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SPOOKY SZN: Abigail Saw The TV Glow With Some Strangers
19 Plays7 months ago
The year is 2024. The crew is witnessing a weird 3 free movies a week era in their life. Will it last?
Have you seen I Saw The TV Glow? What do you think about this kind of horror? Is this elevated horror? Should the director make a Matrix movie? Should this have been a tv series? Have you seen Abigail? Should they have advertised this as a normal vampire instead of a ballerina vampire? Is Melissa Barrera saving cinema? Is Enrique just smitten with Melissa Barrera? Is she a bigger crush than Channing Tatum is? Did Abigail fall short? Have you seen The Strangers: Chapter 1? Was this better than the original? Did you know this was a remake? Reboot? Requel? Do you know who the killers are? Was it very obvious? Would you survive this situation?
Thank you for listening! Enjoy!
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Transcript
Movie Theater Ratings Discussion Postponed
00:00:00
Speaker
All right, we're good. We're good to go. Cool. I had the episode of what we saw last night. We saw a bunch of shit. So no warm up question. We're just going to get into it, mainly because we got other shit to talk about. So yeah, let's do it. Real quick. So we got, um, we're going to do a kind of head to head against the movie theaters that we've been to, um, together. And, um, I have like a,
00:00:26
Speaker
kind of like a matrix, kind of like laid out. And yeah, let's kind of go up with it. We want to rate them on seat quality, screen quality, popcorn quality, cleanliness, film variety, and any other factors you want to bring in to this. I thought this was going to be its own episode. Oh, if you want it to be like a whole thing, then we could do that. We could scrap that.
00:00:49
Speaker
That was the plan because also we did see three movies this week. You're right. Let's go. We'll scrap this for another day. which is my guy No, that's you're right. But I feel like we might not talk a lot about some of these movies, but you're right. This should be its own thing. Yeah. Like if we talk about each movie for like 20 minutes, that's. You're right. That's that is gone too far.
Review of 'I Saw the TV Glow'
00:01:16
Speaker
All right, let's get into it. The first movie we saw was, I saw the TV glow, 50% on high-end EB, 78% on rotten tomatoes, 1.5 million in the box office opening weekend. um Director Jane Schoenberg.
00:01:32
Speaker
wrote and, well, she wrote and directed it. And here's a quote from her. The chance to make something that was personal, this visceral, this much speaking from inside trans experience that hasn't really been done, at least on this level, every part of the process was completely surreal. I felt like I was pulling off some kind of existential bank heist. So I think that's like a cool quote. She also said she wants to direct a Matrix movie. Yeah.
00:02:02
Speaker
So I think, do you guys think she can pull off a Matrix
Can Jane Schoenberg Direct a Matrix Movie?
00:02:07
Speaker
movie? No. No. That's cute that she wants to, but I don't know. I mean, she could, she could make a Matrix movie. I don't think it would be great. I mean, I feel like I definitely see that that's the direction she's going, but I don't think it was like successful in this movie. So I'm not sure how it would be going forward. That's fair.
00:02:32
Speaker
Yeah, i i yeah know it's ah it's a strong pass for me. I think she could pull off a Matrix movie. It doesn't take much, um but I also only think like one person should do, or one wasaki should do the Matrix and that's kind of it. But like, I feel like anyone could kind of pull like, cause there's such a difference between one and three. It's like, if you're making three or like the later one,
00:02:59
Speaker
You know, like that that wasn't too hard, but no one can make will remake one. I mean, I guess i also like i see similarity, but I feel like this movie is literally the opposite of The Matrix. So, I guess I don't know... yeah that Yeah, that doesn't mean she can't do it, but that also means that she would have to do a lot of things differently.
00:03:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of interesting to me me because I see this movie about being like, it is very surreal. But this movie is about like, mental illness. And the Matrix is about like, actual, like, not paranormal, but like, futuristic. like actually it's The Matrix is extraordinary, like, like science fiction, things are happening, actual Reality bending is happening and this film was very much not that even though it's kind of the same vibe it's it's really not because we're talking about like what someone who's mentally ill perceives versus like The actual matrix Julia did you do a quick rundown of the movie?
Plot and Themes of 'I Saw the TV Glow'
00:04:15
Speaker
Yeah, so we follow the main character Owen who
00:04:20
Speaker
is kind of the weird kid in school. He has no friends. He's very, very isolated. His parents are very, very strict. He has like a very early bedtime. He doesn't get to watch like TV shows. And he comes across this girl that goes to his school that's a couple years older than him. And she's like obsessed with this TV show called The Pinko Pig. And just because I guess she's like older and cool,
00:04:48
Speaker
He's like, oh yeah, um, I love that show too. Even though I'm not allowed to watch it cause it's on past my bedtime. And one night she like invites him over to her house. He lies and says he's going to a sleepover, but he goes to this girl's house and watches this TV show with her. And basically he becomes obsessed with the show, not necessarily because of the show, but because someone paid attention to him.
00:05:17
Speaker
and he has like no one else in the entire world. And then this girl proceeds to start making tape recordings, like VHS tape recordings of the show for him so that he can watch it. The girl's name is Maddie, you know, she stays obsessed with the show all throughout high school. They don't really talk or interact much besides like her giving him the tapes.
00:05:46
Speaker
eventually Maddie like goes missing at some point in high school and after she goes missing she still sends him a couple more tapes but for some reason Owen never like reports the fact that he had contact with her after she was missing but we see Owen get older he's still obsessed with the show um his mom passes away from cancer and his Dad is shown as being like really abusive. We see him into like his early 20s and still he's still under really strict control. like He's 23 and he has like a bedtime. he has He has a job, but he has to come like immediately home from work. So we that's like the environment we see him in. And then one day, randomly out of nowhere, Maddie has been missing for 10 years at this point, and she just shows up and was like, hey, Owen.
