Hello everyone and welcome to the Every Movie Ever podcast.
My name is Ben Gross.
My name is Rob McFarlane.
Welcome to the show.
A movie podcast slash mental health check-in for two broken brain best friends.
Talking around their problems, but not about their problems whilst laughing at movies.
Given that this is a thinly veiled mental health check-in, Ben, before we get to what
we're doing, I feel like it's more important I ask you, how are you doing?
Thanks babe.
I'm doing good man.
I'm having a week off from work, so that's fucking fantastic.
You bastard.
I honestly mate, it's incredible.
I needed it.
I needed it deep in my bones.
I volunteered for the boardroom gaming cafe at a science show they did at a national trust
house.
So that was really fun.
I'm today chasing paper rockets all over a field.
It's because the lovely people in the boardroom gaming cafe at Wellington in Telford.
Love them.
Have realised that you need an enabler near you.
You know, I'm your digital enabler and they're your physical ones.
So that's good.
It's nice man.
You've got some big news.
Yeah, I'm three years sober as of yesterday.
So technically I'm three years and one day sober and I'm fucking buzzing my tits off
about it.
Oh nice.
Yeah.
I need to take a minute just to thank you for being there for all my wobbles because
honestly, don't think I could have done it without you.
Don't be silly mate.
I know I couldn't have done it without you.
Just trying to play it down a little bit because don't want to get emotional.
Don't worry about it.
Honestly, in all sincerity, every single one of those wobbles was a pleasure because it
made me feel like a more capable person.
Oh, that's good.
Yeah.
See?
I'm going to read them and one day when I need some ammunition, I'll just read them
out.
Do you remember that time you called me crying?
I do.
Yeah, I'm not going to do that.
Honestly.
Which one?
Honestly, mate, I couldn't be prouder.
Thanks man.
I appreciate it.
I've got a fucking wicked support network of people around me as well.
I thank, I can't tag all of them individually because there's too many to list, but I love
you all.
And you'd forget one and it'd be really awkward.
That's what I mean.
You know what I mean?
I know if you're listening to this and at any point you've helped me fucking love you.
Thank you.
They know who they are.
I'm towards the end of processing.
I went through a breakup a few months back.
I'm sort of processed, I think, and getting towards the end of it and feeling very positive.
Few months of self care.
Top tip for those ladies in the Telford area.
If you hide a vibrator in the bathroom, Ben will just think you're brushing your teeth.
Very naive.
Right?
He'll be like, God, her dental hygiene is spot on.
Incredible.
Four times in one day.
Right.
Pearly white.
Immediately after sex.
He's like, I'm just going to go brush my teeth.
Oh yeah, but that's just natural though, isn't it?
That's the story of my life, mate.
I've started brushing my teeth after sex purely for that reason.
You know what I mean?
How are you buddy?
I'm very nervous.
I've got an interview coming up.
Yeah, you do.
I'm not going to say the job, but it's a job that I'd very much like.
Yeah, you would.
I've done a number of secret projects that we're working on.
To the casual listener, they're just going to be like, yeah.
But to us, we know how much extra work it is.
So I was trying to juggle all those hats.
And then this employer got in touch and went, you know that dream job?
Fight for it.
Come see us in person and fight for it.
I saw your application.
You fucking smashed it.
Hopefully.
It made me jealous of how good it was.
And I was like, oh, you know what?
Just fuck you.
Get the job.
Go be happy.
Fuck you.
Don't don't wear that on the podcast.
I was going to say, yeah.
What the fuck was that video edited?
What are we doing this week, Ben?
Today we're strapping on our finest PVC.
We're busting out our fanciest new rock boots.
I mean, you're just describing a Tuesday.
But happy Wednesday, buddy.
And we're slathering on enough face paint to make any juggalo proud as we cover, that's
what some would call it, cashing in.
But fuck you.
Everyone else does it.
We're the crow from 1994.
I'm going to be honest.
I saw the remake coming out.
I thought that would be fucking hilarious.
I've seen the trailer.
It's going to be a fucking car crash.
Mate, I've seen the trailer so many times and every time I'm like, I don't know.
I don't know if I can.
We're going to be covering that on the week of its release.
Yeah.
Terrifying.
Super fun.
So we thought, you know what?
We'll hop on this train and we'll rewatch the original.
And I was a bit conflicted about it because I watched the original a lot as a pre-team.
Oh, shocker.
But it had a bit of an effect on the following years for me in terms of fashion, music, magicians,
outfits, romance, style.
Sure.
Sure love me when I'm dead.
And I was a bit wary of revisiting it.
Now I have.
I feel like it's time for the Goth Renaissance, mate.
I feel like I've let it slip.
And you're getting the duster.
You're busting the duster out.
Mate, if I stop working in the kitchen, I can get back on the fucking nail polish.
I've been dying to do that.
Save this spiel until after you've done the job interview.
And then if you get the new one, there you go.
But manifesting it, mate.
I'm manifesting it.
All right.
Okay.
We're chatting away.
We've got loads to get into.
We're going to be getting into how the production of The Crow is cursed.
Yeah.
I've got a fucking chunk for that one, buddy.
I've also got a little bit on how the curse is still in effect to this day.
Oh, okay.
That'd be fun.
We've also got what comic book movies were like before the likes of Marvel and DC started
shoving three new entries of any old shit into theaters every fucking year.
Yes, we do, buddy.
And we've also got the cultural effects of The Crow had on cinema and how the source
material for this film helped heal a deep, heartbreaking tragedy.
What I love about this, Ben, is the listener will not realize that it's taken us 25 minutes
to get to this point because both of us apparently can't speak.
Yes, sir.
It's a Wednesday and I'm melting.
So this movie came out in 1994, budget 23 million, raked in 51 million at the box office,
fucking smashed it.
We are obviously covering it because we're cashing in on the reboot coming out.
Give us the fucking eyeballs.
Give us the numbers.
Know what I mean?
We've just hit 81,000 downloads.
No, I know.
We have.
But I disagree.
I genuinely, I rewatched this and I was like, why haven't we covered this before?
Oh, so you mean the first idea.
I was like, yeah, cashing in.
I've since rewatched the film and I'm like, this is like a core memory for me and I don't
know why I've not brought it.
Okay.
I've got so much to say about this that would have been relevant a year ago.
Right.
And yeah, I think I just blocked it out because I'm trying to block out who I was as a teenager,
you know?
I think that's a fair coping mechanism.
Thank you.
Yeah.
I'm assuming you didn't watch this as a teenager.
That was so mean.
I'm so sorry.
I owe you like a bunch of those.
Okay.
That's fine.
I watched this fairly recently, like the last few years, because it's always been one of
those films where I'm like, yeah, I'll get around to watching it.
Right.
I just never watched it and I was completely on the train of, I've never seen The Crow.
Yeah, it's fine.
It's all this, like the other.
Rewatched it recently, have seen The Crow.
Yeah.
Have seen it.
I've grown up with that in my mind for a little while.
Right.
Just didn't know it was The Crow.
Don't know why?
Why?
Probably because they use fucking ravens in the film.
It's not crows.
It's big crows.
All right.
It's a big crow.
It's not big crows.
I know.
I know you could say a big crow is a raven.
You can't.
They're very different creatures with different calls.
Yes.
Again, I'm teenage me is coming out.
Yeah.
Pushing my fucking glasses up my nose and talking about spooky birds.
I know.
Let's play the jingle for the breakdown.
Regular listeners will know that this is where we go through in detail what happens in this
film just so you know what the fuck we're talking about later.
It's a spoiler warning.
You've been warned.
Right.
In case 1994 to 2024 is not enough time.
It's 30 years.
