I Think You Should ...See Some Recent Horror Films

Transcript

Speaker: Hey there, this is Trevor, one half of the Trevor and B podcast hosts of the I Think You Should Pod, which you're listening to. We'd love to hear from you. If you have an idea for us to cover on the podcast, please email us at Ithinkyoushouldpod at gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from all of you and please enjoy the episode.

Speaker: right. Hello. Welcome to I Think You Should podcast about stuff you should be checking out. ah I am one of the hosts, Trevor. My co-host, Bea, is not here. So we dragged one of the youths in to talk to us about stuff. And it's our art designer, Burke Sabatini. Hi, Burke.

Speaker: Hi. So Burke's here and we're going to talk about um three horror films in particular and maybe more. ah But first, as is tradition on the podcast, Burke, what are you what are you what are you doing right now? what What's what's cool? um Right now, I'm actually I've been binge watching the 90s television sitcom The Nanny.

Speaker: I'm sorry. What? Yeah, that's what I've been watching. um My prospective roommate in college has put me on and I all summer have just been watching The Nanny with Fran Drescher and that's what I've been doing. I, I oh listen as someone who was your age younger in the 90s that was never a show that I thought I would ever have any interest in going back to let alone be interested in checking out for the first time because Fran Drescher can't not do the darn voice all the time. Yeah, but that's like she's just playing herself basically. So it's not really distracting. It's like her whole character plot, but it's so good. It's so good.

Speaker: i do remember that one being funny. This is really weird because I was listening back to the podcast we've already done and I've published a few of them or set them, get them ready to publish. And Marcel, my friend from Germany that I did another kind of bonus episode like this without be on, specifically mentioned watching Gilmore Girls and Scrubs. And I was just like, what is happening? Yeah, Gilmore Girls is another one. I watched that one a while back. I finally finished it. But that and then I'm still just for the past two years been trying to get through all 14 seasons of Supernatural, which.

Speaker: Mm hmm. working on it they took it off netflix and now it's on prime with ads and i'm it's taken me a while i'm still going away at it so i have have a very important question about supernatural someone who has not watched it uh my my friend andy has waxed poetic about it recently is that show actually good Yes. The thing is, when you have any show that runs for 14 seasons, there's going to be some seasons that aren't as good as others.

Speaker: But I think generally, it does quite well at like keeping this sort of general standard. Obviously, the first couple seasons are going to be more... as as goes any show that runs for a long time, they're going to be a bit better. But I think...

Speaker: given its sort of concept of this like monster hunter thing that I think a bunch people have tried to do, but I think that really does it quite well. and then you have this like sort of sibling dynamic. That's pretty good.

Speaker: But I think, It does pretty well at like staying true to itself and being pretty good, but there are some, some crazy story arcs, but it is, it's one of those shows where it's a different hunt each episode kind of thing. Like a monster of the week kind of Yeah. It's sort of like, like a criminal minds or um like a,

Speaker: Yeah, a crime show or something where each episode would be a different case. There are some that have like season finales something where it's multiple episodes. But it's it keeps it interesting that way because each episode is a different sort of thing they're tackling.

Speaker: But yeah, i I feel like it's very early 2000s, very like that time period. it's It's pretty fun to sort of turn on and you can kind of watch it mindlessly. But it's also quite funny. Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki are pretty funny.

Speaker: it It is crazy that that's a show that's gone on for 14 seasons. If you you explained that premise to somebody and then asked, how many seasons do you think this show got? They'd probably four? I don't know. And it's like, try adding 10 to that. yeah Yeah. I mean, that's like what Grey's Anatomy is still running. They're on like season 23. would never watch that show. I don't know. that That show is essentially a zombie, though. It's just you can't kill it. It's or it's some kind of like mythical monster. It can't be just defeated. Exactly.

Speaker: Um, my thing was, I think I mentioned to you before we started recording, which is this book series I just read. Cause I've become a complete and total loser of a nerd and I'm just reading Warhammer 40 K novels. And I don't, I, I mean, I play some of the video games. I've never played the board game or any of that. I have no interest in painting models, but I liked the setting.

Speaker: And this is going to be a future episode, as I mentioned, which I think we're going to rope you into coming on because you and B would be a good combo for this one. Um, It's a book about one of the groups of the Space Marines called the Night Lords.

Speaker: And ah it's a fascinating series because it follows a awful, awful character who, you know, does things like torturing victims to terrify a populace and subdue them and things like that.

Speaker: But it does it in a way that isn't like, let's do cartoonishly mustache twirling villain that just does it for yucks. And instead, like, there is actually an ethos and a belief system and a justification in the character's own sense of, like, having been betrayed by ah the Empire that they thought was going to be, that they thought they were working for, you know,

Speaker: being who they are because that's what they were told to be. They were told to be these terrifying monsters that could subdue planets through just showing up and scaring everybody with their actions. And then they get punished for it. Like there's a lot of, it's one of those rare instances where they, I fell and found a character who is unobjectively without question the villain and a bad guy.

Speaker: ah And yet is still someone you want to root for and find endearing even at times with some of his personal relationships. So that's really hard to do. And it's really fun if somebody pulls it off.

Speaker: So that was, that was mine, which in a way kind of brings us to what we're going to talk about today, because I think this is the topic we we have three movies we're going to talk about, right? At at minimum. Um,

Speaker: Hokum, which is the one that I saw first and told you to go see and then you texted me while I was abroad to say you were terrified while watching this movie, which was what happened to me in the theater. I started texting my wife being like, I'm doing this because this movie is freaking me out.

Speaker: um And then the other two are Backrooms and Obsession, both of which have blown up massively. Particularly Obsession, I think, has made half a billion dollars already or something crazy. They're still like crushing money records right now. box ah They're like still playing in all theaters.

Speaker: Yeah, which is interesting because we'll get into... we're gonna we're Basically, the plan here is we're going recap all three movies um in brief to talk about the things about them that we like or don't like. I...

Speaker: I had to turn obsession off and I will turn, I will talk about the point at which I had to, um, because of the way it was, it was affecting me. And weirdly it became less effective after that point when I did go back and finish it.

Speaker: Yeah. I, I saw that one in theater, so I didn't have a choice. i didn't have a choice, but, um, I probably would have. I have questions about that when we get there. But anyway, um so I was thinking, do you want to start with Obsession since that's the big ticket one? Sure.

Speaker: OK, so I have two things before we even start recapping it I want to know what you think about this. The first one is that there's a lot of this online discourse coming to Bear's defense. and or at least partial defense bear is the villain of this movie 100 okay glad we're agreement he's evil yes okay and we'll get to why because there is a point i think at which you can still sort of be like okay i you know i feel for this guy a bit but it's over very fast and i think i think there's there's a point there was a sort of

Speaker: transition point during my experience watching the movie where there was some element of remorse or like not even not even remorse well for him it was remorse but there was some part where I felt bad for him and there's a specific point in the movie that I could reference where I I just stopped feeling bad for him completely Okay, hold on to that because we're going to try to tag those when we go through. But yes, that's that's perfect.

Speaker: So in case it wasn't obvious, by the way, anybody listening, we're going to spoil the shit out of these movies. So if you haven't seen them and you think you want to, you should. And I would actually recommend all three, even though I have different feelings about each one. And I i actually weirdly, well, we'll get to it. But I think i what Backrooms might be my favorite of the three, but that's...

Speaker: I didn't expect that. Anyway, the other thing I wanted to say about the movie before we start talking about the plot was the idea that the title of the movie is not about Nikki, the female lead's obsession with Bear that happens because of the MacGuffin in the movie.

Speaker: It's his obsession with her. Yeah, that's my interpretation of it, which is another thing I think everybody or a lot of people are missing. the point of they're like, oh, it's because she's obsessed. I'm like, no, he's obsessed with her from the start of the movie. And that's what causes the whole problem.

Speaker: Does that sound like is that is that gel with what you interpreted it as 100 percent? OK. okay All right, so the way this movie opens is actually very funny, which is he's doing Bear has his friend Ian, who's an awful friend, by the way. Ian also sucks. I want to point that out. um And he's confessing his feelings to a ah girl we can't see, who we you would assume is going to be Nikki, but is in fact a waitress at a diner like playing the role just for this like practice run.

Speaker: After which Ian just makes fun of him for how embarrassing it was and tells him that he's like, he can't do that. Don't don't do that. Don't be you. Which ah like automatically my first interpretation when I was seeing that was immediately some sort of commentary on like masculine friendships because as as like a girl watching that, I thought it was a pretty sincere confession. like i didn't I thought it was maybe a bit cringy in times, but I didn't really see a huge issue with it if that was how the movie was starting, if he was actually confessing to a girl he was interested in.

