Recovered

Dan and Keith hit the Amazon river for not just ANaconda, it's TWOacondas! In 1997, a handful of rising stars and also Eric Stoltz went looking for hidden indigenous tribes, only for Jon Voight, making a big choice with his accent, to hijack the expedition to find giant man-eating snakes. CG carnage ensues! Then we jump to last year, as Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Thandiwe Newton, and comedy assassin Steve Zahn head to South America for an Anaconda remake about doing an Anaconda remake. Do the laughs hit in 2025? Does anything Jon Voight is doing work in 1997? Debate ensues! Listen...

Dan and Keith return to the Coen Brothers for tales of Ladykillers! In 1955, Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers led a gang of thieves making their home base the spare room of a doddering widow. The heist goes well, but the escape proves difficult under their landlady's eye, and dark hijinks ensue! Five decades later, the Coen Brothers took the gig of remaking it and transporting the story from England to the US deep south with Tom Hanks at the center, resulting in... nobody's favourite Coen Brothers movie. But how do they compare? Does the original hold up? Can the...

Dan and Keith return to the Hyborian Age for two tales of the iconicly armoured redhead, Red Sonja. Back in 1985, schlock kingpin Dino De Laurentiis attempted to bring Conan the Barbarian ally (via Marvel Comics) Red Sonja to the big screen... without being able to feature or mention Conan himself. Despite talking Conan actor Arnold Schwarzenegger into a cameo that got stretched into a co-lead in post production. And its box office meant that it would be over four decades before anyone tried again, with a 2025 release that may never have seen a theatre, in which Matilda Lutz steps...

Dan, Keith, and guest Gina return to dig into the big screen version of Stephen King's It, the prequel spinoff Welcome to Derry, and more from the original novel (yes, there is still weird sex stuff left to unpack). In 2017, Andy Muschietti brought a new version of It to the big screen, one that drifted further from the source material... well, half of it, specifically the kid half, and when it proved to be a hit, the adults followed in 2019. Gina's back to compare and contrast the movies with the novel: what they kept, what they skipped, what they...

Dan and Keith head into the sewers of Derry, Maine to confront Stephen King's IT in all ITs current forms. Back in the 90s, IT became a very famous TV show, a two-part miniseries that tried to squeeze 1100+ pages of novel into three hours of movie with network TV standard to uphold, which meant some substantial cuts from the novel. Thankfully, guest Gina Stewart is here to walk Dan and Keith through all those cuts, and how much of it was weird sex stuff. We sort through what worked, which cast shone (and it isn't JUST Tim Curry), and...

Grab your mops and get ready to clean up this town as Dan and Keith take on the Toxic Avenger! Way way back in the 1980s, b-movie titans Troma Films accidentally created a surprisingly mainstream franchise when bullies sent a neurodivergent janitor into a vat of toxic waste, creating mutant superhero the Toxic Avenger, who set out to clean up Tromaville with a mop, a mission statement, and a radar for evildoers... and, time permitting, deal with the mass-murdering bullies who tormented him. Just last year, after two years on a shelf, Troma released a new take on Toxie...

At last, the Phantom Saga arrives at the most influential and successful adaptation of Gaston Leroux's doomed romance horror novel... Andrew Lloyd Webber. Dan and Keith are joined by musical theatre aficionado Colleen Bishop to break down Webber's adaptation of the story, and what happened when Joel Schumacher was tasked with bringing it to the big screen. But wait, there's more! Decades later, in place of seeing a therapist, Webber chose to work through some issues by writing a bizarre sequel where the Phantom runs a burlesque show, Raoul is a drunken gambler, and Christine was a fool for...

Hollywood hasn't stopped remaking and rebooting the same stories over and over since we began this journey, and it was inevitable that at some point past topics would see new versions. Dan and Keith check in on the latest editions of iconic heroes, chocolatiers, or holiday-themed mass murderers. Timothée Chalamet pits whimsy against ruthless capitalism (while Keith questions if music makes you a musical), James Gunn takes the DCU up, up, and away, while a new Santa finds good uses for an axe. One delights, one is an argument, and one works much better than either host expected, f...

