January 9, 2025 • 25 mins
Well the time has come to review some of the more mid Cage movies. We pulled the ticket for 2015's Pay the Ghost. Does this movie outshine it's poor reputation? Get ready for some exposition dumps. This is bonus Cage Match.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Oh, God.
(00:05):
Oh, my God.
I do want to say off the bat.
(00:25):
I am impressed with the special effects in this film.
While they're not great, they are definitely well above
the lowest tier Nick Cage special effects we've ever seen.
White Jag.
Rude. Yeah.
As far as like CG animals go, yes, the vultures were better done.
(00:47):
The first few vulture shots.
I was like, is that a real fucking bird?
Until it flies.
And then you're like, oh, look at that.
It looks like one of those rubber bats on a string.
Yeah. Just dangling across.
So obviously, we're talking about 2015's pay the ghost.
Or as I like to call it, pay the bills.
Oh, hi. Oh.
(01:09):
But accurate. I mean, it is in that window.
Yeah, it's a it's a terrible 2015.
Well, also real quick, welcome back to Cage magical and roundabout
way of meeting Nicolas Cage.
I'm Sean here with my co-host Nick and our producer Peter.
And it's been a bit of a stun this.
So just going to throw that in there in case anyone's forgot.
I mean, it's mostly just been a long time for us.
It's been like a month since we recorded.
(01:32):
But we're back, bitches.
Anyway, yeah.
Pay the Ghost 2015 starring Nicolas Cage and Laurie from The Walking Dead.
Also, I mean, also, she was Anita Dick in Letter Kenny.
Oh, nice.
Yeah, it was funny.
Had you not mentioned that she was from The Walking Dead,
I would have done exactly what you did, Sean, and I would have just been like,
(01:53):
why do I know her face? Yeah.
She's not a great actress.
No, she wasn't.
And then I saw she was Laurie from The Walking Dead.
I'm like, that's why she's annoying.
She was just like, in my opinion, a terrible wife.
Well, so I had got confused with the dynamics of this.
Like what was the kid Charlie?
(02:14):
Was he actually Nick Cage's kid or was it her kid?
And Nick Cage was like husband to or something.
It was his kid.
Yeah, I think it was like they're being like their child.
It's my son. You lost my son.
It was like, you know, I mean, she is grieving.
Yeah. You want you want to have that fight then?
(02:34):
You want to argue semantics then?
Yeah. I mean, that's a good point.
I would definitely pull out the paternity test because if it wasn't my child,
I'd be like, well, why the fuck didn't you protect him?
Yeah, this is your fault.
Yeah. You sent him off with a strange person.
Yeah. To a carnival.
Everybody knows you don't let your kids go out with a literary professor.
(02:59):
Yeah, exactly. How old is Charlie supposed to be?
I think he's supposed to be like six or eight or something like that.
You know, he's he was supposed to start second grade.
Oh, so he's like eight the year after. So he was in first grade.
So that's a good question.
So he comes back from well, let's do a plot summary and then I want to get into that
because I'm really confused.
What grade of school does he go into then?
(03:21):
Like it's been a year that he was gone.
Yeah. But he didn't learn anything.
He didn't age. He hold him back. Yeah, that's true.
The basic premise of this film is
Nicolas Cage is a workaholic English professor
who's a good father, but just busy.
Like all intents and purposes, we don't see him be like a horrible father.
(03:41):
He's just busy.
He's in a busy time of his life.
Yeah. And he's trying to get tenure. So it kind of makes sense.
It's Halloween.
His kids like wants to go out and really wants to be with dad,
but he gets home late.
So he takes his kid to a Halloween fair
carnival across the street.
And then the kid goes missing hard cut to a year later.
(04:03):
That's the first half hour of the film.
Hard cut to a year later.
And like Nick Cage has got his all string boarded up.
He's in his like shitty bachelor apartment because he's a strange from his wife.
And he's trying to like he starts seeing hearing his son, Charlie,
like out on the streets in New York and starts seeing these signs to pay the ghost.
And it turns into a really bad like fucking Silent Hill
(04:28):
in the like the back half and is generally not great.
The one piece of this that really, really bugged me.
I mean, I get when movies need to have like some exposition machine,
but I hated when they were at the Celtic like ceremony and they're like
talking to that lady and she's like, I'm just a teacher for Montauk or whatever.
(04:49):
And then she's like, here's all the information.
Everything I wrote that in my notes.
I was like, oh, my God.
And then immediately after that, the second half of the story
gets filled in by his like literary research partner.
Exactly.
Just like, oh, here's the second half.
(05:09):
And it's like a long scene, too.
And she's just and this happens and then this happens.
And the rules of the veil is opened at this point,
but only for this amount of time and three children are taken
and those children can come back within one year.
It's like, how the fuck?
How do you know all this stuff?
It turned from like this is a fun school activity to witchcraft is real.
(05:30):
And I know about it.
Also, that was the nicest alleyway New York has ever seen.
It's so spacious.
Yeah, it's a real like no wonder.
Like people should be moving into that alleyway.
There is just room for activities.
Lots of activities, lots of burning.
Yeah. Yeah.
So the thing that bugged me about this movie, I mean, there's several things.
(05:51):
The other thing that bugged you one extremely specific thing that bugged me.
The fucking vultures like Nick Cage goes into that, like broken down
hovel to like find the homeless people in the pay the ghost sign.
Mm hmm.
There's just like three vultures on a dumpster and he's not like just chewing away.
Huh. New York vultures.
Yeah. What the fuck?
(06:12):
Those don't live there.
They don't. If I saw a vulture in New York City, I'd be like, that's fucking weird.
Something is wrong here.
Your entire life of living in New York and all of a sudden you just start seeing vultures.