Speaker: But then Ian's whole, like, making fun of him, I was like, oh, okay. So that's that's their dynamic they have going. but Well, and the waitress also reacts positively. She's like, that's so sweet. Like, yes, it is it is a little cringy, but any of these kinds of conversations would be, right? Yeah, of course. If you're if you're that into a person, and that like that would be... So, like, yeah, it immediately told me, like... all Not a fan of Ian. The key part that comes out of this moment is that he mentions this reference to a nickname Nicky had in high school, which was Freaky Nicky, which becomes relevant not long after this. Right. Yes. So then jarring change in tone, Bear goes home and finds out his cat got into his oxycodone pills and died. Yeah. So he doesn't go to work.

Speaker: but He does get called by Nikki, who's like, come to trivia. Gotta tell you something. Eventually, you find out it's she's put in her two week notice. They all work at the same place. And so she's leaving. And in the midst of this conversation, she loses her necklace, presumably down the sink or something. So Bear on his way to trivia decides he is going to go He goes to get a necklace, but ends up buying this thing that will become this the MacGuffin for the movie, which is this one wish willow, which is basically a stick that you break and make a wish and it grants you the wish. Right. It's a gag gift, presumably. Right.

Speaker: um So then my favorite part of the movie in terms of the setup is the next scene where he can't bring himself to tell Nikki how he feels. Also, Ian is constantly giving him like looks like don't do this here. You're goingnna ruin trivia night for me, which is apparently the only joy he has in his life because Ian sucks. Yeah, Ian sucks.

Speaker: ah And if you're paying attention, especially when he drives her home after that, she says to him, like, you're one of the only people I can have these conversations with. And the genius of this film is, uh, what I think it's doing is you can remember a point where we project a version of a person onto them because that's what we want them to be. The person you have a crush on or the person you think is like attractive, but you don't really know.

Speaker: And so you, you, project onto them all the things you want them to be which bear has done with nikki but it is preventing him from seeing that she actually genuinely does love and care about him as her friend and he can't see the value of that because he can only see this image of her as a romantic partner he can't see the value of her as just a friend and another human being who feels like she can talk to him yeah right and i think that's on purpose i don't know how you've thought about that but

Speaker: Yeah, I definitely I also like one thing I, I think you see sort of an inception in that first trivia scene that leads throughout the film is that this group of friends that is also I think bear and Nikki kind of projecting like You immediately see his reaction at her leaving is sort of like, ah like he doesn't want her to leave. And it leads you kind of to think that like these are very close knit friends that these are like a group of four close friends like Ian, Bear, Nikki and Sarah. But they are just co workers is the funny thing. Yep, they're friends with convenience. Yeah, friends of convenience 100%. And

Speaker: I think there are a lot of elements of this movie that are, it's a very, very heavy movie, but it is funny in some parts. um And like Curry Barker, the director and the guy who plays Ian, I'm not sure of the actor's name.

Speaker: They have had this sort of social media, YouTube career before this movie making comedy sketches. Well, and just is Curry Barker the one that made um milk and cereal?

Speaker: made the the YouTube series I think that's who it is I don't think it's i don't think it's the guy that did backrooms because he know made yeah just backroom shorts yeah but there are like so many parts of this like Trivia Night them being at a Trivia Night like Ian's whole he is sort of this like element a bit of comedic relief in the beginning of the movie And later. And later. Yeah, so funny. um But yeah, i I think I noticed that a lot at the beginning of like, wow, these guys are just co-workers. and they're

Speaker: And Bears like has this whole like seriousness about them, which I think comes through there. Yeah, I mean, he's a romantic, which like in and of itself isn't a bad thing. The problem is that his his romanticism is entirely tied into selfishness, too, which is what happens.

Speaker: That's what ultimately kind of poisons everything, because basically they get back to Nikki's apartment or wherever. He drops her off. He can't bring himself to tell her how he feels. He very awkwardly and embarrassingly you know brings up the nickname she is clearly hurt by it because it yeah it felt like it inferred that there may have been some abuse associated with that nickname when they were in high school but i don't know that it's spelled out exactly yeah i think it was just like as a girl having something like have telling your friends like oh i had this nickname in high school and i hated it and bear being one to like actually take it seriously and then immediately

Speaker: hearing his male friend be like oh call her freaky nikki that'll be funny like it's like teasing it's flirting and he does it and sees why he shouldn't listen to a guy like ian yeah yeah so that leads to she walks away he hasn't given her the one wish willow that he said he was going to give her as like a gift so in an act of his desperation he breaks it and says uh to paraphrase wants nikki to love him more than anyone in the world And this is where everything just starts to go fucking wacko. So yeah Nikki comes back to the car. She's very clearly not acting like herself. He's already told her about the death of his cat.

Speaker: She uses that first as a way of trying to like stay near him that night. And then she makes up this thing about her dad dying, which we later will find out is not true. ah Go ahead. The interesting thing about that is she she references the cat and says, my cat just died. Right, right, right, right, right. So she's.

Speaker: What I think is... I think before this movie came out, it's sort of... To a someone who didn't know anything about the movie and had just seen the trailers, like I thought it was going to be sort of an entity type of thing. Like this One Wish Willow brought upon an entity into Nikki, but that was sort of possessing her and changing her actions and behavior.

Speaker: But I think this is our first kind of hint, which is what I've taken away from the movie, that it is sort of this... this mental version of Nikki and version of himself that bear is put onto her.

Speaker: So it's interesting. So from what I've seen online and just different opinions, the way I kind of like to view it is when he breaks that one wish willow and he makes that wish he his wish and his idea of Nikki and of what he wants Nikki to be is what is taking over her.

Speaker: And it gets worse and worse and get like sort of with each day that passes, it gets worse and more extreme. But like her saying my cat just died is bears like Bear's wish being in her. sort Got it.

Speaker: That is interesting. Yeah, I had interpreted it as it was more of a ah curse or entity type thing. But that does make that is an interesting way. cause That's a very that's a very deliberate line read, right? Yeah, because when you think about the one wish, Willow was a concept, like, if it were to be an entity, like, don't, I don't think it is a curse object. It's more a cursed wish type of thing.

Speaker: Or a spell of some kind. Yeah, because when you when you get to the very funny scene, which we'll talk about later, when he runs back into the store, he bought it from, which is maybe my favorite scene in the entire movie. um You see like this guy saying he did it. He had his wish. He had no problem.

Speaker: um yeah And, like, when you think about that, Bear just had this awful, awful wish yeah of wanting to control how somebody felt was and felt.

Speaker: yeahp Yeah, it is it is like a a possessive wish, right? So, like, which brings me to... After a bunch of back and forth, he finally, she finally, like, wants to go with him to his house.

Speaker: And then, of course, insists that he, like, you know, lay with her. And then it starts to get romantic. And then she snaps out it. Yeah. And yells, what the fuck? And that is the point where I turned the movie off. Because that was the thing that upset me the most. It's so upsetting. She does such a fun. Fucking great job. And I got her. The actress's name. ah India Navarrete. You never had it. Yeah. She's unbelievable. Unbelievable. And also ah the guy who's playing bear, whose name is is escaping me. But he's also very, very good. Like, but she she steals the whole movie. um And it's these little scenes, actually, that I think are the best part.

Speaker: And I I think that what when I went back to the movie after this, I was less bothered by it because it starts to become, the escalation starts to become so extreme and almost comical ah for later things that happen that it didn't bother me as much.

Speaker: That moment got under my skin so badly. Yeah, because it's so upsetting. It's so upsetting. Yeah. um It was very similar. there was ah It's kind of like, have you seen Weapons?

Speaker: I didn't know. I really need to. You should. Weapons has a moment like that where it was like, ah it's it's not like a big, big, like flashy moment. It's just a moment that got under my skin in a way that made me have to go, okay, got to pause here for a second. But what I would have liked this movie to do, and this is not a judgment on what it ends up doing, because obviously this movie has made, as we said, half billion dollars. It is like massively successful. So what the hell do I know? But I would have liked it to have...

Speaker: instead of branching out and we see them at the party later and we see them at work, I would have liked it to go smaller and smaller to like them stuck in that apartment, very limited to going out and just the slow, like escalation of her, like,

Speaker: breaking but also being able to come out of this trance or spell a few times and have it really feel smothering and like you're getting everything you want you're right there with her all the time and the movie that i compare to that i know i suggested to you to watch was the babadook which i think is a um one of the best movies period made but the same idea where what happens is everything progressively gets smaller and like things just get worse in a tighter space so it starts to feel kind of claustrophobic Yeah, i do I do think that would that would be very good. i also... i did The party scene was another one i really liked in that in this movie, though.

Speaker: This is the thing. I like the scene. yeah what it What was interesting was that it changed the... um it it It removed that sense of being really unnerved for me because it was funny at at some points.

