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00:00:01
Hereditary
16 Plays1 year ago
Hereditary! With our first guest! Katie’s fiancé, Pat! In this episode, we discuss inherited mental illness, X-files, cults, and the occult.
Also, note that when Pat is talking about occult themes, I thought he was saying a cult. Hereditary has both cult and occult themes.
Tiktok about sensory sins: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8RKuMSg/
P.S. I can’t find the detachable penis episode I was talking about! If you know what the heck I’m talking about please let me know
I found a song and a Beavis and Butthead episode with references to a detachable penis but it’s definitely not either of those.
Music used under Creative Commons License
Horror Monster Sound: Preparing For Battle (Vol 002)
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Guest
00:00:09
Speaker
Welcome to What Haunt To You, a podcast about the stories that haunt our dreams. I'm Carly. And I'm Katie. We have a guest today. It's my fiance, Pat. I'm Pat.
Connection to Horror Genre
00:00:20
Speaker
We're talking about Hereditary today, which is one of my favorite movies. So I'm pretty excited. Yeah, Pat picked it. We're trying to have guests pick movies that they're really interested in and talk about why they feel connected to the horror genre.
00:00:37
Speaker
Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about your horror history and why you like connection to horror?
Impact of X-Files on Pat
00:00:43
Speaker
Yeah. And why you like it. As a kid, I watched a lot of X-Files with my mom. I love X-Files. One of my favorite episodes we watched was
00:00:55
Speaker
Oh, what is it called? What was it about? Well, so it was about a creature in the sewer. The fluke worm guy. Yes, exactly. The fluke guy. The fluke man. That one was that stuck with me a lot. Oh, yeah. And episode called home about where the mom lives under the bed. She's like, kids come hungry. Yeah. I watched a lot of X-Files when I was a kid, but I don't remember.
00:01:22
Speaker
The one episode that really stuck with me was a guy that had a detachable penis and it was going in people's houses. That was so scary and still haunted. I do not wait. Hold on. What? I don't remember that episode. I think I remember.
00:01:38
Speaker
He could, like, detach all of his body parts, but he was, like, mostly being, like, really gross and... Talk into this mic more. Sexual assault. You're talking to Carly, which is okay. But... What do you mean? Do you see how you're... You're very small. I'm very small. Yeah, so... Detachable Venus. Scary. I don't remember that episode at all, and I have seen X-Files back and forth, like, a million times. I need to know what we're talking
Introduction to 'Hereditary'
00:02:05
Speaker
about. Let me look it up.
00:02:08
Speaker
It might, I'm pretty sure it's X-Files. That doesn't, I, I do not think so. Quagmire, the X-Files. Oh yeah. Is that it? I don't know. It says it doesn't include detachable. Something that came up when I searched this is gonads are useful for their purpose, but they're no substitute for brains. Amen.
00:02:34
Speaker
true yeah that does not sound that just does not sound familiar there's a guy who can shape shift there's a guy who can shape shift yeah that might be quagmire who uses that yeah he uses his shape-shifting abilities to like have sex with people's wives yeah yeah
00:02:52
Speaker
Yeah, but I do not remember a detachable penis and I think... Just squirming around like the thing from Adam's family. Now I need to know what I'm thinking of. I just, I googled detachable penis and it's a song by the band King Missile that was released in 1992. Is it about Lorena Bobbitt and her husband? Oh my god, I hope so. I don't remember what year Lorena Bobbitt was. Yeah. There's Beavis and Butthead detachable penis.
00:03:18
Speaker
Well, I'll do more research on this later and figure out where it's from. Yeah, so hereditary. The director is Ari Aster. I found an article on Collider by Brianna Dorley that called it a psychological ghost story, and I thought that was very fitting. I feel like that makes sense, but I also feel like
00:03:44
Speaker
most ghost stories are psychological ghost stories. So that feels like almost redundant to me. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. But I think this one it's like not well, I guess it's kind of a ghost story because of the grandma, but like it's like most of the ghosts are just like, actually, it's more of like a cult. Yeah. Definitely cult vibes. Yeah, definitely a cult. Yeah, it's more like demons and stuff than ghosts, really. Yeah.
00:04:09
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Sayance. Yeah.
Fascination with Cult Themes
00:04:12
Speaker
Yeah. So, Pat, actually, before we get too far into it, why do you like this movie so much? Like, what what draws you to this movie? It's just it's just I like a cult a lot. A cult of themes are very they draw me in. Yeah. Ritual type things like, I don't know, I like satanic things. I don't know why. Just what it is. It's how I just how I jam, I guess.
00:04:35
Speaker
You like a cold D-vibe. I can respect that. I like a cold D-vibe too. I think Hereditary is one of the first movies, Pat is like responsible for getting me into horror in general in the first place because I used to be like, no, no, no, no. And Hereditary is like one of the first movies that we watch together, I think. And it's still like,
00:04:58
Speaker
I don't know about the first movie, maybe. No, not the first, but... I don't even think horror. Maybe, uh, maybe. I feel like Poltergeist was the first horror movie we watched together. Really? I feel like we watched Poltergeist just recently for the first time together. Poltergeist I saw as a child and I found it enjoyable. And by as a child, I mean like sometime before I was 25. I didn't see Poltergeist until I was probably like 24 or 25. I didn't see it when I was younger. Oh, really?
00:05:27
Speaker
Cause my parents, that seems like the type of movie you would like see with your parents or like something and my parents are not, yeah, they're not like into that kind of stuff or the mode. My dad a little bit, but not, not really. My mom likes, I'd say like poltergeist is probably like the scariest thing that she would like watching. And I did watch it with her.
00:05:47
Speaker
Hereditary is like, I don't know, it's like it gives me the heebie jeebies, but it's not like it's not one of the movies that like keeps me up at night or like where it's not it doesn't have like really horrifying imagery. I mean, that's not true, actually. I actually like I rewatched it yesterday and I think that's probably like the fourth or fifth time I've seen it.
00:06:09
Speaker
And every time I notice new things, but definitely, I mean, Pat has a shirt that has the dad on fire on it, which is one of the main images of the film, I would say. But I don't know, for some reason it doesn't stick with me visually in the same way. Those images were definitely intense when I saw them, but it's not like,
00:06:35
Speaker
wake up at night sweating thinking about being caught on fire. I do, but not from hereditary. I
Symbolism in 'Hereditary'
00:06:44
Speaker
do have my list of things to take out of the house with me when there's a fire. Who doesn't though? Yeah, so I think it's really interesting that the movie opens on this obituary
00:07:00
Speaker
I, it's the grandma's obituary and we are then at her funeral. One of the things that I noticed that I hadn't seen before is when Charlie is like going up to her grandma, it's an open casket wake, which like, that's just a creepy thing that people do. Well, it doesn't start there. It starts with the obituary and then it starts with the scene of the tree house.
00:07:29
Speaker
And then it's the miniatures. Oh, right. Right. Right. And then it goes into the scene that you like. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I do love how they go in. Like the miniatures are kind of like a double of their house, most of them. And I there's a couple of scenes and yet one of the first ones is where they're like in the miniature and then they like go in and then it like zooms in and then it's the real life.
