Against Common Decency We Watch The Third Dungeons and Dragons Movie

D&Daniel  0:00

We made a new friend. It's Merk, a fun new friend of the show joining Hedwig and Carlo. It makes me all tingly in my insides. Enjoy the show

Pencil  0:25

Hello, and welcome to the probably bad podcast. a podcast, which is definitely bad i'm pencil

Paper  0:32

i'm paper and we made a mistake.

Pencil  0:36

Yes, we watched the third dungeons and dragons movie the book of vile darkness it is not very good.

Paper  0:45

The title of this episode was a joke. Then we watched the movie, which is the horniest thing I've ever seen. Because evil makes you horny. And everyone in this film is canonically evil. Apart from like two people,

Pencil  1:08

cheesy evil too, that kind of Haha, I'm going to spend all my time cackling about how weak my family were for being killed by an avalanche kind of evil.

Paper  1:18

Hmm.

Pencil  1:20

Yeah, the nominal premise of the film is that there is the book of vile darkness, which was made by Naboo the Foul and also made out of Naboo the Foul.

Paper  1:32

I don't think it was actually called Naboo. But that's what it sounded like. It's like, Nargruhl or something.

Pencil  1:41

I think it was spelt differently, but I'm pretty sure it was pronounced Naboo. Which I guess they can't. I don't know when this was made. But...

Paper  1:49

2012

Pencil  1:51

Okay, in that case, yes, I can absolutely blame them for that.

Paper  1:55

On a budget of $12 million. nothing for a fantasy movie, and you can tell.

Pencil  2:03

But yeah, anyway, so they built a book that made the book of vile darkness. It was split into three pages, three pieces. Those three pieces were scattered around the world. And then this doesn't fucking come up for most of the movie. Like it's only saw, there's an offhand mention about finding the pages. But for most of the movie, all of this story of this evil wizard, who used the book of vile darkness to bring about an age of eternal darkness. That's not relevant to what's happening.

Paper  2:34

Yeah, so we basically we have a brand new Paladin who follows paylor, the god of light, called Grayson. All of his order gets killed right after he's recruited. And then he joins a bunch of bad guys who are looking for the cover of the book. Yeah, they need a horn so they can find the cover so they can find the pages. And it's unclear why he joins them apart from vaguely to stop them. Yeah, we find out later that the dad has something to do with it. But that was not mentioned earlier on in the film... his dad is the goodest man.

Pencil  3:21

any Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you got to sort of three evil stereo types. You got the big savage vaguely racially uncomfortable villain. You got the weird honourable villain who rambles is weird, anarcho capitalist rants about how evil the strong will dominate the weak and law is a restriction or some such bullshit. And you got the sexy femme fatale villain who bones the hero. That's her thing. This book

Paper  3:58

don't forget, one of those villains is played by the one person of colour in the film. But is painted white. for extra points i guess

Pencil  4:12

it's not a very good film again. As we're saying, like, I think yeah, the only the vaguely good scenes that worked. It had-  had what's called a slay mate, which is like an undead child that was legitimately quite creepy. It was sort of had a child's voice dubbed over the creepy zombie thing.

Paper  4:39

Yeah, I think that's where 10 of the 12 million went

Pencil  4:41

Yeah, but that one was a Like, legitimately good monster. but i'm finding it hard to think of anything other than that one scene

Paper  4:51

i guess the sex scenes are good if you like sex scenes. Yeah. at one point they cut to a bunch of women Having sex in a pool for no apparent reason we never find out who they are. They're just evil lesbians who exist.

Pencil  5:08

It was hard to tell but they were having sex on top of the Goliath. He was lying under them.

Paper  5:15

completely missed he was there.

Pencil  5:18

he was lying under them.

Paper  5:20

I was distracted by the evil lesbian.

Pencil  5:23

a totally random point. Like that scene was never brought up again and had no build up. And it's the same thing keeps happening that will just keep having scenes of Oh, yes. Oh, so the villains are getting laid. Just so you know.

Paper  5:38

The only sex scene because there were multiple sex scenes, the only one that really contributed anything, but was still unnecessary was the one between Grayson and the evil sorceress in the party. Because there was a whole thing of like, Oh, I'm good, and you're evil, but we love each other, but it can never work. Which, honestly, was the closest that the film came to being emotionally interesting.