Strap on your sneakers and get ready to bolt as Dan and Keith jog into two very different takes on Stephen King's The Running Man! Way way back in the 1980s, secret government employees frame Arnold Schwarzenegger for a mass murder he'd refused to commit, and he ends up recruited to the police state dystopia's most popular game show, The Running Man. Arnold and his pals must survive an arena and the high-concept gladiators sent after them to win (maybe) freedom, or possibly find a way to crash the system. In 2025, Edgar Wright goes back to the source material...

Dan and Keith head down once more into the lair of the Phantoms and their various operas, if not of the box office. One made-for-TV movie sets Jane Seymour and Michael York against a Phantom whose motives go from sympathetic to sinister on a dime, while another stretched the story to a full miniseries to soft-launch a rival Phantom musical. In between, an animated version tries to speed-run the original novel with Hanna-Barbera level animation. Finally, Dario Argento enters the opera house with some wild swings, including the prettiest Phantom and way more of a specific character than anyone...

Dan and Keith head to Germany for two movies on three key things: dance, magic, dance! In 1977, Italian director Dario Argento told the tale of an American ballerina caught up in a German dance academy secretly run by witches... witches that go from zero to murder alarmingly quickly. The visuals were sharp and colourful, but the story seemed thin... then in 2017, Luca Guadagnino went with starker greys, more dance, and so much story Dan and Keith need shovels to unpack it all. Which Suspiria succeeded in which ways? Is the original Argento's best movie? Is the remake Dakota Johnson's...

And we're back into the Phantoms & Operas sagas, seeing how two distinct film eras take on the Phantom: the auteur era of the 70s, and the slasher horror era of the 80s! In the time when creative vision was king, two Phantoms emerge. Wicked, Wicked attempts a new cinematic technique called DuoVision as a Phantom haunts a mid-range hotel, while Brian De Palma and Paul Williams unite for the rock opera Phantom of the Paradise, blending the Phantom with Faust and a lot of great tunes. But once Andrew Lloyd Webber made the Phantom a Broadway smash, there was...

'Tis the season to embrace, be merry, and hope the rich jerks in your life get haunted, and to celebrate, Dan and Keith take on a Curated Selection of Christmas Carols. Trying to cover every version of Dickens' classic holiday haunting would be an act of madness, so after travelling back to 1901 for the first ever film Scrooge, the boys examine ways Scrooge cinema tried to add elements to the story, be it meta-commentary, modernization, Muppetization, and more. Bill Murray, Michael Caine, Some Bloke From Eastenders, and Miscellaneous learn the errors of their ways on Christmas Eve, and we...

At last it arrives! In sleep it sang to you, in dreams it came... the Phantoms of the Operas Mega-Saga begins! Dan and Keith head way, way back to the silent era for the first film adaptation of Gaston Leroux's gothic horror novel the Phantom of the Opera, with Lon Chaney as the signature Phantom. Then it's off to China for Chinese cinema's first ever horror movie, the loose Phantom remake Song at Midnight, which may have added an element to Phantom lore? Back in America, the 40s tried a version that was too little Phantom, too much Opera...

It's the big 100th episode, and to celebrate, our hosts (or are they?) dig into our lords and saviours, the RoboCops! In 1987, Paul Verhoeven satirized capitalism through a hero that was part man, part machine, and all cop, and John Tebbutt explains what got lost from the later director's cut, while Emma Gallaher relates her first-time-viewing experience. Then, 27 years, two sequels, a TV show, and at least one cartoon later, a star-studded remake was attempted that came close to touching on big topics, but like the robotic cop at the center of the story, it stops working when emotions...

Wrapping up our dissection of Fantastic Four cinema with two polar opposite takes on Marvel's First Family. In 2015, Josh Trank attempted a more grounded, body-horror-infused take that met with severe studio notes and mandated reshoots, leading to a bunch of grey corridors and one action beat before the credits. It did not go over great. This very year, the MCU finally got their crack at the characters, and presents a whimsical, retro-futuristic world where an established Fantastic Four takes on Galactus for the fate of their world, and moreso, their family. Have we hit the best and worst of...

