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🧚♀️🩸 Episode 161: FAIRY TALES ARE TERRIFYING 🩸🧚♀️
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🧚♀️🩸 Episode 161: FAIRY TALES ARE TERRIFYING 🩸🧚♀️
Once upon a time, two brave, beautiful, and moderately unhinged men set out on a quest…
This week Matty & Andrew go down the breadcrumb trail of fairy tale horror — the actual famine that birthed Hansel & Gretel, why Little Red Riding Hood was never really about a wolf, the patriarchy hiding inside every "happily ever after," and how the Brothers Grimm themselves softened their own stories until biological mothers became stepmothers (because heaven forbid a real mother abandon her kids).
Also: Jacob Grimm wanted to be remembered for his German dictionary. Nobody remembers the dictionary. 💀
And then we watched some movies. 🍿
🎬 GRETEL & HANSEL — Oz Perkins (yes, Anthony Perkins' son) gives us a witchy coming-of-age fairy tale shot at the literal Hell Fire Club in the Dublin Mountains. Sophia Lillis. Alice Krige. Vibes for days.
🎬 THE UGLY STEPSISTER — Cinderella from the villain's POV. Norwegian feminist body horror. Tapeworms. Surgeries. A 96% on Rotten Tomatoes. Sundance 2025's buzziest midnight title and we are OBSESSED.
Plus: Horror in Real Life, Whatcha Been Watchin' Bitch, and a closing game of DID DISNEY LIE?
🎧 Listen now wherever you get your podcasts!
💸 Support the show: frigay13.com/support
#FriGay13 #FairyTalesAreTerrifying #horrorpodcast #lgbtqpodcast #queerpodcast #GretelAndHansel #TheUglyStepsister #OzPerkins #SophiaLillis #BrothersGrimm #fairytalehorror #horrorcommunity #getslayed #queerhorror #gayhorror #bodyhorror #folkhorror #horrorpodcasts
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Transcript
Introduction and Purpose of Fri-Gay the 13th
00:00:00
Speaker
Fri-Gay the 13th Horror Podcast is a proud independent podcast. To learn more about the show, visit Fri-Gay13.com.
00:00:13
Speaker
Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, honestly, probably like a Midwestern city with questionable Wi-Fi and radiators clinking in the background, two brave, beautiful, and moderately unhinged men sought out on a quest.
00:00:28
Speaker
A quest for what? A quest for friendship, deep conversation, and and ah and attention, honestly.
Exploration of Horror Elements and Themes
00:00:35
Speaker
Correct. But also to uncover the truth that everything is terrifying.
00:00:42
Speaker
Exactly. Haunted houses, terrifying politics, absolutely. Insurance policies don't even start. So these two heroes, armed with nothing but microphones, questable research and a flair for the dramatics, and a deep commitment to being gay and afraid, created a magical portal.
00:01:02
Speaker
It's a podcast. A magical podcast. Where they would gather every other week to tell tales of murder, ghost stories, history, and reviews of horror movies. And thus, Frygay the 13th Horror Podcast was born, spreading fear, spreading laughs, and spreading some questionable taste in horror movies.
00:01:23
Speaker
Allegedly, to all who dare to listen.
Fairy Tales: Terrifying Truths and Cultural Reflections
00:01:26
Speaker
And they lived moderately ever after. It's episode 161, Fairy Tales Are Terrifying.
00:01:37
Speaker
I am the writing on the wall, the whisper ah
00:01:44
Speaker
I'm Marjorie Greene and I approve this message to save America, stop socialism, and stop China. Faith of high reality, from life to death to rise.
00:01:56
Speaker
Horror in real life. Doubters, the doomsters, the gloomsters, they are going to get it wrong. Horror in the movies. Where are you gonna go?
00:02:08
Speaker
Where are gonna run? Where are gonna hide? Nowhere.
00:02:18
Speaker
are When do we want Let's go! What are you waiting for, huh?
00:02:25
Speaker
What are you waiting for? I want you to know that the movement we started is only just beginning. Sometimes that is better.
00:02:37
Speaker
Time to hit the pause button once again and tell you a tale about a party and pundits and that poisoned apple of disinformation. I woke up and I saw Snow White is now in trouble. Molly, I was like, well, it must be Monday.
00:02:51
Speaker
This is a princess who would, I believe, die if she didn't receive this kiss. Cancel culture going after poor little Snow White. The kiss saves her life. She was poisoned by the witch. He's so upset about this show. It's ridiculous. i totally agree with you guys
00:03:09
Speaker
Hold on. Not to be grumpy, but this is just dopey. Welcome back to another episode of Fry Gay, the 13th Horror Podcast. My name Matty.
00:03:20
Speaker
And I'm Andrew. And listen, if this is your first time with us at Friday the 13th Horror Podcast, um first, you know welcome. Welcome, Andrew. Welcome, listeners. Welcome, me, um to the podcast that talks all about horror, horror in the movies and in real life from a queer perspective. I said that backwards. I've never done that before. That was really weird. um Anyways, we're back with episode 161, talking about fairy tales being terrifying. Andrew, are you ready to talk about some fairy tales emphasis on the fairy?
00:03:56
Speaker
oh I got my red hood. I got my glass slippers. I got everything ready to go. Getting those dainty feet in some glass slippers. Girl, look at you. oh my God. I'm so proud of you. You can see the toes through the glass. Oh, my God, girl. Well done, everybody.
00:04:12
Speaker
Um, listen, folks, it is great to be back with you. Um, talking about, uh, the thing we love to talk about most, which is horror and Lord knows there's plenty of it in the world. Thankfully we're talking about fairy tales today and not about, I don't know, something a little bit more serious. We need a reprieve. Well, but, but then, you know, it's like every other thing that we talk about, um you know, it tries to be a reprieve, but then you find out just how fucked up all this shit is too, you know? So yeah, we'll find out.
00:04:39
Speaker
Yeah. there's There's, there's really no escaping is there, but, um, you know, look in the meantime, we're happy to be back talking about it. So Andrew, when you were growing up, did you have any fairy tales that were, um, that were some of your favorites at all?
00:04:52
Speaker
um I think that I didn't really grow up on like many fairy tales apart from like the Disney ones, you know, really. um But I did fall into a hole in high school where I went down like the grim fairy tale like that we're going to talk about in a little bit where I kind of like discovered ah the the real stories that were behind these kind of like stories.
00:05:15
Speaker
sugar-fied ah tales that we were fed as kids. um But you know some of the ones that I remember, you know I definitely remember a lot of Mother Goose. that I don't know. if you i think I feel like everything had that Mother Goose like tales book that you would get read to. absolutely But a lot of the ones that I thought of were like...
00:05:34
Speaker
I don't know if you remember this, but like there was a book out there. It was called the stinky cheese man. And I remember that. Sure. Yeah. absolutely So like ah there was that there was, Oh gosh, I'm trying to remember the names of these, like the Berenstain bears. There were, um, there was this book of like, of stories that involved a high school. I can't quite grasp the name of it right now. Sure. Um, but there were all these like like, I feel like in the nineties when we were like in, you know, I guess late eighties, early nineties, when we were in elementary school and like growing up, there was like this new wave of like re-imagining of all these stories.
Grimm Brothers: Origins and Impact on Culture
00:06:12
Speaker
yeah um And like, you know, new authors kind of coming up with different ways of telling these stories. Well, I mean, you've, you've, you've got wicked as a, as a, you know, a really big um sort of like deconstruction of the wizard of Oz story, which is kind of a fable when you get right. Yeah. So I guess that's what I kind of think of when I think of fairy tales from my childhood, but what about you?
00:06:32
Speaker
Yeah. um Yeah. I really enjoyed ah fairy tales when when I was a kid. And there were um a number that, you know, when I look back to elementary school, obviously it's a little hard to remember this far on from it.
00:06:47
Speaker
Not, ah you know, not in my not my single digits anymore. Anyways, um i i particularly remember the way that like books looked. And um I remember there was... um There was one, one ah like like fairy tale book that I really loved when I was a kid. I can't remember all of them that were in there, but they were the Anansi stories. And so it was like Anansi and the spider was one of them. And these were these were African folk tales that were fairy tales for children. um And I remember really, really loving those a lot. And I i can still see the cover in my head. It was there was a huge spider on on the front because there was one that was um it was called Anansi and the Spider. I'm pretty sure it was called that. And I remember really loving that one.
00:07:35
Speaker
um and um And then Aesop's Fables, all all that kind of stuff. So Aesop's Fables would have had like... I'm trying to think of a couple right now. me see. I'm looking at most famous fables. So ah the hare and the tortoise, the fox and the hedgehog. I forget which one that was. ah The goose that laid the golden eggs of all that and stuff. So, you know, it's sort of like those, those tales that are the basis for so many other stories. um You know, you you mentioned Disney, Disney riffed on all the classic fairy tales in order to make what they made. um And, you know, it's,
00:08:10
Speaker
It's a really special part of childhood because it's it's these stories that sort of get your brain going first. And clinic it gives you it gives you like the the basis for your like thinking. like You know what i mean? Yeah, it's us. how you interpret problems and how you kind of like solve things. I don't know. It does have a, like a thing in there. The one, the one I was thinking of yeah go that I couldn't think of. I just looked up it's sideways stories from wayside school. Do you remember this? I remember that. Yeah, yeah sure.
00:08:43
Speaker
and i know be And I'd be remiss to not mention um scary stories to tell in the dark. Oh, yeah, for sure. Those those are those are warning signs also. so Yeah. You know, I i think that fairy tales are unique from just like children's stories in the way that a fairy tale can help teach children sort of foundational lessons from the very beginning. And so, you know, like, you know, the the movies that we're going to talk about today, for example, are the ugly stepsister that came out last year. um And it is, of course, a ah ah sort of modern retelling. Well, it's not even modern, really. It's just contemporary, I guess. ah But it's a retelling of Cinderella. and um and then uh the other one is called gretel and hansel uh which is just a retelling of hansel and gretel and you know these are both stories that sort of deal with like fundamental you know moral and ethical lessons right um and uh and they're they're they're really interesting to sort of you know pick at as an adult right now and like you know especially the number one i can't wait to talk about the ugly sepsis because that movie was just really fucking good But, you know, on this one, i was really thinking about um like the other sisters in this too that that I had never really thought of about about before. but i just thought that was really interesting.
00:10:00
Speaker
Yeah, it was it I mean, we'll talk about it specifically, but like, let's let's talk a little bit about like where this all comes from. Like as far as as far as we know, as far as like, ah you know, the the written down word goes, because obviously a lot of this was handed down orally. But um do you want to talk a little bit about the Grimm Brothers? Sure. The Brothers Grimm. So The Brothers Grimm, there's there's a bunch of articles that you can go out there and read. But the one that I found that was from The New Yorker and there was another version of it in like The Guardian was called The Brothers Grimm Were Dark for a Reason. And just to sum it all up, um we've all grown up with The Brothers Grimm, Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Snow White. So they are sort of the the central theme for our show today. um And most of us know that they were darker than the Disney versions of what came out. um But how dark and why is actually, pardon me, a much more interesting story than you might expect.
