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This week, we're looking at a virtually unknown film and that's 2018's Freaks. Pete Abeyta of the Middle Class Film Class Podcast joins Perry to discuss this excellent film that's a textbook example of how you can do a whole lot on a very limited budget.
Listen to Pete on the Middle Class Film Class Podcast.
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Transcript
The Dangers of Rule-Breaking
00:00:30
Speaker
What are you doing? Someone could have seen you. You love the punishment for breaking the rules. No, Dad! You opened the door. You almost got us killed. You have to stay hidden. So when? This is not a game. Did you go outside? No. You can never lie to me. I'm not lying. You want to know what's in an ice cream truck? Frozen kid bodies.
00:00:58
Speaker
Come inside. Taste any flavor you want. All right, somebody call me. Eddie, are you okay? What happened? You use the term freaks. Any freaks who are running loose are illegal. You better get away from my house.
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:01:41
Speaker
your role. Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. I'm your host Perry Constantine and welcoming a new guest today and that's PETA Beta. Pete, how you doing today? Hey Perry, I'm doing good. How are you?
00:01:51
Speaker
I'm doing pretty good too. We're just talking off mic. And even though these episodes are being recorded a few months in advance, I just had a new baby born yesterday. So we're- Yeah, that's exciting. Yeah, yeah. We got two now. We got a complete set. So people are used to hearing my daughter in the background who listened to the show. And so now they'll be hearing my son too in the background.
00:02:15
Speaker
Ah, boy and a girl too, a matching set, or I should say a complete set. A complete set, yeah. Anyway, before we jump into today's discussion, why don't you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself?
PETA Beta's Background and Passion
00:02:30
Speaker
OK, so I'm I fix cars by day. That's my that's my day job. But I'm a I'm a kind of a freak for movies. I watch a ton and I probably watch last year I watched about 530 or so movies. And the the the podcast that I have is with two of my buddies, good close friends, Joseph and Tyler. It's called Middle Class Film Class. It's anywhere you're listening to this show, you can listen to that show to our show.
00:02:58
Speaker
And what makes our our movie show a little different than other podcasts out there is that we record it live to tape like it's a kind of like a morning talk show sort of thing. So there's segments, there's intro music, there's call in guests. We just recently had the director of Hot Seat calling to the show this past weekend. James. Yeah, James James Colin Brissak and
00:03:21
Speaker
It's a lot
Podcast Format and Fan Interaction
00:03:22
Speaker
of fun. We try to keep it funny and entertaining and every Monday it's a gab and chatter. We call it gab and chatter. It's like a news weekly review or weekly news segments that we all bring to the show. Sometimes we'll do trivia. Sometimes we'll just play games.
00:03:37
Speaker
And then we give streaming pics for the listeners from all three of us. And then on Wednesdays, it's one deep dive review into whatever movie we feel like watching chosen at random. And we do a lot of fan interaction and fan pics for that, too. So it's a lot of fun. You should check it out if you're into movies, which I'm sure you are. Yeah, I imagine most people are.
Superhero Movies and the MCU
00:03:57
Speaker
So this this is specifically about superhero movies. So what kind of history do you have with superhero movies or superheroes in general?
00:04:07
Speaker
I was never a comic book guy as a kid. I never bought and actually read comic books. All that being said, I'm also not much of a book guy in general.
00:04:18
Speaker
I'm I think the last the last book I read was Fight Club and I did it for a challenge for the show, which I've since abandoned. I was going to read 12 books this year and I got into two and I started doing interview with a vampire and hit a wall and I was like, this is rough. Yeah. Yeah. And Anne Rice, I'm not not really a big fan. I love the movie, but I could not get into any of her books.
00:04:44
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of people said the same thing and I honestly the last time I read a full complete novel was probably 15 years ago. So I
Storytelling in Hollywood vs. 'Freaks'
00:04:53
Speaker
don't need I don't do a lot of whole academic sort of stuff. I work on cars and kind of a meathead in that aspect. But as far as comic books go, the movies, there's such a great.
00:05:05
Speaker
a broad spectrum of comic book superhero movies that it's it's not I don't want to say it's unfortunate but what most people look at when they think of a comic book movie is MCU you know sometimes DC DC EU or whatever as well but I could I appreciate those movies I like them
00:05:24
Speaker
I like where Sony started with it with, you know, the spot this thus the Raimi series of Spider-Man. And I do like some of the earlier Marvel stuff. It's become oversaturated to the point where I just stopped caring as much anymore. So I just this last week watched Eternals and the new Doctor Strange. And they were good. There were some things that I liked about it and some things I really just thought the writing was kind of
00:05:49
Speaker
Kind of a mess and to be for full disclosure. I still haven't seen in infinity war or endgame. So that's. You might have been a little bit of lost with at least Doctor Strange with that.
00:06:02
Speaker
A little bit, yeah. The only series I've watched on the Disney Plus extended universe has been The Mandalorian. So it's not even in the Marvel universe. That's just the only one that I've seen. But if it's a movie that I don't really care about or a series I don't really care about, I don't mind reading full synopses and spoilers and whatnot. If it's something I'm going to go into and I'm like, ooh, I want to go see the new Robert Eggers movie, The Northman.
00:06:28
Speaker
I didn't see a single trailer for that before I went into it. So people are like, oh my gosh, when he catches the spear and throws it back at the guy, that's so cool. And I got to experience that, you know, fresh with a Marvel stuff. I've read all about WandaVision and how that kind of arc went. And so I was a little bit lost in the Doctor Strange movie, but I was just trying to enjoy a Sam Raimi movie, you know, which is, I love him as a director.
Adapting Novels to Screen
00:06:54
Speaker
He's so fun.
00:06:54
Speaker
Yeah, well, that's actually a nice transition into into what we're talking about today, because, you know, I mean, I love the Marvel movies. But I also I also get your points. And also what you said about about reading stuff, too, is that I. I'll use this as a as a comparison point is I never read The Lord of the Rings books and
00:07:17
Speaker
back in college and for years, one of my best friends would always tell me, he's like, oh, you gotta read the books, you gotta read the books. So finally I bought like the trilogy and I started and I took me forever to get through that first book just because I could not get into Tolkien style or whatever. And then not long after that,
00:07:35
Speaker
my buddy rewatched the movies and he came to me, he's like, and then he reread the book and he said to me, he's like, yeah, I just reread the book. And he's like, you know what? You're fine with just the movies. You can skip the books. I'm giving you a pass. Yeah. And I feel like it's, I feel like you can say the same thing with comics. Like there's just, there, I mean, I love the comics. I do a companion show to this where we review comics, but there is just so much stuff in there. And I can totally get people who,
00:08:02
Speaker
find it hard to dive into that. I think you got to be at the right age to kind of let it catch you and have that motivation, just kind of like sit through stuff that you don't understand or just seek out all this stuff. When you get older, it becomes a lot harder to do that stuff.
Indie Films and Jim Cummings
00:08:20
Speaker
Yeah, plus there's only so many ways that you can draw your attention. It's like, do I want to dedicate just entire seasons worth of this, you know, Marvel extended TV series or streaming series is, or do I want to watch, you know, 10 new indie movies?
00:08:36
Speaker
And that's kind of where my heart lies, honestly, is more in the obscure sort of dramas and interesting stuff. Like the movie we're going to talk about today is completely under the radar, ultra low budget, and it's like a really fresh idea that's like, ooh, this is cool. And I never heard word one about it or anybody do a review about it. And I'm thinking, this is a travesty.
