The year is 1983. Your evil stepmother is hosting a party to celebrate the arrival of an interstellar comet. The two of you get into a fistfight and you spend the night in the yard shed. In the morning, everyone you care about has been turned to red dust.
This is the inciting incident of “Night of the Comet,” a deep pocket Travis pull for our annual melted holiday movie night. There are ghoulish motorcycle cops, deep underground research labs, and loud diegetic music playing in nearly every scene. Jake and Travis make the case to Julian that this movie is good. Happy Holidays everyone!
Subscribe for $5 a month to get all the premium episodes: www.patreon.com/qaa
Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (instagram.com/theyylivve / sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (pedrocorrea.com)
qaapodcast.com
QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.
Welcome to the QA podcast, episode 352, Night of the Comet, movie night.
As always, we are your host, Jake Rocketansky, Julian Field, and Travis View.
Hello, fellas.
Well, there's some probably ladies and non-binary people.
I was talking to my two OG boys.
Oh, us.
Yes, that's so true.
Julian, back from abroad.
Well, I won't name the broad, but yeah.
Some good, some bad, but we're happy to have you back in the States.
I know you hate the United States, but we're happy to have you back here.
I realize that Japan is actually like even more fascist somehow.
And it makes sense.
Like they hit their peak of capitalism in the 80s, where it's like, if you fucking fuck up at your job, you have to go and like literally like prostrate yourself in front of your boss.
Like it is a nation that has embraced capitalism so far ago.
But what's interesting is their cars never got really big and they still have like a weird like culture.
It's kind of respectable.
So it's like, it's very confusing.
But if you're ever in a crisis, they will not help.
What do you mean?
Listener, to take that to interpret it how you please.
What do you mean by cars never got that big?
Their cars are tiny.
Their streets are tiny.
Their houses are tiny.
Like they never got that like bigger is better like bug.
Not like here where it's like, I see this one car.
I know it's an all-electric car.
It's called like the Rivian or something.
Oh, yeah, Rygian.
Yeah, that's one of the things.
It's like one of the biggest cars I've ever seen.
I know.
It's so funny.
It's massive.
I love the idea.
It's like, I'm switching to electric, but I still want to like flatten any teenager or child that I ever hit.
Like, I still want them to disappear.
I live in an area that has like lots of bad drivers and lots of big cars.
And the funniest one, the funniest one that I've seen is this like all-electric Humvee or Hummer.
I guess it's the same thing.
But it like it can crab walk into an ROL parking spot.
That's actually like one of the only cool new technologies in cars.
I see these things out in the world sometimes and I'm like right at the age where when I was a kid, none of this seemed really possible.
But a lot of it, a lot of it was in like the content that I watched.
What do you mean?
We don't have flying cars.
We don't have so many of the cool shit that we got shown.
You're telling me like you're going to settle for the crab walk into a parking?
Yeah.
And like the kind of like insect-y headlights now.
Like it's enough future for me.
The beam.
We downgraded the lights.
Like the fucking LED lights are like blinding.
I agree.
You know what?
My wife and I were talking about this last night, putting up Christmas lights.
We had a strand of LEDs and like they just, it looked bad.
The colors were unrealistic.
Too bright.
It looked like it looked like neon.
You know, it was like this neon glow.
And then we had a strand of regular old-fashioned fuse lights.
And I don't even know if that's like the proper way to describe it, but older Christmas lights.
Wait, what do you mean?
You have like Christmas lights that are not LED?
Yeah, not LED.
I doubt that.
No, they're not LED, I mean.
They're little bulbs, like with the actual.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, little bulbs.
Yeah, exactly.
Oh, wow.
Those are like old lights.
Yeah, and so, but it's such a nut, it's such a nicer light.
Feel like I'm back in the 2025 effect episode where it's just like, ah, the colors were so much warmer, like back when in my childhood, like when things were good.
It's so awesome because like, like, neoliberalism was like, you're going to have a cool future where everyone's going to feel like rich and good, and we're going to be fine.
And then it was like, okay, not only like have various basics like gotten worse, but also we're like taking away vapes.
Like, it's like treating us like children and not even giving us like the prize or the treat that like makes it okay.
Yeah, I need fruity flavored nicotine.
Yeah, before we move on, I do want to say like Japan is like has a great car culture.
Like they are like so Toyota pilled.
And I am Toyota pilled.
Yeah.
But I mean, I kind of am too.
There's a unique car that I could not get here.
And it's very frustrating.
There's like an incredible boxy Toyota that looks like a BMW and it's every taxi.
It's like literally was built by Toyota for all Japanese taxis.
And they're starting to move on, but like, God, man, that car is so beautiful.
And like, I looked for hours online, like, how do you import one?
Like, how do you get one here?
And it's like, even if you did get one here, like, they don't have the pieces at the regular Toyota, which is like one of the best selling points for Toyotas.
It's like you can get it serviced very easily and like the pieces replaced.
So I'm never going to get it, but man, every time I stepped into the taxi, it was so awesome.
They have like, um, they have the mirrors like halfway down the front of the car so that they're just like poking out in like this very cool aesthetic way.
Oh, cool.
I can imagine that.
I think it like stops like the blind spot.
Yeah, of course they figured that out like decades ago.
Meanwhile, we were just fucking yanking into other lanes left and right, fucking smashing into people.
Oh, it's like China.
They were like, okay, we invented TikTok and like it's teaching our kids like that it's very satisfying to like lay a brick while you build a house.
And they were like, let's export it to the United States and make it like pure evil poison.
Like just the most evil videos you'll ever see.
Yeah.
I mean, this short form content has like got me in a fucking death grip.
Really?
You're just like watching videos?
Like, yeah, I just, oh my God.
And I won't even realize, I won't even realize it that I've scrolled through seven 30-second videos of guys like shooting guns in their backyard.
Okay, so I want to ask you, what is the content that comes up that makes you feel the best?
And what is the content that comes up that makes you feel the worst?
Even in like your fugue state where you're kind of a little bit dissociated?
Well, I would say skateboarding content, video game content probably makes me feel the best.
Yeah.
And the worst is probably guys in their backyard shooting, guys getting bit by dangerous insects.
Really?
You get depressed at that?
I have like, yeah, my algorithm has a lot of guys who go out into the wilderness to get bit.
Well, why do you feel bad about that, though?
I don't know.
It just, I don't know.
It just feels kind of like I'm going on an adventure to do a thing that's going to hurt.
I don't know.
I'm not like a masochist in that way.
I'm a masochist in other ways, you know, being a PC gamer for one.
Right.
Yeah.
You love a good like EXE that doesn't work.
Liking a big, liking a big popular franchise that millions and millions of other people also, you know, like.
Yeah, I think like the short form content that depresses me is like kind of like the softcore porn stuff that like I think all men are served until they like redirect their algorithm.
It makes me feel like, I don't know.
I don't get any of that.
They don't send me any of that.
Well, have you tried like whacking off or screaming into the phone like, I love tits and pussy and I'm straight.
No, no, I haven't done that.
Okay, dude, I'm literally, man, I'm opening my phone four times a day to like look at like Seven Days to Die patch note.
I'm looking for like game updates and stuff.
I like I've completely disconnected from the on like the like real online world.
I barely look at Twitter anymore.
Oh, yeah.
Like, I have not logged in.
I sometimes look at Blue Sky because it seems a little bit nicer, but like, it also sucks, kind of.
All social media is just, oh, yeah, it's got me in a, it's like anything but having to read somebody who thinks they've figured it out and they want to share that with somebody.
And they haven't, and they know they haven't, but they know that content needs to be like formatted that way.
I definitely had like a mental health crisis.
And like during that time, I was just on Twitter telling some of the worst people on earth to, you know, do the obvious.
And I think like I'm probably on a list because I did tell Benjamin Netanyahu to kill himself.
Well, I mean, you must, you must have been thousands of people do the same that day.
That's not getting register.
Okay, if you say so, Mr. Zog.
They might scoop you up.
They might have like one of those like War of the World style like harvesters that they just come for all the Netanyahu haters at once in kind of like a big land land invasion.
I mean, they just degrade your ability to have reach, right?
Actually, did you know that Israel they planted the harvesters long before America was even here?
But you know, they planted them under the city, knowing full well that, you know, they would wake up one day.
Well, bro, like they send cops to train in Israel.
Like there's a reason, right?
Like Israel is actually just America's cruelty spear, right?
It's like, it's not us, it's them.
We're trying to hold them back, but they carry out the dirty business that America can't do like while maintaining its ideas like a democracy and like the spreader of whatever bullshit it's they've been selling, you know?
Like it's very convenient to have Israel because like they will do the dirtiest shit for America.
I had this like weird crisis of conscience over the weekend.
I was um, I was going through like old stuff, like old pictures and stuff from high school and like old like love notes and like rejection notes.
Like Jesus.
Equal just stuff that, you know, I had a little box.
I had a little box we've just been trying to you kept you kept rejection notes from high school?
Everything from like girls I was like in love with if I got a note that was like oh no hey like I really like you're such a good friend.
Jesus.
Anyways, but I was like, we're paring down a bunch of stuff.
We're just trying to like sort of like declutter.
And I was going through all of this stuff and I found this like sheet of paper from 1999, I think.
And it was from my summer, you know, every Jewish kid is pressured and most do if you're yeah, yeah.
It wasn't birthright.
It was a different type of program, but it was a birthright type program.
I mean, if you're heading to Israel and you're going to shoot some of the machine guns, like, yeah, it's I didn't get to shoot anything.
I didn't get to shoot any guns.
But did you get like a hand job?
Because that's usually no, Sad.
No.
So wait, did you feel guilty about just being Jewish?
There's always that.
That's an artist tradition, even before Israel became this obviously evil.
No, no, no.
But I saw all of these.
Like, so the year that I went, you're supposed to be like a group of American kids and a group of Israelis, and they pair you up together and you go around, you know, you go around the country.
You do all of these like hikes and trips and adventures together.
And really, I think the idea is that you're supposed to find a Jewish partner, you know, and continue to have Jewish babies.
They're mixing you together at the age when horniness is really just kind of at its peak.
Oh, yeah, like the amount of stories I've heard from Jewish friends where it's like, my first, you know, like sexual experience was like an Israeli girl during birthright.
Thank God I didn't just fall for like, you know, it's like you start to associate it with something because you're a dumb guy and it's like, I got jerked off.
Isn't it funny that like that's an acceptable like girlfriend at camp story?
Whereas like anybody else would be like, oh yeah, well, it's a girlfriend.
I have a girlfriend at camp.
She's really hot.
You're like, ah, sure.
Sure, you do.
You lost your virginity to your camp girlfriend.
Now there's going to be like a handful of comments be like, I actually, I did lose it to my camp girlfriend or boyfriend.
So you're saying that like birthright is like a realistic version of like the liars that said that they had sex at camp?
Yeah, not, it didn't work out that way for me, but a lot of people were hooking up on the trip.
But anyways, I, you know, it just so uh it just so happened that the year that I went, there was no American kids that signed up in my age group.
So it was like me and like 15 Israeli kids basically like traveling across the country together.
Oh my God, you had like the best odds ever to get pussy and you still didn't?
I still didn't.
I thought you were going to transition into the actual episode topic.
I love that you were just like, let me make this clear.
There were a lot of women and I sucked with mothers.
