Gremlins (1984) — Does It Hold Up?

On this episode of The Regular Guy Movie Show, we’re decking the halls with chaos, mayhem, and tiny green murder goblins as we revisit Gremlins (1984) — the Christmas movie that broke the MPAA, traumatized a generation, and proved that maybe some pets should come with an instruction manual.

What starts as a cute, fuzzy holiday gift quickly turns into a full-blown small-town disaster, complete with barroom brawls, exploding microwaves, and a body count the movie never really bothers to address. Along the way, we ask the important questions:
Who’s actually the hero here? Why does the main character barely speak? And how did Lynn Peltzer become the most competent action hero of the 1980s without anyone noticing?

What We Talk About

• Why Gremlins feels less like a complete movie and more like a collection of incredible scenes stitched together
• The movie’s wild tonal whiplash: cute → gory → goofy → deeply dark → back again
• How Gremlins (along with Temple of Doom) directly led to the creation of the PG-13 rating
• The baffling lack of agency and dialogue given to Billy, the supposed main character
• How random side characters — including snowplow drivers — get more personality than Billy
• The complete absence of consequences after Kingston Falls is basically destroyed
• Whether chaos alone is enough to carry a movie… and how much beer helps

Other things we talk about:

• The Gremlins Worst-Case Survival Quiz — real scenarios pulled from The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook, because if gremlins took over your town, you’d better know how to jump into a dumpster correctly
• Pick Your Poison — would you rather rewatch Gremlins or go head-to-head with some of its most obvious cinematic cousins?

Final Verdict:

Gremlins is messy, chaotic, inconsistent, and occasionally brilliant.
It doesn’t always know what it wants to be, doesn’t bother tying up loose ends, and shrugs off the fact that a lot of people probably died.

It's not a great movie...but it gets a whole lot better if you start with a six-pack.

Thanks for listening, drinking along with us, and surviving another cinematic disaster.

If you enjoyed the episode, make sure to follow, subscribe, and leave a review.

And remember: be kind, don’t spill water, and never feed anything after midnight.

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On this episode of The Regular Guy Movie Show, we dive head-first into Empire Records — a movie with a killer soundtrack, a mountain of nostalgia… and more structural problems than the building code should legally allow.

We revisit this 90s cult favorite with 30 years of life experience, far better taste in movies, and absolutely no patience for Lucas’s philosophical nonsense. Along the way, we confront the film’s chaotic tone, its missing 40 minutes, its baffling character decisions, and the bold creative choice to have Joe commit aggravated battery behind closed doors and then go right back to work like nothing happened.

And yes… we talk about Rex Manning Day. And yes… it’s as awkward as you remember.

• The Empire Records Rewatch Experience

Why this movie still feels fun, even when absolutely nothing in it makes sense anymore.

• Lucas: Agent of Philosophical and Financial Disaster

We try (and fail) to understand this man’s motivations, life choices, worldview, and math skills.

• Corey& A.J.: A Love Story Nobody Asked For

Meltdowns, amphetamines, terrible timing, and unclear motivations make this the least romantic romance ever filmed.

• Joe & Lucas: The Most Confusing Father-Son Dynamic Ever Written

Was he a foster kid? Why does Joe hit him? Why does nobody react to this? Why is Joe’s entire retirement plan destroyed by one teenager’s night of craps? We ask all the questions the movie doesn’t.

• The Soundtrack: Certified Banger After Banger

One of the only things the movie nails perfectly — and we celebrate it.

• Our “Grammarly Butchered Lyrics” Game

Iconic soundtrack songs rewritten like they were edited by an emotionally dead corporate proofreader. Justin and Brian suffer. You benefit.

Damn the Man. Save the Empire. Hydrate between beers.

Listen to The Regular Guy Movie Show wherever you get your podcasts, and visit regularguymovieshow.com to suggest the next questionable classic we take on. While there, check out our blog or listen to previous show episodes.

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On this episode of The Regular Guy Movie Show, the guys dive headfirst into Orgazmo — Trey Parker’s pre-South Park tale of a Mormon missionary turned porn superhero with a weaponized orgasm gun and a crisis of faith.

They unpack the film’s bizarre balance of purity and perversion, Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s early creative DNA, and whether the Orgazmorator should count as a legitimate superpower.
Expect discussions about moral compromise, religious satire, Hamster Style martial arts, and the power of friendship (and batteries).

In This Episode:

• The line between faith, fame, and very questionable career moves
• The genius and depravity of Trey Parker’s comedy style
• Plot holes you could fly a Cock Rocket through
• “Stunt Cock” ethics and other philosophical quandaries
• Magic Wand fixes that might’ve made this movie a cult legend
• The Porno Name Game gets way out of hand
• Beer ratings, Boddicker nominations, and one very sticky debate over whether Orgazmo actually holds up

Does Orgazmo still deliver its climax, or is it just 90 minutes of premature ambition?