Vultures. Something bad is going on.
These are harbingers of doom.
Like what the fuck is happening in New York City right now?
I mean, I'm not like a superstitious person, but if I started seeing something that was
(06:36):
was even like vaguely Omen ish Omen Omenesk Omenesk Omenesk.
I prefer Ruben Esk.
Ooh. With sauerkraut and corned beef inside.
Yeah, exactly.
Oh, yeah, it's like a chocolate covered Ruben.
I would try that, but that does sound repulsive.
(06:56):
I would I would I would definitely try that.
This is mildly fucking fucking pedantic.
But when does that stop me?
Something that really bugged me was the kids fucking pirate costume.
Just give me shitty fucking eye patch.
Why are you like painting a fucking eye patch on the kid?
When I was a kid, we suffered for our Halloween costumes.
I could barely breathe in most of my mask and like the isolates were so tiny.
(07:17):
I was wandering into traffic.
Now you got these soft kids with their fucking fake like,
how do you know these kids are soft?
Batman forever muscles like on their costumes.
I had to work for those muscles as a kid.
You were young Hercules.
So I want to just wrap up that
a little teacher scene with the exposition dump
(07:40):
with when he showed her that symbol, the maiden mother crone thingy.
And she's like, oh, it's this.
It's the most devastating of all symbols here.
I happen to have a pendant with that featured.
I'm just wearing it right now.
Why there's some fucking weird choices in how they give us all the information.
(08:04):
So then the other exposition dump that you were talking about with his like research,
buddy, yeah, right before she gets tossed out the window by the right.
But then she walks past that statue of like the bustiest
bare breasted woman being like burned at the stake.
I think I want to go to this college.
This place is great.
I will say that scene specifically because my brain is my brain.
(08:24):
Like when she comes out of the office, hair pulled back,
wearing that like slightly too short overcoat.
And I'm just like, I've seen this adult documentary.
And then there was the booby statue.
I'm like, I've definitely seen this adult documentary.
And then she went down all the way down all the way.
And now, again, that was just why did the ghost need to kill her?
(08:47):
I think because she had like because she figured out her name.
Yeah. Like in the names of power.
Or yeah, or maybe we got to ask that teacher like a
I don't like my story being told.
Ghost, I guess.
Well, I mean, maybe it's like too much of a clue.
Same reason she killed the psychic medium.
But the real answer is just to progress the plot.
Yeah, that's boring, though.
(09:09):
Ultimately, just that's where this movie.
I could forgive this movie if one you cut the fucking 30 minute intro.
Yeah, tight 60 would be great.
There's no chemistry between him and his wife at the beginning of this.
No, the kids, not a terrible actor.
(09:30):
I don't hate the kid.
Oh, man, I thought that kid was awful.
I hate that.
Yeah. Yeah.
But I will say, like and then like lay off the fucking CG,
like go shit at the end and have it be a little bit more mysterious and spooky,
because I'm not a horror movie guy, so it's not hard to like spook me.
But there were a few like creepy scenes in this film,
(09:52):
like when the Razor Scooters just like doing its own thing in the house.
I'm like, oh, yeah, that's scary.
I don't like that.
There's a couple of jump scares that then like that.
You got me. I hate jump scares, though.
Yeah, I know. It feels like such a cheap.
It is cheap.
This movie could have been better if you cut out the jump scares
and focused more on like actually creating an element
(10:13):
or like a feeling of terror.
Yeah, that's the thing.
Scary movies aren't for me either in a lot of ways.
And I think the ones that are most effective to me are the ones that do just have that
like persistent build of dread where it's just like, oh, God, I am so uncomfortable right now.
Like, where is the release from this?
It's like death.
It's scare edging.
(10:34):
You scare edging. Exactly.
But like I think this movie does it decently.
Again, this CG isn't the worst.
The worst CG is the witch.
I mean, the ghosty kids were not the best either.
But well, when they start flying, yeah, that's bad.
But like when he's in the fucking like void with all of the ghost children,
(10:55):
that was legitimately spooky.
It was. That was actually a cool, cool little shot and scene.
What is up with that bridge?
Because honestly, there's no supports to it.
It just like goes and goes.
No, well, on the last day of salmon,
there are bridges that can float.
This movie turns into Silent Hill.
But like when he's walking through all the dead kids,
(11:18):
all I can think about is the episode of The Simpsons,
a streetcar named Marge, where Maggie's in the daycare
and they can't have their pacifiers and like they do the mission of possible,
like get all the pacifiers Homer goes to pick up the babies.
And they're all in one room sucking their pacifiers in unison.
(11:38):
So you just have that loud echoing pop and Homer just like creeps through,
picks up Maggie, goes out, close the door, just goes,
Oh, baby.
But so like I didn't.
Yeah, I mean, large parts of this movie I found mostly inoffensive,
like the acting's not great.
Nick Cage clearly doesn't care that much.
(11:59):
Yeah, he's in his like slow dad run phase.
Yeah, he's speaking of inoffensive.
How did you feel about Mia's mom's broken English?
Clearly, she's a native English speaker trying to do broken.
Yeah. Oh, God, that is rough.
Yeah, it's like, please don't do that.
Like, hmm, maybe I am a soft boy.
I don't know if I can handle listening to this.
(12:22):
Like borderline races.
I did. So you guys know how much I hate whenever like there's a large time jump
and everyone like look the exact same.
I do appreciate that the detective they let have a little stubble.
Yeah, that's nice. That's good.
Yeah. The passage of time really working hard on growing a beard.
(12:43):
He sucks at it, apparently.
Yeah. Well, maybe they have rules.
Yeah. Stupid cops.
Cops don't have rules.