00:08:58
Speaker
when you have some content creators that are making these really cool stuff for really low budget, do you know anything about Jim Covington? He's a new filmmaker. Not really, no, I don't think I've heard, the name sounds kind of familiar, but. I'm sorry, Jim Cummings, I'm sorry, not Covington. He did Wolf of Snowa Hollow and Thunder Road and, gosh, what was the other one? The beta test most recently. Okay, no, I haven't heard of any of those.
00:09:24
Speaker
He's just like a guy that just produces stuff and is really a champion of indie film and he's just like make cool stuff with your friends, put it on the internet, somebody will notice if it's good and then you can do bigger stuff for bigger people. And I like that aspect of film and Joseph is one of the hosts of our show. He works for like a high-end advertising company so he shoots high-end production, nice camera, cinema quality cameras.
00:09:50
Speaker
And we always talk about little projects we're going to do and we're kind of in the middle of planning our first horror short to shoot together.
Initial Thoughts on 'Freaks'
00:09:58
Speaker
And it's kind of exciting just because it's like, ooh, we can, I've been watching movies my whole life. You know, I know what I think looks cool. Let's see if we can get it on in front of the lens, you know.
00:10:07
Speaker
Yeah, having done that in the whole student film thing when I was in university, definitely it's a really fun experience, I will say that. And you learn a lot about what kind of people in your life you can count on, which ones you can't as well. Yeah, I'm sure. Especially when you're a university age.
00:10:26
Speaker
Oh, yeah, that's a lot harder to find reliable people in your 20s. Yeah, definitely, definitely. But yeah, and I get all that, too. And I'm an indie creator myself. I, you know, I'm an independent novelist. So totally. Yeah. So I totally understand all that, too. And as much as I love the Marvel movies, it is also kind of cool to see something
00:10:47
Speaker
like this that takes the superhero concept and and plays with it a little bit. And so what we're talking about today is 2018 freaks, which speaking about what you said, when you said that nobody was even talking about this, I had never even heard of this movie until you suggested it for. Oh, cool. Yeah. So I came into this completely, completely blind and and
00:11:14
Speaker
And it was, I really liked it. I really enjoyed what I saw. Yeah. It was like, when I read the premise and stuff, I'm like, okay, it seems interesting. But I wasn't, I didn't really know what to expect. I wasn't sure whether or not I'd like it. But I was really impressed with what they did with it, especially with how small scale it was and how much they were able to do with so little.
Complexity and Storytelling Techniques
00:11:40
Speaker
Yeah, the really interesting thing I think about the story is that the story is told in a really non-traditional Hollywood way where the first act, the whole first third of the movie, you're just like, what is going on? You know, there's an energy bubble that happens from time to time and you're not sure about it.
00:11:58
Speaker
you know it's like this inside the house just looks like a just like a meth house and and you're like is is this guy a criminal is this is he uh is he abusive to his daughter he does he seems like he loves his daughter and you just don't know about any of it and they they really really
00:12:14
Speaker
just give you these little breadcrumbs along the way until you see the full picture. And you're like, there's very one of my biggest pet peeves about like mainstream Hollywood movies is the really clunky exposition is out. And it's like, oh, there's an exposition dump. It's like two people talking to each other. And it's like, Jim, you're my brother. When our mom died, I promised I'd never leave you. Like, okay.
00:12:37
Speaker
There's got to be a better way to say that. So with this, there's really only like one or two lines of dialogue that are like that in this and I feel like it's necessary but to your point though that the scope is really small and I read, I don't know how true this is but I read that the writers, it's a writer-director duo and I read that they did the thing with about $2,000 worth of investment and the rest of it, they just paid with their own
Production and Release of 'Freaks'
00:13:03
Speaker
money.
00:13:03
Speaker
Oh, wow. I mean, I believe it because there's not a whole lot that they really, I mean, imagine that, you know, I totally believe that they did. They had a very small budget on this because it does. It's not a movie that looks like it really needed a whole. Yeah. And that's just that's a total box office. But speaking of how budgetary stuff. Yeah. It only grossed about three hundred and fifty thousand dollars total. Yeah. Yeah.
00:13:29
Speaker
Yeah, I want to say it was released at the Toronto Film Festival or maybe it was, I want to say it was because they shot it. Yeah, Toronto International Film Festival. And it also got released on iTunes and it became, in December 2019, yeah, it became, it topped the charts, the best selling independent film on iTunes.
00:13:50
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting because it was released in theaters at the, in the, what's it called, the circuit, like Toronto, the film festival circuit in 2018, but it never even made it into theaters until 2019, so. Right, yeah. Yeah, and it was released in September 2019 in US and Canada, and then got VOD and DVD releases in December.
00:14:16
Speaker
of that year. And that's how I found it. I got it. I had a DVD at the local rental store here. Oh, cool, which I was kind of surprised. I, you know, after reading that, I wasn't expecting to be able to find it that easily, but look on their website and I'm in Japan.
00:14:31
Speaker
Oh, OK. Yeah. I was going to say, oh, you could just do you could just do Netflix. But yeah, I have the same over
Themes and Superhuman Abilities
00:14:37
Speaker
there. I thought about that. But yeah, Netflix here. I mean, I use a VPN too, but I wasn't quite sure. And this was it was there. I was at the video store anyway. So I just figured it up. Yeah. But yeah. And one of the things I liked about it too is it really does a great job of.
00:14:51
Speaker
making you feel like you're watching, you're experiencing it along with Chloe, the same character in the movie. Like it's all very much told through her eyes. And so as she learned stuff is when we learned stuff. And I thought that was a really good way of doing it. We don't really get, so, and a lot of stuff is just, it's really well executed. And like the way, like you said about her father, we're like, not sure if he's abusive and not sure if he really loves her and all this kind of stuff.
00:15:21
Speaker
because you get the sense that Chloe's going through those exact same emotions in those moments, too. Yeah, yeah. And I think that the writing, I read a lot about the production of this because it seems it's such a cool project. And
00:15:38
Speaker
The two filmmakers, I gotta say their names. One of them's got a real tough to say last name. Zach Lepofsky. Zach Lepofsky and Adam B. Stein are both wrote it and directed it together. And I have to commend like the overall vision because the way that they had to shoot this was almost like you need to reveal enough to the audience, but not too much. And they shot it, what they said is they shot it like they're making a Pixar movie where
00:16:08
Speaker
They would just get a ton of coverage the edit a rough version of an even before they shot the video they did a dry run with iphones in with like just their friends acting out the whole length of the movie. And then edited a rough cut in their house for basically for zero dollars because they were just using their own stuff.
00:16:24
Speaker
But when they was all done, they edited a rough cut and they spent months doing test screenings for just friends and family. No industry people, just friends and family and saying, does it make sense here? You know, is a real too clunky here? You know, is it too confusing if we do this? And
00:16:40
Speaker
The only two named people that you recognize is they're Bruce Dern and Emil Hirsch, which are also Grace Park, too. I'd argue for her spark. I never I never seen her before. Oh, she was in she was in Battlestar Galactica, the new one. And she was also in the new Hawaii Five-O. And I think she was also in the The Last Jedi. I think she had a small part at the beginning of that. She was Rose's. I think I'm pretty sure she played Rose's sister who dies at the beginning of that.