Pencil  6:07

yeah, Because the idea of you know, a paladin has to infiltrate a group of bad guys, that's not necessarily impossible to do well. But it was still

Paper  6:21

Brian Rudnik couldn't do it

Pencil  6:24

Like his thing when he first infiltrated the bad guys to show how evil he was, was to steal one of the villains' chairs. Which he just he just sat down in their chair to show how he was evil. He was just

Paper  6:40

I don't even know

Pencil  6:42

the entire thing. Had the feel of like, like an undercover cop who was like hello, I would like to purchase your drugs. can i Please record you saying yes, I will give you a drug. Like he was still wearing his paladin armour for the entire movie as he tried to infiltrate bad guys.

Paper  7:05

Yeah, the only concession that he made to like oh, I have to not look like a Paladin is I'm gonna hide my palor amulet I guess. Just in my pocket. It's unclear where he put it.

Pencil  7:18

He put it down his shirt. I believe

Paper  7:23

it's still around

like you said he's still wearing like the full on paladin of palor uniform the like shiny armour and the big dramatic cloak and everything like everyone else looks evil TM. He's just a guy

Pencil  7:43

Yeah, he looks cuz yeah, pretty certain he still has it around his neck. He's just put it down his shirt. That's the entirety of the disguise he's done.

Paper  7:57

Well, you know, because he's so good. He's not very good deception, obviously.

Pencil  8:02

Yeah, he's just like the villains don't ever suspect this. Like one villain suspects this and everyone else is like Ah, you're rescuing hostages. But you say you're doing it evily. So clearly...

Paper  8:20

Yeah, he's either got a very high persuasion stat or everyone's an idiot. And honestly, given this entire film, it could equally be either

Pencil  8:32

so thing is nothing. Very little happens in this moviei'm trying to think of a synopsis but it's hard to synopsis because so little happens

Paper  8:44

it's basically um, yeah. The Knights get killed he finds the bad guys that are looking for the horn to find the book. The kill a dragon for some reason. Unclear. And then, like an hour later, they find the slay mate. Nothing really happens in that hour except for the sex scenes.

Pencil  9:12

Yeah. Yeah, the slay mate sort of guarding the way to evil land.

Paper  9:18

Yeah, the slay mate is guarding the cover of the book. Yeah. When the pencil said the book is divided into three parts. It's not in the way you would think it's the cover the pages and the inks.

Pencil  9:35

They have pulled the ink off the book.

Unknown Speaker  9:41

so yeah, the and the ink. They're gonna replace it with liquid pain extracted from the purest soul they can find that happens to be Grayson's dad. Who, I feel sorry for the guy that plays Grayson's dad because he was in some proper like BBC acclaimed dramas, and then he was in this. And then most of his credits have things like, additional voices. Or he's in like, half an episode of something and I feel bad for him because he's, he can act he's the person who can act in this film.

Unknown Speaker  10:21

He like the scenes with him in are the only ones that have sort of any sense of emotional like investment. Like he felt his son finds him and reveals that he had to like, you know, betray his power to do it. And he sounds like he is, you know, conflicted on it. As opposed to everyone else and sounds like they're cackling maniacally, or pretending to cackle maniacally.

Unknown Speaker  10:53

Yeah, like, Anthony, Howell we support you And I'm sorry that this film presumably is the thing that did that to your career.

pencil 11:03

Was So the ending in so it turns so there's a book guy and also one other thing I did like is that they did have actual like, prestige classes from the book of vile darkness. Which you know, is it's neat if you've read the thing like...

Paper  11:22

it's something

pencil  11:24

the Big Bad. The Big Bad is a swarm of bugs in a human suit, vermin Lord, and they kidnap this guy. And reveal Haha, I knew you were paladin all long because you dress like a fucking paladin. Like halfway through, he sees him with his paladin amulet out and it's presumably obvious at that at that point. So you're a Paladin, but of a traditional sort of like, I have found it is clearly a fucking Paladin. But anyway, he kidnaps the paladin greyson. And they stopped torturing him for liquid pain. And then he shoots everyone with lasers. And they all die except the hot sorceress lady. And she's like, Ah, she's basically like... Oh, it's time for a sexually charged hero villain relationship and teleports away. Pretty close.

paper  12:19

i think that character is caleld Carlotta but It's very unclear what most characters are called.

