Werewolf by Night - MCUniverse Spooktober Special

[00:00:01] Welcome to the MCU Universe, where the Lorehounds are your guides to the multiverse and beyond. I'm David and this is our bonus Halloween episode. I'm joined today by my usual co-hosts, Dijon and Alicia, and we're going to cover the MCU horror special, Werewolf by Night.

[00:00:42] The first part of the episode is going to be all spoiler free. We're going to talk about the subgenre of MCU horror and then give our hot takes and dig into some production details about the show.

[00:00:52] After that, we're going to get into the spoiler territory and talk about the show in detail. So if you haven't seen it yet, you can at least listen to the front side of this. We're skipping our usual intro, outro stuff today, real life scheduling purposes, and

[00:01:05] we just want to get straight into the episode because this is kind of a bonus special Halloween thing. Just quick reminders that you're welcome to join us on Discord if you want to chat with any of us and other Lorehounds listeners. You can also send feedback.

[00:01:20] You can send emails to mcu at the lorehounds.com or use the contact form or voicemail over at our website, the lorehounds.com. Links for all of those things in the show notes below. If you're interested in supporting what we do and you're interested in getting ad free

[00:01:37] episodes, check us out at patreon.com. You can subscribe for as little as $3 a month or subscribe for the whole year and we'll give you a 10% discount and that looks to be just about under $33 for an entire year of amazing content.

[00:01:53] I mean, you can go out and have a, you can go spend some dinner and drinks money for cheaper than that. So if that's something of interest to you, check us out. Otherwise, let's go. Alicia, I just realized something.

[00:02:05] I didn't load up our soundboard with any spooky music or anything like that. You were in Spooktober. You've been busy with your Edgar Allen Poe stuff. I was in Spooktober with House of Usher on the Wolf Shift Dustfeed and with Anthony on the Bukaloo.

[00:02:22] That podcast between you and Anthony talking about the influences of Poe on George R.R. Martin was amazing. It blew my mind. It was so good. Good. I'm most proud though of the book club where I did the full audio drama for The Father House of Usher.

[00:02:39] Jean, how are you doing? Yeah, I'm good. Okay. You ready for... We're going to record our Loki episode. I'm ready for that. What episode is that? Episode four tomorrow? Yeah, I'm ready for that. I got some extra listening to do tonight, which I'm looking forward to as well.

[00:02:55] And yeah, going to get geared up. Cool. You guys up for some trick or treating in a couple of days? I hope so. A couple of days as we're recording. I'm not sure when this is going to hit the airwaves. I mean, this does not exist here.

[00:03:04] That's right. Actually, we have something in November 11th called St. Martin's Day and then coming up on the 11th, we're going to do a little bit of a tour. So we're going to do a little bit of a tour.

[00:03:08] So we're going to do a little bit of a tour. Actually, we have something in November 11th called St. Martin's Day and then kids come around, but they sing instead of just saying trick or treat, they sing like these really long songs. Oh, wow.

[00:03:20] Just take the candy and go. You have to stand there and listen to it or he can just throw it out? Yeah, politely. It's like the same three songs. Yeah. Oh, boy. Cool. Well, let's get into talking about Werewolf by Night.

[00:03:28] Alicia, you put together some notes for us. Thank you as always for doing this. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I know we're going to be talking about a lot of this extra stuff, but before we start with

[00:03:41] our hot takes and then get into production details, we need to set the stage a little bit because I don't think a lot of people, and I was one of them who wasn't really aware of the whole sub-genre of MCU horror.

[00:03:57] There's a whole world of horror within the MCU and that's kind of a big deal, I think. No, I think it is. It's always been a big part of the comic books. So there've always been these spooky vampire, Frankenstein, werewolves. Devil characters. Yeah.

[00:04:17] It's always been a big part of Marvel Comics. They would have ongoing comics, not just one-offs for Halloween or special issues. But especially in the 70s, they did a lot of stuff around horror.

[00:04:32] It hasn't been coming into the MCU as much until more recently because it often requires an R rating. We have now two things coming up, Blade and the Marvel Zombies. And these are going to be the two first MCU things with an R rating.

[00:04:50] This was the first special presentation, maybe one of the last. We'll see if this survives this format. And it was one of the first forays into Marvel horror, very closely connected by the way to Moon Knight, because Moon Knight first premiered in Werewolf by Night comic books. Right.

[00:05:07] Just one more point. I think when you look back at Marvel Comics as a whole, some of those characters very early on, you could argue they were horror characters like the Hulk. Body horror. Yeah, definitely.

[00:05:26] They dealt with a lot of things that we now call superhero genre, but at its core, they were these horrific horror stories. What happens if you have an invisible woman and a human torch and a rock monster?

[00:05:46] So I think there's a lot of horror within Marvel proper that we don't name as horror, but definitely the influences were there from those early monster films of the 30s, 40s and 50s. Right.

[00:06:01] So I think one of the bigger titles that we know that touches in this genre is Blade, right? Is that correct? Yeah. And that was Wesley Snipes back in... And that was David Goyer, who we interviewed recently for the Foundation. And I think that is...

[00:06:17] I don't know what you guys' opinions are of that film. Second one's the best. Second one's the best? Okay. I'll go with Blade. Okay. Yeah. John is like, hands down, I love Blade. I mean, quite honestly, that's the first superhero movie that we should ever talk about. Interesting.

[00:06:35] Well, yeah, in terms of history, yeah. Yeah, and just in terms of value to a genre. That set off everything from the fight scenes in the first Blade movie in the club, just the whole, everything about Marvel, you can link back directly to Blade. That's interesting.

[00:06:55] Though those films were integral to creating the MCU aesthetic. Wow. I was just listening to the Joanna Robinson MCU book that was saying exactly that. Just tying it back to... Because it was also one of the first things where they didn't really believe in these

[00:07:14] little weird superhero movie experiments first. And Blade and then followed by Iron Man was like a one-two punch of like, wow, people like this and it makes money. And you can sell toys and clothing.

[00:07:31] And they were the lesser known, like you said, of the heroes, of the characters. Because Sony and Fox and such and Universal, they owned the rights or they had the rights to the bigger ones. Exactly. So without Blade, I don't know where we're at right now. That's interesting.