00:17:07
Speaker
Yeah, there's – I mean the – every time you – if you look through like the actual catalog of most of the actors and actresses, there's – most of them are pretty established. The only two people that I'd note – like notice right off the bat was, you know, Dern and Hirsch. And they crushed it but, you know, the filmmakers said they only had about three, four days with each one of them. So they had to shoot their stuff but they wrote into their contract.
00:17:30
Speaker
that they would have two days additional pickup days if they needed them to come back. So they're like, we're going to get everything we want and ideally get it in one shot. But the way we're editing this together, we know that there's inherently going to be some additional scenes that they're going to have to do so.
00:17:46
Speaker
I don't know. I felt the whole I thought the whole project was great. And the world that they build in this, this is just one small story in the world. I would love to see an expansion on this. You know, that's one thing I was thinking about. And I kind of liken it to there's this movie we covered fairly recently on the show called Push from like the the aughts with with Chris Evans. I'm not sure if you ever saw that.
00:18:12
Speaker
I, you know, I actually what a weird coincidence. I just heard about that movie today. Oh, OK. Added it to my list because it's streaming on Hulu, I think. Yeah, we covered on the podcast. It was on a fairly recent episode. And and it's kind of similar to this in that it gives you this really intriguing world. And and it tells you like this one small story in the world. One of the things that but I think what this movie did better is I think the story is much more rewarding in this movie as opposed to in push.
00:18:41
Speaker
where it felt like they had this really great world, but they didn't really have a story that really kind of fit as well in it, that really kind of appealed as much of the world building. Yeah. Wasn't it like a heist ultimately or something?
00:18:54
Speaker
in a way kind of a little bit more complicated than that. But it had some good performances like you had Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning in it. It's worth a watch. It just wasn't as good as the premise made it seem. Like I wanted to see more stories about that world or at least a better story about that world. Whereas this one, the story is really good in this and I was captivated from beginning to end. But at the same time, I'm also so curious about seeing more of that world that they're in.
00:19:25
Speaker
Yeah, they leave it open ended at the end of the story that there could be something between the mother and the daughter. There could be something between the government and this like, what do they call it? Modic Mountain or something like that? Yeah. And it just seems like it's right for a sequel. It would be it would be really cool to see that and I know that it was
00:19:47
Speaker
Or even like, I think instead of a, like even like a TV series or something like a Netflix series or something like that would be, cause there's just, I think of, cause you think about something like Heroes, which had all this, I like, I love the first season, but after that,
Expanding the 'Freaks' Universe
00:20:03
Speaker
it just kind of like. That's all I've seen. Okay. Maybe more seasons.
00:20:06
Speaker
Yeah, you don't want to watch the rest. But but that's one of the things it's like it had it had so much potential that was just kind of like squander. And I think something like this. And this is even a more intriguing world than that was. And I think there's so much you could do with that in a TV series. Yeah, I think.
00:20:28
Speaker
If the people who are listening to this right now, I know we really haven't given a whole lot of the plot about this. And I think that's probably important if I really don't want to go into like spoilers about this or like really the big reveal about it because it is so rewarding to see this relationship between father and daughter and then the relationship with the father and the old man. And eventually you find out what that really is.
00:20:55
Speaker
the universe they live in is it feels so lived in and I like the fact that it gives you just a little bit at a time because it makes it feel that much more rewarding when you're like oh that's what's happening here oh this whole time that's why the house looks like that and that's why that is always tired and blah blah blah but
00:21:15
Speaker
What was I going to say? The even though it looks like an indie low kind of an indie low budget movie at times, like you see the kind of the connector, like almost like a GoPro shot on the side of the ice cream truck. There's a lot of interesting stuff going on, but you can tell it's pretty low budget. But for the most part, all of the directing and the performances done by the people, you completely forgive it. And the main girl, she's seven years old. Her name is Lexi Kolker.
00:21:44
Speaker
Without her, the movie sucks. Yeah, I was thinking I was so surprised because like this entire movie, basically, it rests almost 100 percent on her shoulders and they're not very big shoulders. And for her to carry her to carry that the weight of this entire movie on them and she she does it. She really manages to carry it all the way through. I was really impressed by her. I don't think I've been this impressed with a young actress since
00:22:14
Speaker
There's a Korean movie called Phone. I'm not sure it's a, the story itself is not that great, but one of the greatest things about it is the little girl who's axed in that movie. And she just kind of like stole the whole show. And I got the same sense from Lexi Kolker in this. Like she just complete, like you said, without her, this movie does not work. And you have to get, if you had a lesser actress, an actress who wasn't as talented as she is, like they could not have sold this movie.
00:22:42
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's it's a testament to the filmmakers finding the right person for that. And I read an interview between the two of them and they basically said that they did have it written for a young girl originally, but they were open to a young boy or maybe a little bit younger, maybe a little bit older, as long as they could find the right person. And they said, if we can't find the right person, we're not even going to make the movie. And they did a dozen or so, or I think I want to say a couple dozen or close to 30 auditions with young talent and found the right person. And they knew right away.
00:23:13
Speaker
And now I'm not sure if you know about this. I'm not sure if you know about this, but it says here in one of the Hollywood reporters review called Colker's performance semi improvised. I'm not sure if you know anything about that.
00:23:28
Speaker
I didn't I didn't read a whole
Casting and Performance Impact
00:23:30
Speaker
lot about the actual like set like day to day stuff but I do know that she they shot most of it during the summer so they could get a full eight hours with her and they only had her for I want to say two weeks because
00:23:45
Speaker
every single shot that her face wasn't in it, they were shooting around her just because child actors, you got eight hours and that's it. It's hard out. I don't know about the improves. If that's if that's the case, if it's mostly improved, that's even more impressive. Yeah, yeah, I couldn't find anything else about it other than that one reviewer. So I'm not sure if that's just something he picked up on or if that's if he knew something about it that
00:24:07
Speaker
I can't find verified, but whatever the case, it's a really impressive performance. Also, Emil Hirsch, I was watching this movie and throughout the entire movie, I'm like, I know this guy. I couldn't place him and then afterwards I looked up. Speed Racer. Yeah, it's Speed Racer. I'm like, holy shit. Which makes me feel like 10 times older than I am.
00:24:32
Speaker
I love Speed Racer. That's a guilty pleasure that I'm not guilty about. It's such an underrated movie. I mean, it's so much better than a lot of people give it credit for.
00:24:42
Speaker
Yeah, they get the that that psychotropic, you know, acid flash feel and they're just like, OK, this this stinks. But it's it's really is greater than the sum of its parts, I think. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, he he was he was amazing. And I thought he did a really good job. And, you know, being a father myself, like I could relate so much to to his performance and like
00:25:03
Speaker
Like the scene when, you know, she tells him she's like, you know, I hate you and all this kind of stuff. Like I felt that because I'm just like thinking about I'm looking at my daughter. Well, well, well, well, Chloe is saying that stuff. And I'm just like, oh, she's going to say that to me one day. That's going to make me sad what she does. Oh, it's heartbreaking. All the all the like emotional like journey that the Chloe, the character of Chloe goes on. It's like, unfortunately, the father is he's the one who's taking all of the brunt of her punishment.
