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Butterfly Kisses (2018)
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After watching the found footage horror film Butterfly Kisses, Doug and Tony went looking for the entity known as Peeping Tom. They were never heard from again.
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Topic
00:00:09
Speaker
So anyway, this is These Guys Got Juice. I'm Doug and joined here with Tony. And today we're talking about the found footage movie Butterfly Kisses.
Doug's Evolving Appreciation for Horror
00:00:21
Speaker
I had heard of this one just like as I got more into found footage. um Well, I guess I should like, yeah, just go over my... I i said some of this before when we were on Elvis' thing for for a rec, but it was like the long path towards me like being a horror fan because initially...
00:00:38
Speaker
I was kind of dismissive of the genre broadly with few exceptions. A lot of it was just like me finding excuses because I was scared, but then also just buying into culturally like the perception of like, yeah, these aren't, it's not like serious movies. And then, but then even as I got more into horror, I was still kind of at arm's length with like, uh,
00:00:56
Speaker
ah found footage especially because like so much of what I saw from that were like the post paranormal activity ah like gold rush of like them just like throwing a bunch of shit out of there like there was one called something something devil I don't know it was like in Europe or something oh I know it's the one with like the QR code at the end I believe so, because the movie just ends and they're like, hey, lu the scan this QR code. And then I guess you maybe you got like more lore from the QR code. I did not do that. I just left the theater.
00:01:28
Speaker
was like, oh, that's not a movie.
Immersive Storytelling in Found Footage Films
00:01:31
Speaker
yeah And so I unfairly kind of because I didn't even see Blair Witch Project to like way, way later. So um but then when I finally started like filling in those guys were like, oh, holy shit. Like when you do this right, this is like actually some of the best shit ever. um Not just like in terms of horror, but in terms of like storytelling that immerses you.
00:01:52
Speaker
on a level that, uh, I, you kind of don't get, other their play. Like I, uh, in our rec discussion, and I said, like the genre is kind of like inherently like video gamey. And I, I, I feel like that is true for a lot of Cause it like, you know,
00:02:07
Speaker
ah besides just the first person view is like you're kind of following along with especially since so many of them are like investigative where it's like oh I want to see where this breadcrumb trail leads to so that's like a lot of them are especially if you have like a good central mystery and and i I don't even need answers to the questions it raises as long as I'm like invested in going on that journey to, you know, turn over every rock to like find where where it all
Meta-Narrative of 'Butterfly Kisses'
00:02:35
Speaker
leads. and And in that sense, like Butterfly Kisses is a huge success because I'm invested on multiple levels because I didn't even, you had told me that it's like about filmmaking, but I i kind of just didn't register it in that way. I didn't realize it was going to be like a multi, like i' a meta narrative going on where it's like someone has found this found footage and then they're like making it
00:02:59
Speaker
And then a documentary about him. Like there's like there's layers to it. It's like three different documentaries happening within the movie. hmm. Yeah, no, ah I'm so glad to be, like, talking about this movie in particular, and I'm glad that we started with, like, down footage as a genre itself.
00:03:16
Speaker
And just speaking to, like, my own roots with it, I think I've talked about this before on this pod, where um i was I was very early on Paranormal Activity. Like, I saw a leaked copy of it when it was premiering at film festivals, and it was with its original ending where ah the cops killed the two main characters.
00:03:34
Speaker
So that's how, like... Much of my finger was on the pulse for that there. And also I was huge on Cloverfield when that came out. And for me, no big. Yeah. yeah Like the trailer for that play before Transformers. Right now I was way more excited for Cloverfield than I was for anything.
00:03:50
Speaker
anything in Transformers, you know? ah but But just echoing some things that you were saying about the genre, I think that it's a very, um it's it's fertile ground still because it's a versatile genre, one that requires an awareness of space.
00:04:07
Speaker
And I don't mean that in the traditional filmmaking sense where, you you know, you've got to account for everything in a cinematographic, cinematic, yeah. cinematography sense, you know.
00:04:17
Speaker
Instead, you're going to be paying attention to this from how the world interacts with the camera itself, right? ah You were saying video games, right? ah The experience is based around your character's POV, right? And the design of a video game is all in service of making your world of view work, right? Everything just out of frame is like falling to the wayside. It just looks like a mess, right?
00:04:42
Speaker
But What the camera is capturing is the entire piece, right? In a video game, as well as what is in, you know, ah found footage, anything, right?
Realism and Film Techniques in Found Footage
00:04:52
Speaker
And ta what's interesting, the camera does not lie, right? and And what's interesting with this genre as well is the awareness of the form, the consideration for these things is an indication of the filmmaker's literally making the movie, right?
00:05:07
Speaker
ah How much it tends to lean into actual reality, how much it actually evokes, ah you know, realistic conversational, you know, or even camera holding weight, like all that stuff. Yeah.
00:05:22
Speaker
If it is able to make that all seem consistent and lived in, it can break into new areas of ah fictional storytelling that traditional narratives just quite can't make to. I'm not saying that found footage is better or whatever.
00:05:38
Speaker
I'm just saying that it's a vein that's yet to be fully explored. And Butterfly Kiss is a perfect example of that. And you were saying that got these levels. um I think of it like a Matryoshka doll, you know, and it's kind of like every time you think that you know what you're looking at, ah you know, you unscrew it, you open it up again.
00:05:56
Speaker
And there's an even smaller version, but it's more precise. And while this movie is certainly low budget, it's certainly made by ah less experienced filmmakers. I think this is a dynamite script.
00:06:08
Speaker
I think the performances are awesome. And there's just literally so much to go over. Yeah, i because it is low budget, but I feel like if if you're creative enough ah with the genre, you can...
00:06:21
Speaker
you know, they, that they know when to, ah you deploy things like there's, there's some, so I, I guess we'll, we'll just just say spoilers because I, yeah, I do, I do want to get into, or no, do you have other things you want to say before we go full, full spoiler other than see this movie?
00:06:39
Speaker
It's on Tubi. Yeah, that's that's literally all I wanted to say. It was just like, if if for whatever reason, audience at home, if you're if you've never heard of this movie, right, ah I just think that it's, when when you're you're used to the found footage genre, as though you had alluded to, you know, a lot of people can just make these movies, you know, they've done really cheap and there's a million of them, right?
00:07:01
Speaker
And they're all on Tubi. but and and And so if you're like looking through found footage films, if you're experienced with like trying to find a good one, right, it it often feels like, you know, crapshoot, right?
00:07:13
Speaker
And this feels like it's specifically made for people who has got who have gone down that path. It feels like it's made for people who has watched who have watched million found footage films and they're trying to find like
Perception and Ratings of Found Footage Films
00:07:25
Speaker
the one, right?
00:07:26
Speaker
This is the one in many ways, right? I think that there are better found footage horror films, but this almost feels like a definitive statement on what you could do, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Because like I wouldn't say like it's obviously no Blair Witch Project, but I think it's up that like I would have to look at like my ranking of of found footage movies because i actually watched two bangers yesterday, both found footage. did a double feature. I watched this and then I watched Savage Land and I was I was like, oh, shit, both of these feel like all timers in the genre for me.
00:07:57
Speaker
In terms of like just like what you can do and how immersed I was in in it. ah ah So, i yeah, it it kind of doesn't matter that in terms of like the budget you can find. And also, if when you're like looking these things up, it could be easy to see like, oh, this movie only has like a five or something or below a six on IMDb.
00:08:16
Speaker
but Whatever. Who cares what the IMDb averages? But also, yeah, like ah horror in general will be like really underrated. But feel like found footage within that even more so like. ah probably because of the, you know, more cheaply made nature of these things. But then also i do think there's a component of the ones that like do try and go for more than just like being scary that like, ah not that there's anything wrong with horror movies that, that, that that's their only goal. But like, if you're ones that are like playing with the form and stuff, I feel like some people might just like be bored by that. They're like, I just want to see like, I'd be like, just show me some ghosts like images. And, and I,
00:08:54
Speaker
you know, give me some good spooks and I can move on. So if you're looking for that, i don't think, but I, even though I do find this very atmospheric and and unnerving and in some parts, like, I, yeah, it's definitely not the most terrifying thing you can watch. I just, I highly recommend it. It's not a long movie. It's like 90 minutes. And again, it's on to be so good. Cause yeah, you can find,
00:09:16
Speaker
Pretty much every found footage movie I wanted to look for is on there. But then also it's like one of the only places where you can find movies made before like 1970. Like whenever I'm looking for like an old noir or something. it Yeah, it's it'll be <unk>ll be there.
00:09:31
Speaker
um Shout out to be. My favorite to find those like old 50s movies is going on YouTube and looking for, you know, there are some people who try to do like hosting in the style of TCM, but they're just like a guy in his garage that he's like covered in black curtains and he's dressed in a full suit.
00:09:48
Speaker
And he's like, tonight we're talking about Pick Up on South Street. And I know he's I don't know what you're talking about because there's like a noir guy who like has a channel ah just for Yeah.
00:09:58
Speaker
He should link up with the TCM noir guy like they should host a festival or something. No, we we should link up with him. We should link up with both of them.
00:10:09
Speaker
Yes. Yes. s That's not how it should go down.
Doug's Praise for 'Butterfly Kisses'
00:10:13
Speaker
Well, my my dream is to go onto the TCM ah cruise. You know about this, right? Yeah, I've seen the commercials. ah Yes, they're always... Apparently, this was crazy to me. Ben Makowitz got married on one of those, which just makes that even better to me.
00:10:28
Speaker
You know, like, now I have to go on one of those. I heard his perishable he's chated by an AI priest. He's paying to his new god. I just made that up. Much like an and an AI language bot.
00:10:41
Speaker
ah But shall we get into spoilers for yeah ah Butterfly Kisses? what so yeah Spoilers for... for butterfly kisses. the um The thing I wanted to get to in terms of like how effectively this movie uses effects because when you see, you know, there's this entity at the center of the, you know, we talked about, it's like a babushka doll and there's like layers to it, but within the center of it, it's there. Every, you everyone, it all,
00:11:09
Speaker
leans bends towards where they're trying to find peeping Tom this this kind of like cryptid entity who you know is an urban legend about like you can summon him I was kind of getting empty man vibes just in terms of like the you know how you how there's like a ritual to summon him and in and things like that and and how you know like once he's decided to come after you there's kind of like a you know a It's almost like a flirtation process of like, I'm playing with you and then um before I take you. ah
00:11:40
Speaker
But ah when you see the actual images they capture outpeeping Tom, I feel like are so well done because, yeah like at this point in terms of like editing software, you can you could throw some like fake shadows or ghostly looking things in your image.
00:11:55
Speaker
But it's composited in such a way. where it walks the line of it looks like that this could be actually happening within the world of the ah the story that these they've captured this thing or going in the other direction of like it actually looks just like real enough that of like someone could have made this who was like really good at editing. Cause that's like the tension the whole time of like, are, how, how faked is this? Then, you know, like how genuine is, is this, is this footage, and which also gave me a lot of like Lake Mungo vibes because, ah yeah, light spoilers for that movie but there's you know periods I feel like there's like a ah a couple like ah found footage movies like even delves into like oh you know how much of this is like
00:12:43
Speaker
a for ah you know a fake and i feel like butterfly kisses toes that line so well because All the characters you would suspect of doing it, whether it's the film students in the black and white, you know, like the footage that is found or Gavin, who's who's pretty much like the main POV. Like I would say he's like the actual protagonist. Like the the the film students are like they're at a distance. Like I'm still invested in their journey, but I feel like ah intentionally we don't know too much about them because it it also lends to the idea of like, Oh, well, is Gavin faking all this? Are these guys even real? Cause like no one can find like evidence of like them. There's like this, uh, I doctor that that they talk to and there's like various people. Like the only person who's like findable is like the, the lore guy who I love that guy.
00:13:36
Speaker
ah but, But yeah, it's it's just good, good deployment of like what they have available and also good casting because it, it, it walks the line of like, I can believe that this is genuine or i could see these guys being full shit. Like, and, and you kind of ah teeter back and forth. Although I was kind of defensive of Gavin the whole time, even though like, Hey, I'm not going to say he's like the best guy ever or whatever, but terrible husband.
00:14:06
Speaker
Oh, the bad ah husband. And finding out he had a son was almost like ah a twist to where he just like sits down next to the son and the son just like flee. I'm like, oh, God.
00:14:18
Speaker
Scariest scene in the movie. Yeah. It's like this guy's a father. um but but but like when when he was being dressed down whenever, whenever like when he goes on the radio program or even to the paranormal group and they were like criticizing him, I was like, Yeah, stand your crown, Gavin. Fuck these guys.
00:14:36
Speaker
Well, I'm glad that you brought up Lake Mungo because Lake Mungo is a like it feels like this movie was chiefly inspired by that one, just how it's constructed. Right. But then it also feels as though the secondary inspiration is The Last Exorcism. Did you ever see that one? I have not seen Last Exorcism. It is a must watch.
00:14:55
Speaker
First off, ah Caleb Landry Jones. It's one of his early roles in that one. So you'll be excited for that one. ah But then the premise of it, right, is that ah you're following around a documentary crew. That's ah there's like a priest who was a child prodigy priest.
00:15:11
Speaker
who now in his adult years, he's losing the faith, right? But then he's called in to do one last exorcism, and it's the thing that, you know, brings him back into religion, right? And the reason I'm bringing up that film is that the protagonist of that story is what the film lives and dies on.
00:15:26
Speaker
He's such a well-written character. ah He has so much depth in the way that he's performed as well. um And I feel like the same is true about Gavin in this film. And I believe the the director of the film is playing Gavin, if I'm not wrong. The director is actually playing the person making the documentary about. He's the other guy.
