Fun Box Monster Podcast

A doofus with seemingly no construction experience decides to build his family a home on the burned remains of a house where a horrible tragedy took place. He then marries a widow with a nerdy kid and lots of baggage, effectively Brady Bunching them together with his hunky son and young daughter in the Winchester Mystery House of bad wiring and leaky gas-lines. Luckily for this doofus, the place is haunted by an inexplicable replica of the Amityville house that he finds in his shed, and it manages to burn the house down so he doesn't have to feel guilty that it was his DIY heating system that did it. Before that inevitable conclusion, you get a pile of fun scenes including a wasp that punches a dude in the face, Ed and Lorraine Warren reimagined as a cool biker couple,  a giant mouse that torments a child, goo, more wasps, weird little sack people, a jiggly rubber satan puppet, and some dollar store cenobites. So get all of the shirtless basketball out of your system, gather around the fireplace on a cool August night in the Arizona desert and take a whack at the spider-filled piñata of fun that is, Amityville Dollhouse. 

Every generation there comes a movie that is so transformational to the very fabric of society that it is hard to step back and see it as simply a film. Plutonium Baby is such a film. Although it has been seen by only a handful of people, Plutonium Baby has been called the greatest film of the twentieth century. The scene of Billy eating a whole trout by the pond has been hailed as a possible cure for arthritis. The forty minutes of walking through New York with no purpose, motivation, or plot has been seen by some as a potent commentary on the bleak loneliness of city life.  Any philistine could see the hidden meaning of the scene where Danny and his adopted mother have a mumbling conversation about nothing in half-built aerobics studio as a poignant commentary on what lays beneath society's carefully built facade, but did you ever think about of how the inclusion of the birdcage in her kitchen during the pulse-pounding five minute grocery unpacking scene was a clear insight into the mental prison she had built for herself by adopting Danny, the child she never expected to have? Not to mention her loveless marriage? On a very special episode of The Fun Box Monster Podcast, Tristan and Matt will examine both the cultural and political impact that the film had on our society and very possibly the world at large. 

The Curse is the story of a woman trying to keep her family together by marrying a man who is conservatively eighty years her senior. The son, played by a young and very unhappy Wil Wheaton, makes the crazy logic leap that the giant, veiny, glowing sphere that has skidded a half-mile across the family farm, might just be from space. The family remains unconvinced, even as their vegetables and livestock start to become infected by slimy space-testicle goop that seems to be causing both chicken and horse attacks. After a short time, the parents and evil step-brother are transformed into raving mad space monsters trying to kill Wil and his sister. Plus, there's a sub-plot about somebody scouting locations for a water reservoir!  Sounds great right? Well it is. So grab your most outlandishly huge squash, call over your hunky hired hand, and settle in as Matt and Tristan discuss the CLASSIC 1987 film, The Curse. 

1987's Dolls is a sort of modern-day retelling of the story of Hansel and Gretel. Only instead of a candy, this house is made mostly of dry-rot and mouse poop. You still have the two innocent children, but they are now played by a little girl (Judy), and a child-like adult (Ralph). The comparison breaks down here, because our witch is actually a husband and wife witch team, who are seemingly tasked with punishing shitty parents and criminal Brit-Punks. Long story short, some folks get killed by dolls, turned into dolls, and a small child fantasizes about the gruesome murder of her parents by a grizzly bear. So put on your silk pajamas, bake a nice tray of imaginary cookies, and join Matt and Tristan for what is arguably the best killer doll movie ever made, Dolls. 

André Toulon is a kindly old puppet maker. For reasons unknown, he has an ancient papyrus scroll with the secret to imbuing inanimate objects (specifically puppets...but I don't see any rules that it wouldn't work with toasters and couches) with life. When he sees two (maybe?) SS officers coming to capture him, he kills himself to avoid his secrets getting into the hands of the (Nazis?)