The Fantastic Four! Once dubbed "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine," they've struggled to make it on the big screen, split between earnest attempts at blockbusters and quickie attempts to retain the film rights. And Dan and Keith are here to tackle one of each as the road to First Steps begins. Roger Corman produced the first attempt, a low-budget B-movie never intended to see the light of day, but which didn't account for the nascent internet's ability to spread a video file. Eleven years later, Tim Story made it into theatres with, at present, the only Fantastic Four movie...

Dan drags Keith into his film history brainrot in order to answer a question: do the biggest hits of the 20th century need or warrant a remake? We look at the biggest hit of each year from 1927 until 1999, from the dawn of the silent era to the birth of Jar Jar Binks and ask which of these hit films should be made again, which should stay lost to film history, and which will never stop being remade. Join in!

John Carpenter September continues as Dan and Keith crack open 1976's Assault on Precinct 13, and its 2005 remake, the same year as The Fog's remake. Carpenter's version favours simplicity, as the soon-to-close precinct is besieged by a seemingly unending and unstoppable horde of nigh-inhuman gang members on a vendetta, until only a handful remain. 2005, however, takes a different spin, as this titular precinct is under siege from corrupt cops, meaning the simple menace of the original is replaced by being massively out-gunned and out-armoured by an elite squad... but damned if Laurence Fishburne and Ethan Hawke aren't worth watching. Who...

Welcome to Carpenter Summer, where Dan and Keith take on two 2005 remakes of vintage John Carpenter flicks! First up, The Fog, one of three 1980 horror movies starring Jamie Lee Curtis, in which an eerie fog sweeps over a small California town, bringing with it ghost sailors out for revenge! Or their money back. Or both? Twenty-five years later, Early-Smallville Tom Welling and Just-Started-Lost Maggie Grace headline a remake of this simple ghost story that lathers on lore, sets up a love triangle that doesn't pay off, and ends with a payoff that has almost no set-up. Is it a...

Throw on your special glasses and get ready to get haunted as Dan and Keith dig into 13 Ghosts. Back in 1960, William Castle attempted a new gimmick: a special pair of glasses for audiences that either made ghosts appear, or made the movie utterly incomprehensible, as a family inherits their ghost-hunting uncle's house only find it filled with approximately a dozen ghosts. Forty-one years later, it's the cast in the special glasses as Tony Shalhoub must save his family from a little over ten ghosts with help from Matthew Lillard, and a bit of ghost writing from James Gunn. James...

Casablanca! Generally regarded as one of the greatest movies ever made, perhaps the most correct the Oscars have ever been, and the last movie you'd ever expect to see on a podcast about remakes! So why is our favourite they-slash-femme comedienne Munsi-Parker Munroe joining Keith to talk about it? It's not like there's a secret 90s Casablanca remake that's also a grim sci-fi comic book adaptation starring Pamela Anderson, right? Right? RIGHT!? Love for a cinema classic quickly gives way to deep dives into a 90s schlock flick that might not be good, but was it the Casablanca remake...

While James Gunn's Superman is soaring through theatres, Dan and Keith look back at the first time he wrote a big-screen adaptation of a Warner Bros. franchise: a pup named Scooby-Doo. Digging into the casting, the rewriting of the pitch, we ask: is it over-hated? Is it more clever than it's given credit? Maybe. Then it's time to jump from 2002 to 2020 as WB tries to launch a Hannah-Barbera Cinematic Universe with Scoob!, teaming up Mystery Inc. with less familiar characters Blue Falcon, Dyna-Mutt, and Captain Caveman. Do they try too hard to launch a franchise? Is it funnier than...

Dan, Keith, and guest Emma Gallaher are back to Transylvania for the 21st century Nosferatus! In 2024, horror auteur Robert Eggers decided to take another spin at Count Orlok... and perhaps because of this some amateur filmmakers Kickstarted their own version in 2023, with almost three recognizable stars in the mix. We tackle this low-budget retread first, which makes some odd choices with the central trio, then move on to Eggers, which shifts the focus from money-focused Thomas to tormented Ellen. Does Doug Jones as Orlok make the amateur version worthwhile? How does Eggers manage retelling the first vampire movie? We...