00:15:45
Speaker
Yeah. yeah just oh So the director of the film is the director of the, you know, like if you zoom out to the largest, you know, sphere of this this doll, then that's the director.
00:15:58
Speaker
the director So so like getting on that point, right, you were talking about how Gavin was mostly the perspective character. I disagree. I think it's actually the furthest out director, right?
00:16:10
Speaker
We're always seeing it from their perspective and their goal is just to make Gavin look bad, right? So most of the documentary is about just exactly that, right?
Exploring Filmmaking Layers in 'Butterfly Kisses'
00:16:20
Speaker
And it's interesting as it unfolds, the filmmaking itself starts to reflect ah giving the credence to him in that way, right?
00:16:28
Speaker
and ah getting on to like, ah you know, Gavin himself and like his motivations. ah The thing is, is that we're watching three separate stories of filmmakers, right? A varying degrees of professionalism.
00:16:42
Speaker
We've got the one that's in this film school. We've got the one that's failed, right? And then we've got the legitimate filmmakers, right? And is we're watching like all of those different thought processes through the filmmaking process in the middle of a found footage film.
00:16:57
Speaker
And then bringing back to what you were saying about selling it, right? The ways that these effects do work in that way. While the film isn't super scary, like there are some great jump scares, there are some really creepy moments, and the character itself has a good backstory.
00:17:11
Speaker
I think that the thing that's most interesting is how lived in it is. ah Because you are seeing it in editing bays, literally like getting the professional post-production crew looking at ghost material and like skimming through it.
00:17:26
Speaker
It adds a lot of legitimacy to it. Just being like the nature of putting it in there. yo I'm like, oh, they're using isotope. I've used isotope. but It's nuts. If you if you know anything about filmmaking, this movie has so many inside jokes and like little things that like you could just pick up on. Right.
00:17:43
Speaker
I wonder if it would be alienating for somebody who does not know much about the production side of filmmaking. Right. But I think that as people, I feel like both you and I understand a lot of this stuff it's alluding to in this film.
00:17:55
Speaker
Right. I think for people like us, it's it it actually adds a lot of legit legitimacy to the story and allows for it to feel a lot more believable. So when those effects do work so well as well, even at this budgetary stamp ah level, um it just goes overboard.
00:18:11
Speaker
and And just to talk about adding legitimacy, right? We talked about the radio show, Eduardo Sanchez, Well, which project? I lost my mind when do with that cameo. I wasn't expecting... Like I said, I didn't really look up much about the movie. I like going in blind to stuff. So when when when he shows up, I was like, holy shit. the yeah Because I don't know much about him other than his involvement with Blair Witch Project. But my understanding was like... of like Yeah, they're not like super public guy. i mean, I know like a lot of that was the publicity for the movie. So probably post that they are like, you know, you could probably get them to speak in places now. But I was like, oh, but he's actually like in the movie, you know, like like we fully see him.
00:18:54
Speaker
in areaan well Well, what's interesting is the film that that the students had made, right, is a version of the Blair Witch Project, right? And the whole conceit of this story is what if ah somebody who was not as noble as the people who released the Blair Witch Project ah came into possession of those tapes, right?
00:19:14
Speaker
And that's what makes it interesting is we're watching like the perspective of somebody who's looking to capitalize who doesn't quite have the, you know, means or intellect to do so, right? And what makes it even more interesting is the ah creature itself, Peeping Tom, is a character that is feasts on attention.
00:19:31
Speaker
ah You brought up Empty Man. It's ah it's a tulpa, right? The idea that ah the more that you give it, the more that it appears. And that works perfectly within like found footage itself, right?
00:19:42
Speaker
the Blair Witch Project being say taken as seriously, right? ah The more that people bought into that, the more it blew up into this way, right? It's it's how these things happen. ah To Eduardo Sanchez specifically, right? Like we're going to be talking about him again very soon. He did a short for VHS too, I believe.
00:20:00
Speaker
I saw that when I was looking at his IMDb. I was like, oh, shit. Okay. And it's a really good segment, I have to say. Not not like one of the better ones, but it's it's a good one. He's still got it to some degree. The problem is is that ah I've seen some of Sanchez's films. I think he made like a Bigfoot movie.
00:20:17
Speaker
And and the the thing is is that like... it's It's the classic case of like a filmmaker who didn't really capitalize on their success, right? So they didn't really get as many opportunities coming out of it, right?
00:20:30
Speaker
And now they're like starting from square one, right? So while they have some like good ideas, while their scripts can be pretty good, a lot of their films are held back by budgetary constraints, right? And what you can see in most of the old TV nowadays, when I'm looking at like his recent directing credits, But but his inclusion in this film is important is because he and a lot of characters do this as well. But his character's inclusion adds a lot of legitimacy to like what the literal structure of this film is. The ah ability to comment upon found footage itself, what it means and the responsibility, both from a fictional filmmaker standpoint and the real people who would be filming that kind of thing's perspective.
00:21:10
Speaker
Right, because the fact that found footage is a thing that people acknowledge and know about is actually a detriment to these people, to to like Gavin and the film students, but especially to Gavin, because people are assuming and like, oh, well, you're just trying to do a Blair Witch Project style thing. Like you're just trying to promote your movie. Like you're saying you actually like found this like in...
00:21:31
Speaker
ah but we'll we'll we'll we'll we'll circle back around to like the nature of like how these things come about but I do I do like that there's a just from from the beginning that that doubt you know being sown and like like can can you can you trust him I was kind of taking it all in face value and I was like on board the whole time with, with, at at every layer. I'm like the students also Gavin, they're like, yeah, sure. Maybe ethically little, little shaky, but I, I'm, I, I think, I think it's all real because people were, you know, like the, the larger film, ah like the actual director is trying to frame Gavin to look like
00:22:14
Speaker
he's questionable for omitting things from the tape of like, oh well, you're constructing a narrative. in But I'm like, that's that's documentary filmmaking. That's any what he's doing.
00:22:25
Speaker
that's any documentary filmmaking class I've seen. like, you're telling a story. Like you, you have a POV, like even if you're, your, uh, goal is neutrality and you're just trying to capture the thing that is a POV. And so like you're arranging things to tell that narrative. So, uh, like, like leaving things on a cutting room floor because he decided like not to,
Ethics in Documentary Filmmaking
00:22:48
Speaker
do it. like, that that's what but documentaries do that. And then also there's like the charge against the film students because you find out like one of their earlier projects that they got an award for they had an actor like do a thing. I'm like, well, the problem with that is if you don't disclose that there is a reenactment and you pass that off as legitimate. But otherwise, documentaries also have reenactments. So like there's actors in in documentaries all all the time. So like, ah yeah, they should have definitely like you know, just, you know, had something, some text on the screen or had shown in the credits or something, but but ah also they're film students. So they you know the fact that they're being held to like this high standard like, our how did they're full of shit just because they didn't do that correctly. I'm like, who cares? Well, I will say that the yeah the teacher that they bring in as like this, the film students are going to totally accurate performance, right? Yeah.
00:23:43
Speaker
And that's something that like is just echoed throughout every single layer of the story is that, you know, when we're watching regular found footage films, right? There's often like a talking down to the audience where it's like, oh, I got this like sick camera, bro. And they they they explain to you how the camera works, right?
00:24:01
Speaker
So then you know why they're recording, right? A lot of this film is just kind of talking at you as if you already know, because that's the way the world is, right? Yeah. we've been living with this for such a long time.
00:24:12
Speaker
most Most people who are watching a movie would already know what a GoPro is. You don't need to do that. Right. So it's, it's speaking to like a larger foundational thing with found footage where it's like, you can tell when people are talking down to the audience to give them the setup, the meat and potatoes to get to the goods. Right.
00:24:30
Speaker
Whereas, The meat and potatoes is the goods here, right? It's like the foundational elements is what makes this just move so fluidly. and And talking to like the bigger film that's happening, right?
00:24:43
Speaker
um ah Did you ever see Todd Solonza's movie, Storytelling? No, I haven't. um It's a, you know, it's kind of a weaker todd Salon's movie, but it's a duology. It's a two-part anthology.
00:24:56
Speaker
And one of the segments is Paul Giamatti as a, like, kind of schlubby documentary filmmaker who decides that he's going to ah record the life of an average American family, right?
00:25:09
Speaker
And most of the short is about his, ah you know, issues with trying to get anything that's worth filming, right? And what's interesting with this film is that while Gavin is the active participant in his own story, ah the guiding hand of the documentary crew is always there.
00:25:29
Speaker
And at each level of this, this like storytelling, All of the different filmmakers are called into question their legitimacy. And it they the concept of filming something, you know, naturally versus for any narrative purpose and the ethics of that is called into question within this film, which I think is very fascinating just for a found footage film in general.
00:25:51
Speaker
um And it also speaks to the kinds of people who make movies, right? Yeah. I feel like there is showing opportunism at every level. And what we choose to excuse or not solely comes down to how successful they are in doing those things.
00:26:07
Speaker
And as the larger filmmaking group starts to lose their grasp in a professional sense, the more we start to see their flaws as well. Yeah, I would agree with that because like at at all three levels, they, they you know, do get to this crossroad of like their ethical responsibility and like what are the limits of what they can and can't do.
00:26:25
Speaker
I would say the most innocent ones are the students just by virtue of like they're never at any point looking to profit off it, really. Like, they're just like, this was ah so a school project that then turned into something larger, you know, and like, ah you know, even if you read the more, you know, cynical read of like, yeah, they were faking this, like, it's still, it's not like they were trying to like...
00:26:49
Speaker
fake a real tragedy in order to like make money off of it and that was just like them that would just be experimenting as as a filmmaker so but and out of the the larger out we go it almost feels like the more exploitive we get you know because then Gavin and then also like you said like the actual director and the character i mean he's playing himself but like that he portrays, like, I love when you finally get him in front of the camera and, the know, the crew has that discussion about, like, Gavin is their responsibility, like, that they, you know, because they're like, well, what do we, you know,
00:27:25
Speaker
we How much do we owe him? You know, he's we're just, you know, documenting this. It's like, are you are we because like we like ruined his life. And so it's it's like, yeah, even if you didn't, ah you know, make each individual domino fall, you definitely set them up and like we're there to just wait and let it happen. Well, I think what's an interesting thing to point out, too, as well, is that this, like the way that the film is constructed, right?
00:27:52
Speaker
It's implied that the final filmmakers, the larger you zoomed out character that we're talking about, what we're watching is their finished film, right? Right. the ending The ending of this is what they chose to put out there, right?
00:28:04
Speaker
And them selling the creature as being real, right? Right. Ultimately, it's still their word versus reality, right? So there's a world where you could interpret this film as not being paranormal in the slightest.
00:28:17
Speaker
And this was just somebody trying to find a neat way to complete their film. Because you even as they're saying on screen the entire time, I need to find a way to finish this movie, right? And What better way to finish your movie than to have Gavin have this mysterious death that you can, you know, pin to all of these other things, right?
00:28:34
Speaker
Versus how he was actively pushing this, like, desperate poor filmmaker to ruin the entire time. He otherwise. their ending is just the radio show, right? Because that was the original intent where you they you hear him talking to the host of like, yeah, I need an ending for this thing. And the the host is kind of, you know, in on it too, saying like, okay, don't worry, I got something for you, you know? So like like that that like the ultimate unraveling or exposing of Gavin was supposed to be the the final like denouement right like I think that was what they had in mind but it's like well then what happens after that you know you you push this guy over the edge you think that's gonna regardless of any supernatural thing like that the the a person's not just gonna you know magically snap back to being okay
00:29:23
Speaker
mean Well, the thing is, is that they're feeding into his delusion just by simply being there. They add legitimacy to his chase. And he and Gavin says that the entire time. He's like, well, you guys would be really wasting your time if you were looking at me. Right.
00:29:39
Speaker
Like if if you guys are pointing this camera at me, that means I'm doing something important. Right. So she is constantly like alluding to the fact that like they are supporting him in that sense. Right. Like, even when the cameras are off, that's what's going on Gavin's mind, right?
00:29:53
Speaker
And that's what makes him an even more tragic character. And then this whole setting up of Eduardo Sanchez at the radio station, right? ah You know, how awful would it be to, you know, you're promoting something and then one of your legends just calls in and calls you an idiot, right?
00:30:07
Speaker
Because, it's like, what what what Gavin is doing... like from a skeptic standpoint seems really exploitative and it seems like he deserves it. Right. And, and if this thing is not real, then, you know, that would be really bad.
00:30:22
Speaker
Right. ah But the thing is is that he truly believes that like, He's giving them real evidence. And because of rational doubt that people have within society for any ghost material, right?
00:30:34
Speaker
And the idea of profiting off of anybody's death. Again, how many found footage films can talk about this, right? How many found footage films can like literally talk about the responsibility of what is captured and the validity of filmmaking?
00:30:49
Speaker
ah in found footage in exactly this way. um it's It's what makes
Unique Horror Elements in 'Butterfly Kisses'
00:30:54
Speaker
it just so fascinating. And also I wanted to say ah before we got too deep into this, um I don't think this film is too scary.
00:31:01
Speaker
i do think that this is also quietly a horror comedy more than it is a really horror film. Oh, there's there's there's some there's a lot of of funny stuff, but Yeah, yeah, I would still give the horror moniker to it because I i mean, I think Peek Peek Tom is is quite frightening, especially when you get to the whole concept of he is inside the camera. Like, I love that idea of like the ah the camera itself is like an iris and that he is now inside it and all his manipulations, because like the title Butterfly Kiss is supposed to be like, oh, what he can use is like...