00:07:58
Speaker
the real life actors doing their thing. Yeah. Yeah. That's like a fun visual trick. Yeah. I really liked how it did start with the visuals at the treehouse. And that's the last scene in the end of the movie anyway, is them in the treehouse. Yeah. Yeah. But what were you going to say, Katie, about the at like the funeral? The way. Oh, yeah. So the thing that I noticed that I hadn't seen before is Charlie is like going up to
00:08:25
Speaker
the open casket and we see that the grandma, I think this is the first time we see this cult symbol that's on her necklace and it's like a twirly twisty thing. It's actually a pretty, yeah, I was just gonna say it's kind of a pretty symbol. Yeah. And so when she's there, the thing that I noticed, and I pointed out to Pat and he like rewounded to see it again, there's this guy and he's like, when she's walking up, he's just like making a normal face, but she like looks up at him from the casket and he's just like,
00:08:55
Speaker
like grinning super creepy at her in the back yeah and then that guy he pops up later yeah i'm jumping like way ahead oh yeah that's okay so like when the when the dad when annie's on the roof of the ceiling of the house annie's on the ceiling and peter's comes and sees the charred dad's remains then she's he's naked in the in the doorway the dude the smiling guy
00:09:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I noticed that the first time, this watch too, and I think that every time I watch it, and I've probably seen it about the same number of times as you, like, a handful of times. I feel like every time I notice it, I notice the symbol in more places. Yeah, for sure. The first time I watched it, I didn't notice that the symbol is on the phone pole that they drive by on the way to the party that ends up
00:09:50
Speaker
being Charlie's demise. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, it's a lot of places. I also noticed this time that the dad when Peter breaks his nose, the dad is drinking at work. I mean, I'm assuming it looked like alcohol, it was like in a Scotch glass and it's like brown liquor looking. So
00:10:12
Speaker
Yeah, I'd be drinking if I was that dad, though. I mean, I have to say. I know. He's got a lot going on. He does. And I think usually I'm kind of used to finding men in family-oriented horror movies pretty insufferable. They're usually not great. But this dad. Yeah, that's something we've talked about. Yeah, but this dad is like, he snaps at the wife a couple of times. But how could you not with all of that stuff going on? And he's just trying so hard. And he's dealing with so much stuff.
00:10:41
Speaker
that's like not really his stuff but is like his by proxy because it's his wife's stuff and he's like trying so hard and trying to keep it together yeah and i feel bad for him like i actually like really felt for him and i remember the first time i watched this i had to like rewind it and watch when he died again because it just like happened so quickly and i was just like wait
00:11:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny. In my memory, I always remember Annie being the one who gets lit on fire. And then every time it happens to him instead, I'm like, Oh, right. Shit. I think one of the really good things about this movie actually is kind of stuff like that. I feel like every time I'm a little less so this time, but I think the first like three or so times I watched it,
00:11:27
Speaker
I didn't remember half the movie. And I think that sounds like a criticism, but I honestly mean it as a compliment because I would be watching it again and I'd be like, wait, what? Wait, what? I wouldn't remember a lot. I would remember the funeral and obviously the telephone pole and some couple random bits.
00:11:52
Speaker
Charlie cutting off the bird's head. You don't remember something like that. Yeah, stuff like that. I would forget and then I would be like, what the fuck? But it's like fun because that makes for better rewatching than something that like, it's like some movies almost stick in your head too much too much. Yeah, which is also kind of impressive in its own way. But I think it is fun when you're watching something and you're like, wow, I forgot like half of this movie and like this is nuts. Yeah, I think that there are
00:12:21
Speaker
They have a really good job of like having like really big scenes and then there are ones that are like just under that that you like kind of forget about but then when you're rewatching it, it's like everything with Joan. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. So I kind of want to set us in place a little more.
00:12:45
Speaker
I also noticed that the dog died this time, which I hadn't noticed the other times, like right after Peter comes out of the window and presumably dies.
00:12:58
Speaker
It's Charlie at that point. Not as he falls out of the window. It's after he walks by and then you see the dog. Yeah. Or she does, I suppose. Yeah, the dog is just like kind of casually dead on the side of their house. And one of the first things I wrote down... Don't make a big deal about it or anything, just being dead.
00:13:16
Speaker
Yeah. One of the first things I wrote when I was watching it this time is every time there's a dog in or a movie, I get scared. Like as soon as they like introduce a dog, I'm like, Oh, no, don't do terrible things to the dog. And like, we don't see we don't see terrible things happen, but you still like that.
Animal Symbolism in Horror
00:13:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:35
Speaker
Yeah, well, I think because when there's a dog, and when something happens to a dog in a movie, like a horror movie, you're like, okay, we're not pulling any punches here. It's kind of like in the opening of the thing when they're like shooting at a husky. And you're like, Oh, fuck, okay, we're really in for it. Because we're starting off shooting a dog or trying to shoot a dog, whatever. But yeah, it's kind of the same thing of like, oh, okay, we're like really nobody is safe. Because like, everybody knows that like, even
00:14:04
Speaker
more than kids in a horror movie. It's sad when the dog dies because you go into a horror movie ready for people to die. Right. And so kill all the people. That's fine. Kind of. And so when you see like an animal, like a pet get hurt or like killed, it's like, oh, OK, we're like not fucking around here. Yep. Yep. Really hit you harder in the in the lovestones. In the lovestones. For lack of a better term. Yeah. Where are the lovestones? Where is
00:14:34
Speaker
just in you, somewhere in you. I don't know. It varies from person to person. Yeah, I did like and yeah, one of the things that I think sets the tone for Steve, the dad being like a good dad and good husband is
00:14:51
Speaker
And he says, should I be sad when they get home from the funeral? And he says, you should be whatever you are. And I was like, that's nice. Yeah. And Peter, Steve asks Peter, like, how you doing, buddy? And he's like, I'm okay. And then Steve's like, are you sad? And Peter's like, hmm.
00:15:11
Speaker
And this kind of smiles and Steve just leaves. He's like, yeah, I get it. Yeah. Well, cause I think that what they're really hinting at there is that like things were not good, right? We kind of get hints about like she had DID and like it was worse when she would write. So you're kind of getting these little hints of like.
00:15:29
Speaker
There's some relief, I think, in the dad and the son that this is over, which I think is fair. I actually think a lot of people feel that way when they lose somebody who really hasn't been doing well for a long time, but I think that it's like... I think it shows a lot of... This movie is really good at showing the variety of ways that grief can really show up and how you can't really predict
00:15:53
Speaker
what's going to happen or how you're going to react to something like that. Yeah, grief is very complex. And I remember when my grandparents died, they had my my grandpa had a stroke when I was eight and was paralyzed on half of his body for the rest of his life.
00:16:10
Speaker
And he lived like that for like 18 years. And then, and my grandma then had, they thought she had Alzheimer's, but then later they diagnosed her with Lewy body dementia, but it's still dementia. And yeah, they both lived for a really long time like that. And it was like always kind of, it was nice to see them, but it was also like heartbreaking. And for like the last five years of their life, they really, like all they did was like watch Reba.