00:10:53
Speaker
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were not wandering the German countryside collecting stories from old women in remote cottages. Total myth. Their actual stories were largely literate middle of sources. Pardon me. We're largely literate middle class young adults and many of them from a single social circle in early 19th century Germany. The fairy tale, as we know it, is partly a marketing exercise. So here's where it gets interesting. The tales weren't originally written for children at all. The Grimm's saw them as a record of German cultural heritage, a scholarly and even political project.
00:11:36
Speaker
German, see, we bring it back. We had bring it back. You it. There go. Germany in their lifetime was not a unified country. A lot of people don't don't know the history of Germany very well, but it it wasn't. It was ah ah a conglomeration of many kingdoms.
00:11:50
Speaker
um and It had been occupied by Napoleon, torn apart by war, and the brothers genuinely believed that by collecting and publishing these stories, they could help forge a German national identity.
00:12:03
Speaker
fairy tales as nation building. So the darkness in the stories wasn't accidental. It was largely functional. Violence was added deliberately to enforce moral lessons. Starting with the second edition of their collection, doves peck out the evil stepsister's eyes in Cinderella. Not because it's fun, but because punishment had to be seen to fit the crime.
00:12:25
Speaker
But the kicker is this, as the editions progressed, the Grimms actually softened the tales to appeal to bourgeois Victorian sensibilities. Female characters lost dialogue, at their independence was diminished, and in an early version of Hansel and Gretel, it's the biological mother who abandons the children. By a later edition, it's a stepmother because the brothers could not bring themselves to suggest a real mother would do such a thing.
00:12:52
Speaker
So the version of the Grimm tales that we think of as the originals, they're already a sanitized rewrite. The actual originals were darker, stranger, and more politically loaded. Jacob Grimm, for the record, hoped his legacy would rest on his German dictionary and his work on linguistics.
00:13:09
Speaker
Nobody remembers the dictionary, of course. They all remember fairy tales. Sometimes the thing that outlives you isn't the thing that you were proudest of. So a little bit about the guys who were actually behind all of this.
00:13:22
Speaker
ah So wait, Jacob Grimm had his own dictionary? I guess he did. Yeah. Oh, Webster beat him out, I guess. I mean, you know, but I mean, that was the thing back then. Dictionaries were so new. i mean And like, think about the amount of work that had to go into creating dictionaries. Like... Yeah.
00:13:40
Speaker
Collecting all the different dialects and everything. That's an awful lot of work and and and a huge sociological and really like kind of like like ah like anthropological exercise.
00:13:51
Speaker
um That's a huge undertaking. So it is interesting to know that he did that. And I wonder actually like how much of that work that he did really went on to inform anything else. and I don't know anything about that, but it is an interesting little bit there about the Brothers Grimm.
00:14:08
Speaker
Yeah, I had never heard anything about the whole dictionary part or him being anthropological at all. Emphasis like dick. Yeah. Well, I think that I actually just thought that they made all these stories up, but i that you know that's my ah I didn't know that. I didn't know that this was like a collection of other people's stories. I thought that they were just the storytellers, not the story collectors. So that's very interesting. Yeah, tis indeed it is indeed. is indeed, Andrew.
00:14:37
Speaker
do you want to hear a little bit about, how to expand upon what you were talking about, some of kind of the real life examples of why these stories were told? Tell us, Andrew. Tell us all about these stories.
00:14:50
Speaker
So I have two. I'm going to expand upon Hansel and Gretel and um the Little Red Riding Hood stories as as my examples today. But obviously there are many more, so you can kind of look on your own. But What makes Hansel and Gretel so disturbing isn't the witch, it's the parents, as you kind of alluded to earlier.
00:15:09
Speaker
In the earliest versions of the story, the children are deliberately abandoned in the forest because there simply isn't enough food. that That detail isn't fantasy. It reflects a very real and horrifying reality in parts of medieval and early modern Europe where reported crop failures and famine forced families to impossible choices.
00:15:28
Speaker
During major food shortages shortages, especially events like the Great Famine of 1315, almost said to starvation and widespread brutal Entire communities collapsed under the strain and historical records described as desperate measures. People selling possessions, migrating en masse, and in some cases, abandoning children they could no longer feed.
00:15:56
Speaker
Forests which show up constantly in fairy tales weren't magical places. They were vast, dangerous, and often just beyond the edge of the village. Leaving children there was essentially a death sentence. Jesus.
00:16:10
Speaker
In that context, Hansel and Gretel becomes less about candy houses and more about survival horror. The quote-unquote evil stepmother, ah often blamed in later versions, may actually reflect a broader reality of fractured families, remarriage, and shifting loyalties during times of crisis.
00:16:29
Speaker
And the witch, she can be read as a symbolic extension of that same fear. An adult figure who preys on vulnerable children, whether through
Moral Lessons and Societal Reflections in Fairy Tales
00:16:40
Speaker
exploitation, trafficking, or simply taking advantage of those with nowhere else to go.
00:16:46
Speaker
What's especially unsettling is that the story doesn't fully condemn the parents. It almost treats the abandonment as understandable. That ambiguity is what makes it linger.
00:16:57
Speaker
It forces you to sit with a question that has no clean answer. What happens when survival requires cruelty? In stripping away the fairytale gloss Hansel and Gretel reveals a world where the real horror isn't monsters in the woods.
00:17:14
Speaker
It's what people might do when they're pushed past the edge. Interesting. i mean, it really is. I mean, when do you think about that, like, i mean, how many, i mean, I've never, I've never known anyone, but there are many stories of babies being left at the fire station because they, they the the parents simply can't take care of it.
00:17:39
Speaker
um I mean, it's maybe a little bit different than, you know, leaving your kid in the woods on yeah it's on its own. um But I mean, look, I mean, I i it's um I don't know. I think maybe one thing, though, is that like we we don't necessarily know.
00:17:59
Speaker
It's because we do I don't have any contemporary voices telling me what they thought about the parents and the story. Do you know Sure. So, you know, there's no like 19th century voice telling me, oh, man, that mom was such a bitch for doing that or like the dad was such a dick for doing that kind of thing. Like, because I don't have that, it's it's hard to i sort of like reckon like, well, what did what did like German people really think when they read this? um But it's it's interesting to think about that, like how because the the other stuff is all is all very obvious, you know, like the witchy lady or whatever we call her. She is she is a ah a villain because she's a villain like that that's that's easy to get. And the rest of the story sort of, you know, takes place as it needs to and in the ways in the ways that you might think.
00:18:42
Speaker
But the parents are really interesting. Like, how do you actually take them in? How do you how do you judge them? You know, i imagine if, you know, it's it's one thing for kids to hear the story in 19th century Germany. I wonder what it's actually like for parents to hear the story at at that that same time. Right. Or 18th century, whatever this might be, because I would imagine, too, that a parent reading this might be like, fuck.
00:19:07
Speaker
maybe I shouldn't leave fucking Gunter out in the woods because a fucking, you know, witch is going to eat him. You know what I mean? Like, oh, that's and awful. It's so funny because like the, the version of Hansel and Gretel that I always remember is that they just got lost in the woods. It wasn't that the parents abandoned them. So totally it's, it's interesting how time shifts those paradoxes of like, Oh, in, in, in the version I just read about. And in the version that we're going to talk about today in the movie, there are no fucking breadcrumbs, man.
00:19:39
Speaker
They're just none. Yeah. Abandoned. There are, there are, um there are magic mushrooms, however, which is very interesting. So we'll, we'll, we'll definitely get to that later. Yeah, it's just, i i imagine that at the time telling the story of Hansel and Gretel to kids of that time or a little bit later of that time is like, hey, look look how good your parents are. We're not going to abandon you in the woods. But those parents, like make sure you make sure you're ah loyal to us. Make sure that you know that your parents are good. It's always this little underlying thing of like,
00:20:15
Speaker
of fear. It's fear. It's honestly, it's all fear. Sure. And, you know, and it's also, you know, make sure that you're, that you do well and get a good job so that you're never in that position. Yeah. all right. You want to talk a little bit about Little Red Riding Hood? Please. Yes.
00:20:30
Speaker
Little Red Riding Hood isn't ah really about a wolf. It's about danger hiding in plain sight. Early versions of the story were told as warnings, especially to young girls, about the risks of wandering alone and trusting strangers. The wolf often symbolizes predatory men. Someone who appears friendly, gains trust, and then exploits it.
00:20:52
Speaker
In some of the oldest tellings, there's no rescue at all. Red Riding Hood has simply outsmarted and killed, reinforcing the idea that one wrong decision could have fatal consequences.
00:21:05
Speaker
There's also a very literal layer of fear behind this story. In parts of Europe, wolves were a real and present danger, especially during periods of food scarcity. There are documented cases of wolves attacking humans, including children, when prey was scarce.
00:21:20
Speaker
Dense forests where the stories take place were genuinely threatening environments filled with wild animals, bandits, and no clear paths home. Getting lost wasn't inconvenience.
00:21:31
Speaker
It meant death. Hell yeah. makes a story yeah but what makes the story linger is how it blends those fears together the wolf isn't just an animal it speaks deceives and infiltrates a safe space by distinguishing itself as someone's familiar that taps into a deeper anxiety the idea that danger doesn't always look dangerous And it can be often charming, persuasive, even comforting at first.
00:22:00
Speaker
That's the real life horror at the core of Little Red Riding Hood. It's not a fantasy about a girl and a wolf. It's a cautionary tale about vulnerability, manipulation, and the resist and the risks of a world where not everyone is who they seem.
00:22:16
Speaker
Wow, Andrew. And in this world right now, I couldn't think of a better time to reread this story and think about who you're worshiping. That's right, girl. That's right right there, baby. I heard that. I heard that shit.
00:22:31
Speaker
not i'm not i'm not putting any anywhere I'm not putting any ideas in anybody's head, but maybe look to the top and see who's the real wolf in sheep's clothing.
00:22:41
Speaker
That's just it How people don't get that is beyond me, but whatever. Especially when you're told numerous times right to your face and it still won't get through your thick skull. I don't understand it. Well, I mean, you know, like there there's... um you know i I think that as as somebody who who who worked in in early childhood for for for a long time, ah for for nearly 15 years, I believe in the in the power of of fairy tales and of stories to to help children learn and become...
00:23:13
Speaker
become, ah become people, you know, like, like becoming a person is, is, is largely done through how we understand stories and how we see them out. um And, you know, naturally as you develop and as you grow older, this is not rocket science for God's sake, you, you begin to develop deeper understandings and more sophisticated ways of thinking. And, you know, you don't, you don't need fairy tales to, to make sense of the world around you anymore. um But, you know, of course they can still enhance it and can still help you no matter what, because it's, it's fun to to think about a fairy tale and it's fun to re-explore them as, as adults. I think, I think what's amazing right now is how,
00:23:51
Speaker
um how Sort of like that infantile understanding or even like that adolescent understanding perhaps, you know, somewhere in between infantile and adolescent is what I'm going for, is where so many adults are now. And they stop.