00:31:37
Speaker
ghostly long eyelashes to like you know make you blink so he can get closer ah also I wonder how much of this is ah I mean this is way better than the Doctor Who episode but there's a famous Doctor Who episode about the Weeping Angels and it's called Blink where it's like if you look away they're basically like the boos in Mario where they like get closer every time you you look away from them but this this is this is way better than than that ah but what wasn't Carey Mulligan in that episode? Yes Yes, she was. I had to think because ah they like bring they bring them back weeping the back three times. I'm like, okay, some of the creepy monsters in that show just need to be one-offs. They like get less scary when you keep bringing them back. um
00:32:20
Speaker
The Weeping Angels felt like almost if you didn't watch Doctor Who, that was the episode that Doctor Who fans would like throw at you to get you to watch it. And it's a great episode.
00:32:31
Speaker
So be trust from me, it's not on their shit. Yeah, it's not for babies. Why not both? That's what I say, right? It could be scary. Yeah, right? But the you're right that it has this kind of derivative, ah you know, idea to it, right? Like it's got that in it. The creature of peeping Tom kind of looks like the Babadook.
00:32:50
Speaker
um If Follows just came out like not too long ago and the idea of like a creature, you know, slowly coming after you that's like that. But the los angeles thing that's been for me... or wait, is in Sinister is the one with the Ethan Hawke in watching the...
00:33:05
Speaker
the bagul who lives in in images, but ah this is also better than... senate I mean, hey, I know people love that movie. I think Scott Derrickson has some some juice. I just think that that movie, the non...
00:33:21
Speaker
like and home video parts of it are kind of weak. I mean, it it's a, the strongest of it is that apparently Ethan Hawke was legitimately watching that that footage for the first time. So those are like, like, like kind of genuine reactions that he's doing in character, but it's also just not as compelling as watching these like eerie home videos and like, e and then you cut out to Ethan Hawke, like doing plot stuff. I'm like, ah, it sounds good.
00:33:47
Speaker
I think that ah Scott Derrickson's an incredibly lame director, but he still sometimes makes good movies. So i agree that he's got some juice, right? And I think that Sinister works a lot better as just like a cheap, fun, fun house. You know, it takes itself a little too seriously, but that also is the charm to it, right?
00:34:06
Speaker
And also, I'm not going to dog on a movie that's got Bords of Canada in the soundtrack. Like, that's awesome. Right. um and but But what I was getting at with the comparison with the creatures, I think the most important thing to think about is ah Peeping Tom, the 1960s movie. Right.
00:34:20
Speaker
Often considered like a very early. Yeah, it's an awesome one. Right. And again, in that film, the camera was the villain. Right. Like literally voyeurism. Right. Yeah. Exactly, right? so So for me, it's like an inversion of that and what the modern day equivalent would of that would be because back then, home recording was a novelty, right? And so it became like this whole ah what evil things you do by capturing it on your camera, right?
00:34:47
Speaker
And now in a modern context, it's you have the camera and you're beckoning for something and that something finds you, right? And I feel like it's just a two different kinds of like voyeurism almost in a way. it's in In this one, it's like a double voyeurism because, or maybe even triple you think about all the different layers of all, but it's like they're... Because we're watching it they're watching him, and then they're watching...
00:35:14
Speaker
the Peeping Tom, but then Peeping Tom is also watching you. I mean, that's in the name, Peeping Tom. And that's like, that's one of the eeriest parts is when they ah like are going through one of the final footage of, of one of the the students Feldman of like what he captures when it's like, oh he's like right there before he takes him.
00:35:32
Speaker
you can see in what looks to be Peeping Tom's eyes is the reflection of what he saw the night they summoned him. And I was like, oh my God, that shit is still so awesome. it's It's one of the coolest scenes in any time fun to be.
00:35:48
Speaker
I love the way they invert that, you know, and a it's just going to take like an extra step. It's it's it's surreal and spooky and like a ghost video way. And these movies need to feel like ghost videos, you know, like the ones that are on YouTube and like top five compilations. Right.
00:36:05
Speaker
And um um this movie really does that stuff well, even if you can see the budget a little bit. Right. um the though What I really like is the intro. That's kind of a parody of the Blair Witch Project, the way that they opened that, right?
00:36:19
Speaker
And you get the description of what Butterfly Kisses is. Because, like, you turn on this movie and you're like, what the fuck is Butterfly Kisses? Or if you've heard the tone, you're like, how is this supposed to be scary, right? And then when you get that description from that, you know...
00:36:32
Speaker
novelist, right? and And what's funny about that novelist too is that he does such a good job selling it and the dirt the filmmakers captured in such a nice way that when you do finally meet him and he's like, oh yeah, that guy kind of sucked. had that That was like, i left on the chopping or floor for the book, right?
00:36:47
Speaker
That just goes to show what ah how these things, for whatever reason, get stuck in your craw, right? And even the things that do get stuck in your craw oftentimes are not worthy of your full attention as you see what happens with Gavin.
00:37:00
Speaker
Yeah. Also, I do love like similar to Blair Witch Project, because before they every time I rewatch that movie, I forget of like, oh, yeah, there's like a good 10 minutes or maybe more before they even get to the woods where they're kind of just like you're getting. Yeah. Like, yeah, it's exhibition lore, but I feel like it's also this mood setting of like when they're going around.
00:37:18
Speaker
like interviewing these people and because, because you're getting like different accounts that don't all match up and you kind of like have that same vibe here like people saying what peeping Tom is and then you're interspersing it with, yeah, the lore guy.
00:37:30
Speaker
And then there's also this doctor who um I'm, that's who I'm most suss of because like they can't, can never find like any evidence of this guy. like, what happened to the fucking doctor? Like, was he peeping Tom also? like,
00:37:46
Speaker
He was an optometrist. That's how you know you couldn't trust him. Well, it's kind of like how the person who's closest to the the profession closest to like what the thing centers around, like how Tony Todd in Final Destination, like he's not death, but he understands the rules because, you know, he's sees death firsthand all the time.
00:38:07
Speaker
I was ah this is off. Nobody brought up Tony Todd. I have to say this. I was watching Double Toasted interviews and they did an interview with Tony Todd before he passed. Right.
00:38:18
Speaker
And it was one of the funniest interviews. he he's He spent most of the time ah trying to and inspire people. And then the other half just talking about money. and and wanting to get paid and like at one point he's like I lost my wallet where's my wallet and he's talking about his wallet kingly I don't know yeah I miss Tony Todd so much i I just wanted to say that bring him back yeah yeah not not'm in the AI sense I much prefer just his corpse on marionettes if we we we have to you know I don't want that but if we're going down that much the shout you don't do AI to do anything like literally use black magic and resurrect him necromancy Come on.
00:38:58
Speaker
Yeah. it's It wasn't that long ago. you know, he's probably still got some skin on the bones, you know? Yeah. I mean, if you wait too long, then that's probably a bad idea. But I think i think we're still in a the window where it's cool.
00:39:10
Speaker
They call it the money maker for a reason. ah ah Yeah. And I love how... ah like a lot of good horror movies, it doesn't need to connect all the dots, no matter which ah ah version you choose to believe, whether the cynical route of like, yeah, this was fake, but then also it being real still leaves a lot of things unanswered. Like how did those tapes end up in Gavin's ah parent-in-law's house, which wasn't even... like that None of the those kids live there.
00:39:39
Speaker
So how did those tapes get there? I mean, in my head canon, especially like when you have like a supernatural entity like this, like you you can be so loosey-goosey with rules of like, that's just more manipulation by peeping... Because it seems like he's not...
00:39:53
Speaker
He kind of seems like he could do what what what he wants, because when Feldman's unraveling towards the end, he's like, I tried, you know, I took the battery out of the camera and then I put it downstairs, but then it's back up. Like, I didn't set this up like and it turned on before you got here. Like, yeah, he could just be bullshitting and doing a performance. But if we we're to believe that, then it's like, well, yeah, Peeping Tom can manipulate.
00:40:15
Speaker
to get closer to you in any way that he can. So like him putting the tapes there is just another way for him to be like, okay, I'm going to set up another cycle. And then they kind of allude to that when, uh, uh, at the end, cause there's tapes missing from Gavin's motel room after they find him. And they're like, I want to know what happened to those. And one of the crew says, well, I guess see him in 10 years, you know, like, cause that's like when Gavin found the, the students tapes 10 years later, like, oh yeah, maybe it's like a little,
00:40:45
Speaker
you know, like a timed ritual that he does this every so often. i What I like is that every time the tapes are introduced, or at least the thread of Peeping Tom is introduced, ah it's on shaky foundation, right? Like the when the kids are getting into this, it's just some urban legend and a lame one at that, right?
00:41:02
Speaker
And the fact that they put so much time and effort into that... It's what is what causes so much doubt from around them. And then the same thing with Gavin. It's like Gavin finds this from his in-laws. They just have these tapes. Why is he getting obsessed with this? He's putting too much into this, right?
00:41:18
Speaker
And then one further step out, these documentary filmmakers choosing to film Gavin of all people, you know? I'm sure in that town, there are more interesting people than Gavin, you know, with more more compelling stories that would get them on film festival circuits, right?
00:41:33
Speaker
But they chose him and because of like... whatever reason, maybe the closeness of him as a filmmaker, but this, everything always comes down to ah putting time and attention into something that you really shouldn't be, right? you're You are going out of your way to look for this, right?
00:41:49
Speaker
And they are, ah they're terrified when it finds them, right? But then they're also excited to share it too, right? And that's how the cycle works as well. These tapes being shared years in advance, right?
00:42:02
Speaker
Who's to say that these tapes are not being left for people to find perfectly from these people? Because as we see from the last days of their lives, ah they are more obsessed with trying to show the process of their death, which is fascinating, right?
00:42:18
Speaker
It's this idea of like they're documenting it, but they're also like... obsessed with it and and in a morbid way excited by it. Like, yes, like I know there's no way out for me, but I can, this validates me in a way, like if I can get my death on camera, this proves that this was all real.
00:42:38
Speaker
ah But there's a little bit in the credits, so our ah Sophia said, lives, right? Like the student, if we're to take out and what we see, if fa like we see someone in a mental institution or in some kind of like, you know, ah the facility and ah it looks like it's it's her, although the last time we saw her, she was like gouging her eyes out with glass.
00:43:00
Speaker
ah It's hard to see, like, it's because it's like security camera footage or or whatever that were we're seeing. So, like, I guess, the you know, if you heal from that, damn like you won't have vision, but they'll still be, you know, like the eyes there is just clouded over and it kind of looks like that's what, what, what the deal is there. So it's like, yeah, she did actually cut her eyes out and they're like the dead sick. Cause she's still alive. So like that saves you. Like if you can't see, then people can't get you.
00:43:29
Speaker
Well, that's also the common theme through all of the victims too, right? Is they have the clouded over eyes. So they're either in the process of getting to that point and they just weren't successful, right? Or it's a part of losing your mind to P. Pinkton, right?
00:43:43
Speaker
Right. And as we've talked about how like how they being a part of this and by capturing it, they're keeping the spirit of this thing alive, right? So in in a way,
00:43:54
Speaker
ah She is free from it because she is able to get in the way of that. Right. And doesn't ah participate in the literal capturing of the creature like her.
00:44:05
Speaker
When she's not recording without the cinematographer, she's not trying to capture the creature. Right. The cinematographer is obsessed with capturing the creature. hey Gavin's obsessed with capturing the creature. Right.
00:44:16
Speaker
The documentary filmmaker is obsessed with capturing the creature at one point. Right. So it's a matter of how much power you give it. And in that process, like how you are able to overcome it. Right.
00:44:29
Speaker
And it's interesting that while she cut off her eyelids, you know, she really succumbed to it in a different way. Right. She didn't succumb to it in the same way that everyone else did. Right. ah She was able to push because this is ultimately a film about obsession.
00:44:42
Speaker
Right. She was able to get herself away from that obsession, but it cost her her life. it's It's people who can't help but continue watching when they should. it And she makes an aggressively active decision to like, I'm not going to watch anymore. I don't want to see this.
00:44:57
Speaker
Yeah. and And it's like, that's very different rhetoric from literally everybody else who is involved with the story, unless it's somebody who's a skeptic, right? And that's where a lot of the comedy comes in. Like the fact that the ghost experts, all get you know, push back so much. And then his news retort, because like before he like shows up, he's so confident that this is going to like, like land awesomely.
00:45:20
Speaker
He's like, well, they believe in orbs. And, you know, this is, this is more zeal than ore. Yeah. It's where the movie all of a sudden becomes ah like on cinema, like Tim Heidecker's character. Like it feels like ah Mr. America, that movie, if you ever saw it, right?
00:45:35
Speaker
yeah um Like it's it's this like overconfident person who is devaluing everyone around them because they feel that they have everything, right? And what he doesn't recognize is that that demeanor is off-putting to a lot of people, right?
00:45:49
Speaker
and And like you were saying, he's like demeaning orbs, right? It's like, okay, if you believe, like, If you have this footage that proves the paranormal and you truly believe in the paranormal, you would at least...
00:46:03
Speaker
He's open-minded to the idea of like other phenomena. like like or Like, Peeping Tom is the dumbest idea ever. And you like you you believe that with all your heart. So, like, you you're going to be dismissive of orbs is very funny. Yeah.
00:46:17
Speaker
and And, like, if anyone is going to believe him, he says that even himself, right? It's going to be them, right? But he thinks they're going to believe him because they believe in everything. But the reality is is that they're just people, right, who have...
00:46:29
Speaker
regular concerns, right? And when you've got this guy in a newsies cap rolling in saying, I've got the only real footage of ghosts ever, right? ah And he doesn't even show them everything because he believes that they'll be so interested.
00:46:45
Speaker
This is going to get them so interested that when I roll out the actual full thing that that it'll be better. He has like a hype plan, ah look a hype map in his mind of like how he can do this.