When everyone else was getting play, I was not.
Yeah.
I wasn't.
I wasn't.
There was a girl.
You also didn't fall for the propaganda, so that's kind of cool.
There was a girl who liked me who I didn't like.
I liked her friend who didn't like me.
She liked my friend.
Oh.
It was one of those like just horrible situations where no, where, where, where two people win and the other two people feel like ass.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And wait, who's running this episode?
Traveling?
Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on.
I'm almost this is some bullshit.
See, this is the kind of shit you get on premium, by the way.
Like, you know, we disrespect the script.
We will talk about, I will talk most premium episodes, by the way, I am talking about my summer trip to Israel.
There is no script.
We're actually this eloquent.
If you like, if you like more, if you want to hear more stories about me not getting any in Israeli summer camp, that's you should sign up for the premium.
I actually do love the idea of like someone super frustrated being like, can you fucking get to the point?
A 1984 movie that no one's heard about.
I was sick of Julian and Jake getting along.
What was I going to say?
Oh, so, but anyways, I'm cleaning out my shit and I find this piece of paper and it's got all their emails and full names, you know, last names that I had forgotten.
All of these kids who I spent this entire summer with.
I mean, by the end of it, I was practically speaking fluent Hebrew because I was just like with these guys all the time.
And they were so sweet.
They would really try to speak English most of the time.
But eventually they would start fighting and it would be too hard for them to fight in English.
So they would tell me that they would like inform me later what the fight was about and then they would yell at each other in Hebrew.
They're just, they're just yelling at each other.
No, I get to suck his dick.
And you're like, I don't understand.
What's happening?
I'm a very poorly organized virgin and I will get no play.
But I look, yeah, but I like saw all these names and numbers and I was like, wow, I wonder like where they are now.
And like, wow, my opinion of Israel is so different than it was during this like magical summer where like it's kind of, it's part of the propaganda, you know, in a lot of ways.
And so it's not, it's not just, it is literally part of the propaganda, right?
Yeah, yeah.
It's not like, it's not like part of the propaganda, mom.
It's actually part of the propaganda.
Can we like onboard them to like militarism and then the idea that this entire like occupied part of our country is just like terrorists that are waiting to be born?
We should snipe the kids in the head.
Awful shit.
But no, that's really like touching.
But like some of them are probably dead.
Like they all serve.
They all had to serve in the army.
Like the odds are some of them are probably dead.
Isn't one of them the girl that you liked?
No, no.
The girl that I had a crush on was an American.
Oh, right.
She came to visit me like a year.
I was working at Corner Bakery as a busboy and she was in.
She happened to be in town and she came to visit me at work and I was like covered in spaghetti sauce with like bad shoes on because you had to just wear this like awful, awful out forest green felt button down like apron.
Just terrible.
And she came to visit me and she like came in and hugged me and then left.
And I was like, what the fuck was going on?
I've been thinking about it ever since.
If you guys think that like Jake's adventures in Israel were like a fluke where he didn't get pussy there, no, no, no.
He came back to his home country and still didn't get any pussy.
Well, it's funny.
I mean, it would be funny if she heard this.
She's like, oh my God, Jake Ragatansky is really Jake Schlamechel or whatever my real Jewish last name is.
What's your real Jewish last name?
It's Rosenbaum.
Oh, cool.
Yeah, I know.
I was like, I was about to make a joke about like, yeah, like, you know, you didn't get pussy from a girl called like Fart Shamel.
Like, a lot of the Israeli names are wild.
It's like, what are we doing?
Anyways, moving on.
Anyways, only I'm allowed to be anti-Semitic.
Both of you can't be.
I'm not anti-Semitic.
I just like fucking, I think Israel has like dethroned.
The United States can't be dethroned because Israel is like an extension of it.
But they like Israel for me has dethroned South Africa, which is like, holy shit.
Like if I hear the word Israel, I'm like, bad.
Country full of psychos, bad.
But I love Jews, just to be clear.
And if you're a Jewish woman who wants to, you know.
Come on.
All right.
What do you mean?
This is a Christmas.
This is a Christmas movie, actually.
Oh, right.
Well, I would love a Christmas something.
A Christmas present.
That's right.
A little mistletoe.
Wait, what do you, are you back on the vape?
You're not back on the Nick, right?
No, I'm not back on the Nick.
Oh, is that just like weed?
Yeah.
Hell yes, bro.
I'm in my era.
Dude, Travis, Travis is like now rubbing his eyes.
This is what the people want, though, Travis.
Travis doesn't understand French.
This is why we delayed the episode.
This is why we delayed the episode.
We were going to record it last night.
But with me and Travis talking about this movie, it was just like two very kind of steady guys just going, here's what I liked.
Here's what I didn't like.
This was funny.
This wasn't.
But like with Julian in the mix, like we get a rant about Israel.
We're hearing about me not getting any.
Like you unlock, you unlock layers of darkness.
The true desperation that Travis has is that anybody would reward my behavior.
Like that, that makes him like insanely furious.
He's like, I did everything like correctly and I'm a good person and I debunk all the lies.
But people just want Julian to come on and be insanely insulting, very controversial and like totally dysregulated.
Like and that's that must be stunning.
And actually kind of inconvenient.
It does make for a weird job.
Well, yeah, we invented it.
Yeah, it's a new kind of role that only we that only we made up and you know very few and very few can can uh can adapt.
Well, I will say that like independent podcasts that were started from nothing with people that had no connections and still have never run an ad, like we're probably in a list of like five at most.
That's crazy.
Yeah, we really didn't have any connection.
Julian was not a thought in Julian and Travis weren't a thought in my brain until I was like, I don't know, 32 or 33.
And neither of us could call up anybody and go, hey, help us out.
Like we built this genuinely with no connections and probably like at the displeasure of various people who work with me.
I have connections.
They've all turned me down.
I have one of my good buddies from when I used to work in the studio system.
I recently like texted him.
I'd run into him at a concert and then I texted him because my wife was applying to a job where he like worked at.
So I was like, hey, can you get this?
Like, hey, can you get this like resume at the top?
He texted me back and he was like, yeah, absolutely.
Like have her send it over.
Like, you know, and I was like, awesome.
And then we sent it over and we never heard anything again.
We never had anything control.
We never heard anything.
I even like reached out and I was like, hey, hey, did you just wanted to make sure you like got this?
Didn't get a text back.
Didn't get a text for like the rest of the year.
And then I got a fucking Hanukkah card from this guy.
No.
Is it one of like, it's like a kind of like generic one?
No, it's personalized.
And don't get me wrong.
He's still like one of my good, my good buddies from, he's like one of my good work buddies.
I always have love for him, but it's like hilarious that somebody will be like, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, oh, yeah, I'll send it over.
Yeah, here's the email, and then you're like, Okay, I did it, and then you they just ghost you, and you never hear from them again.
That's like a totally natural thing that happens in the entertainment industry, yeah, yeah.
These big structures are like that, right?
Like, if me, you, or Travis wanted something to happen or wanted to platform someone, we could get it done.
But these guys, like the people working in the larger structures that are like corporate-owned, like they can promise something and they have no control over whether they can deliver.
Like, it's so funny how little power everybody has in those big structures, and yet it's like it's all that's left.
Like, we are the lucky few, you know, not Travis, obviously, like he's tortured every day by me by my personality, but we are the lucky few, folks.
Not mine.
Imagine if he was tortured by both of our personalities, dude.
Oh, it would be a horrible show.
Yeah, that reminds me.
The only script that I ever sold, and I never didn't get any money for it.
They just ripped you off.
Yeah, it was a like a mockumentary, like Ghostbuster style show.
Like, it was like, you know, Ghost Adventures with like Zach Baggins.
It was basically like that, but it was scripted and it was like, and they were cool, like the fucking Ghostbusters.
They weren't douchebags like Zach Baggins.
No offense, Zach, if you're a listener.
I do still watch it.
I saw your pilot.
It was great.
And it was like, but they, yeah, they actually like found ghosts and they had like cool web.
It was just like me ripping off Ghostbusters, but doing it in like a steampunky sort of like mockumentary style.
It was like Trailer Park Boys.
Yeah, it's like Trailer Park Boys meets Ghostbusters.
Such a good idea.
They all smoked Siggies.
It was awesome.
And what happened was we sold it, but then, but then the department that bought it got like folded into another department and it just like disappeared.
And we never saw any money.
And like it was all new people that kind of got moved in.
So nobody really knew who we were.
And they didn't have any like commitment to this, you know, to honor this deal.
And it just like kind of like went away.
And of course, this was after I had told everybody that I was like, oh, I saw, I finally sold my show.
Travis, I just want to say this was years before the, like, I had to suffer for years after this.
This wasn't like the last step.
And then the podcast started to do okay.
I, I, this was like very early on.
I, I, I got fucking no, I gave you gas money like after 10 years of bullshit, like video game podcast.
I will just say, like, if you're working within a structure and you're involved in getting Travis's book published, do not fail us.
Like, I will come and I will do bad stuff to you.
Like, Travis deserves to put this book out.
Like, he has put up with so much.
And I mean, me.
This is a funny like angle to enter the new year.
Is like you being like very self-deprecating about your, you know, your shortcomings and failures.
That's usually sort of my lane, but like it could, it could breathe new life into the podcast for a couple of years while we fucking suffer.
We suffer through, oh my God, what can only be.
I can't, can you even imagine?
Think about what Trump's doing year four.
I can't even imagine it.
You know what I honestly think?
You know how I like, I'm like coping right now is I'm like, he's either gonna like die or step down or resign or like something like he's not gonna make it.
I've convinced myself that he's not gonna make it the four years.
I feel like I'm um like Brooklyn dad defiant in my mind.
I don't know.
I started to detach from reality when he like turned to Mamdani and was like, no, go ahead.
You can, you know, don't, don't feel ashamed.
Like you can call me a fascist.
Call me a fascist.
He's so funny, dude.
Like, again, like, I think they have to tell him every day, like, sir, writings are no longer what we measure things by.
Like, we have an approval rating.
Like, you're the president.
I don't think he fully gets it.
Sir, you are not supposed to stop smiling at the communists, sir.
Well, it's like anyone who's smart.
Like, imagine you're surrounded by JD Vance, your idiot sons, and then you have Mamdani, like a well-educated man who probably can, like, carry a conversation.
Definitely has swag.
Yeah, definitely has moved through New York and like just knows how to make a guy like Trump, I'm sure, feel like comfortable.
Because, like, that he looks like a normal, cool dude.
Yeah, without like lying about how he feels.
I think Trump just is like, this guy's hot.
You know how, like, uh, the Vanity Fair parties were no longer hot.
Well, guess what?
Mom Danny is hot.
I think physically, too.
I think Trump is a guy who's like honest about his own bisexuality.
I think he's like, he's very cool and he looks good.
He's very well groomed and great hair.
He's got great hair.
And we like his suit.
And his wife is gorgeous.
She's very sweet, lovely lady.
And king of New York now.
It's yeah, it's like you said, dude, is he can't shake that like that New York debutante kind of, you know, that sort of thing.
Like, this is like the new hotness.
I kind of don't want bisexuals to be represented by someone who's clearly like a pedophile, but you know, whatever.
Fine.
I'll take it.
Yeah, it's not like an insult to the orientation.
No, It's just like, Jesus, man.
