The Menu (2022)

Welcome to Half Price Horror, your destination for haute cuisine. Tonight we have an amuse-bouche of tension, followed by an appetizer of violence with just a touch of social satire, with a main course of mesmerizing acting and for dessert... maybe a cheeseburger? Unconventional, I know, but this is just that kind of establishment, and I can't wait to discuss the entire Menu with you.

Featuring a surprising number of Oscar winners for the fifth installment in the 'Predator' franchise, this latest movie takes us off-world and onto an alien game reserve stocked by the titular Predators for their special hunts. But are the predators the alien hunters... or the people they've come here to hunt? That's the question the movie asks, so let's dig in together and see if it answers it!

The Dark Universe! Just the mention of this storied franchise stirs the soul of every cinephile, bringing back memories of 2017's 'The Mummy' and... um... actually it was just 2017's 'The Mummy', wasn't it? And to find out why, give this episode a spin and discover the history of the cinematic universe that wasn't and all the reasons behind its failure.

If there's a single entry in the 'Alien' and 'Predator' franchises it's acceptable to simply dump on, this would probably be the one. But what are the actual problems with this movie? Why does it fail, and what can we learn from its artistic struggles? There is value in discussing these things... all of which is a very nice way of saying that this movie is nine miles of rough road and we're going to talk about every bump.

Horror director Joe Begos has been building a reputation for himself over the last decade, but due to a bad bit of SEO luck his first feature doesn't get a whole lot of attention. So I thought I'd change all that with a full episode on 'Almost Human' (not the Karl Urban TV show) and all the ways this first-time filmmaker worked to get his vision on screen.

That's right, folks, it's time for the main event! We've gone through four installments of the 'Alien' franchise, two installments of the 'Predator' franchise, and it was all to get to the moment where they fight! So how does it go? Is it exciting? Is it plausible? Does Lance Henriksen get to say that his experts tell him... it's a pyramid? Well, listen on and find out!

You all knew I was going to have to cover a Troma film eventually, and honestly this is one of their more famous movies so it's a good entry point into the studio's output. So let's get into problematic gender identities, gratuitous nudity, shock for its own sake, and everything else that makes Troma such a controversial studio!

It's never truly over when it comes to the world of horror franchises, so even though Ellen Ripley took a swan dive into a blast furnace she's still back for Part Four! How? Why? What does it have to do with disgraced sex pest Joss Whedon?All the answers are in this week's episode!

The most inaccurate summary of this movie would be to say that sometimes the real treasure was the friends we made along the way. And for a much more accurate summary, and to understand that joke, you'll need to listen to the latest episode of Half Price Horror!

You could instead call it "Alien 3", or "Alien Cubed", or "Alien^3"... but I think what you could mainly call it is 'troubled', as everyone who took a crack at this script over the course of the late 1980s eventually did. That's right, we are tackling the Assembly Cut of a movie whose director disowns it, and why? Well, you'll find out when you listen and get the wild, bizarre story behind the production of the third movie in the 'Alien' franchise.