Supernatural: Monster Movie (Episode 405)

Holy lederhosen, Batman!How is this show not the most popular thing on TV?  I really, really want someone to explain to me how Meredith’s manic-depressive sexual escapades and Izzie’s whiney bitchery on Grey’s Anatomy get better ratings than this.  And seriously show, can you start being endearingly crappy again so I can make fun of you?  You’re making my job very difficult.

This episode—which is shot entirely in black and white—is a mockery of cheesy, old school horror films.  We open up with a movie-style title and credits set to a ridiculously overdramatic score.  The Impala drives down a road at night, passing a sign that says “Welcome to Pennsylvania” in Gothic script.  It turns out that the score is coming from the car, and Dean turns it off, saying that “the radio around here sucks.”  For the record, we’re 1:13 seconds in and already this episode is awesome.  The boys are in town on what appears to be a clear-cut vampire case.  Dean’s pumped that they’re finally “tackling a straight-forward, black and white case” after all the apocalyptic crap they’ve been dealing with lately.  Lightning flashes, and the scene ends with a craptastic Windows Movie Maker transition.  Like I said, awesome.

The next day, the boys dress up in their suits and arrive at Oktoberfest, which is probably Dean’s version of Heaven.  Dean wants to see the new Indiana Jones movie, and is a little annoyed to find out that Sam saw it when he was in Hell.  Not to worry though, because there are pretzels abound, and where there be food, there Dean’s focus shall wonder.  Sam smiles at his brother’s enthusiasm, like he can’t believe he has him back.  They greet the local sheriff, posing as feds (Agents Angus and Young, because no one in the world listens to AC/DC but them).  The sheriff takes them to look at the body of a woman who was allegedly mauled by a vampire.  When the boys look at her, they see that she has two “fang marks” on her neck.  This makes no sense to them, since vampires on this show have a shitload of fangs, not just two.  The sheriff mentions that the witness from the police report, Ed Brewer, is not exactly reliable, but that doesn’t really mean anything to the Winchesters.

Sam and Dean enter a tavern in search of Ed.  Dean makes a beeline for a pretty barmaid named Jamie that he’d seen on the street earlier, and lays down the cheesiest pick-up lines in existence.  Dude, why do it?  Have you looked in the mirror lately?  You could walk up to pretty much anyone and say “now” and that would be the end of that discussion.  She doesn’t go for it, but does let the boys know where they can find Ed.  Ed, it seems, is severely dehydrated, because he is downing a giant touristy concoction like nobody’s business.  It takes a little convincing, but Ed and his apparently failing kidneys eventually describe the attack.  He says that he was walking along when he saw a vampire biting the victim’s neck.  He knew the guy was a vamp because he had “the fangs, the slicked back hair, the fancy cape, [and] the little medallion.” It was the whole Dracula shebang, right down to the Transylvanian accent.  Sam and Dean cannot suppress their WTF faces.

Over at the bar, Jamie and her fellow barmaid Lucy are discussing crazy Ed’s crush on Jamie.  Lisa blots her lip on a napkin and leaves it the on the counter, and the camera lingers on it for a moment.  And that, my friends, is what they call foreshadowing.  Having decided that this is not their kind of gig, Sam and Dean decide to enjoy the wonder that is Oktoberfest.  Jamie gets Dean a beer but continues to defer his attempts to pick her up.  He’s not giving up, though, because he has this theory; apparently, he came back from Hell without any of his old scars or badly healed breaks, so he believes that his virginity has been restored.  Or, as he puts it, “I have been re-hymenated.”  At this point, we may have to take a break from the episode in order to laugh hysterically for several minutes, because that?  Is fucking fantastic.  Yet even with this unparalleled display of awesome, Jamie still refuses to hook up with Dean on the first night.  Girl’s gotta have standards, after all.

Cut to a car parked near the woods, in which two young people are getting all hot and steamy.  A wolf howls somewhere in the distance, which freaks the girl out enough so that she stops making out with her boyfriend.  Her boyfriend wants her to focus on the goal at hand, because “if a man doesn’t get the stuff out of his system regularly it can back up and cause all sorts of medical-type problems.”  Heh.  Outside of the car, something big and hairy is drawing closer.  Suddenly, it’s big, Teen Wolf-esque hands crash through the car window and rip the guy out of the car.  The girl screams.  A lot.

