I'll stay.
Cool, cool, cool. Well.
Matt, do you want to play?
I don't. You can play if you want. You can take a guess.
Yeah, I was I was wondering if I should play or not.
Um, I'll say Imhotep from The Mummy.
That's my guess. OK.
Well, the answer belongs to Frank Olsen.
It is the Kathoga, the mutant lizard from the relic.
Imhotep was a great guest, though, and it was close.
So in descending order,
the Kathoga killed 15 people, many of which by decapitation.
Imhotep kills 11 people on screen anyways,
confirmed kills and the Wolfman kills six people.
I feel like it was that high.
Or six people die in the Wolfman from various wolves.
Fair, fair, fair, fair, fair.
Wolf men.
I feel like Imhotep is all show, you know, I mean, like, like
we were just saying, like, there's a lot of sand, a lot of storms
and like beetles and scarabs.
But what does he do? It's, you know, he's just showing off.
Come on, Imhotep.
He can be defeated by cats, you know, like I don't think he has a full arsenal
like a lot of other creatures do, you know?
Good point. Yeah.
All right. Well, Frank's in the lead.
Good job, Frank.
Yeah, good job.
Matt, do you have a question?
Sure. Yeah.
It's not multiple choice.
But it's also a question about the relic, which was a fun 90s monster movie.
So that's based on a book that was set in the American
Museum of Natural History in New York City.
But the filmmakers were not allowed to shoot there or set the film there
because the museum thought that it portrayed them in a negative light.
So for the movie adaptation, where is was the relic set and filmed?
I will recuse myself from this question. OK.
And I have to admit, even though I got that last question
right about the relic, I've never seen the relic.
So I could come up with some multiple choice answers, possibly.
Would that help? Maybe I should.
Although it might be kind of obvious.
I mean, I think it's a good point.
I don't want to say the right answer right away and then be like,
now let me think of a couple other ones.
OK, I have a couple possible answers here for the relic.
So where was the relic set and filmed because they couldn't actually set it
in the American Museum of Natural History?
Was it the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia,
the Exploratorium in San Francisco or the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago?
I'm going to say the Field Museum.
Yeah, I'd agree with Chicago.
It feels like that would be the better choice. OK.
I'm going to go with the San Francisco option only because maybe
that was closer for them to shoot and production would be easier.
Maybe. I don't know.
That's a good guess.
Oh, that's everybody.
I think that's a good guess.
Oh, that's everybody because Vincent recused himself.
It is the Field Museum.
So Frank and Patrick get that one.
I'll come up with a couple multiple choice answers for the next one.
Sorry about that.
All right. I'll really drag out my next one
and we'll get Mike Swan involved.
I'm Mike Swan. I'm late.
I've been friends with Matt and Vince and Patrick for many years now.
I was on the Godzilla X-Com episode.
I think that was over the summer.
And what a ride that was.
Indeed. A very fun episode.
We definitely we should all go to the Field Museum.
Go to the movies together sometime and have that kind of experience again.
Yes, please.
It'd be so fun.
I love meeting friends for movies.
It's like, I don't know, we all watch movies alone,
but it's really fun to experience them with people.
Definitely.
Especially in this day and age of streaming
and like people watching on phones and laptops and stuff.
There's nothing like the theatrical experience.
100%.
We should all the next like MCU movie that comes out.
We should all watch it on our phones.
That'll show.
Mike, we've been playing a game just keeping points.
So we only just started.
You're not too far behind.
But yeah, just asking some trivia questions and keeping score.
Okay.
So another fun question I like to or like thing I like to keep an eye on
are the decades represented on Camp Kaiju.
So, you know, we had a number of movies from X decade and this decade and that decade.
So which decades?
Maybe there's more than one.
Our most were most represented on season four of Camp Kaiju.
That's going to be from July, Godzilla Kong up until Gremlins.
How many possible answers are there?
Okay, I'll give you a hint.
Okay.
It's not the 1790s.
It's not the 18th one.
The oldest decade represented is the 1790s.
The oldest decade represented is the 1940s.
And there's each decade since the 40s is represented.
Okay.
Hmm.
Try not to go onto your podcasting app and scroll through our episodes.
That's a really good idea.
But dang it.
So which decade was most represented?
I'm going to take a swing at it and stick with the relic and say the 90s.
You're writing the relic all the way to the end.
It's working me so hard.
I'm going to say the 80s.
I'm going to go with.
I guess I'm going to say 90s too.
I'll just take a swing and go for the 70s.
The swinging 70s.
That's not true.
It's a swing in the 60s.