00:25:32
Speaker
And I know that he signed up for that and he's ready to sacrifice for his daughter. And he says as much in the movie. But gosh, like I don't I don't love you. I wish you weren't my dad. You know, you know, let me out or I'm going to kill you. You're like, oh, my gosh, she's turned into a monster. And, you know, part of it, there is a scene in it where essentially the the ADF agent says,
00:25:58
Speaker
You know, if we find them, but we don't believe that they're born inherently evil. So if we were to find them early and nurture them, they could be such a powerful force on our side. And in my head, I was thinking, yeah, I guess that's better than just exterminating them. But then when you see the girl.
00:26:15
Speaker
going down that path. I'm like, maybe she is evil. Well, yeah, that's that's one of the things I like about it. I don't know. Well, that's what I liked about it is that it's not it's very gray, this movie. And I'm not talking in terms of like actual color. I mean, just like the the way they play with those types of ideas. It's not black and white, right? It's not just like there's this there's this evil government agency and this and this family just trying to to make it through. But it's it's much more complex, like that scene when they're with the and I'm going to
00:26:45
Speaker
I'm going to try my hardest not to spoil this because like you said, I think this is a movie that it really rewards you if you go into it knowing nothing about it. Yeah. And if you're listening to this right now, you really should just pause this. Go rent it for three bucks on Amazon or if or if you're on if you're in the States, it's streaming on Amazon Prime, Netflix, and I think it's on Canopy and Hulu. It's it's not Hulu.
00:27:11
Speaker
What's the one to be? It's it's it's everywhere. So go go watch and finish this later. Yeah. Yeah. I will say that. So, yeah. Fair, fair spoiler warning. Like I'm probably going to have to probably going to go into spoiler territory here because it's hard to talk about some of this stuff in here without going into sport because there's a lot of stuff there.
Critical Reception of 'Freaks'
00:27:29
Speaker
But so, you know, three to one spoiler warning done. OK. When she goes to that, when they go to that family and she's
00:27:41
Speaker
using her powers on the mother. It's like, it's just, it's freaking terrifying, right? And it's just like, and just like in a second, she goes from being this cute, sweet little girl to being just a fuck, like he said, a fucking monster.
00:27:58
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, there's a number of moments when you start to reveal who she really is. And there's the scene when the ADF agent is at the front door with the neighbor. And it's weird because the powers of Chloe are not fully defined. Like she has this kind of, it's not a teleport ability, but it's like a
00:28:20
Speaker
telepathic you mean well she's she like she sees other people in her room or in her closet but in reality it's Chloe going to them right so it's like is and but she's not physically there i guess she's just telepathically i think it's like an astral projection type thing is
00:28:38
Speaker
There's that and then she has the ability to control people's minds and force them to do things and she can, at the beginning, she has to like say it out loud before it happens and then eventually it's like, nope, now I'm just gonna look at you and the agent at the front doorstep with the red-headed neighbor and he stabs her in the eye, you're watching it and you're like, oh my god, she's done it and then the gun comes up to the guy's head and you know, it pulls away but that same maneuver is paid off later in the movie and it's,
00:29:06
Speaker
Oh, it's rough. It is. Yeah. Well, and then she eventually gets to the point where she doesn't even have to look at the person like when she controls that that guy at Matic Mountain, she's able to do that, you know, completely from a distance. That was that was pretty cute and funny to see that big low. Oh, it's OK, Mommy. I'm going to help you. Let me get you out of here, Mommy. But yes. And, you know, talking about that scene with the the ADF agent to
00:29:35
Speaker
And, you know, I found myself watching those scenes and I'm just like, you know, the first time when we see a Grace Parks character in that interview. And she's saying that, you know, well, you know, I agree with, you know, she's trying to- Relocation and termination. Right. And she says that so casually. And you're just like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's just back up a second. You're talking about termination. And in the moment, you're like, that is fucking terrifying. But then you see what Chloe's doing and you're just like,
00:30:06
Speaker
I don't know. Yeah, it turns into a thing. It's almost like, you know, there's this huge debate about, you know, do you take if a person is born with a as a sexual deviant, you know, is, is a child predator, right? They're born that way. It's not their fault. They're born that way. But you can't have that person in your society. Right, right.
00:30:26
Speaker
You know, it's like putting down a rabbit dog almost at that point. And in this situation, it's like, yeah, it's a rabbit dog that could literally destroy an entire city in a heartbeat. But they're still human. Yeah. So another interesting fact about the production of the movie is the the two filmmakers, they were writing this in 2016.
00:30:46
Speaker
Right when Trump had just been elected to office and there was a lot of like a focus on immigrants and taking away people's rights and a lot of talk about what happens next with this people. And the writers, they were…
00:31:04
Speaker
firmly grounding this in an alternate reality. And they realized that it was becoming more and more like a reality. And they're like, you know, these people are being targeted for nothing that they've personally done. And they're just trying to live a better life. And that's the same thing with these freaks, with these abnormals, as she calls them.
00:31:21
Speaker
So the other fun fact about the production is that when Emil Hirsch signed on, he was only signed on for like, he only agreed to do it five days before they started production, before they started rolling. Oh, wow. And he was like, why is nobody cast for this? This script is great. This is awesome. Yeah. And he had just had his first child. So he was fresh off his first child in this emotional resonance with the character Chloe really wanted for him, which I think helped seal the deal.
00:31:48
Speaker
Oh yeah, absolutely. I read somewhere in the research for this episode that he had just become a dad before he made this. And I totally get that. Like even just, you know, my second child is being born yesterday when I watched this movie. And it's just like, yeah, it's just, it's, so I was like in the perfect spot to watch this movie. Cause I, you know, just had a kid, just had a second kid. And just like having that experience, it's just, I,
00:32:16
Speaker
I liken it a lot to Man of Steel, Jonathan Kent's reaction.
00:32:23
Speaker
You know, now I criticize that movie because it's a different kind of story. Like Jonathan Kent, the whole purpose is he's supposed to be better than all of us. So when you have Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent saying like, oh, no, no, hide who you are. Don't telling that to Superman. That's kind of like, it's the antithesis of what that character is supposed to do. Whereas, but it's still at the same time, you know, just looking at it from father's perspective, I get it.
00:32:48
Speaker
I totally get what Emil Hersh's character is doing here, what Henry is doing in this movie and why he's going to these extreme lengths because I found myself thinking like, well, if that was my daughter, what would I be doing? Yeah. Yeah, I think the only the only thing that didn't make sense as far as character motivation for me in this was that he would have the opportunity
00:33:07
Speaker
Like I wouldn't stay in that same spot for a year at a time. You have the ability to time bubble and you could travel basically unnoticed to another squatter's house or another spot or a safe house or somebody that you know or just in the wilderness or whatever. You could take all the time you want to build a nice tree house and get all the food you want and it's like you shouldn't have that much exposure if you have a power like that.
00:33:34
Speaker
Then you don't have to be in the middle of a city having a time bubble for 24 hours a day, draining you of all your energy and basically putting on the edge of sleep deprivation for your life. Right. Exactly. Well, what's the end game for her? You know, keep her there forever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I also had I wasn't quite sure of like how the.
Narrative Perspectives and Challenges
00:33:53
Speaker
The time bubble actually worked because I wasn't quite sure if they were saying because I read on Wikipedia, they said that he was slowing time outside the house, which, as opposed to I think it would have made more sense if he was accelerating time inside the house so I found that to be a little bit confusing.