00:16:39
Speaker
Which was funny. I now I like nostalgic, nostalgically watch Reba sometimes because of that. But it was like just a very limiting life. And then after they died, it was sad. But everybody in my family was also kind of relieved because their life had been so small. Yeah, I'm sure they were in pain or at least, you know, maybe they're like, I know so many people that are older that like, for instance, my friend Herb,
00:17:06
Speaker
His grandma, she passed away a couple of years ago, but every every Christmas, she'd be like, I hope this is my last one. Basically, like, you know, like it's sad, but like, you know, some people are just ready to not be alive anymore. I don't know as sad as that sounds, I guess, but yeah, it's a release. And we find out that like Charlie was pretty much as close to the grandmother as anyone ever could be. And Annie is like telling Charlie that
00:17:37
Speaker
that her mom, Charlie's grandma, was always taking care of her when she was a baby and she said that she never cried when she was a baby. And Charlie is asking at that point, I think that's kind of the first glimpse we get into, Charlie having some extra needs.
00:17:57
Speaker
because she says like who's going to take care of me when you die, which I think is like a very natural question when somebody who is like who has been taking care of you dies. Yeah, that's actually a really it's a really normal question for kids to have because I mean, I think she's a little old to be asking it like I guess zoomed out but it is like a normal thing to ask right because you're
00:18:20
Speaker
you've only ever lived being taken care of by another person.
Character Analysis of Charlie and Peter
00:18:24
Speaker
That makes me think of another scene that I'm not sure I think it is in like the beginning quarter of the movie. But I don't remember exactly when but Charlie like goes outside and
00:18:36
Speaker
It never looks cold outside, but they're talking about how it's cold all the time, so I'm assuming it's cold. You can see the breath most of the time that night. Charlie goes out to their yard and has a vision of the grandma out in the field and burning. That's the part I didn't remember, was with the grandma in the middle of the burning field, the burning circle.
00:19:02
Speaker
That was something I forgot. Yeah, I didn't remember that either. I didn't remember that either. I was like, what? I feel like whenever we watch stuff for this, I'm paying a different type of attention. Yeah. So I'm always like, wow, how did I miss so much? Right. That's true. Yes, maybe it's that. But at that point, Annie comes out and is like, what are you doing? You're not wearing shoes or a jacket and says, what are you an idiot? And that I don't think I remembered that before. And that like hit me really hard emotionally. And I was like,
00:19:32
Speaker
This is like, yeah, one of the main emotional tensions for me is like, how hard it is to be a parent and like actually or just any role where you have to like, care for somebody else while you're going through so much shit yourself. Yeah, especially because when we see the mom at like the grief group, like the grief support group, she's like listing all of these things. And it's like,
00:19:57
Speaker
the stuff that we've heard about already in the movie, but it's also a bunch of other stuff too. But it's interesting because she kind of separates herself from it in that moment because she says like, that was my mom's life. Right. Is like how she refers to all of this tragedy that was like during her life. Right. But she kind of a tribute. Yeah, it's like that's her mom's experience rather than her own.
00:20:20
Speaker
Yeah, which is interesting. Yeah, that was a lot like even the group seemed kind of like they all kind of seem taken aback because she says like her mom had DID. And I think she says another diagnosis as well. Maybe it's just I think she had dementia when she was older. And then and she says her brother was schizophrenic and was asking his mom 16, I think. Yeah, he hung himself in his mom's room. Is that accurate?
00:20:50
Speaker
So I think in the closet or I think it was in the closet or something, but she left a note. Yeah, the note said it was her mom's fault, basically. And it said it was the mom's fault because she put like she put people inside him or put voices. Oh, yeah. Or some like some demons. Yeah, something possession. Right. Which later definitely sounds like she was trying to invoke payment. Right. Right. Well, and I think something else that's kind of interesting is like
00:21:18
Speaker
from the grief group was that she also described Charlie as like not really being hers. She like says, like, I didn't let my mom near my son so I gave him, so I gave her my daughter.
00:21:31
Speaker
gave her Charlie. Yeah, right. Yeah, that stuck out to me this time, too, because I was like, OK, but why? Like, I mean, clearly she says like she says she got her hooks into her about Charlie. But it sounds like like she got her hooks back in to Annie, really, because Annie felt obligated to do all of these things. Yeah. Yeah. And.
00:21:56
Speaker
Yeah, oh yeah, the at the funeral and like one of the first scenes also is where we first learned that Charlie is allergic to nuts. They're kind of establishing that and also that they're not very good about it. Like they don't have an epi-ban. That was just absurd to me. After she's eating, they're like, does that have nuts? Like she's already eating it.
00:22:15
Speaker
Yeah. And have you ever met like a person with nut allergies? Because like they're like, we I've met maybe three people. Yeah, like maybe I was friends with one of the nut allergy kids when I was younger. And my brother was and like, he had a fanny pack full full of like multiple EpiPens and like little instructions and stuff like, it's like they it's it is like a little unbelievable to me that they would like be so flippant about the nut thing.
00:22:42
Speaker
this time I was thinking like okay maybe that's one of the things that the grandma was taking care of and like why Charlie is like more concerned about that like who's going to take care of her after but it's just
00:22:56
Speaker
Yeah, it was still odd to me and Charlie seems, I think that's another thing that's kind of establishing like Charlie not being able to take care of herself fully because she does seem old enough that she might have some more awareness about that or at least at least enough awareness to like ask if things have nuts in them or like look for the ingredients.
00:23:16
Speaker
Another thing that really stuck out to me this time with on the nut plane is like when they end up going to the party. There is just like a teenager chopping like a full cutting board. It's like two pounds of nuts it looks like. Yeah, I was like, I've never been to a party where some like maybe there's nuts around, but like nobody is just like chopping up that many nuts, especially like they were making a cake at a high school party.
00:23:39
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think I but I think that like the level to which they set up and that thing is perfect because I think that one of the things I think Ari Aster is good at doing this in general, but one of the things that works so well is that you are like ready for Charlie to die. Like you're like literally sitting there. They're in the car. She can't breathe. She's gonna die. They're not gonna make it. She's gonna die. And that's gonna be like how this gets going. And
00:24:07
Speaker
you're not wrong, but you're wrong, right? And he, like, literally
00:24:11
Speaker
you think she'll die of suffocation or something, but it's a lot more quicker than mine than that, really. Yeah, and it comes totally out of nowhere. And all of a sudden, she's like decapitated by a fucking pole, you know what I mean? And so you're like going, going, going down this road, kind of like mentally preparing for this. And then it just like smacks you in the face, literally. Literally. And it's just like, it's, it's such a, it's like such an intense moment in the movie and it's done so well. And what's his, is it? Peter.
00:24:41
Speaker
Yeah. What's his real name? I know that he's from Naked Brothers Band. It's Alex Wolf. Alex Wolf. Okay. Okay. I know they're... He has a brother. Yeah. Nat. It's like Nat and Alex. But he is like such a good... Except for when he tries to cry for real. He's like not a great crier. But his face acting in that scene where he just has this like dead eye look on his face. Oh yeah. Shock. Pure shock. Yeah.
00:25:06
Speaker
Disbelief. Yeah, and he's saying to himself like you're okay. You're okay. Yeah. Yeah, it's just like oh and Actually, I feel like he may be even like in his mind like talking to To Charlie like are you okay? Like oh, you're okay. All right, let's keep let's go home. Yeah this This watch it definitely struck me as that he was talking to Charlie and I don't think it had before at least the first one I don't
00:25:32
Speaker
like he says like you think about it, but I kind of think that that makes a lot of sense. And the way that it was shot is so good where like the camera like pans up like it's his eyes like towards the rearview mirror and then just like, yeah, jolts back down. He's like, Nope, we're not looking. We're just going we're just we're just gonna keep continue on this on this thing we're on.