It's 30 years anniversary of Brandon Lee's death.
Well, yeah.
Because it would coincide with the filming of The Crow.
Right?
I don't know.
I don't know the facts about this yet.
You've not told me.
Oh my God.
I'm going to start the breakdown.
This is going to be the show this week.
Yeah.
All right.
I'm in a fighting mood.
Yeah.
Okay.
The Crimes are out in force.
The Crimes?
The Crimes are out in force, setting fire to shit and being a general nuisance.
While they're at it, they violently murder rock musician Eric Draven whilst raping his
fiance Shelley, which frankly is just not on.
It's too far.
A year passes and Eric is resurrected by a mystical crow, returning as a vengeful spirit
driven by the need for revenge and harlequin makeup and songs by The Cure.
Yes, sir.
Eric uses his newfound super goth powers to hunt down and kill the gang members responsible
for his and Shelley's murder.
Along the way, he forms a close bond with the ex-Ghostbuster Winston Zeddemore, who's
working these days as a Detroit cop.
Having seen it all before in New York, Winston isn't all that bothered that Eric is literally
returned from the dead.
That's so true.
Right.
I figured that's just...
Yeah.
He just sees him and he goes, oh, I've seen worse.
Oh, dude.
Right.
When you're dead.
Yeah.
That's fucking...
That's crazy.
Right.
He drops in to see Sarah, a young girl that his dead fiance, Shelley, used to babysit.
Although they only ever talk about the weather.
Can't rain all the time.
Can't rain all the time, bud.
As he slowly kills his way through the gang, Crime Lord and my absolute teenage idol, Top
Dollar.
Oh, god.
You fucking cringe bag.
Learns of Eric's resurrection.
Right.
He's just the coolest fucking guy.
He's really not.
He's the coolest fucking guy, Ben, and I'll get into it.
He's the sort of person that holds a door open at a restaurant and then gets angry when
people don't say thank you immediately.
Do you know what I mean?
No, he's not.
Yes, he is.
Moving on.
He learns of Eric's resurrection by spooky bird and he seeks the spooky bird power for
himself.
He's definitely into some sort of super kinky shit involving necromancy, or at least his
girlfriend is, and looking at her, I'd probably change my hobbies too, if I'm honest.
Sorry.
Girlfriend?
You mean half sister?
His father's daughter.
Yeah, okay.
I'd forgotten that bit.
You've forgotten that bit.
Yeah, yeah, that's fine.
Sorry.
This is your super idol.
It didn't fit into my vision of what I wanted to be.
No, that's fine.
He kidnaps the young Weather fan, Sarah, and lures Eric into a final confrontation, injuring
the spooky bird and cancelling Eric's hot topic membership of the Supergoth powers.
In a climactic sword fight on a church roof in the rain at night, bleeding profusely, Eric
defeats Top Dollar, channeling his dead fiance's pain directly through the gangster, causing
him to fall off the roof onto a fucking gargoyle.
With his vengeance taken, Eric returns to the grave, reunited with Shelly in the afterlife.
I'm going to just recap the film, but before I do, in this last paragraph, I'm just going
to read out all the goth words.
Sword, church roof, rain, night, bleeding, dead fiance, pain, fall off the roof onto
a gargoyle, vengeance, return to the grave, afterlife.
To recap, a sexy zombie fights gangsters with his healing powers, his John Woo Gun Fu, and
some kick-ass fucking songs.
John Woo Gun Fu.
It is.
Outstanding.
It's pre-Matrix, it's pre-Blade.
It is.
It's just, we've seen Hard Boiled, and we want a bit of that.
Yeah, true, true.
Give me your initial reaction to this film, so rewatching it for this show, you're watching
it, you're thinking, fuck Top Dog, that's the one.
No, less so now.
That's the one.
Maybe I'll grow my hair out, you know what I mean?
His missus is bailing.
His half-sister, sure.
Right, but you only find that out after you've seen her in the shower.
Doesn't make it better.
They do a shitload of cocaine, but he's got an incredible voice.
He's got a great voice.
He's got really flamboyant fashion sense.
Sure.
He's got goons, he's got a nightclub that he owns, and he's got a fit missus, who you
later find out is his half-sister.
Stop calling his half-sisters his missus.
It's so, I just like calling Leia Luke's missus.
It doesn't fucking work once you know the reveal.
Stop it.
Do you know what I mean?
I'd forgotten quite how definitively this is the ultimate goth film, and I'm going to
get into that.
It was like coming home to a film that had meant an awful lot, but I only realise now
on the re-watch how much it had clearly affected me.
Right, I got you.
At the time I was like, that's a cool film.
And then proceeded to a copy.
Lived your life.
I didn't want to buy it, but was unaware of the fact that that's what I was doing.
And re-watching it I was like, oh.
Is this why we keep getting emails to the podcast account being sort of like, you're
trying to register the domain TrashNightclubLLC.com?
Is this why it's key?
If I had a nightclub, I would call it trash.
Come on.
Damn.
Of course I would.
I'm just going to start calling you Top Dollar from here on out.
Mate, if you could, that would really make my life.
Rob Dollar.
There you go, mate.
Rob Dollar.
Fucking ridiculous.
So also brilliant.
But also fantastic.
No, I do kind of low key love it.
I watched this film again for the podcast a couple of times because I can't just watch
things once.
It is great.
And it's one of those films that's escaped my memory.
And I've always been like, you know, when you see those posts on Facebook, hi, I need
some help finding this film.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's always been one of those to me, but I can't accurately describe it because it's
always sort of like Skinny Man with a city on fire and everyone's like, what the fuck
are you talking about?
Watching it again.
You mean the rapper, Skinny Man?
Because see what I mean?
There's too many avenues to go down.
It's fucking impossible.
But watching it again, I was like, there was a few core scenes that hit me way different
this time around because they're just, A, I didn't realize how fucking sweet and wholesome
this film is the first time around watching it.
It's incredibly sweet.
It's funny.
And it's got its tongue in its cheek and it's also sinister as fuck.
But also it's a real fucking rare example of a comic book movie that's faithful to the
original in so many ways, but also doesn't lose sight of the message the comic book was
trying to present.
Doesn't stick to the source material against its own quality.
Exactly.
There are some, there's like, there's two avenues are we've completely disregarded the
source material, fuck yourselves fans or it's all fan service and somebody walking in off
the street has no fucking clue what's happening.
Yeah.
Like don't get me wrong.
I love comic book movies and I love video game movies and I love all this stupid shit,
but I like them for the wrong reasons.
Like Uwe Boll is unashamedly one of my favorite directors of all times just because the amount
of shit that that man has put out is insane.
Like it's like he just, he takes something that I love and goes, I'm just going to fucking
ruin this.
It's exciting for me now to go, I wonder how he's ruined this franchise for me.
I wonder how he's ruined it for me.
Yeah.
It's such a fun game to play.
Like sitting down to watch an Uwe Boll movie.
It's like being the orderly in a Northern Irish prison in the eighties.
Yes.
Just going, I know there's going to be shit on the walls, but I wonder what he's painted
with it.
Exactly.
That's exactly what it is.
So I love, I love comic book movies and video game movies and like stuff like that because
Marvel and DC, they've trashed everything.
Marvel and DC, I'm going to defend them here.
They've had 20 years of incredible box office success.
Oh, thousand.
Don't get me wrong.
Films that were originally eight and nines out of tens.
Yeah.
And they've now sunk to four out of tens.
Yeah.
And I hear you, they're ruining it now.
Yeah.
But the reason they're ruining it is because they're trying to get bums on seats, which
is never the right reason to ruin something.
Exactly.
Have some fucking dignity and ruin it the way Uwe Boll does.
