H!TITDS – Vibrations (1996)
Hello and welcome to Hello This Is The Doomed Show.
I am Richard.
Folks, I am very excitable most of the time, but twice as much today because Simon's here.
Hello Simon.
Susie, do you know anything about Tecna?
Susie, do you know anything about ecstasy?
Folks, we're doing something.
I think Simon, is this our first non-horror film that you and I have done?
Uh, yeah.
It's interesting to talk about our episode we did on The Hidden, which was kind of a bit of a bit of an outlier as well, but it does have sort of slight horror elements.
So yeah, I think this is the first one you'd call like sort of non-genre, I think.
Brilliant.
Brilliant.
It's definitely some kind of genre.
Yeah, this is Vibrations from 1996.
Directed by, I'm gonna probably butcher this guy's name.
This is Michael Passerneck, and this is an American Canadian production, co-production, direct to video or direct to cable TV.
I'm not sure about that.
But yeah, we're gonna we're gonna talk about this, this very special film, and yes, we're gonna spoil it.
So seek it out.
It's on YouTube, for one thing, listen to my chat if you want to see it.
There's a decent copy on YouTube.
I went ahead and found a much nicer rip of it from God only knows where this came from.
But yeah, this is a drama, which is, you know, I'm trying to think of other dramas we've covered, although this does have science fiction.
It also claims to be a musical, but it's not a musical where people break in the song, though that's the only way they could have improved this bad boy was to...
If only.
There is a really, really, really shitty quality trailer.
I'm not going to bother playing it.
This audio is too crappy.
There's a couple of fan made trailers, and I don't really play those on the show.
I appreciate folks who make the fan made trailers because there's some movies out there that I wouldn't know existed without the fan made trailer.
But you know, they don't have that sweet, sweet voiceover guy that I love.
Vibration.
Real quick, plot synopsis here from IMDB is just a couple sentences.
The seniors return to earth to visit their relatives.
Will they all decide to go back to the planet where no one grows old, or will they be tempted to stay back on earth?
Sounds about right.
Oh wait, that's the cocoon, the return.
Oh, sorry, sometimes I mix up movies.
When you said seniors, I thought they just like graduated and gone, I don't know, for like a gap year to fucking Mars or something.
Yeah, it's pretty funny the way they did that.
I actually wouldn't mind watching Cocoon the Return.
Yeah, I mean, I remember the first one so vividly.
I remember watching that with my parents, because you know, it had sexual situations in it.
So of course, my parents were all keen enough to watch it.
As I've told people on the show many times before, my parents are perverts.
No, they were just very liberal with sexual times.
Good for them.
So I have the dimension VHS here of your friend and mine, Mr.
Vibrations.
The tagline on the back is, she dared to challenge his fears, dot, dot, dot, and found a way to his heart.
Oh, bless him.
Here comes the plot.
In this high-energy story of passionate love and personal redemption, Christina Applegate, Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead and TV's Married with Children, stars as Anna Mika, a manager at the hottest dance club around.
There, by chance, she meets TJ, James Marshall, a few good men, Gladiators, a down and nearly out young musician in the struggle, what, a down and out, this, fuck.
A down and out and fuck, in the aftermath of a brutal attack, as they develop a mutual respect that eventually grows into something far deeper, you'll cheer as TJ, with the love and support of Anna Mika and some great new friends, finds the inner strength to triumph over his tragic past and become a music legend, all set to a hot music soundtrack, vibrations is uplifting, energetic entertainment, you don't want to miss.
Yeah.
So this movie opens with some sweet, sick bass electro dance music.
Oh yeah.
Synth bass, man.
Emphasis on this sick, like the bass has that weird little, like funky warble to it, that's like, ew.
We see this mustachioed cop cruising through the suburbia.
It starts a little too surreal with the suburbia thing.
The opening tone of just these first few shots, there's a lady who's using an edger to like clean up the line of her yard along the curb.
And she's moving approximately one inch at a time.
Like she's not using it properly.
And she's just, it's like, I got the vibe that this is gonna be kooky.
This is gonna be a kooky weird movie.
And that vibe has dropped immediately as soon as that shot is over.
Yeah, I mean, if it wasn't for a certain clip, which led me to this film, which we will come to obviously in due course, you know, found randomly on YouTube.
When I was, if I'd just gone into this blind and I was watching this first scene, I would kind of have no idea what I was in for.
You know, it's a combination of music and the cop driving.