[00:07:54] Are you listening to the book on tape? Is Joanna narrating her own, her book? She did the prologue and then the rest is narrated by someone else. Very nice. How are you finding the book just on a side note? Yeah, no, it's very interesting.

[00:08:10] It's gathered together all of the stories that I know, but there's new details. They talk to, it's a team of three writers, we should say. But they talk to people who were the stunt men on this project, just all these people

[00:08:23] who saw things up close from the sidelines. And so it's very interesting to hear about the details that come out from that. Cool. Well, do you think it's worthwhile that we check it out as well? Yeah.

[00:08:34] I mean, yeah, I think it's definitely very interesting, gives you good context if you didn't have it before. And if you did, then I think I'm going to hold on to this audio book and probably listen

[00:08:45] to it again in the future because there's so much detail in there. Nice. Okay, cool. Now Blade, it's the re-imagination, the re-imagining of it. It's what's happening with it. I believe, is it a reboot proper? It's Marshall Lee, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a reboot proper. Yeah.

[00:09:06] Okay. Yeah. Because the previous Blade was not part of the MCU. It was a Marvel movie, but it was pre MCU. Right. Right. Okay. Right. It's not within the, yeah, I gotcha, within the current visioning of it, but he is an MCU character. He's a Marvel character. Yes.

[00:09:20] He's not a- He's an MCU character too. Now. Yeah. Yeah. Now he has been made, he's canon in MCU films. Okay. Definitely. Yeah. We heard his voice in the Eternal's credit scene talking to Kit Harington's character, Black Knight. So, and interestingly, there's the Moon Knight connections with where

[00:09:40] We've talked about the Moon Knight connections with Loki and Kang. And we also have Black Knight and Blade and Moon Knight are all apparently hanging around museums in the same area of London. Okay.

[00:09:55] And there was also, so they've kind of like retooled the whole Blade movie like they did with Daredevil, but this happened before that. Before that they were saying that the Ebony Blade, which we see with Kit Harington's character at the end of Eternals would be in Blade.

[00:10:13] So fingers crossed. Okay, cool. What else? You've got a note here about Marvel zombies. What's that? Yeah. That's the animated spinoff to What If? Which by the way, yeah, I think What If? still probably on schedule for December beginning because the animation release dates, they

[00:10:30] have longer lead times and the voice actors are not technically on strike. So. Those should stay. So yeah, there's going to be an R-rated animated series, four episodes, 2024. So we'll see what that. And for the What If? coming out apparently starting in December, fingers crossed.

[00:10:52] One of the episodes is going to be What If? The Avengers had found Surtur, who is the fire demon that we saw on Thor Ragnarok. Okay. Oh. That should be a fun horror episode. Okay. That's cool. I like that. All right.

[00:11:08] You know who else I would wish, John and I were talking about this the other day on Star Wars on our podcast for Revenge of the Sith, which will be coming out soon for our Star Wars Film Festival.

[00:11:18] And we were like, wouldn't it be great if Star Wars had a What If? animated as well to play around with some of this? I mean, we have Vision. Vision, yeah. Yeah.

[00:11:27] It's kind of a One If-y thing, a What If-y thing, but it would be fun if they did actually take some more of the canon characters and flip them around. What if Luke Skywalker turned to the dark side? Right. Exactly. Well, everyone wants Darth Jar Jar Binks.

[00:11:41] That would be fun. That'd be interesting. I don't want Jar Jar Binks anywhere. We were talking about what if we had some Celeron Beck? That would be kind of a fun- That would be great. That would be very cool.

[00:11:52] We don't want Jar Jar, but we do love Celeron. That's a fact. All right. What else do we have in our notes here? Anything about Ghostwriter? Real quick, let me just say something really quickly. Yeah. We're the MCU, but we will be the DCU as well soon, right?

[00:12:09] Hopefully. Oh, you guys have been talking. I'm just going to say that the DC deceased, which is DC's take on zombies, was ... I'm not going to say better, but yeah. All right. It's- So if you've never- Better than Marvel zombies, you're saying? Okay. Okay. All right.

[00:12:34] If you've never endeavored to read the DC zombie, it's called Deceased. Okay. DC deceased, right? Just excellent, excellent, excellent, excellent horror. Okay. All right. All right. Yeah. Cool. All right. A little teaser. A little teaser. A little teaser. Yeah. Really good stuff.

[00:12:55] And yeah, so we have also ... Did you guys know about that there was going to be this whole thing before? We've talked about it in previous podcasts about how Marvel TV folded and the MCU picked it up and we started blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:13:03] But before all that happened, they were setting up something called the Adventure into Fear Universe. And so- Ooh, I like it. They released ... Did you ever see Hellstrom, Sean? Yes, I did watch it. That was the only show that actually got released from this plan.

[00:13:19] And then they were going to have- Oh, I didn't know that. Wow. And they were going to have the Ghost Rider spinoff from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. with Robbie Reyes. Okay. And they were going to have at least two more.

[00:13:31] And the idea was there was going to be a big crossover event with Lilith as the main antagonist, who's- Oh, wow. The mother of all demons. Yeah. So I wonder if we might see ... This is just pure speculation slash wishful thinking, but

[00:13:47] I just wonder if we might end up seeing any of these characters in Marvel Horror. Was it something akin to the Midnight Sons? Yeah, they were calling it Adventure into Fear, but I don't know. They didn't call it- So there was a ... Yeah.

[00:14:04] There's a comic in, I want to say the 90s, that had Blade, Morbius, Werewolf by Night, Doctor Strange, I think Ghost Rider. Yeah, but now ... And there's a new version going on now with new characters in it. And it's actually one of my favorites.

[00:14:22] But it's Midnight Sons with a you in it because there's female characters in it too. Okay, okay. Yeah. I would take a Halloween special of Ghost Rider for sure. Yes, please. That would be awesome.

[00:14:36] I was kind of expecting that in ... I don't know, I made it up in my head that that's ... Because when we were starting talking about there was going to be a Halloween special or something, I was like, oh, is it going to be Ghost Rider?

[00:14:45] And maybe that was just me projecting. If you're listening, Feige, give us some Ghost Rider one-off Halloween special. That would be very cool. Yeah. No, I want multiple Ghost Riders because there's a whole pantheon of them. There is. I want the spider-verse of Ghost Riders. They are.

