Episode 175: Admiral Moustache

Rank & Vile

On this episode, we dig into a film that's somehow much better and much worse than it has any right to be -- alien goopfest XTRO 3!

To read the full transcript, go to https://rankandvile.captivate.fm/episode/episode-175-admiral-moustache

Transcript:

Ryan 0:33

[Theme Song] Hey guys, welcome to Rank and Vile, the podcast where we are ranking every single horror movie ever made from best to worst and this is Ryan.

Quincy 0:40

And this is Quincy.

Ryan 0:42

How's it going Quincy? How's your week going?

Quincy 0:43

Good. I recently picked up the Mill Creek sci fi double feature blu ray of Mindwarp and Brainscan. Ryan have you ever watched Brainscan?

Ryan 0:55

I love Brainscan. We got to do that on the podcast at some point. Like,

Quincy 1:01

Today was the first time I've ever watched that movie. And I did not realize it has Frank Langella in it and he is a gift.

Ryan 1:07

Frank Langella who is half asleep for most of this film.

Quincy 1:13

He's--

Ryan 1:13

Yeah, he's doing his best

Quincy 1:14

I also love a blu ray where the special features are subtitles,

Ryan 1:19

Man, honestly, the movie Brainscan. I feel like because I also have I have a blu ray of it that has like behind the scenes stuff for the movie Brainscan. I think my favorite thing about Brainscan is how much they were trying to make Trickster happen as like the next Freddy Krueger character where he's got like one liners and he's dancing to Primus. That's the that's the scene that kills me the most is when he shows up to Edward Furlong's house from a CD ROM and he's like, I'm going to put on some tunes and it's Primus and he's just like jamming

Quincy 1:51

Also, that he he trashes Edward Furlong's CD collection, because he's like, you don't have any good music. Good thing I brought my Primus CD, which is this biggest mood that encapsulates my high school experience. Hanging out with all of my friends,

Quincy 2:09

Just running and I'm putting on pork soda, pussies and just put it like, honestly, Brainscan is an incredible movie because like, when you when you see Edward Furlong in, like, you know, and it's supposed to be sad, but like his parents aren't around and it's just him by himself with like, a computer program that sounds like Igor who answers the phone. Like as a kid this was the life I fantasized about having you know,

Quincy 2:35

He's got his own refrigerator with a giant Ellis Cooper poster on it.

Ryan 2:41

Yeah, that and and his dirtbag friend who is like 40 years old in this movie. Like, I love so much that they refer to Fangoria to each other as Fango like that's that's true. 90s dirtbag shit is referring to it as fango because you don't have the fucking time to say Fangoria. Man. Yeah, Brainscan is good. Yeah, it's I feel like it's part of that wave of like mean spirited early 90s cyber horror.

Quincy 3:07

Oh, yeah. Well, the film the bluray have also has Mindwarp with motherfucking Bruce Campbell and Angus Scrimm on it, man.

Quincy 3:17

So wait, so Mindwarp. I've never seen it. My understanding of it is that it's kind of Nightmare on Elm Street adjacent with the dream stuff?

Quincy 3:24

It is. The tagline is in the future life will be a dream and reality and nightmare. So the whole thing is a virtual reality movie right

Ryan 3:32

Now we're talking

Quincy 3:33

Basically they can jump to a bunch of different genres and get away with it because you know, fingers wave internet. It was made in 91 so their conception of the internet is about as accurate as the 1994 Brainscan where he's got to call a one 800 number to play a CD ROM.

Ryan 3:57

There's this theater in like Burbank, or something that years ago did like an all night feature of the first four Friday the 13th movies and I feel that you could do a mean cyberpunk movie marathon between Mindwarp, Brainscan, Lawnmower Man, and Hardware.

Quincy 4:14

I'm here for it.

Ryan 4:15

Yeah, yeah. Early 90s anxieties about about the internet and why it's going to kill you. And as we know, like the 1997 episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where where Willow dates a demon from the internet.

Quincy 4:27

You mean the episode with techno pagans of which I purchased a sticker to put on my television?