Pencil  12:25

Yeah, I think she said she gets pretty close to just basically saying that. And then a swarm of bugs fly the screen laugh and then that's the end of the movie. It does feel very much like they ran out of budget halfway through filming the finale. And it's very possible they ran out of budget.

Paper  12:41

they have like the vermin Lord uses something that looks kind of like insect plague. And there's the slay mate. And I think that is where all of the budget went I can't find any information on like the actual production process of this film. Because I guess no one cares enough to put that information online. But I do have a strong suspicion that they basically just couldn't so they didn't.

Pencil  13:21

Yeah, it's like, this is hard to sort of give an interesting view on it just because very little happened. It's just a bunch of evil people fucking around giving these or giving these really like it does sort of show how stupid a religion based around evil is. Because they're all just like, yes, we're going to bring about an age of darkness where the weak will be chaff before us and you just you just all sound like a 14 year old who's read Ayn Rand.

Paper 13:53

Yeah, it's a I am struggling to articulate my thoughts. Because my thoughts are basically the word No, written in 10 foot neon letters.

Pencil  14:06

Like if what you want is a bunch of D&D sex scenes interspersed with very bad philosophy. And the most blatantly fucking heroic man. He just walks in and steals their chair and goes does it look like i care about chair righst?

Paper  14:37

The problem is yes, you do. You look like the one person that cares about chair rights

Pencil  14:43

Yeah, like the villain, the villainess who again evil sorcerer, she's hot. She just falls in love with him immediately. And she just spends the entire movie trying to get with him and the slay mate is repulsed by her because she radiates love or some bullshit like that. And it's just, it's just really she's just like she's sort of a character who's very clearly shown to be a love interest, which makes it really weird that she's one of the two big bads.

Paper 15:26

Yeah, I have a theory about her attraction to him. Because we know that good girls love a bad boy. So obviously, what's happening is that bad girls love a good boy. and presumably neutral people just hook up with each other.

Pencil  15:47

like, yeah, it does  feel like the mandatory love interest has become the big bad, but not in an interesting way, just in the sense that like, she's not doing evil things

Paper  15:58

and at the end they're going to agree to disagree they're like, oh, well, you know, if it comes to a fight later, maybe maybe I'll kill you, maybe I won't. And she's like, Yeah, maybe. And that's their last interaction.

Pencil  16:13

Yeah, it's just, yeah, you did try and plunge a world into eternal darkness. And crush them before you...

Paper  16:20

but you're a good lay

Pencil  16:25

Yeah, basically, and it's like, there's so many fucking sex scenes, they won't stop they just they just, it's just like every so often the plot will stop and it's already like fucking slow enough. Sorry for swearing a lot. This is a very bad film. But the plot will just stop the plot will just stop and then they will be a sexy do I want to build this essentially lying under a bed of writhing sexy women. Then we just go back to the plot that it just it feels like it's being written by someone who's too horny to screenwrite. And the only way they could get around it is to occasionally stop screenwriting and writing their softcore pornography, get that out of their system and then would go back to screen writing.

Pencil  17:16

Like it does have the same feel as the book of vile darkness, the RPG supplement in it rarely, someone trying really, really, really hard to be edgy, with no understanding of any kind of deeper themes or like coherence, or story writing.

Paper  17:38

I should mention that this man has written Yeah, he also wrote wrath of the Dragon God but the other things he's written are very totally different to this. He wrote a film about a teenage Iranian refugee in the 80s who joins a wrestling team. A film where a single father meets a woman who's a perfect mom for the kids and is actually an angel and a film where a widow needs to save her ranch by working with convicts to rehabilitate some wild horses. It's like what is this man's career?

Pencil  18:36

So as a theory this plot...

Paper  18:42

and this is the only one of those films that he wrote on his own.

Pencil  18:46

Yeah, so this plot is, you know, a paladin who's clearly the good guy badly infiltrating the villains and imitating badness. And this movie is a movie made by someone who writes things about angels helping, helping widowers and you know, old ladies helping convicts by having them rehabilitate horses, trying to write the worst possible like, evil edgy, evil edgy movie, and it's actually a deep meta analysis on his career.