Sometime later, the girl recounts the attack to Sam and Dean.  She too has some sort of renal disease, as she’s downing a Big Gulp like it’s her job.  She claims that the creature was a werewolf, because it had “the furry face and the black nose and the claws and the torn up pants and shirt. Like from the old movies.”  Armed with this information, Sam and Dean head back over to the morgue.  What’s left of the guy’s body is absolutely shredded, but the heart is still intact.  That means that they aren’t dealing with a real werewolf, but they’re not dealing with a “psycho wannabe” either.  She sheriff walks in and announces that they found wolf hairs on the body.  The plot thickens.

Back at the tavern, Sam and Dean discuss the case, though they really have no idea what’s going on.  Jamie gives them each a free beer, and tells Dean that her shift will be over at midnight.   Score!  Dean wonders if Dracula can turn into a bat, and takes a big sip of his beer that leaves him with a foam mustache.  Hee!  Adorable Dean is adorable.  Cut over to a local museum, where a security guard is dealing with the unexpected arrival of a sarcophagus.  I’m so pumped that I get to use that word.  As he discusses it with his superior on the phone, the sarcophagus unseals itself.  When the guard looks back at it, the cover is off and two mummified hands are immerging from the fog within.  A hilariously fake mummy rises from the sarcophagus in a hilariously fake way, and I would totally promise Kripke my firstborn child if Brendan Fraser popped out from behind a corner and started kicking ass right now.  When that doesn’t happen, the mummy pins the security guard against a wall and chokes him to death.

The boys arrive on the scene with the police and proceed to investigate the sarcophagus.  Sam finds a sticker on it from a prop house in Philadelphia, and Dean finds a bucket of dry ice inside of it.  HA!  “This is stupid,” Sam says.  But oh so entertaining.  Dean realizes that he’s running late for his date with Jamie, so he takes off.  We do a Movie Maker transition and find Jamie waiting outside of the tavern for Dean.  Jamie, who does not tolerate tardiness, decides to peace out, saying “your loss, G-man.”  She’s kind of awesome.  She walks down the street for about two seconds before Dracula appears behind her, saying “Good evening” in a thick Transylvanian accent.  She runs away, but Dracula corners her in an alley.  He proclaims his love for her and calls her Mina, but when he gets close enough she pepper sprays him in the eyes and runs away.  FTW!  She runs into Dean, who tries in vain to fight Dracula off.  Dracula calls him Mr. Harker and tries to kill him, but Dean somehow rips off his ear.  He flees, and before Dean can catch him he has already made his escape.  On a moped.  YES.  A curtain with the word “Intermission” in front of it appears on the screen, and we cut to commercials.

Sam meets Jamie and Dean in the empty tavern a bit later.  Dean shows him the ear, and Sam realizes that it’s Shapeshifter skin.  Dean also presents Dracula’s amulet, which bears the label from a costume shop.  They determine that a Shapeshifter has been “reenacting his favorite monster movie moments, right down to the bloody murders.”  Dean and Jamie mention that Dracula called them Mr. Harker and Mina, and Sam immediately recognizes the names as a reference to the Dracula movies and novel.  Mina is “the intended bride,” while Mr. Harker is “the fiancé that stands in the way.”  Because he called her Mina, Sam hypothesizes that the Shapeshifter is fixated on Jamie, meaning that he is probably someone close to her.  Jamie remembers Ed and his crush on her, but she doesn’t think he’s capable of the crimes.  She says that he works at the old movie theatre, and Sam goes to investigate.

Once Sam’s gone, Jamie tries to process everything that she’s learned about the supernatural that night.  She figures out that Dean isn’t really a fed, and muses that being a hunter must blow big time.  Dean admits that he’d thought that way for the past few years, but after being resurrected by an angel his sense of purpose and satisfaction with the job has been restored.  Except, you know, he leaves out the whole being resurrected by an angel part.  Jamie then invites Dean to a party in her pants, and Dean’s on board until Jamie’s friend Lucy arrives and ruins the moment.  Lucy starts to excuse herself, but Jamie insists that she stay for a drink.  Cockblocked!