Speaking of stupid cops,
that cop at the carnival when he's telling him
and that cop just like, I don't know, maybe he went home.
Fucking stop bothering me.
It's like you think I got to I got to care about a kid being lost.
Yeah. Fuck you.
(13:04):
We're right back to bad cop.
And I would say bad kid.
Yeah, I agree.
I'm just going to jump into that right here.
It probably wasn't his fault so much, but you know.
What Charlie?
Well, he didn't like choose to get abducted by the witch.
Hey, man.
He was just sitting there looking all juicy and Protestant.
That which is definitely going to take him.
I'm assuming he's like, you know, probably.
(13:25):
I said, yeah, I don't know what a Protestant looks like.
I was like, I kept getting tripped up by Charlie's room because it's just like,
here's the child's room starter pack.
Here's dinosaurs.
Here's animals.
Here's an Iron Man.
Here's like sports wallpaper.
I'm like, none of those things go together.
But it's just like a wall runner.
(13:46):
Like, yeah, it's like trim.
It's a false horizon for your bedroom.
This movie was weird to me because like it is bad.
Like, it's not a good movie by any means, but I did not have a bad time watching it,
which is a very strange thing to kind of square.
Like, I wasn't sad about it.
I didn't like get offended in a major way.
(14:08):
The CG was fine.
You know, like the acting is pretty mid, but like nothing about it was like
this sucks, you know.
I mean, like I said, inoffensive, which I think is worse because it's just going to like
we're never going to think about this movie.
The movie is going to be forgettable.
But it's funny because all the other people that we talk to who do cage podcasts are like,
oh, pay the ghost fucking sucks.
(14:30):
And I was kind of like hyped for bad.
And it was just I mean, I think.
And again, I think there's a argument that like something this mid is worse than something
so terrible that we could get like we can actually milk it for content.
Yeah, they like fully missed the mark on being a good movie and a bad movie.
(14:51):
And what we ended up with was like Ghostnado.
And I mean, you did get a ghostnado in there.
Yeah. Also, OK, I want to talk about I want to talk about blind sewer man.
Oh, yeah, please talk about blind sewer man.
So when Nick Cage sees the pay the ghost side and like goes underground
and finds this like unhoused encampment,
(15:13):
they seem to be led by this one blind guy with dreadlocks
who only speaks out of the corner of his mouth.
But like, you know, seems to know about like the ghost.
And like it seems to be the only person who knows what's going on.
It's like, what does pay the ghost?
Means like, follow me.
He like picks up a torch.
Blind guy just walks over to like a bucket fire bucket, picks up a torch.
(15:34):
No problem.
And just wanders wanders Nick Cage through the hall.
Later, we find out the guy had a flashlight the entire time.
Torch is way more dramatic, though.
Yeah, I did like when he pulled out the flashlight later and hands it to Nick Cage
and is just like, you'll need this more than me.
It's like, well, wait a minute, let's go back to that torch scene
(15:55):
where you Bogart in the torch, because this is during the day
when he like goes down the first time.
But later on at night, when he's trying to, you know, get to the bridge
between worlds, that room that needed a torch fully lit.
Oh, yeah, true.
Well, he had time like he knew Nick was going to be back.
He fired up the generator.
Yeah. Yeah.
This is another fucking weird only Sean cares about this
(16:16):
because there's something wrong with my brain.
I really hated that when they were having the dramatic
like scene in the tunnel with the torch, the source of light
is between the two of them.
But you always see both their shadows cast behind each person.
I didn't notice that.
I thought that was just showing that the like gateway was being opened
because then the witch does the jump scare or whatever,
because the shadows shift around behind him in that scene
(16:36):
and then the witch pops out.
And then it's the end of the scene because he's like,
well, I think it's time to.
Well, I think it's time to go.
Yeah, it's also behind that guy.
I don't know what else this DP has done, but I don't think he's
yeah, getting a whole lot of work.
I didn't do a good deep dive into
to what anyone did from this.
I couldn't even tell you who directed this movie.
(16:57):
Yeah, OK.
Turns out it was the side mouth itself.
So I hated his.
Homeless. I hated his white guy dreads,
but I think I've just got a bias against white guy dreads.
Unless you're Perry Farrell in 1989, you can't pull them off.
But that was pre Internet.
So yeah, it's OK to have dreads pre Internet.
Now post Internet. Look at Perry Farrell.
(17:17):
It's not good.
It's getting in fights with Dave Navarro on stage.
Yeah, everybody knows Perry Farrell can't take Dave Navarro.
Look at it.
I mean, Perry Perry Farrell waited till after Dave's long covid.
So maybe that's when he thought he should take a shot.
So in this movie also ends with fucking sequel bait
with his like research assistant who has like been impaled on rebar
(17:43):
coming back to life, conveniently left out in the middle of the college commons
just thrown out of a window into a nobody noticed square.
Just here's where we keep our rebar.
When I was watching this movie and we got to the end there
and like they pull the kids out of the fucking gate.
(18:06):
I was like, oh, man, that kid is never going to act right again.
Like his life is fucked.
And then immediately, oh, we were just at the carnival.
It's like, oh, wait, no, no.
Convenient memory loss. Yeah. OK.
Because you're right. No trauma here.
So jacked up.
We finally got back to it.
It's been a year.
The kid has no memory of being abducted for a year.
(18:29):
So he just thinks it's the same fucking day.
Yeah, except somehow dad's wearing different clothes, not dressed like a cowboy.
Kids don't pay attention.
Yeah. Right. What happened to your cowboy costume?
I'm assuming pictures of data missing from the home.
Like there's been a year of estranged relationship.
It's a good point.
Mom's a discarification now because she's got like a big mother maiden crone
(18:53):
brand on her.