00:46:57
Speaker
Even though he has really no support. I mean, he has the illusion of support because there's a ah crew filming him. So he thinks that like they're in it together. Like, like you alluded to before, like he says that I'm like, like I get my good ending. You guys get a good ending. So it's like, come on, like we're, we're, we're doing this together.
00:47:15
Speaker
Well, it's interesting that like ah a lot of what his undoing is, is that he is planning for what his idea of being a filmmaker is.
Gavin's Filmmaking Journey
00:47:24
Speaker
But because because he's not a filmmaker, right, he he is only like saying what the like child's idea of how you get famous is. Right.
00:47:33
Speaker
Like. but Eduardo Sanchez's inclusion inclusion in this film is just perfect commentary for that exactly, right? Where it's like his approach to getting attention ah ultimately is, ah you know, being advantageous with a snuff film, right?
00:47:51
Speaker
And there are there are ways of even doing that successfully, right? But the way that he's going about this at every turn, right? Like, Clearing up the audio, right, I think is a great idea, right? I don't think that that's a bad idea.
00:48:06
Speaker
The problem is, is that he's doing it for the wrong reason. Like he's he's doing it so it's a better listening experience for the audience. Right. And reflect it better on him as a filmmaker. Like he wants it to have a better presentation because this is his product now.
00:48:22
Speaker
and And that puts the Blair Witch Project in an interesting light as well, right? Where it's like, now imagine the Blair Witch Project. They put out that film, right? Like that, what you're seeing is what they cleaned up for audiences in that sense, right? We're we're imagining that film as a real movie, right? like and And something that was released by Paramount for however reason.
00:48:42
Speaker
But essentially like that that ah film, right? ah A lot of what makes it work is that there is not much... like post-processing beyond like a few sound effects, right? A lot of it is just people in the woods running around and what you hear from that, right?
00:48:56
Speaker
And so this idea that you need to improve footage, the idea that like you caught a supernatural entity and then you need to make it look better, for the viewing experience or and sound better for the listening experience.
00:49:09
Speaker
It speaks to inexperienced found footage filmmakers in general, right? To where they don't understand how to make a lived in reality in any kind of narrative like that. And that's how you can tell when you're watching a bad one.
00:49:23
Speaker
Right, and it's interesting because that the fact that he considered yeah ah holds Eduardo Sanchez in high esteem, in his ah but in the beginning beginning, he kind of sounds dismissive of found footage when people are asking him about the project. He's like, no, this is not like a horror or found footage. like Like, he's saying, and like he like even if you're being defensive from the standpoint of like, no, this is real, I really found this, like he's he's like throwing the whole...
00:49:50
Speaker
thing and under, you know, like that that framework under the under the bus, even though it's like, well, you might need to look to some of that, at least in terms of like how you want to get this out, even if yours is real and those movies aren't. Like that he doesn't, he's not considering, he's considering himself above that.
00:50:08
Speaker
I want to make an announcement for the audience at home. Do not do anything that I'm about to say, but I'm going to just say it, right? The way is, if you were, if you were out of snuff film, right? And you wanted to release it for commercial gain, right?
00:50:19
Speaker
You just claim that it's lost media. You put it on a website and you paywall it, right? You don't put it in movie theaters. You don't like... Try to make it ready for theatrical distribution, you know, try to like get a streaming deal. fact The thing is, is that ah this guy, Gavin, he really wants to be a professional filmmaker, right?
00:50:39
Speaker
And he's trying to make a square peg work in a round hole. It just doesn't make any sense. Right. And what he should be doing is being in service of the material that he has. And what he's trying to do is make the material fit his needs.
00:50:51
Speaker
And that's what makes him a bad ghost hunter. But it's also the thing that ultimately leads him to Peeping Tom because Peeping Tom preys off of these kinds of ambitions.
00:51:03
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. and And there's also the question that's continually brought up whether I feel like the the ghost hunters ah society brings this up. But then it's asked again of like, why not turn this over to the police? Like if this is real and you just found. video of, you know, like two kids who died and so ah shouldn't this be like part of an investigation? Like this is evidence now. And ah he he he usually like dismisses that a way of like, I tried looking for them, you know, like, of but but you never get any sense that he was any at any time close to like going to the authorities. And it's like, hey, I'm i'm all for, you know, fuck the police, but also...
00:51:46
Speaker
find something that's like maybe key to like a missing persons thing like I don't know they have a lot of resources so like maybe maybe we use the use the fully but then that also has the issue again of like when the the director of the actual film is like at the end after they find Gavin ah they're like no, don't tell the cops about the tapes because then they're going to take them and we need those. like oh Don't bring any of that up.
00:52:13
Speaker
Well, that's the main thing, right? and That's the reason why didn't bring it to the police, right? And even though, like in the world of the film, we know that the police probably would not be interested in these tapes, right? They would probably just see say it's too preposterous, right?
00:52:27
Speaker
And all of the evidence that were given throughout the story, a lot of it's circumstantial, but it's compelling, right? Like the the doubt that the story seeps everything in, right? And the ways in which we're some things are agree but given credence while others aren't is very tactful, right? So like the question of whether or not the police would have taken this seriously, also the police just suck at their job, right? So who knows if they would really do anything about this, right?
00:52:54
Speaker
I get a lot of worse. I'll look through all that footage and it's like they would probably turn it on for a little bit, be like, oh, it's black and white. It was the colorized version of this, right? Yeah. But, ah that you know, for Gavin, it's all about opportunism, right? And it reflects...
00:53:09
Speaker
Because, like, we've talked we've alluded to the marriage woes already, right? And the thing is, is that he's just a very inconsiderate person, right? For his own gain, at all points, right?
00:53:20
Speaker
And he doesn't care where he is. He will take advantage of what he's doing to... to fill a fantasy, right? And that's all this is to him is a fantasy until it's not, right? Until it becomes very real.
00:53:32
Speaker
And when it does become very real, the way that he acts is not very different because ultimately he's character built on impulse than any kind of real ideology. Yeah. It's an issue. ah The way he plays that moment of when he comes back home and sees that his wife left and he, you know, fesses up to like, yeah, like he knows that ah his wife was getting money from her parents and like he took the money to the the put into the movie. and that And then the documentarians ask, like, how did she find out? was like, I don't know. She must have gone to get more money, I guess. You know, like like the fact that that never really occurred to him, that like he would, yeah like you said, he's acting on impulse because he's like just assuming success for himself of like, OK, well, I can use this money because I'll be able to put it back because, you know, I'm going to hit it big. well What's the saying, ah you know, getting the money from Tom to pay Larry, right? This idea that it's like everyone's who's always like waiting for the thing that's supposed to work or they can't, right?
00:54:33
Speaker
And for him, he expected to just get money somehow from the ghost people. He expected to just get money from people who would be interested in this. Somehow a radio spot is going to get him cash, you know, get investors.
00:54:47
Speaker
The idea of like putting the footage online the way that he does doesn't really have Like the idea that he would put the footage online for 24 hours and then take it off, right? A, the people already download the thing when you put it, right? So it's already devalued, right?
00:55:02
Speaker
But then the other thing, it's like you show that footage and then you're expecting people to buy it, right? You already put it online. People already like have seen it that way. There's not going to be interest in distribution in that way. He's very desperate in all terms.
00:55:14
Speaker
And also speaking of desperation, right? You were saying that he was taking the money out of this bank account. This bank account was for his son, for his future schooling thing, right?
00:55:25
Speaker
And that was the line for the wife, right? And that's what's really interesting is that the wife, like, she really should have left earlier, right? But she's a great person in the sense that, like, she's trying She was really trying. And then like they they asked about like him borrowing money. right and she was like, it's not enough to where you know it's an issue. right like they that She was okay with that. right Gavin had it really good.
00:55:49
Speaker
Gavin had it too good. right And all like all he needed to do was just like push too hard in one direction to disrupt everything. right he He stopped working during wedding season.
00:56:01
Speaker
and mean That was his only source of income was due shooting those weddings. And now he doesn't have that. So that's why he needed steal that money because he didn't have any.
00:56:12
Speaker
o and in his mind he thought he was going to make more money doing that than whatever but it's like if you want to be a filmmaker at like coming out the gate making a movie out of nowhere like that expect to be in debt for a long time like like you're gonna you're gonna have to put a lot of things on the line especially if you're producing and directing your own thing like that solo like He does not understand the kind of thing he's putting himself in. And it speaks to how irresponsible he is because he's willing to put his dream on the line before his family's. Right.
00:56:43
Speaker
He's ruining his kid's life in this film. It's really sad to see. Well, she'll find someone else or the parents will help take care of, you know, the wife and and kid. So they'll they'll be they'll be fine.
00:56:56
Speaker
They're fine. Yeah. If the in-laws just have like tapes lying around, like random film student's tapes lying around, I'm sure they've got like hidden money just thrown it out, you know, or they're a ton of people.
00:57:08
Speaker
there's There's like a whole nother box of tapes down there. and And I love ah ah deconstruction of that when Eduardo Sanchez like calls in of like, yeah, you say you found this box. And then also within the the black and white film student footage, like they show the box, like all these convenient things of like, yeah,
00:57:26
Speaker
yeah, you're like setting this up and paying it off. And then also the camera's always on when something interesting happens. Like, oh, they're just happening to catch like these P.B. Tom shots. And it's like, yeah, I mean, but also the film itself within the reality, like Gavin has edited it, you know, so it's not like you were like, there's probably lots of moments of nothing happening besides the stuff that he took out because it maybe looked, you know, makes the credibility of the whole thing a little shaker. But,
00:57:55
Speaker
It's also probably just like a lot of just like random bullshit that they shot that he's like, yeah, I'll take that out. Well, what's interesting is that we're watching this through several filters, right? So like the tape that he gets, the box of tapes that he gets, right, already had to be filtered through those film students, right? And those film students likely had way more footage that they just didn't keep, right? Because you they were already in the middle of their own editing process. We see it in their film, right? Yeah.
00:58:23
Speaker
They literally have those chunks in those ways, right? So it's reasonable to assume on the peeping Tom being real element that they would only keep that stuff for themselves and those would be the major tapes that they would have and they wouldn't worry about the other footage, right?
00:58:39
Speaker
ah But then there like it comes down to Gavin and then he filters that through again, right? Or he removes even more stuff, right? Like them talking about how they had picked the first film, right?
00:58:50
Speaker
Yeah. To them, of course, they're going to like just have that footage lying around because like that's their life and like they're not going to shy away from that, right? But to him, like you know that's not the purpose of the film, right? like It's not going to work narratively in his dumb mind, right?
00:59:05
Speaker
If he knew anything, he would keep that in the film And it would actually like lend some credibility to the storyline. It's a acknowledging the shakiness of it, of like, hey, I know that this could be fake. I don't know.
00:59:17
Speaker
You know, because like because that's he also leans back on that to the the ghost, ah you know, society where he's like, I don't know if it's real. That's why I'm like putting it out to you. It's like if you don't know, then you should also be qualifying that within the movie itself that you're putting out of like,
00:59:34
Speaker
yeah showing showing both sides of that of like well here's what they found it could be real but then also here's some questionable things like the conversation where Feldman says like hey is there just some things we could do where you know if we don't get the footage we want maybe we just fake it the Well, the ethics are constantly called into question, right?
00:59:57
Speaker
And the thing is, is that like the film doesn't present any answers for like what is ethical even, right? Like that it is really implying that like all filmmaking is in some way like death, which is like a really strange thing to be putting into this, right?
01:00:16
Speaker
But it's also like you have to be interested in this pursuit to put all of it all of yourself into it in this way in order to succeed. That's what it's saying there. But then it's also like um there's the I just had a point.
01:00:30
Speaker
Oh, shoot. I have lost it. this would be in times table This would be a good double feature with Nope because that's what Nope's all about. but like That like it's an inherently exploitive, like the practice filmmaking and and whether it's, you know, you see exploitation of animals, exploitation of children, but just in general, like exploitation of of, you know, black artists and then the fact that like that someone's being you taken advantage of for ultimately someone else's gain.
Motivations and Perspectives in 'Butterfly Kisses'
01:00:59
Speaker
Mm hmm.
01:00:59
Speaker
Totally. totally that I feel like it because it's steeped in the language of filmmakers so much and because we spend so much time with just people who make movies in this, right, ah that's not the perspective that we usually get in found footage films.
01:01:14
Speaker
Like most people in other found footage films are just like teenagers, you know, stumble upon something, right? They're idiots, right? This is people with like ah real motivations, with real jobs, you know, like lives.
01:01:26
Speaker
And i really love like the stuff in the editing bay. I already brought it up before, but just to bring that back. I love the fact that they're just like three normal guys who have to like explain the film industry to Gavin.
01:01:38
Speaker
And then like we also see their debates, like we see how they agree and disagree with reality. And the fact that out they're the ones who call them back. One of One of those is like, ah like, yeah, this is all fake. But then the other one is like, just like, you know, breaking all down. Like, this would be a lot of work to be faking. If they're like for that sound they find that's like in every clip with with peeping Tom's like that. That's not an easy thing to do. But then ultimately proves of like, no, this was this that was genuine. I love when we start hearing the sound later in the film, right? Like with the detached film group, right? I haven't gone back and looked, right? But I imagine that like if you were to go back there during the beginnings of those clips, you probably could find Theving Tom in the background. i want i I do want to go back and then like see if he's he's in the background there somewhere. And I love when they break down like, oh, it's Morse code. wasn't say blink.
01:02:33
Speaker
Hell yeah. it It's so perfect because ah it's perfect in a horror film sense. We are going like, hell yeah, that's awesome, right? And then in the reality of the world, it's like, hell yeah, this confirms our suspicions.
01:02:46
Speaker
But then on a double-edged sword sense, it's also perfect, right? From a narrative perspective. Because it's so just undernosed and stupid that it would be like, if yeah, someone faking it would put that in there. Like, of course, Peeping Tom's trying to morse code. Like, it's so convoluted and dumb that that's the way he's doing that.
