We Have Such Films To Show You

What's the Prophecy franchise without Christopher Walken? Really, really terrible. Josh and Yakov sit through close to three hours of terminally dull cash-ins and then struggle and largely fail to find redeeming qualities in the experience.

He hasn't been working much in the last twenty years, but Phantasm director Coscarelli puts in a comparatively strong (if still fairly scattered) entry with this film; J and Y dig into John... and consider it as a reflection of Don's earlier work. Also, dick jokes.

Walken is back, and then back AGAIN, as Josh and Yakov tackle a two-fer with the second and third Prophecy films. Are angels literally birds? Are these movies secretly remakes of Terminator 1 and 2, with Ted from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adenture in the role of John Conner? Hey, isn't that that guy from Buffy? These questions, and more: THOROUGHLY ANSWERED HEREIN.

The Phantasm! A film that may or may not be the secret to the universe, this charming 1979 oddity is the best possible sort of mess, with oddball characters, memorable (if in many cases memorably stitled) dialogue, and a dreamlike feel to both the plotting and (for better and worse) editing. Josh and Yakov try to puzzle out just what the hell happened and theorize that it's actually an out-there Dune adaptation.

Yakov and Josh dip into The Prophecy franchise, before it somehow became direct-to-video kissing cousins with Hellraiser under Dimension films, and try to make sense of what exactly a star-studded cast of high-tempered angel honchos (Walken as Gabriel, Eric Stoltz as Simon, Viggo "Aragorn" Mortensen as a boffo Lucifer) are trying to accomplish with a spat over a cannibal Colonel's soul.

What do you get when you cross Alien, Aliens, Solaris, Hellraiser, and the cinematic mind that brought you several Resident Evil films? A damn mess, is what. Yakov and Josh talk about what works, what doesn't, the various movies they wish this had been, swivel chairs, dolly zooms, and gothy engine rooms.

With the Hellraiser franchise behind them, Josh and Yakov take a breather from troubled horror franchises to didiscuss an untroubled one-off satire of the genre, 2012's "Cabin in the Woods". They talk about the film's deconstruction of the horror genre's tropes and bad habits, the role of voyeurism in horror spectacle, the film's winking references to Hellraiser itself, and, gosh, a whole lot of things.

J and Y discuss the piece of F-ing S that is the ninth (and at the moment final) film in the troubled Hellraiser film franchise, a rushed "make it or lose your rights to the IP" stinker so bad that it makes the previous terrible film look positively competent. Even the real Pinhead, Doug Bradley, refused to show up for this one, replaced by a hapless, scenery chewing standin who sets the tone for the rest of the film by being simultaneously overt and dull. Also, two young men keep shouting TIJUANA, and a baby dies? It's a real keeper, basically.

A mysterious (in the sense that the film never bothers to, uh, talk about it) MMO called Hellworld gets a passel of teens in a barrel of trouble when Lance Henricksen phones in a revenge plot that makes basically zero sense and OH GOD WHY DID WE WATCH THIS MOVIE WHAT WERE WE THINKING OH GOD IT'S SO BAD, IT'S, IT'S REALLY TERRIBLE, I CAN'T EVEN WRITE A PROPER SARCASTIC SYNOPSIS, UGH and also Henry "The Most Recent Superman" Cavill is in it as a total dick.

A spec script called Deader somehow becomes a Hellraiser sequel called (wait for it) Hellraiser: Deader, and we're all sort of worse off for it! Yakov and Josh dig into the weird structural problems and narrative dalliances of this Romanian-filmed direct-to-video story of a bad girl journalist who gets in over her (pin)head. See also: Joey the comic relief subway sex party glampunk! Seriously, he's about the most entertaining thing in the film. Oof.

In what feels like an odd echo of the previous film, an unlikeable protagonist wanders through a hellish, weird couple of days encountering terrible visions and softcore propositions while mapping the road from sin to regret. Or something. It's not very good, but Yakov and Josh get through it somehow and talk about all the little things that helped make the movie not work.

You got your cop noir in my Hellraiser franchise! No, YOU got YOUR obligatory Pinhead appearance in my unrelated spec script! Basically, Inferno's one of those "two okay tastes that taste like butt together" situations, and Josh and Yakov go into weary, maddened detail about just how and why the film manages to not do most of the things it's trying to do as well as it ought to have. Also: twin karate cowboys.

He's a brilliant French toymaker! She's a demonic princess from hell! They...raise hell! Yakov and Josh dig into the not-terrible, not-great fourth Hellraiser film, an anthology story set in 18th C. France, contemporary New York, and FUTURE SPACE STATION, and discuss what works and doesn't in this ambitious but hobbled attempt to create a proper backstory for Pinhead's friends and coworkers.

Yakov and Josh dig into Hell on Earth, and discuss Greenboro-as-Manhattan, ridiculous new Cenobites, how to be bad at journalism, Pinhead's philosopher/salesman chops, why you shouldn't have an actress named Terry in the same film as a different character named Terri, and whether Pinhead actually dislikes Jesus or just likes ribbin' him a little.

Yakov and Josh recap and deconstruct the 1988 Hellraiser sequel, Hellbound, and talk about parallels between the two films, Julia's assertive approach to the afterlife, the philosophy and metaphysics of The Labyrinth, and how much Roger Ebert hated this movie.

Josh and Yakov kick things off with a discussion of the ups and downs of the flawed gem that is Cliver Barker'soriginal 1987 Hellraiser film, and kibitz about their Hellraiser and horror memories.