Paper  19:18

That is the only explanation I will accept. Because the alternative is that you know, the first one was pretty decent. This was made by a production company owned by the writer and not writer by the director and producer of the first one. So the other alternative is she just went yeah, I guess and let this happen.

Pencil  19:43

it is... But yeah, so I would not recommend this movie. I don't think.

Paper  19:48

no. You could get the same experience by going on to AO3, Finding something tagged with dungeons and dragons and with porn without plots, and then finding the worst rated one and acting it out with a bunch of random people you found in a pub.

Pencil  20:11

Yeah, it's sort of porn. That's trying really hard to have plot. But it's not doing very well at it. Like, like because it is just there's so little plot, like the book of vile darkness is introduced sort of at the start. And now it comes up again at the end and in between, like, even without, like sex scenes, they're just walking vaguely around doing nothing of any particular interest.

Paper  20:46

Yeah, like they, they talk to a mayor for a while. Because they need to get I think they get the horn, No that the mayor knows where the horn is. They have multiple scenes where they're just yelling back and forth negotiations with the mayor to find out where the horn is. And then kill a dragon in like three rounds. And that is everything that happens in between the first and last 20 minutes.

Pencil  21:23

It's sort of weird.

Paper  21:24

This film is 86 minutes long. Because we have two minutes of nothing.

Pencil  21:31

It's both we were both incredibly convoluted and completely lacking in any kind of like, because what characters will just show up and you're like who the fuck's this character and then that character will die. And then it will just it always feels like you're missing a scene. Possibly a scene that was replaced with an orgy. But yeah, like every scene feels like every scene feels like when you walk into a TV show halfway through an episode and have to try and figure out who these people are what's going on. But it's the entire movie. Yeah. Like the fact that like I can't remember any of the major characters names except Grayson possibly says something.

Paper  22:23

And that's mostly because we because I kept saying Grayson in like the heavy rain voice

Pencil  22:31

no good to be honest. If you hadn't reminded me I wouldn't know what his name was. Like the characters are as I said they're the three evil stereotypes. I guess yeah, you Oh, so yeah, you have oh, the evil manipulative. Haha what is my nefarious secret agenda villain? You got four evil stereotypes one good stereotype

Paper  22:59

and a chair thief.

Pencil 23:00

And a chair thief. There's like, yeah, there's like the scenes where like the guys are tight, tied up shirtless and like, have their pain sucked out and it all feels very... It all feels like they're getting off on it even when it's not an explicit sex scene. Yeah, yeah, I think Paper said that they wouldn't have got into d&d If this was their first introduction to d&d.

Paper  23:32

I absolutelywould not.

which i feel sums up the movie

it's got the worst parts of high fantasy.

Pencil  23:39

Yeah, I think it's sort of I think it yeah, if you were to take that terrible like campaign you had with a bunch of edgy 14 year olds, before you like understood nuance and stuff enough to realise what you're doing was a bit fucked up, Or if you took any random like, RPG from our horror stories, and we made that into a movie. That's kind of what it is. It's just, it's just not good.

Paper  24:09

It really isn't. And the risk of continuing to rant about it for another 20 odd minutes. Thank you for listening to us rant about that film for 20 odd minutes.

Pencil  24:23

You can watch it if you want. I would... I wouldn't. Honestly, you could probably find better porn even if that's what you're into. Porn with better plots to be honest.

Paper  24:44

I mean, I I do not watch the porns, but I'm assuming most of them have a better plot.

Pencil  24:56

So yes, thank you for listening to the angry rant about this film we just watched poorly disguised as a podcast.

Paper  25:06

Yeah, we have we have email and stuff if you have a question so the podcast or just want to tell us how you feel about this film can email probably bad podcast@gmail.com or message us on Tumblr, Probably bad RPG ideas and we have a Patreon where you can get access to homebrew stuff such as elemental worms and bonus episodes and a Discord server. And I don't know why my voice is doing this. At Patreon probably bad RPG ideas. I'm not going to say remember to have a probably bad day because that film was so bad I need some good in the world. Remember to watch some good media

Pencil  26:06

Remember to have a probably good day

Transcribed by https://otter.ai