00:34:11
Speaker
I think that that's – I think the easy explanation is that it slows down time outside of the bubble, but I don't think that that would be possible because that would be literally the entire world. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. I'm like, that seems like a massive feat of- Yeah, I know. You would have to basically accelerate everything inside so you essentially turn into a temporary version of like the flash. Right. Yeah.
00:34:31
Speaker
That leads to its own questions is is is the does the flash have a short lifespan? Yeah, but it actually made it made more sense, too, because like when he's reading the the picture books to her and stuff like that and talking about like, you know, A is for Apple and all that. I'm just like, wait a minute. She's seven years old. This seems a little bit below her where she should be. But if if he's accelerating time within the bubble, it makes a lot more sense that way.
00:34:55
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that is an interesting aspect of it. The first time that Chloe sees her mom in that astral projection, the mom doesn't recognize her because in her mind, it's been six months. So the baby's a six month old baby, right? Or a nine month old or however long it's been. And she's now seven years old. And she's like, holy shit, that's my daughter. Yeah, it takes her a second to realize it. But when she gets there, it's like, OK, now it's almost like that, like old The M. Night Shyamalan movie.
00:35:22
Speaker
Right. Well, we're talking about how they they also, you know, play with your perception of what's going on, because I was sitting there thinking like, wait, is the mother talking to her from the past? Like I was that was kind of what my thinking was going through. I thought that the first time too. Yeah. And yeah, so I thought that was a it was a really interesting way to kind of play around with that.
00:35:39
Speaker
Also, Bruce Dern in this movie, I thought he was, he's another one who did a really good job. Because right from the start, I'm watching this, I'm like, oh, that's the bad guy. But then as it goes on, it's just like slowly, a little bit more, you're being revealed. I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, maybe he's not the bad guy. And I found myself really kind of going back and forth and questioning that.
00:36:01
Speaker
Yeah, I tried to put myself in the mind frame of the first time I watched it because I watched it with my girlfriend. It was just a blind watch and I don't even know where I found this. I had to have been a movie podcast. I listened to like way too many movie podcasts. So my movie watch list is constantly growing and very rarely shrinking. Yeah, I know that. Yeah, I picked it up and watched it and I remember thinking the same thing. I was like,
00:36:28
Speaker
Oh, this creep. Oh, she's in the ice cream truck with a creep. And that's it for her. She's gone. She's going to be murdered by this old man. And it's way more complicated than that. And the movie, the way it unravels slowly over the course, it's almost like you don't even get most of the story until the beginning of the third act. And that's the criticism that I understand. The movie that I really enjoy that I'm like, how can you not like this? I like to read the bad reviews.
00:36:58
Speaker
And this has got about 86 to 88% on Rotten Tomatoes between both categories. And I popped into the bad review section. And most of them are essentially just saying, you know, out with it. Tell us the story why, you know, it takes half the movie just to get into it, which I'm okay with that. Yeah, I mean, normally, I would normally I would be sympathetic to those reviews in most cases. But here's the thing, it does take a while for the story to unravel, but
00:37:27
Speaker
It never feels like it's wasting your time though. So I didn't mind that. I didn't mind that mystery because it kept me engaged the whole time. Like it's one thing if you're watching a movie and it's just like, oh, for fuck's sake, get on with it already. But I never felt that at all in this movie.
00:37:42
Speaker
Yeah, I think the characters are compelling enough to wear it even if there is no supernatural aspect to it and you don't see that reveal. You still are happy to see Chloe and her dad figuring out their shit together. I like that and it doesn't take very long until you get the creepy antagonist, the red herring antagonist of Bruce Dern where you're like,
00:38:05
Speaker
I mean, there's just enough interesting stuff that happens. You don't go five minutes before you get the neighbor girl forcing the neighbor girl to come over to give the ice cream. And then and then you get Bruce Dern and you see him and you're like, oh, that guy's creepy. And then she's upstairs on the neighbor girls in the closet. And you're like, what? Yeah, yeah. Every five minutes, you get something more to entice you to keep watching. And like the slumber party thing, I thought that was a nightmare she was having or something. And then later you find out, no, she was at my slumber bar. I'm like, wait, what?
00:38:31
Speaker
Yeah, at first I thought she was doing the Outer Limits thing where the kid grabs the screen and brings whatever it is to him and I thought that's what it was. She was teleporting her neighbor into her closet with her and then it was the opposite.
00:38:49
Speaker
astral projecting into her room. And the rules of that are a little bit loosey-goosey. Sometimes the person in the room can see her. Sometimes they can't, which is fine.
Government Themes in 'Freaks'
00:39:00
Speaker
It doesn't have to be 100% fleshed out. It's like, oh, this is cool. This is cool enough.
00:39:10
Speaker
If those characters you didn't care about and there was just some bratty girl when it was just some guy who was I don't know you just didn't if they couldn't pull off those performances then yeah that first half of the movie might feel like a slog but I was bought in from the beginning.
00:39:24
Speaker
I was too, yeah. I had no problem with that slow reveal over time because the characters are so engaging and talking about expectations going into this movie, if you hadn't recommended it for this podcast and I just started watching this cold, I wouldn't even predict a sci-fi or supernatural angle at all in the beginning of it. Because it just seems like this is just some paranoid guy who's like overprotective of his daughter.
00:39:53
Speaker
Oh, yeah, for sure. Once once you see once you see that reveal, I mean, even after that weird, like the shockwave or the time bubble, which you find out later is time bubble, even after you see that for the first time, you're like.
00:40:05
Speaker
a second. Nah, this is not a super, super natural. What was that? Yeah. And then and then once that is coupled with the kind of mind control that she's got coupled with the the trip to the park with Bruce Dern. That's when it really starts turning into Okay, so something's here. Yeah, now now we're in a pure fiction and alternate reality world, which right at some of my favorite science fiction is like near future or even
00:40:32
Speaker
, and
00:40:50
Speaker
an alien in the year 10,000 A.D. on a spacecraft somewhere on another planet. It doesn't feel as strange as an alien that's in, you know, Chicago. Right. Yeah, something else, too. And
00:41:07
Speaker
There are two things I want to touch on that. First off, the time bubble powers is like I do like that they keep that reveal of what they actually are, because if I found myself thinking, you know, knowing it's a it's a sci fi movie with superpowers, like I'm thinking like, oh, is he just does the reason you have to stay awake all the time because he's got like some sort of protective field around the house or he's making the house, you know, visible or something like that. Yeah. Because every time he wakes up, you see the bubble expand. So I'm
00:41:33
Speaker
So that was my thought for a while and why he felt like, you know, you have to be safe inside the house. So the reveal that it was a time bubble actually was interesting. I also, it did make me question too, what was the purpose of
00:41:50
Speaker
accelerating time inside, if we're going with that interpretation of it, or even if you're using the interpretation of slowing down time outside, like it did make me wonder, like you were mentioning before, what's his ultimate end game? What's he trying to do? Is he just trying to age her up until the point where- Oh, that's interesting, maybe. Yeah, so that was something I was wondering about myself. She can take care of herself and he's not so vulnerable.
00:42:13
Speaker
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I never thought about that way. You know, one of the one of the best things about this universe of being lived in as it is, it reminds me of the boys where they're like, let's take what would actually happen with a person. You know, have you seen the boys? Yeah, yeah. Well, the first two seasons, I haven't seen the latest season yet.