Dan, Keith, and returning guest Emma travel as far back in film history as we've ever been to discuss the cinematic attempt at to file the serial numbers off Dracula with Nosferatu! In this first installment, it's heute auf Deutsch time as our hosts break down 1922's Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, one of the earliest and most groundbreaking surviving horror movies of the silent era. How does it hold up? Can it hold up, asks Keith? Then we jump to the 70s, as Werner Herzog takes his own spin at the story, but while very much adapting Nosferatu...

People always say "You couldn't make a [insert Mel Brooks classic] today." But were there movies Mel Brooks shouldn't have remade? That's the question facing Dan and Keith, presented by guest Olav Rokne of the Hugo Book Club, as we tackle To Be Or Not To Be. In 1942, Jack Benny starred in a farcical comedy about a theatre troupe rallying to save the Polish resistance from the Nazi occupiers, an occupation that was still very much ongoing during the film's release. Did that make the comedy a tough line to walk? Then, four decades later, Mel Brooks produced and...

Dan and Keith head all the way back to the time to that brief overlap between the Golden Age of Hollywood and the dying days of vaudeville with comedy legends the Marx Brothers. In A Night at the Opera, Groucho, Chico, and Harpo Marx were said to hit a new height by blending their signature antics with a more grounded emotional arc (outsourced to supporting characters), but how do those antics hold up? Are aspects a little too vaudeville for a modern audience? And who would be bold enough to attempt to remake a Marx Brothers movie nearly six...

Dan and Keith head to ancient Greece and classic hero Perseus to weigh old-school stop motion against modern CG in the Clashes of the Titans! Back in 1981, legendary animator Ray Harryhausen wrapped a storied career with Clash of the Titans, in which Harry Hamlin's Perseus fights his way through stop-motion monsters to win the girl and claim a throne. Nearly three decades later, an all star cast (and Sam Worthington, fresh off one of the biggest hits in film history so you probably haven't already forgotten him) takes on a new twist on Perseus, with no throne to claim...

Turns out Rollerball was not the first instance of a Norman Jewison classic being remade by John McTiernan, so Dan and Keith strap in for round two, the Affairs of the Thomases Crown. In 1968, last days of the Hays Code, Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway squared off as bored millionaire turned bank robbery mastermind Thomas Crown and the insurance investigator who gets pulled into his orbit while trying to prove he's the thief, in a languid romance featuring some crimes. In 1999, when sexy crime thrillers were fully off the leash, Pierce Brosnan's Thomas Crown orchestrates an art heist just...

Lllllllllet's get ready to ROLLERBALL! Dan and Keith dig into the 1975 cult classic dystopic sports flick Rollerball, in which James Caan must rise up against the world's corporate overlords by playing the best darn game of Rollerball he can, after about an hour of worldbuilding that only partially builds the world. In the early 2000s, legendary action director John McTiernan attempted to remake it for the Extreme Sports era, a truly epic mess of a process that sank his entire career. Dan and Keith dig into both, to see which era Rolled Balls the best: New Hollywood's heady-philosophical-white man...

Beloved friend of the podcast and Video Vulture John Tebbutt is back, and he's got a doozy for Dan and Keith. Schlock king Roger Corman unites Mission: Impossible's Peter Graves, iconic western villain Lee Van Cleef, and B-movie queen Beverly Garland for the sci-fi thriller, question mark, It Conquered the World, in which a Venusian alien lures an Earth scientist into helping it seize control of our world, and only the scientist's wife and best friend can turn him away from his alien pal. The following decade, a much less iconic schlock filmmaker changed the names and VIRTUALLY NOTHING...

John Woo's The Killer: one of the most iconic 80s Hong Kong action flicks, with Chow Yun-Fat leaping through dove-invested areas to fire two pistols in slow-motion. Who would dare to remake it? John Woo. Dan and Keith dig into the original (and how dubbed and subtitled versions differ), the choices excellent and confusing, then jump forward to 2024 to unpack the Straight-to-Streaming remake, and how being made for the Second Screen era has affected Woo's updated take on his classic. Does the new model live up? Listen and find out!