Tune in, grab a beer, and prepare your moral compass — because this episode goes places no missionary should ever go.

Listen to The Regular Guy Movie Show wherever you get your podcasts, and visit regularguymovieshow.com to suggest the next questionable classic we take on. While there, check out our blog or listen to previous show episodes.

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The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Episode Summary:
Three college filmmakers head into the woods to chase a local legend — and instead deliver the most profitable headache in horror history. This week, the guys hunker down by the campfire (literally — they recorded this episode while camping) to revisit The Blair Witch Project, the movie that turned shaky hands and bad decisions into box office gold.

They dig into the backstory, the lore, and the DIY horror experiment that left audiences nauseated, terrified, and wildly divided.

🧭 Key Conversation Points

• Remembering the hype and confusion when Blair Witch first hit theaters in 1999.
• How the fake documentary marketing fooled half of America into thinking it was real.
• The film’s microscopic $60,000 budget and record-breaking $248 million box office haul.
• Critics vs. audience reaction — 86% on Rotten Tomatoes but a 57% audience score.
• How the actors filmed everything themselves — with no script, minimal food, and eight days in the woods.
• The filmmakers’ borderline “torture” methods to get real fear and exhaustion on camera.
• The missing backstory — centuries of lore reduced to a few vague lines about Elly Kedward, Rustin Parr, and Coffin Rock.
• The shaky-cam effect: terrifying realism or just nausea on film?
• Brian’s plea for a steadier camera (and fewer vomit stories).
• The Found Footage or Fake News? game — and who totally blew their chance at the compass prize.
• Boddicker Award: unanimous love for Heather Donahue and her flashlight monologue of doom.

🍺 Other Things We Talked About

• The crew’s real-life campsite setup and live campfire ambiance during recording.
• Beer lineup: Ellie’s Brown Ale (Avery Brewing) — chosen for the witch’s name — and Spooky Scary Stout from Old Bakery Brewing in Alton, IL.
• The sequel that nobody asked for (and everyone forgot).
• Mad Max fashion logic: why every apocalypse apparently includes shoulder pads from Dick’s Sporting Goods.
• The “Pick Your Poison” showdown comparing Blair Witch to The Sixth Sense, The Matrix, and Fight Club.
• And Brian's tragic confession that he may have never actually seen Fight Club — which might be the real horror story here.

Listen now to hear three regular guys roast the forest, question their compass skills, and prove that sometimes the scariest thing of all… is the footage you found yourself.

Listen to The Regular Guy Movie Show wherever you get your podcasts, and visit regularguymovieshow.com to suggest the next questionable classic we take on. While there, check out our blog or listen to previous show episodes.

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Halloween (1978) – The Boogeyman, the Babysitter, and the Beer Buzz That Wouldn’t Die

Show Notes:

The guys head to Haddonfield to tackle Halloween (1978) — the indie horror classic that built an empire on fake leaves, bad driving, and one of cinema’s most famously unhelpful psychiatrists.

Justin revisits the slasher that shaped his childhood sleepovers. Seth leads the charge on how a six-year-old murderer managed to pass driver’s ed while institutionalized. And Brian, watching it for the first time, questions everything from Laurie Strode’s spine health to the total absence of trick-or-treaters.

They break down the film’s biggest head-scratchers:

• Is Michael Myers supernatural or just a psychotic gym rat with incredible upper-body strength?
• Why does every neighbor in Haddonfield suck at helping screaming girls?
• And seriously, why is everyone getting laid on Halloween night?

The crew salutes Carpenter’s hauntingly simple score, Dean Cundey’s iconic lighting, and the fact that a $325,000 budget somehow made $70 million without showing a single drop of blood. But they don’t hold back on the clunky dialogue, the “paid-in-boobs” acting, or the totally random tombstone interior decorating choices.

By the end, beer reviews get as brutal as the murders: pumpkin chai disaster, IPA tongue punch, Oktoberfest mediocrity — “the best of the worst.” Final verdict? The movie doesn’t quite hold up, but it’s still a must-watch every Halloween… preferably after six beers.

💀 Other Random Shit We Somehow Talked About

• The hierarchy of “tastiest dog breeds” (yep, that happened)
• Fashion Victims: ranking the most stylish horror villains
• A one-word-at-a-time sequel pitch involving Laurie, Loomis, and pickles
• The theory that Loomis is Michael Myers
• The moral debate: “Did we fail if we still have a buzz?”
• The haunting truth that every host owned khaki shorts

Beer Score: 🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺 (Six Beers – the same number of bullets Loomis fired and still missed the point)

Listen now, lock your doors, hide your knives, and as always… be kind. Rewind.