For just mad cocaine decisions.
Just ruin a franchise.
The same reason that Uwe Boll does for a tax loophole and German law.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just if you're going to do it, do it for the right reasons.
Fuck it with malice.
Yeah.
He doesn't give a shit about corporate gain.
It's what's in his pocket that counts.
Exactly.
So the source material for the crow, I've done a little bit of digging on this and fuck
me mate.
It like, it broke me a little bit.
Okay.
So obviously we've established I'm the goth of the pair.
So I'm going to know all of this.
So you're telling me so you can tell the audience because I'm just like the most informed goth
guy ever.
All right, Rob Daller, calm your tits.
I'm going to get into it a little bit.
So the crow is a comic book written and illustrated by James O'Barr.
He lost his fiance when he was 18 years old in a car accident with a drunk driver.
Did he?
Heartbreaking.
I mean, so yeah, no, I knew that.
Yeah.
Obviously you did.
Yeah.
So go on.
So he lost his fiance at 18 years old after a car accident with a drunk driver.
The crow and the comic book are, was a type of personal therapy to help him deal with
his grief.
So he's explained that he realized all of the other ways that he tried to deal with
his grief were just ultimately numbing his pain.
They weren't, they weren't processing.
It wasn't helping him deal with it.
And it wasn't until he found this creative outlet, which was the comic book art, that
he was finally able to start truly healing.
And A, it's fucking heartbreaking the situation it was in, but B, for him to find something
that genuinely helped him heal is gorgeous.
It just, it, I was welling up, man.
I was welling up and I was like, you know what?
I love this guy.
I love this guy so much already.
We are weird creatures in that terrible, terrible things can happen to us.
Yeah.
Like the worst things imaginable.
And the things that often help us come back from that can often be quite inane.
Yes.
Like, okay, it's a graphic novel.
It didn't start as that.
It will have started as him doing drawing.
Yeah.
And I love the fact that something is innocent as what you're doing to deal with your grief.
Doing some drawings.
Drawing, drawing, drawing.
It's a legitimate, it's a legitimate thing.
Right.
And you can say it's small, it's this, that or the other.
It's not, it's the biggest thing in the world.
Of course it is.
We do a fucking podcast for fuck sakes and it helps.
This is us dealing with our shit and this is our little creative outlet.
Do you know what I mean?
But this, I mean, if this just went out to one person and it was just me and you doing
this every week, I would still be just as excited.
Oh God, yeah.
I'd be lonelier, but I'd be just as excited.
And still tell your friends for fuck sakes.
But yeah, one person would be fine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But also that one person tell a friend.
You know what I mean?
So James O'Barr, he was also inspired by an actual crime that he read about for the story
of the, for the story of the crow.
He was moved by another tragedy that would sort of enforce the story of the comic book.
There was a story of a couple being robbed for their engagement ring and the thief needlessly
taking their lives in the process.
And O'Barr said, O'Barr said that the sad story inspired Eric Draven's mission of revenge
after becoming the crow.
Right.
And the things that Draven would do in order to set right the injustice that ultimately
drove him and his love apart.
I've got a quote from him.
Right.
He says that became the beginning of the focal point.
The idea that there could be a love so strong and this soul would not rest until it could
set things right.
And if that isn't the fucking sweetest thing to pull on your heartstrings, knowing the
backstory of why you created this, this franchise is that doesn't tug on your heartstrings.
You're a fucking monster.
I'm sorry to inform you.
You are a monster.
Yeah.
You're the sort of person who robs someone for their engagement ring.
This is what I mean.
You're the one person unaffected by that story.
And it's him.
Yeah.
That person that stole the fucking engagement ring.
Fuck you.
Evil Sonic.
Even Rob Dollar is affected by this.
You know what I mean?
He's top dog criminal with his fucking duster.
Unbelievable.
I knew some of the design.
I've not really read the comic book.
Okay.
Because I'm not a massive comic book.
I skim.
Like I'm very superficial.
I've read Watchmen.
I've read V for Vendetta.
Sure.
Sam and things like that.
Although I can't read Sam and any more.
Right.
And I did know was based on the singer, Pete Murphy.
Okay.
His visual design.
I was going to say how.
He was not held up by Evil Sonic for his engagement ring, but he was the singer of Bauhaus.
Who did.
So did you just say Evil Sonic for his engagement ring?
I said it for the fifth time.
I've said it six times.
Have you actually?
Yeah.
I'm so sorry I didn't pick up on that.
That's A. That's awful.
And B. Fucking well done.
I'm glad it finally.
Come on.
It took a minute.
Yeah.
I fucking duster in the bowl.
I never had a duster.
I grew up listening to Bauhaus because my mom was a massive eighties goth.
Okay.
They did Bella Lugosi is dead.
They did a whole bunch of stuff that was fucking excellent.
Yeah.
They did a great cover of Telegram.
Sam, they do anyway.
Great band.
And that was kind of the music I grew up on.
My mom was really into like Soft Cell, Bauhaus, the birthday party, the cure.
Such good bands.
Great bands.
But she was also into opera.
Figure that one out.
And so your mom just gets more attractive by the each episode we talk about your mom.
She just gets more and more attractive.
You know what I mean?
I'm going to send her a text after this.
I haven't spoke to her in a while.
You know what I mean?
Yes.
Because she's angry with you.
I won't say that.
You'll only enjoy it more.
Yeah.
I was going to say what?
You serious?
Fuck yeah.
Fuck text.
I'm in the car.
See you in two hours mate.
But the Crow for me represents like the sort of birth, the mainstream acceptance of goth
culture into movies because superheroes before this, you had Batman, which was like Tim Burton
whimsical.
OK.
But I've got a bit on this.
I've got a bit of a list on this.
I'm going to rock your brain with because there's a few that I don't think you're going
to think of.
But yeah, we had Batman.
We had Superman.
We had a bunch of like light family adventure movies.
Yes.
And if you were going to go fantastical, you were going to go family friendly.
Yeah.
1000%.
This I feel like there's a quote from Top Dollar, right?
And he talks about where is it?
I've got it here.
He says, a man has an idea.
The idea attracts others like minded.
The idea expands.
The idea becomes an institution.
What was the idea?
And that's what's been bothering me, boys.
And I'll tell you, when I used to think about the idea itself, it put a big old smile on
my face.
This film ends up sort of spawning a bunch of stuff later on.
Yeah.
But before this, before it does all that, before it's an institution, the idea was
Bauhaus, The Cure, Soft Cell, that goth, new romantic energy of like, we read poetry,
we like castles and lace, and the music's fucking great.
Tom Cruise is the best vampire I've ever seen.
Right.
Exactly.
Yeah, sure.
Before it all turned bad and all got institutionalized and ends up in, we'll get to where it ends
up.
But it's this little pocket of like, if you like this tune and you like this subculture,
here's your Hollywood movie.
Here's your sort of avatar and your superhero.
It was made for a specific subset of people in respect of those subset of people, not
capitalizing on their culture or their fashion or their belief.
You know what I mean?
It was before this group of people became a demographic.
Yes.
No, yeah, that's a great way of putting it.
To be catered to.
Yes.
And it's really, really special for me because of that.
Because yeah, you didn't have that kind of superhero.
You didn't have a dark gritty.
You had fantastical Tim Burton Batman was the closest thing.
And he's handing fucking clowns dynamite.
Yeah.
He still kills that guy.
He pushes him down a fucking tube and he's dead.
Like that's the thing.
Anyway.
I mean, you did this in our Batman episode.
I know.
It still bothers me.
So I've got I've gone into it a little bit.
I've gone back through every comic book movie released before The Crow.
Haven't watched them.
Oh my God.