Hit the big city streets and get ready to look for vengeance, kind of, as Dan and Keith take on the Death Wishes. Back in 1994, Charles Bronson found his most iconic role as an architect who lashes out at random street criminals in the wake of an attack on his family. Dan and Keith break it down, how much it differs from the sequels that followed, and why that's Reagan's fault. Forty-four years later, Eli Roth and Bruce Willis give the story a new spin, while hewing closer to the revenge thriller post-70s audiences expect. What do our...

Dan and Keith head to Mega-City One to look into two Judges Dredd! First, back in the 90s, Sylvester Stallone brought Britain's favourite satirical comic Judge to Hollywood, but perhaps put a little too much of him on the screen. Dystopic future, overly aggressive protagonist, Rob Schneider is here for some reason, it's a blend of a Judge Dredd adaptation and a Demolition Man follow-up that fails at being either. Two decades later, Karl Urban slips on the iconic helmet for the simply titled Dredd, and we break down everything they put right that the 90s version did wrong...

As the MCU returns from hiatus, Dan and Keith look back at the film that set up Captain America: Brave New World... that being 2008's The Incredible Hulk. First, in 2003, Ang Lee and a young producer named Kevin Feige attempted a deep, psychological Hulk, with comic-book-style editing, examinations of trauma and repressed memories, and a bit of a whackadoo climax, that may have been all theme, no plot. Five years later, Feige made one of the debut movies of his Marvel Cinematic Universe experiment a safer, simpler Hulk story... that was sandwiched between two much bigger superhero hits and...

Grab your shovel and prepare to make bad choices as Dan and Keith unearth the Pet Semataries! Way way back in the 1980s, during the heyday of Stephen King adaptations, a former star of Star Trek: TNG and a future star of Time Trax took on an adaptation of Pet Sematary, the one Stephen King book that scared Stephen King. Three decades later, another attempt was made, which didn't start changing things up until the back third, then changed a lot. Which do Dan and/or Keith prefer? Why did Dan insist on mentioning Time Trax in the synopsis...

Dan and Keith take a deep sigh, say "This may as well happen," and get into two takes on The Crow. First, the extremely 90s original with Brandon Lee and a bunch of cool character actors. How does it hold up? How does the tragedy at the core of the movie affect the viewing? Breaking down the unsafe production that cost us a rising star in Brandon Lee and imagining what might have been had someone safety checked that blank. Thirty years later, a remake limped into theatres, and Dan and Keith dig into what went wrong and how...

It's a new year, and Hollywood is still allergic to new ideas, so we have a new crop of remakes on the Horizon! Hooray, question mark? Dan and Keith dig into all the remakes and reboots on the horizon, from Fantastic Four: First Steps and Superman to new takes on Stephen King, Saturday morning cartoons, a weirdly unconnected trio of Universal Movie Monsters, and deep cut remakes you'd never expect that may or may not be released... plus find out what Mega-saga is stalking in the wings, waiting to strike! Listen in!

Ho ho holiday greetings, as Dan and Keith celebrate the season the Recovered way: unpacking movies with the same premise! First up, what else but the internet's favourite non-Muppet Christmas movie, Die Hard! John McClane is trying to save his marriage and Christmas, and we love him for it enough that it spawned a sub-genre. But of all the Die Hard clones out there, only one dared to be EVEN CHRISTMASIER... by having literal Santa Claus go full Die Hard in 2022's Violent Night! So curl up by the fire, grab some cookies, makes fists with your toes on...

Grab your parka, light a flamethrower, and trust no one as we take on Things from Other Worlds! First, Dan, Keith, and special guest Emma head back to the 1950s for The Thing From Another World, based on the story Who Goes There, as an arctic base is beset by a plant-based invader out to steal their blood, and science and military find themselves at odds. Then jump to 1982 for another attempt to adapt the story, Keith's very favourite movie, John Carpenter's The Thing, a masterwork of paranoid thrills and practical effects; and its 2011 prequel-sort-of-remake, a case study of...