00:42:32
Speaker
Got it. So what happens if someone traveling at 10,000 miles an hour happens to shoulder check someone in the first episode? And let's expand on that. What cool things can a person that's backed into a corner where your daughter is literally about to be exterminated by the government, can this guy do with this interesting time bubble? The final showdown with the
00:42:55
Speaker
SWAT team outside of their house where he slows down time and shoots the three of them through the bubble. That was great. Yeah. I was like, Oh, shit. That's a great use of that interesting power. And it's like having a creative mind to be able to say, you know, an invisible person can do only so many things. But what other cool things can you do with these weird powers of right?
00:43:17
Speaker
time slowing or astral projection or mind control, you know. It was – it was – it's pretty cool. The other – the other thing that I really like about how the story landed is that the idea of ultimate power in a child is terrifying. And it's been explored a few different ways. They did it with Chronicle, but they were teenagers. And then there was a movie most recently that was –
00:43:41
Speaker
I haven't seen Brightburn. OK, Brightburn did it. Brightburn was really good. If Superman when he got his powers was right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Was it was that good? Oh, yeah, it was really good. That was really good. In fact, we covered that. I think like maybe two years ago or so on the show. OK. Yeah, it was a really good movie. I was really impressed. In fact, you know, my late co-host, his he had a theory that you could put Brightburn and Chronicle in the same universe.
00:44:09
Speaker
Oh, interesting. And I would actually add that you could probably, you know, with some, you could probably actually work into use those as kind of like a prequel to, to freaks, actually, like you could actually work freaks into that too, I think.
00:44:24
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's I could see it. And I know I was really excited about that mainly because it was a Sean Gunn that directed that. And I don't know why I never watched it. It just came and went. And I don't know if it would just got bad reviews at the time or something. And I just skipped it. But well, I think that also came out like right around.
00:44:43
Speaker
COVID time. So that was it was 2019. Yeah, so it was like the end of 2019 is when it came out. And I think that was just when COVID was kind of getting started. But it wasn't it was actually so James Gunn produced it. But his Mark Gunn and Brian Gunn wrote it and then it was David Yarevsky was the Yarevsky was that was I thought I thought for the whole time I thought Sean Gunn
00:45:06
Speaker
No, no. I directed it, but I guess it wasn't even it wasn't even Sean Gunn. It was Mark and Brian Gunn. Yeah. Yeah. They're also brothers of James. I it doesn't I imagine so. Well, based on because otherwise, that's a really weird coincidence. Yeah. Well, either way, that movie, that movie would fit in there with Chronicle. But there's also another one called The Innocence, which came out. Oh, so they're they're they're James Gunn's cousin, actually.
00:45:33
Speaker
Oh, okay, cool. Got it. But yeah, the writer and director of The Worst Person in the World.
00:45:42
Speaker
that was nominated for Best Foreign Picture this last year at the Oscars. That person wrote a couple of cool sci-fi almost horror movies, one called Thelma a few years back, and then one called The Innocence, which came out last year, I think. And I might have that backwards, but that's, that explores the idea of same thing. These kids, but they're very young. Like one of them might be as young as like five years old. And then there's one that's as old as 10, I think.
00:46:07
Speaker
And they're all coming into their powers at a young age. And all the emotional rawness that comes with a young age where it's like, oh, you took my toy.
00:46:17
Speaker
If I could kill you, I might because I'm seven years old. And what happens when you give those powers to those kids? So this does the same thing. She's not all powerful. But once mom comes out of prison, that's going to be a hell of a duo. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, you should definitely watch Breyfern then because it really did explore that idea. And, you know, the kid that is basically all powerful. So I'm adding that to the list. Yeah, that's that's it's worth a watch.
00:46:44
Speaker
And you know, it one of the cool things about and I think I do want to see more of that, like exploring the the superhero aspect in horror films is such an interesting concept. And I thought Breyburne did a really good job with it. I thought this movie did a really good job with it. Chronicle to to a lesser extent. I didn't think it was. I don't think it quite pushed it as far as they could have in Chronicle, but it was it was a nice attempt.
00:47:09
Speaker
But yeah, I like this idea of like using the superhero concept and trying to find different things to do with it. But also one of the things I really liked about this is and this goes back to what you were saying before, like comparing it to what, you know, the kind of shit Trump's Trump's doing and all that like the demonization of immigrants. Yeah, I feel like
00:47:30
Speaker
It's different because the demonization of immigrants and all that, it's completely rooted in unreality. It's all about scapegoating. But the fear about the Abnormals is real. And I think that's an interesting concept when you think about the X-Men movies or the comics or anything like that.
00:47:50
Speaker
And I'm not sure if you how familiar you are with the X-Men movies. I watched the the animated series was kind of a staple for me. So I caught enough of it. So, yeah. So, yeah, you know, all you need to know. Yeah. But one of the interesting things about the X-Men and is like the whole idea of mutant registration, which was the big thing in the first movie and the idea of like, you know, we've and you watch that first movie and that speech Senator Kelly's giving when he says he was like, well, you know, here's a girl who can walk through walls. What's to stop her from walking into a bank vault or into anyone else's house?
00:48:20
Speaker
And I thought, I'm like, and on the one hand, the way the movies, the way the comics, the way the TV shows presented, yeah, that's terrible. You're labeling people as, you're judging people whether or not they get the ability to have rights basically based on what they're born with. But on the other hand, it's one thing being born with a different skin pigmentation or being born of a different sexual orientation or sexual identity or anything like that.
00:48:50
Speaker
It's another thing when you can blow up houses by looking at them. And I think this movie did, and you know, and I do find myself, and I've always said like, you know, well, yeah, when I watched the X-Men movies and all that, it's an allegory, it's in a fantasy world, and you're not really supposed to think about that. But in reality, if mutants existed, I'd kind of want the government to know what's going on.
00:49:14
Speaker
Yeah, it is a slippery slope because it's not a one-for-one comparison. It's not – it's not – well, this – because I know the X-Men, that is – it is a – it's an allegory for, you know, like the Holocaust and the registration and all that. I mean, clearly, Magneto is shown in a concentration camp in the movies.
00:49:36
Speaker
Yeah, and in the comics, right, they really leaned heavily into the civil rights movement as an allegory for it as well. And then in the 90s, as LGBTQ issues became more prominent, it started to become more of an allegory for that as well. And it's always kind of served as that kind of like stand in for marginalized groups in general. But that was something that always made me think because
00:49:58
Speaker
And you can't compare apples to apples, though, because a person from Mexico or Ecuador can't, you know, fly and explode, explode everyone around them with a shockwave like the mom does. Exactly. And I think it's also interesting when you think about it with like the the gun control debate where it's like, OK, well, if people are going to have guns, you know, we kind of want them to
00:50:21
Speaker
be licensed and be trained and all that, or they just, or they don't get them at all. And so it's a really interesting concept you're talking about and it's worth exploring. And I don't think the comics or any of the X-Men movies have really explored in this kind of depth as much, which this movie does kind of start to hint at, where it's like what happens when the person themselves is the gun.
00:50:45
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that that is that's probably a closer comparison is like having someone with a musket versus having someone with a 50 round capacity, you know, high speed assault rifle that can pop a new clip in and second they reach there at the end of the clip.
00:51:00
Speaker
It's like now that person holds the power and what can we do to stop that person if they were to choose to use their power. And especially when you look at things like what happened in Yuvaldi where the cops were too afraid to go in so they stayed outside because the guy had a weapon that was too powerful for them to face.