00:24:11
Speaker
Well, ah i and I think that they stopped deliberately. And I've talked about this many times before on the podcast, but I think that what what probably shocks me the most about where we are now in the world is, yeah, of course, the violence and everything else. But I i think that it stems from a deep anti-intellectualism that exists in the world. For sure. And there is this movement, um and people are probably wondering, where are we going? You know what, girl? I don't know either. Let me just talk. Let me just cook over here. i'm I'm eating right now. I'm eating, I say. But like you know I really mean this. like There is such an emphasis now on don't go to college almost unless it's a useful degree or bubble bla blah, blah, blah, blah. It's just like, what the fuck? It's like yeah I was actually – when I was back in Indiana for my mom's funeral, I was i was with my sister. i might God love my sister. I love her to death. But she's always got Dr. Laura on in the car. Yeah. Just it's hilarious. And so I was listening to Dr. Laura for the first time in i can't tell you how long. And if you don't know who Dr. Laura is and and you might not. It's Dr. Laura Schlesinger, and she's been around for fucking ages on talk radio. And she is super conservative, super duper conservative. And she's definitely a ah a Trump fanatic. And um she just gives advice all day. But her advice is usually pretty shitty. And it's just it's always mean. And it's just it it is what it is anyways.
00:25:33
Speaker
she She had Dr. Laura on and Dr. Laura was talking about um about kids going to college now. And and i should say actually adults going to college. They are adults going to college. And how useless it is and this and that whatever. And I'm just sitting there thinking, you fucking call yourself Dr. Laura. Like listen to yourself right now. You call yourself Dr. Laura and you're telling kids not to go to fucking school. you fucking complete grifter on the radio. You're an absolute grifter. God, yeah But, ah you know, look, you don't have to go to college to be an intellectual or to be smart. You just have to be somebody who's inquisitive about the world around you and who wants to know more about it and who is interested in gaining knowledge and in and in seeking out what we like to call truth.
00:26:15
Speaker
And truth yeah can be different for every single person. But we have ah this this giant and growing conglomerate of human beings around us. It doesn't matter what country you're in. They're everywhere. They're here in Ireland, too. Trust me. of people who don't really look at gaining actual knowledge through study and research in in a good way.
00:26:35
Speaker
And it's easy to tell them tales, right, that are sort of, like I said earlier, in between infantile and adolescent understanding that they just believe hook, line, and sinker.
00:26:47
Speaker
And so I think that's really interesting in in the world right now is who believes in fairy tales and who has sort of progressed past them, who has an understanding past them. Or another way to think about this is these fairy tales that taught us ethics and morals. Why aren't why aren't they why aren't we remembering them?
00:27:07
Speaker
more and more. Especially like the ugly stepsister, well, Cinderella. But looking at this movie and this retelling of it, it's really interesting. you know You've got, and we'll talk about this more, of course. I'm like, save it but but it be but it. But it really does fit well, right? like We live in this Instagram culture still, or but I guess maybe we should say TikTok culture, I don't know, it's it's whatever social media culture, where everyone is trying to change their outside in order to fit what you know they think they're supposed to do or what they're supposed to deserve getting.
00:27:39
Speaker
And you know to to sum it all up, how's it working out for you? you know At the end of the day, you're just you're you're running out of money because you're wasting your money on on a bunch of bullshit snake oil stuff that isn't actually working and it's not actually helping you on the inside.
00:27:57
Speaker
You know? Yeah. I mean, I think to sum it all up, bla bla blah, bla blah, blah, blah. People need to start reading books again and and and thinking that being smart is cool again. That's what I think.
00:28:07
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, just to expand upon what you were talking about, I think like the one big thing that I took like from like what you were saying is like, you do need to understand the world, not just your block or your town or whatever. And that's like, it's You don't just go to college just for knowledge. You go to college to educate yourself about people around you and the different kinds of people that come from. ahll I'll tell you, i had a professor in in college who who said it perfectly. And he said that you go to college to learn how to learn.
00:28:43
Speaker
That's what go for. you you You go to college to become a critical thinker. It's not to, I mean, and of course it is, yes, to to gain knowledge about some specific things. Yes, I grant that. But by and large, becoming a critical thinker through some sort of Socratic learning is incredibly important. And that's what we're losing.
00:29:02
Speaker
Well, and also introducing yourself to people that don't think like you do. like it's Yeah, that's that's all part of it is you know in in the in that Socratic method, like answering questions because you need to go deeper and deeper on what belief you think you actually have, which can be challenged by other people who have a different belief or maybe yeah or maybe even do think the same as you but want you to clarify what you really mean.
00:29:28
Speaker
People can't form a fucking argument now to save their fucking lives. And so so what happens because they can't form arguments? We end up killing each other. Like truly, we don't know how to argue with each other because everyone just takes everything so personally and everyone can't actually look at something with nuance and say, oh, I wonder what they're thinking. Actually, i wonder what what even I'm thinking right now. Right.
00:29:53
Speaker
or people just arguing in headlines. That's all they do. All they do is they say the headline and they have no subhead. Like it's, it's literally just like, yeah, like what is a woman? And then you're like, God damn it. Like what, what are we like, what are we doing? Like, it's so, it's so top level that no one, I listen, i you know, I, I dabbled a little bit in this really ridiculous YouTube channel called Jubilee. I don't know if you know about Jubilee. That's where they do the, um it's like the circular debate kind of thing.
00:30:23
Speaker
Yeah, they do a number of different things. But like, I'm listening to these people, quote unquote, debate, because I really don't think a lot of them are debates. is Is it's just them talking in headlines. It's just whatever last person said on TV. like Exactly. it's it's It's all emotion. it's And and we we have we have let emotions rule the day and look where we are.
00:30:48
Speaker
like it And at this point, it doesn't even matter if you're a Trump supporter or anything else. like No one's life is better for it right now. yeah No one's life is better because we're not arguing with reason, which which you know we we start to form this reason right based on the stories that we're actually talking about today. Because these these foundational stories when we're children are what become the basis of getting us into learning and getting us into reading and getting us into thinking a little bit more deeply about stories and what's actually going on there.
00:31:22
Speaker
um It's it's ah it's ah you know not to not to be completely you know silly about it, but it really is terrifying. That should scare everyone in big, big ways.
00:31:35
Speaker
Well, and the way that we have shifted our political system into a system of worship rather than a system of criticism has really, really deliberate, like it's it's dilapidated the country. It's dilapidated everyone's thinking.
00:31:49
Speaker
it's it's um It's very strange. you know in in the In the last episode that that we that we put out, um I talked a little bit about the the fuel protests that happened over here in ireland And I'm saying this because, well, of course, we always should on America. Andrew and I are both Americans, but I i live here.
00:32:06
Speaker
And so, you know, a lot i i see a lot of the things that i I wanted to get away from starting to really become a serious problem over here in Europe. And, you know, during the fuel protests, um which were supposed to be about, you know, farmers and haulers and really everybody that buys gas in in in Ireland in one way or another, that the prices are too high and that the government should bring some of the taxes down, et cetera, et cetera.
00:32:32
Speaker
That's not what it turned out to be. And, and look, and people that are from Ireland might hear me right now and they might disagree with me and I welcome your disagreement. But what I saw was a lot of people that were leaders of this protest who were anti-immigrant, who were anti-refugee, who were anti, somehow blaming this on LGBT people and they are anti-LGBT themselves.
00:32:55
Speaker
That's what they were really out there for. They were preying on people, telling them once again these infantile stories that required very little um very little very little of anything to really grasp onto because they were so emotional.
00:33:10
Speaker
they they They once again bring up immigrants talking about immigrants and how they treat children here or how this happens or how that happens or how they treat women especially. Well, you know, look, due just a tiny the tiniest bit of critical thinking will lead you to looking at stats of crime in Ireland. And looking at specifically crime against against women and looking at those stats and discovering that immigrants are ah ah ah ah a very, very small percentage of the men who actually commit those crimes. who Who is the overwhelming majority? Quite frankly, it's Irish men. So it's the same here. It's white men. And it's the same thing that happens in America. And it's the same thing that happens in the UK. And it's the same thing that happens in Hungary. And it's going to keep happening even with that new guy in there and Orban out.
00:33:55
Speaker
You know, we we could go on all day long about this. But because people are just ah refusing to think about it, you know, you just another example here. I was, you know, I was having my own fun and and leaving a few comments on on videos here and there on Instagram about the protests. And there was this one kid that must have been from, but I think from the Midlands. And and he he was replying back to me because obviously he disagreed with what I was saying.
00:34:20
Speaker
And he said he kept saying that I was complaining. And I said, I'm not complaining. I'm making an argument. And it was clear to me that when I used that phrase, he didn't actually understand what I meant.
00:34:34
Speaker
He really didn't get it. and and And I wasn't even dogging him for it. like i I just kind of said it plainly back to him. like I don't think you understand what I actually mean about making an argument. And he just you know kept kind of going off about how how I was complaining, how I wouldn't have supported the 1916 revolution. oh and gosh. I hate farmers. I hate haulers. But do do you see what I mean? like It suddenly went into this like – emotional deep dive that if you really stop to think about emotional intelligence and and and learning how to regulate yourself and learning how to think critically, that that kid might not be thinking in the absolutely asinine, infantile way that he was thinking because he's been influenced by a bunch of right-wing people who are subtly getting him into right-wing politics without actually telling him that in the first place. So, you know, look i we are we ourselves are going to be a little too academic about this right now, but I really do it. I don't think so. that there is this There is this very pernicious thing happening. I would caution everybody who's listening to this right now that when you – not really caution. I guess I would say i would challenge you. You know, when you hear –
00:35:47
Speaker
your little nieces and nephews or you know the you know the the people around you talking about the usefulness of of of learning, not just a college degree, but of learning in general. I don't care which way you want to go in life, if you want to go you know in this direction or that direction, as long as you have a plan.
00:36:04
Speaker
But the next time that you hear somebody talk about useless college degrees or whatever, whatever, i think you should tell them to go blow. Because here's the other thing. you know where All we're hearing these days is about ai going to take all these jobs and this and that whatever. um I'm going to tell you what, there there is going to be backswing on all of this. And at the end of the day, there is there will always be a need for human beings who actually know how to think. not just a robot who knows only to look to a very particular pot of information. And so ah i am actually quite happy with my degree in the humanities that I got it fucking ages ago because I know that it continues to do me well. It continues to ground me as a human being. and it gave me critical thinking skills I wouldn't have gotten anywhere else. So, I mean, I think this stuff is really important and it's it is up to us.
00:36:56
Speaker
Once again, you don't have to have a college degree to to be an intellectual. It's up to us as thinking people to defend intellectualism and to defend learning and to defend the dissemination of the foundational stories that made us who we are, including these. I wonder how many of these fairy tales are being banned in schools in Florida, say right now. So, I mean, it's it's a very serious thing. If we want to defeat the fascist era that we are in, we better get serious about that as a foundation.
00:37:28
Speaker
Yeah. the the and And just to build upon that, the pendulum always swings. So just be ready for that. so yeah hopefully Hopefully fucking soon before the you know we have a fucking nuclear war.
00:37:38
Speaker
before we Well, i I mean, I mean it. be Because look I think that's the thing, too, is that we're not far away from it. I mean know. like we We are in dire straits right now. As of today, i don't know if you know this or not.
00:37:51
Speaker
But there is a, this is a real story right now. Europe right now, thanks to this conflict, only has six weeks of jet fuel left. Think about that.
00:38:02
Speaker
Six weeks of fucking jet fuels. I'm about to get on a plane right now. ah Well, not now right now, but in in two days on Monday to go back to the States for work and for fun stuff. But like, ah you know, my next trip that I have planned on the continent might not happen because there's going to be no gas. Yeah. If there's no gas to get things around, what do you think happens? It means that deliveries stop happening. It means that stuff starts get stops getting where it needs to be, including vital supplies like food and medicine. If food and medicine suddenly starts to disappear from countries, guess what happens then? I don't need to fucking like connect the dots for you. It will turn into insane violence and insane things happening all around the world.
