Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Unsung Horrors Rule (under 1,000 views on Letterboxd)

Urban legend says that it was tested in theaters in Arizona and Virginia in January 1981, but performed poorly. It was ultimately shelved and is now considered a piece of “lost media.” Just a few months later, the real-life assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan made it an impossible movie to market.

Or so they say.

I interviewed James Conway, this film’s director, for an upcoming issue of Drive-In Asylum and got to ask about this movie, one that has fascinated me for years:

DIA: One last question about that era. What happened with The President Must Die?

JAMES: It was sort of the end of our believing in the market research and testing of ideas. Because when we tested that – making some trailers – it received incredibly high ratings. Everybody wanted to see this movie. We made the movie and did an excellent job. I mean, it’s absolutely authentic based on the time. I flew all over the country, interviewing all these people who you’ll see in the movie, and when it opened, nobody cared. Nobody came to see it.

DIA: In my research, I’ve heard that it was pulled from theaters in the wake of Reagan being shot. Is that true?

JAMES: I know it didn’t perform. I’m not sure about the Reagan thing. 

I’ll tell you a funny story. Though. We moved the company from LA to Park City, Utah when we did Grizzly Adams in 1976 and I moved there as well. I moved back to Los Angeles in 1982, but kept a home there. It’s where I live now, several months a year. 

We did the post-production for The President Must Die in Park City and we’re flying with all the reels to go to LA to do the mixing and have all the boxes with all the reels. And in those days, I don’t know how old you are, but when you used to do sound effects and music, you’d have 30-40 reels for each movie. Each of these boxes had The President Must Die marked on them, ready to be sent on a United Airlines plane to the sound editors in LA.

Somebody who saw the boxes saying The President Must Die called the FBI, and the people who were flying to LA with those boxes were pulled off the plane as soon as they hit the ground. But once they explained what it was, they were let go. But isn’t that fun? (laughs)

At the end of the interview, as I was fact-checking a few things, I told him that this movie was one of my holy grails.

“Do you want to see it?” Conway asked. “Check your email.”

Imagine my joy at hearing the dulcet tones of Brad Crandall again, a voice I figured I’d heard everything from in all of the other Sunn films. Now, he’s setting up the story of JFK and how he was changing America. Unlike so many other conspiracy films, this begins and ends with positivity.

You also have to understand that in 1981, there weren’t many other, as I said, conspiracy films.

Conspiracy wasn’t what it is today. It was in photocopied sheets and by word of mouth. There was no internet. There were just pockets of this information, and you had to hunt for it. A relatively mainstream film espousing the idea that Kennedy was killed by one of the many groups it could have been (in fact, at one point, Crandall says, “Who would want to kill someone as popular as Kennedy?” and nearly answers himself by suddenly naming at least five groups that absolutely hated him and had a motive.

This movie shows the Zapruder film from a time when you couldn’t just look it up on your phone.

The only evidence, for years, that it even existed was a Bantam tie-tin paperback co-written by Sunn’s Charles E. Sellier, Jr.

But it’s real.

In the February 2-3 issue of Parade, an article, “Making Movies the Computer Way,” was published. In it, this film is discussed:

“Once the most popular ideas are collated, Sunn’s research teams are sent out again. This time, the man on the street is asked to help flesh out the concepts. Take, for example, the research conducted for The President Must Die, a docu-drama on the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

“After feeding our data into the computer,” explains screenwriter Brian Russell, “we went with the conspiracy theory – the premise that was closest to what the majority believed.” What if the computer had pinned the blame solely on Oswald? “We would have gone with that angle instead,” Russell says. “We’re interested in drama, not politics.”

(This appeared on Temple of Schlock.)

We all know the Magic Bullet Theory now, probably by heart. But to see a much younger Cyril Wecht discuss it in detail is incredible. What did people in 1981 even think? I mean, what did I think the multiple times I saw Wecht speak live, where he would gather four audience members, create the seating arrangements of Kennedy’s death car (which is now in Michigan).

This is from a time before when our own President espoused conspiracy theories and gave dog whistles to Q-Anon, using it when it benefited his cause and rapidly disposing of it. We’re to care and not care about conspiracy; today it feels as if it’s transitory and can come and go as easily as the wind. How did the ear grow back? Was the election fixed or wasn’t it? Is Project 2025 real or not? Everything is truth and fiction at the same time; feelings and emotions matter more than evidence.