All right.
Jesus Christ.
Look, we can cut all that shit out.
This is a movie night episode.
Maybe we won't cut it out.
I don't know.
Maybe we will.
How would we cut it out?
It's beautiful.
This is a movie night episode.
We usually don't do these on main, but one person on the Patreon that I'm, no, I keep using that bit.
I'm not going to do that again.
Is that actually true, though?
Yeah, it is true.
So it's not a bit, really.
It's just.
It's just like my own.
I'm just like airing out my own insecurities like live on the show because there's nothing.
There's like nothing else.
You're like, this is a bad episode.
We're sorry we're putting it on Maine.
No, no, no, because we can't do that.
I do that.
I do that instinctively.
I know you're constantly doing that.
No, no, but what I wanted to say is that we usually don't do movie nights on main.
This is usually like a premium sort of thing.
But fuck it.
We figured, why not?
Let's switch it up.
Let's do something different.
You know, the premium folks, you'll get a sort of a more newsy, you know, more of a newsy sort of deep dive helmed by, you know, Travis.
And we'll host a movie night here on Maine, even though this was a Travis movie selection, which we will figure out the origins.
Yeah, how did you select this, Travis, before we kind of get into it?
Yeah, please, yeah.
Pretty sure it was a recommendation algorithm on a streaming platform.
Oh my God, they recommended a 1984 movie?
I was going to say, I never get like these kind of recommendations.
I watch old movies sometimes about like, yeah, like these that have these kinds of themes, and I guess I put two and two together.
Cool.
All right.
Well, let's get into it.
Dearest listeners, the holidays are upon us, and we have a present for you.
One of the three wise men, Travis View, has reached into his satchel and produced a bizarre Christmas movie pic I had never seen nor heard of before.
Most likely because I am an uncultured simpleton who has watched the Tomorrow War a full way through more than once and not for the show.
But I gotta say, this one is a real winner.
An honest to goodness post-apocalyptic comedy complete with zombies, fun shootouts, and a healthy amount of nihilism.
This movie has Travis written all over it, but with the style and panache of a Jake.
That's so awesome.
You're like, the choice is okay, unless you consider me, which makes it great.
I did not choose it, by the way, but I have Panache.
I don't even really know what Panache means.
Oh, it's like Riz, you know, like just kind of like a style.
A really cute dog just walked by outside.
Yeah, you're gonna bang it?
No, I'm just gonna watch it walk by.
I'm probably gonna let my boy bark at him later when he walks the other way.
Yeah, this is the problem with talking to Jake: if a dog walks by and the dog's asshole is really nice, the conversation's over.
Can you believe that I don't have ADHD?
It's crazy.
I know.
I really thought you did until like you did that extensive test.
It turns out you can get like all the elements of ADHD by just being like anxious and depressed.
Yeah.
Which I do.
I do relate to Night of the Comet released in November of 1984.
Now, this was a monster year for movies.
Gremlins, Temple of Doom, Ghostbusters, of course.
And the original Terminator had come out just a couple weeks prior to this film.
Did you guys know that?
No, but I was born the year before, I guess.
Yeah, me too.
I wasn't watching many movies, though.
I wasn't, but everything that released that year was trickled out to VHS by the time I was old enough to watch it.
So perfect, perfect timing to be born right in those early 80s.
We had it the best.
We really did.
Yeah.
So this movie was originally titled Teenage Comet Zombies, and it was made on a shoestring budget of around $700,000.
And it was written and directed by Tom Eberhardt, who you know from his films Captain Ron with Kurt Russell and Honey I Blew Up the Kid with Rick Moranis, which I believe is the third installment in the Honey Eye.
Wait, so they make the kids big?
It's yeah, it's they're they blow up the baby.
It's like a 50-foot baby.
Oh, I guess that kind of takes away from like the central plot of like trying to find it.
Like the baby's pretty findable.
Yeah, it's like Stay Puff marshmallow size baby.
So just fact check you, Jake.
So Honey I Blew Up the Kid is the second installment in the Honey trilogy.
The third is from 1997 is Honey We Shrunk Ourselves.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
Thank you.
Rick Moranis?
Yeah, Rick Moranis.
He shrinks himself?
Yeah, they shrink themselves.
I loved those movies when I was a kid, and I heard that there had been, it was at one of the theme parks.
I think maybe it was at Orlando because I was like, I'll never get there.
But there was a Honey, I Shrunk the Kids adventure land where everything was big and you could walk through and see giant insects.
And when I was a kid, I fantasized about going to that attraction.
I never got to.
I know.
Like when they're in the side of the Lego piece or eating the Oreo or like befriending the ant.
I was like, this is not so bad.
Like I want to be doing this.
In the comments, let me know if there are any.
I'm just using the podcast as Google.
Let me know if there are any VR, like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids style games.
Like, can I actually go and be a bug in VR?
Isn't there that like the Bethesda game where it's all about shrunken?
It's Obsidian.
Yeah.
Obsidian?
Yeah.
I think it.
Okay.
Yeah, I think Bethesda is like the publisher, but I think it's the Fallout New Vegas guys who are actually the devs.
But yes, grounded and grounded too.
Played it, loved it.
There's another one on PC and on console now called Small Land, which is also really good.
You want to be the ant?
I want to be like the people.
I want to be the kids.
I want to be eating the giant Oreo cookie where there's a scene in Honey I Shrunk the Kids in the original where he's like taking a handful of the Oreo cream and like putting it on top of a big piece of cookie and that looked so good.
I was like, I would love to eat that and then get to like being like a Lego hole with like a girl.
I definitely, I definitely cried like with the whole like arc with his like ant friend.
Oh, I know.
When the ant dies like and the scorpion kills it.
Spoilers.
Oh, the scorpion battle is so awesome.
Dude, stories for Honey I Shrunk the Kids is insane.
That's so funny.
If you haven't watched Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Honey I Blew Up the Baby, directed by the same director as Honey I Blew Up the Kid.
I don't know why I call it Honey I Blew Up the Baby.
I think it's like a Mandela effect thing.
Honey, I Blew the Kid.
It's by Jeffrey Epstein.
The film centers around two teenage sisters trying to survive in the wasteland in the wake of an apocalyptic comet that turns most of Earth's survivors into dust and the rest into zombies.
So Night of the Comet was kind of a Christmas sleeper hit at the time that it released.
It made $3.5 million in its first weekend and went on to make over $14 million during a thousand-plus theater run.
It was like a little over a thousand theater.
So it has since become a classic.
And I wouldn't even say cult classic.
I would say classic amongst the people who watched it as kids and the people who watched it as the parents of those kids who appreciated the more sophisticated humor, which I'm sure this was done before this, but that has become an age-old tradition of kids in teenage movies now as they always throw in a little, if they're smart and the filmmakers are good and it's good writing, they'll throw in a little something for the parents to kind of chuckle at that that goes over the kids' head.
I mean, we've come so far that, like, yeah, that's like the whole Pixar gambit, right?
It's like you tell the parents that actually they're being spoken to intelligently, and then their entire like filmographic interest is children's movies.
And so America becomes increasingly babified.
Yeah.
And Eberhardt, the director, has even said, you know, he was like, when kids saw it, you know, we wanted them to take it as kind of like a straight adventure.
You know, he said, but you know, we wanted the parents to be able to sort of laugh at the, you know, the sort of underlying humor.
I thought it was pretty funny overall.
Sure.
It's got a lot of quotable lines, and the intention was to make it feel like you were watching a comic book, despite the low budget only allowing for a single special effects studio that designer John Muto ran out of a garage.
So that's where, that's where they built all the zombie effects was inside this guy's garage.
I mean, it was pretty crazy because it opens on like a kind of older version of like the trailer guy voice, which is like I associate with you, Jake, because you know, so many of your stories kind of reference this era of filmography, but this was more of like a like a Jake story if it if it was like a holdover from like the 50s to like the 70s or something.
Totally.
It had that almost like reefer madness kind of vibe to it.
So the filmmakers actually monitored LA traffic, especially downtown at Bunker Hill.
Tons of recognizable locations for early morning windows when the streets were totally empty to really make it feel like you were in an apocalypse.
Not unlike what they did in 28 Days Later, but apparently, you know, they would get like a half hour, 45 minute windows where there was just nobody on the road.
And a lot of the exterior scenes were shot then, which I think is pretty dope.
I'm shocked that there was a period in my lifetime in which there wasn't a half hour in which those locations were totally empty.
I feel like that can't be true anymore.
I wonder.
Probably why you can't do the sequel.
My notes about the opening just say, and I can't quite decipher what I meant, but I'm just going to read it.
The paranoids locked themselves away.
The rest had tried uncut Columbian cocaine.
That is true.
They were partying.
They were partying for this comet big time.
84?
Like, that's a golden era for LA cocaine, like for sure.
Yeah.
There were also like some John Carpenter vibes.
Like, am I tripping?
Or like, there was like a kind of attempt at being a kind of John Carpenter-y like movie.
I definitely felt John Carpenter vibes.
I even felt a little Cameron vibes, which is crazy because, you know, it released, you know, just a month, not even a couple weeks after Terminator did, but the stuff with the motorcycle and the leather and the red, you know, the sort of like red filter, the kind of like alley punk apocalypse, like, you know, the cheerleader with the machine gun.
Like tonally, I felt that those movies paired well together.
And as we'll find out, they did actually build together on a lot of drive-in theaters.
And you're talking about like the first Terminator?
The first Terminator.
Yeah, the first Terminator.
That makes sense.
I mean, the First Terminator was a bit more of a B-movie than T2.
So this kind of fits with that as well.
Yeah.
So Tom Eberhardt has claimed that the inspiration for the film came from two places.
Science fiction he had loved, like Day of the Triffids, which I also loved.
Do you guys know that story?
Day of the what? Day of the Triffids.
No, not familiar.
I read it when I was a kid.
I can't remember if it was something that I picked out on my own, was given to me as a gift or recommended, or was something that I had to read in school.
I can't, I can't remember what it was, but I read it very, it's one of the, it's an early book that I remember enjoying.
What's a Triffid?
Okay, so the story is, we'll go on a quick side quest here.
So the story is basically kind of, it starts the same.
There's like this beautiful meteor shower, and everybody gathers outside to watch it and it's dazzling.
And the next morning, everybody wakes up blind.
And it turns out that the meteors aren't meteors at all.
They're seeds.
And the seeds, you know, embed themselves in the ground and outgrow these gigantic, like carnivorous plants with mandibles and tentacles.
And essentially, they just scoop up all the blind people as they're wandering around outside.
They can't see these creatures.
Just these plants grab them and digest them.
And the story is about, you know, a handful of people who survive.
Wait, so are the plants the Triffids?
Plants of the Triffids, yeah.
Okay.
Look it up.
You can see.
I don't know what a Triffid looks like.
I don't know if they ever made any movies.
I'm sure there's like a movie or a TV movie or something, I feel like.
Yeah.
Day of the Triffids.
Don't Google it.
Oh, yeah.
There's quite a few.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
This is the man who's supposed to continue us with this script.
He's Googling the movie he referenced.
Awesome.
Just to see what the plants look like.
Oh, boy, a lot of different interpretations online.
Oh, Googling Julian Field.
Wow.
A lot of results.
It's cool that I exist.