[00:15:03] Ooh, that's interesting. Especially Kushala. Of course, you always want more witches though, so ... Well, yeah. So, yeah, my favorite Ghost Rider is Kushala who is also a Sorcerer Supreme. Okay. But yeah, speaking of witches. Obviously, there's the Darkhold Diaries that it's now called, the Agatha Harkness show

[00:15:21] coming up. God, they kept changing the name. Yeah, I know. Whatever. And we're into 2024? Are we feeling confident about that? Nobody's feeling confident about any release dates beyond the Marvels, except I think the animated stuff's pretty safe. Okay.

[00:15:40] But yeah, Agatha and whatever that's called, and Echo, I guess are the ones that are really ... Yeah, they're waiting for it. Right. And Wonder ... Yeah, Blade was put on hiatus. Wonder Man was put on hiatus filming. Yeah, they scrapped half a season of- Daredevil. Yeah, Daredevil. Yeah.

[00:15:58] So who knows what's going on? But if they're going to be swapping around and creating a more showrunner focused traditional TV sort of thing, fine. Do it better. Right? Yeah. That's fine. Yeah. It's the same with ... Bringing up the DC, it's the same with James Gunn.

[00:16:19] It's like, you know what? Okay, you're going to start it over one more time? Fine. Do it better this time. Do it better. Do it better. This time, this is the chance. Well, we're almost 20 minutes into this pod. We should probably get to talking about Werewolf by night.

[00:16:34] Any final notes or- No, just looking forward to Mephisto finally showing up. Ironheart's going to have a spooky theme. And yeah, listen to us talk more about all the special presentation stuff in the pre-Loki prep episode. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. We talked about it back then.

[00:16:55] So cool. All right. Werewolf by night. Some interesting characters and some cool stuff. We're going to give our hot takes here. We're going to talk a little bit about the behind the scenes. And then we'll give you a big warning before we kick into talking about spoilers.

[00:17:12] So if you haven't seen it yet, no worries. You can just get our vibes from here. Jean, what did you think of this? I liked it a lot actually. And I really appreciated that they just told one singular story and rocked with it.

[00:17:29] I thought it was well done. I watched it both in color and in the black and white that they put out. I just felt it was a nice spooky vibe. At some point we have to talk, we have to dedicate some time to talk about MCU soundtracks

[00:17:45] here because what they do with music in some of these shows is just outstanding. And it really goes to ramp up your expectation of what's going on on screen without dialogue, just the music.

[00:18:04] Just the music and following the characters as they walk, they run, and they do whatever that they're doing. At some point we have to stop and recognize that the MCU TV shows are doing something really special with the sound that they have. Absolutely. Interesting. I really liked it.

[00:18:21] I liked the characters. I was Elsa, Jack, Man-Thing. I liked those characters. And I was appreciative of having those characters that are not the everyday, like we were just talking about with Blade and Iron Man when they came out, they were not the everyday,

[00:18:38] the well-known characters that everybody across the globe knows. These are niche characters for a lot of folks, but they are really, really cool characters that they do a lot of different things. You could tell different stories with them. And I really liked that. Nice. Alicia?

[00:18:57] I think film is really a love letter to classic horror cinema, and that is speaking my personal love language. So I just find it also based on that, I'm biased to like it, but they just... But I'm also going to be picky. Sure. Right.

[00:19:17] You're going to have some high standards. So Sean, you're talking about the music. The music was from Oscar, Grammy, almost got an EGOT, doesn't have a Tony winner, Michael Giacchino, who is also the director of this. And this was...

[00:19:35] So he's been wanting to be a director since he was a little kid and making movies at home. And he went to theater school on the side, studied music at Juilliard. And Kevin Feige knew this and said, you want to direct something? What do you want to direct?

[00:19:53] And he's like, I want to do a werewolf by night. And Kevin Feige was like, okay, all right. What do you think about putting Man Thing in there? And he's like, deal. Wow. Okay. Wow. Fun. Yeah. That's very cool.

[00:20:07] But yeah, I find the pacing for me is just really well done in terms of it gives you room to breathe and to let the characters get to know each other. And there's other scenes that really build attention.

[00:20:20] It's high camp in the best way possible, but also has real human heartache in it. I mean, I think it's for anyone who's into film, there's something to at least appreciate in it. And for me, it happens to be one of my favorite kinds.

[00:20:36] Yeah, makes me want more. And it's got Man Thing, which is for some reason, one of my favorite characters. Theodore Salas. There you go. Very cool. And what about you, David? What did I describe it? You said cute. Yes, I said cute.

[00:20:51] Back when I first watched it, because you guys were talking it up. You, Alicia especially, were talking it up. Yeah. I'm like, okay, I'll go. I have to go watch this. And I watched the black and white before they released the color. And I did.

[00:21:07] I thought it was cute. I thought it was charming. Maybe charming is a better word than cute. The character development, the character interactions. They told a really nice tight story. They did MCU without feeling like it was MCU. I don't know Man Thing.

[00:21:22] I don't know what all those monsters were up on the wall. I don't know what the bloodstone is, but everything I needed to know about this story was communicated to me effectively in the story. I got it. Right? Right. This is powerful stone.

[00:21:38] They do a little opening monologue. They do the basic plot setup. Everything I needed was right there. And it had a character arc. We had some dramatic tension. We had some circumstantial things change and happen so that made the character shift and reevaluate.

[00:21:59] We got to see a character do a transformation. All of it was really, really tightly done. I think Gale Garcia Bernal was perfect casting for this. He was great. That charming, unassuming nature that he has is just lovely. I like watching him on screen.

[00:22:23] I can watch him almost in anything. I think Mozart in the Jungle was the first time I really knew who this person was. And then he- Y Tu Mama Tambien. Yeah, that too. I don't think I ever saw that. I'm aware of the title.

[00:22:36] And then, of course, he was on Station 11, which is one of my absolute favorite television shows. So yeah, I thought it was lovely. We'll talk about some production details in a minute, but I loved a bunch of little things

[00:22:49] that they did to make it feel authentic even though we're pulling it up into the future. So yeah, it was a perfect- What is it? It's not even 45 minutes? It's 55, but that's including credits. Almost an hour. Yeah. So maybe less than an hour. Less than an hour.