Just looked at them.
OK.
And the few that I pulled out where I was like, OK, well, that's like a direct thing
that I'm aware of.
Obviously, if I've missed some, reach out to us and let us know.
Barbarella.
Way back.
Way, way back.
Barbarella.
Wow.
You've gone way far back.
Yeah.
Also, Barbarella.
Research these last couple of weeks.
I'm not sure if you're doing something or something.
What's going on?
I'm trying to impress you.
Working every week.
Every week.
You're like, yeah, I was reading.
I was reading an encyclopedia.
Yeah.
Now you've gone.
I've researched every comic book movie before this.
So starting with Barbarella.
Also, I did watch.
I did watch a couple of Barbarella movies.
Stunning, stunning.
Like new crush unlocked.
It's a whole fucking thing.
We'll get into it.
We'll cover a movie soon, but we'll get into it then.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
You've mentioned Superman one, two and three.
We've had Supergirl.
Obviously, we had Martin Serena.
He told us a great story about Supergirl.
Go listen to that interview.
Swamp Thing.
Buck Rogers from the 20s.
Buck Rogers in the 21st century.
Would you say he's superhero?
Yeah.
He's in the Flash Gordon sense, I guess.
Yeah.
And then we also had Flash Gordon and then we also had Toxic Avenger.
We had the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but most importantly, and possibly the most criminally
forgotten comic book movie that exists, Howard the Duck.
Oh.
Yeah.
The only film where you will ever see human tits on a duck.
I don't want to come back with the human tits on a duck chat.
We've done it and it was horrible and I don't want to do it again.
Shit haunts me.
It haunts me.
Like it's the weirdest visual representation I've ever seen in cinema.
Incredible.
Awful, but incredible.
Because that implies that ducks breastfeed.
Yeah.
But they've got bills.
Yeah.
Imagine.
Let that settle in for a bit.
Pause the episode.
Go watch Howard the Duck.
It's fucked.
Don't do that.
There's a T-Rex in it for some reason.
But rule in the era, we had Batman and Batman Returns.
We had the Tim Burton.
It was a very cliched, very over the top, very sort of stylized super goth.
Oh, it's so dark.
Grim dark.
Oh.
But it was comic book rendered visually as it is on the page.
Do you know what I mean?
Of course.
It was the melodrama of the page was brought to the screen and they're fantastic films
for doing it.
And dude, that wasn't a negative thing at all.
They're incredible movies.
Now The Crow is a wildly different cutlerfish, right?
Because it's such a fucking massive gamble for Paramount when they picked up the rights.
Because like you've just said, moviegoers before The Crow, it was very family friendly.
They were very sort of like, I'm here to save the day with my big muscles.
But then all of a sudden...
Yeah.
If you were being sold emotion, you weren't being sold fantasy.
They were tapped in separate arenas.
Yeah.
But whereas in this one, you've got a skinny goth boy.
Murder spree.
Yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
Like that's wildly out of left field for a comic book movie.
And Paramount were like, we can gamble on it.
That's fine.
Yeah.
That's fine.
Yeah.
It didn't do great for them though, did it?
Well, I mean, no, because someone stepped in.
I have something on this shortly, but someone else had to step in and that's fine.
Right.
Okay.
Let's just get to it now.
Are you ready for this?
Yeah.
So we've got our little page of notes that we can both see, right?
Yeah.
And it's just headlines.
Yeah.
And then there's one, which is just...
The biggest paragraph in existence.
Yeah.
No, it's bigger than the paragraph you had for Pearl.
And we only got 5% of the way through that.
Yeah.
So because I'm obviously the gothest goth that ever lived, I probably know all this.
I mean...
So when I hit something I know, I'll just be like, yeah, skip.
Listeners don't need to know.
They don't care.
Yeah.
All right.
They do.
So I'm very proud of my research.
This is like, this is in depth.
So when you suggested covering the crow, I was like, it's Rob's...
This is going to be Rob's film.
I need to do some shit.
Everyone knows it's like the cursed film, you know, obviously like rest in peace, Brandon
Lee.
This was his last film.
He was very unfortunately, very unfortunately famously shot and killed whilst filming a
scene for this film.
Oh yeah.
Okay.
So I guess that you knew that one, but that's fine.
Yeah, I knew that one.
I mean, I think I went through the production a little bit by little bit because it's a
pretty fucking mental story.
The fact that this film ever came out to be honest with you.
So got that face on you where it's like, you're about to tell me something insane and you're
just grinning.
Yeah.
It's this is my shit eating grin because you're about to eat shit.
You ready for this?
Rob Daller.
Ready?
Yeah.
The crow famously cursed production with the unfortunate death of Brandon Lee on set,
which everyone has heard about.
And I'm, I know that you've heard about this Rob Daller.
I know you know about this.
Yeah.
And it's always been in one telling or another, there's, there's so much misinformation and
rumors and all this shit to spread.
And it's, it, the mud, the, the water's a little muddy.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
But the production mate, it had so fucking much more going on.
It's actually unreal.
I'd not heard about most of this shit, to be honest.
I'd heard a few rumors, but getting to the actual facts is ridiculous.
So before production had even started, a mysterious caller phoned the production crew and left
a voicemail on one of the answering machines stating that they should not make the crow
movie.
And if they, if this film was to be made, many bad things would happen.
Okay.
Ominous, right?
I mean, yeah, ominous, but then I also would need like a sample of how many calls any movie
gets from a nutter going, you absolutely should not make the cat and the hat three.
Because if you do, bad things will happen.
But that one you can believe because you know what I'm saying?
Hindsight.
Yeah.
So obviously this one was ignored.
It was fine.
But did you know, did you know about the phone call there?
Rob dollar?
Did you know that the mysterious voicemail?
Yeah, you knew that one.
Yeah, of course.
All right.
Yeah.
Sounds sounds sounds sounds sounds sounds.
Stuff, mate.
Day one stuff of golf school.
Yeah.
Day one stuff of golf school.
All right.
So day one on the set of the crow, an electrician was working on a cherry picker, like a crane
on the back of a truck.
Yeah.
And his cage collided with a bunch of electrical wires like overhead electrical wires that
sent an ungodly amount of electricity surging through his entire body, cooking his internal
organs, setting him on fire.
After being rushed to the hospital.
Now thank fuck.
Right.
He survived.
What?
He had to have his ears amputated due to the accident and suffered severe second and third
degree burns on his internal organs and his external.
Oh, God, they suveyed the lucky they fucking.
Oh, my God.
Jesus Christ.
I also love the fact that that's not in the notes.
You just you just you just had that because I said one.
Yeah, you knew that one, though, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, you knew that one.
Obviously, Rob Duller knows all, mate.
So also on day one, though, bird, I don't know if you know this one.
The same day an equipment truck was set on fire.
OK, that's day one.
Obviously, you knew this.
I'm just doing this for the listener.
So this is just me and you, they listen from here on out.
You know, I mean, Rob Duller is over there in his bowl of hot and dust, the fucking polishing
off his breath in my brandy, his brandy, polishing off his brass knuckles, make it send encrypting
text to his boys.
You know, I mean, for a moment, I thought you could have keep me polishing off my half
sister.
Oh, my God.
Hate that.
Hated that one.
So shortly after day one, but offset a publicist for the movie was involved in a car accident.
OK, I mean, you knew that one as well.
There's lots of those.
Yeah, come on.
You get 200 people together, one of them is going to have a car accident.
All a coincidence, right?
Right.
Yeah.
So production continues, production continues.
A set worker accidentally stabs a screwdriver through his hand.
I do that daily.
You do that.
And there's hundreds of people on films.
All right.
These are just accidents.
That's what I'm saying.