Quincy 4:34

If you're not if you're not jacked in, you're not even alive. Yeah, it's I feel like that episode happened and then everyone was like, Alright guys, we're off the cyber horror. We can't we can't keep doing this.

Quincy 4:46

I love that we are so transfixed by that one episode of Buffy. That friends of mine will contact me anytime it comes up, or any time that they Talk about, that devils and the internet are in the same sentence. I'll also get a @ onling. Like, hey, we're talking about devils in the internet.

Quincy 5:09

That's because they did. That's because your brand is rock solid. Like it's like, oh no, there's demons on the internet's it's the cowboy. It's the console cowboys in the cyberspace just up to their old tricks again, and it's like, I love it so much because now at this point, the internet is like such an everyday part of our lives that like the thought of back in the day somebody being like, man, I don't know you go into one of those AOL chat rooms. You come out with a demon. I don't know. I don't know how it works on the internet, but I'm pretty sure that's that's what's gonna happen.

Quincy 5:38

So what ghoul shit have you been imbibing? Ryan?

Ryan 5:41

I'll tell you what ghoul shit I've been imbibing. Birdwatching, mostly. I in quarantine, I'm doing two things lately. And it's three things actually knitting, working out and looking at birds because we've got my like that where I do my work during the day, faces my backyard, and there's a big window. So I am just fully getting into bird watching and just like watching what it is. I can get into any animal or group of being as long as I can find out the ways in which this being can be a dick. Like, if I see birds being dicks to other birds, I am suddenly interested in birds. You know what I mean?

Quincy 6:21

Yeah, for sure. And birds are inequivocally. dicks.

Quincy 6:27

Yeah, yeah, they're their full dicks. Except for my my friend Jess, who lives in Canada. She takes care of pigeons and doves and apparently they are like doves are the sweetest bird in the world and will just snuggle her which I think is ideal, but I wonder if I wouldn't respect the bird if they wanted to be my friend too much.

Quincy 6:47

So you're telling me that they're literally lovey dovey?

Ryan 6:52

Jesus Mary and Joseph, I hadn't thought about that, and I'm furious, they are actually lovey doveys, and I'm, I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed of myself. But yeah, that's that's pretty much it. So you've been? I think you've been working the Pokemon mines this week. Yes?

Quincy 7:10

Yes, I have been playing Pokemon sword. And much to the chagrin of my seven year old, I've only gone to a single gym in the game, but I've been but because I'm an adult with a full time job. I have a Nintendo online account so I can trade with people on the internet. And my new favorite thing about trading online is naming Pokemon very silly names, which has always been a joy of Pokemon,

Ryan 7:41

Of course

Quincy 7:41

but then foisting those upon strangers. I was gifted Brock Lesnar, the machamp.

Ryan 7:48

Oh yeah,

Quincy 7:48

I have turned around and gifted Milli Vanilli the vanillite and Not the Mama the machoke

Ryan 7:57

Man. Honestly though, I feel like you know, like Brock Lesnar, the machamp. I feel like if you gave Brock Lesnar another set of arms it would almost be redundant. Like I think of him as having four sets, like two sets of arms.

Quincy 8:10

It is it is notable that when Hasbro made their line of WWE wrestlers that are superheroes, they made a Goro esque Brock Lesnar that was his action figure.

Quincy 8:28

Which feels it's not true it's not true, but it's real. You know? Like it's it's it's tonally consistent with with reality honestly, with Pokemon. I feel like I and I'm ashamed to admit this I have never played a Pokemon game past to the original Pokemon Red and Blue. Everything past the original one 150 Pokemon I'm always like, delighted and surprised to find out about a thing called like vanillite.

Quincy 8:52

I think it's ice cream Pokemon.

Quincy 8:54

Yes. Yeah, no, I'm completely into it. I think the newest Pokemon that I was made aware of that made me really happy to learn about was mimikyu which Oh, yeah,

Quincy 9:02

Mimikyu is very good because mimikyu only cares about killing Pikachus.

Ryan 9:11

Yeah, yeah, also because it was like, Well, I'm a sad lonely ghost who's decided to wear a shitty Pikachu costume because everybody loves Pikachu. And it's just like, I love that it's like single trying to single white female Pikachu. And I support this energy.