[00:23:08] It was wonderful. I was so entertained by this. And so if you haven't seen it, and it's not horror in a sense of gore and jump scare stuff. It does throw back to that organ playing and using shadows to show a monstrous transformation

[00:23:29] as opposed to showing special effects. Yeah, they have a lot of camp and fun with it. So it's not at all scary in a horror sense. It was just super entertaining. And so anybody who hasn't seen it, I would say go see this.

[00:23:44] This is a worthwhile MCU project for sure. We need more original stuff in the MCU. We totally need more of these. This was a lovely thing. And if it's a Christmas thing with the Guardians, or if it's a Halloween thing, whatever, I don't care. Just have some fun.

[00:24:04] Right? Shake it off and dance a little bit. Have some fun. Yeah. Why do we need to be so serious with all this red yarn, string connected IP? You want to make some money?

[00:24:17] Make some fun products that are good, that are going to be evergreen on the shelf for your streaming platform. If you give us enough holiday specials, be they Halloween or Christmas or New Year's Eve, whatever stuff, those things are going to become annual traditions.

[00:24:36] We're going to watch those year after year after year. So anyway, I've been soapboxing a lot this last week. Let's swing our point of view really quick to some production and release notes because we've got two versions of this, right?

[00:24:54] Alicia, we've got this colorized one and a black and white. I thought that that was going to be gimmicky, but it's not. I think they did a good job with the colorization. I don't know. What do you think? Yeah.

[00:25:07] I mean, I think I definitely prefer the black and white just because that was the original conception and in the black and white, there are certain moments you lose when it's purely colorized because the black and white does play with particularly the color red in certain moments. Okay.

[00:25:25] And some of the ways that they do the makeup and special effects are designed, were designed to be viewed black and white. Yeah, I get that. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Some of the strobe light effects were, that's all about black and white. Right.

[00:25:37] And the artwork that they use and the set decoration. But the director, Gia Chino did note that they did think about what it would look like with color when he was filming. So they did have that in mind when they were doing, yeah.

[00:25:54] And the fact that they use technicolor, well, they needed to, but it keeps that like off kilter vintage tone that it's going for. So it keeps it in line even. So I prefer the black and white, but I'm glad the color exists and I'll watch it again.

[00:26:10] Jean, do you have a preference either way or both are both cool in your book? I thought they were both cool. You know me, I'm not as technical as the two of you are. At least it's way more technical than I am.

[00:26:26] I look at the screen and I say, yeah, I like it. Oh yeah, I like it. It's cool. Yeah. But no, it was, I think the black and white gave a different feel for me.

[00:26:40] It really put, because I was a kid that used to watch like the old Dracula movies, old Frankenstein movies, the werewolf movies. Like I watched those things repeatedly. So it was nice to feel that again, you know, while watching this and knowing it's like,

[00:27:01] this is really a call back to my childhood. Sure. And that's the real point. Yeah. Yeah. You know, in my parents' bedroom watching a black and white TV, watching black and white because we didn't have color TV.

[00:27:18] You know, when I was growing up, I didn't have one until yeah, basically. Right. And just watching it on my, you know, my parents' bedrooms little screen. And I remembered that feeling, you know, and I watched it when it first came out, I watch

[00:27:33] it at night, you know, it was late. And it was really cool to be stuck in a time warp going backwards, you know, for that 50 minutes or so. When I watched the color version, I thought it was just like, wow, this is for someone

[00:27:50] who appreciates, you know, that language. It looks really great. Right. Right. It looks really great because there are folks who really appreciate that sort of visual style. Right. They'd like to see, you know, flash of color here with the, especially with the bloodstone,

[00:28:12] you know, that red resonated with me. The pulsating that it did resonated with me. Right. Or the magic. Yeah. We got to be careful not to do. Yeah. I'm sorry. Sorry. Sorry. No, no, we're okay. But it did resonate with me in color.

[00:28:29] I think some scenes more so, more than the black and white did. Right. I thought that the colorization was just going to be a gimmick. Like they filmed it, they desaturated it, called it black and white, and then, oh, okay,

[00:28:43] we're going to release a colorized version and we're just going to flip the color back on and, you know, call it good. But then when I watched, when I was watching it, I realized, oh no, they filmed it in black

[00:28:52] and white in the sense that regardless of whatever the camera sensors were capturing, they built their vision of it in the sets. And like you were saying, Alicia, all that stuff was designed to be black and white.

[00:29:06] So when they colorized it, it wasn't just a cheap trick of flipping the color switch. And I really do appreciate that they made it technicolor. And they did that sort of comic book-y feel that we talked about with the Spider-Verse

[00:29:21] where it feels like colors are bleeding off of each other ever so slightly. And it feels a little bit rough and it feels a little bit hyper. And when it's dark, it's dark. And when it's colorized, it's colorized. It just gave a really nice vibe to it.

[00:29:38] The one thing about the black and white that I didn't like was that it was a bit of a softer gray palette for my personal, this is just my personal black and white take. Like high contrast black and white. I don't like smoothed out, you know.

[00:29:53] So I felt it was a little bit soft there. I would have liked the blacks to be a little bit more punchy, but. Yeah. Well, so it was, so the black and white was specifically a nod to the classic universal horror monster movies of the 30s and 40s.

[00:30:09] So they were going for that. Easy tone gray. And then the color, he was going for the Hammer film productions, you know, the monster movies for the Gothic ones from the 50s and 60s and 70s that had, in his terms, saturated colors and stark light lighting.

[00:30:26] Yeah, that's it. And that's what we got. They did a nice job. And I too, John, like I, we grew up, you know, I remember black and white TVs and I remember having when we got our first color TV, it was a big, big deal.

[00:30:38] It was a big deal. Or your relative who had a color TV, go over to your house, uncle so-and-so, and you're like, yeah, watch the big console TV. So yeah, lots of, lots of black and white viewing.

[00:30:51] So it was fun to feel that nostalgia that they were playing with there on both sides of that. One of the, two of the things that I really appreciated too what they did, and I noticed

[00:31:03] this in the sort of opening credit, but then noticed it throughout the film. They kind of, they made it so it was sort of shaky, almost as if the celluloid of the film against the lens of the projector was moving and you get that weird and shaky, yeah.