Listen to The Regular Guy Movie Show wherever you get your podcasts, and visit regularguymovieshow.com to suggest the next questionable classic we take on. While there, check out our blog or listen to previous show episodes.

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Poltergeist (1982)

On this episode of The Regular Guy Movie Show, we’re diving into the suburban nightmare that made us all afraid of static on the TV: Poltergeist (1982).

We’ll take you on a guided tour of Cuesta Verde—the perfect American Dream subdivision with great neighbors, nice lawns, and oh yeah… a field of corpses under every yard. Along the way, we break down the movie’s worldbuilding, its most memorable scenes, and why the last 18 minutes of this film make absolutely no sense.

Highlights include:

• Beer talk: what we’re drinking while watching ghosts rearrange the furniture.
• The Poltergeist curse and behind-the-scenes trivia (yes, those skeletons were real).
• Our Killer Clown Bracket Tournament—pitting the Poltergeist clown doll against Pennywise, Sweet Tooth, Ronald McDonald, and more in a battle for clown supremacy.
• Plot holes, questionable parenting choices, and why Diane probably should not have been napping in a haunted house.
• The Boddicker Award: who wins it—Tangina, Diane, Carol Anne, or the damn clown doll?
• Final thoughts and our patented “beer rating” system.

Poltergeist is a horror classic with as many laughs as scares, and we’re breaking it all down to see if it still holds up—or if it’s just another haunted relic of the 80s.

So grab a cold one, check under your bed for clown dolls, and join us for another round of movie nostalgia, bad jokes, and questionable takes.

Listen to The Regular Guy Movie Show wherever you get your podcasts, and visit regularguymovieshow.com to suggest the next questionable classic we take on. While there, check out our blog or listen to previous show episodes.

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The Last Starfighter (1984)

What if beating a high score at the arcade meant you were Earth’s only hope? This week on The Regular Guy Movie Show, we’re blasting off with 1984’s The Last Starfighter — the cult sci-fi classic that swapped Star Wars’ model ships for pioneering CGI, and gave us wish fulfillment for every kid who ever dropped quarters into an arcade cabinet.

We dig into:

• The wild leap of faith this movie took with computer-generated battles — groundbreaking in ’84, clunky now, but undeniably influential.
• Why Centauri (Robert Preston) and Grig (Dan O’Herlihy) are the real MVPs of this movie.
• Xur’s over-the-top villainy and the Ko-Dan Armada’s poop emoji aesthetics.
• Space combat done right vs. done wrong — and why Starfighter was ahead of its time in zero-G dogfights.
• The Boddicker Award showdown: Centauri’s fast-talking space con man vs. Grig’s lizard mentor dad-energy.
• Why Centauri’s car looks like a DeLorean that flunked out of space college.
• A sidekick showdown where Grig goes head-to-head with Chewbacca, Goose, and Donkey from Shrek.

And because we can’t stay on target for long, we’ll also talk about:

• Our favorite arcade games from the 80's
• The versatility of Days of Our Lives for hitting on college girls back in the day
• And the embalming secrets of the ancient Egyptians (because apparently that’s where our brains went).

So grab your quarters, load up Death Blossom, and join us as we relive the movie that asked: what if your video game skills were the only thing standing between Earth and annihilation?

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From Pancakes to Power Tools: Revisiting Uncle Buck

In this episode of The Regular Guy Movie Show, Seth, Justin, and Brian dive into John Hughes’ 1989 comedy classic Uncle Buck.
We talk about John Candy at peak charm, the mail-slot interrogation that basically launched Macaulay Culkin into Home Alone, and whether Buck’s “unique” parenting style would fly in 2025 (spoiler: probably not).

Highlights include:

• Giant pancakes, bowling alleys, and a clown who never saw the punch coming
• Why Buck’s greatest hits also double as felonies (assault, kidnapping, borderline attempted murder)
• Tia’s teen angst, Bug’s sleazeball energy, and how John Hughes made Chicago suburbia feel like its own character
• Buck’s toolkit of justice: a trusty cordless drill, a conveniently placed hatchet, and wart gnawing rats
• Comparing Uncle Buck to Mr. Mom: what happens when caretakers are hilariously unqualified
• Uncle Buck: The Villain Cut — because reframed, Buck is definitely the bad guy
• Final beer scores and nostalgia check: does Uncle Buck still hold up?

Grab a drink, flip a giant flapjack, and join us as we revisit the film that made us laugh, cringe, and maybe rethink who we’d trust to watch our kids.

Listen to The Regular Guy Movie Show wherever you get your podcasts, and visit regularguymovieshow.com to suggest the next questionable classic we take on. While there, check out our blog or listen to previous show episodes.

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