00:38:43
Speaker
And it won't take long for that powder keg to keep going and going and going and going. We we are not far from calamity, my friends. We really aren't. And that is, a i wish I could go back to being a kid, just sitting in kindergarten and listening to these stories right now and not thinking about it. It is it is pretty bizarre to look back on on you know little Maddie or little Andrew back in the day.
00:39:08
Speaker
We would have never guessed the future that was ahead for for us or for any of us. And what a sad state of affairs it is. Yeah. I want to leave you with one last um little little thing that I i thought was very poignant and I wanted to read it. um And that's how fairy tales really did enforce kind of the world and the patriarchy that we have today.
00:39:29
Speaker
um And then we can move on. But, um sure you know, fairy tales have long reinforced a world where men hold power and women are expected to be passive, obedient and valued primarily for their beauty.
00:39:42
Speaker
Many classic stories center on a female character who endures hardship quietly, waiting to be rescued, chosen, or validated by a man. Whether it's a princess awakened, a servant girl elevated, or a young woman saved from danger, the pattern is consistent. Agency belongs to men, while women are rewarded for patience and compliance.
00:40:06
Speaker
Marriage is always always almost always the end goal, framed as the ultimate reward and resolution. But historically, this wasn't about romance. It was about survival. For many women, marriage meant stability, protection, and social standing. Fairy tales transformed that reality into something aspirational, reinforcing the idea that happiness comes from those being chosen rather than from independence or self-determination. At the same time, these stories often pit women against each other with conflicts centered around beauty, youth, and desirability. Stepmothers, queens, and witches become villains not just because they're cruel, but because they represent power or autonomy outside traditional roles. Their punishments are usually extreme, sending a clear message, step outside the expected path and you become the monster.
00:40:55
Speaker
That's where the deeper horror lies. Fairy tales didn't just tell spooky stories. the quiet They quietly taught generations how to behave within a rigid system. The magic and fantasy may feel distant, about but the underlying messages about gender, power, and worth have long-lasting impact, shaping expectations in ways that still echo today.
00:41:18
Speaker
And I don't think there could be anything more poignant about how our world is shifting right now when we're talking on the internet about fucking trad wives. Like, seriously. Yeah, for real.
00:41:30
Speaker
Well, listen, folks, that does it for our Horror in Real Life segment. We'll right back with what you've been watching, bitch.
00:41:39
Speaker
Let's all
Analysis of Movie: Sibling Dynamics and Critique
00:41:40
Speaker
go to the lobby, let's all go to the lobby, let's all go to the lobby to get ourselves a treat.
00:41:50
Speaker
And we're back with what you've been watching, bitch. What you've been watching, you truncated version of what you've been watching, bitch. That's right. There you go. And it's a truncated version. And why is that, folks? Because usually in what you've been watching, bitch, we talk about four things that we've either seen, watched, read, or whatever. um And we'll be honest, we just were recording this ah ah literally a week after the last episode. And I don't have four things that I watched. I just don't. So I told Andrew that we got to cut it down to two for this one. So we're each bringing you two this time. So Andrew, what is the first of your two? What you've been watching, bitch?
00:42:28
Speaker
The first one that I've been watching is it's actually a discovery ID um documentary, but it was, it was, uh, pushed through HBO. Like that's the... Okay....how I found it. But it's called The Secrets We Bury. Do do you know anything about this? I have not heard of this.
00:42:46
Speaker
So this is a very interesting documentary. um It's about this man um who is in his like, I'd say he's probably in his like late 30s, early 40s, like where we're at in life, essentially. and And he has been told his whole life that his dad walked out of his life, like just basically like kind of like the classic story of like went out for cigarettes and never came back like that kind of thing. yeah And it takes and I'm not going to spoil anything. Obviously, we don't spoil things in what you've been watching, bitch, but um it takes his mother dying to uncover a family secret that tells that maybe more of his family is closer than he ever thought. Oh, wow. And I don't want to give anything away beyond that because it's actually a really interesting documentary. It is haunting and it is, um God, it's really good. um i I don't, I don't know what else to say without giving it away. Now I want to watch it. um that sounds but but Let's just say visits ah he he visits a psychic at one moment and it uncovers things. that Leave it there. No, Andrew, stop. Stop right there. at the Stop. Okay. It's called, it's called what it's called. Again, the secrets we bury.
00:43:57
Speaker
Yeah, you should definitely give it a watch, especially not at HBO. I'm watching that tonight, girl. watching that tonight, girl. Hell yeah. um Andrew, i have another rewatch for this one, but it's a good rewatch, especially after your mom dies. It's called Hereditary. Oh, God.
00:44:12
Speaker
ah ah Listen, I get to make dead mom jokes for a while, okay? She's laughing at it too. Anyways, where am going with this? Okay, so my boyfriend, Manuel, and I watched this, and he's new to horror movies. I have converted him into a horror fan, which is great. He was actually telling me about that today. But we watched Hereditary because he'd never seen it before. And so you're showing him the showing the hauntingest ones first. I know. Right. Well, I forget we were going to put on something else first. And he was like, no, I want something like like a little bit darker with spirits. I was like, well, you can watch Hereditary, I guess. That sounds good.
00:44:52
Speaker
So we put it on and um and, you know, once again, it was really interesting to watch somebody who's never seen that that before, whether it's, you know whatever sort of classic horror film we're thinking of watching somebody watch it for the first time was very interesting. um But what I will say is, um you know, look, I love Hereditary. ah One of my faves love Ari Aster. am, you know, i did my little my People might not remember, but my thing on Twitter for a while was just all caps talking about Toni Collette and how she should have won the Oscar for her role in Hereditary. that I was known for that in certain circles. You know what I mean? was known for it.
00:45:27
Speaker
Toni Collette walked so Amy Madigan could run. Yeah. And let's just say it again. Toni Collette deserved the Oscar for her role in Hereditary. Period. Absolutely. Period. She deserved Best Actress. But regardless of any of that.
00:45:37
Speaker
um watching and I haven't watched it for for a while, at least a couple of years now. It was really great to go back to it and and revisit it. There were so many things that i and I, of course, whenever I'm fucking recording, I can't remember a single one of them. But there were a lot of things that I don't remember seeing before when when I watched it many, many times. It's like little tiny details here and there that I was like, oh, just never noticed that before or things I didn't think about or whatever. Every every little thing makes a lot more sense upon rewatch. Yep, it really does. And, you know, look, ive I felt like I've seen this movie a ton, but, you know, it doesn't hurt to go back and watch it yet again. And, um you know, going back to the the performances are all so, so good.
00:46:23
Speaker
Um, and, um, it's, it's amazing how, i mean, obviously Toni Collette was just incredible. I was really taken on this rewatch with Gabriel Byrne and how good he is and really how difficult that role of the dad was to play, um, to be the complete foil to, two to, to, to Toni Collette's mother, um or, or ah to Toni Collette playing the mom as ah is what I should say there. Um, and how good Charlie was the daughter,
00:46:50
Speaker
um And really how like kind of mid the sun was, if if we're being kind of real um and and how good um what's her face and the the the famous actress who plays like the leader of the cult kind of thing. i can't think of her name right now, but how great she is and how good she is at playing it. Just really incredible stuff. And also just once again how fucked up and dark it it it really is. um And and you know dealing with the story of of a crazy mother. yeah And just sitting there thinking to myself like, God, i mean look, everyone's mom can be a little bit crazy, don't get me wrong. I talk about that in my eulogy for God's sake. But like, you know, ah how grateful I am that my mom was not like that.
00:47:34
Speaker
i don't know I don't know what to say. you know like how How grateful I am that I didn't have a mom that like literally would have been willing to kill me to fulfill a fucking ritual. like and And just how deep and and and off the edge things can go in in in in the relationships between children and their mothers. um How grateful I am for the one that I have and the one that that I had.
00:47:55
Speaker
um this This was a ah ah ah pretty good reminder of that for me, i would say. So if you if you haven't watched it in a while, I would um i would go back and watch it again. Why not? you know um ah Don't wait until your mom is dead. you know Watch it. Watch it now. Go ahead. um But it's hereditary, and you can watch it wherever you can find it.
00:48:17
Speaker
All right. My next one and final one is Thrash on Netflix. Have you heard anything about this yet? You know, it's really quick, though, while we're at it. I have barely watched anything on Netflix lately.
00:48:30
Speaker
hu I've been doing a resurgence. I feel like every six months I get on like a new platform and just like binge everything on that platform. and That's fair. That's fair.
00:48:41
Speaker
And so this one is new to Netflix as of this recording. I think it came out a week ago. It is basically about a shark thing in Yeah, so it's a it's basically about people in Florida. There's a hurricane and the levees break on a small-ish town.
00:48:58
Speaker
And it's kind of centered around like three different stories. There's a pregnant woman who was forced to go to work that day and is trying to get home. There's a a girl that has lost her mom and now she's a ah she's a shut-in, like she's afraid to go out in the world. And then a family of kind of like...
00:49:16
Speaker
um ah they live in the country, they live in the swamp, and they're foster parents, and they don't treat their foster kids too good. And so, like, it's kind of those three stories and how they intermingle. And when the levees break and the hurricane waters come in it comes in with bull sharks. And so we we have to understand how to sort of survive sharks. Of course it does. course it does.
00:49:39
Speaker
ah Listen, this is not a movie of intelligence. This is a movie. You don't say. Yeah, this is a movie. This is this is um I'm trying to think of good. bear This isn't Jaws. This is that other movie from the 90s that ah about sharks that I'm forgetting the name of. Sharknado?
00:49:58
Speaker
and No, not quite Sharknado, but like, um God damn i can't think of the name of it. Thomas Jane, ah Samuel L. Jackson, that movie. um And listen, if you like like stupid shark movies, you're going to love this because it's it's a stupid shark movie. But like, was it fun to turn on at one o'clock on a Sunday and just have some fun? Yeah, it sure was. ah is it is it is it Is it theater?
00:50:25
Speaker
I will say it's not that, but it's blood and guts and a woman that has a baby while being attacked by a shark. so Good for her. Good for her. You know, that's real resilience right there.
00:50:38
Speaker
Excellent. That's thrash on Netflix. Well, my next one is one that you've already talked about, but it it was, I finally got around to watching this. It is Neighbors, which is on HBO. And let me tell you, what a show. What a show it is. i think it's so...
00:50:57
Speaker
incredibly fascinating. ah Truly, this is a fascinating lens into American people and how they live in context of living next to each other. um So if you haven't watched the show yet, Andrew did talk about it in a previous episode, but just to reiterate,
00:51:18
Speaker
this is um uh it's like a little mini series hopefully they do another season of it they absolutely have to ah from from hbo and they're focusing as as you might guess on neighbors in these different neighborhoods and so each episode looks at like two or three different sets of neighbors they're not always in the same place they might be in like missouri and then they might be in like new york or whatever And, um, yeah each of these, um each of these neighbor stories are, as you said before, Andrew, sort of like petty, but also sort of like just a little bit bizarre.