[00:31:23] Shakiness. And they recreated that. And then the other cool thing I noticed, did you see the, did you catch it Alicia? The cue marks. Yeah. The cue marks. Yeah. It was like, I saw that and I was like, oh no way they did it.

[00:31:35] They, you know, I wasn't expecting at all. How projectors, how they would have projectors line it up. Synchronized projectors. Yeah. So when you had multiple projectors, the camera operator had to know when to switch from one camera, one projector to the next.

[00:31:50] And so there were these little blips usually up on the right hand corner. There's a great Wikipedia article about cue markers. That was just a fun little nod that they, I jumped when I saw it.

[00:32:00] I got, well I jumped more, I jumped higher when I saw the cue mark that I did than any jump scare that was in the show. That's funny. Yeah. That was great. That's great. Very cool. So you guys were talking about the score.

[00:32:11] You kind of talked about the composer already, right? Well, yeah, I wanted to, I need to make a pitch for people to watch director by night, which is the documentary that is made. It was made by Anthony G Aquino.

[00:32:27] So the director slash composer, Michael G Aquino's brother, Anthony is also an Oscar winner for his, uh, for a documentary short called Colette. So this is actually one of my favorite documentaries in the whole world. But of course, yeah, I have a bias.

[00:32:44] It's about, it's, it's a documentary that anyone who loves film should watch. Okay. So for example, I watched this before I watched the fable women's, which was the, uh, Steven Spielberg semi autobiographical movie that did really well in the award season last year.

[00:33:05] And I was disappointed in the fable men's because this movie had done this story so much better, just showing how a young nerd who, and showing how he made like these films

[00:33:17] on a budget and how he grew up and then incorporating and showing how he used these budgeted things that he did as a kid in his big grownup Marvel movie, um, to create these practical effects,

[00:33:30] showing it side by side and also throwing in all this personal home footage, uh, for with the family. It's like very intimate, honest, uh, this family is so much personality. Like I will protect the G Aquino's with my life now.

[00:33:43] And that's mixed in with like this sort of fly on the wall on set footage. So no talking heads. You just kind of get to look over the creator's shoulders and see how things actually look and how things are actually made.

[00:33:57] I just added it to my watch list on Disney. Yeah, it just makes my heart feel really full. Leaves me on a high. So I highly recommend it, but definitely watch it after the film if you haven't seen the film because you know, spoilers. Smart. All right.

[00:34:13] Alicia, you've got a plot summary here for us. You want to take us through the summarize the story for us? Oh, and just this is it. This is spoilers. I'm literally about to summarize the plot. Pause it, come back and check us out. We're here for you.

[00:34:27] So Big Daddy Monster Hunter Ulysses Bloodstone passes away after a very extended long life. They didn't even talk about how long it is. In lieu of leaving the family's mystically powered bloodstone to his estranged daughter

[00:34:41] Elsa, his widow summons five experienced monster hunters to compete to the death for the powerful artifact. The one racking up the most kills there is the mysterious Mexican Jack Russell. But the estranged daughter drops into the party as well, just in time to see her father's

[00:34:59] corpse perform his last song and dance. Literally. He's incorrigible. And to begin the hunt. The bloodstone will be affixed to the back of the fearsome man thing, both weakening and enraging him. Fear him and you will melt at his touch.

[00:35:18] Luckily, Jack, and thanks to him also Elsa, do not fear him because Jack is his close buddy. This is his close buddy Ted Salas, and Jack is there to spring him. So he and Elsa team up to get her the stone and then the exit.

[00:35:32] And after a flirty lockdown in a crypt, they half succeed. But wicked stepmother Verusa arrives with their goons taking both Jack and Elsa down and outing Jack as a monster himself. She locks him in a cage thinking she's solving two problems in one.

[00:35:49] But Jack is determined not to hurt Elsa and everyone else's fair game though. And man thing shows up to take Verusa out, especially a few, especially Verusa. So Elsa ends up at the bloodstone and her father's estate and Jack can grab some coffee

[00:36:04] with his bestie Ted in the swamp. And the promise of a future team up lingers in the air. Nice job. John, are you, are you a fan of the werewolf by night comics at all? I read them sparingly.

[00:36:20] So I know his story, but they haven't, he hasn't, they haven't really done anything with the character recently. Like most of the stories that I read were handed down to me, you know, by the person who got me into comics basically, because he collected them in the seventies.

[00:36:38] So I read when I got those comics, I read them, but I never really collected his comics when I started collecting comics, they didn't have, Marvel kind of moved away from doing that stuff that they were doing in the seventies for whatever reason. I don't know why.

[00:36:54] Wasn't selling as well in the optimistic eighties. Well, I think maybe moving away from those, those sub genres from those seventies, you know, the seventies were really, when you think about film in the seventies, it was different from what they were producing in the eighties, you know?

[00:37:13] So I think Marvel took the cue from what, you know, popular culture was doing and moved away from telling stories like blackula and stuff like that. I would watch, right? It's interesting because the seventies were a time when pop culture really exploded both

[00:37:30] on television, on screen, I think in comics. I mean, we had comics going back a long way, but I did, I don't, did we have the diversity? I don't know. Is it a technology thing? Is it a post? I mean, and I'm just thinking of American culture.

[00:37:45] So my point of view is limited in that regards, but I just feel that that was an, that was a time of over production. I don't want to say over in a bad way, but just like production across the board, no matter what the medium was inflated enormously.

[00:38:03] And we were producing a lot and shipping a lot out. And obviously, you know, from both television and cinema, we have some of the biggest things ever produced were in this sort of seventies period. That's true.

[00:38:17] But I think the types of things that were being done changed in the eighties. I agree. Right. And then they started, the market started to shift and we started to see what people's interests were and as tastes evolve, right? You know, we're going to, we're going to shift.

[00:38:29] So I know nothing about werewolf by night. I know nothing about Swamp Thing. Man Thing. Man Thing. Man Thing. Man Thing. Man Thing. See? Swamp Thing's DC. DC. Yes, exactly. But Man Thing was first by like a couple months.

[00:38:46] So let's talk a little bit about who these characters are. Jack, who is Jack? Where does he come from? What do we know about him in the MCU? Jack's a werewolf. Yeah. Jack, Jack Russell. Get it? Get it? Jack Russell. Yeah. Yes. So yeah, he's, he's a werewolf.