Speaker: And then it was also just, I'm watching a masterclass in a performance. Like, yeah I think that is her best part of the film, is that scene. But one thing that unsettled me a lot in that scene in particular is when... like Because her the character of Nikki is trying to be a writer and she starts...

Speaker: saying her poetry and her writing and this sort of metaphor of Hansel and Gretel and like, but it's incestuous. Yes. But because, because Sarah at work with bear while Nikki is at home waiting for him, tells bear that Nikki told her, i view him as a brother. Yep.

Speaker: And then in that party scene, when she's talking about like, he took me as my brother, he took me as a wife. Uh-huh. it just, I was like, had a physical reaction to that. I was in my chair in the theater just being like, oh my god. oh you're squirming. Yeah, because it's just these little parts of real Nikki coming through that just makes it so much worse. Well, that's that is the thing that I think the movie does its absolute best is it's They don't do anything flashy to be like, there's not like a sudden flash of white light and oh, now Nikki is, you know, in control for this period or like there's not there's no like, they don't do something stupid like that where they're like, you know, there's a signal that like tells you that she's switched, you know, who's in control.

Speaker: It's all the performance and it's all like these little subtle things that bleed into these moments like when she recites the poem, which is amazing. that's up there with my favorite moments in the movie because it's incredible.

Speaker: um The funniest part is when she gets up and moves the chair. Oh my God. So the the basic premise of this is like up to this point already a but a bunch of really weird shit has been happening.

Speaker: with Nikki, including her feeding bear, his dead cat, which is yeah a move. um What's the verdict. Yeah. yeah ah And, but then in there is that really important little seating where um he's told that Nikki described bear as her little brother, which also helps explain how she feels about him in the car ride. When she says she can talk to him, like she can't talk to other people. Like, and again, his inability to see past who,

Speaker: Like how lucky he is that he has this friend because all he wants is to have her for as a romantic partner. Yeah. And also he he hears that coming from Sarah, which Nikki told him at trivia night that Sarah had a thing for him.

Speaker: Right. So, yeah, yeah there's yes mo levels. There are layers. It's very well layered. It's very cleverly put together. um But yeah, this this all culminates in this big party where Ian basically is like, go to a guy's night. and Don't have Nikki come like I bet you can't pull it off. He's correct. He can't. She comes.

Speaker: um And it's not a guy's night anyway, because Sarah is also there and a few other people. They're playing a Jenga drinking game and Bear is supposed to kiss whoever's to his right, who which happens to be Sarah. And Nikki dramatically gets up, makes a scene and like just slowly drags her chair out of the way and then like crouches and It's so awful. It's awful. It's awkward. It's also it made me laugh. And then she breaks a bottle and starts stabbing herself in the face.

Speaker: Yeah, super calm move. Super calm move. um And yeah, i I was less unnerved by the film at this point because I was like, okay, we're just going for it here. Like, this is going to be batshit crazy the rest of the way, and I'm into it.

Speaker: um It's not upsetting me as much, except, and again, those little subtle things that Indy Navarro does at different points where I'm like, that's just a masterclass in a performance. Yeah.

Speaker: um And I. OK, so I'm curious, have we what at what point? Because I think we bypassed it where you feel like the point of no return for bear, because for me it was it was right after the party.

Speaker: it was after the party. He's going back home. And he calls the number on the back of the one, which that's what I was thinking too. Yep. Okay. Calls the number. And it's this really, I think it's actually Curry Barker's voice. It is. Yes. I did hear that. Yeah. So it's Curry Barker's phone in the voice in this deadpan. It sounds like a, like a disgruntled teenager. That's like having, this is the worst job. And he's stuck at a call center. Yeah. Yeah. And so he's, he's talking on the line and it's this whole conversation of can I change the wish? And he's like, you can't, you can't like, he's like, do you want to cancel it?

Speaker: And he goes, no. Yeah. He goes, no. And then the part that gets me the most is the line, like the phone line. It seems like a very general thing, like anyone who calls, but the the voice of the line says, do you want to talk to her? Oh yeah.

Speaker: And he bears confused. And then it just cuts to the sound of India Never Ready screaming. Like, screaming. And it's it's it's real Nikki trapped in her own body. Just screaming bloody murder. And, oh, i like, got chills. it I was so unnerved. I was... It honestly nearly brought me to tears. Because I was just like, I feel...

Speaker: awful for this girl this is like yup this it's this total loss of control as a woman as like so in terms of and a relationship with a man like it is nightmarish to hear i mean it's she does it at the end of the film too when everything finally breaks that you see that same like Yeah, this this has been complete and utter torture. I mean, she's being raped repeatedly throughout the movie. And they do there's one really... i don't remember where the cut is, but there's one very good cut. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. There's one where she's lying there and you see her face sobbing. Yep. But then she's having this like, she's making the sounds that Bear would want her to make if she was having a pleasurable experience. Yep. And she's very well done. It is like all of these little things where it is just like a masterclass in acting on Indian Ever Ready's part. And I'm sure she's going to have the most insane career after this movie because...

Speaker: She's just been put like into the limelight here, but oh my gosh, it made this film so much more scary yeah because it was awful to watch. it's It's all of those moments, that one, the one with the the the phone call and the scream that are just like...

Speaker: they take it to another level. Like, a lesser filmmaker, a lesser performer, they wouldn't have been as confident in, like, those subtle small things working.

Speaker: Right? Yeah. and And it's the part that made me long for them to not maybe have gone as hard with, like, the party stuff. Or the ending where Bear, you know, meets with Sarah because she's like, I gotta tell you something. And then informs him that Ian and Nikki had actually been hooking up for a bit.

Speaker: Yeah. So her theory, which... would hold up except that we just watched nikki stab herself the bottle so i'm like i think maybe it's a little more than just getting revenge on ian which is what sarah says um is that that's what's happening then of course nikki appears and kills her by smashing her face repeatedly against the steering wheel of her car yeah and that's actually a cut version to make the rating just for Oh, really? There is an unedited longer version of that scene that I think is actually getting released. Like there's a director's cut where it is even more brutal. Oh, boy. Okay.

Speaker: But it's also just awful again to see like another female character have like she has this acceptance letter or call it like decision letter in her hand and she's had opening it with bear and doesn't even get to see what it says.

Speaker: yup that's ah it's The timing of that moment is awful yeah so good. It gets us to the ending. He buys these two the rat two remaining one-wish willows in a very funny sequence as he's scrambling through this shop and it's like just total mess. um Goes to Ian because of course you'd go to Ian. Who else is more reliable than Ian? Yeah.

Speaker: um And I like that, though, because it's very clear that Bear doesn't have anyone else. He just has his co-worker friends like he has no one else. So he goes to the guy you would never go to and tries to explain this all to him. Ian justifiably makes fun of him, breaks the willow and wishes for a billion dollars, which then just starts raining from the ceiling. And i howled. I laughed so hard at that part. um And ah then his only other play is bring it home and get Nikki to break it.

Speaker: ah But again, What I feel is like overlooked by people who are trying to find and let's be honest, it's men trying to find excuses for bear is like, he's not going to have her break it to break the wish. He can cancel the wish. He's been told he can just cancel it.

Speaker: He wants her to break it and then make a wish that will modify the current situation so that he still gets what he wants. Yeah. Yeah. Like, which i yeah. Also, the the scene he walks into is awful. Yeah. Because you have Sarah, like, dead, so naked, strapped to a chair yeah outside her living room, like, his living room.

Speaker: And Nikki is wearing her clothes yeah and has drawn her tattoos on herself. Yep. And... is just waiting for him and there's a a like camcorder video on the tv of him sleeping which is awful because that's from a like earlier in the movie one of the first because they did the like uncanny valley has sort of had this like big popularity on the internet in recent years and

Speaker: They actually there's a photo of Indian Everettie like that like offset with the Uncanny Valley makeup on which just makes her look like not real and just off.

Speaker: yeah It's like it makes her eyes wider and her smile wider and she's in that scene the movie she's standing dark in the corner of the room that one was terrifying. Uh-huh. They do that with her a couple times. Yeah, and also the one... what The use of the shadows on her. And the one of her, like, walking backwards.

Speaker: Yep. Like, in slow... Oh, that one was really off-putting. Yeah, but I... The thing about this scene at the end for me is it's my... I... Like... laugh You mentioned that this movie is funny at times. I laughed a bunch during this movie. I laughed so hard when Ian gets killed when he comes in. It's so funny because it turns out that Sarah had a gun or something and and so now Nikki has it and she's using it to like kind of threaten Bear to like love her and if she has to look like Sarah to make it happen she will and like it's really an upsetting then Ian comes running and be like I really got a billion dollars immediately gets shot very funny really like that um but then the actual ending ending is fucking incredible and i just it's just ah it's also just showing Bear just being

Speaker: A wimp. Like, he has no backbone. He goes into the the bathroom and he thinks of his cat and is like, he tries to put the gun in his mouth. He can't do do it. yeah And then he thinks of his cat and he just chalks down a bunch of, like, oxy And then it's like, oh, no, and tries to throw it up at me almost immediately. Yeah. Which actually that one was I can't think of that actor's name either, but that one was his idea. Oh, interesting. So he had they had shot that scene a bunch of times and Curry Barker was like, oh, we need to move on to the next shot. And he was like, let me do one more.