So he's also cited inspiration from a series of interviews that he had done with teenage girls while working at PBS.
And I guess one of the questions he had asked them was how they would feel about surviving an end of the world type event.
Jesus Christ.
And to his delight, many of them described a good time, you know, where nasty stepmothers are turned into dust and you don't have to think about money anymore.
That's so awesome that like in the 80s, like you asked teenage people, like, what do you feel about the world ending?
And they're like, it would be better than this bullshit.
Like, shit was already so fucked up that they were like, yeah, anything else.
Yeah, I think it kind of tracks that teenage girls crave the apocalypse as much as like a middle-aged libertarian prepper with like a bunch of gold buried in their backyard.
Why?
Well, because they have no investment in this world.
They just got here.
Like they don't have like, they don't have any power.
They don't have any career.
They only have any like, you know, any like assets or anything.
It's all bullshit.
So if everything got scrambled up, it would be like no, you know, no, no skin off their back.
Yeah, but you ever, you ever wonder why like someone who doesn't have an investment somehow in this like capitalist system like just feels pure bad?
Like why wouldn't they default to like, I'm free, I'm chilling.
Travis doesn't want to deal with that.
He doesn't know what are you talking about?
I'm agreeing with you.
I'm just like, no, there's like, no, that makes sense.
They have no investment, so they want the end of the world.
No, why would you?
If you have no investment.
Yo, I agree.
I agree.
Why would you?
Why would they?
It makes sense.
Their attitude is sensical.
Okay.
Yes.
Okay.
So we are on the side of the teenage girls.
We are on the same page.
You just don't listen.
I do.
I try, but I'm obviously too mentally ill to deal with such an intelligent human being as you.
But I will say that I stand with all teenage girls, and my number is.
What?
Keep going, Jake.
Oh, my lord.
Hello?
So the teenage girls did lament over the potential lack of dating specimens in a post-nuclear Earth, which is a plot point that Eberhardt definitely weaves into the film story.
And so that was sort of the inspiration for the tone.
It's Babysitters Club meets Dawn of the Dead.
And many of the diehard fans claim that its success paved the way for movies like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a cheerleader with a machine gun style of protagonist.
I will say that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was not a movie.
That's all I'll say.
Yes, it was.
What?
What do you mean, do we talk about?
Yes, it was a movie first.
Actually started as a movie.
It was a movie before it was a show.
Was a TV show second?
Really?
Movie first.
100%.
100%.
Oh my God.
I saw the movie.
We got a couple of Joss Whedon fans.
We got a couple of Americans here.
It was very much in the conversation.
If you were paying attention at all, Buffy was big.
The movie was big.
I mean, I literally attended a religion class where we did study Buffy.
But I will say, like, I want to do death threats to both of you for knowing Joss Whedon's, like, work.
For being familiar with the subject matter.
We didn't know there was no more than me.
How dare you?
It was just shows back then.
It wasn't the creator who did bad things.
We didn't know about any of that.
It was just a show that was on.
For existing as someone that attacks your ego, I agree.
I need to be destroyed.
That's so true, Travis.
But also, you retweeted my, like, I'm back in the United States tweet.
So I know you secretly love me.
It's okay.
I think I've been listening to too much like seeking derangements.
Oh, my God.
Well, I've been doing just too much podcasting in general.
I went over to, I was over at my buddy's place the other day, and nobody will play Call of Duty with me because everybody's like, it's shit.
I'm like, no, it's the best shooter in the last decade.
And everybody's like, it's shit.
You ever considered that like you've eroded people's trust by recommending them so many bad games?
Everything I recommend is all.
We call them Jake Potts and my other group of friends, my real group, not my podcast friends, not my parents.
They also have like a term that's awesome.
But I was over at my buddy's house and I was like, hey, I was like, while I'm here, I was like, I'm going to find your, I was like, I'm going to find where you keep your gun.
I'm going to hold it.
I'm going to hold you hostage till you download Call of Duty Black Ops 7.
And he was like, whoa.
He was like, that was really aggressive.
And I was like, oh, oh, sorry.
And he was like, no, that's fine.
It was just like, find my gun and how about I just download the game?
And I was like, yeah.
And I was like, man, I've been doing too much like podcasting lately where death threats.
We're like death threats and just like naturally being like cranked up to 11 all the time.
It's like a dude.
You really need to stop hanging out with me.
Yeah, yeah.
It's like, I'm really, yeah, I'm stuck in the elevator.
Like, that sounds like that bit that I got in trouble for where it was Obama telling Michelle to like get the gun out of the safe.
Well, don't do the bit again.
Moving on.
It was great.
It got me an email that I did not read that had the subject.
Julian and the Obamas.
Okay.
So, but at the time that the movie came out, though, you know, this genre blending of horror and science fiction and comedy, you know, it was kind of an odd combination.
And initially, the financiers didn't really understand what Eberhardt was going for.
And he actually almost got fired from this movie.
The producers were continually breathing down his neck, convinced that he was making a bomb.
It kind of sounds like a Jaws type situation.
Yeah, it's also something that would never happen now because like those money sick weirdos and their like groups that they like test the movie through would have absolutely stopped something like original and weird from coming out.
Well, there's actually a quote coming up that you almost nail perfectly.
Nice.
So one of the producers, I guess, had watched the director's first movie, Soul Survivor, which had come out earlier that year.
And that one was about a woman who survived a plane crash she was supposed to die in and has to dodge ghosts that death keeps sending after her to finish the job.
So basically a proto final destination.
I literally was about to say proto-final destination.
That's awesome.
Are we the same person?
I love you, Jake.
I was literally about to say seven o'clock.
That's a sneaky Ghostbusters quote.
I think it's seven o'clock.
Maybe this might be eight o'clock.
Getting old.
Yep.
In 2004, Charlie Mason, a fan of the film, got to interview Eberhardt where he discussed budding heads with executives and whether or not a long-awaited sequel was in the works.
Part of the charm of Comet is its funkiness and tackiness.
I can't conceive of anyone pumping big bucks into something like Comet 2.
But even TV movie bucks would be way more than we originally had.
Comet's low-budget B-movie roots are center stage with no apologies, and they make the movie work as much as anything else.
My original producers never got that.
Luckily, nobody had any money for reshoots, so they were stuck with what I gave them.
I remember one of them screaming at me while we were filming the shootout in the department store.
These girls look like they're having fun.
They should be terrified.
Like I said, there's no time or money to stop and argue concepts, so I won by default.
With a bigger budget, that might not be the case.
It's not just a matter of meddlesome producers either.
I could be a hindrance as well.
I knew zip about making features when I did that picture.
I violated a lot of time-tested rules, not because I was bold, but simply because I didn't know any better.
To begin with, Comet is a mixed genre piece.
Comedy and sci-fi and horror and fantasy, mixing sci-fi and horror usually dooms a project.
Comedy 2, forget it.
Not only that, the movie was light.
It was released at exactly the same time, Terminator, and in fact, played on double bills with Terminator at drive-ins.
Guess which picture was on the bottom half of the bill?
Dude, like, come on, we covered, remember Elf or Elves?
What was it called?
I think it was Elf Relves.
Like, literally, there's like anecdotes about how, like, the main guy who's like a drunk Santa Claus dropped like giant sacks of cocaine on the ground like during the filming.
I love that this guy's like, it's crazy that we managed.
He seems like he's actually inside the system because there were so many like crazy B movies made around this time, but none of them made the money that you described.
True.
Though Terminator had roughly five times the money we had, it was still considered a low-budget movie.
But Terminator is intense.
Lots of action, lots of shootouts, etc.
In Comet, you wondered if the characters weren't going to talk each other to death.
Mostly, that's what they did.
They sat around and talked.
Terminator is manly.
Comet was very girly.
And speaking of that, two girls in the lead in a drive-in movie?
No way.
These are all things that I've learned since 1983 when we shot it.
I'm not sure that they wouldn't get in the way.
Self-doubt is like poison to something like Night of the Comet.
You really have to be completely, utterly clueless about the realities of commercial filmmaking.
God, I would love to this guy.
Really?
I love him.
Yeah.
What a fucking asshole.
He's like, this is no way this is going to make money.
There's women.
It's girly.
It's not about a big robot that kills people.
But he's talking about like, yeah, it's like the, what was successful at the time, which were like, yeah, robots and killings and stuff.
These were the things that were like, you know, that were able to be highly profitable.
Like, he was talking about like he didn't really know or care about the reality of filmmaking.
He was just making what was interesting to him.
You want to him for that?
Yeah, he's a real, he was a realist about the entertainment industry, I think.
I guess like what I'm saying is like, didn't it make money?
Yeah, it was.
It was.
Yes, it did.
It was financially successful, despite that.
But he's still saying Terminator is manly.
Comet was very girly.
Yeah, I mean, do you disagree?
Do you disagree that like Terminator is, despite the female protagonist, is a little bit more gruesome sort of like masculine film than this one, Comet?
Do you disagree with that assessment?
Okay, well, I mean, I guess you've cordered me.
I'll just say yes, sir.
I think Comet is like kind of giggly.
It's sort of like a teenage bedroom apocalypse.
And like, that's what is fun about it.
I think that's what's really interesting.
That, that is, you know, that really tickles the Rocketanski fancy.
I love the genre blending of it.
And, you know, it's interesting is it's like, you know, usually these were the protagonists that were killed very early on in the movie, right?
Like, you know, the cheerleader or, you know, the sort of kind of icy older sister.
You know, these were like usually characters that got killed off.
And so I love the fact that I totally agree that he, what does he say?
I love the way he says this, actually.
He says, self-doubt is like poison to something like Knight of the Comet.
There's something really true about that, that to make something kind of this weird and worth, I don't know, worth revisiting, you really do just have to kind of make that weird fucking little thing that you're obsessed with because you think it's cool, you know?
But what's so interesting is he's going, and speaking of that, two girls in the lead in a drive-in movie, no way.
These are all things that I've learned since 1983 when we shot it.
So he's like, I've reformed.
I will no longer like cast women in the lead.
No, I think he's saying these are things that like other movies are perhaps more successful with.
Again, it was, it was like a film that he's proud of.
He said, like, he did it with no self-doubt.
He's saying that, like, he's saying, like, he's saying, despite that, despite doesn't have the, you know, the formula for success.
It was itself successful.
Okay, I don't want to him anymore.
Yeah, he's like, he's, to me, he's speaking from the point of an executive.
Cause like that, if you're working realistically in the business, that it's almost hammered into your brain the sort of the sacrifices you have to make to to work.
Like he said, yeah, in a commercial, yeah, in commercial filmmaking.
And so I think when he says, and speaking of two girls in the lead in a drive-in movie, no way, like that that's like the executives.
And he's like, fuck it.
No, I am going to put two girls in the lead and I am going to give them machine guns and I am going to have them laugh while they're like shooting these like thugs in the mall.
Like, cause I think it's fucking hilarious and funny.
I will say that like my only real contact with like film like executives was I dated one briefly and she was the executive behind a quite successful like indie movie that I won't name.
And she was like, I want to show it to you.
So we sat down and we watched it and I was fucking blown away because there was like a scene that like totally innocuous scene where one of the characters just opens the fridge and gets a drink.
And she's like, I'm so pissed off that this scene is like this.
I gave notes that this is not how someone would open a fridge and drink.
And I was like, what?