Humanity has now been spared the horror of Hitler fighting WWII with sentient puppets, only to have a douchey occultist named Neil take the power of immortality for himself. For reasons unknown, he lures some psychic subcontractors that he never paid, out to his sham funeral with the express purpose of killing them one-by-one. Why kill them? Who cares?  All that matters is that his puppets are adorable and sometimes kill people. Maybe because they have no choice? Maybe because they feel like it. It's all kind of unclear. Don't worry. There's 12 sequels to help you make sense of it.

So put on your officially licensed Full Moon Blade costume, hug your officially licensed Full Moon Six Shooter doll close, and join Matt and Tristan for the endlessly entertaining Full Moon marketing opportunity that is, Puppet Master. 

When a delivery truck accidentally delivers a cursed TV set to a sad drunk writer, other worldly zombies known as the Video Dead are released to wreak havoc on a small suburban town. Brother and sister Jeff & Zoey move into the murder house three months later, starting the murder spree back up. One dead dog and many dead neighbors later, they finally listen to the fake Texan who is for some reason an expert in all things related to occult TVs, and go on a zombie killing spree. Wackiness ensues and by the end we all learn a really important lesson about friendship. So set up your shotgun traps, uncover all your mirrors and join Matt and Tristan for the delicious plate of cold beans that is, The Video Dead. 

When a million selling, mostly female Bon Jovi cover band arrives at the studio to cut a record, their drummer/fog machine operator sees that all their songs suck. He realizes that the only sane option is to seek out the devil and purchase an unreleased track from pop music's greatest hit machine, Nicolo Paganini. He fills a duffle-bag with unmarked bills and heads to a burned-out cathedral to meet a badly dubbed Donald Pleasence. Being a drummer, (the musicians most known for their musical literacy) he sits down to the piano and knocks that thing out note for note. They see the potential for a rock opera, and in an effort to replicate the grand scale of Michael Jackson's Thriller video, they grab a film crew of 3 people, a handful of bunting, a box of candles and some mannequins and head out to a spooky house. Long story short, Paganini lives there and he kills people with a golden knife-violin but it's really hell or some crap having to do with the theory of relativity? I don't really know but at least it's short. So join Matt and Tristan for the violin-fungus riddled mess that is, The Paganini Horror. 

Ho ho ho…boy. Here’s a very special non-horror episode just for Christmas. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. When a family goes out of town for the holidays, some bumbling BANDITS rob the place. Luckily someone was left…HOME ALONE to fight them off with clever traps. Ok. Fine. It’s an obvious rip-off of Home Alone, but did Home Alone have talking dogs, Kevin Sorbo, and Dom DeLuise’s kid? Of course not. They had actual money. Is this a bad movie? I guess? But honestly, you could do worse for a Hallmark style kid’s Christmas thing. Merry Christmas from Matt & Tristan! 

If you’re like me, Christmas time means one thing: Samurai sex movies directed by drugged out French maniacs.

When a family of Wisconsin deer hunters goes home to visit their amateur painter / godlike psychic with cosmic powers / Shelly Duval impersonator mother, they unleash a demonic samurai whose murder spree is somehow attached to the son’s new girlfriend’s orgasms because maybe she cut her finger on his sword as a child? Or was that the mom? Or they’re unrelated? Or he’s from WWII, and the samurai thing is just how he chooses to show himself? Honestly…I don’t know. So join Matt and Tristan as they charge up their mystical boinging, play a hot game of cat-Monopoly and cut open the stinky deer corpse that is Blood Beat. 

This week on Subspecies : The Legendary Journeys, Radu is dead again, but not for long! The love of his life wants him dead (again, again...),  and his mom is constantly trying to get him to murder his would be forever girl. Now his potential beau's nosy sister is hiring heavily armed CIA contractors to shoot up the place. It's enough to make even the best vampire kings throw up their big wiggly hands and give in. But Radu's not like other vampires. He keeps his chin up, (which causes a lot of drooling) takes a big haul off his bloodstone, and just stays positive. Will this family ever get along???

Next week! Radu has two different dates on the same night!

Join Matt and Tristan as they melt on the pointy tree of Bloodlust: Subspecies 3!