By Paula R. Stiles

Alas, Supernatural only gets 22 episodes per year. Fortunately, Innsmouth Free Press has only started recapping this season, which gives us four seasons and 80 episodes to recap and review. So, this week, we’re going to start off with last year’s October holidays entries: namely this one,”Monster Movie” (Oktoberfest), and “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester” (Halloween) before returning next week with a brand new ep for Halloween this year.

“Monster Movie” tagline: Sam and Dean investigate a town in Pennsylvania during Oktoberfest where people are dying in strange ways reminiscent of the old Universal horror films of the 30s and 40s.

“Monster Movie” recap: No teaser whatsoever on this one and none of the usual title cards (the black and white flapping wings in season four). Instead, we get the old black and white Warner Bros. logo and movie-style title Supernatural, followed by side-by-side credits for Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, credits for supporting players, writers (Ben Edlund wrote the episode), producers, and the director (Robert Singer). All in black and white, like the entire episode, and set against a stormy night sky, like the old films. If you hate that kind of thing, run now.

I am not entirely sure of the significance of the Warner Bros. logo. A rather long wrangle with some fellow perplexed fans last season on IMDB never entirely cleared up the matter. I mean, yes, Supernatural is owned by Warner Bros., but this entire episode is in the style of the old Universal monster movies. Yet, Universal is alive and well and still owns the rights to those films (and clings to those copyrights with great ferocity). As best I could find out, Warner Bros. got some partial rights back in the 50s and 60s, after the old film series had gone out of style and during a time when Universal temporarily no longer gave a crap about these films. This seems to have been connected to Warner Bros. being the American distributors for Hammer films that had got hold of the rights to do knock-offs/remakes/sequels to these series (Hammer always seems to be in the middle of cheap, 60s, anglophone cinema horror, whether it’s Poe, Lovecraft, 3D, or remakes of whatever). That’s the only reason I think Supernatural could get the rights to pretty much all of the major Universal monsters (and the unique look of those films), when it couldn’t afford Metallica or Led Zeppelin, without getting sued into a creative coma by Universal or bankrupting the show for the rest of the season.

All I can say is: thank God they managed it, however they managed it. But back to the recap.

Cut to the brothers driving down that ubiquitous country road at night past a wooden sign that says, “Welcome to Pennsylvania.” Or is it…”Transylvania”? Cheesy thunder flashes and growls in the distance (no rain). Ominously high-pitched violin music plays on the soundtrack. Dean reaches over and turns off the radio, turning off the music (that gag, which they also use in “Good God, Y’all!”, never does get old).

“The radio around here sucks,” he complains.

Usual conversational set-up for MOTW episodes since, oh, season one, follows, with Sam pointing out that the boys are ignoring the season’s uberstory and Dean blowing him off. Sam is looking at a map with a mini Maglite, brooding, while Dean chatters happily about having a straightforward case involving a vampire. Sam complains that yeah, it’s an interesting case, but what about the end of the world? Dean says that’s too big for them to deal with all at once; Sam has no reply to this; down the road they go. Closing iris shot (no, I don’t know the technical term), just like the old movies.

Next scene, it’s daytime and an outdoor Oktoberfest celebration is in full swing. Pretty blonde girls in miniskirted versions of “Bavarian” peasant costumes are walking around and posing for tourist cameras. The boys get out of the Impala, dressed as feds. Dean is talking about how they have to go see the latest Indiana Jones film and is miffed when Sam casually admits he’s seen it, already. Fortunately for Sam, Dean is quickly distracted: “BIG pretzel!” As Dean leaps exuberantly offscreen for the food, Sam watches him with a fond, if exasperated, smile. His brother is back from Hell, more so than so far in the season.

An especially pretty girl walks by. “Guten tag,” she tells the brothers with a saucy smile.

“Guten tag, yourself,” Dean replies, smitten in mid-chew. Yup, Dean the Hound Dog is back in commission, too.

The boys locate their local law enforcement target, Sheriff Dietrich, who is expecting them. Sam introduces them as “Agents Angus and Young” while Dean fumbles for his badge. Dietrich is cooperative, but puzzled, and mentions an “unreliable” witness. At the morgue, Marissa Wright, the dead body, is the victim of a vampire attack, all right, but she only has two neat holes on her neck, not the tear-your-throat-out mess a real vampire really leaves.