Yeah.
It was so insane.
I got like a little glimpse of like what it's like to be a filmmaker.
So I worked on a movie.
I worked on a movie a couple years ago where the climax of the movie was supposed to be like a bunch of guys, a bunch of bad guys getting murdered by ghosts.
And the director and the lead actor both got COVID and it like zapped the button.
It like zapped the budget basically for a week of shooting.
And so when he came back and we had to edit the movie, the climax is supposed to be a scene, you know, with like these ghosts like murdering these guys.
And he had no scenes of ghosts murdering guys.
Yeah, I've seen the movie.
So we had to like figure out like how to take like B role and like footage from when they were just like location scouting and like using sound design to sort of like basically kind of make it feel like maybe, you know, maybe it's, it's such a, you know, it's so little, so little of what's of the passion that's on the page.
Like by the time you sort of like get to the end of the thing, like, you know, if you have a fraction of what you wanted, you feel, you know, you feel lucky.
And which is why we nitpick about stuff, which is like, oh, God, I hate the way they opened the fridge here.
We had a different take that was like so much more.
It's just like obsessive.
And yeah.
Imagine giving that note and knowing that it would mean like reshoots and like so much stuff just for a fridge opening like that is kind of irrelevant to the plot.
And honestly, I did not clock any issues with that person and the way they opened the fridge.
Yeah, of course.
It's insane.
Like I think executives just have a job because like it's it's like one of those like make a job like it's like the final wish type shit for like rich kids.
Like it's just like you're gonna get to talk.
I mean first of all like the the the creative output is already so degraded that like you know it's like it's kind of easy pickings right like they already have like kind of figured out how to ruin the movie before it even like goes to the executives.
And then by the time it goes to them, they're all like, oh yeah, the drinking water scene like needs to be totally reshot.
And it's like, why?
Because you don't drink water out of the fridge that way.
What the fuck are you talking about?
See, working with me is a lot more fun because I'll be on the phone like, and I'm not even joking.
This is like a real thing that happened.
I was on the phone with like two executives arguing for like why there should be a ghost dog in the movie.
I was like, no, and like the go like that goes to the dog can come back, but it's like bigger and it's all, it's like a wolf now because it's in the spirit world and it's like way doper.
And like, so we think that the dog dies at the beginning of the movie and you like never see it again.
But like in the spirit world, when she fucking goes in, like the fucking dog is there, but this time it's a wolf.
Like, can you imagine?
Like, that's me on these calls just being like, you guys don't understand.
Like, we need a phantom wolf to come in and save the day.
It's gonna be so dope.
Wait, you were talking about the movie you just talked about?
Because I've seen that movie.
You wanted a ghost dog?
I mean, that's awesome.
I do think that there was a decent job done at the end, like where clearly, you know, there was no like big payoff, but like there was like all these kind of like sound effects and kind of references.
And a lot of it was focused on like photos, like portraits and stuff like that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I don't think that was like such a big issue.
Obviously, like, you know, the payoff is a great time.
And I will just like repeat Herzog's great quote, which is, and with every movie, you need money, right?
And the problem is, as Herzog says, money is cowardly and fuck.
What is he?
He says it's, it's, it's like scared and like cowardly and um stupid.
Money has always had certain explicit qualities.
It's stupid and cowardly, slow and unimaginative.
The circumstances of funding never just appear.
You have to create them yourself, then manipulate them for your own ends.
Facts.
So overall, a pretty interesting find movie-wise, Travis.
Thank you.
And of course, there's a fantastic deep state and adrenochrome angle.
So this is a perfect QAA Christmas sleeper hit episode.
Let's open our presents, shall we?
Yeah, the last time we opened our presents, we got Hulk Hogan singing with a tiny girl off-key.
Yeah, this is much better.
Yeah, this is much better.
Yeah, that's so good.
I forgot.
Thank you, Travis.
God, that feels like not that long ago.
That was last Christmas, eh?
I mean, it wasn't even as bad as when you made us fucking watch like Babes in Toyland, which is another pure atrocity.
So yes, Travis, please take over Christmas.
VR Santa Claus.
Also, the hair.
He's looking.
My man.
He's looking like he might wriggle down a couple chimneys.
Do you have like a single white hair?
Like, what's going on, man?
You're just going to be a blonde guy, like, into infinity?
I don't think it's long.
Single white.
Viking-like hair, like sexy.
And if you're blonde.
You gray later in life, then if you have dark hair, I do have a few pretty prominent grays in my beard here.
Hell yeah, dog.
My beard is like totally gray.
Like, I'm achieving Jack Black levels of color and Tom Arnold levels of hair.
Let me share something with you guys.
Men are untrustworthy when they're young.
Not just because we're stupid and have like no good instincts in our body, but also because once we get a little like gray, like pepper hair dog, we're like the hottest we've ever been.
Have some confidence.
I love you guys.
Jake, can I sleep with you or not?
No.
It's just sleeping.
All right.
Let's back to the, but let's get into the let's get into the uh the loose plot outline here.
We'll take you through.
I got a couple clips picked out.
Unfucking believable.
We're like an hour into recording.
Yeah.
I've destroyed this episode.
We'll edit it.
We'll edit this down a little bit.
Well, hopefully we're only a half hour into recording when you're hearing this listener.
We open on a busy movie theater in the height of holiday season.
We're introduced to our heroine, Reg.
She's a degenerate gamer who sucks at her job and is sleeping with a projection guy whose name is Tupree.
She lives at home with her younger sister and her bitch stepmother, or potentially just their dad's girlfriend, unclear.
The father is overseas.
We found this out, Travis.
He's fighting in Nicaragua.
Yes, the father is absent in this movie because he's down in Nicaragua arming the Contras.
That's such a good move because it's like, it sounds like every woman in this movie is either like a slut or a bitch.
And then it's like, but the men are worse.
They're actually doing like, like, they're arming like genocide squads.
Awesome.
Yeah.
And the stepmom is like openly cheating on the father because she's like, well, if he would ever come back from banana land, like it's, yeah, it's horrible.
Meanwhile, like the shit we have to watch now, instead of like this shit, which was like when I was born, the shit we have to watch now is like, hey, have you, do you enjoy Black Panther?
He's in an imaginary black country that has been saved from white people.
Also, one of the prominent and good guys in this movie is a CIA agent played by the guy who played Bilbo.
Like fucking shoot me.
Hey, did you like the Dreamworks pictures animation?
How to train your dragon?
Well, here's another how to train your dragon live action.
How many are there going to be?
Still animated.
It never stops that one.
They're like, it's live action now with live dragons.
Yeah, that made like the Lion King so much better.
It's fire, though.
I'm not going to lie.
The dragon one?
Yeah.
I don't think I trust you.
It is.
We should do that for we should stop halfway through this episode and make that the movie night.
This is why Travis is in charge.
Like, yes, he's pissed at me because it's an hour in and like we haven't touched on the movie, but at least he didn't pick something that tortured me.
Yeah, this won't torture you.
Okay, so the night that the movie opens, there's going to be a spectacular solar event.
A comet is going to streak across the sky, providing a free light show to the people of Earth.
Everyone is hyped about this comet.
They are all on cocaine, I'm sure.
I was going to say, like, they already had Nintendo.
Like, come on.
So, stepmom is having a party for all of her boomer friends.
Here, we're introduced to Reg's younger sister, Samantha, who, in my opinion, is the star of the show.
I followed her on Twitter.
I hope she follows me back.
I wish we should have gotten them for this.
Maybe we can do a Comet 2 in the future if they follow us back.
You're using the podcast to talk to the actors?
Yeah.
It's, you know, every now and again, I feel like it should be allowed.
Yeah, like, not many people are talking about how Ryan Felipe was a listener.
I don't know if he still listens, but I hope he still listens.
I hope so too.
Hey, Ryan, what's up?
Sometimes I like fantasize about being out in public.
Like, if I, on the rare occasion that I like went out and I like saw him out, because sometimes you do see celebrities out in Los Angeles.
It's not an unfree.
You saw him?
No, I'm just saying.
I sometimes think about like if I saw him out at like a restaurant or something, that like I know he's a listener.
So I could go up and be like, dude, it's Jake Rocketanski from the QA podcast.
Like, would we hug?
I don't know.
Maybe he's not.
What if he's like fallen out?
What if there's been too many like Julian?
What if he's like not a Julian fan?
He's kissing me.
He probably hates me, but he'd still hug you.
I mean, what he told me in DMs was, I feel like I know you guys and I'm friends with you guys because I've listened to so much, which I was like, holy shit.
Would we hug?
That would be so weird for me.
You don't want to hug for Ryan Felipe?
No, I do, but it would be weird.
It's like.
Could you do the cruel intentions kiss like that the two girls do, but like with Ryan Felipe?
I learned how to play like colorblind on the piano because of that movie.
God, straight guys are so boring.
Come on.
Just kiss Ryan.
Just kiss Ryan.
What do you want to know?
I also learned some Dave Matthews songs on the guitar.
So, I mean, I don't know what to say.
All right.
This episode is so derailed.
This is supposed to be an advertisement for the premium.
How good it is.
I'm like 18, okay?
MP4.
Hey, I got to introduce the clip.
Okay, so yeah.
Samantha, the younger sister is introduced.
I think she's the star of the show.
Here she is telling their stepmom, Doris, that Reg will not be attending the comet party.
Hello, Samantha.
You sound pissed.
I just had it out with Doris once and for all.
She wants me to like haul chips and dips around for a little comet party.
Yeah, well, speaking of Doris, look, I need your help.
Tell her that you know all about this field trip.
Okay, with my science class, we're gonna go to the observatory to watch the comet.
She won't go for it.
Chuckle.
Just tell her, okay?
Doris.
Reggie's on the phone.
She's not having car trouble.
She's gonna be out all night for science class at the observatory.
I know all about it.
Yeah, hi, Doris.
What's this about a five class of chain?
Well, you want me to do better in science, don't you?
I want you home in five minutes after you finish work.
I want to watch the comet.
Here, look, Doris.
Like, I'm 18, okay?
And I can watch the comet wherever I want to watch the comet.
Here's Sanatha.
You and your sister share a lot of secrets.
I want you to share this one.
If it were up to me, I couldn't care less.
But if your father makes it back home without some Sam Denise duck blowing his brains out, will be responsible for any kind of trouble you get your girls get into.
What we have here is the chain of command.
Major jumps on me.
I jump on you.
Did you get that?
How did this like have a script?
This is insane.
It's written.
The guy who directed it wrote it.
He's also wrote and directed Captain Ron.
Are you familiar?
I mean, I know, but imagine writing this part of the script where like you intended for all this stuff to happen.
It's actually kind of insane.
I know.
And right after this, we get my favorite scene in the movie, totally unexpected, which sets the tone from this point forward, I think.
If you're not down after this, you're going to hate the whole movie.
So Samantha, the younger sister, who is now trapped at horrible stepmom's comet party alone, makes a snide remark about the neighbor she believes that Doris is banging, who she is, and the two get into a fist fight in the middle of the party.
This is like literally like a cocaine fever dream where you're like, I feel guilty because I know we're getting this from like, you know, like a foreign country and that we're actively like massacring their people with death squads.
But also like I think women are fucking psycho and like slutty and I'm insecure about them.
So I don't know.