That's right.
Well, wait, Mike, what did you say?
80s.
Okay.
Well, if you said the 90s, you are correct.
I wasn't totally sure, but that was my guess too.
I was just thinking like, so aside from the relic, I know you guys did the relic.
Obviously you did arachnophobia, which I believe is 90 or 91.
Maybe.
Yeah. 1990.
And then we did the mummy.
Yeah.
That's right.
Yeah.
So three movies from the 90s and actually the 2020s were also at three.
Oh, see, I was totally thinking that too, but I could only specifically remember a few
90s.
So I just went for it.
What did you, other than gorilla ex-con gorilla ex-con, we did attack.
No.
Attack of the clones.
Of course.
And then Patrick and I joined forces with Morbius on Magic and Monsters.
True.
So a little wild card there.
But we had two movies from the 80s.
So you were close.
Two from the 70s.
Patrick, you're also close.
And then one from those other decades, 40s, 50s, 60s, 2000s and the 2010s.
I have a fun fact about Morbius.
Tell us.
When Adri and I got married a couple of years ago, she walked down the aisle, stunningly
beautiful.
She stands up there, we hold hands, I look in her eyes as the ceremony is about to start,
and she said, it's Morgan time.
Wow.
Just wow.
And now you're divorced.
Morgan will never forget.
That's the only fun fact from that movie, I would say.
Might be the only fun fact from that wedding.
It was rather forgettable.
A lovely time was had by all.
Matt, what do you have for us?
Alright, I have another question and I even have some answers, possible answers.
So this will be multiple choices.
So I'm ready for you.
So the Attack the Block, which we just recently talked about in the podcast with Frank Olson,
is set in a housing complex tower in South London.
And the name, the fictional name of that housing tower in Attack the Block is named after a
legendary British sci-fi writer.
Is that tower named after Aldous Huxley, H.G. Wells, or John Wyndham?
I don't know if Frank should be part of this one.
Yeah, probably not.
I do know the answer because I'm a sci-fi person.
Maybe Frank can answer last.
Or since Frank is way ahead of everybody else.
We can.
Sorry, we make up the rules.
Points don't matter.
I'm going to say John Wyndham.
I'm going to go with Wyndham too.
I haven't seen Attack the Block in a couple of years, but I really loved it.
It just sounds like apartmenty, like the kind of thing that wouldn't jump out unless more
of an Easter egg type answer.
So I'm going to go with that.
And the Wyndham is like a kind of a kind of like sounds fancy.
Yeah, I could see that carved in stone, you know, Wyndham.
Yeah, I'm going to go with H.G. Wells.
It seems too on the nose, but maybe that's why I like it because it is really up the nose.
Cool.
Frank probably knows.
I might have made this one too easy, but Frank, do you want to say the answer?
It is the Wyndham.
So Wyndham are correct.
And I remember that one when you were asking the question, I was like, all right, who was the
author on that list that I hadn't heard of before we talked about it last week?
Yes, it was Wyndham.
I've heard of him only because I could have like a little bonus trivia question here.
We actually talked about a movie on the previous season of Camp Kaju based on one of his books.
Does anybody know what movie we talked about last season that was adapted from one of his books?
I could just say the answer.
Day of the Triffids, which is a pretty bad movie, but maybe the book is better.
Who knows?
It's about killer plants.
If you all are interested.
I think you mentioned when we were doing the episode last week, he also did like Village of the
Damned, didn't he?
He did.
Yeah.
So he has like some titles I recognize, but I had never heard of the author by name.
And I've never read his books, but yeah, he has some clout for sure.
Okay, I do fanatics.
We have I have one question left.
Matt, you have one question left.
I actually have several questions left, so I'll choose the best one that I scrambled to come up with very quickly.
I love it.
Our scores as they stand.
We have Frank at three, Naomi at two, Patrick and Mike both at one.
Yeah, but mine's like one with an asterisk.
That's true.
Okay, one with an asterisk.
Yes, I have failed more times than Mike has so far on this.
I want that on the record.
I want it on the record that Patrick has failed.
Okay, well then for this one, for this my next question, Mike, if you happen to get it right, it'll be worth two points.
Hell yeah.
Well,
so this is also a plug for Camp Kaiju's Letterboxd.
Follow us there.
We are watching so many more movies than we ever cover on the podcast.
And I will name three movies.
And you are to guess which one has the highest average rating on Letterboxd.
Okay.
Is it 1958's Fiend Without a Face?
1990's Arachnophobia?
Or 2023's Godzilla Kong?
Godzilla Kong, the New Empire?