Everyone's got a screwdriver.
Right.
Yeah.
That's what I'm saying.
I just said that.
OK, fine.
OK, right.
Yeah, fine.
These two, I'm not counting these two.
These are just these are just coincidences.
All right.
Yeah, sounds all right.
Even the stuntman aren't safe, mate.
Even the stuntman aren't safe.
A stunt worker fell through a set roof and broke many ribs.
His or like someone had ordered some?
His.
Oh.
Internally in his body, broken ribs after falling through a fucking roof.
Not a great not a great day at work.
So even the people that are trained to be fucking battered on set, they're not safe
from this curse.
Obviously, you know all this one, right?
It's fine.
On this on this film, though, I do feel like once Steve the lecky had boiled himself, you
know, it's really funny.
Like you'd put you'd put a screwdriver through your hand and you'd go.
I called him Steve in my notes as well.
I've got I've got Steve the electrician written in my notes.
That's weird.
That's really weird.
Sorry.
I've missed the next bit because we're psychomaniac.
Yeah.
I feel like once Steve the lecky's boiled himself, right?
Yeah.
You put a screwdriver through your hand and you're like, could be worse.
So could be worse.
You crash your car.
You go could be worse because matey boys having his ears removed tomorrow.
Yeah.
You know, that's fair.
That's fair.
I feel sorry for all these people you've just listed who invalidated their own traumas
because Steve fucked up.
Yeah, I thought that was on day one as well.
You know what I mean?
So you're not beating that.
Well, I mean, I'm going to get to it.
Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.
That's staying in.
Fuck's sake.
I'm fine with it.
It's fine.
There was one way to beat it and it was beat.
The disgruntled driving.
This is a new segment, right?
This is a new fact.
Disgruntled driving.
You know about this one, though.
You're fine.
So it's an odd one.
You need to drop that man.
You're just beating a dead actor.
I want to laugh really bad, but also I feel like too many of them.
You know what I mean?
There's too many of them.
It's just, it's just me.
So an odd one, but a disgruntled employee drove a truck through the set.
What's it was on production now?
No one knows why.
Cause I'm guessing cause he made a phone call a few weeks earlier.
You would think that right.
That might've been it.
So there was rumors that he was like, it was just a rage fueled sort of like, fuck this
job type stuff.
I'm sick of this curse.
I'm driving through the set and he drove a truck through it.
And then other ones where it was just sort of like, it was a genuine accident and he
carried on working there.
But the facts are still a mystery to this day.
It's never really been nailed down.
It's just all, it was all out there for people to fucking use upon.
Right?
Now this is all built into something.
It's all building something.
We're nearly there.
Right.
Whilst they were filming the East coast of the United States of America in 1993 had what
was, what was known as the storm of the century.
Okay.
Which was a fucking enormous blizzard to hit the whole East coast.
I mean like when I say it was bad, it was snowing in Florida.
Oh God.
I don't, I don't know if you've ever been to Florida or if you know about Florida, it's
all old people and alligators from what I've seen in movies.
I mean it snows in Miami, but usually that's not legal.
Yeah, exactly.
So the fucking set was hit with mega winds, 30 inches of snow, ridiculous winds all throughout
production and it destroyed shit loads of the sets, caused tens of thousands of dollars
worth of damage.
So this is all just sort of like happening, right?
The curse continues.
Now we're at the point that everyone knows about and I've written out, I've written out
a piece because I don't want it to be full of crass jokes, Rob, looking at you.
You get one, you get one and that one's been done.
The fact of the matter is, is that this, you know, Brandon Lee was an insanely talented
incredible actor.
He was a, you know, someone's partner.
He was someone's child and a movie is a wonderful thing.
You and I both use movies to theropize ourselves, to need to ties ourselves to the world to
do this show.
Of course.
The idea that anybody involved in the making of one of something that we love so much dies
is just abhorrent.
Like it should never happen.
It's fucking heartbreaking.
Workplaces should be safe.
Yeah, a thousand percent.
So yeah.
Yeah.
I've written this bit.
If it sounds read out, it's because I'm reading it.
I'm just going to get through it.
So the unfortunate series of events that led to Brandon Lee's death are readily available
all over the internet, right?
You can research it yourself.
There are, there are tons of details out there.
And if we were to go into it fully, it would run us way over time because there are countless
checks that could have been done.
There are measures that could have been put in place.
They just did for whatever reason they weren't done.
And it ended with Brandon Lee losing his life during a take for this film.
So because of the nature of the scene, no one realized what had gone on.
So the scene is Brandon Lee's character is supposed to get shot in the stomach.
The gun was loaded with blanks.
There was a safety issue with the bullets that the gun was previously loaded with.
The blank then forced the previously lodged bullet into Brandon's abdomen.
Yeah.
And they were filming the scene.
Brandon obviously fell to the floor.
They thought he was acting.
No one really realized what was going on until a huge pool of blood began to get began forming
around Brandon's body.
Oh God.
So he was rushed to the hospital, but declared dead hours later, unfortunately.
And this all happened before breaking news being available immediately to everyone's
phone.
Meaning that many, many rumors spread, including actors being arrested for murder.
The take of him being shot was used in the final film, you know, et cetera, et cetera,
all this stuff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And this one mate is the conspiracy theories that came out of it.
Right.
So what conspiracy theories?
Dude, there's a place accident and a tragic one.
The police ruled it that way.
Yeah.
The police were to be 100% an accident.
No one is at fault.
No crime has been committed.
Right.
I found a mad conspiracy theory and I'm in no way saying that I support this at all.
I just think it's mental that this is out there.
Just repeating it on a show.
Listen to by a couple thousand people.
Yeah, just if you want to internalize this and make it your mantra, it's fine.
No, I'm joking.
No, it's terrible.
It's a conspiracy theory that this was a triad hit.
Oh, OK.
Put out on Brandon Lee.
I do actually know this one in a weird roundabout way.
OK.
Because I saw the Bruce Lee biopic made in the 90s called Dragon, the Bruce Lee story,
which is actually a sick film.
Incredible movie.
Because you don't take it to be in any way factual.
Sure.
It's got a demon in it.
Yes.
There's a whole thing there about he refuses to appear in these triad funded movies.
Exactly.
OK.
Yes.
So there's that.
So that's part one of the conspiracy theory.
Bruce Lee was famous for turning down any involvement or any parts that were funded
in movies that were funded by the triads.
So the theory is that the triads ordered the hit on Brandon Lee in a similar way that Bruce
Lee's character dies in Game of Death.
So in Game of Death, Bruce Lee's one of Bruce Lee's final films, his character plays an
actor who is shooting a scene where he's supposed to be shot with a blank, but ends up being
shot with a real gun because the prop gun and a real gun had been switched out.
Oh, fuck.
Horrible coincidence.
People took it to heart and started trying to piece two and two together and got fucking
44.
Right.
And then all of a sudden this conspiracy theory was born.
But here's the thing.
Here's the thing.
And not to be a tinfoil hatter.
Sure.
I don't believe that it was a triad hit.
Of course.
We just ran that off.
Of course.
Neither did the police.
You know when I was like, oh, that's a coincidence, that's a coincidence, that's a coincidence.
I think there is a curse, mate, because how many coincidences can one film endure?
It's kind of crazy, right?
So this curse carries on as well.
This curse carries on.
So after the death of Brandon Lee, obviously the production wanted to continue, but only
with the blessing of the Lee estate.
Right.
They were like, look, we're going to do it right.
We're going to make the film that Brandon wanted to make.
We're going to finish it.
We're going to put it out.
It's going to be his final work.
It's going to be respectful.
Yeah.