It's so funny to think of this as like a feminist movie where it's like, yeah, all the protagonists are women, but it's like, Jesus Christ, look at what you're making them do.
And now everyone knows that women are universally perfect angels.
So if you portray a woman, it has to be in a positive light.
No, I don't think so, but come on, man.
This is unhinged.
I understand.
The man in the movie, like you said, is literally not absent on Christmas because he's arming rebels to murder people.
And then like the Bob is kind of a slut and a bitch.
I mean, like, who comes across worst here?
Okay.
So first of all, he's not arming rebels.
He's arming.
Oh, sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
R.E.
Yes, yes.
Counter-revolutionary.
Counter-insurgents.
Yes, right.
But also, like, you're telling me that the women are portrayed here as like good?
Like, it's insane.
I'm saying that the two teenage protagonists, there's a side character who's kind of, you know, an evil stepmom character.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The protagonists aren't nearly as like nasty.
This is supposed to be kind of like Sleeping Beauty, like the or Cinderella, like the evil stepmother, you know?
Yeah.
Classic trope, you know?
So true.
She's dressed like she's in the nutcracker.
Insane like red kind of like soldier outfit.
Now, going to join the party?
Join the party for what, Doris?
So I can watch Chuck come across the street, stick his hands down your pants?
I think that's something Daddy should know.
Chuck's a nice guy.
He certainly must be.
Daddy's down in Banana Land.
You were born with an asshole, Doris.
They all need Jack.
Yeah, this is amazing.
Like the stepmother, it's like they have a, they slap each other, and then the evil stepmom goes through a full, like, full clothes jab.
She has full clothes, docks are on her ass punch.
Incredible.
But don't you see, like, the kind of middle-aged man, like, writing the script where he's like, you were born with an asshole.
Like, why are you fucking Chuck?
You know, it's like, what teenager is going to say that to an older woman?
It's insane.
Yeah.
In an 80s, in an 80s teenage comet zombie movie, like, see, to me, that's where that line makes sense.
Yeah, yeah, I guess I just didn't expect like such specificity.
And you're describing a B movie, which would not involve Nicaragua or the Sandinistas, you know?
Yeah, that's, it's elevated.
Yeah, there's something odd.
There's something here, yeah.
It's called cocaine.
So after this, everybody mills around outside as the sky turns red and foreboding.
The meteor storm is violent and otherworldly.
The next day, when Reg awakens on two horribly laid-out sleeping bags on the floor of the projection booth, Dupree is pissed and is on his way out.
Some guy didn't return a reel he had lent him, and he's worried their boss is going to find out.
He heads outside and is dragged away by a zombie-like creature.
Reg emerges from the theater.
There are piles of clothes all over the ground.
Around them are heaps of reddish dust.
Reg realizes that Dupree's motorcycle is still parked in the theater alleyway, and his keys are laying on the concrete.
As she goes to investigate the bike, she's confronted by the same zombie goon who she fights off handily with martial arts.
I guess she, she and the sister have been trained by the special forces' father, so they can both do like karate and stuff.
Do they actually like explicitly say that?
No, they never explicitly say it, but there's one point when the zombie is first coming at her and Reg is like, hey, like, I'm warning you.
Like, I've been trained.
Like, I know how to handle myself.
Like, she alludes to it.
Whereas Dupree just got like his ass aped.
Dupree gets, Dupree opens the door and it's like, ah, and he's like, ah, gets dragged away immediately.
Okay.
He's supposed to give her 15 bucks too for spending the night.
There's a whole, there's a weird exchange going on.
Why would he pay her?
It's for like popcorn or something because they're like sleeping over and like watching movies through the projector, but they're also hooking up.
What the fuck?
I don't know.
It's a kind of relationship that couldn't exist now.
Nor really then.
This is like a cocaine psychosis person's like vision of reality.
It's so awesome.
So she knocks the zombie off.
She hops on Dupree's motorcycle and drives off into the city, which is now covered in thick red fog.
Great soundtrack was a note that I put here, by the way.
I thought the soundtrack was awesome.
So Reg arrives at her parents' house, and at first it seems like nobody's there, but as she creeps up the stairs, Reg and her little sister Samantha run right into each other.
God, what are you trying to do?
Give me a heart attack?
I thought you were Doris.
You know, she decked me last night?
Knocked one of my peef loose scenes.
Wait till Daddy hears about that.
You know how he's always telling me to be careful with my mouth on account of the dental plan doesn't cover anything cosmetic.
Ooh, anyway, get this.
I think Chuck and Doris spent the night together last night.
Wait till Daddy hears about that.
I mean, even if he isn't pissed off about my mouth, which I can't imagine.
What's happening?
Oh, yeah, I guess you are a little confused.
God, you look terrible.
I ran away last night after she sled me.
Left an oat and everything.
But I didn't have any place to go, because I spent the night in the lawn store.
Pretty grossly.
They're all in every place.
God, look at this shit.
What?
I gotta be at home.
So anyway, I was still here this morning.
I've got face.
I'll go that's fine practice and split out her.
So I don't know if that's fine practice is on or not.
Can't get anybody on the phone.
Sammy.
We can't get anybody on the phone because everybody's gone.
What?
What you got her, Mom?
I swear to God.
I swole my gum.
There's nobody.
I mean, there's nobody.
All right, nobody.
I'm sure.
Personally, I love to tell my daughter, we don't have great dental coverage.
Be careful with your mouth.
Like, what the fuck?
What the fuck are you talking about?
Also, I love that, like, it's like, this woman won't make sense until I grab her by the shoulders and shake her.
She's like, I love it.
She's like, ah, you feel me?
Swallow my gum.
It's just. I love it.
I'm so into this movie.
I don't know.
The humor tickles me like in that perfect way.
I mean, listen, I love a U.S. troop doing like a genocide getting cucked.
So I will say that plot point is awesome.
Also, this is a thing.
So, I don't know if you notice, but halfway through that scene, Samantha turns on a boom box and brings it with her.
And there's like way too loud music speaking through the like or playing through the rest of the rest of the scene.
You can barely hear any of the dialogue.
This is a major theme throughout the movie.
There's constantly diegetic sound, usually in the form of music being played, that constantly is at the same volume as the dialogue, competing with the sound of the characters at all, almost at all times throughout the movie.
Well, yeah, you're like a guy, right?
And you're like looking at the movie, and you're like, these two broads are talking.
It's fucking boring.
Is there any way I could interact or like interrupt without being in the movie?
Yes, let's introduce a fucking boombox and just like blast the sound like from zero to a hundred.
So, speaking of, Reg and Samantha then head to a local radio station where they believe there might be survivors.
And one thing that's funny about the radio station is they find out that the records are automated so that you know, even though the world has ended outside, like they're still pumping out music to the masses.
So, it's like a jukebox, yeah, kind of.
Yeah, yeah, it's like basically it's still like pumping out, you know, like slow jams for essentially like a rotting away society.
It's not all that dissimilar for what's from what's happening now, as Travis noted in our group chat.
It's hard to pull it off with vinyl, though.
It's true.
They've got a cool, they've got a cool setup, it's like an automated sort of like record machine.
The girls are then ambushed by a trucker named Hector who is passing through.
He holds them at gunpoint to ensure they're not infected.
Then he tells them what he knows about the zombie-like creatures.
Sweetheart, you haven't seen those freaked-out zombies running around here?
Yeah, I was jumped by one.
Well, you got off lucky.
Me and this girl pulled into town this morning.
You don't work here?
No, I drive a truck.
I was heading to San Diego with this girl I picked up.
She's a lady.
We're looking for a gas station.
That's what I'm spotting when we move.
Whatever this is.
Looked like it was eating.
Looked like it was eating a cat.
The dead cat.
Semi-dead.
You want to eat a live cat?
Shit out of me.
This girl freaked out.
Took off running.
I spotted her about 20 minutes later.
Looked like one of those things that torn her apart.
Another insane choice with the music, but boys, are you guys Star Trek fans in any way?
I've watched a few episodes, sure.
Casually, yes.
Well, if you're familiar with Star Trek Enterprise, which is the one where there's a female captain, this man is very prominent, like one of the main characters throughout all of it.
His name is Chakote.
He's like a Native American character with like a face tattoo.
It's insane to see him in like a movie where he's just being a dickhead because Chicote is such a sweetheart and a great guy.
Oh, really?
Oh, that's funny.
Yeah.
I didn't know that.
After this, they come to the understanding that they're each alive because they were all inside steel containers during the meteor shower.
Reg in the projection booth, Samantha in the tool shed, and Hector in the cab of his truck.
It is worth mentioning that Reg is incredibly racist towards Hector for no reason at all.
She makes fun of his name, over-pronouncing it with an accent.
And after he gives her a pistol, she says that it might work for quote date night in the barrio.
Man, the film industry used to be so cool.
You could like get away with all this and be like, isn't it crazy that I'm like so brave that I like made women the protagonists?
You're taking credit for this shit.
My God.
While Hector and Reg are trying to figure out what to do, Samantha begins spinning records and broadcasting, and she's a natural.
The switchboard lights up and a call comes in.
We don't hear it, but Samantha tells her sister that it was, quote, someone from a research lab.
Now, this is where the sort of conspiracy plot comes in.
And then the movie goes and introduces a whole group of scientists in a lab that we've never seen before.
This is about half an hour in.
They're picking up the hot mic from inside the radio station, listening to the survivors' entire conversation and trying to strategize on how to capture them.
Capture?
Yes, capture.
Or if they'll stay put, we can get from a psychological standpoint.
The radio station represents a link to normalcy.
I don't think they'll wander far as long as it's higher.
Dr. Carter, I'd just like to say up front, I'm opposed to this.
There's no reason for us to bring those people or any other survivors back here.
What about the disintegration factor?
You just want to let that happen.
We don't know that the condition is progressive.
I think we've established that, Audrey.
Partial protection seems to result in a slowing of the overall effect, but progression is steady in any case.
Drying of the body fluids.
I'll get to the point, Australia.
We've heard this a thousand times.
Ultimately, what about the dust?
Ultimately, there is nothing left but calcium dust.
Right.
There isn't even enough hope to warrant bring anybody back here.
What you're saying is we shouldn't even try.
Dude, this person cannot get through a scene without diminishing abroad.
He needs a broad in there to be like, stupid slut.
No, she's like the hero.
Yeah, she's like the only moral person amongst all the scientists.
Yeah, she's like the good.
Okay.
She's the good one.
Okay.
And her name is my mom's name, so I do respect her.
I like her a lot.
Well, okay.
Well, it seems like there's just some more Freudian reasons that you resent her.
So let's just move on.
I'm not resenting her.
I resent the fact that a man wrote a script where women are kind of annoying.
Remind you of your mom.
Yeah, we understand.
She, uh, no, she's like Audrey the scientist.
She's been, you'll see.
She becomes like the one, the one actually like moral and good person.
I just got absolutely fucking caged by Travis.
Oh my God, I've never been a woman.
She believed.
We get it.
We get it.
Yeah, your mom.
Great.
Your mom?
That makes you angry.
You don't want to see that.
I get it.
You're furious.
You're furious.
So basically, from my understanding, despite surviving the initial comet sighting, unless you're in a secure bunker, you're going to turn into dust anyways.
But we must talk about the ghoul motorcycle cop rape nightmare that was so bizarre.