Speaker: and oh wow. And he like started trying to like make himself throw up. That's but then you hear that the awful jingle of the one which will a box opening. Yeah. From outside.

Speaker: Michael Johnston. Sorry, I wanted make sure I got his name. Yeah, Michael Johnston. Who's gay, by the way. he is. Which I thought was a fascinating... Because he's asked to do a lot of very sexual stuff in this movie.

Speaker: um And is a consummate professional. And this last scene is the his best one, I think. Yeah, I would agree. Because he nails all of the things you don't like about Bear in that like moment of not being able to go through with any anything.

Speaker: And then... Yeah, you're right. You hear the willow go off. So then you have the like two moments of the film where they are both equally in love with each other, which immediately is soiled by bare violently overdosing. Yeah. Yeah. Real bad.

Speaker: And of course, as soon as he's dead, Nikki sort of wakes up and is surrounded by three dead bodies in a shrine of Bear. Yep. And again, Indian already performing just a perfect horror scream. Yep. And they end the movie.

Speaker: but Yeah. With that upside down shot that goes back up to the TV of just this sleeping shot of bear. Yep. It's so well done. So a couple of things about this that I wanted to go back on.

Speaker: um because again i i want to be clear my desire that it had gone more for the dark and claustrophobic thing is purely just because it was working on me so well that I was like in that weird way where it's like you're upsetting me so much can you keep doing that like yeah you've you've you've hit a nerve um that doesn't mean that they should have done this movie any differently I think it's i think it's essentially a perfectly constructed film 100% the thing about it that I my number one thing is do not make a sequel to this movie do not make a sequel like please I think I think what curry barker had talked about doing was like he said this in their press junket of maybe a series like an HBO series or something like that with yeah different directors where it's different people's wishes

Speaker: Yeah, that would be, I guess. ah like not Not these people, but like different different wishes of like how this could go wrong in many different ways. The other one I read is that Barker said that he wants to make a follow-up film and it will be in the same universe as this one and will allude to the events in it in some way, like a newscast, but it will not be like the same concept, which I'm like, that's a great, that's a thing that Damian McCarthy does, the guy who did Hokum.

Speaker: um he has all these same motifs that show up in all of his films that sort of imply they're all happening in the same world. Right. Which I think is like, yeah, do that. What I, what I, what I don't want, like we know Barker is going to make another film. He's, he's going to be the hot director out there along with Zane. What's the guy's name from back rooms? ah Kane par Parsons. Kane Parsons. Like those two are going to be, everybody's out to get them to make something. Right.

Speaker: um i The things that I was thinking about. So like, did you like all of the shooting Nikki in the dark stuff? Yeah, I did.

Speaker: I thought those ones were interesting. i think I probably could have done with one less, maybe. Because I think when you have those those shots where like the first one in that bedroom where she's in the corner, I was like...

Speaker: like shaking in my boots i was like ah this was i was unsettled i was very i was made uncomfortable by it but i think by the time we got to like the longer one of nikki kind of walking backwards that that use of after effects of like slow motion backwards walking type of thing that one i thought it maybe be dragged a little bit where i like wasn't really scared by it anymore Yeah. And I don't know that I will say this film is definitely a horror film, but I think this film is much more intent on upsetting you than it is anything else. 100%. Which it does, does better than any movie I've seen in quite a while. um

Speaker: I know the scene that everybody has pointed out to is like, Oh, it's the most upsetting is the one when he leaves and then comes back and she's just been standing there and she's just covered in her own bodily fluids and everything. Cause she hasn't even gone to the bathroom. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker: And I'm like, yeah, that scene was like ah the message was clear of how like totally like and out of control of her own body she is. That wasn't even in the top five for me. Like there were five other moments that were just so much more like horrifying because of how, like you said, she's conscious of everything happening to her, but she has no control.

Speaker: Yeah, I didn't really that one. I was just sort of I was like, oh, that that. Yeah, like that sucks. Yeah, wasn't i wasn't really yeah i was like, oh, God. Yeah, no, that's really bad. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. All right. So do you have anything else to say about obsession or do we want to talk back rooms?

Speaker: No, I think Obsession is great, though. i gave it, I think, I don't know if you're a Letterboxd user, but I give it four and a half out of five stars on Letterboxd. That seems valid. i could see I could see myself giving it a very similar score. I don't use Letterboxd, but follow people on it, so I'll have to get on that part. um for Important question, though.

Speaker: Do you remember what a mall is, Burke? You're too young to know to know what a mall is. Yes. Fun fact. To know what a mall is. Yeah. So one of the things that um so there's a podcast called Gamefully Unemployed I'm gonna mention here, which like.

Speaker: Did it made a really, really incredible point that I thought was so interesting because they're these hosts are my age, right? They're in their forties and they're talking about the film is and a reimagining of the nineties, right? Cause it's supposed to be set in nineties, but yeah,

Speaker: Everything about it is off in terms of the way the 90s actually looked like in these little weird way. It's like it's how somebody who didn't grow up in the 90s remembers it from what they've heard or seen. Right. And that is actually kind of the way that this movie is presented, which is the backrooms are a misremembering of reality.

Speaker: Right. They're a recreation of it from the people who enter them. Maybe unclear. I love how much this movie doesn't explain anything. That was actually one of my favorite parts. OK, so I i am Like have dipped my toe into Kane Parsons YouTube.

Speaker: Yep. career prior to making this movie. But I went to see this movie with a friend of mine who has seen every single YouTube video and every piece of content he's ever put out more than once. Okay. So for her, that movie, it felt very much like he was making it for those people that who knew everything about that because there were little, little niche references that only people who knew all the background would get. And I have since seen this movie because I think I watched some of the YouTube stuff.

Speaker: in maybe like 2022 area 2023 like ah but she and i like watched it again the first couple like i guess episodes of it um right after seeing the movie and it is this sort of like you you know everything about this backrooms that kane parsons has created from these youtube videos and about about async and about its purpose and what was trying like the human impact on it so I think what's interesting about it is it is a digestible and enjoyable movie for someone who knows nothing and goes in blind but it is also an even more enjoyable experience for someone who knows so much about it

Speaker: It's crazy that he pulled that off because yeah that's such an incredibly difficult like um line to walk. Because I would be that person. I knew nothing about this concept even. I learned it was based on a creepypasta film series.

Speaker: And I was like, okay, cool. like Yeah, why not make that? Um, and I got the general concept of liminal space horror. So then I watched it and I was just like, this is fucking amazing. Like I, I, I was a little nervous from the opening scene because the opening scene is, um, someone exploring the back rooms. Who's like clearly afraid of something and then gets killed by it. And I'm like,

Speaker: okay so are we going to do a whole looping back to explaining this story to connect or is this unrelated we're just supposed to know this place is dangerous um but then it settles in on i'm gonna butcher his name but joetal uh geofor that how you say it i'm actually not sure i know that he he was in um another movie i saw i don't remember which one but he's he's a very good actor as well he's excellent and he plays clark who's the one of the two main characters incredibly well another awful main character Oh, yeah. yeah i Well, the thing I love about this movie is the only intelligent characters in the movie are women.

Speaker: Yes. Because it's Mary and it's Kat, who's the one who works for him. um Bobby is a moron. He's a nice moron. Did you see the did you catch the T-shirt he was wearing in his first scene? Yes, I did. I did. He finds it later in the back rooms, too, I believe. yeah I just love I liked that one a lot there's some very funny stuff in that but like the whole premise with this is that Clark has this discount furniture store he doesn't actually want to be there he's divorced from his wife because of his own issues alcoholism anger and most importantly which the film points out at the end he never takes responsibility for his role in anything he's seeing a therapist which the guys on Game for Unemployed pointed out means nobody understood the 90s because no man would go to a therapist in the 90s which I think is very funny take um

Speaker: But his therapist is trying to basically role play this one moment in his life, this conversation that seemed to be the straw that broke the camel's back with his with his wife um and like get him to own up to. And basically, you can tell she's trying to pull awareness out of him by making him relive that in a sober state.

Speaker: Yeah, he was drunk when it happened. um But also Mary's character, they do such a good job of building who she is through these flashbacks that show that her mother had serious mental health problems and she was eventually institutionalized. And that one of the reasons Mary is a therapist is she's trying to help people like her mom.