And the Lee estate signed off on it and we're like, yep, we can, you know, we'll sign off
it.
We want to honor his memory.
That's great.
Yeah.
Paramount didn't think that.
Paramount were like, nope.
Nope.
It's, it's, it would be crass.
It would be this, that or the other.
We're not doing it.
Yeah.
We're gone.
So it's just not happening.
So they did a production of a half made film, a half made incredible film studios just dropped
out and then this is where Miramax step in and invest an extra $8 million.
Obviously with the blessing of the Lee estate, they invest an extra $8 million, took a huge
fucking gamble again, not only on finishing the cursed film, but also CGI and like face
replacement CGI wasn't a big thing in the early nineties.
No, no, no, no, no.
This is what I mean.
They took a massive gamble on that being a doable B done well, be sellable to an audience
that lives in a world now where they know that the lead actor has died midway through
the film.
I mean, and they did it.
Look, I know Harvey Weinstein.
You do not everyone's cup of tea.
Is he, is he one of the boys?
Does he want to Rob dollars boys?
He did know what he was doing at times.
40% of his work life was spent doing really good stuff.
Yeah.
60% of it was doing the no-no.
You know what I mean?
Doing the no-no.
Yeah.
I think, I think you could make the argument that this cursed production, this, this Brandon
Lee death, all this kind of stuff that became, it became the movie fact that everyone knew
pre internet, right?
Yeah.
Like I, I'd mistakenly thought that it was when he's at the end of my table, when all
my goons are sat there and they all open the automatic fire, right?
No, it's not.
It's the flashback scene.
Yeah.
I watched an interview with Michael Massey who plays fun boy.
Oh, fuck.
Yeah.
It's a rough interview, man.
It's a rough interview where they're like, you know, have you got over it?
He's like, you don't get ever get over something like that.
You just move, you move with it.
He quit acting for a year to try and fucking process this.
He was in therapy for PTSD for a long time to sort that shit out.
Long, long time.
Yeah.
Because, you know, they were friends.
He knew Brandon's fiance.
Yeah.
And he said in the interview, you know, I see her now, she's with someone else.
She's got a little boy.
She's happy.
But, you know, I still think I was involved in something that should never have happened.
And if you look at the change in the culture of moviemaking that happened following Brandon
Lee's death, Brandon Lee's stunt man was Chad Stahelski.
He was.
You probably now better know as the creator of the John Wick franchise.
We do think how many fucking guns are on those sets and how few accidents there are.
It's crazy.
Relate to those movies.
You just go, okay, there are some lessons being learned.
But I think wider culturally, in a wider cultural sense, this film is super, super impactful.
You know, when we were young and we bought like, do you remember when Slipknot did My
Plague for the Resident Evil soundtrack?
When that video dropped on Korang, I lost my shit.
I'm not certain, but I'm like 40% sure that might have been the first time I ever come.
Like it was fucking glorious.
That video, the first time I saw that, I'm turning it around like a knife on a shelf.
I was like, oh my God.
Not that lyric ever.
We discussed that lyric on the podcast.
It makes no sense.
You don't store knives on fucking shelves anyway.
Sometimes you do.
We're not, we're not repeating that again.
Go find it in the back catalog.
The soundtrack for this film was the template for things like My Plague.
So Resident Evil had a heavy metal soundtrack.
Yeah.
And also Blade.
Yeah.
Queen of the Damned.
Yes.
Had a heavy metal soundtrack.
Banga.
Twilight had an album come out with songs that were in it for like a few bars.
Hold on.
Are you, are you mentioned, are you referencing Muse?
And Radiohead in the same breath as the Blade soundtrack?
This is my point.
There are elements of this film that come across a little bit more goth, a little bit
hot topic, a little bit incel with his Katana and his fedora on Tik Tok going, I would die
for you.
Yeah, but that's the main villain Rob.
With his one contact lens in.
That's the main villain.
No, it's not.
The main villain is a businessman.
No he isn't.
He's a poor businessman.
He's sitting around fucking burning eyeballs being like, I must get the crow power.
Shut the fuck up.
Shut up.
Just go fuck your half sister if that's what you're going to do.
Trying to do his business.
He needs the building clear.
Stop it.
Shelly, Shelly's trying to keep the building open, trying to rally the fucking tenant.
And he's like, no, enough of that.
You're dead.
Enough about that.
And then when he fights Eric, he's like, do you know what mate?
It's been quite fun.
I've quite enjoyed this.
I've got nothing against you personally.
All power to your boss.
Right.
Yeah.
Fantastic.
Right.
My point being, my point being.
Yeah.
I mean, I had Rage Against the Machine.
I had The Cure.
I had Nine H Nails.
I had Pantera.
I had Rollins Band.
Yeah.
Fucking incredible.
Incredible fucking soundtrack.
Yeah.
But I think like new metal came out, was fresh, was interesting.
And then it devolved into a parody of itself.
I don't know man.
Limp Bizkit is still fucking faithful.
You know what I mean?
They're still there.
They're still fighting the fight.
I was never a Limp Bizkit boy.
Really?
You were never in it for the nookie?
No.
Are you being serious?
Nope.
Mate, I had a backwards cap on.
I was fucking, I was all about it.
You know what I mean?
I just kept rolling.
No, because I was a Nine H Nails guy.
Oh right.
Trent Reznor, Trent Reznor famously.
Trent Reznor famously, when Fred Durst was made CEO of Interscope, Trent Reznor called
his lawyer, figured out how much it was going to be to break his contract with Interscope.
Yeah.
It was over a million and he paid it.
And he said, it's worth far more to me that Fred Durst has nothing to do with my creative
activity.
That's fair.
Than this 1.5 million.
It reminds me of a fun little lyric that Limp Bizkit said, where a Nine Inch Nail will get
knocked the fuck out.
You know what I mean?
I live by those words.
I like that.
Really?
You know what I mean?
I feel like that's, it's a very deep thought, insightful lyric that Fred Durst has put into
the world.
But I feel like the influence that this had, when it became this sort of acceptance of
goth culture, that top dollar speech of the idea was great and then it became an institution.
And all of that edgelord goth stuff that you talked about hating.
I do.
I think this, unfortunately, you have to lay the blame for all of that stuff at people
trying to do this.
Okay.
That's a, okay.
It's the self parody of this.
You have to word it better than that though.
Not better.
You have to word it slightly differently.
Sorry.
Right.
So I don't blame the crow.
No, I don't blame the crow.
Because I think the crow did what it did amazingly well.
Right?
I blame the imitators.
It's the people that came along.
Exactly.
And imitate the idea.
And then you don't know what you're doing it for anymore.
Exactly.
Because you're not making it from that group of people.
You're making it for that demographic.
Exactly.
And that's exactly what we see with Marvel.
It stops being made by comic book fans for comic book fans.
And if other people like it, fuck it.
It's the comic book fans are a demographic.
Yeah.
But also Marvel are just trying to speed run what uber bowl has done for his entire career.
They're just sort of like, they created something wonderful and then they are the ones that
are actively ruining it.
It's mental to me.
Do you know what I mean?
Speaking of the soundtrack, do you want to play a game?
I would love to.
I have got some goth song lyrics here.
And you're going to tell me if they appear in the film The Crow or on its soundtrack.
Can we preface this with something right?
This is going to get upsetting because I don't want to personally offend you in any way,
shape or form.
Please do.
You owe me plenty.
But I can't control my cringe.
You know what I mean?
Right, you ready?
OK.
I burn every night.
The dream's the same.
Is that lyric in the Crow?
Say it again.
Soundtrack.
Every night I burn every night.
The dream's the same.
Yes, it's in the Crow.
Yes, it is.
That's burned by the cure.
It is right.