All of his friends are going to be a year older.
Like cops are going to have questions.
I was thinking about that, too.
Like what does Nick Cage explain to the cops?
He brings three children back from the underground magically.
And it's just like, don't worry about it.
I saved the day.
What's that kid going to think when he finds out that some lady
(19:13):
died in his bedroom while she while he was gone?
Just burned from the inside out. Yeah.
I don't know, man. Just smoked.
It's like, why does my room smell so funny?
Yeah, it's just it's such a weak little thing at the end.
The story has like promise.
It was just so poorly executed, I feel that like there's plot holes all over.
(19:38):
There's the need for those large exposition dumps like it
needs so much.
Even when you break down the aspects of a horror film and like Nick Cage
getting blamed for like the kid going missing, like it would make sense
if he was a negligent father, if he wasn't paying attention,
but he was just buying his kid an ice cream while holding the kid's hand.
(19:59):
Like there's no arc to like Nick Cage's character.
Like he doesn't learn a lesson because of any of this.
Nope, nothing at all.
Just like we didn't learn anything.
I mean, we learned we don't like this movie.
I learned that pagan rituals are being carried out by school
teachers in the alleyways of New York.
I mean, that sounds accurate.
(20:19):
During that scene, did anyone what does anyone else like
Nick Cage is going to kick a woman?
Oh, man.
That would have been hilarious.
He just roundhouse kicks her into the fire.
He didn't give us good enough information.
Sister Beach shows up in a bear costume again, because it's Halloween.
(20:40):
He's like, oh, not again.
I've seen this movie. Wow.
All right. Any final thoughts on this sucker?
I wish it was worse.
I kind of wish it was worse, too.
Yeah, I don't think this would I think pushing this into the
it's a better movie category makes it still just sort of like a soft better.
I think if you went really like worse, worse, it would be fun.
(21:03):
Yeah, you would need some like serious talent behind this to make it good.
Like like that guy who made The Witch.
If he rewrote and redirected and changed most of this movie,
then that would be great.
But kept Nick Cage.
I did have this one thought about this film, and I'm kind of going to try
and carry it forward.
Well, now this had been a better thought to have like in the 32 or 64.
(21:28):
It doesn't really make sense in the Master Eight scene is we know
we like these films at this point.
But just I was thinking like, why is Nick Cage in this movie?
Like he brings nothing to this film.
The only reason he's here is because he's a name.
He is the only name in this film.
Like you're only going to watch this movie because Nick Cage is in it.
But yeah, he's just a working actor.
(21:48):
Nothing in this film.
So it could have been any other schlubby dad in this film.
And the film would have been the same.
Oh, yeah, they definitely put out like shotgun sprayed
this to every like talent agent or whatever.
And Nick Cage was the first one to raise his hand.
He's like, oh, yeah, I did buy something last week.
(22:08):
I need to pay this off.
This makes sense for him.
I saw like a nine second, like little interview clip of him talking
like about being inspired by the exorcist for this film.
And I'm like, you almost had it.
If you would have cut out the ghost NATO maybe.
Ghost NATO, man.
I'm just oh, that was the other thought I had during the end of this movie
(22:30):
when the ghost NATO started, I'm like, this is how Ghostbusters ends.
Yeah. Also, wait, pay the ghost.
What are they? Oh, they're paying the ghost with their children.
That's yeah.
I was like, what are they paying the ghost with my children?
Yeah, I thought there was going to be some like balancing of scales with that.
But no, it's just about paying her back for her kids getting burned at the stake.
(22:51):
Now, is she stopped?
Like, I mean, we know like, no, she's back.
She's alive in the in the league.
But it's like the ghost back like, well, like, is she still a ghost
or is she now in the body in the corporeal world in that lady's body?
We'll have to wait for the signal what her boobs are like,
(23:13):
because, you know, I assume women would be interested in that, too.
I've seen that adult documentary.
Yeah, I think my recommendation is don't watch it.
But if it's on TV at a bar or something in the background,
pay slight attention because it's kind of fun and stupid.
Yeah, that seems fair.
It's not super interesting as far as bad movies go.
(23:35):
But it's not good enough to like demand your attention.
No couple of fun little scares.
But otherwise, toothless, toothless is a good word for it.
All right. So next episode, when we're back,
we're going to be back to the regular bracket back to the master eight.
It's going to be a little bit of a different format again, because why not?
And first up, we've got the the action head to head of Conair and Red Rock West.
(24:02):
Fuck, yeah. Only bangers from here on out.
It's true. It's all good shit from here on out.
Get ready to have strong opinions,
because we're probably going to offend you somewhere.
Yeah. I mean, if we haven't yet. Good.
So here's a thought I had recently.
If we do the live record for the last episode,
(24:22):
Peter can't edit out any of the things we say.
We're not doing a live record of anything.
Peter doesn't trust us that far. Come on.
All right. Well, thanks for listening, everybody.
If you want to chat with us on social media, it's cage underscore match underscore pod.
We are on Patreon at cage match and special thanks to our Sparkle buddies,
(24:43):
Josh, Sean, Josie, Rico, Matt, Adam and Bill, and to our cage dancers,
Ira, John Freeman, Lance, Nathan and Cameron.
Whoo. Still got it. Nice.
That was close. It's been a while.
Yeah. Join us to Master 8. Yeah.
Master 8 with us.
Bye. I don't get it.
(25:05):
Bye bye.
Yeah. Yeah.
The I think that was from the great escape is what they lampooned in that.
But yeah. Yeah.
I couldn't remember.
This would have been before Mission Impossible.
The movie is that's the like, done, done.
(25:27):
No, that's a different song. Never mind.
No, that was it.
Was it? That's the one.
Yeah. Yeah. But for.