The boys arrive in a crowded bar/restaurant of Bavarian design (which undoubtedly has a beer garden out back), still in uniform. They’re looking for the witness to the vampire attack. Instead, they run into Lucy, a perky-yet-strangely-pushy brunette and Jamie, the blonde who said, “Guten Tag.” Dean flirts heavily with her and even pulls out the “rebel with a badge” maneuver, but she plays it coy and turns him down (despite the fact that the attraction is obviously mutual).

Still, when, to prove a point to Sam, Dean calls her “bar wench” and asks for her to hurry up with his beer, she cheerfully goes along with it. Sam doesn’t get any because Dean claims he doesn’t drink due to being a Christian Scientist (revenge for the Indiana Jones thing, maybe?). Dean then joyfully proclaims to Sam that, since the angels c0mpletely restored his body, he has come to the conclusion that he is once again a virgin and must rectify this issue immediately. Honestly? I’m shocked he waited five episodes to take care of it.

Sam and Dean meet up with the witness, Ed Brewer, who slurps out of a huge beer stein while talking to them. Ed is, to put it kindly, a bit of a nutjob. He claims that he thought at first that it was two lovers, but the girl was “struggling too much”. He also gives a description that exactly matches that of Bram Stoker’s Dracula – cape, accent and all.

The boys aren’t sure what to think. Dracula? Really? But a couple of events start to change their minds. First, a horny teenage boy is torn to pieces by a werewolf (the Wolfman himself, complete with raggedy clothing) while he and his girlfriend are “parking” (as they use to so quaintly put it), but the fur found on the body is actual wolf fur and the heart is still intact. Werewolves, in the Supernaturalverse, just grow out a lot of human hair and they always take the heart. The girlfriend (who has her own, humongous plastic cup of soda to slurp up) is not much help, nor especially broken up over her boyfriend. The only thing they get from her is that, like Ed’s Dracula vampire, the werewolf was like the Wolfman of the old-time Universal films.

This gives Dean a headache. On the plus side, the news that the boys are staying in town motivates Jamie to ask Dean out. Dean cheerfully accepts.

Then a guard at a museum is killed after receiving an odd delivery – a mummy, complete with sarcophagus, who subsequently throttles him. Even more bizarre, Dean finds smoking dry ice in the sarcophagus and Sam discovers a label on it. It was rented from a “prop house in Philly”.

Dean realizes that he’s late for his date with Jamie and asks Sam to cover for him. Meanwhile, Jamie, in normal street clothes, is getting disgusted with waiting (”Your loss, G-Man”) and starts to walk home through the dark, cobblestoned streets. But she’s accosted by a man in a cape – Dracula. In a thick, “Transylvanian” accent, the man corners her when she tries to run and then starts declaring his undying love for her as his “reincarnated” girlfriend, Mina. When Jamie responds by macing him (you go, girl!), he breaks into a normal, American accent when cussing.

Jamie runs, straight into Dean’s arms. Dean puts her between him and Dracula and knocks Dracula down. But the monster comes right back up, hissing, and slams Dean into a wall, calling him “Mr. Harker”. Jamie wisely runs when Dean yells at her to do so. Dean is only saved from getting bitten on the neck when he grabs Dracula’s ear and rips it off. Recoiling, Dracula flees, with Dean in hot pursuit (the chase is ridiculously slow), but Dracula is able to vault over an iron gate and escape…on a moped. With a really annoying Road-Runner horn.

Cue Intermission. Seriously. This episode has an Intermission card.

Back at the restaurant (now closed and silent), Dean shows Sam the ear. It’s the “skin of a shapeshifter” who is “whole new buckets of crazy.” Dean has also pulled off Dracula’s medal, which comes from the same props shop as the sarcophagus. Sam realizes that “Dracula” is identifying Dean and Jamie with characters in the film and book versions of Dracula. Mina is the heroine who is threatened by the monster and Jonathan Harker is her fiancé. They’re dealing with one monster not several, one obsessed with old movies. Dean figures they better find it and kill it before it shows up as the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

After some back-and-forth with Jamie, the brothers determine that the monster is pretending to be Ed, one of their witnesses. Sam goes off to the local concert hall while Dean stays behind to “guard” Jamie. Sam finds Ed in his BVDs, playing away on the organ like the Phantom of the Opera. But when Sam grabs Ed and tries to rip off his ear, Ed screams in pain and the ear won’t come off. Ed’s just a guy.