00:25:56
Speaker
Yeah, I also noticed this time he's driving so slowly and I think like especially in comparison to like he'd been speeding trying to get her to the hospital and then like, well, what would you I mean, that would just be like such a conflicting thing. Like, oh, my sister's heads on the road. I just don't want to have to like, you know, maybe deal with this at all, kind of like what like I don't. And it seems like he doesn't own up to it at all.
00:26:22
Speaker
as what nanny says like didn't say sorry didn't take responsibility so yeah and she says i can't protect you from what you did yeah which is like kind of fair um but also like it's pretty clear that the way that he responds is because of their relationship like him and nanny yeah yeah it definitely like takes the tension that was already there between the two of them and just like cranks it up to an 11
00:26:50
Speaker
Yeah, the scene right after that where Annie finds the body in the car because he had like just kind of gone to sleep. And then we see him. I mean, I don't know if he went to sleep because the morning I think he stayed awake all night. Yeah. The next morning we see him just like laying there with his eyes open. Yeah. And we hear any saying like, I'm going to go get some blah, blah, blah. I'll be back in 20 minutes. Yeah. And then we just hear her screaming and then
00:27:19
Speaker
And then she continually screams throughout the next four scenes of at the road seeing Charlie's head in the bedroom with Steve saying she just wants to die. And then at the funeral when Charlie's casket's being loaded into the ground.
00:27:34
Speaker
just continuous. Thanks. Yeah, that was so painful. Yeah. And her acting is like, so into I mean, she's like Tony Collette amazing. Amazing. And she deserved an award for this. But horror movies don't get awards. Yeah. But I mean, she like the way that she like embodies grief, not so much with the grandma, because we know like she wasn't feeling it the same way. But when
00:28:00
Speaker
Like the scene that you were just talking about where she's like, I just need to die. Like this hurts too much. She's like on the ground, like throwing herself onto the ground. Like she just is like bringing it to that scene and it's crazy. And it's so upsetting to watch because it does feel very real. Oh yeah. Yeah. I also thought her body movements in the scene where she's on the ground with her husband, it reminded me of a lot of labor videos that I've watched. And yeah, that stuck out to me this time, just like the,
00:28:30
Speaker
Carly's motioning vomit. You know how I feel about labor. Yeah.
00:28:39
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And yeah, the whole scene. So I'm reversing again. But just so like, Charlie didn't really want to go to this party. Peter lied about like what it was. He was like, it's a school barbecue. And but it's like literally just like a massive house party. And Charlie comes. And I think they said Charlie's 12. Is that right? Or 13?
00:29:06
Speaker
And yeah, just he just kind of like, abandons her there. As any sibling would. Yeah, he like, finds a girl that he likes from his class, who he's been kind of flirting with. And it's like, hey, you smoke weed. You want to go smoke some weed?
00:29:25
Speaker
You make it sound way smoother than it was. It was like the closest thing ever. He walks up to her and whips a bag of weed out and goes, do you smoke? I have really good weed. Just doesn't say hi. No, he does. He says, hey, is the party good or whatever? And she's like, why? Oh, you're right. Do you want to come? Yeah, you're right. He does say that. And she's kind of making fun of him a little. But just the way he pulls the weed out is so, it's just so funny to me. Because he's like, do you smoke? I have really good weed.
00:29:56
Speaker
What? Yeah. Also him pointing out to the cake when he's like, hey, Charlie, go get some cake. They're giving it to everybody. Like, that's I know that's the end all say all right there of Charlie's existence. I mean, it's also it's a compilation and he was basically made Peter bring her so. Yeah. Well, and I think that's what the whole argument at the dinner is about. Right. Like, I think they both feel incredibly guilty. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
00:30:23
Speaker
And also, in the first grief meeting, I was looking around for Joan like crazy. Where is Joan? No, Joan wasn't there yet. The first grief group meeting. But Joan says that she was there. Yes, she was. Oh, we didn't meet her until... She was there. The second one. Yeah. But did you see her? Because I didn't see her. Yeah, she doesn't say anything. She doesn't say anything, but she is there. I need to go watch the scene again right now. You see her in the circle.
00:30:49
Speaker
Yeah, I did. You only see her for like a second. I mean, at first you don't see her much because they're showing people from the side and the back, but there is one shot that's like a reaction shot of everyone kind of. Okay. You do see her. I was looking to. I was looking for it. Okay. Well, I'm about to give up. I was about to be like, Oh, I guess she's like not actually even in the scene. But then I was like, Oh, there she is. Okay, I must have given up and then stopped looking.
00:31:14
Speaker
but yeah so uh where I was going with that anyways is that Annie tells Joan about how she one time was sleepwalking and covered her kids and herself in lighter fluid and when she
00:31:33
Speaker
struck the match it woke her up but it also woke Peter up and how that's like been kind of like a main source of tension in their relationship till now but she's kind of acting like incredulous about it like why doesn't he just understand I was sleeping but like I mean that is incredibly dramatic oh yeah I don't think she was giving enough weight to how much that would affect her child
00:31:59
Speaker
Yeah, if you if you're sleepwalking, bring your kid, put them in the car and drive off a cliff. You're still it's still you still did it, whether you're conscious of it or not. I mean, that's a little more. I guess it's not an extreme example, but it's different. It's different. I think the paint fluid, the paint thinner is an extreme example, though, right? It's already like, I don't think that your example is even more extreme than that. Well, I mean, right. No, yeah, even more extreme. That's why. Yes, right. Yeah.
00:32:29
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Something
Uncovering Family Secrets
00:32:30
Speaker
that I noticed for the first time, or at least that stuck out to me enough to write it down this time also, is when Peter gets back from the party, Annie, we don't see them, but we hear Annie and Steve talking. Annie goes, oh, good, they're home. And Steve goes, good. And that hurt my heart a lot, too, because I was like, oh, no, they aren't. Yeah, part of part of Charlie. Yes. Peter is here. Here he is.
00:32:58
Speaker
Like 90% of Charlie. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And then right after Charlie's funeral, I think it's the first time we see a word appear in the wallpaper, which like keeps happening. And it's Zazis and Z-A-Z-A-S. First word is satony. Satony. I remember like hearing this in a song. We're using a ritual of necromancy, communicating with the dead. That's obviously what necromancy is, yes.
00:33:26
Speaker
Zazas is a word used by famed British occultist, Aleister Crowley. Who I'm pretty sure is the dude who was first married's baby inspo, right? Er, no. Aleister Crowley is an individual, yes. But that was the other guy. Oh. But not. That was the mistake that I made. Oh, OK, OK. Now I remember. Yeah. And so the Zazas is used when summoning a demon called
00:33:55
Speaker
Cro-rons-en. And lift-toach pendulum, pendulum-in-ium. Pandemonium. Pandemonium. That's a lot of letters stacked together. Pandemonium. It's a combination of Hebrew, meaning open up, and familiar word pendulum. Pandemonium. No, pendulum. Pendulum. It's a spandemonium.
00:34:24
Speaker
and the familiar word. Pandemium. That's not familiar. I think they meant to write it. I just can't read anymore, I guess.