00:51:52
Speaker
Like there, there is, like you mentioned one about these guys in, it was it actually it's it's in Kokomo, Indiana. And if you don't know where Kokomo is, it's sort of like directly North of Indianapolis, right in between like, so like Lake Michigan and Indianapolis kind of like right in the middle, basically. Yeah.
00:52:09
Speaker
And um ah you might call that central Indiana, kind of, or like north central Indiana. And ah there there's these these these gay guys that live in Kokomo.
00:52:23
Speaker
And they're in, like, you you talked about this before, but Andrew, I have to talk about it again. They live in like their retirement house. It's like their dream house. They finally have it. And like, you know, it's, it's, you know, look for, for guys that are retired, you know, they're doing okay. Actually, they really are. They got a pool. They do. But I mean, like keep this, keep, you know, remind yourself this is in Kokomo, Indiana, like literally in the, it's in the middle of fucking nowhere. No offense to anyone in Kokomo that's listening to this right now.
00:52:47
Speaker
And, you know, their neighbors, there was this woman that was living there for a long time. You know, they all knew each other. And then all of a sudden her grandson comes to live with her and he turns her house into literally a fucking farm.
00:52:59
Speaker
And so these gay guys are pissed off because they're like, holy shit, this is our retirement house. And then they have a lot of a lot of holy shit. Well, yeah, animals well, that too. And then they've got an assessor that comes out and they're like look, this guy with the farm over here, he's costing you 150,000 fucking bucks on on your property value. And so they're like oh, my God, we get this taken care of. So they have to go to the fucking town council and do this and do that. It's wild. And another one, and there is a guy that is basically a nudist and he lives in San Diego and he just runs around his fucking part of San Diego and nothing but a like a little thong kind of thing.
00:53:37
Speaker
And people are always like, get put your clothes on, everything else, whatever, whatever. And to him, he's like, oh, a long time ago, my mom and my dad died and I've got trauma. And like now he all he can do is not wear clothes? I don't really understand it.
00:53:52
Speaker
but So he goes on this like quest to find a place where he belongs. And when he finds this place that he belongs, he meets this girl. And he's like, It's wild. Or there's these other neighbors who are doing Halloween yards or the other neighbors who are tearing down the fences or the other neighbor in like Arizona or something where, you know, the guy across the street looks at the woman across the street and hates her, hates the wall she built so much that he starts a campaign to get it torn down. And it's insane. Like all of these stories are insane.
00:54:25
Speaker
And I think that it couldn't have been released at a better time. Because Americans americans have no sense of how to be neighbors anymore. And that is, once again, not to go too deep on it, but to go a little deep on it because look it's our fucking podcast, that should also scare us. I think it's like the number two thing that scares me the most is that no one just knows how to live with each other anymore.
00:54:49
Speaker
and And this is... Well, polite society is not popular right now. Well, so I mean, like you know a bit but like everyone has their own idea of what polite society could even be. But like, ah you know, look, people are going to be people. They're they're going to be quirky and they're going to be weird. You know, it's somewhere in the middle. You have to learn how to tone your own quirkiness and you also have to learn how to accept other people's quirkiness.
00:55:12
Speaker
And somehow we all get along in a community. And instead, you know, we find ourselves just, you know, creating bigger fences and and building bigger walls. and And wanting people to get away from us and doing things deliberately to get people to to go away from us. You know, not to give too much away, but the guy with the farm, you know, he he suddenly starts talking in the episode. And, you know, once again, in the middle of nowhere, Kokomo, Indiana, this guy is a fucking deadbeat living off his grandma's fucking money. What he does pull out from his closet is a gun.
00:55:41
Speaker
And he puts the gun in his waistband and he talks about, boy, the solution to his problem would be to go over and cap these gay guys. You know, that is where America is right now. And this show is doing a great job of holding up a mirror to it. It's a little bit funny and quirky. And yeah, the stories are kind of zany. But at the same time, they're true. This is not a reality show that's been scripted, at least as far as I know, it hasn't been. So what you see here, I think, is a true, fascinating study of Americans right now. If you haven't watched Neighbors yet, you got to watch this.
00:56:17
Speaker
Binge the fuck out of it because it is superb television. It's so fucking good. I love it. Yeah, couldn't agree more. Well, that does it for what you've been watching, bitch. Maddie brought us a rewatch of a classic Hereditary and Neighbors, which you can currently stream on HBO. Yeah.
00:56:34
Speaker
And Andrew brought us on HBO, The Secrets We Bury, which I can't wait to watch now, and Thrash on Netflix. So folks, that does it for our shorter version of What You Been Watching, and Bitch. We'll be right back with our first film of the episode, Gretel and Hansel.
00:56:57
Speaker
Tell me the fairy tale again. It's too scary. You know, start seeing things that aren't there.
00:57:05
Speaker
You've been turned out of your home. Set out to fit in for your souls with only your clothes and your hides.
00:57:14
Speaker
I'm hungry. I'm hungrier than you are. Because you're a pig.
00:57:21
Speaker
Look. It smells of cake.
00:57:37
Speaker
Careful for that, dear. I'd hate for you to start something you can't stop.
00:57:44
Speaker
Please make your acquaintance. I'm called Gretel and this rough one here is my brother Hansel. Ouch!
00:57:57
Speaker
something wrong here. But it's so pleasant. Where are all the animals? From where does she draw milk?
00:58:08
Speaker
Granny, there's storm coming.
00:58:13
Speaker
This is your power. To see what is hidden and to take it.
00:58:25
Speaker
We were given the same gift, the same magic. Grandma! Grandma! What did you do with him?
00:58:36
Speaker
All that is left to make
00:58:43
Speaker
I'm sorry.
00:58:51
Speaker
We're not reading you Hansel and Gretel. We're going to talk about Gretel and Hansel. Andrew, tell us all about Gretel and Hansel. The story you know hides a dark secret.
00:59:03
Speaker
In a grim, distant past, teenage Gretel and her younger brother Hansel are cast out of their home by their mother after Gretel refuses to sleep with a prospective employer to secure work.
00:59:14
Speaker
Wandering a dark forest, they are taken in by Hulda. a mysterious woman living alone in a strange, beautiful house. Holda begins initiating Gretel into witchcraft while fattening Hansel for a darker purpose. Gretel must choose between power and her brother.
00:59:30
Speaker
Directed by Osgood Perkins, written by Rob Hayes, production distribution will be handled by Automatic Entertainment, Braun Studios, distributed by United Artists, releasing in Orion Pictures. Gretel is played by Sophia Lillis.
00:59:46
Speaker
Hansel is played by Samuel Leakey. Holda is played by Alice Krieg. The Hunter is played by Charles Bobala. Sorry, Bob-ba-lola. And ah The Beautiful Child is played Jessica DeGault.
01:00:00
Speaker
um This is rated PG-13, released on January 31st of 2020. That explains why I didn't see it when it came out. It comes in at 87 minutes. Locations filmed were Dublin um and ah Langley, British Columbia, Canada. the ah And this was budgeted at $5 million. It grossed $22.3 million worldwide. Maddie,
01:00:23
Speaker
Tell me, this is your first time watching Gretel and Hansel, and what were your initial thoughts? It was, and hell yeah, was filmed in Dublin. um is actually was there ah one of the One part of it was filmed at the Hellfire Club in Dublin, which I've talked about on the show before, which is a really cool fucking place to hike if you ever get a chance to come over here. When you guys come over, we will definitely do it. It's um it's very cool.
01:00:43
Speaker
Anyways, it was my first time watching this. um It was one that I actually I did mean to watch a long time ago. Kind of forgot about it. But remembering that it came out in 2020, not a surprise because that was a crazy time, if you remember back then. um Remember when we had a pandemic that almost killed everybody? Everyone kind of forgets that now. Anyways.
01:01:02
Speaker
Um, first time watching it and, um, had, uh, great expectations for it. And, um, you know, look, it's not that it didn't live up to all of them. It, it's just that it maybe fell flat in, in some respects. I i think that it, this movie has got a lot of potential. I, I like Osgood Perkins quite a bit.
01:01:20
Speaker
Um, you know, love long legs and all that kind of stuff. um But ah I just feel like this this movie is a little bit more style over substance, I think in some ways. um But you not in like huge ways. I think I'm just trying to poke some holes in it if I'm being real. i you know One thing that I was thinking when we were getting ready to to come on to record was, would I feel the same if I hadn't watched The Ugly Stepsister first? And I know that we're not talking about that film yet. That's the next one that we're going to talk about. But the ugly stepsister was so good for me that watching this one, it almost kind of just fell flat. If I'm being honest, I wish I would have watched them on two different days. I should have done that. um But largely, i I think this one still works. I think that Gretel played by Sophia Lillis and Sophia Lillis. We know, of course, from um what else was Sophia Lillis in?
01:02:15
Speaker
The It movies. The It movies. Right, right. Thank you. um So, you know, we've we've seen her before. i think she's really good in this. um I think that Holda is very good in this. um The kid that plays Hansel is okay. The guy that plays the hunter, I think, is actually awesome. He was really, really good. um Also, when you were saying his name, i i i I wanted you to say, and the hunter played by Charles Boboli Pizza Cross. That just, like, that popped head.
01:02:40
Speaker
Um, but like, you know, I, I think that there, there was some good acting in this. I just kind of wonder if maybe it was a little too heavy handed in its retelling at at some points. I don't know. How did you feel about it?
01:02:52
Speaker
Yeah, so this is a first-time watch for me, too. So i'm I'm coming into this fresh with only one watch, so I can only go off of like what I watched only the first time. You're fresh, You're fresh.
01:03:03
Speaker
And so I kind of in the same boat as you. I think that I saw... Oz Perkins and I was like, ooh, I really liked The Monkey. I really liked Long Legs. There's like a lot of movies of his that I really liked. And then I thought, oh, this is probably one of his first, if not his first, I don't know. But like, and so I was like, okay, let's see what this is. And like, I just feel like there was a lot of ingredients and it didn't quite bake the cake. if that makes any sense. I that makes total sense to me. Yeah, it does.
01:03:35
Speaker
Because there's a lot in here that I think that is done well. Like, I think, like, all the all the stuff in the woods, like, with the people and the background and the whispering and, like, all that was, like, really creepy. And, like, I think that the interactions between Hulda and Gretel are really good. But then there's, like, this almost, like, sci-fi, like, um film over this, like, old-worldy...
01:03:59
Speaker
a story that doesn't quite mix in my brain. Yeah. um And we'll talk a little bit more about it as we get into it. But like overall, I kind of went away from the movie being like, h I don't know. Like I literally was like perplexed. I was like, did I like that? I think I did. i don't know. Did i i I feel the same way. It's, it's, you know, it's not that I didn't like it or even that I liked it. I'm really right in the middle on this one, but, but I'm definitely leaning more towards It's, you know, it's, it's still a quality made movie. I think that it's a really beautiful movie to watch.
01:04:33
Speaker
I think that the um the costuming was was really well done and incredibly simple. The cinematography is is gorgeous. But, you know, also, look, they they filmed this. um Yeah, they they filmed it in Dublin, but they really filmed it a lot more at like the foot of of the Wicklow Mountains. And so if you haven't been to that area before, it's a real treat for you when you do go because it's absolutely stunning. It's beautiful. The the forests are beautiful. that the The mountains are not huge mountains, but the mountains are are, are, are spectacular. Um, and once again, Hellfire Club itself is just a really just cool experience to go, to go check out. So, you know, a lot of that location kind of does it for itself if I'm being real.