01:03:04
Speaker
but it's also, it feels like Gavin would have written that. Yeah. I would love to see what Gavin's unproduced screenplays were like, what kind of movies would he, he tried to have made.
01:03:15
Speaker
It would have been the hackiest shit ever. Probably. ah the The only Woody Allen riffs, Woody Allen riffs. That's what he would have done. Yeah.
01:03:24
Speaker
Another note parallel I was thinking about in terms of like the protagonists themselves, because like, nope, ah has the ah also the thing where it's like, they're not like benevolent people in terms of like, their goal is to capture evidence of this of this entity of, you know, Jean Jacket, the alien or whatever.
01:03:44
Speaker
Although I always had the the read of that. ah There's nothing to indicate that that thing in Nope is, is extraterrestrial. I think it's just like, it's just in here, you know, it just, you know, disguising itself as a cloud and feeding when it's canned. It's a creature.
01:03:58
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's just a, you know, a natural predator. ah And their, their goal is to get evidence of it so they can profit off of it, you know, and they're, they're kind of trying to talk themselves up at the end before the final confrontation where,
01:04:14
Speaker
angels like like oh well you know we prove that this thing's real you know we can save people and he even then adds like we could save the world like like good that was like what they were doing the whole time you know like that they need to like justify that like no no no this is we're actually heroes for doing this Well, it's to continue with the nope thing, right? Like the this this idea that like, well, the film itself is modeled after Jaws, right? Like a lot of like the beats are that way, right? And the idea of Jean Jacket just being a force of nature in that way as the shark is, right?
01:04:49
Speaker
um It's this idea that like ah they use the image of the shark in Jaws to like let people know, don't worry, everything is fine, right? And they they capitalize it in a financial sense, right?
01:05:02
Speaker
And then ah in terms of, nope, they're trying to do that themselves, right? But as anyone knows, if you try to make money off of a supernatural or hyper-capable entity like Jaws or a ghost, right?
01:05:15
Speaker
You're going to get screwed over, right? And I think that that's what the double meaning obviously is with Gavin in internal total, right? His goals are impure, right? He is somebody who is doing this for the wrong reasons, and that's why he's getting what he's getting, right?
01:05:29
Speaker
and yeah when When it comes to his belief in it, right, I think that it's fair for anyone who's had inspiration in the least likely of places, right, where they'll get fixated on an idea and they'll go, hell yeah, that's the right idea. I need to be putting all my time and effort into that, right?
01:05:49
Speaker
And they're so close to it that they can't recognize how meaningless it is and how little they'll get paid out for just... drilling into that idea, you know, because not everyone is going to be, you know, ah Lynch or a Cronenberg or whatever they right?
01:06:03
Speaker
But because of their ah admiration for those figures, ah they take themselves as seriously as those they see those filmmakers and elevate their ideas to those levels.
01:06:15
Speaker
And what that does is it creates like a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? And in this case, the self-fulfilling prophecy is fatal. Right, because everyone who finds that, you know, is if the footage is genuine, everyone who finds that would not fall down that same rabbit hole. Although you could also just say like maybe just like the footage itself has like a supernatural hold over people like, you they you know, like if you just like start once once you crack it open, like you're kind of fucked from from there. But I think it's a lot of it is just ah a personal undoing where it's like Gavin is the perfect person to find these. And that's why.
01:06:52
Speaker
it it it is his undoing but and also why casts such huge doubts on the whole enterprise because they're like okay you're a filmmaker and you found this this students who were shooting a thing that had this entity on it like it's like it's very convenient right it's like yeah it is convenient And that's why, like, whenever there's a character who's not a filmmaker in this movie, like, it's it's way more interesting, right? Not not more interesting than way we've already gotten, right? But it's like if we were to see these normal people in a regular found footage horror film, right?
01:07:24
Speaker
Just be other people, right? but But it's because we're seeing it from that lens. It's so much more interesting. Sorry. ah There was the character who's introduced who is the, ah like, guy who's a staring contest ah individual, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. For looking down the, so like, people like that.
01:07:45
Speaker
Just the simple diversion of talking about, like, how long it takes for the eye to blink, right? Here's somebody who's really good at doing that. And now we've got them in that location, right?
01:07:56
Speaker
The way that this information is doled out at all times, right now, speaking from like the literal mechanics of the film and how this is a good, well-told story, right? It does such a great job of just like quickly giving you the kind of contextualization to buy into the reality of it.
01:08:11
Speaker
You don't need a lot of setup for it, right? Because we know Peeping Tom is a blinking-related entity, right? we We now are going to talk about how long the eye has to blink, and then we've got somebody who's really good at doing that, right? It's AEC, very easy way of thinking that through.
01:08:28
Speaker
But in the context of watching the movie, it's we ourselves as the viewer are digging deeper in a very natural way, right? And then we become complicit. in all of the surrounding. ah Yeah, i also want to add, I forgot to say at the top of their listeners, they can't see it, but we've been not blinking this entire record. So I think we might, you know, whatever the record, what does the doctor say the record is? It's like an hour. hourmen 30 minutes.
01:08:54
Speaker
30 minutes. So we've broken the record. Yeah, we're calling Guinness after this. It's just a shame that we're only recording the audio, right? i'm I'm sure that, like, the Guinness people, I'm sure that they're able to, like, ah pick up on the metadata.
01:09:07
Speaker
ah There are eyelashes, right? You know, like, you they get a heat wrinkle to tell. And I think they'll just take our words for it. They're trusting people. Yeah, yeah. This has got to get enough following, you know, it's a established, ah you know.
01:09:19
Speaker
Come on We have a podcast. Go ahead and leave a... can't lie on podcasts. Especially, yeah yeah. Well, the good news is is that like we're not like you know like conservative conspiracy theorists, right?
01:09:31
Speaker
But then also the bad news is they're they're the people who get all the credibility these days, right? Right. So maybe we need to start being more inflammatory, you know? like That would be the other thing that would get us more legitimacy. Right. Should people have them?
01:09:43
Speaker
i don't know. See? I don't know. I could do that. Charlie Kirk? ah Devil or angel? Who's to say? Who's the... I'm just as... questions. that's that's That's the line you have to fall back on. I mean, and that's kind of like what Gavin's doing too ah in in his bullshit of like, I don't know if it's real. I'm putting it out there. You know, it's like, well, you're not just putting it out there. Like, you're obviously like ah putting your thumb on the scale, which is fine because that is documentary filmmaking has a perspective always.
01:10:15
Speaker
Like, even if it's presented as neutral, but you then have to You have to like acknowledge your bias in some way, you know, like that. What is a filmmaker but a liar, right? They're just making that shit up.
01:10:28
Speaker
They're a bunch of liars. They are. like and and And that's okay, right? the the The business of illusion and, you know, trickery, right? That's something that's happened for, you know, centuries, right? Like it goes back to carnivals and all that stuff, what plays and what have you.
01:10:47
Speaker
But it's ah it's the kind of ah respect for the chosen medium. as well as the ability for the audience to buy into the character, right?
01:10:58
Speaker
And the reality is is that Gavin is so green to all of this, to where he doesn't really know what he's doing, right? And that reflects in his character to the point where people are able to trust him, right?
01:11:10
Speaker
And while he thinks that he's saying all of the right things to entice people, he doesn't recognize that that's just making him look really bad, right? Like if if, let's say, Christopher Nolan ah came out and was like, I found these secret tapes in my mother-in-law's basement and I'm going to be convenient. I'm real. Yeah.
01:11:32
Speaker
yeah That all really happened. And like the way that he would produce it or like the way that he would present it, you would buy into it because he has legitimacy. Right.
01:11:43
Speaker
But because Gavin has no legitimacy in his any like aspect of his life, but he's presenting himself as if he has that legitimacy. Right. It speaks more so to how this whole thing can't be trusted.
01:11:55
Speaker
Right. Right. um Yeah. i Do you personally buy into like that it's real? Like when you when you watch it, like where do you land? I think that the film is plainly selling you by the end that this is real.
01:12:08
Speaker
I think that like the that that's like what we're meant to as audience members take away from it. Right. But I feel as though there is enough conversation. gray area to where you could have multiple interpretations and it wouldn't preach into like fan theory territory, right?
01:12:25
Speaker
Like, like, i like I feel like there are some people who try to like draw more meaning out of things than they're supposed to, right? Like they look and, and usually people who do that, like they're, they're focusing way too hard on like meaningless symbolism because there are, there's meaningful symbolism, obviously, of course, right? but then there are things that are like,
01:12:43
Speaker
you know, unintentional to the max that are then read into each for years. so See The Shining criticism, you know, if you want to hear more about that. I mean, are you you saying that Kubrick wasn't confessing that he'd fake the moon landing in that movie? Because it's all there. It's all there. Just watch the documentary. Like,
01:13:04
Speaker
You know, i think that there are there is more credence to some ah things of the moon landing than any kind of like meaningful critique of Native American colonialism and all that. i feel like I feel like when people really try to make like that point ah clear with the Kubrick film, I feel like a real reaching point. That sounds like that stuff in the Shining book, right? like is that Yeah. You're so, so stuck. But probably more actually present than in the movie itself, which the movie, I would say, has none of that.
01:13:38
Speaker
There's a few lines of dialogue and there's a soup can, right? And that's it. That's all the people needed, right? And it's because of the it's because all the images are so bare that that we're forced to dig for things, right?
01:13:52
Speaker
And it's because there's such few dialogue ah lines of dialogue that we put so much more attention and ah care into those things, right? So it's, again, us putting...
01:14:03
Speaker
more into it than maybe what it was meant to have, right? And that's what Butterfly Kiss is all about, right? yeah Even though this creature is real, right? Maybe we're looking into it a bit too deeply, right?
01:14:16
Speaker
and and And that's what I'm coming at it from and this skeptic view, because I don't think I've ever had this takeaway where it's like this whole thing could be fake. But the fact that the film is so aware of its own ah process, right?
01:14:29
Speaker
we can't We can't like ah discredit the fact that this could be presented in a way to where we just can't trust anything that we see and that we have to take all of this with a grain of salt.
01:14:41
Speaker
Because obviously the machine is ultimately an edited product by that director at the end of like they've whether, you know, ah they just like, oh we're just giving it to you as we've shot it and what he had correlated. But also, how do we know that, you know?
01:14:58
Speaker
but But yeah, ultimately, I feel like there's too many things that like kind of defy any non supernatural explanation. Like when they find Gavin himself, it's just like he's just in a tub and it said like his heart stopped.
01:15:10
Speaker
And it's like, OK, well, well, he was doing like a fuck ton of drugs in that hotel room. Like, I don't know what just causes that. And do they say how how Feldman died? Like you see to her seeing the news of like ah when she finds out that he died and we see the video of like when P.B. Tom takes him. But like what's the official like cause of death for...
01:15:35
Speaker
him do they do they say like I don't think so because like ultimately they they have a lot of trouble trying to track everyone down right like right you're unclear if those kids even like exit like the only thing like backing that up is that we see think it's Sophia and an institution at the end so it's like oh okay so she was real and the horror novelist right like those are the only two you met those kids at some point and they were presenting it like it was their student project But it's it's such a degree of separation to where it's so, you know, there's enough like questions that could be risen, right?
01:16:12
Speaker
Like, who's to say that what we see in the hospital is an actress, right? we like ah I'm only saying this because the filmmakers that are in control of this whole thing, we already discussed how they're not very um ethical filmmakers, right?
01:16:30
Speaker
Even Werner Herzog, he fakes things for his documentaries and no one gives a shit, right? yeah So who knows, right? ah But ultimately, ah does it matter? You know, yeah that's why I'm okay with just accepting it as a, you know, this is supernatural at the end of the day, right? Because while I wouldn't say this film is the most scary found footage film ever, I do think that the central conceit of Peeping Tom is scary. I do think that, like,
01:16:57
Speaker
the the His whole lore, and as we've talked about urban legends, you know, it just has that perfect feel of what those kinds of stories have, even if this one's kind of lame. ah You saw Frogman, right?
01:17:10
Speaker
Yeah, Frogman rules. Yeah, and Frogman also has a lot in common with this as well, in a way. Wouldn't you agree? Yeah, thematically, in terms of, like, the exploitive nature and obsession, in terms of, like, how much is enough and, like, where do you draw the line, but then also the lore surrounding the entities themselves are, like, they're, like, and I know that, like, there is, like, a real...
01:17:34
Speaker
real, you know, frog man cryptid lore, but, but, but it's, it's like dumb enough that it sounds like a real urban legend. Like the same goes with Peeping Tom. Like I haven't looked into it. I assume Peeping Tom is invented for the movie, but it sounds like, like something that would be an actual urban legend.
01:17:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Like, everyone's got, like, some catchy name. They've got the same kind of attire. Like, we're zooming out a bit, right? Like, the study of cryptids itself, right? there There are a lot of, like, re reoccurring, like, figure types, right?
01:18:07
Speaker
Like, the long, slender, ah you know, like, Slenderman is a great ah thing to point to in terms of, like, naturally... ah reoccurring themes within urban legends, right? The idea of like formal wear in an unexpected area, ah pale complexion, ah inhuman elements like the tentacles, right?
01:18:27
Speaker
Like that's why like that's important in understanding all of this stuff as well because these are things that reoccur not just like in modern context but through history. Like you can go back through history and look at what urban legends existed back then.
01:18:40
Speaker
And these figure types just keep reappearing. Right. And it speaks to the problems of the eras. Right. And what Peeping Tom may
Surveillance and Societal Themes in Horror
01:18:48
Speaker
represent in this era is professionalism. Right.