00:34:33
Speaker
Oh yeah. And so then after Charlie dies, wait, there's another thing I meant to say earlier. So like after they get home from the grandma's funeral, Annie's like looking through mom's stuff and I think like putting some of it away and there's a journal. Let me find this. There's a journal that says our sacrifices will pale next to the rewards. Love mommy. And then when she's walking out of the room,
00:35:02
Speaker
she sees the mom and then later on the on their computer while Annie's working on the miniatures there's like a website and it says norms on assuming presumed apparitions and I actually couldn't find I feel like I found that exact title before but maybe they changed it because they didn't want to be associated with the movie but it was from the Vatican hilarious
00:35:32
Speaker
but it's still similar enough that it comes up when you Google that. Oh yeah, and then that's when they get the call saying that the grandma's grave site has been desecrated. And we just hear Steve saying, what does desecrated mean? And then later he gets, and as he's trying to email Annie's psychiatrist, presumably, being like, hey,
00:36:00
Speaker
seems like she's maybe on the verge of or actually maybe in the middle of and then we like never get the word but like it like I don't know if he's gonna say like psychotic break or like an episode or like but it seems like this is something that has happened before or maybe something they've expected because of her family history
00:36:23
Speaker
And then he gets the email saying that he's that like showing the pictures. I think it's from the insurance for the grave site and it shows pictures. And then he gets the call immediately after that saying that Peter broke his nose. And that's when I noticed he was drinking. What a day for that dad. I know, right?
00:36:47
Speaker
Have you seen that? I feel like it's like a TikTok song or sound that it's like... It's like an orchestral operatic demon song. And it's often on like pet videos.
00:37:07
Speaker
Oh, actually, no, it's like, actually the most recent trend I saw was it was like, it was like the six sins of sensory sensitivities and it's like wet socks and it's like sotany. I have not heard that. I'll have to find it because I'm pretty sure they say sotany. It's also the words that she's like yelling across the street when he's at school, though.
00:37:36
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a bunch of different individuals or names or whatever she's saying. Yeah. Yeah, that was like, I should have typed them out. So I did, I typed out what I found online and it's not Sotany, it's Zantany. Yeah.
00:37:51
Speaker
Zantony, oh yeah, this is what she's getting. Zantony, Dagony, a paragon, and then Peter get out. And she's like, they're like... No one else is noticing. Yeah, nobody notices even though he's just like sitting on his school bench. But I was gonna say before that, he's like smoking weed behind the bleachers, like the stoner kid that he is.
00:38:16
Speaker
And then has the same reaction that Charlie is with the nuts. He's like, I feel like my throat's getting smaller. My throat's getting bigger. Oh, bigger. It kind of means the same thing, though.
00:38:30
Speaker
Yeah and his friends are like kind of distracted but then I remember we talked about this before actually where you were like I feel like they were pretty they they responded pretty well for teenage boys where they had I would say they were like it's just weed like it'd be okay and he like holds his hand so that's nice rather than like oh get away from me
00:38:52
Speaker
in like the most yeah i honestly did feel like i i was like i don't feel like most teenage boys would hold their friend's hand while they were having a panic attack i don't know maybe i have most teenage boys this would happen and they'd never hang out with him ever again
00:39:07
Speaker
kind of how I feel. Oh, yeah, for sure. Kind of like, Oh, you're like sitting with your friend while he's like having a moment a little meltdown. Also, I don't know why. I guess she's just so distracted. But Annie like notices that Joan has, like the doormat that and she's like, Oh, my mom used to make ones like this. But it takes her like takes her like till like almost the end of the movie to realize that Oh, this is literally my mom made this
00:39:32
Speaker
Right. Yeah, that that seemed like a bigger red flag to me than she made it. But I think like she's just pretty desperate for connection, especially around grief, because she like doesn't feel like she can openly grieve in her family, really. Right. Yeah, she does say in the first first meeting with the
00:39:54
Speaker
uh the grief meeting i guess that she doesn't think her family would even be able to give her that support of a shoulder to cry on basically which is very unfortunate that she feels that way because i'm sure she could she doesn't really she just keeps saying i'm going to the movies see you later steve i'm going to the movies you know rather than hey like i'm going to this meeting you want to come or you want to talk about blah blah blah you know
00:40:18
Speaker
So she doesn't open up rather than her thinking that her family won't give her the support is almost like she's not allowing the support to be given because she doesn't want to feel vulnerable. I suppose. Yeah, I think so. And I think that that's where Peter kind of learns that too. Right. I think you can kind of read how that gets like passed down almost. Yeah.
00:40:40
Speaker
Yeah, it was surprising to me how soon Charlie was killed. It comes up like pretty fast because she's like such a big part of the movie to me. And I also I feel really bad because Millie Shapiro is the actress and she said that she's gotten bullied a lot. I actually took a quote that she said. She said being in a movie and playing a character where they purposefully made you look you're worse and then millions of people seeing it. I just remember when the trailer came out.
00:41:10
Speaker
And one of the top three comments was about how ugly I looked. And she has a genetic condition known as clitocranial dysplasia. And- Yeah, it's the same as the kid from Stranger Things. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I was thinking a lot about how I feel like the kid from Stranger Things got way more comments about like how cute he was. But I know that when they're talking about Paimon, the demon they're trying to summon, they say that they were looking for like a vulnerable body.
00:41:39
Speaker
And I do, I feel like kind of uncomfortable because there's just such a trope, especially in horror movies of disabled people being connected to evil or demonic things. Like, and conversely, like if you're like blessed by God or whatever, then you have like the perfect strong body. It's just gross and ableist. Yeah. Well, I think it goes in two ways with horror where there's like,
00:42:08
Speaker
the disabled person who is evil. And then there's like the disabled person who is like so pure and innocent because they're disabled or like magically because they're disabled. So it kind of is like these really extreme positions where it's always one or the other. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, Charlie, I feel like they made Charlie weird enough without that being part of it. Like the, like cutting a bird's head off is, I don't know,
00:42:37
Speaker
Well, so I want to talk about that too. So when that happens, Charlie's like playing with a toy or whatever and supposed to be doing a test or something.
00:42:46
Speaker
And her teacher comes over and says, let's play with the toy after you do your work or whatever. And Charlie looks super embarrassed. And I feel like she somehow made the bird fly into the window because she wanted the attention taken off her. And when the bird hits the window, everyone else makes a reaction. She makes absolutely no reaction. She did not startle the doll or anything. That's an interesting point.
00:43:12
Speaker
And then she takes its head. So obviously she feels some connection, right? She feels some connection to it. Right. And then she sees this is kind of a reoccurring thing is the the flashing or shining that they see that Charlie sees it go because she's like in her room. This is when she goes out to the out to the backyard and sees her grandma in the burning circle. It's like a shining like almost like
00:43:37
Speaker
like a reflection almost. And then yeah, Peter sees it too later and in school. Yeah, yep. Yeah. And when the mom becomes possessed or whatever, there's like a
00:43:50
Speaker
it's kind of like on her face. Like it goes like either up or down her face. And then her like facial expression shifts from like being emotional to being like almost kind of like a smirk or whatever. Exactly. But I think that's a cool way of visualizing it. It's like without it being, cause I think it's hard to like put stuff like that on screen without it being cheesy. And obviously this movie wasn't going for cheesy. And I think that was a really good way of having there be something, but like something subtle enough that it's almost nothing.
Grief and Magical Realism
00:44:18
Speaker
Indication, visual indicator.