01:05:12
Speaker
Um, but you know, all that being said, there's still a lot of cool elements to this that, that really do work very, very well. Um, so I, I, I guess maybe, you know, I don't mean maybe for both of us, I wonder,
01:05:25
Speaker
well we we We might agree that the acting is is is is definitely okay, right? We agree that the movie looks okay. um I think where it where then maybe it flounders is just, I guess, in the in the writing maybe or maybe in i think it's just the story itself.
01:05:41
Speaker
I think it's in like the stylization. I guess. like you can't like So these are the things that really stuck out to me that like didn't match what like my brain was trying to impede upon the movie. is like It doesn't match that the that Hansel has an accent, a little a little English accent, and Gretel doesn't have an accent at all.
01:06:02
Speaker
Yeah, sure. Talks old timey like their siblings. They I don't understand that. The other thing I don't get. um Why does the ah old world witch have like armbands of tattoos like that doesn't that that look like modern tattoos? Like that doesn't make sense to me. It's interesting. Why like why are we matching um old world storytelling with synth music? That doesn't really make sense to me. like there's just There's things in this that like I think that Oz Perkins maybe just needed to work out in his like directorial like kind of work that he then went on to make better things, if i make if if that makes any sense. like I think that sometimes you need to get some of these things out of your system to then move on to tell stories that you...
01:06:48
Speaker
actually want to tell or that are unique to you. I mean, everybody knows the story of Hansel and Gretel. Like this is not a new story. It is a new, is it a new twist on it? Yeah. A little bit because we, we weave in the the story of Gretel and how she's a, ah maybe an enchantress of some sort or, ah ah has witchy capabilities yeah that are kind of like brought out by the, by the, by the witch.
01:07:10
Speaker
um But like, I don't know. There's just, there's something that my brain can't quite like mine the gap on is that doesn't make sense about the way that this movie is stylized. I i think you make some good points. I wonder if, if it's, if it comes down to, you know, ah Oz Perkins just sort of trying to figure out what his, what what his totality of style really is as a, as a package. Right. Yeah. And, and, and so in this case, you know, just sort of a little bit of this, a little bit of that, but it doesn't necessarily make a complete, you know, artistic vision.
01:07:46
Speaker
And, and maybe, maybe that is what it is here. You know, like I agree with you as somebody who really does care about voice and dialects, it is sort of annoying when all the voice doesn't make sense in context of what we're trying to do here. and I mean, for one thing, why have English accents at all? They should all have fucking German accents, quite frankly. Right.
01:08:05
Speaker
yeah um ah unless and you know Unless you're placing the movie in you know the English countryside or in this case, literally in the Irish countryside. Who knows? you know there There's lots of choices that you can make there as long as they are choices that are rooted in an artistic vision that is total. And um I think maybe that that might be a little bit of of what is sort of gradient us is, you know, once again, not to, you know, sort of blow a load too early about about the next one we're going to talk about. But that is a film where the artistic vision is complete. Everything makes sense. And yeah, do they have, you know, synthy crazy music over old timey stuff? Yes, they do.
01:08:41
Speaker
But is that that's reflected in everything? We'll talk about it. But I mean, is that is that is that precedent set at the start at the outset of of the creation? The answer is yes. And so, you know, these things that that pop up and that and that happen within within the film that are certainly stylized because it's OK to be stylized as long as there's a reason for it. It's all cohesive. It all makes sense.
01:09:03
Speaker
But in this one, I don't think it makes as much sense. And I think it becomes um a little bit of, I've said this before, but like letting the director's note explain explain the play away. And you're not that's not you know that's not the way it's supposed to work. You gotta let your work speak for itself. So you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. I think we we could go much deeper into that. I don't think that either of us are saying this is a bad film. In fact, you'll you'll hear our ratings soon. We don't think that.
01:09:28
Speaker
But could this have been a lot better with maybe just a little bit more totality of vision? Yeah, I do think so. Yeah. I mean, either either make it modern or make it ancient. Like, I don't know, like you. Well, or at least like know what your through line is. If you're going to do a blend. OK. I mean, that that's definitely worked before. But like, what what are we what are we doing here?
01:09:49
Speaker
Well, and here's here's the example I will give about this movie. The movie opens with a classic fairy tale that that he put together that he you know that is not unique to Hansel and Gretel, the ah original story. It's ah about the young, beautiful child. and how she was evil from, ah well you know, that kind of changes later. But like, up you know, we get a very, very dark story about a little girl who kills this entire village or, you know, a majority of the village, including her own father who puts a ah iron, ah what what would you call that? ah What is he? a ah An iron worker. And he puts the... He's like is a is like is' like a blacksmith.
01:10:28
Speaker
Yeah, and he heats up the thing and stabs himself in the in the mouth. And she gets cast away from the ah ah you know cast away from the town, and but she's left with something else. Actually, I was very drawn in by the beginning of this movie with the story of like the quote-unquote fairy tale that's told by the beginning of this movie. It's then kind of put into the modern lens of Hansel and Gretel, where I even was... Honestly, until we kind of get the retelling of the fairy tale where everything kind of changes, I was kind of into it.
01:11:06
Speaker
I was into what they were trying to tell. It's when they flip the script and then all all of a sudden everything becomes like uber synthy and 80s and everyone. and And it just gets weird. Yeah. And I just think that if you just would have stuck to what you were trying to tell, i think it would have been a much better movie. And i'm not and listen, i'm just I'm saying just like you, I don't think it's a bad movie. I just think that maybe it's not a complete thought.
01:11:33
Speaker
Well, I think it becomes more of a vehicle to like, oh, yeah, let's get to the really funky part where the kids will eat magic mushrooms. Do you know what I mean? So it's picking out these little peaks that are occurring throughout the story and sort of emphasizing on them as though this is like – these really – these moments are the ones that are going to tell our story the most. And they really don't. Like, I mean, like, you know, it is, it's interesting to see these kids sort of tripping out. um But I got to admit by the time that it got there, I didn't like, I, I sort of wondered like if I had, if I had seen that in the, in the cinema, would there, would there have been a bunch of people laughing when, when all the, when, when they're both like, you know, tripping on shrooms?
01:12:15
Speaker
And I was like, yeah, there probably would have been. And I generally probably wouldn't have been a person laughing. I did sort of like give it one chuckle on my couch when I was watching it last night. But in general, I just kind of sat there thinking, i don't know if I really care about this, if I'm being honest. Like, Well, I get it. You know, they're they're hungry. They need to eat something. I understand. But like, i I don't know. I mean, what are we what are we saying with it at the end of the day? i I don't really know. I don't know. Well, and like the whole crux of the movie comes down to the relationship between the siblings. Right. Yeah. But Hansel is insufferable.
01:12:51
Speaker
Like he has no redeeming qualities. he usually he's He's a little brother. yeah But like, when he's like, it smells of cake, I am unable to resist. Yeah, sure. And like, yeah he just runs around the woods and like, chops at trees. And I guess, was that me? Sure, I guess. But like, I'm just like, I don't know, for a movie that the crux of the movie is her having to choose between A future where she is a magical witch living in the woods with a ah with like an an older person that ah can teach her many things and an insufferable little brother. And she chooses the insufferable little brother. I mean, I guess that comes down to family, right? But like...
01:13:31
Speaker
I don't know, there's something there that I can't quite grasp onto because of the um ah the relationship between the siblings. that this I think this is a really good point because they're beyond the fact that they are brother and sister and they have a couple of cute moments with like, you know, oinking like a pig kind of thing. But like other than other than that that, that is really it. there there There needed to be something else, some other um some other unifying yeah within the story to to bring them closer together. A couple of more very poignant moments.
01:14:06
Speaker
where, I don't know, i'm I'm not going to write the story, but where something happens for each of them that really deepens their relationship as brother and sister, not just a bunch of bad stuff happens and they got to leave kind of thing. So, yeah I mean, and and because that wasn't there, i agree with you. it It does seem a little bit ah surface level that this is really just, oh, well, she's doing this because it's her brother as opposed to, wow, she really loves her brother. There's no way that she could ever let anything happen to him.
01:14:35
Speaker
Right. and then at the And then, you know, to skip to the end, when she sends him off, she doesn't send him to the Forester. She sends him back to their house where nothing is there. like Maybe not a good idea.
01:14:46
Speaker
I know. it's It's so strange. And then, like, there's a part in the movie where you see kind of the um the mother that kind of um ah that that ah made them go away. yeah where she's just like walking in the woods. And I was like, what is this supposed to tell us about the mother? Like, I don't, and there's too many like unanswered things in this. And well I think that, go ahead.
01:15:07
Speaker
Sorry, go ahead. No, no, no, no. Finish that thought. Yeah, I just think that there's like, it's just, I think there's too many ideas and not enough, um like, kind of conclusion, if that makes sense. Folks, Oz Perkins is the son of Anthony Perkins, the man who played Norman Bates in Psycho, grew up in the shadow of horror royalty, and became a significant horror director in his own right, as Andrew mentioned earlier, Long Legs and the Monkey.
01:15:33
Speaker
um As described earlier, the film was shot largely in Dublin, included at the Hellfire Club on the Dublin Mountains, a relocation with centuries of dark folklore attached to it, including legends of devil worship and black masses. Film uses an unusual 1.55 to 1 aspect ratio, slightly squarer than the standard widescreen. giving it an unsettling storybook, claustrophobic feel. Sam Leakey, who plays Hansel, made his acting debut in this film.
01:16:01
Speaker
Alex Krieg, who plays the witch Holda, is best known as the Borg Queen in Star Trek First Contact. There's just some things there about the film. um Andrew, what did you rate this movie?
01:16:12
Speaker
So here at Fraggy the 13th Horror Podcast, we rate on a seven-stripe scale for the seven stripes of the day old rainbow. I'm going to give Gretel and Hansel a four and a half. And what'd you say about it?
01:16:23
Speaker
Oh, and I said, ah this one is a bit of a mixed bag. Some of the creepier aspects worked really well, while some of the style executions fell a bit flat. I also gave it a 4.5, and I said, I feel like this one had a lot of potential and certainly succeeds in many aspects, but in some ways relies on style over substance, what I've basically said for the past 15 minutes.
Review of 'The Ugly Stepsister': Perspectives and Themes
01:16:45
Speaker
So folks, that does it for Gretel and Hansel. Stay tuned. We'll be right back with The Ugly Stepsister.
01:17:39
Speaker
go wind pray
01:17:46
Speaker
lost my mind
01:17:53
Speaker
Best friend in Sanity.
01:18:00
Speaker
most
01:18:23
Speaker
I'm going crazy
01:18:30
Speaker
I've lost my mind Crazy While she may not be pretty and she may not be the primary, she is the ugly stepsister.
01:18:45
Speaker
Maddie, tell us all about the ugly stepsister. In a kingdom where beauty is a brutal business, in a 17th century fairytale kingdom, alvira or Elvira, gangly, buck-toothed, and desperately romantic, is determined to win the heart of the handsome prince at the royal ball.