Comparisons and Possible Expansions
00:51:21
Speaker
Yeah, they had bullets, mister. Yeah. So it is an interesting idea. And I think that that's and you see and I like that this movie doesn't pull its punches with that word shows that, OK, on the one hand, you're looking at this world through Chloe's eyes and you're seeing what these types of laws and stuff are pushing her the links to her family to go through. You see that they're torturing her mother and all that. And
00:51:46
Speaker
Yeah, that's monstrous. But at the same time, you also see what she can do when she's unchecked. And you're just kind of like, OK, there's no side is completely right here. There's some arguments on both sides here that that makes sense. Yeah, just like the intro to I want to say it was.
00:52:03
Speaker
Return of the Jedi, it says there are heroes on both sides. It's like in your mind, if you're on the on the abnormal side or the freaks side, it's like we can't let them do that to us. So it's almost it almost turns into an invincible sort of thing with the vulture rights.
00:52:20
Speaker
It's like now we are the superior, you know, species or whatever. We are the superior mutants, freaks. So, you know, what's to stop us? And I really think that Chloe and her mom are probably going to destroy most of humanity. Oh, yeah. I mean, like the way that movie ends, like it's it's not it's not necessarily a happy ending. Like, yeah, I watched that that ending and I'm just like, oh, shit. Yeah. I think this is not a true story.
00:52:46
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Brightburn also has a similar kind of ending that we're at the end. You're just like, oh shit, this is not good. And I do like that. As much as I love superheroes, it is really cool to kind of see this kind of like ultimate take on. And I think The Boys does a really good job of this too, where it shows, you know, just like
00:53:06
Speaker
that kind of, and I think this reminds me of the phrase, like it's not that power corrupts, it's that power reveals. And I think that's a really, and so if you're a corrupt person to begin with, power is just gonna make you more corrupt where, and I think that's a, and I think you can see that in stuff like the boys or if you, or even if you draw comparisons, because you do wonder how much is Chloe's reactions to things a result of the way she's been raised?
00:53:35
Speaker
Absolutely, which came first? Chicken or the egg? Right, exactly. And you find yourself wondering, well, okay, on the one hand, I understand why Henry is trying to keep her locked up like this, but on the other hand, has he actually made things worse by doing this thing that he thought was gonna protect her?
00:53:51
Speaker
Yep, yep. Yeah, it's like it's Titan. I think that's a character's name from Mega Mind. Jonah Hill's Jonah Hill's character, the news reporter cameraman that I never actually saw it, but it's very fun. OK, very fun. Yeah, he's basically almost an incel that gets, you know, super superpowers and then instantly it's supposed to be this new Superman to help everybody. He goes, you know what? I'm just going to be a bad guy. Just enslaves humanity of that town.
00:54:18
Speaker
Yeah, I like this. And this is this is why. Probably more than any like I want to see more about this universe and like what kind of stuff they play with, even if they never touch Chloe and her mom again, just like. Yeah, that's fine. Seen seen the rest of this world. There's there's so much stuff to play with, especially when they talk about. And like you said, this world is so well lived in. They've got this this intriguing backstory about like what happened in Dallas and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, there's a lot of little breadcrumbs that you're given and you're like, I want to know more about that.
00:54:47
Speaker
And, you know, Taiko Waititi is helming the new Star Wars movie, and he's commented already that he's going to leave all the previous characters behind. It's just going to be a new movie with new people, a new storyline, just set in that universe. And I, whenever somebody asks me,
00:55:02
Speaker
You know, you get these prompts on Twitter and it's like, you know, what would you rather have this or that? You know, which is a better movie? Citizen Kane or Casablanca or, you know, whatever. All these little one, you know, would you rather this and that? And one of them that I see a lot is like, what movie that never got a sequel? Do you want to see get a sequel? And my answer is always this movie. Yes. Yes. And it doesn't have to be a sequel. Like you said, it could be like a Poirot thing where it's just there's one constant character. Maybe it's.
Indie Film Production Insights
00:55:31
Speaker
I don't know. I don't know. Maybe Bruce Dern comes back. Oh, well, he's maybe he can't come back. But, you know, you're in that universe and it's the ADF and there's Modak Mountain or Matic Mountain. Matic Mountain. Yeah. Yeah. Matic Mountain. I keep want to say Modak because that's a county in California. Modak's also a Marvel character as well. Oh, is it really? Yeah. They got a it's they got a Hulu Hulu series. Oh, is it the one with the patent on it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:55:57
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's I want to say it's spelled almost the same with an extra D or something like that. But but yeah, the I really would like to see it. And I got I can't overstate enough how good the character of Chloe was. And I got I got to look up her her actress again, just because I completely forgot her name. And I looked to see if she had any any recent credits and she doesn't. Yeah. Lexi Kolker.
00:56:21
Speaker
Lexi Colker, that's it Lexi Colker, cannot understate overstate how well she did. Yes, emotions was great. Apparently she was on she was on agents of shield as well.
00:56:31
Speaker
Oh, interesting. Yeah, I think it's only been like one or two projects since then, but I really wouldn't be surprised if she grows up and comes back as a young adult and starts doing stuff kind of like Dakota Fanning and is in some really interesting projects because she killed it. And then on top of it, for such a small production, the writer director team absolutely, absolutely nailed it. Absolutely. Yeah.
00:56:54
Speaker
When you think about these Hollywood movies out there, a lot of people are like, well, how are we gonna make a movie? I need millions of dollars to do that. You don't really. You have to take what you have and decide, can I make a movie with this? And they were already working on a – it was a – I want to say it was a Disney Channel production.
00:57:13
Speaker
that was it was about like a some sort of a like a mech warrior or something like that is called mech x4 had two seasons it was kind of this supernatural sort of almost like a transformer sort of cross with Voltron and free for young for young kids
00:57:30
Speaker
And the series was done and they talked to the production team and they said, well, what are you gonna do with all these set pieces? What are you gonna do with this truck that we played that was the food truck in the show? They said, oh, we're just gonna scrap it all. We're gonna take this to landfill and take that to the dump. And you guys want it? And they're like, heck yeah.
00:57:46
Speaker
So they just grabbed all the stuff that was going to go in the garbage anyways, and they're like, okay, we can use this as the Matic Mountain. We can use this set as, you know, whatever inside the interior of the house and just dress it up and stuff like that. And we'll take the truck that barely runs and we'll tune it up and all our friends can get together and paint the outside and we'll get somebody to choreograph or compose a new
00:58:09
Speaker
You know, creepy ice cream truck song. And there we go. There's half of our set. Now we just got to get talent to fill it, make something great, put it in front of the right people, make the characters interesting. And then you got a project and you don't have to spend 10 million dollars or somebody else's money to do it. Right. Well, I remember, too, when, you know.
00:58:25
Speaker
with my friends making like a short movie. We had a short film that had to be set in a warehouse. We don't have access to a warehouse. What we did was we had a friend's garage where we just kind of like, you know, threw some boxes and some planks of wood in the background and just made it look enough like it for the shops we were doing. And then that was all we needed to do. Another scene, we had to film it at a grave site.
00:58:47
Speaker
It's obviously we can't go to a real cemetery to film it. There's all sorts. You got to get permits. You got to get all sorts of stuff like that. But, you know, there's this open field that nobody's at, you know, near my house. We can if we frame it a certain way, we can make it look like, oh, maybe that's kind of a gravestone there. And then that's all you need to do. But yeah. And, you know.