01:18:52
Speaker
Really? Right. Like they they've got some kind of professionalism and an awareness of the camera. Right. And one thing that we can say about all of these characters is that they do, they are not aware of the camera full.
01:19:02
Speaker
They are still victims to it. Right. They are still slaves to it in a way, you know, where it's like they are trying to capture the right things to embolden themselves. Right. But in reality, they have no control over the medium and that's their undoing.
01:19:17
Speaker
And they're focusing on the wrong thing and missing what's what's actually important. And then also kind of playing into like, because we know, especially from that reveal of we we see Peeping Tom's POV, that he's watching us too.
01:19:30
Speaker
So it's kind of playing into that idea of, you know, a surveillance state or also like, what's it called? A panopticon where everyone's watching. Panopticon. Panopticon, yeah. Where everyone's like, we're spying on each other. Like everyone's like watching...
01:19:45
Speaker
ah someone else then they're being watched too so who but I guess we why I was about to say who watches Peeping Time I guess that's us yeah Who watches The Watchmen? though But I'm glad what you're saying about the Panopticon, right? Because that also feeds into the, you know, the arcs of all of the the filmmakers, right? Like, they are ultimately scrutinized by everyone around them, right?
01:20:09
Speaker
And because they believe in the reality of it, they feel like they're being ignored and persecuted in a way, you know? um Even though, you know, on the outset, it just totally makes sense that no one would take them seriously. Right. right ah One of the only one who who opts out of it is like we've talked about Sophia, like that that she just kind of read rejects the whole thing. And that's like the the cutting out of the eyes.
01:20:35
Speaker
Mm-hmm. She's the only way to survive it in that sense, right? ah I want to talk about the scary elements of this film. I felt like there are two jump scares in this movie. One of them is great, and then one of them is really cheap.
01:20:48
Speaker
I feel like the ending with like the eyes is very cheap, right? But there's that one ah in the middle of the film where get peeping Tom Marine up close in the face of the camera and the loud sting. Yeah.
01:21:00
Speaker
It's cheap, but it's also really effective. When he's doing the field test, you mean? That one? Yes. That seems great because like yeah it's a it's simple setup payoff. And and also, but as other people skeptics call out later, like, yeah, like him staring in front of the camera is a way to obscure the effect.
01:21:19
Speaker
But then also for us, we know he's going to be getting closer each time. So it's building it's building on your anticipation of you know what's coming. exactly Exactly. Like, it all works on confirmation bias rather than it does on, like, an actual scare. Or, like, because it's a regular scare, right?
01:21:38
Speaker
You know something's coming around the corner and then it happens in a way that you wouldn't expect it, right? You are totally aware of the machinations of this from the jump, right? And it's the fact that it still gets you. That's that's where I think this film is really successful.
01:21:53
Speaker
That it can still land those beats while still being so, like, conversational with the form itself, and then also still going for this pretty broadly comedic style style and tone.
01:22:04
Speaker
But then still, yeah, succeeding at at being scary, because I think that that's that what makes it scary is that it would be simpler to believe that this is all fake, that that like, okay, so...
01:22:16
Speaker
Yeah, that's just like some random blurry thing in the background or a camera glitch. That's not going to actually like it's not a thing with intelligence. It's like coming closer to you, but then you see keep seeing it come close. Like each step, there's more confirmation bias of like, no, it's doing exactly what you expect that it would do if it was real. So you're like, shit, it's real then.
01:22:37
Speaker
Mm-hmm. We all have enough reasonable doubt instilled upon us based on our own interests in these phenomena, right? Like, I don't believe that ghosts are real, right? I don't believe that aliens are real and beyond like a you know, theoretical standpoint, right?
01:22:54
Speaker
ah But ah does it doesn't mean that I'm not compelled to watch these things. It doesn't mean that I'm not like, you know, interested in how these things are usually executed. Right. Even just from a filmmaking standpoint, you can watch those things and just be appreciative of how visual effects are done. Right. right ah So. so The thing is, is that it's playing on all of that.
01:23:16
Speaker
Like, I don't think there's a single horror film made today that's able to like be in conversation with like reality in that sense. Right. That's that's the competitive advantage of Butterfly Kisses is that it's more accurate to life than what most found footage films are or attempt to be in just a simple capturing.
01:23:40
Speaker
Yeah, because, like, I, like, name another found footage movie that even acknowledges the existence of found footage, Phil. You know, like, where I can't think of one where they're, like, just straight up invoking ah the Blair Witch Project Lolo. I mean, the director show up. But, like, yeah, I i can't think of one.
01:23:56
Speaker
but Most of them would call attention to it in a postmodern sense, where be like, oh, I've seen scary movies. I can't do that. Right? And, like, yeah that, you know, like...
01:24:09
Speaker
it's it's It's a cheat code for filmmakers to let you know that you're aware of the audience expectation, right? Whereas this is like, it's using the audience expectation against us, right?
01:24:21
Speaker
Because we've seen so many kinds of these movies, unfound footage specifically, right? usually the plot mechanics are so like obvious and bare, right? This film decides to leave them bare and ah obvious, but then question the intent of it at all turns. And that itself creates more fear, more terror, because we as an audience are not able to find our footing.
01:24:46
Speaker
While everyone else in the film is so confident in what they're saying, at all times, we are left to question the reality of what we're watching, which is really impressive. And then ultimately even having the the movie end on a note of like the actual like, you know, zoomed out movie of like,
01:25:05
Speaker
I don't know. You
Meta-Narratives and Viewer Perception in Horror
01:25:07
Speaker
know, like, it's because, ah you know, they have the dialogue with the director of like, so what do we do now? And he's just like, we just put it out there. Like, this is just the beginning, you know, like within the meta narrative, this would be, it'd be like, okay, people see this. And then what, you know, like what, what's supposed to happen from, from people seeing this, that like wherever there's going to be a mob now, people be like, let's get people down.
01:25:30
Speaker
Like people are getting their pickup trucks and with guns like, all right, we're going to get this son of bitch. Well, I think that it even works on a metatextual level, right? Where it's like this movie is really well known, right? Like this movie is pretty under the radar, I would say. really like you'll You'll find it like on subreddits where people are talking about like the best found footage horror films and you'll go down deep in the thread and like two people will say butterfly kisses, two thumbs up, you know, with no context. and you're in
01:26:02
Speaker
And the reason I'm bringing that up, right, is because this is the perfect kind of movie to stumble upon, right? as you were saying with the narrative, right? ah Everyone believes that it's going to be the next big thing.
01:26:13
Speaker
And the reality is is this movie itself is not the next big thing, right? bro It kind just came and went, right? So as an entity that you just discovered on, on Tubi, exactly.
01:26:24
Speaker
Right. So the fact that just exists as an entity where everyone in the film textually is going, this is going to blow up. Everyone's going to love it, right? And it just exists as something that you have to discover. It speaks to what happened to them, right? Even in their mania and obsession with this, right?
01:26:40
Speaker
Yeah. and What was in service of? A few people discovering it. It's a 40X experience. wherere where We're living it. Yeah, right? it it is It is the closest we can get to in terms of like a found footage film accurately representing what it's capturing in that sense. you know It's kind of like combined. I mean, we're...
01:27:00
Speaker
we don't have to do anything other than like actually like watch and engage with it. But it's, it's almost like you're and incorporating like, uh, augmented reality elements into the, I, cause you alluded to Cloverfield. That was, uh, like a big,
01:27:16
Speaker
movie, not just in terms like, the the movie itself, but, like, ah the marketing for that, like, in terms of like, getting people on board of, like, just breadcrumbing you to, like, oh, what's what's it even about? Like, because there was so much speculation and things, people perusing through all these, like,
01:27:33
Speaker
these fake like in world, like news items and and things. Cause initially there was like a contingent on, I, at least I remember a lot of speculation back when IMDB had forums, people were like, is it Cthulhu? Like, I don't know. It came from the water, even though that wouldn't be based, based on Lovecraft's lore. It's he's from in a different part of the ocean, but don't He could walked.
01:27:55
Speaker
Yeah. my My favorite was when the movie had not come out yet, people read into the trailer dialogue. They they they saw, it's alive, it's huge.
01:28:05
Speaker
Right. And they really read into that as like the Statue of Liberty became like a monster. And like that was the thing that was attacking, right? And you're alluding to like ah ah a dead art almost, right?
01:28:17
Speaker
The augmented reality experience in a mode of ah promotional material, right? Yeah. The reality is is that people don't do that anymore because it's too time consuming.
01:28:28
Speaker
It requires a lot of work with not a lot of payoff, right? And also, people just do it for free these days, right? Like, what is fan fiction? What is, you know, fan theories? But ah augmented reality ah tire spinning, right? I was doing a little lead up to weapons when they were releasing like these kind of like odd of context where you just saw the door ring camera footage and and i was, you know, zooming in and enlightening footage to be like, what the fuck is that? Is there something in the corner there that the kid's running? It's a demon or something. The fact they just had Gladys in the background of all of them. We should have known, you know.
01:29:05
Speaker
By the way, I saw someone post today, they had like a weapons t-shirt and it was like the Wendy's logo with Gladys in the center. And I think you're to get that. I think that's yeah yeah part of my question.
01:29:16
Speaker
Yeah. Damn. ah With Charlie Kerr's death, by the way, again, weapons are one of the best ways of the year. And cloud. And cloud is a part of that in my books. More people need to see cloud. Like, seriously, if you're listening this and you haven't see i'd seen it, ah just hit me up. all What are we doing?
01:29:33
Speaker
I'll send you a link. If you don't if you don't know how to torrent stuff, just don't. I can carry it. Well. We'll do a watch part. Anyone who wants to watch it, you also have to watch it with us doing commentary the entire time.
01:29:45
Speaker
And every time a cool scene comes up, we're go to pause the movie and snap our fingers and go, look that. Look at how cool that is. i have I've taken the wrong lesson. not that Not that I was... I took this as the lesson from Cloud, but it's funny that after watching that, I've kind of doubled down on doing ah eBay reselling. Not to the, like...
01:30:07
Speaker
like agree that that he was doing but I've you know I've gone more looking for like ah you know a cheaper like going to thrift shops looking for games or movies or stuff to resell and yeah yeah make some money from it so yeah Hey, it can't knock an honest living because the reality is, is that's an honest living in these days, you know?
01:30:28
Speaker
Yeah. ah I go, I love going on Facebook marketplace specifically when ah people have scandals so I can like find their merchandise to see how cheaply it's sold.
01:30:41
Speaker
And my favorite is for the H3H3 podcasts. If you go on like Facebook marketplace, you go on eBay. Teddy Fresh is just like the cheapest you'll ever see it.
01:30:53
Speaker
His stock is way down, huh? Oh, we oh totally. you know and then This is just ah you know brain worms. to like I can't believe I pay attention to that stuff. But at the same time, it's really funny.
01:31:06
Speaker
Well, again I barely pay attention to it, but he's like shitting his pants so loudly that it's like, even if I don't yeah like watch it, I'm like, okay, it seems like this guy had an all right thing going and he didn't need to like like do this over people criticizing him on Palestine, but he just like digs his heels. I mean, it's it's it's fucking...
01:31:29
Speaker
The drill corncob meme. Like a lot of people just do that. that Like if you if they get caught in some bullshit, they're like, no, actually, i will not admit any fault at all. Mark my words, there will be an H3H3, like Netflix true crime documentary.
01:31:46
Speaker
Like, you know, like ah they'll they'll do like profiles on weird people. this This guy, there there is going to be a retrospective later where like normies will like finally come to understand what's going on with him.
01:32:00
Speaker
Because I feel like you're saying he's so loudly doing shit, right? Where it's like, you can't ignore when there's scandals. But it's like, if you're paying attention, you have 0.5% more than...
01:32:10
Speaker
On the outside, right? There's some really gross shit happening and and he's just skirting on by, you know? So it's like, why don't you like that? That would be a whole subgenre of like YouTubers or content creators who are...
01:32:24
Speaker
I would say like 90% of them are pedophiles. I don't know. I don't have ah the stance that struck me, but. Well, he recently was outed for pedophilic comments. Did you know that or no?
01:32:36
Speaker
I like had to feel like absorbed that or something, but that's all it's also blending together because I feel like I hear that about so many YouTubers, like it's like every other one. They're like, yeah, did you know he was DMing or sending stuff to minors? I'm like, oh, okay, well.
01:32:53
Speaker
It's another one. Another one on the pain. Like, you no longer take up any space in my mind. Yeah. list You put them there. They already weren't taking up space, but then it's like, oh, okay. I'm i'm correct and i have not have paid attention to them. I watched like H3 when they were initially popping off, right? And then I started watching the podcast because my sister was really into it, right?
01:33:17
Speaker
And it was like a nice, like, you know... familial connection in that sense, right? But it was like right after October 7th, it was a real, there was a real change. and i And this is the Butterfly Kisses podcast, not the H3 podcast. So obviously this is only connection in the sense that Similar to the protagonist, Gavin, in Butterfly Kisses, Ethan Klein is so obsessed with his own paranoid delusions that he doesn't recognize that that the more that he feeds into them, the more it will be his undoing and the thing that will kill him either himself or his career.
01:33:52
Speaker
So that's how Butterfly Kisses is a direct parallel to the H3 podcast. device I mean, Blank Man's going to get him for sure. So... i One thing i would love to see, because we've we've established butterfly kisses, right?
01:34:04
Speaker
i want see the Peeping Tom fight against the Mothman, you know? Butterfly versus Moth. Oh, that's good. Yeah. And then the next one will be like a dude, like how Godzilla versus Kong, there's just one movie of them fighting. And then the next movie is, didn't see this. one Yeah. They're friends or, or they're fucking, I don't know. It's called X Godzilla X Kong. So maybe they're, I don't, uh, but, but parody that's three X's.