[00:39:08] He inherited this curse from his father and he's one of the first- His first on screen appearance, right? This is, yeah. First on screen. Yeah. Right. Off the pages. Okay. And Elsa is also iconic in the comics. She's kind of having a resurgence right now.

[00:39:26] Played here by Laura Donnelly and she's the prodigal daughter of monster hunter Ulysses Bloodstone, but she's more ethical, a bit less evil. But they really are, I mean, they are monster hunters. She and Jack do kill a lot of people. Sure. Or monsters. The casting was perfect.

[00:39:51] Gail Garcia Bernal was just lovely to watch and to watch the transformation from his mild mannered sort of nice, I think we should just pass each other by. Yeah, exactly. Let's not fight each other. Yeah.

[00:40:04] To being this bad ass MF-er who just rips everybody apart and dominates once he becomes a werewolf was a great, very obtuse flip, right? It's like going from one mild manner to extremely violent is great and it fits the genre of this old style horror.

[00:40:26] And I want to point out when I watched it last night, the very first time we see him on screen, right? When he's coming in the elevator to walk in the hall, they tell us that he is the monster. They say, what do they say?

[00:40:40] They say, woe to the monster. Yes. Finds themselves among them, these people. And then when he's walking in the hallway and looking at the art on the walls, he looks extra long hard at the werewolf painting there. And so it's like, boom, right there. They're telling us exactly.

[00:41:00] Not that you couldn't figure it out, but it's just really nice little details and hooks like that that make it a quality storytelling exercise. And I love that they made him, I mean, I know this is a Feige request to have Man-Thing included.

[00:41:15] I love that they made them besties. The interesting thing, yeah, it was cute. It was very cute. And it was, it subverts expectations for a lot of people, you know, when it's like, oh no, it's the fearsome monster.

[00:41:26] And he looks like he's going to scream when, you know, the Man-Thing arm comes through the bush, but then he's actually like, oh, I found you. Thank God. My friend. Oh, I'm sorry. No, I'm the one that rescues you. Right? It was just, it was charming.

[00:41:39] I owe you sushi. You can do sushi. I owe you that. What the hell is going on? It was so... I need, I need like an odd couple sitcom with them. I loved it. Jean, were you, were you down for these, for this set of characters?

[00:41:53] Yeah, because I like Man-Thing. Right. And I was happy to see Man-Thing on screen. They did a good job with the visual effects. Yeah, the visual effects were great. Watch director by night. And the reason why I was excited to see Man-Thing, because he's super important in Marvel.

[00:42:13] Like he has, he's one of the few beings that can traverse the entire multiverse. He's what they call a Nexus being. So through him, you can travel beyond your own reality. So given everything that they were doing prior to stay, you know, phase five, I thought that

[00:42:36] would play an important role going forward. I don't know if that's still the case. But it's interesting, Feige requested him specifically. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So they must have included that his character, the character in it for a reason. And I think it's because he is a Nexus being.

[00:42:55] Yeah. So yeah, he's a guardian of the Nexus of reality. That's got to come into play in Secret Wars. Yeah. You know, Secret Wars or something. So we'll see how it does. But yeah, I was really excited to see that. See this is what I've expected.

[00:43:08] And I know that that's not the reality that we got at MCU. I mean, Jonah's book has been illuminating a lot of this, but this is the kind of stuff that I thought that they would have been doing was they pick a director and it's sort of

[00:43:19] a story. They say, go tell a story. And then by the way, just add in this little detail, add in that little detail, because we're going to hook them up later. So by saying like, oh yeah, you know, put in Man-Thing here, they can play with that later,

[00:43:33] even though they don't have any ideas set up for it, they can just allow this to exist. And it adds so much. I didn't know any, I don't know anything about Man-Thing, but it adds so much to the story

[00:43:44] thing to realize, oh, wait a minute, that was that and that and that. Right? I mean, I think they do do that, but there's, I think that's what Feige wants to do. That's my impression.

[00:43:56] But then the studios have, you know, they're like, well, how are we lining up our most bankable characters? Right. Yeah, yeah. It's this whole thing that they need to show a return on investment. Anyway, moving on. How did the romance work for you guys?

[00:44:12] The romance between Jack and Elsa? I thought it was fine. I'm glad it wasn't overly romantic. It was, you know, they were nice to each other. They developed a cooperation. They developed some intimacy and the intensity of the action.

[00:44:33] But I didn't need, you know, I liked that she didn't need to be saved and that he wasn't a lecherous scumbag. Right? It was, it was, it was nicely balanced and he gave her the due respect that, you know, she's earned and they had a good adventure.

[00:44:50] They relied on each other a little bit. So I felt it was, it was nice. It was refreshing in a way. I guess that's, adds to the charm of it for me.

[00:44:59] It wasn't like, oh, we have to ship these two and the one has to be saved by the other or anything like that. No, it was, it was appropriate. I thought. I thought so too. And it made sense, right? Because you're talking about a couple of hours here.

[00:45:16] They just met, it was a couple of hours. She's a monster hunter. He's a werewolf. You know what I mean? So it made sense to the, in the way that they portrayed their relationship upon meeting each other.

[00:45:30] There was nothing about it that I said, ah, what are they doing here? You know what I mean? Right. Yeah. So just watching them, how they talk to each other and how they moved around each other, it all made sense.

[00:45:44] And one of my favorite scenes, probably top two of my favorite scenes is his transformation and her horror at his being, at his transformation. Like that, that showed everything that you needed to know about where she's at, where he's at. Right. Basically. Right.

[00:46:05] Because you don't see his face, but you see it in her. You know what I mean? And he told her. I didn't think about that. I didn't think of that. That's a really good call. And he told her not to break eye contact.

[00:46:14] So she's just looking, you know, she's got her eyes locked on him. And he didn't mean it in that moment. It was later that you realize when he meant it, right? When he's about to go feral on her and she didn't break eye contact. Right.

[00:46:33] You know, when he was about to rip out her throat, he didn't break eye contact. Right. Right. He meant in that moment, but when he was transforming, she couldn't take her eyes off of him. It's really subtle things. You know what I mean? It just made sense.