You'd be like, what is this?
If this had been a, based on what we're about to talk about, if this had been a comedy, a very quirky comedy, that this movie would make a lot more sense.
Oh yeah.
So he goes to a house, pulls up, you can hear a band playing, and they're jamming.
They're jamming.
I wrote in my notes, their genre is soggy postcard rock.
I don't know what that means, but I wrote that down.
And of course, as soon as the cop starts harassing these guys, I'm like, oh, this is the dad of the main dude.
Somebody called the cops, and of course, this kid's lucky that his dad is like the sheriff, so he's coming to shut them down, and I was totally right.
And that's one thing about this movie is, aside from a couple of moments, you can predict what is coming next.
Oh yeah, yeah.
This is very, very formulaic in certain ways, which is not a criticism at all.
This is, I'm the guy who has like hundreds of slashers on my shelves, so we're good to go.
Yeah, me too.
But this is Stephen Keats is the actor who is coming in to arrest these rock and roll boys.
But this guy is a big time.
He died in 94, which is sad.
So this movie, oh wow.
So he died before this came out.
That's terrible.
Yeah, I just seen that.
It's a shame.
So you may have seen on the credits, there's a copyright date for 1994.
And on the posters, if you look at the bottom, there's copyright dates for 1993.
Okay, so that will explain why this doesn't feel like 1996.
And how.
He's making me think of The Gingham Hattor, a hidden episode, specifically The Hidden Two, because wasn't there like a rave in that, in like a fucking warehouse?
Yes, yes, yes.
Dude, don't spoil the rave.
Come on, that's the pot twist.
He was in, this guy, Mr.
Stephen Keats, was in a movie I remember very vividly from my childhood, and I've never watched again, called Turk 182.
Dude's older brother gets injured on the job, he's a firefighter, and then he spends the whole movie trying to get justice because the city denies him benefits for his medical stuff.
It's like an inspiring movie.
It's really good.
I need to watch the movie.
Bob Clark, Bob Clark.
Interesting cast as well.
Stephen Keats, one of my favorite roles of his was in Silent Rage.
He played the doctor, one of the doctors who creates the monster.
And he's like basically a mad scientist in that movie.
It's really good.
I still need to see that.
It's like a Chuck Norris slasher movie.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Highly recommended.
It has like, I would just say it's a few minutes too long.
There's a section that the pace is amazing through the whole movie.
And they tried to do something clever for this long section of the movie and it almost works.
But it just, for me, and this is just me, it killed the pacing, but still recommend the film to anybody who hasn't seen it.
But TJ is played by our friend and yours, freaking James Marshall of Twin Peaks.
Oh my God.
Let me see.
Let's just do a common cast and crew here.
See if we had any other people.
Was it just one Twin Peaks are in this or is it two?
No, it's just one.
Yeah, I think so, yeah.
Nope, just James Marshall.
But so this is officially a Twin Peaks side movie.
I'm proclaiming it right now.
No, yeah, and I love that whole, especially when we're talking about stuff on the show, of course, but just in general, Six Degrees of Twin Peaks, which I had yesterday and following on from this, rewatched Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, which has, I think, two Twin Peaks alumni, as is Kimmie Robertson and David Duchovny.
Wow.
I did not know Duchovny.
That's brilliant.
I haven't seen that in, I haven't seen it since it debuted on video.
That was one of those movies, when it came out, I was very tempted to go to the theaters.
I was very tempted by that one.
It seems to have kind of disappeared a bit now.
I can't even see an official Blu-ray out.
I think somebody's done a bootleg, but cinema aside, I think it just went on to HBO.
I think they put the money behind it.
Yeah, well, same thing with Vibrations.
Yeah, where's Vibrations gone?
I'm just praying one day that like, somebody like Vinegar Syndrome or somebody gives it like the Miami Connection treatment or something.
Keno Lorber for no reason.
I don't know.
Somebody would be freaking amazing.
Why not?
Our buddy, he's got beautiful blonde locks in this.
Oh, his hair is amazing, yeah.
But his dad says to him about their music, I hope you yo-yos make it so that I don't have to hear this shit anymore.
But it's all in good fun.
His dad is a loving father who supports him.
I think there's some talk about his mother having passed away.
Yeah, yeah.
And she is saying, yeah, because he sounds like his dad's more of a classical music buff, he's saying it's your mom who gave you permission to drop the classical and now play this rock, rock, I don't know if he says rock shit or anything.