00:44:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I think that Charlie's clicking noises were part of that too. Like it's kind of another symbol of showing that she is like regulating in a different way than other people. But like while she's alive, but then after she's dead, they're like hearing the clicking noises along with the lights a lot of times. And then we know immediately that Peter has been like possessed by Charlie or payment.
00:44:49
Speaker
I think the first time that that Peter sees the flashing is in in his classroom and then he looks in the wind the mirror or not the mirror the reflection of a cabinet and he's like smiling back at himself. Yeah, which I think is one of the scariest things that happens in horror movies is when like the character is looking in the mirror and the mirror person is like making a different race than they are. That's just like
00:45:10
Speaker
That's like the I like that or is there walk away and the person still still say I like makes you not want to look in a mirror because you're like What if I see the wrong thing or it's not with me or it's just like oh No, yep Yeah, I'm not a fan of that. So this is unrelated. It's related but it's about poltergeist poltergeist 2 is entirely about reflection and like the mirror realm which is
00:45:36
Speaker
Yeah. Interesting. I don't think I've seen pool degrees too. Oh, okay. Well, I just wanted to, since we were on the topic, filing that away for later, that sounds like it would be interesting. Yeah. Yeah, it's cool. Yeah. So when Peter gets possessed, he like stands up and clicks immediately that whole, yeah, just, just the building and building and building emotionally is a lot. Um, but like,
00:46:05
Speaker
Yeah, so Joan shows Annie how to do a seance. First, they had gotten some mail that was like, want to come do a seance? Oh, yeah. That's just very casually shown in their mail slot. But it was put in there after the rest of the mail. After the rest of the mail. It was snuck in there. It was probably Joan. Yeah. Who did that, you'd imagine. Or someone from the cult. Yeah, I thought it was Joan. Yeah.
00:46:31
Speaker
And then when Joan is like showing Annie, she's like, Oh my God, I gotta go. This is too scary. It's too much. Stop it. But then she's like, I should try this. And yeah, one of the things I just kept thinking about is like, I feel like people, anybody who's like emotionally vulnerable is more likely to join a cult and just
00:46:59
Speaker
Yeah, just all of the cult stuff and like the charismatic leader type person is often somebody who is not like the most mentally well either. Typically, they have like a God complex of some type. Yeah. And they like we see at the end that they were like calling the grandma Queen Lee. Yeah, there was just a lot of it where I
00:47:29
Speaker
I was kind of like how much of this is, how much magical element is like supposed to actually be in here versus it's just like the things that everyone in this family who's struggling with different mental health stuff is imagining. Yeah. Yeah, well, and I think that's like part of the fun isn't the right word, but like part of the fun, because there are a lot of things that happen that are like things that happen to people all the time when someone dies.
00:47:59
Speaker
Annie seeing her mom in the corner of the room in the dark. People see their dead loved ones all the time. Especially right away like that is really, really a normal thing to happen to people. And hearing the clicks, I would say, have fallen in the same category. I could totally see someone just kind of hearing that everywhere for a little while. And so it's kind of like how much of it is something and how much of it is just grief.
00:48:27
Speaker
Yeah, the thing that seems like the most magical to me is like what happens with Annie.
00:48:36
Speaker
like where she is like where it kind of shifts out of being like okay we're in like normal world stuff um is like after the dad gets lit on fire and then peter comes down and annie is like stuck up in the ceiling somehow i was kind of wondering how they filmed that also
00:48:59
Speaker
Yeah, I assumed that she was like being held up in some way. She wasn't, she's not Spider-Man. As much as she looked like it in that moment. And then she really did. And then like the way she jumps down and just like all of her body movements from there on out are very supernatural. Yeah, kind of primal.
00:49:21
Speaker
especially like she's when Peter goes up in the attic and she's like clinging to the ceiling again of the attic door and smack like you think she's banging on it with her hand but then you see it's her head which is you know she's just like up she's like in a frog position yeah over the door and then Peter sees like all the candles and then we see like a bunch of naked people show up and are smiling yeah
00:49:47
Speaker
And then he jumps out the window, one last heroic, and then he's just done. Yeah. And then we see.
00:49:57
Speaker
Like, yeah, so then continuing Annie's supernatural journey. I think it's actually before he jumps out of the window. Annie somehow in the attic with him without levitating. Yeah, she's just like levitating and sawing off her own head with like a piano wire, which I was just like, I mean, she's clearly being possessed. But the I don't know, I'm kind of wondering like what the head loss is symbolic of because it seems
00:50:27
Speaker
Well, Charlie's head. The bird and then Charlie and then yeah, then the grandma and then Annie. They've all I mean, like the most obvious thing is like they've lost their minds, lost their head. That's like a but I think that there's more. There's more behind it, I'm sure. And yeah, and then Annie's body like hovers up into the treehouse, the treehouse and Peter Charlie payment.
00:50:54
Speaker
wakes up and walks over there and is like slowly crawling up and we see like candlelight flickering in the treehouse and he gets up there and there's like more culty people. Oh yeah there's like more culty naked people as he's walking over there too. Yeah and then Charlie's head is just on this like large figure figurine like art figure like. Like a mannequin. Yeah I was like a mannequin yeah yeah with the the crown or whatever is on there yeah.
00:51:22
Speaker
And they're all like in kind of like a worship position like down on their hands and knees. And, and the two headless bodies of the grandma and the mom are in front of Charlie. And then Joan goes over to Peter and says, and
00:51:42
Speaker
Calls him Charlie and is like Charlie don't worry like you're safe now your payment at one of the What is it seven eight demons of hell? He's nine Might be eight or seven. I think it is not and like hell I think Yeah that
00:52:03
Speaker
We'd have to watch it again. He still looks pretty disturbed. I would imagine if I was a demon... If I was a demon who had just been invoked in somebody's body, I feel like I would be like, yeah, all these people worshiping me. I'm going to give them riches. I feel like I would be more hyped. But is it Charlie? It's Charlie, yeah.
00:52:33
Speaker
That part is like, I don't know, that's one of the things where I'm like, I feel like they didn't really fully flush out this idea. Yeah. It's open to interpretation. I feel like this movie, the ending, has like the same type of vibe as the Rosemary's Baby ending, where like the movie is so serious and it's so good and then all of a sudden you're just like, okay, like what? What do you think if you feel like they ran out of ideas towards the end you mean?
00:52:58
Speaker
No, I don't think they ran out of ideas. They just, like, they just switched the vibe in a way. I get what you mean. Yeah. And then the- And the chanting at the end. Like, I think any time that people- Yeah. Yeah. Oh, right. Yeah. That's exactly the same. Yeah. I lose- I, like, lose my ability to take something seriously once people start using the word hail. Like, I'm just like, like, hail payment. Like, it's the same as if, like, it's just like, I can't. I can't. I'm sorry. The year has won.
00:53:25
Speaker
Yeah, it's right. It's the same vibe as The Rosemary's Baby where they're like, Hey, Satan, hey, like, okay, this movie has been very serious from the start. And all of a sudden, we have like jumped 180 degrees in the other way. And it's just like,
00:53:40
Speaker
It just feels like silly. And then the song that starts playing is Both Sides Now by Joni Mitchell, which is like a quite light song. Like it doesn't, it feels weird with the vibe also. Yeah. The ending falls a little flat. That's the point is to feel weird. How did you feel about the ending? I liked the ending. I thought, I thought the chanting was suitable for that. I thought it was like kind of like ancient
00:54:10
Speaker
like an ancient ritual, you know, like, it's not like they look 1992, we're gonna start this whole thing, you know, like, it's, it's been that's been happening for millennia hours, I would imagine maybe not. But I'm just assuming this payment individual has been re manifested many a time. But uh, yeah, I like the ending.