01:34:32
Speaker
Oh, okay. Godzilla X, X, X Kong. Yeah, but but, yeah, you could do that with Mothman and Blinkman, where they, ah I don't know who they would fight, and the Cloverfield monster, don't know.
01:34:45
Speaker
Yeah, that'd be cool. they're They're, like, climbing them, you know, trying to, like, yeah Shadow of the Colossus, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, JJ wanted that to be a franchise. It'll happen again.
01:34:56
Speaker
that Did you ever see the third? Because like 10 Cloverfield Lane obviously wasn't originally intended to have. a I mean, it already doesn't have anything to do with Cloverfield really, other than there's like aliens at the end. ah and what Not even the same species.
01:35:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's just ah it's just ah a different weird thing. like that And that movie was good because I was like, oh, this can be like a Twilight Zone like kind of anthology ah you know sci-fi franchise where each one could just be like a weird thing and and you don't have to have it connected. Then it comes Cloverfield Paradox where they're like, oh, I don't know if you turn on this particle accelerator. It's just like Donald Logue on a Skype call and he's like, if you turn on this particle accelerator, it could be a lot of Cloverfields all over the place. It's youre can have a real Cloverfield problem if you're not careful. Well, okay, so i didn't I didn't... Okay, hold on. I did not know this, right? I just did this from a quick Google search, right?
01:35:50
Speaker
Did you know? Did you know that... so good that that the guy who directed Cloverfield Paradox was the guy who directed Captain America Brave New World?
01:36:03
Speaker
I feel like I took that information in at one point and then just disregarded it because I... Well, and the production of Brave New World is so messy that I'm like...
01:36:14
Speaker
I can't, there's been like four different directors for this thing. I can't get track. Uh, I still haven't seen that movie. I want to just see what a movie that's been, been filmed three times, uh, has, uh, looks like.
01:36:27
Speaker
And I, I didn't even particularly like, uh, The Incredible Hulk movie with with Ed Norton. I mean, I love Hulk as as a character, but that movie sets up the promise of ah a Tim Blake Nelson as a villain.
01:36:40
Speaker
And then hearing that the the movie that finally follows up on that like 15 years later is a Catch in America sequel is very funny to me. And then
Cultural Reflections in TV and Film
01:36:48
Speaker
anything I've seen of him as the leader looks comically bad. they've He's played...
01:36:53
Speaker
ah because don't they try and set him up in the Josh Trank Fantastic Four movie? It was like, oh, he's going to be Mole Man. ah there's oh They keep doing that to my boy. keep i guess the only good superhero thing he's been in is the Watchmen series. I mean, I still depend the Wendelof Watchmen. So, ah i I mean, and he's good in I'll question regardless of like what you think of that show or it's politics. Like Tim Blake Nelson's on fire. Like he is he's shooting three-pointers from half-courts. I am totally with you. I think that that Watchmen adaptation is great. Right.
01:37:25
Speaker
But I do get the criticism that it gets. Right. I think you just got to, you got to remove the Watchmen of it all almost. Right. You have to exist. it you have to take it as its own story rather than like an actual extension of the original Watchmen.
01:37:39
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Because what it's doing is echoing in a different context. And while Alan Moore has better politics, right? I feel like David Lindelof does a great job at just storytelling, right? So even if the politics are great at points, you know, like...
01:37:58
Speaker
like frankly, that series talking about the Tulsa massacre the way that it did brought it back into the cultural consciousness in a way. Would you agree with that? Like, I feel like I feel like it's just never brought. I mean, I mean, of course, there's a bunch of other massacres of that nature where, you know, African-American communities or even, you know, Native communities were raised to the ground that way that we don't talk about. But like the fact that Tulsa, the kind of been culturally forgotten, like so that put it back on the map.
01:38:28
Speaker
and Not in the not the good way. No, I'm putting on the math in the good way, but I get what you mean. But that but that that's where I think that that series works, you know, where it it actually does care.
01:38:42
Speaker
it's It's sincere, right? And i that's what I would rather from any kind of Watchmen attitude im like that. Yeah, like are some of the things dumb? Like, oh there's a Ozymandias has a daughter that has like ah a ah a plot that's also kind of dumb, like the steel Dr. Manhattan's pot. Like, yeah, is that kind of silly? That's fine. I'm fine with it.
01:39:04
Speaker
Yeah. It's Steven Lindelof. He made Lost. lostu There's an elephant in it for no reason. Like, just have fun. to to Stop worrying and love the bomb. That's the way I look at it. Well, that's you really need to watch Leftovers because I feel like that's the perfect synthesis of his, like,
01:39:20
Speaker
mindset but then also in a context where like the whole gist of it is like everyone in this world who's gone through this trauma wants answers and it's fucking them up that no one's explaining this shit to them so you're also watching the show kind of expecting of like oh, there's not going to be answers, right?
01:39:40
Speaker
Because, like, the whole show is about them not being able to understand what has happened. Well, that's that's a writer playing into their strengths, I have to say, you know, because Lindelof, you know, people always say, like, oh, the answers, they never pay off, right? But it's like,
01:39:56
Speaker
what was Twin Peaks, right? Like Twin Peaks was ruined when you got the answer there, right? And every time, even though like that answer, yeah, it was the perfect answer to that mystery. And then, you know, ultimately where the show goes from building off of that, like in terms of like by the finale of season two and then the retreated off, like, yeah, I feel like it, it still makes all that work. One one of my favorite podcasts is the Now Playing podcast, right?
01:40:25
Speaker
And ah they did a retrospective on Twin Peaks when The Return was coming out, right? And I really valued their perspective because they watched the Twin Peaks show when it was airing, right?
01:40:36
Speaker
And they liked the pulpy parts, you know? they they They almost felt like they were more fans of Mark Frost, right? Than they were of David Lynch. yeah But they did do a David Lynch retrospective and they did really like a lot of them, so it's...
01:40:48
Speaker
You know, it wasn't that. But they really did not like the return. they they They thought that that was a bad take. And because it was so so much of a departure from, you know, the mystery boxy kind of storytelling that was in the first two seasons, right?
01:41:05
Speaker
um And I think that that's speaking to another thing, right, where it's like Lindelof as a writer, you know, there's, ah you know, actual tactful writing, which is where I see leftovers. Right.
01:41:18
Speaker
And then I see like feeding the machine a bit. And I see like Watchmen and the law and Lost, right, where they are more in service of the fandom or not the fandom, but like the audience in a way.
01:41:28
Speaker
where they they're playing with the expectations more so. And everything I get with Leftovers is like, this is how the story would naturally play out. And that's what makes me excited to watch that. Yeah, it all feels very real in terms of like this is how actual people would ah like respond to all this. And the cast is so fucking good. I mean, you got Carrie Coon and then ah Christopher Eccleston fucking he's the I'm excited for you to watch it just so you can talk to because ah every season there's at least like
01:42:01
Speaker
the the I guess there is a ah main character, but like you shift perspectives throughout the seasons and every season you get a Christopher Eccleston episode. He's like this priest and he's kind of like the Job of this, not Job from Rest of Element, but Job, the biblical Job, where he's like, in like oh we're just going to watch an hour of him getting dumped on and see like how his faith responds to that.
01:42:26
Speaker
yeah The Leftovers always reminded me of ah Stephen King's The Stand, but in a more interesting adaptation, you know? ah Would you say that that's an accurate comparison?
01:42:37
Speaker
A little bit, because, it and yeah, i mean, I say they're exploring similar... to It's exploring things to a lot of, like, post-apocalyptic things, but in terms of it's it's like... it it just feels more interesting because it's like, well, the world didn't actually end, you know, it's just like this inexplicable thing happened and now we have to move on, which feels very real now for our world, you know, like all this shit that we could, it's just piling up, but it's, but it's like,
01:43:04
Speaker
Yeah, of but not everyone agrees how we should move on or if we should, which is like, yeah, I would, I would somewhat, I don't know that I would join a cult, but I would still be even some years removed, be like, I would like to know why that happened.
01:43:19
Speaker
Someone please some answers, please. Yeah, can someone tell me why 2% of everyone just like banished? Like that shouldn't happen. And well it's not gonna happen again, is it? Like that would be like, we're good, right? Like,
01:43:30
Speaker
we were're good right like And by the way, like, I just love the fact that, you know, in a modern context now, like looking back, you know, the writers of that show put too much stock in the human like observation, right? Like 2% of the population died with COVID and people just ignore that, you know, so like andly they think they're more about human life than people do.
01:43:52
Speaker
Yeah, there's no cult that's like, we're a living reminder of COVID victims. You need to not forget like and that they're like staging these like elaborate rituals to remind everybody.
01:44:03
Speaker
maybe we should be doing that. Well, maybe that's what just MAGA is in general. Well, do they want to remember it? I think they want to be like, no, that didn't even happen, bro. i You know, you say that, but I think that that's like the glory days for them.
01:44:16
Speaker
You know, like that like for them, that's like... Because like whenever you talk to any of these vaccine skeptic people, they're just trying to play off of like common sense, you know, to like get you to budge an inch, right?
01:44:28
Speaker
Or it's like, well, should a doctor have full control over your body, right? And in the abstract of that, you're like, well, I don't want a doctor like, you know, forcing me to get anything. So yeah, maybe ah maybe that's right, right?
01:44:42
Speaker
yeah And that just gives opens the door, right? So it's like, yeah, no, if the doctor tells me, fucking job me up, brother. Like, let's do it. Hey, but... Fauci-ouchy. you got them i've got the 5G in you? ah I'm actually on 6G now, you know? Oh, fuck. They're rolling it out, right? So, first trials, right?
01:45:02
Speaker
Sign on the dotted line. i'm I'm getting a kickback. It's just nice, you know? Hell yeah. Much like the movie Butterfly Kisses. Yeah. do Do we have any any other party butterfly kisses ah thoughts? I mean, I had a blast with this. and it it If you're someone who just listened, like you didn't heed our warning and you listened to this anyway without watching the movie, I think the experience of it is still worth taking. So it's ah you know it's about the journey.
01:45:30
Speaker
I don't know, watch The Spy because... um gonna'd I'd say there'd be there might be more than a few other found footage movies that also are on Tubi that we might cover soon. Hell yeah.
01:45:44
Speaker
Yeah. Speaking my language, Doug, that found footage is the great like West you know in like unexplored yeah you know projects. right I mean, are where you down to here? We can commit to this odd on the odd Mike. Do you want to do a Savage Lane episode? Okay. totally that's an amazing movie like it's really great i am am way more politically relevant than i thought to i didn't i knew like the location of when it took place and vaguely that stuff but then like
Techniques and Challenges in Found Footage Films
01:46:11
Speaker
a few minutes into me i was like oh shit this is this is capital p political And ah talk about a film that uses its limitations as a massive strength, right?
01:46:24
Speaker
The idea that we're only getting images of an event and the recollections of people, right? And it's so, so effective because those pictures are so fucking scary. I have i i went online and like say to my phone because they're like so striking.
01:46:38
Speaker
And i and yeah you after the movie, you kind of want to pour over them for like little details in in them. But the fact that it it doesn't feel small budget. It it doesn't feel low budget at all.
01:46:49
Speaker
Like ah this movie does feel more like in terms like, yeah, you can tell you're watching something lower budget, but that as a like part of the charm and and additive for, for butterfly kisses for a savage land, it's like using the limited resources in a way where,
01:47:03
Speaker
it still feels like a pretty large scale thing. that Maybe a lot of it's also just like, we're going to so many different talking heads who are like selling the the role that they're, they're playing that you're like, Oh, well this is like a big deal, you know, that they got all these people they interviewed.
01:47:20
Speaker
Including Wein, who created Wolverine and Swamp Thing in that movie. So, um yeah, we we should talk about Savage Land for sure. Totally. um There's another movie I want to look up after I make this point. ah But one thing I wanted to say about Savage Land in relation to the construction of any kind of found footage film, right?
01:47:39
Speaker
The idea of going with images is amazing because, like you said, like there's like so many images that you want to go back and look at Right. And just like pour over. And for from a filmmaking standpoint, right, getting like 50 good images of an event is so much cheaper than shooting that event. Right. Right.
01:47:59
Speaker
And when you do that, right, when you when you go and when you make the film, you make like 50 great images. i think it's even just 20 in the film. 36 is on the roll because they only recut they didn't have one roll of film. They like allude to like maybe there are more that he drops, but we only have the one one roll.
01:48:17
Speaker
That's 36 from those. Yeah. And there it is, right? Like it's it's so, it's a finite number. It's a small amount. so ah the importance is given to that number. The importance is given to what images we do have, right?
01:48:29
Speaker
And because of that, we take it so much more seriously, right? We'll get into it when we talk about it later, because I would be totally down to, you know, but it's just the ah the idea of selling the reality of it. You don't need a budget.
01:48:42
Speaker
that's That's the reality of found footage. It's like, if you have nothing but a camcorder and some friends, this is the genre. Unless like you're doing a Matt Farley and Charlie Roxborough, like, you know, so fun subversion of classic genres, right?
01:48:56
Speaker
What you should be doing is you should be challenging the form of found footage filmmaking itself because it's the most fertile ground to tell original stories in a way that is metatextual without winking at the audience. Right, because like we, it's just and inherent that the buy-in for this is like, we know that this isn't real, but we're all going to play along with with that idea of that, yeah, you just found these or did these like, or is something that within the narrative had been been recovered. So, yeah.
01:49:29
Speaker
Yeah, um I'm excited to talk about Savage Land, but Butterfly Kisses, it rules, to be rules. so so this movie is like the the worst possible version of Butterfly Kisses.
01:49:43
Speaker
Oh, because it's like, yeah, I was going to get to that. so So this is like Adam Green is the guy who did the Hatchet series as well as ah Frozen, the ski lift horror movie, right?