Meanwhile, back at the restaurant, Jamie is busy “thanking” (nice word for “seducing”) her brave G-Man, whom she has realized is not really an FBI agent. Dean opens up to her as they cozy up in a booth. He gives her a vague version of his experience with Hell and says that it’s given him a new appreciation of life. He feels now as if he’s got a mission, “a mission from God”. Jamie asks Dean if that means he’s “some kind of monk” and Dean, startled, declares that he isn’t. This quickly leads to a massive necking session which is interrupted by Lucy turning on the lights.

Lucy acts all apologetic and Jamie, wanting to be polite to her friend, asks her to stay for a drink. Dean naturally doesn’t much like the intrusion, but isn’t going to protest, either, to keep Jamie attracted to him.

This turns out to be a mistake. Jamie soon starts to feel woozy, and so does Dean. It turns out Lucy drugged their drinks. Too late, Dean realizes that Lucy is the shapeshifter. Jamie passes out and Dean leaps up, grabbing a bottle. “I’m gonna skin you alive,” he promises the shapeshifter, but he, too, is overcome and he passes out. Lucy, just like the Leshi in “Fallen Idols”, grinds him under her heel.

Dean wakes up in a huge underground laboratory straight out of Universal’s Frankenstein, strapped to the infamous wooden table from the film by steel bars. Most humiliating of all, he’s been redressed in lederhosen. “Dracula” comes in, cape and all. He calls Dean “Harker” again and gloats over him. Dean isn’t impressed, goading him and calling him nuts for his obsession over old monster movies. The shapeshifter counters that the old monsters in the movies are “beautiful, grand”. Everything is “perfect” in the films. His life has not been particularly beautiful or grand and so, he emulates the monsters. He copied Lucy as his “public” form because he felt the actress who played her never got the recognition she deserved.

After some back-and-forth, Dracula decides to electrocute Dean. But just as he is going for the huge lever on the wall, Dean is literally saved by the bell – the doorbell, that is. Dracula goes upstairs to deal with a jaded pizza boy. He’s ordered “dinner” for himself and his “bride”, who is, of course, Jamie.

He acts very differently with Jamie. When she refuses to put on a beautiful white dress (which looks a lot like Fay Wray’s from King Kong), he breaks character and shouts at her. Frightened, she puts the dress on. He is ashamed and mutters that she was the only one he didn’t want to be afraid of him and that he’s lonely. Jamie, still as spunky as before, points out, “Did it ever occur to you that you’re lonely because you kill people?”

Downstairs, Sam comes into the laboratory and frees Dean. He snickers at Dean’s attire, but Dean growls at him as he grabs a silver knife and swears he’s going to kill Dracula.

This doesn’t go quite as planned, however. When the boys arrive upstairs, the superstrong shapeshifter tosses Sam through a prop door and knocks Dean down. But before he can kill Dean, Jamie shoots him from behind with one of the boys’ guns loaded with silver bullets. “Sil…ver?” the shapeshifter quavers, but then he recovers his poise. Even dying, he intends to stay in character. He reassures Jamie, telling her not to cry for him (Jamie looks more disgusted than tearful) and says that perhaps this is the way the movie should end, with the death of the monster.

In the last scene, Dean and Jamie are saying goodbye, at length and with much PDA. Sam is standing nearby, looking alternately impatient and uncomfortable. The boys are back in their regular clothes. After bidding Jamie farewell, Dean walks off with Sam. He speculates that maybe life would be better if it were more like the movies, but he wouldn’t model it after the old monster movies. Then he tells Sam he bets Sam can’t guess which one he would model it after.

“Porky’s II,” Sam replies with no hesitation. The episode closes on Dean’s astonishment that his brother knows him so well.

“Monster Movie” Review: I love this episode. I enjoyed it on first viewing and just love it more each time I see it. I honestly don’t get why the CW only repeated it once and why some fans seem eager to forget it. It’s so quotable, and there’s so much little stuff in it that you pick up each time you see it. The cast and crew put a huge amount of work into it to make it look like the old films, from stuff like the “corpse-eye view” when the brothers come to see Marissa at the morgue to the shadows in the scene where Sam catches Ed playing the organ. And everybody (especially Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles) looks great in black and white. There is some really beautiful cinematography in this episode. Movie-worthy, even.