All right. So we don't have the rights to it.
Ah, shit. They're going to come for us.
A movie from 1945.
We're almost there.
Oh, God.
(00:05):
Oh, my God.
I do want to say off the bat.
(00:25):
I am impressed with the special effects in this film.
While they're not great, they are definitely well above
the lowest tier Nick Cage special effects we've ever seen.
White Jag.
Rude. Yeah.
As far as like CG animals go, yes, the vultures were better done.
(00:47):
The first few vulture shots.
I was like, is that a real fucking bird?
Until it flies.
And then you're like, oh, look at that.
It looks like one of those rubber bats on a string.
Yeah. Just dangling across.
So obviously, we're talking about 2015's pay the ghost.
Or as I like to call it, pay the bills.
Oh, hi. Oh.
(01:09):
But accurate. I mean, it is in that window.
Yeah, it's a it's a terrible 2015.
Well, also real quick, welcome back to Cage magical and roundabout
way of meeting Nicolas Cage.
I'm Sean here with my co-host Nick and our producer Peter.
And it's been a bit of a stun this.
So just going to throw that in there in case anyone's forgot.
I mean, it's mostly just been a long time for us.
It's been like a month since we recorded.
(01:32):
But we're back, bitches.
Anyway, yeah.
Pay the Ghost 2015 starring Nicolas Cage and Laurie from The Walking Dead.
Also, I mean, also, she was Anita Dick in Letter Kenny.
Oh, nice.
Yeah, it was funny.
Had you not mentioned that she was from The Walking Dead,
I would have done exactly what you did, Sean, and I would have just been like,
(01:53):
why do I know her face? Yeah.
She's not a great actress.
No, she wasn't.
And then I saw she was Laurie from The Walking Dead.
I'm like, that's why she's annoying.
She was just like, in my opinion, a terrible wife.
Well, so I had got confused with the dynamics of this.
Like what was the kid Charlie?
(02:14):
Was he actually Nick Cage's kid or was it her kid?
And Nick Cage was like husband to or something.
It was his kid.
Yeah, I think it was like they're being like their child.
It's my son. You lost my son.
It was like, you know, I mean, she is grieving.
Yeah. You want you want to have that fight then?
(02:34):
You want to argue semantics then?
Yeah. I mean, that's a good point.
I would definitely pull out the paternity test because if it wasn't my child,
I'd be like, well, why the fuck didn't you protect him?
Yeah, this is your fault.
Yeah. You sent him off with a strange person.
Yeah. To a carnival.
Everybody knows you don't let your kids go out with a literary professor.
(02:59):
Yeah, exactly. How old is Charlie supposed to be?
I think he's supposed to be like six or eight or something like that.
You know, he's he was supposed to start second grade.
Oh, so he's like eight the year after. So he was in first grade.
So that's a good question.
So he comes back from well, let's do a plot summary and then I want to get into that
because I'm really confused.
What grade of school does he go into then?
(03:21):
Like it's been a year that he was gone.
Yeah. But he didn't learn anything.
He didn't age. He hold him back. Yeah, that's true.
The basic premise of this film is
Nicolas Cage is a workaholic English professor
who's a good father, but just busy.
Like all intents and purposes, we don't see him be like a horrible father.
(03:41):
He's just busy.
He's in a busy time of his life.
Yeah. And he's trying to get tenure. So it kind of makes sense.
It's Halloween.
His kids like wants to go out and really wants to be with dad,
but he gets home late.
So he takes his kid to a Halloween fair
carnival across the street.
And then the kid goes missing hard cut to a year later.
(04:03):
That's the first half hour of the film.
Hard cut to a year later.
And like Nick Cage has got his all string boarded up.
He's in his like shitty bachelor apartment because he's a strange from his wife.
And he's trying to like he starts seeing hearing his son, Charlie,
like out on the streets in New York and starts seeing these signs to pay the ghost.
And it turns into a really bad like fucking Silent Hill
(04:28):
in the like the back half and is generally not great.
The one piece of this that really, really bugged me.
I mean, I get when movies need to have like some exposition machine,
but I hated when they were at the Celtic like ceremony and they're like
talking to that lady and she's like, I'm just a teacher for Montauk or whatever.
(04:49):
And then she's like, here's all the information.
Everything I wrote that in my notes.
I was like, oh, my God.
And then immediately after that, the second half of the story
gets filled in by his like literary research partner.
Exactly.
Just like, oh, here's the second half.
(05:09):
And it's like a long scene, too.
And she's just and this happens and then this happens.
And the rules of the veil is opened at this point,
but only for this amount of time and three children are taken
and those children can come back within one year.
It's like, how the fuck?
How do you know all this stuff?
It turned from like this is a fun school activity to witchcraft is real.
(05:30):
And I know about it.
Also, that was the nicest alleyway New York has ever seen.
It's so spacious.
Yeah, it's a real like no wonder.
Like people should be moving into that alleyway.
There is just room for activities.
Lots of activities, lots of burning.
Yeah. Yeah.
So the thing that bugged me about this movie, I mean, there's several things.
(05:51):
The other thing that bugged you one extremely specific thing that bugged me.
The fucking vultures like Nick Cage goes into that, like broken down
hovel to like find the homeless people in the pay the ghost sign.
Mm hmm.
There's just like three vultures on a dumpster and he's not like just chewing away.
Huh. New York vultures.
Yeah. What the fuck?
(06:12):
Those don't live there.
They don't. If I saw a vulture in New York City, I'd be like, that's fucking weird.
Something is wrong here.
Your entire life of living in New York and all of a sudden you just start seeing vultures.
Vultures. Something bad is going on.
These are harbingers of doom.
Like what the fuck is happening in New York City right now?