Even he did it, just be part of the, they have great banter, don't they?
Like him and his dad and the friends as well.
Dad's cool, but he still prefers Beethoven.
I almost said Beethoven because of Grease 2.
They say Beethoven in Grease 2, damn it.
I hope you yo-yos make it so I don't have to listen to this shit anymore.
I mean, imagine, responding to a noise complaint in my own house.
It's getting to be downright embarrassing.
I'd throw the book at you.
But then whose ass would I kick in ping pong?
So after the band breaks, they have their big gig that night.
They're all hyped about it.
And TJ has something he has to do first.
And one of his bandmates looks at him and goes, does this have something to do with your wiener?
Oh, and how it does.
And boy, will it lead him astray.
Totally, literally astray from where he's supposed to be going later.
So, yes, he goes to see his lady friend.
She's asleep.
She is a flight attendant, as her uniform hanging up can suggest.
And of course, when you're a flight attendant, you can afford pink satin sheets.
They get intimate, I guess.
They talk about wearing protection.
He makes gun jokes about having a sawed-off shotgun.
Like, yeah, you keep bragging, buddy.
But he eventually makes a French tickler joke, and they, quote unquote, make the sex act.
I just realized this is terrible.
It's probably going to get me sent to hell, but I will have a sawing off later.
Yes, I can confirm you're going to hell for that.
That's fucking amazing.
Thank you.
I'm sorry.
It just kind of popped in there.
Yeah, you really had to fit it in somehow.
Yeah.
Okay, so he sleeps after she leaves.
He totally sleeps late until 9 p.m.
like a fucking idiot.
And so he has to rush to the gig.
And as he's driving, all I can think about is me whenever my band has a gig.
I am there at least three hours before stage time because I'm so terrified that I've booked this gig and I'm keyed up.
I'll even get there, like, before the doors open.
Yeah.
Do you know how many bands start when the doors open?
Zero.
So, yeah, no, I'm perpetually early because it's like, I can't even wrap my mind around being on time much less late.
Oh, my God.
No, I think you got the right idea.
I'm kind of the opposite.
Sort of last minute, I'm trying to learn not to do that because it's just, yeah, running around last minute, it's not good for your stress levels.
Well, I'm like what they call a nerdlinger, a nerdy boy.
So while he's driving, he has to take a detour because the road's under construction.
He starts getting harassed by rednecks in a red truck.
Oh, God.
And one of them is played by Dana Ashbrook.
There's a guy, that's one of the other things.
I was like, oh, this is a Twin Peaks connection.
Because the dude with the backwards baseball cap looks like Dana Ashbrook to me.
You expect he's about to start wuffing at him or something.
Or just start throwing bags of cocaine around.
Or baby powder.
Or no, was it not baby powder?
Oh, laxative.
Laxative, baby laxatives.
Which, man, I snorted a lot of that before we got started.
So things escalate as he gets in a little chase with them and his car stalls out, and they start beating his frickin vehicle with baseball bats and golf clubs and shit.
And there's some heavy machinery nearby, which the guy who looks like Dana Ashbrook starts up, and it's not a bulldozer, and it's not like an earth mover type of thing.
It's like this crane that has...
What do you call it?
At least like a pneumatic drill almost, but not...
Yes.
Yeah, it's like this big spiky drill thing at the end of it.
And they start punching holes in his vehicle that he's trapped inside, and they eventually crush the roof.
The guy literally tries to kill him.
So they take off, and he wakes up in the hospital.
One of his hands is missing.
At first, we see one of his hands missing.
His girlfriend, Lisa, and his dad's there, and they look very concerned.
Then he sees...
Well, he tells them, my hands are hurt, are killing me.
And both of his hands were amputated in the accident, or damaged so much, they had to amputate in the accident.
Man, brutal.
I mean, you're saying that whole scene does escalate, I mean, and quickly, I mean, geez, you file that into that one, yeah.
Yikes.
So we see a scene where he is meeting with his therapist, and this lady looks like someone, and I cannot place who the hell she is.
She's got no...
She's the first person in the cast that doesn't have like a little profile thumbnail thing, so...
Virginia Sandal...
Oh, something you've mentioned before on the podcast, I think, which you will probably see here.
I think a TV show.
The Equalizer?
Yes, I have seen The Equalizer, yes.
That's a good show, but yeah, this...
She's been in like almost nothing.
I don't know who she looks like.
It's crazy.