Here is this documentary from a time past Watergate that recognizes that the innocence of the nation — one that had not yet discovered that the Third Reich studied Jim Crow laws as inspiration — was damaged by the deaths of JFK, RFK, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as both Nixon leaving the office and Ford nearly being assassinated twice, once by Manson Family member Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme and the second by a radicalized Sara Jane Moore. Crandall even wonders, aloud, if America can ever find hope again.

In the past, you were a kook for believing that the Warren Commission could lie to you (as an aside, I still hate the line in Bull Durham, “I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone,” but then again, Kevin Costner was also Jim Garrison). You were more sane to believe in the Warren’s Single-Bullet Theory, one that argues that “a single bullet struck Kennedy in the back, exited his throat, and then wounded Governor Connally, who was seated in front of him.”

In James Shelby Downard’s “King-Kill/33: Masonic Symbolism in the Assassination of John F. Kennedy,” the conspiracy theorist (artist?) wrote, “Most Americans are beyond being tired; the revelations have benumbed them.”

Downard claimed, way back thirty years or more ago, “Never allow anyone the luxury of assuming that because the dead and deadening scenery of the American city-of-dreadful-night is so utterly devoid of mystery, so thoroughly flat-footed, sterile and infantile, so burdened with the illusory gloss of ‘baseball-hot dogs-apple-pie-and-Chevrolet’ that it is somehow outside the psycho-sexual domain.” I have lived by those words since I read them, as well as his belief that “Only the repetition of information presented in conjunction with knowledge of this mechanism of Making Manifest of All That is Hidden provides the sort of boldness and will which can demonstrate that we are aware of all the enemies, all the opponents, all the tricks and gadgetry, and yet we are still not dissuaded, that we work for the truth for the sake of the truth. Let the rest take upon themselves and their children the consequences of their actions.”

We work for the truth for the sake of the truth.

I may hide inside movies and explore the archaeology of what was lost, but I dream of what could be. This film reminds me of that.

This was an interesting movie to watch in the wake of several political and business-based killings this very year. Much like The Killing of America, the questions asked in this movie haven’t been answered. They probably never will be.

But I’ve solved one of my own conspiracies.

I’ve actually got to see this. Thanks, James.

Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: South Korea

Directed and written by Kim Ki-duk, Moebius has no words, using only vocables like “uh-huh” and “hmm” for character communication. Want to see me get fancy? It also has no non-diegetic sound except for the beginning and the end.

The mother (Lee Na-ra) is upset that the father (Cho Jae-hyun) has a mistress (also Lee Na-ra), so she tries to castrate him. That fails, so she does the same to their son (Seo Young-joo) and eats his severed beenie weenie. Yes, this happens and quite early.

The father decides to research a penis transplant while also teaching his son all about BDSM. As he has no penis, the son is bullied until he participates in the gang assault of his father’s mistress. As he has no penis, he is found not guilty; he makes his way to the mistress’s work, where they have a threesome with the leader of the gang of bullies. A knife gets involved, another penis gets sliced, and then a truck runs over the gang leader’s wang. The mistress likes the son better without a penis, so when the father gives him his in the transplant, that falls away, just in time for the mother to come home. She wants a sexual relationship with the father, which is impossible, but the son’s penis has a mind of its own and gets erect around the mother. The father tries to castrate his son, then kills himself and his wife. The son responds by shooting off his member, then becoming a holy man.

The scary part of all of this is that Lee Na-ra replaced another actress who was slapped multiple times by director Kim Ki-duk, as well as being forced to be in the assault scene that was much rougher than she thought it would be. Four years after these charges, Kim Ki-duk was accused of sexual molestation of his students and actor Cho Jae-hyun was also charged with multiple accounts of physical assault, sexual assault and rape alongside the director.

I didn’t learn about the crimes until after I saw this; it now stays with me for much different reasons.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: South Korea!

About the Author: Parker Simpson is a writer and podcaster focusing on cult films and their social impacts. They currently cohost Where Is My Mind, a podcast focusing on underappreciated films from a variety of genres and countries. They have also held panels, chartered local organizations, and written articles to their blog. When not writing or studying, they like to spend time with their pets and go outside. Check out the podcast Linktree and blog.

I remember watching a trailer for this a few months ago and thinking the serial killer was the aggressor the entire movie. I was wrong.