AIDS is killing the entire African nation and a vaccine is still supposedly under preparation.
All right.
Well, that kind of sounds like some of the Bono would say live aid.
Then going home to bathe in his billions of dollars.
You know what I mean?
So I'm going to say no.
Oh, sorry, mate.
That's on darkness by Rage Against the Machine.
OK.
Right.
Water, fire, air and dirt.
Fucking magnets.
How do they work?
It's such a good lyric.
How do they work?
Magic.
I'm going to say yes.
I'm afraid not.
Well, why not?
We can fucking put AIDS in there, but we can't put magnets.
What sort of bullshit is this?
That was Miracles by the Insane Clown Posse.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Similar makeup.
I thought I might.
You know, that makes sense.
No, no, no.
Also, it makes sense that Insane Clown Posse would be confused by magnets.
Yeah.
I say Jack be nimble, Jack fall dead, Jack bend over and give Gilly head.
I can't get the thought of a jiggler walking into their mate's kitchen and seeing a fridge
magnet and freaking out.
I'd be like, what the fuck?
How does it fix?
What the fuck?
Sorry.
I've got to write a song about this, man.
I've got a process.
How do these magnets even work?
It's this will make a graphic novel.
We've got like earth and wind and fire and dirt.
But how the fuck do magnets work?
I love that there's another universe out there, Ben, where we've got a music podcast and we're
going into the origin of the song Miracles by Insane Clown Posse.
Yeah, man.
And it's you going on an awful tragedy and me going, isn't it wonderful that we've got
these human outlets?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's gone through something, but he can just write a song about it.
Also magnets.
Right.
Next lyric.
Go on.
I say Jack be nimble, Jack fall dead, Jack bend over and give Gilly head.
I'm going to say yes.
Yeah, that is.
I'm going to say color me once by the violent fems.
Well, I think you did pretty well.
Oh no, sorry.
There's one more.
I missed it.
Now you get to watch her leave out the window.
I guess that's why they call it a window pane.
Fuck off.
Oh, dude, this is why I hated you when I met you, because that's the sort of shit that you
used to say.
Yeah.
Like that was it in uni.
That was uni, Rob.
Yeah.
I guess that's why they call it a window pane.
Fuck off.
I employed my love of puns in a slightly more melodramatic way because I'd seen the crow
and thought it was clever and charming.
And it was only when we met and you went, are you a fucking magician?
I went, oh, oh, I see through now.
It was like you held up a mirror and I saw my true form and I went, oh, I've gone a bit
wrong here, haven't I?
I'm so sorry.
What I did is I saw you really live in your true self and went, no.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I'm all the better for it.
Now you get to watch her leave out the window.
I guess that's why they call it a window pane.
Right.
I'm going to say no, because I don't want it to be in there.
I've got a feeling that it is in there, but I'm going to say no out of the, I'm going
to try and manifest it.
Okay.
So it is famous goth duo, Eminem and Rihanna.
Just gonna stand there and watch me burn.
Oh my god, thank fuck.
Thank fuck.
Is that really a lyric from that song?
That's by one of our preeminent lyricists of this generation, Eminem.
Fucking hell, man.
Yes, mate.
Oh, god damn.
We're going to rate this movie and I don't really know where you're going to go with
it.
I don't know where I'm going to go with it, but before you do, how are you doing really
man?
I asked you in the intro and we were, you know, we like to keep that short and snappy
and breezy, but like tell the people and tell me like, are you good?
I am doing really well, man.
I am doing really well.
Each day is a little bit different.
So some days, some days are good, some days aren't so good, but everything is very middle
of the road at the moment.
So everything's very beige.
I'm not, my anxiety is calmed right down.
I'm no longer living in fight or flight, which is a huge fucking achievement because I've
been there for about a decade.
So it's the strangest thing waking up and not panicking immediately and then spending
the next 15 hours trying to figure out what the fuck I'm doing.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know that one.
So it's, it's really nice at the moment.
I also think I've never been in a place where I've got such a stable support network.
Like my family have always been incredible.
They're always like fucking crammed to the cram.
I would never ask anyone to change.
I love all of them incredibly deeply.
I would do anything for them.
But I now I've got this, I've got this little group of friends who are just the most fucking
wonderful people on the planet without even trying to be.
There is no, there was no expectation.
There's no conditions to being here.
It's just existing with a group of people that are going through similar situations
and everyone is fine talking about it and supporting each other.
I've never had that.
Obviously I've had it with you.
I've had it with you.
I'm not going to be sad.
Like I'm genuinely, yeah.
No, no, no, no.
I know.
Yeah.
No, but this is the thing.
Like I've had it with you and then that's been it.
You know what I mean?
You've been my like lifeline for the longest fucking time and that's slowly like branching
out into sort of like finding my people, which is fucking glorious.
So thank you to everyone.
Thank you as well.
Cause you're the fucking main stem of this.
I'm processing stuff better, feeling healthier.
My reactions are much more sort of like.
Normal.
Yeah.
Not to be rude, but I've been talking to you the last couple of weeks.
I'm like, oh, that's, that's, yeah.
No dude, honestly.
But like, yeah, it's actually, it's all going all right.
How are you?
Fill me, fill me in on what's going on with you.
Cause I know you had a rough.
I feel like we've swapped.
Like yeah, work's been rough.
And I think the, when I first got here and I crash landed after a massive mental breakdown
and like I'd had them before and I'd ignored them.
Cause I spent so long telling myself that I wanted to be a music producer.
I wanted to be a sound engineer.
And then I figured out, I think I subconsciously figured out that it wasn't going to make me
happy, but I wasn't able to consciously realize that because it would mean weight.
It would mean all that effort would have been wasted.
So I had to just keep doing the thing.
Thousand percent.
And eventually that, that third and final mental breakdown happened.
I went out my window, I landed and the kind of landed back here.
Yeah.
With living with family in my mom's guest room.
Guess that's why they call it a window pane.
That's exactly why they call it a window pane mate.
So sorry.
No, perfect.
Do you have any idea how happy that joke makes me?
Oh my God.
They're fun, right?
They're fun.
I didn't know it was too soon.
No, it's good.
Good.
No, no, no.
But here's the thing.
So I crash landed here and I wanted to get a job that was not cerebral.
Was doing something with my hands with other people.
Yeah.
Didn't have a chance to get in my head.
Didn't have time to overthink.
Sure.
I was doing something manual.
Yeah.
And I'm better now.
And as a result, I don't need that anymore.
But obviously I can't just switch out of that immediately.
Yeah.
So I've been finding that really stressful and I've been complaining a lot internally
about it.
And I'm now faced with the potential that I'm going to get out of this room and I'm
going to get out of the kitchen and I'm going to be doing on my own two feet again.
And as much of it as I've been complaining about what I don't like about where I am and
what I'm doing, I know it and it's comfortable and it's not scary.
And I'm afraid to want the change because if I don't get it, it's going to hurt more.
So I'm in just like this constant state of like nervous anxiety.
Like I really want this thing, but I don't want to want this thing as much as I want
the thing because it will hurt more if I don't get it.
And also if I don't get it and I get to keep doing this and I know this, so that's kind
of fine because it's just reverting to what I know.
I get you.
Yeah.
So it's a big bag of mad at the moment.
But also mate, if just sort of like to button at the very end, I've seen from where you've
gone, from where you were to where you are and the fucking dude, the strides that you've
taken to just process shit in a healthy way, get your feet back on the ground, get your
head sorted so that you're in a space where you can fucking function and be in a place
to want the thing that is a bit scary and it might hurt if you don't get it.
But the fact that you're here wanting it makes me so fucking proud.
It's unreal man.
Yeah.