2024.
Sorry.
Whatever you're at.
I'm guessing you're referring to Godzilla X Tom.
Yes, Godzilla times Kong, the New Empire.
Right.
And it's the highest
like rating, their little star rating that they do?
Yep, yep.
So users on Letterboxd have rated which of these movies the highest on average.
I'm going to say Fiend Without a Face.
Okay.
I'm going to go with what I like best and that would be Arachnophobia.
I'm also going with Arachnophobia.
I was going to say Arachnophobia too because I just I know it's probably not that but I want it to be that so bad.
Yeah.
Okay.
I'm locking this in because it is Arachnophobia.
Yeah.
And I'll tell you, Frank, you're still at three.
Naomi has three and now Mike has three.
Patrick, you're at two so you're still right there.
But there's still time.
That's right.
This is a close game.
Anyways, Fiend Without a Face average 3.1 out of five.
Godzilla, Cross Kong, the New Empire is 2.7 out of five.
And Arachnophobia is 3.2 out of five.
Wow.
So it was real close.
See, my logic was I figured that Fiend Without a Face would have like the fewest ratings just because it's the oldest movie and that therefore, you know, the people who are viewing it are probably people who really liked it or whatever.
But apparently not.
No, that's that's a solid reasoning.
Yeah.
Arachnophobia is awesome though.
So yeah.
Yeah.
I was surprised by that, honestly.
But there you go.
I think Fiend Without a Face is awesome too.
I think I might have given that the highest letterboxed rating.
So that should be the correct answer, but it is not.
You're not playing that.
Yeah, I know.
Alas.
I didn't realize on letterbox until like I had already been using it for over a year that because I mostly use it to log.
I don't really review or anything like that, but I didn't know in order to log it, it was optional to do the rating.
So I used to give everything five stars just because I'm that kind of person and I don't care.
But then I realized, oh, I don't actually have to.
So now I just the pendulum has swung the completely other way and I don't give anything any stars.
People are looking at your letterbox.
They're like, wow, she really loves movies.
Yeah.
Every movie.
I watch so many movies.
She likes every movie she's ever seen.
It's just a rave.
Yeah.
Full stars.
But it means the same to me as no stars.
So I don't know.
I admire.
Yeah, I just thought it was funny because I just it had been so long that I was doing that.
And I have some other friends that do that, too.
And like sometimes I'm like, really, White Chicks deserves five stars.
Are you sure about that?
But, you know, it's I see the point of it for sure.
Yeah.
Naomi is chaos.
Good in the grid.
Yeah, exactly.
I usually rate the movie that I just watched and then the next morning that rating.
Yeah.
That's why I'm afraid to rate because, you know, an initial reaction might not really be how I feel.
And then I don't even want to have a top four.
It's too much pressure.
You know, I have my mind changes too much.
It should be more than four for sure.
Yeah.
Should be top eight like my state style.
Yeah.
Bring back my.
All right.
So I have one more question, right?
Yeah.
Cool.
I was going to maybe do a question about Fiend Without a Face or about arachnophobia, but we've already kind of covered those.
So I'm going to ask a question about a movie that we haven't talked about so far, even though I kind of hated it.
So in the movie God Told Me To by Larry Cohen, there's a brief cameo by a future Saturday Night Live star and legendary, if somewhat controversial, comic.
Is that comic who has a brief cameo in God Told Me To?
Is it Eddie Murphy, Andy Kaufman or Chevy Chase?
I'm going to go with Chevy Chase because he has a bad reputation, I guess somewhat now.
So I'm going to go with him.
Going with Chevy.
OK, I'm going to go with Andy Kaufman because he has.
Controversial reputation.
Like he has a weird reputation.
Yeah, definitely.
Who was the other choice?
Eddie Murphy was the other choice.
Yeah, I've seen God Told Me To, but I don't remember any of them making a cameo in it.
Yeah, that's what makes me think it's Andy Kaufman because maybe he was not very well known and no one would have remembered him from the movie.
So I'm going to go with Andy Kaufman.
Yeah, I guess I'll go Andy Kaufman as well.
It is Andy Kaufman, indeed.
Yeah, he is. It's in the parade scene.
He plays a police officer who just starts randomly shooting people in the crowd, which seems sort of appropriate for Andy Kaufman.
That's crazy.
Oh, the world.
OK, everybody, we have to go to a sudden death tiebreaker here.
So in the lead tied, we have Frank and Mike.
And then I think you're both tied at second place with three points.
I do. I have a tiebreaker question ready if you want, or if you if you have one you want to ask you certainly can mention.