Speaker: Yeah. a problem that will come back to lead to the climax of the film, basically. Right. Mm um The thing that I loved about this is how they he he did so many cool things that, again, as a person who had not known anything about this, I loved. One, Clark goes through the wall that he finds that phases into the back rooms, right? He goes back and forth like three or four times, which I'm like, of course he would. Of course he would. That makes total sense. He doesn't just start exploring.

Speaker: They did really simple ah oddities and distortions, like the two chairs that are fused together initially when he picks them up. And then it expands as he progresses further. Whole parts of homes or buildings are recreated, but there's always something off about them.

Speaker: um And he clearly gets super obsessed with them to the point that he goes and gets his two workers, Bobby and Kat, to come and film it so he can prove it's real.

Speaker: Yeah. But is that really why Clark is taking them is the question I have. It's a good question. Because I don't think that's actually what he wants to. I do think he wants to prove it to Mary, but I think what he really wants is he wants to get someone else as obsessed with this as he is. Yeah. In a way.

Speaker: I would agree with that. And to the point that I was making before of the women being the only intelligent characters, Kat is the first one who's like, hey, this is extremely fucked up. We should not be here. Yeah. like We should not go further. Why are you tying a rope around his waist? What is going on? like Yeah.

Speaker: God, that, yeah, I was just annoyed. i was like, it Clark is just, it's one of those like horror things where you're like, why are you going into the basement? Why are you going deeper into this weird place that you definitely shouldn't be? And it's like, yeah.

Speaker: But I think that they do a good enough job with his character to be like, he is the kind of person, i mean, the guy is drinking and sleeping in his own furniture store at night at this point. Like he is, he is way past like ah on at his lowest point. And he suddenly finds this thing that is completely otherworldly and is at least ah for them to him seems benevolent, which you find out later why it doesn't seem to be a threat to him.

Speaker: But like, he would be continuing to go into this place you or i or somebody who has things to look forward to and live for and go yeah i think i'm good but i think clark his behavior makes sense for who his character is um it makes sense for bobby too because bobby just wants to get high and see some weird shit and hey that's all we're doing back rooms yeah um but like the yeah the like that is always in coming up in these movies it's like who would actually go through this but i think they did a good enough job of setting up the fact that like well clark is the kind of person that would do this um it also explains why mary goes looking for him because as is established as a therapist her whole thing is she wants to help people and even if she doesn't like clark

Speaker: she gets this weird phone message from him saying that he's found this window and he's not coming back. And she's like, well, I gotta go look for him because that's who she is. She has to save everybody. Right. Also a fun Easter egg that was in that sort of portion of the film uh,

Speaker: ah Mary was at like a sort of, it looks like a sort of like summer party at her house or something. And you could sort of hear music in the background. And the music that was playing was a song called Ulterior Motives, which is which was a very long running, huge lost media thing on Reddit. and Oh, it was interesting. So they just recently found that song, but that was this, like, it's so unintelligible and only a few people caught it and like spread the word. But Ulterior Motives was playing in the background of that scene, which I thought was so funny. Yeah, i do yeah there's a bunch of different little things like that that were in there that are like references to other sort of like 4chan, Tumblr, Reddit, horror and lost media and liminal space things that only the pre-existing audience that this is being created for would get.

Speaker: i I will say like the the liminal space thing of like the reason I made the joke about how do you know what a mall is? It's like where I, not just like the larger malls that are still pretty heavily populateulate populated and people still use, but like there are all kinds of strip malls all over the place that are basically in complete disrepair. That's what this place feels like, i think very much on purpose. But if you've ever been in one of them or knew somebody who had a parent or someone who worked at one, these back rooms, these back hallways that exist between all these storefronts are a thing. And they're very kind of like unnerving because they're just long-term

Speaker: like mirror image hallways with slight differences in the like layout. Yeah. That really can throw you off. It's like, I, I was in ah a spirit Halloween last year, which famously is a store that pops up in fall months in, abandoned department stores which is very funny in and of itself but like those kinds of stores because there's like only a certain capacity that they need to fill you'll like look behind shelves and it'll just be empty space of like yeah empty department store and it's it's that sort of like something that you know and is familiar to you but seeing it so abandoned is like

Speaker: It's off-putting in its own way. And that's the thing I wanted to ask you. Did you find this movie scary? um No, I mean, I think there were, like, little jump scare moments that were, like, oh, I mean, you have a but a jump scare to jump scare. It's going to get you just on shock factor. um Like, with when he was bringing ah Bobby and... Sorry, what's... Oh, Cat. Bobby and Cat in there, and that whole... There were a couple moments in there. Yep. And then, obviously, when the entity comes in, there's some scary moments, but I think it was just more this, like...

Speaker: It's like this weird sense of dread of like, like there's just something wrong. Yep. And I think that that was the goal. If from what I understand with Kane Parsons, like he made this to just use the environment as the character.

Speaker: Yeah. The setting is the setting is the horror, not not the things that happen in it. Right. Yeah, of course. And I mean, when you look at. I'll divulge a little bit onto his YouTube series because just in recent times I've watched like the first five or six episodes. But the whole like first episode is and like the first thing he put on the internet about the backrooms was this like college age filmmaker who was trying to film a thing. And then the whole concept of the backroom is you backrooms is that, you know, clip. out of reality into this place so it isn't by default like you touch a wall and your hand goes through it's like you could be walking backwards like trying to get a film shot and you literally no clip out of earth and into the back rooms that's cool

Speaker: Yeah, and so that's the the whole thing with that and the sort of, like, you don't know where you are, you're trying to figure out how to get back. And then the the conclusion to that episode is this guy no-clips back into reality in the middle of the sky and plummets down back to Earth.

Speaker: Oh, wow. like, does not no-clip back into where he came from. um Oh, cool. Yeah. But then also you have the later scenes in the movie... Where like it almost looks like suburbia and like ninety s suburbia.

Speaker: I wanted to mention this real quick. The thing that I thought was so brilliant about the filmmaking. I think this is. one of the best filmmaking like showcases for somebody, especially because this guy came past. He's like 22 or something stupid. Yeah. He's 21. Yeah. So like his choices in all of the film shots are brilliant. Like everything is a liminal space in every shot. It's all that like when he, I, the best example, I think personally is when he goes to get cat and Bobby and you see that they live in a cookie cutter, like condo, like a complex. Yeah. all the houses are the same. Like it is all, he's making a very clear point, which is like, everybody already lives in the back rooms guys. yeah You already live in these places, right? um It's just that like you've normalized it to some degree. And the only character that I noted didn't really have that same way of being shot was Mary, which makes sense because she, you know, her office doesn't have that feel to it or anything like that.

Speaker: But yeah, like you're absolutely right. It's that, I found this movie so enjoyable from start to finish because I felt like it was tonally on its, it had its message and its feel nailed down precisely the whole way through. And it never, it never lost that thread.

Speaker: And I found that so fun to be part of watching. Like, Yeah. There was also like the suburbia thing when you look at async, which is not divulged in at all in the movie, really. It's like you don't really get any context async. There's some weird group that is exploring the back rooms. As someone who knows nothing about the Parsons projects or any of the stuff on the creepypasta who just saw the movie, it's enough to just be like, well, there's some shady organization that is exploring this place. They know it exists, but they don't totally get it. But, you know, shady company is going to shady company, right? Well, yeah. Shady Company that I can't remember what appliance it was. They produced an appliance of some sort. I don't know if it was like air conditioners. They mentioned an MRI machine. Yeah, MRI machine. I wasn't sure if that was in like cryptically say like, you know, we don't make those anymore. Yeah. So basically they did. And then somehow they discovered this. And instead of, I don't know, doing anything. I don't know if there's anything productive you can do with the back rooms. But instead of doing anything productive with the back rooms.

Speaker: So Async's job and what they're doing and their research in the back rooms and the suburbia nods and all of that yeah is their task is to find a way to control it in order to create a place to live when Earth becomes overpopulated. Oh, that's a great concept. Yeah, that's Async.

Speaker: So what Async is doing is trying to find how far it goes, what parts are inhabitable, how can we do this? so ah a bunch of the episodes of his YouTube series are like perspective ads that Async has created. It's like, do you want a place to live? Like this would be a beautiful place to raise a family. Completely insane. Right. The housing. Yeah. Solve the housing crisis. And which is also like you have these like,

Speaker: concentric zones in the series yeah where they'll be like taped off like he taped off a wall Clark did like a door yeah so he knows where the entrance is as like ah a marketing like thing for the Backrooms movie, they had people in Async's hazmat suits going to all of the known locations where famous Backrooms photos have been taken and posted and blown up on the internet, taping walls and taping doors onto walls. So like that was, I think, right before he just re-released the movie with 15 minutes of added footage that is all Async.

Speaker: where it's Interesting. About async and they're like going in and there's one of the like multiples of the same thing but they decrease in size and they're phasing into the floor. yeah And it's a Clark's like sales sign for his store. And it's like a bunch of people measuring it and they see weird stuff and.