Anger is an addiction. When someone gets mad, they want to stay mad, even when they tire of it and destroy the lives of others. This can be as small as a petty friend drama, or as large as a full-scale revenge plot. The rampage is unable to be stopped until the person is, at least before wrath consumes them whole.

If you take anything away from 2010’s I Saw The Devil, that may be the smallest and least sensitive reading you could possibly get. Focusing on an intelligence agent’s quest to hunt down the serial killer that murdered his wife, both parties end up in a cat-and-mouse game that affects everyone around them.

The most talked about aspect of the film is its gratuitous violence. This film never lets up its attack, nearly desensitizing the audience until the very final shot, falling into the same vein as other Korean revenge films like Oldboy and Mother. Clocking in at over 140 minutes, it is an endurance test to get through certain scenes involving torture, mutilation, and murder in between lengthy bits centering around character disposition. Some call it torture porn, graphic and tiring; not to sound like the edgelord in the room, but that could be the point. In one’s conquest to exact revenge, you will eventually find the journey for such satisfaction tedious and uninspiring. You may forget what you were even fighting for. Does that mean it’s worth it to go on? I Saw The Devil doesn’t make a particularly compelling argument, showing both parties devolving into insanity and unsavory sadism in a world where there is no good or evil, just wrath, envy, lust, and all of the other sins. 

This point seems to go over many heads amidst the rampant violence against women and lagging pace, not that I don’t disagree; I have yet to see the rest of Kim Jee-woon’s filmography, but many online are quick to point out very few of his films have a favorable view of women. From this one film, it’s important to note the only female characters are shown as helpless, either mourning the death of Kim Soo-hyeon’s wife, Joo-Yeon, or becoming a victim of sexual assault. It fits the killer’s motif, yes, but it’s tiring and even degrading. It makes you wonder what could have been done differently, given the fascinating take on revenge.

I Saw The Devil’s strongest aspect is its visuals. The opening sequence with Joo-Yeon is one of the best cold openings I’ve seen in a long time; the second you see the glimmer in the “Good Samaritan’s” otherwise black eyes, you know what you’re in for: something creepy and unforgiving. Its immaculate cinematography is complemented by a sickly color palette that is simultaneously pale, harsh, and dark. Pretend all the violence was off-screen; you would still walk away feeling nauseous.

Additionally, the performances by the two leads, Lee Byung-hun and Choi Min-sik are mesmerizing, perfectly capturing two psychopaths in a sick loop, hell bent on destroying each other. I see that the former is involved in Squid Game and KPop Demon Hunters – not the plot twist I expected to see after I watched him make the world’s worst Rube Goldberg contraption. Despite both their sorrows and pains, neither express any regret of continuing their little game. And that may be the biggest tragedy of all.

I strongly recommend this to anyone who has seen Oldboy, Lady Vengeance, and Mother, yet somehow not seen this. And if you have not seen any of those titles, this isn’t a bad place to start – just be warned: it’s an intense, polarizing ride that leaves you sick to your stomach.

Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey.

Today’s theme: South Korea!

Filmgoers of Korea: We want Godzilla!

Director Kim Kee-duk: We have Godzilla at home!

Godzilla at home:

When I am making my list of films to watch for challenges, I keep several factors in mind. First and foremost, do I have access to the film I want to watch? There is nothing worse than getting excited about watching a movie, only to discover that it is not readily available anywhere. Next, how long is the movie? For example, I really loved The Wailing (a film that would fit into this category), but I do not have 156 minutes to devote to it in October. I have to get through too many films. Third, you want your list to have a nice variety about it. You don’t want 31 slashers. You need some diversity.

Yongary, Monster from the Deep checks all of the necessary boxes. I own the Vinegar Syndrome 4K (a 4K?) thanks to being a subscriber (a membership I question more and more each year). The film is only 79 minutes long, a blessing. And I can say I threw a kaiju on my list. 

Does the movie have to be good? No. Do I have to like every movie on my list? Absolutely not. Am I glad I watched Yongary? Let’s just say that this 4K is going on my sale pile. 

The film has its charms for sure. If you love seeing a guy in a rubber suit stomping around a set of miniatures, this is the film for you. If you want to see a monster dance with a precocious little kid, you are in luck. If you want to see a kaiju die by bleeding out of the rectum into a large body of water, no kink shaming here. But for me, this film will fall into that rare category of a film I did not really care for, would not watch again, but will probably never forget. Especially that last part.