I don't. OK. Well, I do have another Fiend Without a Face question, which I love that movie.
I mean, well, I'm not going to say more because that might give a hint to the answer.
So Fiend Without a Face is based on a short story from 1930 by the sci fi horror writer Amelia Reynolds.
Is the name of that original story that it's based on Attack of the Flying Brains,
brain stem beasts from the eighth dimension or The Thought Monster?
Those are all so good.
I'm going to say The Thought Monster because it sounds like the only one that's like a plausible title.
I'm going to.
And because I'm here for a good time, I'm going to say Attack of the Flying Brains.
Nice.
Well, is this the people in second answer? Is this for I'm confused.
No, it's OK. I think it was just it's just for Frank and Mike.
Oh, God. OK. Well, but I want to know what your answers would be.
And also what happens if we're both wrong? Do we just tie?
We just keep going. Yeah.
It never ends. It's like just extra innings. Yeah.
You know, I mean, like if Naomi and Patrick want to answer just for fun, they can.
Or I can just give you guys the answer.
No, let's let's have fun. You two can answer.
I've never seen it, so I can adopt whatever answer hasn't already been said.
Which one's been said or are still up for grabs rather?
The only one that's still up for grabs is brain stem beasts from the eighth dimension.
Let's do it. I'm going on five.
We're in some beats from the dimension. Cool.
It's a great, great title.
I'm going to go with thought monster because I can relate to that as a feeling on a daily basis.
The thought monster. Yeah, totally.
Well, I might have made this one a little bit too easy as well.
It is the thought monster. Indeed.
Which is a great title. I really want to read that story.
Congratulations, everybody.
We have Frank in first place, Patrick and Mike tied for second, and Naomi a close fourth with three points.
But hey, we're all winners here at camp. That was fun. Thank you for indulging us.
That was fun. Sorry, I wasn't better prepared.
It's OK, thanks, Mike.
But then you were overly prepared with 1000 questions, so you made up for it.
Yeah, I wrote 12 pages of questions over the last 20 minutes.
So, you know, keep on going.
Those can be found on our website at. Yeah.
All right. Enough for volatility.
Now, the moment you have all been waiting for.
Me and Matt are going to go in back and forth.
We're going to go we're going to go back and forth.
And Matt and I have not talked about these movies, so these will be surprises to us.
And these titles are subject to change.
The order of them are subject to change.
But this is what we're going with from January until June.
Wait.
So six titles each. Yeah. Cool.
And there'll be surprises in there. There'll be extra episodes, I'm sure.
Whether that's bonus episodes that come along, Magic and Monsters.
We're always thinking about ideas, but the mainstay episodes.
Here we go. And I had some backups, just so you know.
So if you chose one of my titles, not to fear. I have some others as well.
OK, well, I'm going to go first.
So the first title I'm going to bring is 19.
Oh, I got to get the year right here. OK.
It's from the 1900s, as we all are.
The anticipation is palpable right now. Yeah.
This first announcement. 1953.
It is called The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.
It is a it is it is the prototypical prototype of the Kaiju genre.
I mean, King Kong, yes.
But this movie came out a year right before Godzilla.
It was a direct inspiration for the producers at Toho.
And it features the animation techniques of Ray Harryhausen in his first
his first feature film that was like his his work.
And it's based on a short story by Ray Bradbury, actually.
So it's just a great science fiction monster movie that deserves its time on Camp Kaiju.
I love it. Awesome. Yeah, I have not seen that.
I'm dying to see that actually. Now you sell it well.
That was on my long list, but not my short list.
So I'm glad that you that you chose that one.
I'm curious to hear like after maybe after you guys or whatever you want to.
But how do you curate like what goes into your thinking of how you do that
and and how you make your selections? I'd love to hear.
That's great. Yeah, I I do try to have a variety in there.
I like to represent older decades, more recent films.
I like to think about the sort of the pillars of the genre,
whether it's Godzilla or Ray Harryhausen movie like The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.
These are the creators who who who created the genre that we know of monster movies.
So I think about that and I, as we'll see later on,
I'm trying to give I'm trying to give a little bit more to to our patrons
and some of their suggestions as well.
So I have a pic coming up that is for them to that sounds like a great choice
for a season premiere to do something that's kind of primordial,
you know, like that kind of origin point for the genre a little bit.
Mm hmm. Yeah, a formative film for sure.
And I would just say like for my selection process,
kind of like Vincent said, choosing like different historical time periods and stuff.