Quincy 9:25

Also, another great thing about mimikyu us are that when you use mimikyu in the new Pokemon series, and he takes a hit, his neck breaks and then it says "oh no his disguise has failed." As if that is the one thing that's keeping everyone to believe that you actually had a Pikachu.

Ryan 9:45

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's that's the bombshell. That's the thing. Yeah. freaks everybody out. Let's jump into the movie we're doing for this week, which is on Tubi as which as we know is a blessed slash cursed streaming platform.

Quincy 10:01

If so has a very nice blu ray DVD from Vinegar Syndrome, which they were kind enough to provide me and I'm super excited to talk to you about the special features of this thing.

Ryan 10:12

Oh, hell yeah, Vinegar Syndrome, which, as we know, is the standard bearer for hard to find weird forgotten gems and stuff that never really got a fair shake the first time around. And I'm not gonna lie to you. The fact that this, that Xtro 3 got a Vin Syn release immediately made me interested in it because like when you if you google Xtro 3, you're like, Alright, well, this is some weird fucking sci fi original programming circa 1995 at two o'clock in the afternoon on a Sunday, I guess,

Quincy 10:42

It has the hardest sci fi channel at 2pm on a Sunday vibes of a movie I've watched in a long time

Ryan 10:50

For sure. And so finding out that, you know, Vinegar Syndrome, and the folks there looked at this movie and went, you know what, we're gonna do a fucking release with some goodies. They're not wrong to have done it. This movie is so much better than it has any right to be and also so much dumber than I thought it was gonna be.

Quincy 11:07

It's terrible. It's really bad.

Quincy 11:10

Oh, man. It's so yeah.

Quincy 11:11

They have an interview with the director Harry Bromley Davenport. So that, you know, they just sit him down and they're like, let's talk about this movie. And he says, I do not direct good movies. He's like, I've never made a good movie.

Quincy 11:26

Yeah, they just like, found him in a bathroom somewhere. And we're like, Hey, can we ask you some questions, and he wouldn't let him leave the bathroom until he answered it. Like Yeah, he he seems to have a pretty down to earth view of his time making this movie.

Quincy 11:40

Yeah, he's like, Listen, I know it wasn't good. He also straight up says that he he owns Xtro, the title. So basically, he got to make this movie because he went to an American production company and said, I'm the guy that owns Xtro and they're like, sure we'll give you money.

Ryan 12:01

You know what this empty Snapple bottle is mine

Quincy 12:03

Nothing to do with the other two Xtro films by the way.

Ryan 12:07

See, this was my next question, actually, was the fact that I haven't seen Xtro or Xtro two. And the story of Xtro 3 is pretty one and done. Like it's just it's the story it is and you know, at no point was I like Oh, how does this interact with the lore of the Xtro series? Because it's just fucking right there. Like there's there's no connection to anything.

Quincy 12:27

It's very much a Halloween three or Zombie five situation. It's just the name that will get people to watch the movie.

Ryan 12:36

Yeah. And of course, the director apparently who's directed every Xtro movie. So he's the Don Coscarelli of this of this franchise. Xtro three. Now see, here's the thing. So the movie starts out. And we get now because this was made in the mid 90s I feel like the 90s was having a real fucking moment with like, sort of cheery 50s throwback things where it's like, footage of people practicing hygiene or going to school dances and being like, hey, Jimmy, look at you going to school with your friend. And it's just like, you know, with the sort of cheery pizzicato music in the background like it was the 90s were all in on this fucking aesthetic as a goof.

Quincy 13:17

Yeah, I've been trying to figure it out. Because also we have a lot of in the 90s there was a lot of bowling shirt and rat fink kind of vibes to it. Yeah, if you do the math, it's about 50 years, previous 50, 40 years. So so that's like our, the 90s to us was the 50s to people in the 90s.