Speaker: That one was that was also a cool thing, but it is it's this like so another one of those things where it's man trying to harness something that can't be harnessed. Yeah. Which is it I always find those interesting.

Speaker: i I think that this movie I was I wanted to almost watch it immediately as soon as I finished it because I just loved all the things it was doing and. not again, not knowing all the content, the background, it still works on that level anyway, because it all tracks in terms of like knowing all of what you just explained about async makes them interesting. But like you can kind of map most of the you can guess most of those things just from how they're represented. Yeah, like it's an evil corporation of some kind, or at least a corporation that isn't being led by their best interests, no matter what they think. Right.

Speaker: um We should say, like, the ending of this movie is incredible. Yeah. the i the The scene where Clark basically, she finds her way into the back rooms, Mary.

Speaker: Clark... um meets her there and then kidnaps her and basically forces her to go through the role play again ah while he's got these deformed copies of people sitting seated next to her who have obvious flaws too many eyes uh missing like parts of limbs or whatever and you can eat them as Clark tells her um But what happens is that in a brilliant moment, Mary doesn't like back down when he tries to force her into this role play.

Speaker: ah And she won't she won't cave. She basically says some people don't change. And he finally admits he doesn't want to change. He wants to stay how he is.

Speaker: And lets her go, at which point the monster, the entity that we haven't seen yet, appears, and it is Clark in a deformed size ah in his pirate outfit that he uses to sell furniture at his store, right?

Speaker: which then kills Clark because I believe it is a representation of his rage and need to control all things. And then Clark's like, she's going to go, but it's fine. We can stay here and be who we are. It's like, nope.

Speaker: ah And she runs away. Now, fun fact, do you know that that was a real person in that? Yeah, I was just looking up his name. His name's a Robert. i' He has a Romanian last name that can't pronounce. Yeah. He was also the creature in Alien Romulus, which movie I really liked. um he's He's getting a lot of work right now. Yeah, he's seven foot seven.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah. And he's long and lanky and it really works for that uncanny, like, poor copy of reality feel that this is really playing on. um But yeah, Mary eventually gets away is rescued, captured by Async and interviewed um hilariously. oh God, what's his name? ah The guy playing the scientist.

Speaker: um Oh, God, I don't know. like honestness ah well ah Mark Duplass. Mark Duplass, who like you wouldn't know this, but was very famous for being on Creep. yeah He was in Creep, I did that. But before he did all these horror movies, he was on the show called The League, which is like a wildly inappropriate fantasy football league comedy with like ah um ah Paul Scheer and ah Jason Manzoukas and a lot of other very funny people. um And then he just became a guy who did these weird indie movies, mostly horror and thriller. And I didn't even recognize him ah when he showed up as the scientist. But which was a good thing because that could kind of he's he's a big enough guy

Speaker: face I feel like he could almost take you out of it. But the ending of the film, though, that I thought was incredible because they have this whole conversation. I'm actually not that interested in the conversation they're having. It's like.

Speaker: It's it's the ending where we cut to the back rooms after Mary's being interviewed and you see her copy in the back rooms sitting there clearly misshapen and improperly formed. And that's when the movie ends.

Speaker: And I thought that was brilliant. Yeah, it it definitely is an open ending, which I enjoy. was going to ask you, do you think they're in the back rooms when the interview is happening? Because somebody had posited that online, that like, Async is actually operating out of a place in the back rooms in that scene. Async, there is, so the YouTube thing, actually, Kane Parsons released an episode of his YouTube series while filming, which was crazy. Oh, That's crazy.

Speaker: ah But, like, he, the whole Async thing is that they make a door. They make a huge door into the back rooms. We're not keen on where the facility is where the store has been created um but it is i would assume maybe partially she's still connected to the back room somehow is my yeah guess but I don't think we know for sure which is also like I do think I want to see more

Speaker: of Kane Parsons. I don't know if it's going to be on YouTube or if it's going to be another movie, but I do think he's not done with this story. Well, I was going to ask you, do you think they make a sequel to this and should they?

Speaker: That I don't know. I feel like it they very easily could. And I think with Kane Parsons at the helm, i do think it would be good, but I don't know necessarily. Like I think dive into,

Speaker: dive more into async is like that is an interesting concept yep i believe and i do think it could be good but i also i mean i'm always wary with sequels because i think they can get a little bit iffy yeah i feel like he's got the door open if he wanted to do something that goes more into async you could even do one with like someone getting hired to work for them as like an intern and then them following their experience of slowly realizing what they're actually working for or You could bring Mary back and go through that. I mean, you could do a whole bunch of things.

Speaker: the the The thing that's always hard about this is like this movie is excellent. It's already great. It doesn't need a sequel. It can be open ended. The YouTube content's all there. I've been considering going and watching his early like videos he did because I've heard it's quite good. Like he did everything with this that needed to happen.

Speaker: it yeah You don't. But like the problem is that much like obsession, it's making so much money. There's going to be clamoring for sequels from studios that want to make money, you know, and and what you hope for is can you make money off the name of the director as opposed to the the product itself? Like in Cain Parsons, make something else.

Speaker: ah and draw the same kind of crowd because he made this. I honestly just give in like how he's so young and he's never done this before. Which is insane. I have to point out. Sorry. and it And it was so good.

Speaker: it's It's insane that he did such a good job. It is absolutely... <unk>ing This movie, I have to say, is better shot than Obsession. It's it's better filmmaking. it's It's got more... He knows how to operate a camera better, and it's crazy the shots he pulls off in this. Yeah, and also... like This movie was entirely either practical sets or Blender.

Speaker: Because the original Backrooms like found footage YouTube video he put out was made 100% in Blender. Which is crazy. Crazy. Because... blender is like that is so time consuming just as a concept yeah to create that place it's just it's it's insane what he's been able to do and it's to me like and and this is again i am not saying i don't want to see um curry barker make something else because i think he's gonna make a great movie too whatever he does next but like i'm really interested in what you could give kane parsons and what they could make with like

Speaker: Their filmmaking ability like that just it feels like there's something there that if you gave them money and time, it would be it would it would be something just worth seeing to see what the hell they shot. Yeah, it's also just like, like prior to, I honestly even want to say like the past.

Speaker: I don't know, six, seven months, like eight like a year maybe. like Horror was really bad for a while. like There was not a lot going on in the horror department.

Speaker: And it's because like you give... like This is what happens, and I think they're finally recognizing like if you give a new director with a good idea a shot, like you have an audience like it's just you're doing these same ideas over and over again like even in the past year there were a couple horror movies i saw that i thought were astonishingly bad like i went and saw a movie called the woman in the yard and i went and saw i saw the ads for that yeah yeah it was awful and i went and saw um what was it primate which was awful heard about that one yep Like, just really bad movies. There was that one, I think it was called Drop, that was, like, the concept of a woman getting airdropped something at a, like, restaurant, and then it got became a horror movie. There was, there's just been a bunch that are just, you leave it, and you're like, that was not good. And, like, there was nothing really standout about that. And it's, because there was ah a big period of time where a lot of horror movies were trying very hard to, like,

Speaker: be niche and have this metaphor on something to do with mental health which in some ways is a great thing and can work really well but when that's what everyone's trying to do it just falls flat repeatedly and It also feels like some of the horror that got made that is actually interesting and good. Like, i don't know if you saw a skidmer rank.

Speaker: I didn't. I haven't seen that yet, but that's like people. i saw you see people complaining that are sort of like the general audience that are like, this isn't even a horror. It's like an art project. And I'm like, good. Make more of those. Like, why do we have to keep making the same stuff?

Speaker: You know? Yeah, I went i saw um not when it was released, but I saw Bring Her Back. um I've heard that's great. Yeah, that one was 2025. But um that one is the same people that made Talk to Me, I believe. Yep, which is a great comedy movie. Which is a great movie. But Bring Her Back was one that I watched...

Speaker: that was a metaphor for mental health and was a metaphor for grief that was genuinely terrifying and really good. But that was like, I think the only horror movie I saw in 2025, maybe other than the black phone too, that I actually liked.

Speaker: Did you, so we knew, I know you mentioned you hadn't seen weapons. Did you see barbarian the other film? Okay. So Zach Crager made both of those. I would put Zach k Crager in this same category, but the guys, you know, the directors we're talking about right now,

Speaker: um of making good horror like yeah weapons i think is a better movie than barbarian but they're both good and he's again doing weird stuff and weapons is a very obvious metaphor too it's a metaphor for like essentially like the grief of like school the loss of school from a school shooting essentially but like it's done so well.

Speaker: And also he's not afraid to not do some batshit stuff in the movie. Yeah. That reminds you that like, this is still a way over the top horror movie, right? Like, I just wish that there were more. i You know, I don't. It's really interesting because, you know, what he's making next is he's making the new Resident Evil movie. Yeah. Which i don't know if you've seen the trailer for it.