I try to like choose some Hollywood stuff, some international stuff,
you know, some guilty pleasures, some stuff that maybe is a little bit more thematically loaded.
So, again, just trying to like have a variety of different stuff in there,
which hopefully will be reflected in my choices.
But but we'll see. We'll see shortly.
Matt loves to pick movies that make you crawl into a dark place and cry a little bit.
I haven't done that in a while, but I am tempted to do so for sure.
I was going to choose the movie Possession for last season,
which is like one of the most disturbing movies ever made.
And I honestly I had to be to Vincent.
I was like, I'm going to take the selection off the list.
We'll maybe bring it back at some point.
But so I didn't subject you to that yet, Vincent, but we'll see.
Well, when you do, I'm going to bring up Leprechaun,
which is maybe my least favorite movie of all time.
All right. Not this year, though. Not this year.
Thank God. Well, I can tell you my my first choice.
And I should also preface this by saying that like I feel like I'm fairly familiar with everything,
of course, that we've discussed in the podcast.
I know most most of the early stuff that you did before I came on board.
But if I choose anything that you have already talked about years ago, just let me know.
I apologize if that's the case, but I don't think it is.
Anyway, my first choice is another classic in its own right.
John Carpenter's The Thing from 1982.
Hey, have you all done that one yet?
We have not. You haven't done it either. Right, Vincent?
We. OK, it's it's interesting.
I did like a 30 minute episode years ago with a guest host.
And then the title was featured last year as a as a bonus episode, The Frozen with Fear series.
Of course. Yeah, I feel bad about that. I'm going to choose a different one. Sorry.
But the thing is always fantastic. Yeah.
It just seems so like. How have you not done that one?
Yeah, I should have remembered the Frozen with Fear thing.
I didn't know that you had done it years ago. Sorry about that.
I have a long list so I can choose a different one.
No, I feel so bad. No, don't.
I you know, I've seen it before and I love it, but it's been like at least five years
and I kind of just want to watch it again. So I'll do that on my own.
And we we don't have to. It doesn't have to be a featured title.
So that's my bad. I apologize.
Well, I'm sure you have something just as good in your back pocket.
Yes. Yeah. So my first title, because I have not said another title before this one,
I'm about to say right now, is Invasion of Astro Monster from 1965.
Sweet. Yeah. Ishiro Honda.
It's kind of right. It's in the mid 60s, so kind of in his like sweet spot,
you know, right after Ghidorah, the three headed monster, I believe.
Classic Kaiju. I don't really know a lot about it, to be honest, but I love the name.
Well, for those of you who may not know, it's a Godzilla movie
where Godzilla goes to space. It happens.
And he battles King Ghidorah, Rodan is involved,
and there are extraterrestrials trying to take over the world.
It sounds awesome. Yeah. Yeah.
Is that one that has a Japanese edit and an American edit?
Probably. I'm only asking because I've seen it,
but I've seen the one with the like American actors in it.
And I remember the the guy who's kind of like the human protagonist in the movie.
It's just like a hilariously bad actor.
And I remember that's I think it's I think it's Nick Adams,
who was in Frankenstein Conquers the World. That sounds right.
I remember there's a part at the end where like
a planet is offered to him or something.
And then he goes, whatever is fair, pal.
And I was just such a ridiculous reaction to that.
Very silly. But yeah, I remember that being really entertaining. Cool.
Matt, you'd more. It was Nick Adams,
by the way, and it's funny that you say he's a hilariously bad actor
because he also appeared in Rebel Without a Cause and. Oh, really?
Yeah. He was like two of the three James Dean.
I sort of have a soft place in my heart for Nick Adams,
so I can't wait for Invasion of Astro Monster.
Matt, you more than made up for your thing thing.
And if you want to veto any of mine, feel free.
Oh, no, you're you know, you're a camp, you is your brainchild.
So whatever you say goes. Nah. OK.
This one's for the patrons.
I went back and forth so much on this one.
It's a newer film. This one is for our patron, Sean.
And he's at the ten dollar tier.
And a perk at that level is you're able to suggest movies for us to cover.
So I'm honoring that patrons.
If you're interested, feel free to to join Sean there.
But this is a 2014 independent body horror comedy from Kevin Smith.
I've never seen it. It's called Tusk.
And it deals with an arrogant podcaster who travels to Canada for an interview
and in the process meets an eccentric retired sailor
with dark plans related to his obsession with a walrus.
I don't know, but we're going to bring it.
We're going to talk about it. And I'm excited.
I'm excited. I'm so excited to hear that, too.
I'm really excited. I love Tusk.