Dramatic organ music plays as Sam arrives at the old movie theatre.  After some investigating Sam finds Ed playing a Casio, which he switches from organ mode to some sort of electronic setting.  HEE!  Sam spins him around and pins him against the piano.  Ed denies that he’s done anything, so Sam tries to pull his ear off.  That doesn’t work out so well.  “It’s supposed to come off,” Sam says, surprised.  “No, it’s not!” Ed exclaims.  Heh.  Embarrassed Sam is embarrassed.  Back at the tavern, Jamie seems to be a bit wasted.  Dean isn’t feeling too well either, and when he looks down his glass is spinning in the most awesomely lame effect ever.  Realizing that Lisa has roofied them, Dean punches her in the face.  Part of her skin sags off her face when he does this, meaning that she is the Shapeshifter.  Dean breaks a liquor bottle and tries to fight her off, but he falls flat on his face before he can do anything.  He’ll probably feel that in the morning.

When he comes to, Dean finds himself in a lab of some sort, strapped to a Frankenstein-esque table.  In lederhosen.  No, seriously, Dean is in LEDERHOSEN.  This is the stuff that dreams are made of.  Dean looks up and sees a painting of Lucy on the wall.  Dracula enters and explains that she was “Bride #3 from the first film,” which is why he chose her form.  He explains everything with a ridiculous amount of detail, and Dean gives him a WTF face.  Dean’s like “um, you know you’re batshit, right?” and Dracula punches him a few times for calling out the crazy.  He goes on about how he’s made life a movie because the movies “are grand and elegant.”  “You do know what happens at the end of every monster movie, right?” Dean asks, but Dracula insists that, since this is his movie, he’ll win.  He moves unbelievably slowly towards a switch that will electrocute Dean, but just as he’s about to flip it the doorbell rings.  Dracula goes to answer the door and we see that the lab is located under a normal suburban house.  When he opens the door a pizza delivery man is there, and he’s completely unfazed by the fact that he’s delivering pizza to Dracula.  It’s a hilarious encounter than ends with Dracula pulling out a coupon.  I love this show.

Sam goes back to the tavern and sees the mess left by the struggle.  He also sees a napkin with Lucy’s lipstick on it and deduces that she’s the Shapeshifter.  Back at Dracula’s, Jamie wakes up on a large bed, in a room that could be from any Dracula movie.  Dracula tells her to put on a white gown so that they can have a romantic pizza dinner.  Jamie’s like “um, how about no,” but Dracula screams at her in a very non-Transylvanian accent until she does.  Upstairs, Sam breaks into the house.

Jamie changes into the gown.  Dracula, who has completely dropped the accent, tells her that he didn’t mean to scare her.  “You’re the only one I don’t want to scare,” he laments.  He gives us his back-story, explaining how his father tried to beat him to death with a shovel because he was a “monster.”  That makes sense, since the Shapeshifter from “Skin” said that his creatures like him are born hideous and hated.  Dracula says that everyone thought he was a freak.  When he saw the old horror films, though, he realized that movie monsters were strong and beautiful.  He tries to get Jamie to feel sympathy for him by saying how lonely he is, but she says that he brought it on himself by killing people.  “Or I kill people because I’m lonely,” he says as if she's a bit slow.  Heh.  They hear a noise and Jamie shouts for Dean, prompting Dracula to hit her and accidentally knock her unconscious.  He looks shocked by his actions.

Elsewhere, Sam finally finds Dean.  He frees his brother from the table and takes a moment to tease him about the lederhosen.  As he should.  Sam tries to kick down the door to the lab, but his foot goes right through it and it falls out of the frame.  HA!  That’s what you get when you don’t even try the handle, boys.  The boys find Jamie lying on the bed, but before they can help her Dracula throws Sam into a wall, calling him Van Helsing.  The gun flies from his hand and out of reach.  Dean attacks, but Dracula pretty much kicks the shit out of him.  Just when all seems lost, two bullets tear through Dracula’s chest.  He turns around and finds Jamie holding the gun.  Suck on that, anti-feminist movie stereotypes!  He stumbles around spouting cliched movie-related statements for about five minutes before finally slumping in his chair and dying dramatically.

A day or two later, Jamie and Dean are sucking face in the street, presumably after taking care of Dean’s hymen problem.  Sam, creeper that he is, is totally watching from about three feet away.  Dean and Jamie finally pull apart and she thanks the boys for saving her life.  Hey, you saved theirs too, hon.  They walk away, musing about how much simpler life would be if it were like the movies.  Dean doesn’t think Sam knows what movie he would pick to model life after, but Sam immediately answers “Porky’s II.”  Lucky guess,” Dean says.  And after reading the Wikipedia article on that movie, yeah, Dean would totally choose it.  The screen fades to black, and the words “The End…?” appear.

NEXT WEEK: Dean’s got 48 hours before he goes insane and his heart stops!