I mean, I'm not like a superstitious person, but if I started seeing something that was
(06:36):
was even like vaguely Omen ish Omen Omenesk Omenesk Omenesk.
I prefer Ruben Esk.
Ooh. With sauerkraut and corned beef inside.
Yeah, exactly.
Oh, yeah, it's like a chocolate covered Ruben.
I would try that, but that does sound repulsive.
(06:56):
I would I would I would definitely try that.
This is mildly fucking fucking pedantic.
But when does that stop me?
Something that really bugged me was the kids fucking pirate costume.
Just give me shitty fucking eye patch.
Why are you like painting a fucking eye patch on the kid?
When I was a kid, we suffered for our Halloween costumes.
I could barely breathe in most of my mask and like the isolates were so tiny.
(07:17):
I was wandering into traffic.
Now you got these soft kids with their fucking fake like,
how do you know these kids are soft?
Batman forever muscles like on their costumes.
I had to work for those muscles as a kid.
You were young Hercules.
So I want to just wrap up that
a little teacher scene with the exposition dump
(07:40):
with when he showed her that symbol, the maiden mother crone thingy.
And she's like, oh, it's this.
It's the most devastating of all symbols here.
I happen to have a pendant with that featured.
I'm just wearing it right now.
Why there's some fucking weird choices in how they give us all the information.
(08:04):
So then the other exposition dump that you were talking about with his like research,
buddy, yeah, right before she gets tossed out the window by the right.
But then she walks past that statue of like the bustiest
bare breasted woman being like burned at the stake.
I think I want to go to this college.
This place is great.
I will say that scene specifically because my brain is my brain.
(08:24):
Like when she comes out of the office, hair pulled back,
wearing that like slightly too short overcoat.
And I'm just like, I've seen this adult documentary.
And then there was the booby statue.
I'm like, I've definitely seen this adult documentary.
And then she went down all the way down all the way.
And now, again, that was just why did the ghost need to kill her?
(08:47):
I think because she had like because she figured out her name.
Yeah. Like in the names of power.
Or yeah, or maybe we got to ask that teacher like a
I don't like my story being told.
Ghost, I guess.
Well, I mean, maybe it's like too much of a clue.
Same reason she killed the psychic medium.
But the real answer is just to progress the plot.
Yeah, that's boring, though.
(09:09):
Ultimately, just that's where this movie.
I could forgive this movie if one you cut the fucking 30 minute intro.
Yeah, tight 60 would be great.
There's no chemistry between him and his wife at the beginning of this.
No, the kids, not a terrible actor.
(09:30):
I don't hate the kid.
Oh, man, I thought that kid was awful.
I hate that.
Yeah. Yeah.
But I will say, like and then like lay off the fucking CG,
like go shit at the end and have it be a little bit more mysterious and spooky,
because I'm not a horror movie guy, so it's not hard to like spook me.
But there were a few like creepy scenes in this film,
(09:52):
like when the Razor Scooters just like doing its own thing in the house.
I'm like, oh, yeah, that's scary.
I don't like that.
There's a couple of jump scares that then like that.
You got me. I hate jump scares, though.
Yeah, I know. It feels like such a cheap.
It is cheap.
This movie could have been better if you cut out the jump scares
and focused more on like actually creating an element
(10:13):
or like a feeling of terror.
Yeah, that's the thing.
Scary movies aren't for me either in a lot of ways.
And I think the ones that are most effective to me are the ones that do just have that
like persistent build of dread where it's just like, oh, God, I am so uncomfortable right now.
Like, where is the release from this?
It's like death.
It's scare edging.
(10:34):
You scare edging. Exactly.
But like I think this movie does it decently.
Again, this CG isn't the worst.
The worst CG is the witch.
I mean, the ghosty kids were not the best either.
But well, when they start flying, yeah, that's bad.
But like when he's in the fucking like void with all of the ghost children,
(10:55):
that was legitimately spooky.
It was. That was actually a cool, cool little shot and scene.
What is up with that bridge?
Because honestly, there's no supports to it.
It just like goes and goes.
No, well, on the last day of salmon,
there are bridges that can float.
This movie turns into Silent Hill.
But like when he's walking through all the dead kids,
(11:18):
all I can think about is the episode of The Simpsons,
a streetcar named Marge, where Maggie's in the daycare
and they can't have their pacifiers and like they do the mission of possible,
like get all the pacifiers Homer goes to pick up the babies.
And they're all in one room sucking their pacifiers in unison.
(11:38):
So you just have that loud echoing pop and Homer just like creeps through,
picks up Maggie, goes out, close the door, just goes,
Oh, baby.
But so like I didn't.
Yeah, I mean, large parts of this movie I found mostly inoffensive,
like the acting's not great.
Nick Cage clearly doesn't care that much.
(11:59):
Yeah, he's in his like slow dad run phase.
Yeah, he's speaking of inoffensive.
How did you feel about Mia's mom's broken English?
Clearly, she's a native English speaker trying to do broken.
Yeah. Oh, God, that is rough.
Yeah, it's like, please don't do that.
Like, hmm, maybe I am a soft boy.
I don't know if I can handle listening to this.
(12:22):
Like borderline races.
I did. So you guys know how much I hate whenever like there's a large time jump
and everyone like look the exact same.
I do appreciate that the detective they let have a little stubble.
Yeah, that's nice. That's good.
Yeah. The passage of time really working hard on growing a beard.
(12:43):
He sucks at it, apparently.
Yeah. Well, maybe they have rules.
Yeah. Stupid cops.
Cops don't have rules.
Speaking of stupid cops,
that cop at the carnival when he's telling him
and that cop just like, I don't know, maybe he went home.
Fucking stop bothering me.
It's like you think I got to I got to care about a kid being lost.
Yeah. Fuck you.
(13:04):
We're right back to bad cop.
And I would say bad kid.
Yeah, I agree.
I'm just going to jump into that right here.
It probably wasn't his fault so much, but you know.
What Charlie?
Well, he didn't like choose to get abducted by the witch.
Hey, man.
He was just sitting there looking all juicy and Protestant.
That which is definitely going to take him.
I'm assuming he's like, you know, probably.
(13:25):
I said, yeah, I don't know what a Protestant looks like.
I was like, I kept getting tripped up by Charlie's room because it's just like,
here's the child's room starter pack.
Here's dinosaurs.
Here's animals.
Here's an Iron Man.
Here's like sports wallpaper.
I'm like, none of those things go together.
But it's just like a wall runner.
(13:46):
Like, yeah, it's like trim.
It's a false horizon for your bedroom.
This movie was weird to me because like it is bad.
Like, it's not a good movie by any means, but I did not have a bad time watching it,
which is a very strange thing to kind of square.
Like, I wasn't sad about it.
I didn't like get offended in a major way.
(14:08):
The CG was fine.
You know, like the acting is pretty mid, but like nothing about it was like
this sucks, you know.
I mean, like I said, inoffensive, which I think is worse because it's just going to like
we're never going to think about this movie.
The movie is going to be forgettable.
But it's funny because all the other people that we talk to who do cage podcasts are like,
oh, pay the ghost fucking sucks.
(14:30):
And I was kind of like hyped for bad.
And it was just I mean, I think.
And again, I think there's a argument that like something this mid is worse than something
so terrible that we could get like we can actually milk it for content.
Yeah, they like fully missed the mark on being a good movie and a bad movie.
(14:51):
And what we ended up with was like Ghostnado.
And I mean, you did get a ghostnado in there.
Yeah. Also, OK, I want to talk about I want to talk about blind sewer man.
Oh, yeah, please talk about blind sewer man.
So when Nick Cage sees the pay the ghost side and like goes underground
and finds this like unhoused encampment,
(15:13):
they seem to be led by this one blind guy with dreadlocks
who only speaks out of the corner of his mouth.
But like, you know, seems to know about like the ghost.
And like it seems to be the only person who knows what's going on.
It's like, what does pay the ghost?
Means like, follow me.
He like picks up a torch.
Blind guy just walks over to like a bucket fire bucket, picks up a torch.
(15:34):
No problem.
And just wanders wanders Nick Cage through the hall.
Later, we find out the guy had a flashlight the entire time.
Torch is way more dramatic, though.
Yeah, I did like when he pulled out the flashlight later and hands it to Nick Cage
and is just like, you'll need this more than me.
It's like, well, wait a minute, let's go back to that torch scene
(15:55):
where you Bogart in the torch, because this is during the day
when he like goes down the first time.
But later on at night, when he's trying to, you know, get to the bridge
between worlds, that room that needed a torch fully lit.
Oh, yeah, true.
Well, he had time like he knew Nick was going to be back.
He fired up the generator.
Yeah. Yeah.
This is another fucking weird only Sean cares about this
(16:16):
because there's something wrong with my brain.
I really hated that when they were having the dramatic
like scene in the tunnel with the torch, the source of light
is between the two of them.
But you always see both their shadows cast behind each person.
I didn't notice that.
I thought that was just showing that the like gateway was being opened
because then the witch does the jump scare or whatever,
because the shadows shift around behind him in that scene
(16:36):
and then the witch pops out.
And then it's the end of the scene because he's like,
well, I think it's time to.
Well, I think it's time to go.
Yeah, it's also behind that guy.
I don't know what else this DP has done, but I don't think he's
yeah, getting a whole lot of work.
I didn't do a good deep dive into
to what anyone did from this.
I couldn't even tell you who directed this movie.
(16:57):
Yeah, OK.
Turns out it was the side mouth itself.
So I hated his.
Homeless. I hated his white guy dreads,
but I think I've just got a bias against white guy dreads.
Unless you're Perry Farrell in 1989, you can't pull them off.
But that was pre Internet.
So yeah, it's OK to have dreads pre Internet.
Now post Internet. Look at Perry Farrell.
(17:17):
It's not good.
It's getting in fights with Dave Navarro on stage.
Yeah, everybody knows Perry Farrell can't take Dave Navarro.
Look at it.
I mean, Perry Perry Farrell waited till after Dave's long covid.
So maybe that's when he thought he should take a shot.
So in this movie also ends with fucking sequel bait
with his like research assistant who has like been impaled on rebar
(17:43):
coming back to life, conveniently left out in the middle of the college commons
just thrown out of a window into a nobody noticed square.
Just here's where we keep our rebar.
When I was watching this movie and we got to the end there
and like they pull the kids out of the fucking gate.
(18:06):
I was like, oh, man, that kid is never going to act right again.
Like his life is fucked.
And then immediately, oh, we were just at the carnival.
It's like, oh, wait, no, no.
Convenient memory loss. Yeah. OK.
Because you're right. No trauma here.
So jacked up.
We finally got back to it.
It's been a year.
The kid has no memory of being abducted for a year.
(18:29):
So he just thinks it's the same fucking day.
Yeah, except somehow dad's wearing different clothes, not dressed like a cowboy.
Kids don't pay attention.
Yeah. Right. What happened to your cowboy costume?
I'm assuming pictures of data missing from the home.
Like there's been a year of estranged relationship.
It's a good point.
Mom's a discarification now because she's got like a big mother maiden crone
(18:53):
brand on her.
All of his friends are going to be a year older.
Like cops are going to have questions.
I was thinking about that, too.
Like what does Nick Cage explain to the cops?