She's like having nightmares within nightmares, and it's pissing Hector off big time.
Like he's doing sit-ups backwards on a designer chair while they wait.
It's like a real weird, it's sort of like a real weird like dream sequence where Samantha is like has incepted herself into two different levels of being attacked by these like ghoulish motorcycle cops.
What did you make of that, Travis?
Do you know the scene I'm talking about where she's like going to the back?
Well, first, she's driving a car like on an empty highway, then all of a sudden these two like police motorcycles sort of light up behind her.
Very mad Maxie.
And then when they get to the windows, they've got these sunken eyes.
They're basically half zombified, half humans.
Sorry, I'm publishing this to YouTube.
Travis destroyed by Jewish podcaster.
You know, I think it's just, yeah, I don't know.
I think it's just generally just the, it's like the nightmare, not merely of the destruction of civilization, but like the, I guess, the, all the, uh, the power structures that she assumed perhaps naively were supposed to protect her, uh, all of a sudden turning hostile.
Or perhaps, perhaps, a foreshadowing of uh understanding like how evil these uh these scientists turn out to be.
Right.
Hector informs Reg that he's gonna head to San Diego tomorrow.
He's got family down there.
His mother, a younger sister.
Reg doesn't want him to go.
She tells Hector that she doesn't really have family outside of Samantha.
Her dad is special forces.
Her real mom split.
And they don't really care for Doris, who's also turned into dust at this point.
It's a heart-filled moment that is very hard to hear because, once again, the radio station music is playing so loudly in the background.
Did you have, like, a close one?
No, a real mom.
I had a kid in Vietnam and she split.
So it's been mostly me and Sam.
Third Special Forces.
Smoke Bomb Hill.
Ward Bragg.
Ward Bragg.
But I've been around 2006 or 2007.
Great.
It's a little obvious.
Ward Bragg.
Never gonna go in range.
That was my love.
Again, Larry.
I'm steady.
I think this kind of undermines like the guy being proud of making the movie because, or like, the level of shame you have to have in your own movie to play like songs, like full-on songs, not just like the soundtrack, but just this loud over your characters.
It's insane.
Okay.
I have a very hard time hearing what they're saying.
Okay.
It could have.
This is a technical note.
It could have benefited from a little bit better mixing.
I don't know.
Maybe in the remaster something, something.
But when I was watching this the first time, I was like, I can't hear it.
Damn.
I felt like such an unk.
I was like, I can't hear anything they're saying.
You've got like a broad being like, yeah, my dad kills like Vietnamese people.
And then the soundtrack is like, I'm blue.
There's a great scene where the two sisters are outside shooting a car up with Uzis.
It was like, I was like, wow.
I was like, where do they get Uzis from?
Yeah.
If you want continuity, don't watch this.
And then there's a child zombie attack scene.
My note was first time in film?
I imagine not.
I'm sure Romero did a child zombie before this.
Yeah, but Romero didn't have to pay alimony.
This guy definitely has to pay alimony.
And he's like, it's time to reckon with that.
We cut over to the government facility out in the desert as they continue to monitor this attack, natural disaster.
It's still unclear.
Children are being brought to the facility.
Survivors.
One of the researchers, so this is the good woman, a woman by the name of Audrey White, is very much against outsiders coming into the base.
And this character is played by Mary Waranov, who interestingly worked a lot with Andy Warhol.
She was like a Warhol muse who's had a really interesting career.
She won an award, I think, for this film.
For this one?
Yeah.
I wrote that the color palette reminded me of Mad Max and Terminator.
Right.
80.
I mean, which really is just to say 80s post-apocalypse.
I mean, talking about ADHD, this is like the ADHD movie.
Maybe that's why I liked it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's kind of like refreshing.
It's almost like freeing, right?
It's like, yeah, let's just drift from scene to scene.
Who cares?
Like, the music's loud.
It is.
It is such a drift.
It is such a drift.
It is funny that he was like, it's horror and comedy.
I'm like, where are the jokes, bro?
Oh, I laughed a lot.
I chuckled a good amount.
I LOL'd.
At like something someone wrote or at the fact that the movie was insane?
Just, yeah, the kind of the fact that the movie was insane.
I just like some of the dialogue caught me by surprise.
You know, it went a direction that I, you know, didn't, you know, I didn't really know where it was going.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We get this really wholesome scene between the two sisters where Samantha laments all the simple problems they took for granted before the world ended.
A boy was going to ask her out.
A friend who was worried about flunking algebra.
It's a nice scene with good acting and good writing.
And I really could easily see this movie today as like an A24 sort of like low-budget psychedelic end of the world movie.
I think we should actually remake this one.
Yeah, absolutely.
At least for better sound.
Something.
In an effort to cheer up her sister, Reg takes her shopping.
Girls just want to have fun plays as the kids raid Nordstrom's or a department store like it.
Bro, bro, you're making a fucking end of the world movie and you're like, what would women do next?
Yeah, they would shop.
Well, he said this was based on interviews that he conducted while working at PBS.
So I'm guessing somebody said that they would raid, you know, Nordstroms.
It would be, yeah, it's like it would be, it's like if they're literal end of the world, there's a complete shopping ball full of stuff shortly before Christmas.
So it's extra stocked.
Oh, come on.
You would, yeah, I mean, anyone, I feel like, feel like in order to just, you know, bring up your morale, would raid that Nordstroms.
Oh, all the Nintendos, everyone.
Listen, I'm with you guys.
PowerPad.
I'm pro-looting and like, I don't even want to wait till the end of the world.
Yo, if you're pro-looting, do you have a problem when women do it?
Is that what you're saying?
No, women should loot.
Also, like, what's happening in Nicaragua?
Is it also the end of the world there?
I don't know.
I think the military's probably got some sort of dome.
Oh, no, yeah.
You know, some sort of protective dome.
So the girls, you know, they're having a great time until they're ambushed by a group of post-apocalyptic thugs, real low-level enemies.
But not even zombies?
No, not zombies.
These are the human horrors.
Well, they're kind of, you see, they're kind of like wasters, I guess.
Towards the end, it's revealed that they are in the process of becoming zombies.
It happens quicker for some than it does for others.
It happens slowly if you're like a character from a beat-em-up on like Super Nintendo.
Also, should we talk about this scene, The Gentleman or the F-slur?
Talk about movies in the 80s just, you know, thinking that they can get away.
You know, the kind of shit that was sort of accepted as normal.
Which one?
Faggot?
Yeah.
I've been thinking there isn't any dangerous precedents.
Who's that who's got the same problem with him?
Such as...
Such as.
Oh, God.
I mean, Lord Pictures good.
I'm sure.
Think it over.
Does that even come up here?
So, so that means that the last guy on earth is either a gentleman or fad.
Well, what are the odds?
In LA.
Things could be very interesting around here, Regina.
I have to say, I fucking love Cindy Lauper.
She's awesome.
My mom used to play her in the car all the time on a tape.
And I just fucking love her whole thing.
I had the pleasure of attending her final live performance ever.
Yeah.
At the Hollywood Bowl.
It was awesome.
She put on an insane show and they were filming it.
So we got to see stuff twice.
And Joni Mitchell showed up and Cher showed up to sing.
John Legend was there.
Okay.
And Sizza closed out the show.
And sometimes they would do two versions of it because they were, you know, filming it for a doc or a specialist, something.
It was like a once-in-a-lifetime thing.
And she rocked it.
I mean, she looked better than I can, you know, in my early 40s.
Like, just an insane talent and like super, seems like a super awesome person.
She did a lot of like talking.
She talked a lot in between, in between songs.
And she's really, was like really funny.
I felt like I was at a stand-up show as well.
It was just like a real special performance.
He's a great and very lively artist.
I do like that Travis is so woke that the file is called Gentleman or a F-G.
That was me.
Yeah, Jake made these files.
You didn't even want to write out files.
I didn't want to write it out.
Oh, that's beautiful.
I'm reforming it.
By the way, I'm saying this word because I'm probably the only guy on this podcast that sucked a series of dicks.
There's a grown after another, I bet.
Yeah, one dick after another.
That's my one dick after another.
The movie about college for me.
We then get an awesome shootout where these sort of low-level thugs and the two sisters shoot it out in the department store during which a chopper operated by the secret government agency lands outside of the mall.
And I already mentioned that the girls are special forces trained, so they do their best against the goons, led by a real slick back piece of shit.
All the goons wear sunglasses inside and dress like Ray-Ban vampires.
When Reg grabs a slim, shady-looking guy and holds him hostage, the head goon shoots his own man to get a clear shot at Reg.
That's how evil he is.
What's up, boys?
You think you could kick our asses?
Too bad.
I was trained by Peter Shea at School of the Americas.
Let her go.
I'm sorry, miss.
I can't have you holding one of my people hostage.
Even if you pull the trigger, I can still take him out.
And you.
Come on, Willie.
She means it.
Miss, you're not getting the point.
I can't have you holding one of my people hostage.
Okay, dude.
Like, this movie is like, it's like cocaine was like turned into a script.
It's so insane.
They all look like private school, like British kids that they have like sunglasses on.
It doesn't, it's so unhinged.
Yeah, the goons do have a kind of like a clockwork orange kind of like ultraviolence kind of vibe.
Yeah.
I'm not crazy.
I just don't give a fuck.
Come on.
It's a good line.
Like I shot my boy.
What?
What the fuck?
The goons tie up Reg and Samantha to a forklift in the store's warehouse.
They reveal to the girls that they used to be stock boys.
Like stockboys?
No, no, no.
Like stockboys in the back of the store.
Yeah.
Oh, right.
We're right.
Yeah.
See, we worked really hard to get ahead in this business, girls.
And we don't get checked for it.
But we do it because we know we can work our way up through the system.
And the system works.
Why, just a few days ago, we were only stockboys.
Now we own the store.
The American way.
And then this happens.
What are you talking about?
I'm talking about you coming in here and ripping us off.
What do you want?
You want us to pay for it?
What?
You wouldn't believe what we want from you.
In your worst nightmare, you wouldn't believe.
Let's play a game.
It's called Scary Noises.
There's a lot to unpack here.
Yeah.
Like the idea that working class people are just seconds away if they get any control of becoming Sephiroth.
All right.
She'll be like, ha ha ha.
I love to torture people.
It's like, yeah, funny.
It's like these young male villains all of a sudden become working class when it supports your thesis.
I thought they stalked the back of the store.
Yeah, they did, yeah.
And now they're like protecting the store like they give a shit.
Well, no, the idea is like they turned it into their territory.
Yeah, they live there now.
When he takes his glasses off, he looks like a raccoon, like something.
Well, because it seems like the zombie dust has gotten to him.
He's like deteriorating.
Yeah, the comet dust.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, the dust slowly makes you into like a post-left guy.
You're like, ha ha ha.
I am the king of dime square.
I will have you know that I can say whatever I want, including Tranny and Faggot.
And I will also have you know that I don't like that you took one perfume and used it on yourself.
You've wandered into the forbidden section of Bob's discount furniture.
He shot his bro.
I live amongst the drawers.
He shot his homie.
Like who is still human?
He was like, come on, Will.
He was like, come on, she means it, Will.
Like, it was just Will.
We gotta find Will.
They shot Will.
Shot Will.
In the voice of the wire.
Where's Will?
Where's Will?
Oh, I was doing Stranger Things.