01:49:55
Speaker
ah And they essentially made a found footage horror film based around their friends at horror conventions. So like all of the ah like people that they interview are like huge makeup effects people or like ah co-stars of the horror films. Right. And Ray Wise is the villain.
01:50:12
Speaker
um But that might be one of the worst horror films I've ever seen. Like, Digging Up the Marrow is a ridiculously bad version of what Butterfly Kisses is.
01:50:23
Speaker
And it's a great inversion of, like, what happens when you're so high on your own supply that you don't actually take the extra steps to make this kind of narrative work. I'm only bringing it up now because...
01:50:36
Speaker
ah what Butterfly Cases is doing, while we've talked about how well it's been executed, I could imagine somebody talking about the structure being gimmick, you know, and pointing to something like Digging Up the Marrow. This is like the inverse where it's like, no, something like this does require a lot of ah thoroughly...
01:50:57
Speaker
thought through like clever storytelling and digging in the marrow is what happens when you don't have that. And it sounds like some of the stunt casting can be distracting and take like Ray Wise is the exact opposite person who should be at the center of a found like I love him as an as an actor in ah in a presence screen presence. Yeah.
01:51:15
Speaker
eight He will never in any reality seem normal. Oh, you know, like i I'll never just buy him as like, yeah, it's a real guy. yeah and he's not playing himself like he's playing a character. That's what I mean. Like, unless he is supposed to just be Ray Wise, the actor, I would never just be i be like, well, that's Leland Palmer. and i'm I'm not going to just be like, yeah, that's this is whatever, a small town sheriff or whoever he's supposed to be. It's like not.
01:51:42
Speaker
but ah you i mean, it's it's hard. Casting can be a difficult thing for any production, especially a lower budget thing. But especially I feel like. but found footage you know all be by its nature you're gonna get a lot of like non-professional actors but then also you're all also asking them to do like a lot of heavy lifting in terms of like what they have to sell sometimes so it's like a really fine line you have to block and I feel like Butterfly Kisses really like I buy Gavin the whole time there's parts towards the end where the film students start to seem a little unreal but that's like part of
01:52:21
Speaker
but and like it's like well yeah they're unraveling because of either the peeping Tom of it all or they're acting and it's bullshit like like they either read of it like you know leans into that so like it it kind of at that point doesn't matter that way. And I feel like that's by design. I don't think like the, that they're like fucking up and giving a bad performance in those moments, but they are like overdoing it a little at the, like Feldman and like her, like when she's like, right, cut out her eyes and stuff. So it's like, it's, it's, it's, it's heighted, but like intentionally. So, It's all a matter of how lived in those characters are, right? And I feel like the film students are the least lived in, i feel, but they do sell the desperation the best, like you're saying, right?
01:53:05
Speaker
But literally everybody else in the film, they're able to sell it because they're just normal people trying to play versions of those characters. And then Gavin himself, like I was saying with The Last Exorcism, he's the best actor in the film, and he's able to like make that narrative...
01:53:21
Speaker
Like, if you had a much lesser actor as Gavin, this whole film would be insufferable. You would hate it, right? But there's something so lovable about how detestable Gavin is that you are so compelled to watch it, right?
01:53:34
Speaker
and And really, like, he's what makes it work, right? and And it's what makes it also a horror comedy to me, right? ah I don't know the actor's name. I'm just saying he's great.
01:53:47
Speaker
He should be in more things, even if the character was really obvious. You put a guy in a Newsies cap, I'm not going to trust him, you know? it But like you say, like it adds the layer of untrustworthiness, but you also want to see you're along for the ride with him because I'm like, I want to see how far this guy is going to take this. like like I know this won't end well, and he ultimately doesn't really mean well, but I just i can't look away.
01:54:15
Speaker
Seth Adam Kallick. Good for him. Yeah, it seems like this is definitely, oh, there's literally only one other credit ah movie you called Eight Ball Clown 2. It has a 3.4 on IMDb. Damn, damn, but what a career.
01:54:34
Speaker
You really went off on top, though. You kind of have to, yeah, if you give an iconic found footage movie performance, you should just call it there. Be like, I'm ah no more acting. I mean, sometimes that just is forced upon you and you can't like, you know, like the the people in Blair Witch Project. But it's like, well, ah I'm sorry. That's the cost of greatness. who is that you were You were too good. i think the only way you could do like a recognizable character, like an actor in a found footage film.
01:55:00
Speaker
is if you were to do it like Joe Carey in Spree, which I think is a fantastic film. Did you ever watch that? I have not seen that one yet. I feel like that was partly my aversion to it where I'm like, ah, the Stranger Things kid.
01:55:12
Speaker
Not that I mean, I've seen them in things I actually like, but I'm i'm like, ah, i' I know that this isn't a real ah rideshare guy. can Can we put that one on the books? Is that possible? Because that's ah that's one I would love.
01:55:24
Speaker
I'm gu'm curious to see it. Yeah. Like, talk about a political movie as well. Like, it really... ah okay Honestly, it's it's it's the found footage taxi driver is the best way for me to phrase it.
01:55:35
Speaker
and Hey, you see you're selling it pretty hard, yeah. It's good. It means something different in modern context, obviously, but also, I mean what I say in that sense, yeah. ah But what I'm getting at with the celebrity aspect is that's a character who sees themselves in such high regard, but they don't meet that in reality.
01:55:56
Speaker
Right. So there's a desperation there. Right. I think that that's where a movie star can fit within that realm. Right. Whereas in like M. Night Shyamalan's The Visit, which I would probably say is like maybe his worst film, when you have like Catherine Han in that role. Right. She is very distracting as the mother.
01:56:16
Speaker
Like, because because she was so good as an actress. Right. I mean, thankfully, she's not like in the whole thing, but that does. I mean, she's bookends it. So like it's like that's what's bringing me into the movie. I'm already being taken out of it.
01:56:30
Speaker
I think I think the kids themselves and the grandparents are all right. Like, I'm i'm sure on a technical level, there are worse Shyamalan movies, but it's not one like I revisit. Like, I love bad Shyamalan movies. Like, The Happening is one of my favorites, right?
01:56:46
Speaker
Yeah, I'm probably more than rewatched The Half. Right? Like, The Visit is a lot more boring and not as funny. Like, when I rewatched The Visit, I laugh at, like, the young kid referencing Tyler, the Creator, and freestyle rapping, right? And it's just like, that's not the majority of that film, so...
01:57:05
Speaker
Yeah, the kids should be cringier, if any. i mean, because that is does add texture in terms of like, yes kids are ah cringy in in that way, which I feel like he does capture well in in other movies. But
Influences and References in Film
01:57:18
Speaker
in that, yeah. it it's I think that's not its priority because it has to be like, oh, creepy old people. What are they up to?
01:57:26
Speaker
But then also, yeah, one of the old ah one of of the guys is like Peter McRobbie, who's like a very, like, i not that I would like immediately be able to like list off his name, but like, you know, he's like a character actor you see like everywhere. So it's, ah you should have had someone like,
01:57:44
Speaker
Yeah, just unknowns. It's usually better. The only reason I brought up the kid being really into rap music and Tyler Crater specifically is because it's very funny to imagine in the timeline of the world that they have, right? Because Flower Boy didn't come out until 2017, right?
01:58:00
Speaker
So like this kid was listening to horrorcore Tyler Crater. He was listening to Goblin. And I just, I tell your squad. And then he got into the music that way. he was just like one of those adult swill pets. And then he was like, oh, he makes music too.
01:58:15
Speaker
and Did you ever listen to like his, like Goblin era music or no? I've listened to more of that than the the more recent quote, quote, legit stuff. So not that I'm against, not that I'm against this era, but I was just, there's something that appeals to me about the, the, yeah, less, less polished, more,
01:58:36
Speaker
yeah, I don't know, just just rough around the edges stuff. well he He is an artist, full-blown, full stop, right? like The thing is with Tyler, the creator, is you can listen to those older material and like he is the same person in a lot of ways, production-wise, from there to now, right?
01:58:54
Speaker
You can to hear the influence of that older material in the newer stuff in a really meaningful way. But... Also, like, the topics are insane. and And he, like, he used to talk about a lot of fucked up shit.
01:59:09
Speaker
Like, that's what I'm alluding to with this this kid. that right No, I got what you mean. Like, that he's not, i mean, Rafe gets mentioned a lot more in his older son. Yeah.
01:59:19
Speaker
Yeah. Like, detailed descriptions of, like, kidnapping women and... killing them than having sex with their corpses, right? Like, I get that M.M.I. Shyamalan is tapped in, right?
01:59:31
Speaker
Like, he he does that a lot with his music, his movies where he'll make popular references to music, right? and But that was one of those where it's like, man, M.M.I. Shyamalan is listening to Out of the Creator and he's listening to the horrorcore era. That's really funny.
01:59:46
Speaker
I mean, that itself is like kind of elevates the whole movie now that I'm thinking about. I'm like, yeah, that and that that again its existence alone is justified because now we know that Shaman has listened to that. Yeah, exactly. he listened to ah the the mixtape with Baster.
02:00:02
Speaker
And he's been a fan since. Do you think he watched Loiter Squad? I think so. i think that's fair. You know, is his daughters were the right age for it, right? Maybe they watched it and like they were like, hey, dad, watched and watch Tyler, the creator, just as a little man. In another context, his sense of humor could be...
02:00:20
Speaker
ah defined as almost adult swimming, you know, like, it is are like the live action adult swim output. the It's, it's, it's, it's not wholly dissimilar. Like we're, we're so off topic right now, but like the, the, the renaissance of Shyamalan has been one of the most gratifying things to see in my life.
02:00:41
Speaker
You know, like to, to see that guy fully do the one 80 of like, everyone hated him to now he's like beloved, like, like a grand master. It's one of the most joyous things in my life.
02:00:53
Speaker
It's beautiful. It feels like a victory like a victory that we all like got to take part of. And and yeah i'm like just artistically, this is the best case scenario that he's making.
02:01:05
Speaker
Because imagine if Last Airbender had been a success. And then he then is just tapped for blockbuster, blockbuster, blockbuster. They're like, you know, new Spider-Man with directed by ah m Night Shyamalan.
02:01:19
Speaker
Now, there's part of me like, what would it M. Night Shyamalan and Spider-Man look like? yeah Sure. But ultimately, him making things to scale of, you know, knock at the cabin or old is much more interesting to me. Knock at the Cabin is like one of the best horror movies of this decade in my books. I like Trap more, right? yeah But Knock at the Cabin is like... and Unless you make the Spider-Man movie of that scale where he's just in one location, like I would i would watch that. but Honestly, if Shyamalan were to make a Spider-Man movie, right? Because Unbreakable is a inversion of superhero comics, right? Right.
02:01:57
Speaker
ah I honestly think if Shyamalan were to do like a ah Spider-Man, he would probably be really close to Raimi, which he should be like really faithful to the material. But in his own way, it would probably be more close to Ang Lee's Hulk.
02:02:10
Speaker
And I'm not saying that in a derivative ah derogatory sense. No, i agree. And it would be pretty sincere, hard on sleeve. Like the the so humor would be cory like, yeah, like Raimi's Spider-Man.
02:02:22
Speaker
Yeah. and And that's why Shyamalan is the best living director. No notes. If you disagree with me, you can ah send your ah disagreements at idontcare fuckyou.com.
02:02:36
Speaker
If you don't
Halloween and Podcast Promotion
02:02:37
Speaker
like trap, why don't you like movies? like Do you like you just like stick your head in the toilet bowl and and and that's where you get your nutrition from? Because like are are you like vitamin deficient? That's why you're so dumb. I like that your idea of a bad film watcher is the same as a dog because you're right.
02:02:58
Speaker
if If you're in the toilet looking for shit, you know, that's what you're going to find, you idiot. Start accepting what you've got and like it. You know? Caddy plugs.
02:03:09
Speaker
that's That's a great note. ah um You can find me on this show, ah so keep listening to this show. But I've also got ah the next installment in the In Films We Trust miniseries on Larry Fezzenden coming very soon.
02:03:24
Speaker
I know I've been pitching that. Very often, but at the same time, they were on break for a bit. We're coming back now, human and and it's happening. um So that'll be great.
02:03:34
Speaker
And then also you can find me on Unbinged, um where I'll be talking about television there. ah So yeah, a couple places there. And then also you can find me on Twitter, at Poor Old Rolo Tony, where you can find me making chokes jokes either in poor taste,
02:03:50
Speaker
ah But funny enough to where you can laugh or ah very clean, but for whatever reason goes very viral. And I'm confused by it as well. Hell yeah. Yeah. It's always the ones that I put the least effort into that blow up. And it's like, you guys want to share the this this edit where I put saw music to the end of all get emerged more. Like, I i like that. why don't you guys share that? Yeah.
02:04:14
Speaker
but Anyway, you can find me on Twitter at at the Doug files. It's also by YouTube. And yeah, on this podcast here, these guys got juice. I mean, we've already alluded to some of the other stuff we're going to be covering. It's it's the spooky. It's a spooky season. I don't care what the edit, the naysayers. People are like, oh, it's too soon to start doing Halloween stuff. Those people propagandists for the war.
02:04:40
Speaker
On Halloween, I'm pro the war on Christmas. And by that, I mean that Halloween season should extend from the beginning of September until December 24th. We were going all the way into until Christmas Eve. you got Because cause there's Christmas horror movies now. So, like, fuck you, Christmas. we we're We're taking all of it.
02:05:03
Speaker
End of the year. We're Halloween fascists. youre You just can't get enough. Yeah, i'm I'm pro-fascism for her for horror. So that that's that news stance. And yeah, look out for... oh my God, Tony, there's like a... Don't blink. There's something behind you.
02:05:51
Speaker
Juice, Juice, please, Juice. Juice, we need an answer.