00:54:32
Speaker
Yeah, I like the ending. I did all the chanting. Honestly, that's just where I that's where I got lost. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. But yeah, we moved all the way to the end. And we still have a lot. There's still a lot that we had not discussed. Okay. So when Annie figures out that Jones welcome mat was made by her mom, she goes home and just like, Oh, my God, this is definitely my mom made this I got to go look at the stuff anyways. So she goes back in the attic. And
00:55:02
Speaker
Was this before she finds her mom's body in the attic? It is, okay. Anyways, so she goes into like her mom's old stuff, finds photos, like an old photo book with, oh, I took a video. Oh yeah, you did take a video.
00:55:26
Speaker
So, and he finds like the cult book with a bunch of, it's like some weird language, and then he finds a book called Invocations, which has, there's a piece of paper in the book that's on the page of King Paimon, God of Mischief, and in highlight, it's highlighted, highlight. When successfully invoked, King Paimon will possess the most vulnerable host. Yeah, we talked about that.
00:55:51
Speaker
Only when the ritual is complete will King Paimon be locked into this ordained host. Once locked in, a new ritual is required to unlock the possession.
00:56:03
Speaker
I don't know what that means. Sounds like like there's a ritual for invoking him and there's a ritual to get him out of the body, which I think like the ritual that makes sense. So they had to do a ritual to get payment out of Charlie's body, I think is like what that's saying. But also, it seems like they had to be a boy, a man. This is male.
00:56:23
Speaker
I it says that he would ideally he prefers he covets actually a male host. So yeah, it actually like with that language, it makes me think that it should have been Charlie responsible for Peter's death, but I guess that they needed the living body for payment to go into. Yeah, I assumed that it was like, they like the grandma was able to kind of get to Charlie, but then Charlie needs to die so that it can like open the door to Peter.
00:56:52
Speaker
so that payment can have the male body. Okay, yeah. So this is what it says. Yeah, it says king payment is male, thus covetous a male human body. Sounds like must be. Also, when Annie tries to burn Charlie's sketchbook, she catches on fire. Oh yeah, and the sketchbook like had started filling with drawings of dead Peter. Yeah, Peter's head with his eyes axed out.
00:57:21
Speaker
So any tries to burn it and she catches on fire and I feel like. Once once Steve comes home and and she tells me tell Steve about my mom's up in the attic blah blah blah go let's go see and Steve goes and has a freaks out obviously and then any tries to get Steve to burn the book. It puts lighter fluid on it and.
00:57:42
Speaker
He's like you know i've like had enough of this basically but then any throws the book into the fire i'm assuming she wants him to throw it in so he'll die. So that he like to be out of the way so this whole ritual can take place or maybe not obviously she knew she threw the book in the fire in the first place and got caught on fire why would you put lighter fluid on it. Obviously the books gonna catch on fire quicker.
00:58:05
Speaker
I think that's why I've always kind of assumed the way I remember it as Annie being on fire because I still expected her to be the one that lit on fire. Yeah, because she threw it in. She's the one who tossed it in. So it is kind of weird. Yeah. Yeah, it is kind of strange that she wouldn't catch on fire. Why would he? Yeah. There are some plot holes. Which is what I was like. What the heck? Yeah, I think maybe she
00:58:29
Speaker
intentionally wanted him to do that? I don't know. It's yes, it is unknown, I suppose. Well, because it's hard to tell like what level of possessed people are at different points of the movie before they're like all right possessed. It's like, I think a lot of it is like super ambiguous. And the math like the system isn't explained particularly like the magic system that we are like working with. Yeah, totally. Well, we're not in the cult.
00:58:52
Speaker
Maybe we should join the call. We have to be. Maybe we should. We'll know the whole story. Yeah, we need to join. We need research. It's true. Yeah.
00:59:05
Speaker
undercover. It also seems like at that point, like there is definitely a breakdown in the relationship between Annie and Steve and Steve has said like, I'm gonna have to protect my kid like you're not doing like I love you. But like if you're gonna keep hurting my kid, I'm going to have to choose him. Yeah. And he when he is refusing to throw away the journal, he basically says like, I can't keep humoring you. It's not good for you. Right. He's like, you know, they basically saying
00:59:32
Speaker
drawing the line. Right. I can't go along with this to try to like ease your grief because like this is making you worse. For sure. Yep. That's a responsible thing to say, I would say. I would say the same thing. Yeah. I mean, he was basically like, I'm not going to enable you anymore. Right. I've gone through all my notes now. Did you have more? Thanks that you wanted to.
00:59:50
Speaker
Oh, I have right here. So when Annie destroys her huge project, her models, I feel like she like she gets a call from the art galleries. They're like, Hey, like, just want to know, like, get a little update. And she kind of just destroys it all. I don't know if that's like, she's just had enough of the project, or if it's kind of can be interpreted as she's like destroying her family almost. I don't know. That's just kind of, that's a jump, I guess, destroying her family. But that's just kind of like,
01:00:18
Speaker
I don't think it's like she's destroying her world. Right. Right. Right. Yeah, I don't think it's a jump to say she's destroying her family. And one of the things like questions you've asked me in the past, Carly has made me think of a lot about like where the turning point is in movies of like, where there's like no way they could go back to any semblance of normal. And I feel like that that is like a big one where she's like, no, it's ruined. And it's over. Yeah. Yeah. Should I do my last little point? Did you get told?
01:00:46
Speaker
I think Pat's looking through his notes to see if there's more. Okay, I have a place I want to end at, so I'll let Pat, I want you to finish it. Okay, I just, yeah, this is one thing. It's kind of just a little thing. When, so Annie Locks, like finds her mom, she's like, I found my, found my mom's door open and asked Steve, like, did you go in there? And he was like, no, I didn't go in there. And when she first goes in there, there's a, like a, a rune on the floor, like a symbol, a triangle. And we don't really see fully what it is, but
01:01:14
Speaker
Anyway, so she locks the door and he locks the door and Peter and I think any as well like finds it open multiple times after that. So I don't know if it's like the grandma coming out of her room or like opening the door or Charlie is doing it. I don't know. It definitely seems like the cult people have access to the house because they like show up in the attic. So I feel like they've I think they're coming in the house and fucking wish it a lot. Yeah. Yeah, I think that makes sense. It does.
01:01:45
Speaker
that's all that's pretty much okay so I have like a place that I thought would be a fun place to stop because it has like a discussion question along with it so something that I have like started to do because I noticed that it's usually relevant is when
01:01:59
Speaker
you're in a horror movie and you see people in a class and you're hearing the content of the class, it's often related, right? Like thematically. And so in the class, one of the things they're talking about, they're talking about a Greek play and they're talking about the Oracle and the teacher asks them the question. And so this is the question that I will ask to you guys.