Where's Will?
Yeah, I was doing Where's Wallace from The Wire.
Sorry.
Yeah, and there you have the two, the yin and yang, the Jake and Julian.
He's thinking wire.
I'm thinking stranger things.
I'm going to make love to Jake.
All right, let's go.
Move on.
So we cut to the Wasteland punks.
We're now clicking a revolver with one bullet in it at the head of the little sister when the government forces mow the punks down with machine guns.
We think the girls are saved, but two of the agents keep the younger sister behind.
They can tell that she's already infected and turning to dust.
Like, imagine being a guy, right?
You have a job, and then suddenly you're like, I'm torturing anybody who comes across my path.
I think it's funny and cool that like my skin is changing and I'm becoming a zombie.
And also like I'm protecting the mall.
That's a big downgrade.
This is an 80s.
This is an 80s Christmas teenage zombie movie.
Of course, there's going to be some kind of like boss filling with two sort of sub-bosses with him that you're going to have to fight in a mall storage.
I mean, I've practically done this like multiple times in a side-scrolling fashion.
What game are you really referencing here?
Any of them.
Any of them.
Streets of Rage, Final Fight.
I mean, you know, Brawl.
I was kind of thinking of the division because there is like actual like Christmas settings and you can kind of wander around the space, but that makes sense side-scrolling is going to be.
Yeah, Double Dragon, you know, it's old school.
Yeah, but even in Double Dragon and like Streets of Rage and Final Fight and all these amazing side-scrollers, you never like encounter just like a guy dressed in all black and like a weird dress shirt underneath and then like black glasses.
Like it doesn't even fit any kind of stereotype.
It's very bizarre.
Yeah.
So the good scientist, Audrey, we come to find out that she's good.
Injects Samantha with some kind of heart-stopping drug.
It's really kind of sudden and she dies very quickly.
And her last words are calling the two smartest kids in her grade wimps.
She's like, oh, she's like, you're a scientist, huh?
Like, you must be really smart.
Yeah, we had a couple geniuses in my grade.
They were both wimps.
And then she dies.
Like, you're in a zombie apocalypse, kind of scrambling for survival, and you find, like, a killing drug.
You'll see.
You'll see.
There's a twist.
There's a twist, of course.
Hector returns to the LA radio station from San Diego, and he's now dressed in a Santa Claus costume.
I didn't pick up why.
Travis, did you, like, he goes back to San Diego.
He's looking for his mom and his sister.
He doesn't find them, but he finds a Santa costume.
Yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure what.
It's like, maybe, maybe his other clothes got ragged.
That's all he had.
Well, what you don't know is that Hispanic men like are constantly seeking the kind of like ecstasy of dressing as Santa.
So he shows up in a Santa Claus costume.
He's also got flowers for Reg.
So he's definitely into her.
Girls aren't there, but Dr. Audrey is.
She's waiting for Hector, and she admits to him that even her colleagues in the deep underground lab have been exposed to the comet's toxins.
They left the air conditioning running during the event, which Travis and I were talking about before the episode.
It's so funny that even the deepest of states, you know, the cabalists of cabals, you know, they've got everything in place, this entire underground facility from which they can monitor the end of the world.
And they left the fucking air conditioning on.
Yeah, I love how the premise is like, yeah, these ultra-sort scientists who are very well prepared and have this facility in order to survive the comet, they still get fucked up.
And then like these teenage girls who happen to just be in the metal container, they survive without getting infected.
God, it's like if John Hughes was tasked with taking acid every day during an entire shoot.
And then leveling out with blow.
So after telling Hector this, Audrey sticks around long enough to inject herself with the pharmaceutical poison and dies right there in front of Hector.
The noble way out.
No!
So we cut back to the underground bunker where Reg is being questioned by one of the scientists.
He keeps asking her if she has hepatitis.
At first, the questions don't make any sense until we cut to one of the back rooms where two other scientists we've never seen before are extracting blood from unconscious survivors.
And all of a sudden, the deep state plan becomes apparent.
No, I can't remember.
How much blood were we expected to get from these people?
Uh, 300 cc's.
Yes, that's it.
That can't be right.
If we draw 300 cc's a day, they'll expire altogether.
No, I don't think so.
Now that we've terminated brain functions.
I mean, they're brain dead.
All they can do now is manufacture blood.
Well, maybe.
But we aren't going to get anything like 300 cc's out of those children.
No, but we will out of that teenager.
I hope she's just as healthy as she looks.
Boy, did you see her hair?
What I'd give to have hair like that.
Yeah, I'd say the difference between this and Terminator really doesn't involve gender.
Well, of course.
Yeah, I mean, why do you think it's, you know, it was, who do you think was the bottom of the billing?
This is what the director said.
But they made money, though, on this ship.
They did.
They made money.
God bless the 80s.
Teens liked it.
Parents laughed along with it.
It was, you know, it was, like he said, it was totally different tonally from Cameron's movie.
Yeah.
Hector rolls out to the military base, now out of his Santa suit and instead dressed as a cowboy.
Also inexplicable.
He calls the guard over to the trunk to offer him Samantha's lifeless body.
Gross.
But when he leans in, she wakes up and clobbers the guard.
Dr. Audrey had only made it look like Samantha was dead to protect her from the other bloodthirsty scientists.
Everyone wants to drink blood, basically, to delay the effects of the comet.
So that's what's going on, is that the scientists are living in this bunker, slowly dying, and they're basically scooping people up in a helicopter who have survived and trying to extract their blood to delay the zombification for hours, days, weeks, as long as they can till maybe they find a cure.
But like in every scene, like nobody's really concerned.
Like there's no sense of like urgency.
They're like, yeah, let's do this.
Isn't whoa, do we have to kill them to get this much blood?
That's what makes it even more eerily.
They're very coldly, dispassionately executing an evil plan.
Yeah, I think that's the comment.
Everybody in the movie is Travis.
Like they're just like stoic.
They're just chill.
I will say, like, I think this is the humiliation ritual that like Hector had to go through to get his role on Star Trek.
They're like, okay, now you're wearing a fucking cowboy costume.
Yeah, yeah.
First, you're in a Santa costume.
Now you're a cowboy driving like a weird, like a weird red vintage, like vintage roadster.
Meanwhile, things in the bunker are getting tense.
There's not enough teenagers or children's blood to go around.
I took some screenshots here because I thought this movie had anime energy to me sometimes.
There were a couple shots in like the way the coloring was that I just thought were like, I don't know.
I liked it.
I wrote pretty dope little find.
It was a little special note to Travis for picking out this movie.
So now we move into the climax.
Reg escapes her interrogation room and explores deeper into the facility.
She stumbles across numerous bodies on stretchers, brain dead and kept alive on ventilators.
Reg cuts the power to the facility and easily dispatches the security details sent to bring her back to processing.
Bodies begin to flatline.
Using one of the guards' dropped guns, Reg corners the two doctors who were gleefully prepping the children to be bloodbags.
She rescues the kids and hooks the docks up to the nitrous tanks, making them giggle to death like the weasels in Roger Rabbit.
Another scene that I absolutely loved.
Reggie and her sister Sam are reunited and the pair, armed with some revolvers, begin to escort the two children out of the underground bunker.
They rendezvous with Hector outside and defeat the evil government think tank, I guess.
At one point, they call it a think tank.
It's unclear what it is.
I thought it was a military installation, but Hector calls it like a think tank at the end.
I don't know if you guys caught that.
Yeah, I don't know.
I think it's, yeah, just an organization, evil organization.
Everyone's, I feel like it's unclear.
Evil scientists.
Yeah, umbrella core, umbrella.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, think tanks are evil.
Yeah.
The last we see of the scientists, their eyes are beginning to sink into the back of their heads.
So even with the children's blood, they would have been unable to stay the effects of the comet.
And the film ends with Hector and Reggie keeping the children as their own.
Honestly, it reminds me of Peter Thiel.
It's like, yo, you did all that childblood and you still look that bad?
Damn.
Yes, yes, exactly.
Really, they do look like Peter Thiel, the zombies in this movie at the beginning of the zombification process.
Absolutely.
Yes.
Yeah.
A lot of, I think a lot of, there was a lot of predictive programming in this one.
I'm seeing a lot of things from the movie start to come true.
The Comet, of course, you know, a lot of talk about Atlas AI or whatever, whatever, 3E Atlas, 3E Atlas.
And the ghoulification already, you know, already happening.
I think this is a very prescient film and a good pick for Christmas 2025 QAA movie night.
Yeah, where do they mention Christmas?
Well, the film takes place just before Christmas.
And there's another scene, which we didn't cover that's kind of dark, where they're putting some young children under, and they tell them in order to calm them down.
It's like, yeah, we're going to make you pass out.
And then it's like when you wake up, you're going to be with Santa Claus up to the North Pole.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
And then there's a scene where you see the children strapped with a tube coming out of their mouth.
There's a little sign that says, going to see Santa.
Imagine being a parent and being like, no, we can't go watch the depraved movie Terminator.
We have to go watch this other one.
Equally as depraved in its own way.
Oh, way, way further.
Like, there's no scene where in Terminator where it's like, okay, little kid, we're killing you, but you're going to see Santa soon.
All good.
Yeah, they didn't do that until the second movie where the entire plot was about the Terminator trying to kill a child.
So they learned from this.
I'm sure Cameron went to a couple of the double bills at the drive-in, just sort of checking out how it's going.
And maybe he stayed.
Maybe he stayed for Night of the Comet 1984.
He was like, whoa, I love these unconscious kids that they're killing.
I'm actually going to have him ride a bike in the LA River and have a cool truck chase him.
That's how he got his ideas.
I mean, there is like motors.
There is a motorcycle prominently featured in this with leather in kind of LA's sort of tan basin.
I don't know.
Stranger things have happened and stranger things were referenced in this episode.
And I hope you guys enjoyed it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, it's fun.
It's an hour and a half, which I always like hour and a half films.
It's a little quirky and it's offbeat.
And yeah, it's a lot of fun.
I recommend like a good strong dose of ketamine.
Watch this movie or just in general?
Are you just recommending drugs?
Oh, oh, no, no, yeah, no, the movie.
Okay.
Yeah.
It already has like the great like kind of groundwork of dissociation just from the writing and just how insane the plot is.
If you take ketamine, you're going to have such a good time, kid.
If you're under 18, especially.
Oh my god.
Okay.
Yeah.
Thanks for listening to another episode of the QAA podcast.
You can go to patreon.com/slash QAA and subscribe for $5 a month to get a whole second episode every single week, plus access to our entire archive of premium episodes.
Everything else, we've got a website that's qaapodcast.com.
Jake, you look like Jeremy Piven, but like hot.
Thanks.
Listener, until next week, may Jeremy Piven, but hot, bless you and keep you.
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Did you ever wonder what it would be like to be one of the last people on Earth?
We're talking ghost!
Who would you see?
There's nobody.
I mean, there's nobody.
What would you do?
Hey, I'm sorry if the end of the world makes me a little nervous.
Where would you go?
The stars are up and over.
We'll get ready to find out because the comet is coming into your orbit.
The legal ranking age is now 10, but you'll need ID.
Let's be real.
It's the night of the comet.
What do you give me if I come back?
Texas.
Night of the Comet.
I'll be taking requests from all you teenage comet zombies.