01:19:03
Speaker
Her widowed mother, Rebecca, broke and scheming, throws everything into transforming her daughter. Surgeries, tapeworms, finishing school, and worse. Meanwhile, their beautiful new stepsister, Agnes, the real Cinderella, is hidden from sight. A savage, darkly funny body horror retelling of Cinderella from the villain's point of view.
01:19:28
Speaker
This film was directed and written by Emily Blichfeldt, or Blickfeldt. My Norwegian is not great. ah Produced by Mare Film in Norway, Zentropa Sweden, Lava Films, Motor, and distributed by IFC Films and Shutter AMC+. plus ah Elvira was played by Lea Myron. Rebecca, who is the stepmother, played by Anna Daltorp. Agnes and Cinderella played by Theosophie Lachnace. What a last name, Lachnace. My goodness. ah Alma played by Flo Fagerly.
01:20:01
Speaker
That's interesting. And Prince Julian played by Isaac Kalmroth. The film was not rated. it is 109 minutes long. It is out of Norway, but there were a lot of other Scandinavian countries involved here. Released ah April 18th of 2025. Filmed mostly in Norway and Poland.
01:20:21
Speaker
The budget was four and a quarter million and it was a limited release. So we we we only know about the theatrical, which was under $750,000. So um that is the Ugly Stepsister. I know this was ah a first one for me. I think it was for you too, Andrew.
01:20:35
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes, it was. a um Yeah, so um this is one of those ones that came out on Shudder that I always meant to watch, but I was always kind of like squeamish about watching because I did know i did know that it was pretty um graphic when it comes to like body horror. And like it's not really like my subgenre that I like gravitate towards, so I kind of just avoided this until we got the idea for this episode. sure um I'm sure I'm glad that I watched it, though, because I thought it was ah a fantastic movie with some really great acting and some really great horror. And um i I love that a lot of these old stories and even like some of the Disney-ified ones that we're starting to see like...
01:21:20
Speaker
come into um the free market and being able to be told from a different lens. Because I think that's that's that's really fun to like see like how other people think and how other people interpret stories and how they would choose to tell them. Because that's truly what this is, is that this is someone's perspective on you know, a story that we've been told for a millennia, you know what I mean? And, and so was really interesting to watch it, especially from, you know, the stepsister, uh, point of view and kind of like that family. Um, I, I think that Elvira does a great job. She's got, that scream is going to haunt me for the rest of my life. For real. Um,
01:22:01
Speaker
And I just think that everyone does a great job here. if I had any qualms about any of the acting, it would probably be Agnes, but she's not really in it enough for me to like make too much of a fuss. Yeah, to be fair.
01:22:14
Speaker
um So like, I think that everyone does their job here. i think it's a we'll talk about some of the details of the movie, especially the parade of women that happens towards the, ah you know, the, the, the end of the movie. Yeah. um that are just horrific and I can't imagine like how people do this kind of shit but like I don't know it was it was a refreshing lens on a classic take and I really enjoyed myself apart from cringing about half of the time that I was watching it but what did you think of the ugly stepsister that you've already made it now that you've already made an appearance Yeah, I know. Right, right. But but I really did love it. i I had a great time watching this. And um and i I was surprised because, um look, i i I like watching foreign language films. But, you know, look, Andrew, I'm sure i i would you would say nearly the same thing here.
01:23:08
Speaker
you know, when it's been a long week and when we're we're getting ready for the show and, you know, but look, we we we we love making the show, but we want to make it as easy as possible, too, because we have real lives as well outside of this.
01:23:19
Speaker
And I would say, you know, thinking I'm about to watch a movie that is, you know, over two hours, well, it's almost two hours and it's fully in a foreign language at the end of a really hard week on a Friday. i not i just don't want to spend that energy.
01:23:33
Speaker
um It got me right from the beginning, though. Right from the beginning. And I was so glad because this is a movie where the style really does work well with the story and where the the the the entire package is is done so well and so it's so totally.
01:23:50
Speaker
um that it's it's really easy to get swept up in all of this. And I don't know anything about about Emily Butchfeldt, who directed and wrote this, um but what a fantastic job, especially if this was her, ah it must have been one of a ah near her debut, at least, um ah Just truly incredible.
01:24:09
Speaker
um Just really incredible stuff. And in fact, looking at the trivia right now, the concept started as Blitzfeld's thesis project at Norwegian Film School. Her original idea was about a woman with a talking vulva that tells her she's lonely.
01:24:24
Speaker
Crazy. um She eventually pivoted, pardon me, to the grim Cinderella and never looked back. um She had never watched a body horror film until 2015 when she saw David Cronenberg's crash that sent her down a rabbit hole of Cronenberg, Argento, Fulci, and Julia Ducronau's Raw, all of which directly shaped the film, which you can definitely see that in this for sure. um So she does an amazing job. You know, you talked about some of the gore parts of it.
01:24:51
Speaker
I'm not going to lie. There is one part where I i did have to cover my my eyes. i was is it the Is it the eyelashes? Oh my God. I i truly, i i can't tell you what exactly happened there because I didn't watch it. i i I couldn't watch it. I truly could not bring myself to look. I couldn't even listen. I had to cover my ears at one point too. That is how like body horror this really is. And that's not usually my thing. um But I think it does work really well in this in telling the the incredible story of desperation.
01:25:28
Speaker
That's what this movie is really about. It's about desperation and it's about um and it's about redemption, too. i think too And I think that the movie does not not to jump to the end too quickly here, but the movie does do a good job of providing avenues for redemption for its characters that don't seem um to too, too fairy tale ish, which is kind of funny for a fairy tale story. um And I think that's, that's a really important part of this too. I mean, she, she's telling a story about women.
01:25:59
Speaker
Right. And so women pitted against each other in a world that is dominated by men, by really shitty men. In fact, this yeah this prince who isn't, he's not even that good looking to begin with.
01:26:11
Speaker
um But, you know, when he sees Elvira. nice butt. I guess. But when he sees Elvira in the woods for the first time and, you know, what does he say? he He's not kind at all. He says, I don't want to, I don't want to fuck that. I don't want to fuck that thing is what he says or something something, you know, to that effect. Mm-hmm. He's a piece of shit. And all these women are pitted against each other to clamor for it just for money.
01:26:34
Speaker
And so you've you've got thisve you've got this tale here of, you know as usual, capitalism gone wrong and um and the the desperate things that people will do in order to solidify a financial future at the end of the day. And how they will trick each other and how they will do terrible things to each other.
01:26:53
Speaker
And even how they will do terrible things to themselves in order to secure that feature that that future that they think they're supposed to have. So I think it's really interesting the way that it was done. i think that all the style really works well. The acting is is full of people who are full-throated and dedicated to doing it. Full-throated? You're talking about the mom? I don't know. Well, yeah, there you go, right? I mean, and look, that that took some bold shit from what's her name, Anna Daltorp.
01:27:23
Speaker
Like, what an actress herself right there. Like, that's that's some pretty serious shit, man. You know, and I would agree with you. I guess, you know, Agnes might be, like, the weakest link, I guess. But I think that's largely a function of the script, if we're being real, and what she had to do within within the film. Yeah. So I don't dog her too much for that.
01:27:40
Speaker
i i just, I had a great time watching this by the end of it. I really, ah i immediately went to the worksheet and wrote, holy shit. I can't believe how good this was. Yeah, ah it's it's just one of those things that like, no, like this is like almost like the anti-fairy tale because literally no one wins in this. there is no There is no happily ever after unless you count kind of like the sisters rekindling as kind of like a happy ever after. i think it's redemption there. yeah Yeah, but I mean, they're leaving with nothing too. And what are they going back to? We have no idea. so like But what they're leaving with though is like actually themselves.
01:28:17
Speaker
Freedom, yeah. for For now, until they go back across the border and have to deal with what they have to deal with again. But I mean, you know, the the best that we can take from it, though, is like, you know, ah look, she she may have broken her fucking teeth now. She looks like fucking hell. She broke her nose again. She has no hair. right So, she's you know, she she's gone she's gone back to worse than when she started, at least looks wise. And, you know, look, breaking your nose is not ah ah it's not ah just a looks thing. um But she's back to being herself again without having to you know try to live up to something that she could never possibly be.
01:28:54
Speaker
Fucking the parts, man, When she's cutting off her fucking toes too, man. When she's cutting off her fucking toes. Jesus, man. The last half an hour of this movie, I was almost like, well, now I don't want to eat dinner after this. Yeah, for real. I was glad I ate before because when that fucking butcher knife comes chopping, get your little piggies away from it, man, because it's ready to chop some fucking toes off. Fuck.
01:29:20
Speaker
fuck And the devastating, the devastating part about that is that the mom comes in and goes, you cut off the wrong toes. yeah You're like, oh, my God. Exactly. You know, as as she as she's back there, you know, this this, you know, mom in her older years sucking some, young you know, really young dude's dick to like once again, just like.
01:29:40
Speaker
solidify that fucking money, ma man. Like, you know, the and yeah is, is that the world that we want to live in? And, you know, back to being, you know, fairy tales being foundational stories for all of us.
01:29:51
Speaker
you know Maybe more MAGA people should watch this. you know And I really mean it. I don't mean to sound funny when I say this. Whose dick are you sucking for fucking money? you know yeah look if you enough Not to make it about sucking dick, but look, if you want to suck dick for fun, you go right ahead, man. it makes you happy. Yes. Amen, brother, sister. You go fucking do it. Yes, do it. But the moment where you feel you have to do it out of desperation, there's something wrong.
01:30:15
Speaker
like There's something wrong. And and that that is what this that's what this is showing us is, you know, but but at some point in the movie, someone someone says early on to to Elvira, it's what's inside that matters.
01:30:29
Speaker
And, you know, back to to squawking about society like like I'm some kind of old grandpa yet again in this episode. Like once again, we find that that is just where we are today in this real world right now. this is what people are doing.
01:30:43
Speaker
They are cutting off their metaphorically. They are cutting off fucking toes on fucking reels and on tick tock. They are, you know, sucking the wrong dick because they're desperate. They are doing this. They are doing that in a desperate attempt to fit in. And that is so gross because you don't have to do any of these things. You just don't have to. And it takes me back to even a couple of episodes ago where we were talking about that Manosphere fucking thing on Netflix. God, I'm really blabby today. I'm sorry, Andrew. But like,
01:31:09
Speaker
you know Remember that one part in it where that one young guy goes, you know you're not born with any value. right I still think about that. like i think about it almost every day now that there are these people who are walking around that you know somehow they didn't get what I got when i when I was raised, which was you have value. You have value. dignity. you've got a You have a life that is worth living. You have you have people that love you.
01:31:33
Speaker
you know Instead, you've got a bunch of people just trying to fucking cut off their toes to fucking fit it into a fucking slipper. like That's really sad.
Feminist Horror Films and Societal Commentary
01:31:41
Speaker
And so I think this movie really does a good job of showing hopefully showing people that that you don't have to do these things because at the end of the day, you're going to end up worse than you were.
01:31:51
Speaker
Yeah. um i Can I tell you my only criticism of the movie? Yes. Is that I think that, not to not to come down on the movie, and ah but like there is like a lens of like the evil queer in this movie. Oh, queer. Tell me what more. Tell me more.
01:32:09
Speaker
Well, um the doctor, ah like Mr. Aesthetique or whatever his his name is. I guess maybe. he He's definitely played off as like queer coded. um and he's the one that gives her all like the artificial, ah the like all that stuff. You know what, Andrew? and i might I might push back on that.