I just don't, I don't know if I don't know if that, thank you.
I just don't know if the processing I've done is processing or if it's just really good
packing.
Do you know what I mean?
I get you.
And then going back out into the world, that's going to be the test.
Did I actually process shit or have I just bottled it really well?
And I'm not going to know until I get out there.
Do you know what I think is going to be the biggest surprise?
Right.
Is that you're going to have subconsciously done what my therapist has helped me do over
a couple of years, which is you unpack something that's a bit messy and you look at it and
you make it neat and tidy and you go, that's what it is.
And then you put it back in a nice, neat fucking place and you're like, well, that's where
it is.
I know where it is.
I know what it is.
It's no longer a big bad.
And then you do it again with the next thing.
And then before you know it, you've got this big cupboard of like scary stuff from the
scary stuff, but it's organized.
It's alphabetized, organized, alphabetized, it's color coded.
You know what it is.
You know where it is.
There's nothing unexpected in there.
There's no fucking like demons creeping under the bed because under your bed it's just nice
and neat and organized mate.
And to be honest, it's taken me fucking years of a stranger being paid to listen to my shit
to tell me how to do that stuff.
And you've just gone, I don't know if I'm doing it right, mate.
And I'm like, oh, fuck you.
Just annoyingly good at everything.
The thing is I haven't paid that stranger and I know myself.
I'm really, really good at lying to myself.
I'm honestly mint at it.
I'm not going to know, I'm not going to truly know how much I've done until I like has this
leg healed.
I have to stand on it and there's a chance it hasn't.
And I go right back to where I was and that's scary.
It's also scary if that doesn't happen and I'm still just in the cast.
So yeah, we'll see.
Whichever way you look at it though, mate, I'm at your side, whether it's as a crutch
or whether it's as a fucking cheerleader or whether it's at someone that's able to, if
you do have a little trip.
You're a bird, you make me invulnerable.
That's what I mean.
I'm here for it, man.
You're my spooky bird.
You've helped me come back from the dead.
And yeah, you heal all wounds.
That's it.
I'm the goth mommy.
Go get me my engagement ring back.
Speaking of healed wounds, I want to do some comment corner with you.
Oh, bud.
You posted that you were three years sober and it went quite well, didn't it?
It was all right, yeah.
It went, it's odd being vulnerable, but yeah, it's quite nice.
I've got some emails that I want you to read.
Okay.
Before you read them, I'm just going to read a selection of the feedback that you got.
Okay.
We posted about you being three years sober.
Martin Serene got in touch, good mate of ours.
He said, congratulations, Ben.
All the emojis there.
Thank you.
Brideviel said, called me a savage, but said, congratulations, Ben.
I dissect that film.
Congratulations on the massive achievement.
Godzilla underscore from the Godzilla series.
Congrats brother.
World of Horror podcast.
You already know this, but you're the man, Ben.
Love heart emojis.
Jenny Drew, so proud.
Mr. Giles, time to review human traffic.
Congratulations.
Clap, clap.
Stronger than most.
Wayne, Wayne, Salia got in touch.
Yes, lad.
Congrats.
Skinny Drawn Boy.
Congrats.
And Evie Long.
Congrats, my dude.
That's fucking incredible.
Honestly, like the amount of people that reached out is insane.
And I love all of you very, very daily.
It genuinely does mean the world.
And I know it's just sort of like a flippant thing.
It can, or whatever, but, and I'm never going to be able to say how much it really means
because I'm emotionally broken, but also thank you.
It genuinely does mean the fucking world and it helps every day.
Good.
Now read them fucking emails.
Yeah, thanks, man.
Right.
We have got two emails.
We've got one from Rose, who is a very, very dear friend of ours.
Incredible listener.
Super active in the discord.
Join our fucking discord.
Come meet Rose.
She's fun.
She emailed us saying, Hey, it's Rose going through old episodes again.
And Ben has just told me to email in if I understand Rob's command and conquer reference.
Hope you lads are having a nice day.
I'm going to stop writing this stupid email and escape to the one place no longer corrupted
by capitalism.
Spice.
Which is the Tim Curry reference, right?
Yes.
Because that's where PC gaming peaked.
Yeah, I know that one.
Command and conquer were the best games that you could play on a PC and red alert two was
my jam.
Watching the crow, listening to nine each nails and playing command and conquer red
alert two was my vibe.
Put the fucking blazer away.
All right.
That's all I'm going to say.
It's going to be the message.
All right.
Um, I asked people to email us in.
Was it last week or the week before?
Uh, and I was like, it doesn't matter if you don't know what to say.
Feedback.
Yeah.
Just, just email us in.
Even if you can't think of anything, just email us, call us cunts.
We'd love it.
So we had an email from Adam smart.
Uh, the subject line is cunts.
It just says cunts love ad.
So perfect.
Perfect.
Thank you so much because it genuinely did make my day reading that.
So, so that was comment corner, if you want to be involved, find us on Instagram, tick
tock, uh, discord, little chat room, which is great.
Everyone chats amongst themselves.
We're really active on there.
Uh, we've also got an email address, email us there calling us cunts.
Yeah.
Ben, the time has come.
What are you going to rate Alex Preyaz 1994?
The crow I am going to go for, I'm going to go for an eight out of 10.
Woo.
Of how hard it hit me emotionally, how wholesome it is, even though it is sort of super edgy,
heavy metal, goth comic book revenge movie, but it's very wholesome.
It's very, it's very nice.
It's very light and comic in places.
Um, but it's also, it's such a fucking gorgeous film to look at.
Just such a gorgeous film to look at.
Incredible.
I'm going eight.
How about you?
I have to recognize where I come from and it has to be a fat 10.
There has to be a fat 10.
It's got loads of flaws.
It's not aged as gracefully as perhaps it could have.
Okay.
It went on to, I do genuinely believe that this is patient zero of the edge Lord goth
boy that you see on tick tock now with, with just the cringe, cringe Katana collection.
Like this has to be patient zero.
And even knowing that it's only because of you that I'm not one of those boys on tick
tock.
So thank you and thank this film.
It's a fat 10.
You're welcome listeners.
All right.
Cause imagine what the podcast would be with that.
Hey, we've got a YouTube video that we made special.
We do.
We've sit, you know, we've got, we, we've got a chunky healthy listenership on the audio
show and then we put time and effort and our mate Anthony puts time and effort into a YouTube
video and we see the views.
We know you're not clicking.
Go click on it.
Please.
We know who clicks and who doesn't.
And we know where you live.
All right.
We know where you live.
Rob's got a pet crow.
It's not really a crow.
It's a raven.
Can't train crows, but you can train Ravens.
And then also who the fuck's going to know the difference.
And I mean, fuck it.
Put them in the movie.
Still pissing me off from further away.
It looks like that's it.
What was the point of the time?
That's all the time we've got for this week to thank you for spending an hour with us,
especially at the start of your week.
Robin is going to wrap up the thoughts, feelings and subtext of this movie into a nice little
Monday motivational pet talk while I just cosplay as society man and I tell you to consume.
Well, I'm going to actually go off book on this one.
I don't really think my message of the week is from the movie.
It's sort of hit me as I was listening to you talking about being scared of the new
thing that you want.
And I think what I'm going to say is I've recently gone through a similar aspect, different
subject matter, similar aspect where I've invested in something very heavily and convinced
myself.
This is it.
I'm not wrong.
I can't be wrong.
It's terrifying if I'm wrong.
But also you just need to fucking go for it man.
Except that you might be wrong sometimes and you'll be fucking mesmerized at some of the
shit that opens up man.
That's all it is.
Cryptic as fuck.
Also it was a fucking raven.
It's a raven.