I feel like I've thought about Tusk and I think Kevin Smith
could be relevant if he made more horror movies.
Like his horror didn't really translate into now.
And I and I'm saying this as an old Kevin Smith fan, you know, but I love Tusk.
I think Tusk is awesome.
And I'm really excited to hear you guys talk about that.
I'm so glad to hear that. Yeah. Awesome.
I can't wait. The premise is so weird.
I feel like even if I don't love it, it's going to be unique.
And that's always something. So I'm very excited to talk about it.
Yeah. Just real quick. Yeah. Sorry, Naomi. Go ahead.
OK, I was just going to say real quick, the other titles for this slot I had
were a 70s cult classic called Attack of the Killer Tomatoes,
Maximum Overdrive from the 80s or The Velocipastor,
which is a modern cult classic from the past 10 years.
But I'm going with Tusk. Nice. Good choice. Good choice. Yeah.
Although Adrian is a big fan of the Velocipastor.
I really want to see that.
I've always wanted to see Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.
So maybe maybe a couple of those will make the way to the podcast at some point in the future.
Totally. Awesome.
For my next choice, I'm going to go all the way back to the 1930s.
This is kind of an offshoot of the classic Universal monster movies,
but maybe more slightly more obscure one.
Dracula's Daughter from 1936, which sounds fascinating.
I mean, it's right there in the title.
Dracula's Daughter tries to avenge his death and targets,
I think, Van Helsing's daughter, if I remember the plot synopsis correctly.
So, yeah, it sounds very weird, very cool. I'm excited to see it.
It is a... I think it is a wildly underrated film in the Universal canon
at a time where monsters were not feminine.
But this here is a female monster in the series.
And it deals with a lot of psychology in the film, too.
And I think I can always watch that movie.
So that is wonderful, Matt. Thank you.
Awesome. Cool.
What do I have next?
January, February, March. It's Mothra March Madness, everybody.
Time-honored tradition at Camp Kaiju.
So this is going to be a Mothra movie.
It is going to be 1992's Godzilla vs. Mothra.
It is part of the Heisei era, and longtime listeners of the show will know that
just by chance, Matt and I have been watching for the show
the Heisei Godzilla in order.
Usually we jump around with these other things, but this particular era of the series,
by chance, we've gone in order.
So I'm going to pick up right after Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah,
and we're going to watch Godzilla vs. Mothra.
I love that choice.
I really have enjoyed all the Heisei movies that we've seen so far,
which also include Godzilla vs. Bi-Elante, which is so bizarre,
and the Return of Godzilla from 1984.
I didn't think I was going to like that era of Godzilla movies so much,
but they're incredible so far, so hopefully this one can keep it going.
Great special effects, and I'm a 90's kid. That's what I like.
You must have anticipated that one. Did you anticipate that pick?
I did not, no. I figured there would be a Heisei Godzilla movie selected,
but I didn't know it was going to be that one exactly.
But I probably should have realized that we're going in order.
That didn't really occur to me, so it's kind of a logical choice.
I think about this stuff literally too much.
I love it. I can't wait.
Now I wish I had chosen a Mothra movie for Mothra March Madness,
but I have another 90's monster movie that kind of has a name that starts with M in it.
The Island of Dr. Moreau is my next choice.
A notoriously bad movie with maybe the most troubled production back story
of any Hollywood movie ever made, which is a bold claim, but it might be accurate.
It has Marlon Brando. I think both John Frankenheimer and Richard Stanley directed it
because it was such a chaotic shoot.
So it can be Mothra, Moreau, March Madness. That's my choice.
Love it. That's podcast gold, a pick like that.
There's just so much to talk about with that movie.
That might have to be a special two hour episode, I think.
Honestly, there's just so much to cover there.
Even though I've heard it.
Yeah, no, I love that story.
That movie has long been on my radar, and that's why I love this show.
You and I, and everyone, we get the chance to watch some of these movies for the show.
So that's so exciting to me as a big Marlon Brando fan, too, to see like the end of his career.
Yes. Not his best performance.
All right.
This next pick is a movie that I've been wanting to bring to Camp Kaiju since the very beginning.
But I've just been kicking it down down the road, and it's from 1953.
It's called Invaders from Mars.
It is a, I was going to say it's a it's a Technicolor film early in the sci fi heyday of the 50s.
But this movie is kind of a cult classic.
It concerns a young boy who witnesses a UFO crash land in his town.
And all the adults in his life start becoming not possessed, but mind controlled by the aliens, by the Martians.
So there's a huge subtext about about children not being able to trust the adults in their lives.