[00:46:49] It just made sense. I thought it was really cute too, when he's sniffing her. She's like, what the hell? Did this work? Like once. It's a perfect line delivery. But it's also, it's such a tease because like you could give us a whole story about that later.

[00:47:08] What's this once? What, you know? Right. Right. I love that they were two outsiders together. They were the two misfits at this gathering. Yes. It's a gathering of misfits. Yes. Interesting. You know what I also found interesting?

[00:47:20] Because I think we're about to start talking about the villain side of things here was that the monster hunters, if you looked at some of those heads on the walls, those are pretty horrific things that I don't know that I'd want wandering around my neighborhood

[00:47:36] at any time of the year. And so what do they do though? They effectively destroy a whole cadre of monster hunters. Not that those people shouldn't have had some check or something. They're monsters in and of themselves.

[00:47:53] And I think we get that vibe when we're going around the room, when they walk in and we get the setup for this, these are the monsters. Yes. Right. As much as those things up on the walls are monsters. But then I-

[00:48:06] And are those things on the wall monsters really? Yeah. Because Jack could be on the wall, you know? Is he a monster? Right. But some of those things look pretty monstrous. So I don't know what am I supposed to do? I'm just a mortal human, right?

[00:48:19] Right, right, right. And that's the question. That's the question. Right. And who are these monster hunters to have this power and to do this stuff? Great. If you're protecting us, lovely, that's wonderful.

[00:48:31] But we can see that when you get too far off in your own little enclave and you're not connected to society, power starts to change the way you perceive and the way that you operate and the freedom at which you operate with.

[00:48:46] You know, a la Zokovia and what was the other town where they blew up the... Was it the start of civil war? Were they a whole building? They were in... I think they were in Africa. Yeah, they were in West Africa.

[00:48:59] I forgot what country in West Africa, but they were in Africa. I know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah. Right. This thing where these superpower people, gods, whatever they are, are operating. And that's the whole Zokovia Accords question, right? Like what are the controls that we have?

[00:49:18] You are a walking nuclear weapon. So we've got these monster hunters walking around unchecked, but are they doing good? Are they doing bad? I don't know. It's questionable. I don't know enough. And we see... Yeah. So aside from Ulysses, were they superpowered? No. No.

[00:49:39] They all seemed very human. Just badass, yeah. Yeah. They're operating above... They're operating extra judiciously, right? Yeah. There's no controls on and there's no transparency in what they're doing or how they're doing it. But it's interesting to see them interact and interact with Jack and, you know, like

[00:49:55] I don't remember the one character's name, but the biker looking guy with the beard. And they seem like they could be friends in another life. Right. He was very gregarious. Yeah. Yeah. Said it's very lonely being a monster hunter. Yeah. So it is.

[00:50:09] Now, are any of those other monster hunters characters that are known or were they made for this? No. I mean, the one guy looked had a blade like vibe, but that wasn't Blade, obviously. No. No. I think they were... Because he's a Blade's part monster, right?

[00:50:25] He's a vampire. Yeah. Yeah. He's a vampire. He's a damp here. Half human, half. Half. Half human, half. Spoilers. Spoilers for the premise. Yeah. Sorry, sorry, sorry. That'll be revealed in the first scene, I assume. Yeah. So yeah.

[00:50:45] And even with this whole secret society and masks and robes that, yeah. Who's the monster? I just like that they ask that question in this. Right. Well, I think the villains were expertly led by Harriet Samson Harris who played Verusa, the stepmother. Yeah.

[00:51:05] She really sold that whole manic and just made it high camp, but also believable. It wasn't just a caricature. Yes. Were any of those monsters that were on the wall known quantities from previous MCU things? They looked great.

[00:51:23] I mean, you can go on YouTube and see a lot of speculation about it because maybe the one that one of them kind of looks like Nosferatu-ish. People are like making it up. Yeah. A vampire. Yeah. Very early vampire-like. Right. Nothing to see in Blade. Right. Yeah. Very.

[00:51:43] Yeah. And that's also a monster movie, classic universal horror throwback style. Right. There's got to be some Easter eggs too on the walls and the painting. Yeah. Well, I mean, you can go on like New Rockstars and stuff and they have translated all of the texts.

[00:51:58] Of course they have. That's what they do. So very cool. What else? What else should we talk about? I mean, yeah. I just, just appreciation for the production design and cinematography. Zoe White was a cinematographer and I just, I love how they use these tight shots a lot

[00:52:16] that they limit the perspective, which also helps with, you know, when you don't, when you don't have a lot of money to spend on putting too much in the screen at the same time, you're trying to hide like things where you've cheaped out.

[00:52:29] But also it adds to the dread. And I also have, I have to commend, I have to commend the actors for really rising to that occasion because when you have a camera in your face like that, yeah. What were you going to say, Sean?

[00:52:43] No, I agree with what you just said, but going back to David's question about the other characters, I just wanted to make sure, but all of them were creations for the show. Okay. Interesting. I was just checking on one.

[00:52:57] I thought Azriel might have not been a creation, but the others, they were all creations, Vermutian included. Well, and again, kudos to production design for making those heads and they felt, when I watched this, I was like, oh, these have to be callbacks to other MCU things.

[00:53:16] This has to be part of something, but they're not. If they're not, that's it. How cool is that? Because they went to all that effort to make these really scary heads and monsters and

[00:53:24] all these monster hunters that felt like they had backstory in history and they were added there. So that's even more cool in a way. Yeah. Kudos to production designer Maya Shimoguchi. Sorry, Marker. Kudos to production designer Maya Shimoguchi. Well, kudos to them in spades. Yeah.

[00:53:46] And how cool was that tuba torch? It looks even cooler in the documentary. I was like, what the heck was that? That was my favorite scene. The tuba torch? Yeah, it looks awesome. Between that and the transformation. The tuba torch, man. That was crazy. Just drama.

[00:54:03] I felt so bad for Jack. Because I didn't know when I first watched it, it was man thing, right? That was way different. Right. So I'm like, man, what is going on here? And this guy is leading this procession. He's playing the tuba and you have this, oh.

[00:54:24] And then alternating with the monster roar and this flame coming out of the tuba. That's one of my favorite scenes. One of my favorite scenes. Really cool. What else we got? Yeah. So just the story was written, by the way, by Heather Quinn from Hawkeye and Peter Cameron

[00:54:42] who did writing for WandaVision and Moon Knight. So I didn't find it, it wasn't scary, but it was, it had the right mood. It set the right tone. There was suspense. Apparently, yeah, that's what Giachino said, the director, it needs suspense. It needs dread.