Speaker: Looks good. It looks does look good. it does I had did to actually just see the trailer, I think, yesterday. Yeah. And so he's this is the guy who made Weapons of Barbarian making it. And it's like, OK, yeah. Same thing where I'm like, I don't necessarily want Zack Greger or Kane Parsons or Curry Barker to make like Resident Evil or Silent Hill or something.

Speaker: But like. give them something and let them see if they have a new idea. If you're so determined to drag these other things out again, can we like, can we maybe see something different?

Speaker: Yeah. Cause they all have a way of taking a thing that is well known or at least, or in the case of like obsession, isn't like a unique concept, but doing it in a way that is so much more like effective.

Speaker: yeah Because they know what they're going for and they're not afraid to go for it all the way. like I will say about those two movies and and the last one we can talk about briefly. um all three of these movies know what they want to do and they don't shy away from doing that, which is why they work. They don't feel like they got studio noted to death, I guess. in a Yeah.

Speaker: Which i don't know if you agree with that, but I do. And I was just, I was trying to look back at other horror movies I'd seen in the past two years. Like in early 2025, I saw companion, which wasn't great. I think, I mean, obviously sinners was 2025, which you have to give it extreme nod. Yeah. But then i'm trying to look at what else. like i saw um saw Bride, which is, I guess, a little bit more of a thriller. And that was 2026. in 2026, also

Speaker: Ready or not to here I come, which was more of a thriller as well, but also very good. The fun movie. The first one was very, yeah very fun movies. Great Elijah Wood performance. Yeah. Oh, big ups for my my one of my favorite actors, Sean Hadassi. Love him. Love the pit. I mean, I not to talk about today, but Leviticus, I've been raving about that one. So that was on my list, too, that I haven't seen it. my My sister has seen it. And so we will talk about that one at a later point for sure, because the way it was described to me is this it follows but better. So the like tagline, which I've been like repeating as if I'm a salesperson for this movie is is like, it's basically two teenage boys in what would I, what I would refer to as sort of a Bible belty version of Australia.

Speaker: Yes. And yes, it's an Australian movie, right? Yes. And they are haunted by an entity that takes the form of what they desire most, which is each other. And that one is a big commentary on conversion therapy, which is awful and it sucks to watch, but it is so good. So good. I've heard the performances in that are also just also insane. yeah Mia Wasikowska is in that movie. And that is really, yeah, that's one of my favorite actors because Crimson Peak is one of my favorite movies.

Speaker: <unk> and you've got good taste that's a yeah movie great movie and that is i was said to my best friend after that i was like ah that's the least whimsy i've ever seen nia wasikowska like because she had almost no you know because she she played one of the boys mothers who is like a bible belt like yeah she's a real extremist yeah yes yeah but big big recommendation on that one Well, we that one will come up. with Leviticus is is on the list. But you're right. The last couple of years or last year, really, suddenly horror has been good. Yeah, it's literally been in 2026. And not just good, but like...

Speaker: successful financially but also like these are really fucking good movies they're not just like decent movies they're it's not like we're giving them a pass like yeah that was pretty all right for what it was like no when in the past couple years has have have two actors for best supporting actress and best actor one for a horror movie Oh, they never do. They never do. Yeah, I haven't seen the substance. I have heard mixed things from some people, but I know that that got the attention for, oh my I'm blanking on her name, the lead actress, but her performance as a former sex appeal actress now playing Demi Moore. Demi Moore, yeah. I want to see that because I know that her even being considered in that one for an award was such big role. Because is also bodily horror.

Speaker: Yeah, which I have a hard time with. Yeah, that one one i struggle with yeah it gets a little little bit rough. Yeah, points. But yeah, the last thing I want to talk about the last movie, I thought because these were the three these these three directors and these three films, although in the case of the one where i talk about Damon McCarthy made two other films, which I strongly encourage you everybody else to watch.

Speaker: um Damien McCarthy is an Irish film director. hit All of his movies have been an Irish folk horror. The first one caveat is about a guy hiring somebody to hang out with his sister on an island house. The catch is he has to be chained up so he can't enter her room while he's there. That's the whole premise. It's great. The second one is about twin sisters, one of whom has passed away, and her the living twin can um essentially she can see things through objects, and she collects oddities, you know various supernatural items, and she decides to pay a visit to her sister's husband, you know her brother.

Speaker: ah brother-in-law who's about to remarry and things happen. um That's also a great one. The most recent one that actually got attention because both of those movies, Oddity went straight to streaming, I think, outside of Ireland on Prime. I don't even know if Caveat got any kind of release. It is on Prime or it was on streaming, um but they both cost less than fifty k to make. Oh, wow. So he made these for nothing and their casts are are made with like Irish stage actors. For Hocum,

Speaker: They gave him $5 million, dollars which is not a lot. And all I needed it to do was make enough money to be profitable. It made $25 million, I believe, which is nowhere near what was made by Obsession or Backrooms. But this is, in a way, the guy I'm most interested in what he's going to do for a film. Because I know you were messaging me, did you find this the scariest of the three?

Speaker: I think it's terrifying. I think It is really scary. I remember seeing the trailers for this because I, when I went into it, I thought that that weird ass bunny guy was going to be the main, like, thing.

Speaker: which just gets you a couple times nope that jump scare when he popped out yeah got me oh my god what i want to say we don't really need to talk about the plot of hokum it's it's what i want to talk about is more how damian carthy makes these movies because he does a couple of things that i think are so unique one of them is he tells you the jump scares coming and then just drags it out for so long yeah like like the the witch scene when he has the piece of chalk around the circle and she's behind that thin sheet around the canopy around the bed yeah i was like oh my god and yeah yeah adam ah but adam scott is that his name it's adam scott who's yeah phenomenal yeah i i watched um oh god severance and love severance a lot so i was excited to see his performance and he was phenomenal He was like, he did Parks and Rec and he did yeah ah ah another, like I'm struggling to remember the film he did, the TV series he did before that, that was where he was a waiter in Hollywood. i can't remember, but like also very funny, but like he's funny, right? So he knows how to do humor. And like you were saying with Obsession, which is funny, good horror has to have humor in it. You have to, has to be funny at times. Otherwise,

Speaker: the tension doesn't have that opportunity to like snap you back. Right. And he's funny in this, like in a yeah moment. And it works because you completely buy his character i see a lot of people complaining that he's such an a dickhead in this movie and i'm like that's his the whole point he's he's traumatized his character has been traumatized his entire life and can't get out from under it like again we'll spoil the movie spoiler alert like one of the the key plot points is that he tries to kill himself at this hotel And is saved by the bellhop and um the woman who he eventually has to go looking for. i can't remember her name. her The actress is incredible. um What is her name?

Speaker: Fiona. Fiona. So they save him. And then when he gets back to the hotel, having been saved, he learns that she's been missing now for a while, leading him to refuse to basically go home because she was one of the only people he felt like he connected with. And what's really interesting to me about the movie is that like the monster in it, the witch that shows up is really kind of secondary to the horror of, um,

Speaker: Adam Scott's character's own existence, which is that he hates himself. He's responsible unintentionally for having killed his mom, and he's never been able to get over it, and he can't see a world that has any hope or goodness in it, and...

Speaker: because of that he's a miserable shit uh but then because fiona kind of just pushes past all of that with him and refuses to like one take his bullshit but also let him just be ah you know miserable guy and ultimately literally saves his life he's like well i owe it to her i gotta to go find her um along with super sidekick jerry who's the best character movie love jerry um But that's the other thing is like Jerry, who's this like weird woods hobo that drinks like moonshine is also like he also immediately gets Adam Scott's character. Like, yeah, he he doesn't see him. He he sees somebody who's also.

Speaker: you know, like Jerry broken by his past because Jerry unfortunately lost his wife. Right. And it's in this really traumatic way to all of these things are really well done. The thing is the plot's great. The way this movie is shot is fucking crazy. Yeah. I don't understand how he is does this so well. There's a scene. So,

Speaker: You know how there's the the mother's ghost is constantly appearing as like a jump scare in the background of shots or in various places. Yeah. Do you remember the scene where he gets to the honeymoon suite looking for Fiona? He walks from the bathroom and out into the main room and there's a little half wall he has to go behind.