00:59:05
Speaker
again this movie like you said the budget and i'm just looking it up on um imdb it says that the estimated budget is two thousand dollars so that's insane it's nothing it's nothing i mean jesus christ two thousand dollars that's like
00:59:20
Speaker
If you think about a Marvel movie, that's like the fucking coffee budget. I mean, yeah. Yeah, if that that's a week. Yeah. No,
Networking and Resourcefulness
00:59:30
Speaker
it is. It is very cool. And I mean, I know that a lot of it, my dad, he's somebody I really idolized quite a bit and still do. And he used to tell me all the time, it's not what you know till you know. And he would do nice favors for people all the time. He would do stuff and help people out with things and fix people's cars and, you know, do this, do that. If you could, he would.
00:59:50
Speaker
And when it came time for it, he's like, I have a list a mile long of people to owe me favors. And I lived most of my life that way. And I remember when I was a kid, he built onto our house that I grew up in and he built, I want to say 400 square feet onto just his master bath bedroom, which cracks me up. The whole house was unchanged except for his bedroom, my mom's bedroom.
01:00:14
Speaker
but they had to pour concrete for the slab, they had to reframe the house, run electrical, do drywall, do spackle, roof it, tile it, paint, stucco the outside, paint the outside, set windows, build retaining walls on the, or like load-bearing walls on the inside, and I'm like, how are you gonna do all this, Dad?
01:00:32
Speaker
I was like 10 years old and he goes, I know a guy that does concrete. He owes me a favor. I know a guy that does framing. He owes me a favor. Yeah, I know a roofer. He owes me a favor. And it literally was just him and his friends over the course of about a month building this addition to the house. And I was like, that was cool. And that's how the filmmakers made this. They had a lot of people they worked with over the years on other projects that knew them and knew they were good guys. And they're like, hey, you helped me out with that one editing thing. So yeah, I'll do this for you.
01:01:00
Speaker
And ultimately, I mean, that's how you finish the project. You just pull in your favours and make something interesting and people will jump on board.
01:01:07
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I think this reminds me of something Kevin Smith said when he was talking about, you know, when he was making clerks and all that, and he tells people, and he tells people, you know, whatever you wanna do, whether it's a podcast, whether it's a movie, whether it's a book, a comic, like just fucking do it. Like don't wait for permission, just do it. I think these guys really took that kind of, I don't know if they necessarily heard that advice specifically, but that concept, they definitely, you know,
01:01:35
Speaker
live through it. And I didn't know that about that they were working on this thing, they were able to get all access to all this stuff. But that's, you know, I mean, Jesus, yeah, just fucking dumpster dive near a movie studio. You never know what you might find. Absolutely. There's there's times just throughout my daily life where I'm like,
01:01:51
Speaker
you know, at my shop, we have these special gloves that are made for disconnecting high powered hybrid electric systems. And they only they're only good for six months when you crack once you crack the seal, you have to get them certified every six months and it's cheaper to buy a new set than to certify them. So we get these cool, giant, thick rubber gloves that look like, you know, mad scientist gloves. And instead of throwing the garbage, I took them home and I'm like, maybe we'll make something with this one day, right?
01:02:14
Speaker
And it's like you're in the thrift store and you see something funky old VCR, you're like, that would be so cool. We could build an entire period piece around, you know, this and that and whatever and buy this cheap TB for 50 bucks and this VCR for, you know, 20 bucks, whether it works or not. And you can have, you know, potentially have
01:02:32
Speaker
the corner of your set for a short that you wanna make. So it's like, as long as you're creative and you're there, especially if you have a love for film and you're like, if I were to make something, I wanna make it like this, or I see something in my life and this is something I feel like I can do with the resources that I have, just go do it.
Persistence in Filmmaking
01:02:50
Speaker
Yeah. And if it leads to something cool and people notice and they're like, you know, maybe then somebody would be like, Hey, that guy's pretty interesting. And they're that team of people, they can't seem to know what they're doing. Let's give them some money to do it. And then it's like, now you're now you're making money doing what you love. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, again, you know, Kevin Smith's the perfect example of that, you know, he has a clerk on it after he sells his comic book collection, he maxes out his credit cards to make clerks. And then, you know, basically,
01:03:15
Speaker
Now he just gets to make podcasts for the rest of his life. Yeah, he just makes his living talking about stuff he loves. I mean, that's the fucking dream. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, Pete, thanks so much for coming on the show. It's been a nice conversation. Thanks for introducing me to this movie. I was really impressed with how much I enjoyed it.
01:03:37
Speaker
Good. That makes me happy. It's one of the movies that I'll usually spout out with someone's like, hey, give me some underrated gem that most people haven't heard of. It's usually this and the kid detective, but this fits the genre. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Thanks for coming on. And so why don't you tell people where they can find you again.
01:03:56
Speaker
So you're in the podcast player, listen to this as we speak, back out, go to the search bar, type in middle class, film class, you'll see our logo pop up. So all black and white logo with silhouettes of three of our heads, really easy to find and just hit subscribe and give us a couple of episodes because there's twice a week. You know, so the first episode is more conversational. It's Gavin chatter.
01:04:19
Speaker
It's more fun and free, you know, more frivolous. And the second episode is more structured and we just do a deep dive review into one movie. So go back to our old catalog, look at some movies that you like or some movie you've never heard of before and maybe you'll find something interesting to, you know, to find.
01:04:38
Speaker
pick out for this week's watching material, viewing material. And if you're a podcast regular, we constantly will read almost every email that a listener sends in, a listener picks. We even just recently had one of our regular listeners
01:04:56
Speaker
none of the three of us had gone to see the new Jurassic Park. But listener Chris did and he was pretty toasted when he did it. He wrote a he wrote a junk review into us, which was fantastic. And we read it on air and it may be a regular segment now. Yeah, give it give it a shot. It's called middle class film class. You'll have a good time.
01:05:15
Speaker
Okay, and we'll have links to that in the show notes too, so you can check those out as well. But that does it for this episode of Superhero
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
01:05:22
Speaker
Cinephiles. Superherocinephiles.com is the website, SuperCinephilePod on Twitter and Instagram. And remember, if you subscribe to the Patreon at any level, you get extra episodes with the Superhero Cinephiles Book Club companion show where we talk about comic book reviews.
01:05:39
Speaker
And also you get these regular episodes a week in advance. So you can do that at patreon.com slash super cinema pod. Thanks so much for listening and we will talk to you next time.
01:05:50
Speaker
If you enjoy the Superhero Cinephiles, then you'll also love my companion podcast, the Superhero Cinephiles Book Club. All my Patreon subscribers get access to this exclusive podcast where I review superhero comics and graphic novels. Not sure what comics you want to read next or what you should dive into? I've got you covered on that. I'll be doing reviews, recommendations, and also talking to you about useful entry points.
01:06:11
Speaker
If you're interested in reading some comments and don't know where you should start, plus you'll get access to all episodes of the main show a week before everyone else. On all of this for as little as just a dollar a month, all you have to do is go to patreon.com slash SuperCinemaPod and you can sign up at any subscription amount to get started. Thanks so much for your support and please don't forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:06:54
Speaker
Thank you for listening and as always good night. Good evening. God bless.