[00:55:00] We don't want to be void of humor. But it's not about the humor. But it does make me laugh out loud. Do you guys laugh at this? I totally enjoyed it. I think they employed humor in the right way as well.

[00:55:16] There's a grotesque way of adding humor and trying to be funny. And then there's life is, it can be very humorous just on its face. I thought one of the funnier scenes was when they were passing each other by in the garden. Well, I'll just pass, right?

[00:55:33] He's fumbling around trying to explain something. It was a very funny scene given the context of it. But they weren't telling a stupid joke or trying to push humor in her face. So I think they used the sensibility of humor really judiciously, which makes it more effective, right?

[00:55:50] Rather than... Right. Yeah. So in the documentary, Giachino says, monsters are all allegories for the human hardships we go through and how people cope with the demons in their lives. Great stuff. Yeah. Great stuff. It goes back to the monster hunters in the secret society. They're the monsters.

[00:56:09] Yes. In a big way. Yeah. And Ted's just Ted, right? He's not bothering nobody. Yeah. He's trying to live his life, right? He's not bothering nobody. They capture him, stick this stone in his back, you know? Yeah. What the hell?

[00:56:23] And even Jack is saying like, please don't do this. This is not a good idea to do this. You know, like have a little humanity and they don't have any humanity. Right. They're as bloodthirsty as any monster that they've ever hunted. Quick feedback on production too.

[00:56:39] I just want to, the transformation of Jack, the way they did it with the shadows, which is a great callback Alicia, like you were saying to old style monster shows where they didn't have visual effects in that same way. So they had to figure out something.

[00:56:53] And so using the shadows was perfect. And like you said, when Elsa was watching him, but then later when he's in the hallway and he's being confronted, they use the strobe light effect. And again, the closeup camera angle thing to create the drama and the tension.

[00:57:08] Sorry, I know that's sort of production details, but I had to. No, but yeah, you can see so many Easter eggs nodding to like Tales from the Crypt. Apparently Poltergeist was a major influence. King Kong in terms of like the relating to the monster.

[00:57:22] Obviously like the Wolfman were wolf in London. Yeah. Twilight Zone, film noir. Like they've just really leaned into film and particularly horror film history, which is one of the reasons why I love it so much. Right.

[00:57:37] It's because it's like you said, I think at the top, it's a love letter to that genre and that style of filmmaking. So yeah, and it's cool. I think it's great that they were able to package in all of this MCU stuff on top of inside of this.

[00:57:53] And it's got a depth and a richness to it that, and as well as all that connectivity. So yeah, I think it's really well balanced. Yeah. So I hope we see more Man-Thing, Werewolf by Night and Elsa Bloodstone. Yes, hopefully.

[00:58:06] Jean, do you think that the red from the Bloodstone, do you think that could have anything to do with chaos magic? Yes. Wholeheartedly. The one place that they did splash out on special effects, on visual effects besides Man-Thing

[00:58:22] with the acid smash, whatever, was with the Bloodstone magic when she forced Jack to turn. They really did use, they splashed out on some visual effects there. I totally think it's chaos magic. And again, I was just thinking about the linkage to Scarlet Witch, the linkage to Multiverse

[00:58:45] of Madness, all of these things that seem to fit together in a way. So I really hope that's what they were playing on. But again, Wanda is a Nexus being herself, right? As we saw in Doctor Strange, she knows how to tap into different universes herself.

[00:59:06] So she is a Nexus being. So is Doctor Strange. Interesting. So yeah, I just hope that it doesn't have to be in Secret Wars for it to play out. You know what I mean? It doesn't have to be in the next big Marvel thing.

[00:59:21] It could just be another self-contained thing and that would be cool. And I really hope that we get Jack's niece, Nina Price, who is vampire by night. And she has inherited her uncle's curse, but then also gets bit by a vampire.

[00:59:39] And she's recruited for Nick Fury's Howling Commandos with Man-Thing and with Hitmonkey. So actually, that's how I kind of started reading Howling Commandos is because I went into the Hitmonkey Man-Thing backdoor. But Hitmonkey, as we discussed recently, is licensed out to another studio.

[00:59:57] But come on, let's get some vampire by night. She's awesome. She's one of my new favorites. Yeah, let's play, right? MC play. Like, let it take the shackles off here. Let's have some fun with this stuff.

[01:00:09] And the last thing I'll say is that there is a Werewolf by Night comic that a comic run with Elsa Bloodstone. It's a limited series. I haven't read it yet. I'm waiting for the entire thing to play out and then I'll just get all the books.

[01:00:24] I think they're on maybe issue number three now. I believe it's three or five. So if you want to check that out, definitely check that out because I think they created this directly because of the success of this show. Nice. Well, anything else?

[01:00:42] No, just have a spooky Halloween. For sure. For sure. Yeah, check out Alicia did multiple coverage of the fall of House of Usher. You had a podcast with your sister. You were on with John from the Lorehounds. You were on with Anthony from Bukalu. So great.

[01:01:04] I started to watch, I'm up through halfway through episode three. Oh yes, yes. And the audio drama. I forgot about that. Yeah. Halfway through. Did you read that with, who did you read that with?

[01:01:16] Well, I did follow the House of Usher and then we also added The Raven, which Dead Eye Jedi Bob read. And there might've been a haunting lost the lore. Cool. Cool. All right. Very cool. Cool. All right.

[01:01:32] Well, thanks everyone for dropping in on this bonus episode of the MCU. As Alicia said, whatever traditions you might follow or practice at this time of the year, I hope it's meaningful and for you and your family.

[01:01:42] John, Alicia, great to see you guys and I will see you tomorrow morning. All right. For her Loki episode four. Oh yeah. It's already. Already. It's crazy. They're packing a lot into this. So all right, everybody take care. See you next time.

[01:01:56] The Lorehounds podcast is produced and published by the Lorehounds. You can send questions and feedback and voicemails at thelorehounds.com slash contact. Get early and ad free access to all Lorehounds podcasts at patreon.com slash the Lorehounds.

[01:02:12] Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities.