Episode 54: Groundhog Days Part 1: Edging Tomorrow

Grab your corset, rent your limo, and prepare to celebrate with bad choices, because Recovered is going to the prom! For murders! Back in 1980, scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis and not-yet-comedy icon Leslie Nielsen teamed up for Prom Night, a Canadian made horror movie about four teens hunted by a masked killer due to their past misdeeds... well, eventually. After a while. Nearly three decades later, a new team borrows the title and very little else for 2008's Prom Night, in which a teen girl is hunted by an obsessed teacher, and by "hunted" we mean he hangs around her hotel room and waits for victims to show up. How do the Nights Prom hold up as slasher horror? What 90s films does the remake owe more to? Meet us in the gym and we'll find out!

We've seen how Time Loop cinema moved from magical romcom to suspense thriller to sci-fi action, and now Dan and Keith jump back into the loops for slasher horror, and back to romcoms, now with a 2020s spin. First up, Happy Death Day, a proud part of Blumhouse's "But what if the popular thing were horror" collection, as a college student must relive her final day over and over until she figures out who's killing her. Then Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti are stuck at the destination wedding that never ends in Palm Springs. And to wrap up, a surprise bonus movie that may not have true time loops, but still captures the themes and emotional hooks that made the sub-genre resonate. Which movie did it best? Listen and find out!

Do you think Phil is gonna come out and see his shadow? That's right, woodchuckers, it's Groundhog Day! And subsequent movies inspired by Bill Murray's attempts to escape eternity in February 2nd. Instead of true remakes, Dan and Keith delve into how Groundhog Day popularized the time loop, and how the genre worked its way from magical romcom through multiple other genres and back to romcoms. In this instalment, we move from Murray and the groundhog to Franka Potente reliving a tense 20 minutes in Run Lola Run, to Tom Cruise living, dying, and repeating in Edge of Tomorrow. What tropes are introduced? How do the Germans do it better? Do time loops just work with everything? Listen in!

Time for some whodunnits and laughs as Dan and Keith delve into the comedic mysteries of Irwin "Fletch" Fletcher, investigative journalist. Way way back in the 1980s, Chevy Chase found success bringing the popular novel character to life as Fletch solves crimes through SNL sketches and determination. Over three decades and one failed attempt by Kevin Smith later, a new Fletch arrives in the almost annoyingly chiseled features of Jon Hamm in the tragically underseen Confess, Fletch. Who wears the mantle best? Or has the best supporting cast? Can Dan and Keith come up with actual criticisms, or will this just be a love-fest? Tune in and find out!

Keep your arms and legs inside your Doom Buggy and avoid flash photography, because Dan and Keith are delving into the Haunted Mansions! First, back in 2003, at the tail end of Disney's attempts to make hit movies out of their theme park attractions, Eddie Murphy brings... comedy, question mark?... to an adventure through the Gracie Mansion. Then, two full decades later, as Disney gives theme park movies another spin, a star-studded cast battles a baffingly cast Hatbox Ghost for the fate of the world, and increased hijinks. Which of these had the best blend of laughs, thrills, and easter eggs to the ride? Or is there a third contender Disney barely tried to tell you about? Listen in and find out!

The Recovered Slasher Saga reaches the conclusion, as Dan and Keith take on the time Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes tried to reinvent Jason Vorhees and Freddy Krueger for a new generation, following the eras rules for a horror remake: bigger gore, too much CGI, and get a Supernatural cast member in there. Is this Jason the meaty murderer we'd been wanting? We certainly get a less cartoonish Freddy, but at what cost? Unpack the successes and failures of the remakes, and hear Dan and Keith's final rankings. 

Recovered takes a break from iconic mass murderers for... lady assassins? Okay. We head back to the 90s for a young Luc Besson's breakout movie, La Femme Nikita, and its questionably necessary American remake Point of No Return with Bridget Fonda. Video Vulture John Tebbutt returns to walk Dan and Keith through his youthful love for the French original, the moments where he became connected to its titular addict-turned-unwilling black ops agent, and how the remake manages to bungle so many of them by being a little too Hollywood. Plus Jean Reno and Harvey Keitel take on the same character, confusion over which Dermot is in this, and the debate over whether we're just impossible to please with remakes. Listen in!

After 10 Fridays the 13th and seven Nightmares on various Elm Streets, Dan and Keith arrive at the penultimate stop of the slasher saga: the title bout of Freddy Vs Jason. The dream terrors of Freddy Krueger collide with the brutal and blunt kills of Jason Vorhees, while Dan and Keith battle over best or worst cast member, casting conspiracy theories, and whether the movie hinges entirely on the last 20 minutes. Join in for the donnybrook!

Round two of Dan and Keith and Freddy Krueger, as the franchise goes from silly to dumb to... very meta. The slow slide from dread to cartoonish began last time with The Dream Master, and now the slide speeds up through The Dream Child and into the doomed-to-be-broken promise of Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare. Then, three years after Freddy's claw glove was hung up, Wes Craven returns to test some ideas he's been having about self-referential meta-horror in New Nightmare... a film that showed promise but wasn't quite Scream yet. We dig into Freddy's slide into near self-parody, bizarre cameos, Freddy Vision, and more as we witness the death and attempted rebirth of Nightmare on Elm Street.

Dan and Keith's Freddy/Jason deep dive continues as they move from Crystal Lake to Elm Street for the various dream-crimes of Freddy Kreuger. In part one, we look at how the original shaped the franchise Wes Craven never intended, how the second film is essentially the Super Mario Bros. 2 of horror, then debate whether the original or Dream Warriors is the best one and whether Dream Master is the last good time or the beginning of the slide into stupidity for Freddy. Grab your hypnocil, don't trust any small children, and whatever you do, don't fall asleep as Recovered heads to Elm Street.