All of this is enhanced by enthusiastic performances by the supporting players (especially Todd Stashwick as Dracula, Melinda Sward as Jamie and Michael Eklund – veteran of CBC show Intelligence – as Ed), some very funny straight-man work by Padalecki and an inspired, off-my-meds-fer-sure performance by Ackles. Padalecki is George to Ackles’ Gracie. Abbott to Ackles’ Costello. Please tell me some of you are old enough to get those references.

Ackles also perfectly compliments (or is complimented by) Stashwick’s energetic performance as the loony shapeshifter. One of the nice things about the shapeshifters is that they are always presented as shadows to Dean, but without that much contrast. “Monster Movie” never loses sight of the fact that Dean is every bit as nutty as the shapeshifter, or any of the weird witnesses he and Sam encounter. Some of this may be inadvertent (in the novel Dracula, Jonathan Harker is trapped in Dracula’s castle early on, escapes, has a full-on nervous breakdown, and has to be nursed back to health by his fiancée, Mina), but a lot of it is totally intentional. When Dean is running around grabbing big pretzels or declaring to Jamie that he’s “a rebel with a badge” or telling Sam the angels gave him back his virginity, he is cracking jokes, yes. But a lot of the humour stems from his total lack of awareness of how he’s coming across – and the fact that he doesn’t really care. You’re laughing at him as much as with him. So, instead of being the straitlaced Hero who is above it all, he’s in the thick of the insanity and loving every minute of it.

This leads to the one real weakness of the episode, which is the portrayal of Sam. A few lines (like the wrangle over Sam having seen the latest Indiana Jones film while Dean was in Hell) hint at darkness that could be explored. Sam’s fond expression at seeing Dean happy over something as simple (even idiotic) as a pretzel Shows us Sam’s love for his brother instead of banging us over the head with Tell. Unfortunately, Edlund never goes there very often. Sam remains the straight man and we never get much of an exploration of the brothers’ relationship. It remains Ackles’ (and the cast of guest nutters) show throughout the episode. It’s fun, but a little more here and there could have included Sam in the action, too.

That said, I still love “Monster Movie”. It’s a true, honest, well-done homage to the old Universal films. And it isn’t even about Halloween. It’s actually about that lesser-known October festival, Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest is a German festival (specifically, Bavarian) that lasts for 16 days in September and October. It was originally a royal wedding celebration first held in 1810.

The party atmosphere and Pennsylvania setting (many Germans settled in Pennsylvania) lend to the goofiness. It’s the perfect atmosphere for a shapeshifter that wants to imitate the old Universal flicks and the two monster hunters who arrive in town to take him out.

Oh, and one final note – bring back Jamie. She’s a great, spunky heroine and she and Dean were hot together.

Fun lines:

Dean: It’s about time the Winchesters got back to tackling a straightforward, black-and-white case.

Dean: We still gotta see the new Raiders movie.

Sam: Saw it.

Dean: Without me?!

Sam: You were in Hell.

Dean: That’s no excuse! [is distracted] Big Pretzel!

Sheriff Dietrich: This killer’s some kind of Grade-A wacko, right? I mean, some Satan-worshiping, Anne-Rice-reading, Gothic, psycho, vampire wannabe?

Jamie [to Dean]: You’re a Fed? You don’t come on like a Fed. Seriously?

Dean: I’m a maverick, ma’am. A rebel with a badge. One thing I don’t play by? The rules.

Dean: Brother, I have been rehymenated! And the Dude will not abide!

Jamie: So, you guys are like Mulder and Scully, or something? And The X-Files are real?

Dean: No, The X-Files is a TV show. This is real.

Jamie: So, this is what you do? You and your partner tramp across the country, looking for some horrible nightmare to fight?

Dean: Some people paint.

Dean [to the shapeshifter]: I cannot get over what a pumpkin-pie-eyed crazy son of a bitch you really are.

Dracula/Shapeshifter: I am all monsters.

Dean: Life ain’t a movie, you sorry sack of – [gets punched]

Dracula/Shapeshifter: Life is small. Meager, messy. The movies are grand, simple, elegant. I have chosen elegance.

Next Week: The Curious Case of Dean Winchester: Bobby plays poker to heal himself and loses big. Dean plays to help him out and loses bigger. What will Sam do now?

We’ll also be covering “Ghostfacers” as part of our Paranormal Week and “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester” on Halloween. ‘Cause we gotta cover Halloween, too.

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 Print | Filed under: Reviews, Supernatural by Paula R. Stiles