And I was turned on to this movie a long time ago.
It's like Steven Spielberg talks about it.
So I really enjoy it.
And I just want to share it with everybody.
That was on my long list as well.
We're like minded, not surprisingly.
Cool. I can't wait to talk about that.
I'm going to change up my next choice to kind of correspond with that a little bit more.
This is another kind of alien movie.
This one is from the 1990s.
So I guess I'm doing two 90s movies in a row, two kind of trashy bad 90s movies in a row.
But that's all right.
Species is going to be my next title, which I've wanted to bring to the podcast for several years.
So, wow. Yeah.
Trashy, like I said, in the best possible way.
It'll be fun to hear you guys talk about that.
That's species.
That was a that was a paternity leave watch of mine.
And I was just it was like midnight.
I was just so sleep deprived.
I was like, what the hell was that?
Yeah.
OK.
Well, it seems like maybe you didn't love it, but maybe you'll feel differently on your rewatch.
But this is going to be the basis of a great conversation.
It does sound very different from Invaders from Mars.
But, you know, aliens.
So it'll be a May alien invasion, whatever it is.
Yeah.
Um, my next pick, I think I've had five so far.
One, two, three.
I think you've had I've had four anyway.
Four.
Oh, Gamera, the Invincible.
This is the first Gamera movie.
Matt and I, we've talked about two other Gamera films, but we haven't talked about the original.
So we're going to talk about the first Gamera from 1966.
Giant Turtle.
Diez Studios answer to Godzilla.
It's black and white, really bare bones, but awesome special effects.
Gamera breathes fire.
He's still the friend of all children, but he's still also a scary turtle monster.
So we're bringing Gamera back to the show.
Awesome.
I love that movie.
I saw it maybe I think like a year and a half ago.
Really happy to watch it again.
I really liked it a lot more than I expected.
Mm hmm.
Friend of all children, like you said.
I love that.
Gamera's great.
Um, OK, so since I didn't do the thing, I think I'll do a different 80s monster movie by a very celebrated
horror director, which is Swamp Thing by Wes Craven from 1982.
Ooh, which I've never seen.
I've wanted to for a long time.
Have anyone's any of you guys seen it?
No, me neither.
No, I have not.
Um, but Wes Craven.
Yeah.
I mean, he's hit or miss, but I have not seen it, but it's been on my list for sure.
Yeah, I've heard mixed things about it, and I might have to brush up on some of the comic books,
which I haven't read in a long time.
But, um, yeah, it looks cool.
I love the design of Swamp Thing, so there's that at least.
Yeah, same.
I know a little bit about the comics just in the sense of one of my favorite artists, Bernie Wrightson.
Do you guys know him at all?
It's like really cool fantasy art, but he did a lot of the illustrations for some of the Swamp Things.
And I have a few of his pieces in my house, actually.
Very cool.
Yeah.
I vaguely remember there being a Swamp Thing like TV series, like when we were little kids,
like maybe on USAID Network or something.
I don't think I ever watched it, but I'd like seen commercials for it and stuff.
I remember that too.
I actually remember thinking it looked kind of boring every time I flipped onto that station,
but I was like 10 years old at the time, so maybe I was just not mature enough to understand the complexity.
I love it.
My partner and I call that adult nonsense.
Like when you're a kid and you see something or you remember something that existed,
but you were not interested in at all, it's just like adult nonsense.
That's very exciting, Matt.
Our first Wes Craven picture on the podcast.
It's about time.
Yeah.
Although he is hit or miss like Naomi said, but he has some good stuff.
My last pick for and this brings us right up until Chi July, best time of the year.
This is a cult classic movie about giant battling robots from 1989.
It's called Robot Jocks and it's set in a post-apocalyptic world where the differences between countries
are solved by putting your best pilot in a mech and just going toe to toe in the arena.
So it's like Pacific Rim meets Gladiator.
Whoa.
It's directed by Stuart Gordon, directed reanimator and a bunch of other really well-known sort of movies in the horror genre.
Yeah, that makes me want to watch it because I love Stuart Gordon.
Reanimator is such a good film.
I totally want to watch that.
Yeah, it's a good time.
It's very cheesy 80s action movie again with giant robots.
Great. Perfect.
Sign me up.
And an awesome title too.
I love it.
I think for my last pick, I might have to do, I don't know if this is really a feel bad movie,
but it's maybe a little bit more artsy for lack of a better term.
I've always wanted to see it. It's The Company of Wolves by Neil Jordan from 1984,
which is filled with werewolves and kind of burgeoning sexuality and feminist themes.