Greek Tragedy and Inevitability
01:02:19
Speaker
Is it more tragic or less tragic if everything is inevitable and people don't have a choice? Like so is so when we look at this family,
01:02:29
Speaker
Like, is it more of a tragedy or less of a tragedy if, like, nothing else could have gone differently? Like, if this was the only end. More tragic. Why? Why more tragic? Because. That's like what the guy said in the glass. No, but actually, like, I think that's a really interesting question. And I think because we don't know how much of this was, like, set in motion by the grandma, like, to what extent. Like, we don't know how inevitable this was. No, it's true. And so you could kind of read it as, like, there was nothing that the family could have done to avoid this.
01:02:58
Speaker
But you could also read it as like, maybe they could have laughed, maybe they could have done something. And like, which one is worse? Like, what's like, what do you actually think is worse? I think that Annie could have done more to separate her family from her mom. But it like, it also sounds like she felt like she couldn't. I mean, it's just kind of like all guilty. But I mean, that's probably what her mom wanted was her her to feel guilty. So this whole Yeah, thing could come to fruition.
01:03:26
Speaker
Yeah, like she had to choose between moving forward with her family without the connection to her mom. And like, it sounds like she wasn't connected to her mom with Peter. Right. And then she, yeah, like she said, she allowed access back in her latter mom to have access back into the family. And that's, that's all it took, I guess.
01:03:51
Speaker
was just that that kind of everything snowballed after that. But all of this happens like after the mom has died. There's a whole setup. Like her mom had to like do things to set up this whole
01:04:04
Speaker
her mom dying was just a whole that was a part of the plan and altogether I would imagine right I think that they still would have had issues but it would have been different issues and maybe Charlie would have been safer and I don't know the one of the things that I've tried to read a lot about because it's unclear to me is like was Charlie payment the whole time or like what
01:04:26
Speaker
Is that because sometimes some of the things have said like Charlie was always payment. But that's really confusing to me and like was Charlie part Charlie and part payment cuz like I would think that. I don't know I don't understand how being possessed by a demon works.
01:04:45
Speaker
I think it's maybe just like the the powers that be in the demon world would not recognize Charlie as payment because she is female. Oh, perhaps. Oh, that could be. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. I kind of like that we don't know that like I kind of. Right. Open ended. Right. Because I think like every time you watch it, you can like watch it with a different filter on it. Like, right. You can watch it once and be like, OK, let's like
01:05:11
Speaker
let's take this in as if Charlie were payment the whole time, right? Like let's just watch it that way and kind of see what that's like. And I think that's kind of a fun way to watch movies is like kind of put a different lens on every time you watch it. So I like that there are a lot of lenses to be played with with this one. For sure. It's true. What's your answer to that question? Do you think it's more tragic? I think it's more tragic if you have a choice.
01:05:39
Speaker
Yeah. That's what I was just thinking. I don't remember if I answered, but I think like when you have no choice, then it just is kind of easy to keep right. Like it just is. So you can't really steer away from it. There's, and, and I think it's like less painful. I think a lot of people assume that they don't have a choice because it's easier to have someone else do the driving you're saying.
01:06:04
Speaker
Yeah, or to just like, I mean, like, there seem to be a lot of people in the world who don't think that we have free will, which is kind of disturbing to me. I don't think that we like totally have free will either. But I do think that we do about some things. Yeah, well, I think it's like the what is it like the serenity prayer that they do it like 12 step meetings, right? Right. Knowing what you can control and knowing what you can't control and like being able to identify where is that line and like work with that.
01:06:34
Speaker
And that was something I saw in Annie a lot is like, she was just so and I think like, this is a big thing with mental illness also is like for most things that it makes you feel out of control. And so it's like, sometimes you can just get swept away in that. But there are like ways that she could have managed her emotional health better. And I think it would have been better for herself and her whole family. Yeah.
01:07:04
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. But yeah, man, Tony Collette. Such a good actress. So painful to watch and that. Yeah, let's watch it again. I want to watch it again now. Actually, I'm like more excited about and the and the family that like, yeah, that dinner scene. Yeah, well, that that that's like what the
01:07:32
Speaker
the choice thing makes me think and she's saying at that point too like I wish that I could move on from this but because of your actions I can't and I don't think that's true like I think that there's like she's deciding to not move on right I I feel that like emotional wall feeling through her
01:07:54
Speaker
And I've definitely had that in difficult relationships with family members where I like am coming up against a wall. And then, but like, yeah, you can still make choices beyond that. And I think especially like parents are more responsible for being able to manage their emotions in that way, especially when like her kid is a teenager.
01:08:18
Speaker
But I somebody else says something in that class that like the kid says because but then somebody else says another thing, don't they? The girl says it's depressing because he's ignoring like in the play, the character is like ignoring the Oracle being like that, like it basically just telling him exactly what's going to happen and like how things will work out if he does whatever he's doing. And he's just like not taking any of the warnings. Right.
01:08:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think that fits also because it's kind of like... Yeah, it's laid out right in front of you. Might as well be like, all right, like if I do that, this bad thing will happen. Maybe I won't do that weird thing that I probably shouldn't do. Yeah, and Annie is like unaware of a lot of stuff in her mom's life as we find out when she's giving the eulogy, but like she knows a lot of the stuff that has gone wrong in her family and she doesn't really do that much to not repeat the pattern.
01:09:14
Speaker
Which I mean, I don't think she's like, Oh, if I keep repeating this, everyone's gonna die. And like, my mom's in a cult, blah, blah, blah, you know, I don't think she's Yeah, she doesn't know the full extent of what's gonna happen. Right. But still, yeah, she could take take it upon herself to try to not repeat actions numerous times. Yeah. Yeah.
01:09:37
Speaker
And yeah, I think especially between her and her mom and then her and Peter, she feels the same resentment towards her mom that Peter feels towards her, but she can't recognize it in Peter and see how her actions are causing that. Yeah. Well, she could be that way because of her mom. Right, exactly. So she's just not aware, I hope you said. Cycles of trauma and abuse.
01:10:07
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, it is. But I like I mean, I don't want to think that like in in the grand scheme of things in the world, I think people are able to break cycles of family trauma.
Breaking Cycles of Trauma
01:10:22
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. Takes work. Dedication. Yeah. Awareness.
01:10:30
Speaker
And it's also like very hard to, I mean, it's hard to do in general, but especially like when you're having ongoing trauma, it makes it harder. Right. I'm not sure. Yeah. Well, and I think that's the thing about it is like they're getting stuff thrown at them left and right, or especially the mom. Right. Now I feel depressed. Okay. Well, good thing we're basically done. Yeah. Well, I suggest that we wrap up and everybody go watch or listen to something funny. Yeah.
01:11:01
Speaker
Whose line is it anyway? Oh yeah, whose line is it anyway is good. I've been watching a lot of Bob's Burgers actually. I love that for you. Thanks. Okay. Great. Okey-dokey. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode. We'll be back in a couple of weeks or more. I don't know. Our schedule is unknowable.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
01:11:25
Speaker
It's not part of, it's not set in stone.
01:11:31
Speaker
But yeah, follow us at what haunts you pod on Instagram and let us know what you thought of hereditary and if there's any other movies you want us to talk about. And if you want to be a guest, we would love to have you join us if you're not super creepy. Thanks. Okay. Nice. Yeah, that's that last part. Well, very important. I don't know.
01:12:03
Speaker
That did it did it did it did it did it did it?