01:32:28
Speaker
i i wonder I wonder if, it' because just on that specific one, I think he's actually just being played as French. Okay, well, here's my other one. yeah And that's the dance teacher and the headmistress are lovers. And um that they are played off as wanting to change her and they get paid off by the stepmother and are really the people that set her off on kind of the ah the downward spiral. um I don't know. It's just something I picked up on as a queer person. I'm always going to see like how they depict queer people in in movies and everything. and I was like, well, there's not any redeeming quality for any of these queer characters, which just kind of sucks. I just...
01:33:12
Speaker
Go ahead. Even when you are kind of like, oh, you think the headmistress is on her side, she's the one that gives her the tapeworm. And then at the end, when she's being paraded around like a dog, because she actually acts like a dog in the pageant, she turns to someone. I forget if it's an ancillary character of someone that's in more of the movie, but she says like, yeah, if you would have saw her year ago, you would never know. Like, I did all that. And I was like, Jesus Christ. I mean, I agree with you on the headmistress and the mom for sure. I think on the Dr. Estatique, I think people love to make fun of French people. I think that's a little bit more of him, but I get it. The headmistress and the dance teacher, they were lovers. Yeah, right, right, right. I agree with you on that, though.
01:34:02
Speaker
I mean, look, I... i I also think it's really funny that like when we're trying to establish that she's like, quote unquote, like the ugly stepsister and they show her like kind of looking at her own body and like kind of like pinching fat and whatever. And she's a perfectly normal looking like like i actually like slimmer than most people, I would say. of course. gay um I mean, and but that's that's the story, isn't it? You know, it's never enough.
01:34:28
Speaker
It's never enough for people. made me really rethink my tapeworm dreams, I'll tell you that much. Tell you what, when that tapeworm comes out, holy fucking shit. I don't think it's just one at the end of end. My God Almighty. um a A little bit more about the film. The film draws from the grim version of Cinderella, Ashenputtel, rather than Disney. In the original, the stepsisters cut off their toes and heels, actually, to fit the glass slipper, and are later punished by having their eyes pecked out by doves.
01:34:58
Speaker
That grotesque source material is central to the film. Premiered at Sundance in 2025 as the opening midnight selection became one of the buzziest titles of the festival, selling to territories worldwide almost immediately. On Rotten Tomatoes, there is a consensus that taking a hammer and chisel to a quintessential fairy tale, the Ugly Stepsister's masterful application of gore and subversion are the stuff that nightmares are made of, has a 96% score. It's also been compared to The Substance, which came out in 2025,
01:35:26
Speaker
both feminist body horror films by European women directors about impossible beauty standards. So just a little bit more up there about the Ugly Stepsister. Yeah, I did like that this director does play subtle homages to some of the things from the original fairy tale, yeah um like the crows at the end that are picking at the tapeworm. That's kind of like an homage to the pecking out of the eyes. um There's a part where stood the the man comes in with her dress and he says, I'm your good fairy. know. Yeah. to that
01:35:57
Speaker
um I liked that they took a ah ah kind of like, well, I'll put real in quotes here because it's not, there's no way that this could happen. But like that the silkworms were the ones that kind of put her dress back together instead of like the mice. Like, I think that there's some interesting stuff here. i agree. um And it's it's very interesting to think about even the role of Cinderella slash Agnes, which they don't really explain why she gets called Cinderella. Is there something interesting? that I'm missing from like Scandinavia or from the Netherlands that Cinderella is like a common term for like a housemaid or something.
01:36:34
Speaker
Well, I, I, I, I'm but don't quote me on this, but I'm fairly sure that that does really comes from like the, the like sort of, um, So what I'm looking for, the sort of like mean term that you might call a girl that like you're just like you're you're the one who cleans up the cinders. Like you're you're you're in this case, Ashen puts a little. you're the one who cleans up the ashes from the fire. Oh, OK. I didn't know that. so that was yeah Once again, don't quote me, but I think that that that's what that that's what that comes from.
01:37:05
Speaker
Because I was wondering where that came from. Because all of a sudden in the movie, she just gets started being called Cinderella. And you're like, what what the fuck? like you're you're're You're just the cleaning girl. Yeah. um And so, ah and gosh, i it was funny not to go back to the first part of the movie, but I did not expect that the the wedding and the dad dying were going to happen so quickly. I know, right? It's literally their wedding day. um But it does it does set an expectation for the rest of the movie, especially when you find out that they were both using each other for money. Exactly.
01:37:43
Speaker
It's so not like the original's tale. It's it's it's all it's all about desperation. And that's just it's just it's just crazy. And even the fact that their staff stays around even though they don't have money because nobody knows what else to do.
01:37:58
Speaker
like you can't what What other house are they going go to? Yeah, exactly. So like, it's, you know it's just a very interesting way to of thinking about it. um I guess they still have the, and it is, it is weird. I did have one like catch up moment where, because the, the youngest step sister, the youngest daughter, she has kind of like an affiliation with the horses. Like that's, yeah that's like what her thing is. But at the beginning of the movie, when they establish they have no more money, they say, we're going to take every we're going to take all the cattle and we're going to take all that. and all So I guess like maybe the horses belong to them, not necessarily the estate, i guess is the only way to think about that. On that, I'm not sure.
01:38:39
Speaker
Well, they do establish that they come in on carriage. So maybe that was like their only their only ah you know monetary thing that they had. um I think that all the aspects of the dance school are really interesting and how there's like a ah like a hierarchy of whether whether you're going to dance for the prince or not. is It's just... it's It's so brutal, man. This whole movie is just...
01:39:04
Speaker
I can't, it's very easy to watch this as a man. i can't imagine what it would be like to watch us as a woman. Girl, she well, look, she's going to write one about its fucking talking vulva, for God's sake, you know what mean? that'll be part two. um Andrew, what did you rate The Ugly Stepsister?
01:39:21
Speaker
I gave the ugly stepsister a five and a half. And I said, I applaud anyone who can think this way. Such a classic tale through real life eyes. And I gave it a six. ah And i just said, holy shit, this was so good. That's really all that I have to say. um so folks, that does it for the ugly stepsister and for episode 161. But stay tuned because we'll be right back to close out the show with a little game called Did Disney Lie?
01:39:50
Speaker
It's the Real Housewives of Disney. The Magic Kingdom is my playground and I like to play. I'm the fairest of them all until you cross me.
01:40:02
Speaker
I don't need to rub a lamp to get what I want. I'm out of the tower and into the spotlight. And I'm a huge mess.
01:40:13
Speaker
Well, folks, that does it for episode 161 of Frague the 13th Horror
Conclusion and Future Teasers
01:40:17
Speaker
Podcast. But before we go, we have a game that Andrew, every single episode, lovingly creates. This one is called Did Disney Lie? I'm going to guess that the answer is yes for most of these. um But Andrew, tell us about your game, Did Disney Lie?
01:40:32
Speaker
So I'm going to read you a a circumstance from a Disney movie, and you're going to tell me if you think that they kept to the original story or if you think they manipulated the situation to maybe make it a little more kid-friendly.
01:40:45
Speaker
Sounds good. All right. First, we're going start with Snow White. ah The evil queen dies falling from a ledge after being exposed. do do you think that's how the story actually goes?
01:40:57
Speaker
ah I'm going to guess that it didn't go that way. That is correct. Disney lied. um She's actually forced to dance in red hot iron shoes until she dies. Jesus. My fucking God. It's terrible.
01:41:10
Speaker
Jesus. All right. And Sleeping Beauty, a curse causes a princess to fall into a long unnatural sleep.
01:41:20
Speaker
I'm going to guess that that's actually not a lie, that it is part of the original story. That is true. um the magical The magical sleep curse is consistent. Disney just made the awakening less disturbing.
01:41:31
Speaker
Interesting. All right. In the frog prince, the princess kisses the frog to break the spell.
01:41:41
Speaker
I'm going to guess it's a lie. but I bet she does something way darker than that. Disney lied. In older versions, she actually throws him against the wall and kills him. Fuck yeah, I'm three for three right now. Hell yeah.
01:41:54
Speaker
All right. In Pinocchio, Pinocchio just learns to be a good boy. That is a lie. It's a lie. Disney lied. The original is chaotic. He kills a cricket, gets hanged, and suffers consistently. Hell yeah.
01:42:09
Speaker
All right. In Beauty and the Beast, a young woman is forced to live with a frightening creature and eventually and develops feelings for him. I think i think that's true. It is true. the premise is basically unchanged, just way just way more singing furniture. And in The Little Mermaid, is the last one, the Little Mermaid is a little clumsy when she walks on land on her new legs for the first time. m That's actually a hard one, I guess. Why?
01:42:39
Speaker
Disney lied in the original story. Every step she takes feels like walking on sharp knives, constant excruciating pain, and she's expected to endure it silently, all for a chance at love.
01:42:52
Speaker
Hell yeah. I got 100% on that quiz. Fuck yes. Thank you very much. Somebody's been reading some fairy tales. That's right. Well, Andrew, that does it for our little podcast that could on this latest episode of Fragata 13th Horror Podcast. with Folks, before we go, listen, if you want to support our little show, you absolutely can. It's easy to do. Simply go to our website, www.fragata13.com slash support. You'll find the link there to our Patreon and to our merch store as well if you want to buy something. um So folks, that yeah, i mean that that's pretty easy stuff. If you want to become a patron, we would certainly you love that. um And really, we we ask people to do it in a very easy way. Just do it for ah a dollar a month. That's it. 50 cents an episode. That's it. And that dollar a month really does go very far for us. It basically just helps me and and Andrew break even on creating the show, which is ah that's that's all that we really ask. So if you have the ability to do that, awesome. For those of you that have been doing it for a long time, our our thanks continue to flow to you. So thank you for for being a supporter of of independent podcasts where once again, for the past hour and a half, two hours or so, you have not heard a single advertisement. You're welcome.
01:44:10
Speaker
Yeah, because i no one no one ah no one does it better than iHeart Podcasts with their continuous ads over and over and over again. And maybe is this an ad for ourselves? Yes, but... But but but you know but everyone should be doing that. Because you know the thing is, so it's not just iHeart Radio. It's like these little podcasts, too, that just think they have to fucking... like Everything has to be monetized in a big way. And I'm like, girl...
01:44:35
Speaker
What if it didn't? Like, can we just have a hobby that, you know, we're not trying to like, you know, make it a million dollars at? Do you know what I mean? Like, whatever happened to people that's like doing it because it's fun or doing it because it's it's good.
01:44:49
Speaker
I'm not trying to make us out to be better than anybody else. I'm just saying that's why we continue to do this. And so like, there's something I think, I think there's something special about that. I might be biased. I'm just saying. And if you can't support monetarily, you can do something even better. And that's leave a review on either Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We understand on Spotify, you can't leave a worded... on spotify Yeah, you can leave a comments on on the episode. You can't actually leave like a a word review on Spotify, which is very weird. But you can rate us five stars. And that's all. And that's all we accept. So you can't rate us any other one. So have five stars or whatever. Don't fuck with us.
01:45:27
Speaker
But yeah. And, you know, really, you know, what we want you to do and what we want you to always do is for you to go ahead and get slayed.