And as far as I know, I haven't seen it, like I said, but I've wanted to bring it to the podcast for a while.
Sounds fascinating. And I like Neil Jordan.
Yeah, I just heard about that movie the other month. So that's awesome.
I love that movie. I feel like it'll add a good something to the lineup too,
because it's sort of that fantasy, you know, like folky kind of stuff,
rather than just like a straight monster or any kind of kaiju or anything.
It's more like a folktale kind of vibe.
I was hoping that was the case. It sounds awesome.
It's good. You guys will like it.
Cool.
It's the robot jocks and The Company of Wolves.
So, yeah, that's great. What a lineup.
That's yeah, I'm excited.
Yeah, we need a like a theme for this season.
You know, like what?
What's that?
I'm sorry for the profanity. A bunch of random shit is the theme that I came up with.
I'll come up with something catchy for the an alliterative for the for the title of the episode.
Yeah. But you know, that's what I love about it.
It's like a wide array of different kinds of movies.
So. And everyone on here, if you want to guest host on any of those episodes, let us know.
We're happy to do so. Cool. Yeah. Cool.
We have one more episode to announce.
This is the next installment of the Magic and Monsters series between Camp Kaiju and Gaze Do the D.
I'm going to turn it over to Patrick.
Oh, thanks so much. Thanks so much. Yeah, I'm actually really excited about this pick.
Hopefully it'll come out in early ish in the year because I want it to coincide with the the remake of The Wolfman,
which is coming out, I believe, in January 2025.
So we'll be exploring Disney's answer to the original Wolfman.
And that would be 1959's The Shaggy Dog is what we'll explore this time around, which is fun fact.
Also, coincidentally, Walt Disney's very first live action comedy as well.
And so they explored the Disney side of what that might be for a Wolfman story.
And that answer was not the Shaggy Dog. You really had me going there.
I expected something not the Shaggy Dog.
I don't know what you were thinking. A lot of people did.
It's an old movie, but a classic. Yeah. That's so great.
Thank you, Patrick. Hey, I'm excited to talk about it.
Fun. You never know what you're going to get here on Camp Kaiju.
That's right.
Well, on that note, I don't have like a closing bit for us all, but I just want to say thank you guys for joining us.
Matt, did you have anything else you wanted to add?
Maybe I will do that rendition of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas like Frank suggested before.
And I think now is the appropriate time. No, I'm just kidding.
I don't really have anything else to say, you know, kind of like you alluded to before, Vincent, like there are obviously a lot of monster movies coming out soon, like the Wolfman remake, the Nosferatu remake.
So we'll probably be talking about some of those two on the podcast. Maybe, maybe not. We'll see.
Right, right. Nosferatu. I'd love to go make time to see that.
If anyone's in town and wants to wants to go check that out together, I think that'd be awesome.
Yeah. But thank you guys. This is so much fun. So much fun hanging out with you all and talking about this stuff.
And just let us know if you want to, if you have any ideas for the show or or want to appear on any episodes.
That sounds good. There's a lot that I haven't seen coming up, so I'm really excited to listen or to be inspired by some of the picks that you guys selected. I'm excited for that.
Thank you. Yeah. As always, there are one or two movies where I'm like, I hope this is not terrible.
But even if it is, there will be interesting stuff to talk about.
Totally. And you know, you've got to find out, at least be educated on being a hater on it. You know, that's what I tell people.
Like if they if they're like skeptical about something, it's like, well, you got to at least see it so you can be an educated hater on it.
You know, yeah, nothing worse than being an uneducated hater. Exactly. Hating for hate and safe. I don't think so.
Yeah, I have to be honest, the shaggy dog might be a little too scary. That's fair for mature audiences only.
Right. More of a that darned hater. Understandably.
And again, thank you, listeners. Please leave us a positive rating. Wherever you listen to Camp Kaiju, you can send us listener comments on our Facebook page, on our YouTube, CampKaiju.gmail.com, Instagram, leave us a voicemail, 612-470-2612.
Tell us what you think about this lineup, what you're excited for. Check out our website.
Follow the website, CampKaijuPodcast.com. Camp Kaiju is recorded in Minneapolis, St. Paul with Beanie's mailbox music by Ben Cook Phelps.
Thank you, friends. And until next time, stay campy.
Happy holidays. Happy holidays. Happy holidays, y'all. Happy Krampus. Yeah, happy new year.
What's that? Wait. Listen.
Well, they've gone. For a good job?
No, just for now. It wasn't the right time for us to meet. But there'll be other nights, other stars for us to watch. They'll be back.