Ryan 13:44

Yeah, yeah, like that. That kind of aesthetic in that level of kitsch. You know what I think it is, the Dirty Boogie by Brian Setzer orchestra dropped and everybody lost their fucking mind. And they were just like, Oh shit, Madmen hasn't been invented yet. We got to use this font for everything like and so you know, we get this really 50s sort of and it's not even PSA. This is the kind of stuff that what it's parodying or playing off of is the kind of videos that you get in like Mystery Science Theater 3000 before they get into the actual movie where it's like, you know, sort of black and white you know, instructing children on how to do things videos. And we get this guy narrating this this video about this kid who filmed a crash landing of a UFO in the 50s and it cuts to the the UFO crash landing and it genuinely just looks like a fucking UFO smoking through the skies and plummeting to the earth. And you know, we get the the the PSA guy being like, Alright, Jenny, well, you faked that to scare your friends right in the kids like yeah, and the guy's like, Alright, great. one and done and just like moves on immediately and then we get to the present day. There was no real reason for this as an intro I feel

Quincy 14:58

The only reason is to say Set up again. The government conspiracy of Oh, it's a cover up because later we know that it's actually that was real footage and they pressured the kid into saying he's lying. But, and I would I would dog on that except that in 2020 government conspiracies are laughably stupid.

Ryan 15:24

Yeah, yeah, I mean well and that's kind of what it is actually. It's like they're, you know what I love? I love conspiracy theories that are actually harmless like Katy Perry is actually JonBenet Ramsey

Quincy 15:36

Oh man, that's that's great. No, it's way better than the glut of harmful conspiracy theories that are out right now.

Ryan 15:45

Yeah, yeah, like if it's if it's not racist and it's not like rooted in you know, white supremacy like it's Yeah, I'm a big fan of that shit, but like most of them are. And so we you know, because of the present day after this thing of like, Alright, well, aliens definitely don't exist and the government had nothing to do with this and everything's fine. There's this guy living in like, what looks like a van nuys studio apartment. And he opens the door to a lady. He He answers the door. Like he's Gary Busey in, like Palm Springs at like nine in the morning with a gun. Whiskey on his breath. Hawaiian shirt. Oh, it's like, wow, what do you want the ladies like, you need to ask you about all that stuff that happened. And this guy just looks. Now he is you know, and this is like in the morning when he answers the door and he's already fully, you know, tipping the bottle upside down into his mouth.

Quincy 16:38

And she's also a she's like, Listen, I'm a news reporter. And you said I could I could interview you so let's get that done.

Ryan 16:46

She's very like you called me motherfucker. Like don't answer the door packing heat like downing half a fifth of Jim Beam like, please, can you take this seriously, you fucking weirdo and he reveals that he is a demolitions expert, which is what you want from a guy sucking down this much booze. And he you know, he reveals his his dog tags. Now, and we find out that this man's name is Martin Kirn, who is an explosive specialist and he this actor has the magnetism of a dead crap. Yeah, he is just a it's just it's very, very bad. His name is uh, Sal Landi, I think he looks basically like, you know, Larry Drake, the guy that played Dr. Giggles?

Quincy 17:35

Yeah

Ryan 17:36

He looks like if you took Larry, Larry Drake, put them in Photoshop and stretched him vertically. And this is his face. And also it's full of liquor. And he, so, you know. So this is the framing device for the thing. The other framing device for the thing is that he's doing these like, Blade Runner voiceovers for half of the movie.

Quincy 17:55

I think it's supposed to be him telling the reporter what's going on, cuz like, the whole thing is a flashback. But also, they don't really come back to the framing narrative. For any real reason.

Ryan 18:11

No. And like, it's it's there at the end, but it doesn't need to be there at the end. Like, there's now, the thing about this movie, you could trim about a quarter of it without any consequence to the plot of the movie. And I wonder if it's just that the director was like trying to class the joint up a bit by being like, Whoa, framing device on Xtro 3?

Quincy 18:33

The honestly, it's because it's a 97 minute movie and without the framing device is not feature length?

Ryan 18:39

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it. And so, Martin Kirn is approached by a military mucky muck, who is he? He's like an admiral or a general or something.

Quincy 18:54

He's actually a commander.

Ryan 18:58

Okay.

Quincy 18:59

I don't know what ranks mean. But I believe he's listed as a...