He brings three children back from the underground magically.
And it's just like, don't worry about it.
I saved the day.
What's that kid going to think when he finds out that some lady
(19:13):
died in his bedroom while she while he was gone?
Just burned from the inside out. Yeah.
I don't know, man. Just smoked.
It's like, why does my room smell so funny?
Yeah, it's just it's such a weak little thing at the end.
The story has like promise.
It was just so poorly executed, I feel that like there's plot holes all over.
(19:38):
There's the need for those large exposition dumps like it
needs so much.
Even when you break down the aspects of a horror film and like Nick Cage
getting blamed for like the kid going missing, like it would make sense
if he was a negligent father, if he wasn't paying attention,
but he was just buying his kid an ice cream while holding the kid's hand.
(19:59):
Like there's no arc to like Nick Cage's character.
Like he doesn't learn a lesson because of any of this.
Nope, nothing at all.
Just like we didn't learn anything.
I mean, we learned we don't like this movie.
I learned that pagan rituals are being carried out by school
teachers in the alleyways of New York.
I mean, that sounds accurate.
(20:19):
During that scene, did anyone what does anyone else like
Nick Cage is going to kick a woman?
Oh, man.
That would have been hilarious.
He just roundhouse kicks her into the fire.
He didn't give us good enough information.
Sister Beach shows up in a bear costume again, because it's Halloween.
(20:40):
He's like, oh, not again.
I've seen this movie. Wow.
All right. Any final thoughts on this sucker?
I wish it was worse.
I kind of wish it was worse, too.
Yeah, I don't think this would I think pushing this into the
it's a better movie category makes it still just sort of like a soft better.
I think if you went really like worse, worse, it would be fun.
(21:03):
Yeah, you would need some like serious talent behind this to make it good.
Like like that guy who made The Witch.
If he rewrote and redirected and changed most of this movie,
then that would be great.
But kept Nick Cage.
I did have this one thought about this film, and I'm kind of going to try
and carry it forward.
Well, now this had been a better thought to have like in the 32 or 64.
(21:28):
It doesn't really make sense in the Master Eight scene is we know
we like these films at this point.
But just I was thinking like, why is Nick Cage in this movie?
Like he brings nothing to this film.
The only reason he's here is because he's a name.
He is the only name in this film.
Like you're only going to watch this movie because Nick Cage is in it.
But yeah, he's just a working actor.
(21:48):
Nothing in this film.
So it could have been any other schlubby dad in this film.
And the film would have been the same.
Oh, yeah, they definitely put out like shotgun sprayed
this to every like talent agent or whatever.
And Nick Cage was the first one to raise his hand.
He's like, oh, yeah, I did buy something last week.
(22:08):
I need to pay this off.
This makes sense for him.
I saw like a nine second, like little interview clip of him talking
like about being inspired by the exorcist for this film.
And I'm like, you almost had it.
If you would have cut out the ghost NATO maybe.
Ghost NATO, man.
I'm just oh, that was the other thought I had during the end of this movie
(22:30):
when the ghost NATO started, I'm like, this is how Ghostbusters ends.
Yeah. Also, wait, pay the ghost.
What are they? Oh, they're paying the ghost with their children.
That's yeah.
I was like, what are they paying the ghost with my children?
Yeah, I thought there was going to be some like balancing of scales with that.
But no, it's just about paying her back for her kids getting burned at the stake.
(22:51):
Now, is she stopped?
Like, I mean, we know like, no, she's back.
She's alive in the in the league.
But it's like the ghost back like, well, like, is she still a ghost
or is she now in the body in the corporeal world in that lady's body?
We'll have to wait for the signal what her boobs are like,
(23:13):
because, you know, I assume women would be interested in that, too.
I've seen that adult documentary.
Yeah, I think my recommendation is don't watch it.
But if it's on TV at a bar or something in the background,
pay slight attention because it's kind of fun and stupid.
Yeah, that seems fair.
It's not super interesting as far as bad movies go.
(23:35):
But it's not good enough to like demand your attention.
No couple of fun little scares.
But otherwise, toothless, toothless is a good word for it.
All right. So next episode, when we're back,
we're going to be back to the regular bracket back to the master eight.
It's going to be a little bit of a different format again, because why not?
And first up, we've got the the action head to head of Conair and Red Rock West.
(24:02):
Fuck, yeah. Only bangers from here on out.
It's true. It's all good shit from here on out.
Get ready to have strong opinions,
because we're probably going to offend you somewhere.
Yeah. I mean, if we haven't yet. Good.
So here's a thought I had recently.
If we do the live record for the last episode,
(24:22):
Peter can't edit out any of the things we say.
We're not doing a live record of anything.
Peter doesn't trust us that far. Come on.
All right. Well, thanks for listening, everybody.
If you want to chat with us on social media, it's cage underscore match underscore pod.
We are on Patreon at cage match and special thanks to our Sparkle buddies,
(24:43):
Josh, Sean, Josie, Rico, Matt, Adam and Bill, and to our cage dancers,
Ira, John Freeman, Lance, Nathan and Cameron.
Whoo. Still got it. Nice.
That was close. It's been a while.
Yeah. Join us to Master 8. Yeah.
Master 8 with us.
Bye. I don't get it.
(25:05):
Bye bye.
Yeah. Yeah.
The I think that was from the great escape is what they lampooned in that.
But yeah. Yeah.
I couldn't remember.
This would have been before Mission Impossible.
The movie is that's the like, done, done.
(25:27):
No, that's a different song. Never mind.
No, that was it.
Was it? That's the one.
Yeah. Yeah. But for.
All right. So we don't have the rights to it.
Ah, shit. They're going to come for us.
A movie from 1945.
We're almost there.
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