Speaker: right to come out and when he comes out behind it she is literally like behind him like on top of him I jumped out of my seat and like I was like so delighted because I'm like I know exactly how they did that shot she's waiting out of the shot she simply follows Adam Scott as he comes around but he got it perfectly where it feels like it flows an absolute step with everything else and so many things in this movie are like that where it's like I know what's going to happen I know a bad thing's about to occur right um and yet he gets me with it every time when they find her body in the dumbwaiter freaked me out so bad because it caught me so off guard like i knew there was something mal mal is that mal yeah mal he's the ultimate villain of it yeah oh yeah but and that's just that's nice about him is that they don't make anything about the uh the villainy like sympathetic in any way you're happy when he gets he gets dragged to hell at the end you know But it's just like so like, like even the like, not the opening shot, the opening shot is the story he's writing, which that actually I was watching. I could have done without that. I could have done without that. But the whole like the conclusion with that coming back where he decided like the kid decides he decides not to kill a kid and the kid decides not to kill him. Like that one, actually, it made me tear up because it's like thinking about what is his name? Ohm? Is that? Ohm is Adam Scott's character. Yeah. Like his whole arc with his mom, that one, it was, I thought that was a good additive as well. So the scene that got me in was when, so, and it's funny because saw a lot complaints about the plot and I'm making sense. I'm going to, you probably noticed this, but don't recap it for anybody listening in the beginning of the movie or early when he gets to this Irish hotel, his parents stayed at, which is why he's going there is to scatter their ashes. And, he sees this old guy that runs the hotel telling the story about this witch that would occasionally show up and like dispel children and drag them down to hell. Right. Yeah. And the key part that I think many people watching this just weren't paying close enough attention to is he specifically mentions that when they are chained up by the witch, they fall under a kind of trance in which they,

Speaker: succumb to their worst fears or whatever when om gets caught at the end and he is chained along with mal he's sitting there sobbing because he's reliving having killed his mom and all of the guilt and hate for himself that he has and then his mom's ghost is the one that comes over and crouches next to him and says like it's okay but you need to get up now yeah i lost it. I was in tears in the theater. It was such a good performance. Adam Scott is probably the reason why it works so well because he sounds like a little kid. His way of performing that like moment.

Speaker: And it is one of those things that I think McCarthy does well in all three of his films he's made, which is... stuff always circles back with him. Like, if he lays out a bit of information, it's going to become relevant later. It will, like, come back to, like, connect. And that bit right there of, like, him succumbing to his guilt because that's how the witch works, really, like, I thought he stuck that one really well. but Yeah, I agree. Also, just the whole, like...

Speaker: elevator dumbwaiter thing yep was an awful concept to be a viewer on. The tension is out of control. yeah Because the witch is coming for his coattails yeah and he has to he set up this weird police system with that awful looking cherub clock yeah and Just that ah whole like waiting that you're down to a second. And then when he gets to the top and it goes again with that little smirk on its little face and he's like climbing to get out of it. It is awful. And he looks down the tunnel to the dumb leader and she's just looking up. Oh my God.

Speaker: That entire sequence, that whole stretch, it starts with even before that, when he has to pull Fiona's body out of the dumbwaiter. Yeah. Which like, that's when I, I think that's when messaged you.

Speaker: Yes. Were you like waiting for her to like something to happen for her to like grab him or some sort of jump or something like that? So, so was I. And of course he doesn't do that. Yeah. And one of the things that, um, Damian McCarthy is very good at is making corpses incredibly frightening on their own. They don't have to do anything. He does it in all three movies. Um,

Speaker: This one probably most and effectively, I would argue. But it's like, he knows, like, yeah, a dead body is really fucking upsetting. I'm going to play on that. And um you're going to think something's coming. So, like, that whole sequence. He also, you you should know, and you'll get a kick out of this, I think.

Speaker: The little cherub clock guy that, like, swings the bat or whatever it is the golf club. And the the the dolls that are down in the inn that are supposed to be the kids that the witch takes that are like depicted in some kind of weird, creepy diorama. He makes all of those things. Those are all props that McCarthy creates himself.

Speaker: And in if you go back to Caveat and Oddity, which both also trade very heavily on prop design, they're all his creations. I think it's someone else that he works with. So like he didn't go around and try to find a creepy clock or something. He had something made.

Speaker: to look the way he wanted to look. Same with the freaky rabbit on the tv show thing that's all his a creation by him um that's like very much deliberate uh and if you do watch caveat and oddity you'll also notice there's the the motifs he carries over one there's always rabbits somewhere in his movies in some capacity two there's always a crossbow not even joking the crossbow is a thing that shows up in all of these um

Speaker: Three, there is always this in indication of something supernatural that's never explained entirely. He never gives you the whole story. Um...

Speaker: Or all the background. This is probably the witch is probably the most information you get about any entity in his movies. And they don't even give you much. I will say I i was watching this and I was talking with um Costello about this. um ah Because we also we went to see the woman in the yard together. And my one problem that I had with this movie, which I also had with the woman in the yard, is I didn't like how revealed the witch was at the end. Yeah, that you didn' you didn't want them to show you as much. I didn't. I don't want to see.

Speaker: i didn't want to see her face. I've wanted. I liked the veil between him and her when she was in up in the honeymoon suite. Yeah, I the same problem I had with the woman in the yard because she's this veiled woman sitting in the yard. you Who would have got shocking? Yeah. And she takes off the veil at one point, which I don't like because it ruins it, I think.

Speaker: Like it obviously this movie is so good. It can't really be ruined. But I i think that i I would have found her more terrifying if I didn't just see her face and be like, oh yeah, I mean, it's an old woman. She's a witch. Wow.

Speaker: Yeah, there's the ultimate example of that. I can't remember the movie. It's that's one of the possession movies where like the kid is possessed, but then it turns out, surprise, the dad's actually the possessed one or something.

Speaker: It's not The Conjuring, but it's like... Hereditary? Yeah. no it's not hereditary i can't remember but like basically there's like a demon that possesses somebody and like they never show the demon and then he goes into like this like dream space or wherever it is to confront the thing and save his kid and then they cut to the demon and i just started laughing because it's just like yeah a big black and red painted thing and i'm like that's stupid yeah i don't want to see it yeah i don't show me that the scarier part is how the characters are affected like it's Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you're going to show something like to go back to back rooms, it has to be something that's distorted in the way that pirate Clark's like entity monster is like, yeah, because because it needs to look.

Speaker: You either didn't need to make it look enough like something, you know, that it's upsetting to see it. Or if it's going be something scary like a witch, you need to show it with as little clarity as you can while still giving the basic outline of what it is. Yeah, which is why I think I think the like the smile movies and the truth or dare movies work because.

Speaker: it's you're looking at a person but they are wrong there's something wrong yes yeah it's the distortion you have to have a little distortion in there and like without that yeah there's only there's an upward limit as to how scary something could be before you're just kind of turning them into a slasher monster which are not really meant to be scary they're just meant to be a threat and that's fine like the I mean if those are the kinds of movies you like I think the original Halloween is a masterpiece like there's still some good ones but those also didn't show you much right like yeah You can't show the whole monster unless your monster design is going to be something truly like unique and, like ah like you said, otherworldly, right? Which I think Clark meets that.

Speaker: And then if you're not going to that, to go back to Obsession, you've got to do what they do with Nikki, which is let the actress just... portray the versions of that thing all herself, right? Yeah. Find someone good enough to do all that.

Speaker: And then you don't need a quote unquote monster or some kind of effect. She can do it just on her own. Right. But yeah, But anyway, Burke, we've been talking for like an hour and a half. So I feel like I've kept enough of your time. um I will say one other suggestion, because I know we've been throwing horror suggestions back and forth that I would make for you and for the audience, too, is if no one has seen The Empty Man, I would argue that is one of the like...

Speaker: earlier versions of, oh, wait, horror is getting good now. um I would go in with no expectations. it's It's a weird one. it's It's a very bizarre horror film in the sense that it's not... From the title and from the way it was advertised, it seems like it's a slasher thing, right? Like it's a...

Speaker: There's a spookums that's going to come and kill everybody because they blew a whistle or some stupid crap. um That's not what it is. And I would highly recommend people check it out because it is very, very good and very kind of unsettling.

Speaker: um But before we go, do you have anything you want to share, plug or for people to catch stuff? You make art. You did the cover art for one of my books and for this podcast. You're writing books.

Speaker: What else is going on? Not much, really. i've i work three jobs right now. I'm not really getting up to much creatively. But yeah, that's all.

Speaker: But you do have plans. you had you've you've You've written some ideas down. You've got stuff you're probably going to pursue. Yes. but Well, and we' we'll also definitely have you back because I think i think we'll have to talk about Leviticus. I'll have to watch it.

Speaker: Yeah. But I know my sister really wants to discuss it because... um She, i I was a fan of it follows. I know a lot of people have gone sour on that movie later.

Speaker: um she was not and she thought that Leviticus was if you did that movie correctly so we'll definitely have to have that conversation 100% yeah but anyway thank you for coming on and doing this us people can email the podcast at the I think you should pod at gmail.com if you want to send us topics or ideas we've actually gotten a few emails already I have to go through them because now there's probably stuff I have to read or watch um but yeah that's episode thanks Burke for coming on of course thanks for having me