Unfortunately, when the movie came out, its impact on school bullies (who, as a class, were the most likely to be able to sneak in and see it) was just about nil. I know. I was at prime tormenting age.

(BTW, two things about Gwangi are the opposite of Suck: the dinosaurs, and the theme music. I’m a sucker for a good sweeping Western theme.)

Todd — Sterne’s novel and the roundtable have one thing in common for me: as much as I enjoyed them both, it took me way too long to finish either of them.

You may be amused (or horrified) to learn my original digression on UHF was over twice as long.

It saddens me that the concept and operation of the UHF dial needs so much explanation, but I guess that the cruel expanse of time renders it so. In my young life, the UHF band not only meant Saturdays filled with horror and science fiction films from morning to night, but also episodes of Ultraman, Prince Planet and Thunderbirds at the end of every school day. Made me who I am today, for better or worse.

What made it worse, for me, was that I was seeing it on tape years after the fact and already knew pretty much how it was all going to play out. I was born in ’83, so I was negative seven when the film was released, thus preventing me from seeing it in theaters. Once I could drive, however, my mom did get me all-access rental accounts from the local video stores so she could just send me out to pick up whatever film she wanted. That left me free to snag whatever horror film interested me that week.

So, yeah–it was 1999; I knew everyone was going to burn. To me that just made the whole thing sadder and creepier, knowing that things simply weren’t going to end well for ANYONE. It’s not often the main redemption arc in a movie ends with devastating survivor guilt. And even though I tend to appreciate films that avoid the false note of a forced happy ending I still wanted better for Sue than that.

But the film has one of those high concept-type of descriptions that will get me every time. Sissy Spacek nuking the prom; I simply HAVE to know how that happens. It’s kinda like the idea of cowboys fighting dinosaurs; I KNOW The Valley of Gwangi sucks, but every biological urge compels me to know how a plot like that unfolds.

Why I never saw the film remains something of a mystery to me. It was the 800-pound gorilla in the room that I just chose to overlook. I was looking around for some moderately controversial movie for the roundtable, and going over people’s lists of favorites for inspiration, when That One Title jumped off the screen and slapped me across the face. And then I knew.

But your reaction to the prom scene is part of my point: it’s exactly the wrong set of emotions to take away from the movie, and yet it’s what we all do. That, if anything, is even more baffling than my having avoided the film all these years.

And — heh — I guess the title of the film is no longer my carefully-guarded secret…

Also, Will, you really DO have a solid voice for podcasts. Whether or not the format is what you enjoy, especially compared to writing, I don’t know. But if you do continue to record podcasts I think you’ll find there’ll be an audience for them.

Baron, Thomas — the trouble is, when you have a title like “B-Master”, self-applied though it is, it’s not easy to admit you haven’t seen one of the most frequenty ripped-off movies in the repertoire.

I do see your point, though, Thomas; one of the things that surprised me a little was that the One Iconic Image that everybody knows from this film isn’t handled quite as well as I hoped it would be… the director gets all auteur-y, and the attempt hasn’t aged well. That reminded me of how irritating some of his other films have been. But in the end, I’m very glad to have finally seen it, and I regret having waited so long.

Not that I would trade this wonderful podcast for anything in the world, you understand.

(Is that an even more shameful admission? Feh, I’m used to them)