00:06:43
Speaker
And he's like, oh my God, what? And she's like, yeah. And he's like, this is crazy. And she's like, by the way, I've been stuck inside the TV show this whole time. And he's like, I don't think so, Maddie. And she's like, no, remember? like We're inside the show. like Remember you and me? like We're actually the main characters of the show.
00:07:08
Speaker
And he's like, you sound kind of crazy. And he kind of gets upset. And she's like, no, you have to come with me and like reenact the ending of the TV show. And he's like, no, I'm not going to do that. And basically, I think Maddie disappears again. There's a lot of flashbacks. And this is where a lot of the surreal stuff comes in, because we see all these flashbacks of him and Maddie hanging out together.
00:07:37
Speaker
and You see them dressed as characters from the show, like, reenacting the show. You see him in, like, girl's clothing as, like, the female lead of the show. That's where it gets, like, kind of confusing. You don't know what's going on. Eventually, like, towards the end, like, we see Owen through his whole life. In the end, he's, like, in his 40s or 50s, and he still works at the funplex, and...
00:08:04
Speaker
I don't know, he starts to go crazy and thinks that he's part of the show. But it's never really. But then eventually he moves on and he says, he's like, his dad passes away and he buys the house and he's like, oh, by the way, I'm married with kids now, but you never see his wife and kids. So I get the sense throughout the entire movie that Owen is not necessarily a reliable narrator.
00:08:33
Speaker
You also see throughout the movie like when he's narrating it'll flash to like him sitting in front of a campfire and That was kind of confusing because towards the beginning the first time you see that he's an adult sitting at like a campfire in the woods I assume that that's like him as an adult and he's like homeless. That's what I thought that was it was like flashing forward to like Shit that he was homeless, but I don't think after watching the rest of the movie i don't think that's what it was but i'm also confused about it because well no it's said that he just went out into the woods one night like he got he couldn't sleep he didn't want to wake his family up right i i guess like i don't know if i missed that part but also i was kind of confused because we get the sense that his father is like so stripped that like he can't just like sneak out like that's this was after his dad died
00:09:29
Speaker
That was also a problem with this movie is the pacing. The pacing and the visuals did not match. Right. So that's, that's kind of like a basic summary of it. Um, but yeah, it it did get confusing for me at times because I, and like with the flashbacks of them reenacting the show, I didn't really understand. Like these aren't his,
00:09:58
Speaker
flashbacks he's not envisioning this and I don't think it's her I don't think it's Maddie's perspective either because if it were her perspective I don't think you would see them like dressing up in the clothes I think from her perspective it would be more like their move like morphing into the characters not just like playing dress-up so like those scenes never happened in real life but they're also not the characters imagination So it's like, what are they supposed to be? And I know I'm not like, I don't have to understand everything. I think some movies are meant to be like ambiguous, but to me it feels like this wasn't meant to be ambiguous, but I also don't understand it necessarily. Maybe it's just me and maybe I
Mental Illness vs Surrealism in 'I Saw the TV Glow'
00:10:46
Speaker
just don't get it. and No, I didn't. I didn't really understand.
00:10:51
Speaker
any of them at all or it's like when I say he's unreliable I feel like most of the time he is a reliable narrator and then at the end when he's like I have a wife and children for some reason I'm like I don't believe you though because where are they and it kind of makes it sound like you're lying but also we don't be a liar so maybe you're not I don't know that, like that was in the middle of them. Well, that was in the middle of his timeline. Like his dad died in 2010. And a couple of years later, you know, he like got the house and he had a wife and kids. He grew, he like allegedly grew up. Remember he bought the streaming TV and like, are the, are the wife and kids real? I, I think so.
00:11:39
Speaker
Cause then we also keep seeing like scenes of him as an adult in his house with his new TV and it's like... Wait, because remember that he said he couldn't sleep. So he went down, he didn't want to wake anyone up. So he, like, waked on the couch. He didn't want to disturb anyone and watch the Pinko Pei. And then he was like, oh, shit. He couldn't stop watching it, even though he was it was like altering his reality. Like, every time he watches the movie, he kind of alters the show, it alters his reality.
00:12:09
Speaker
I guess like with a lot of these surreal scenes my problem with them is there they're kind of just there for like artistic style choice because like I said they're not it's obviously not happening and it's not Owen's imagination and it's not Maddie's imagination so like the director just kind of showed us that for like because they felt like it And I don't really feel that it moved the story along at all. Like there's a scene where he like shoves his head into the TV and is being electrocuted, but like I don't think he's thinking about that. And I know when you're showing something like that from the character's perspective, when they show that scene, it's not necessarily that he's hallucinating that he might just be like thinking about it or like that vibe, but I don't think that's meant to be from his perspective. Does that make sense?
00:13:08
Speaker
I think he was trying to kill, like thinking about killing himself. Yeah, I, maybe I just didn't get, I think maybe I just didn't understand this. But I don't think it was like an intentional, let me be mysterious. I think it was just bad writing and execution. You have a really great idea of kind of not knowing whether you're going to but whether you're in reality or in a TV show, I just think it was bad execution. I like you should from the beginning it's very clear that like Owen is like, Maddie, we're not in a TV show. That's crazy. You're crazy. like That's not a thing. We're not ever inside the TV show. It's just a good show. But then there's all these like surreal things happening and it's like, does he really believe that? I don't really get what...
00:14:05
Speaker
and And again, maybe he's just saying, like, you're crazy, but in his head, he's saying you're already part of the show. That's probably what's happening, but it. Yeah, if it's meant to be like his point of view of him explaining what he thought, maybe he's ashamed to ask, like, you know, to maybe he's ashamed to say, you know, I thought that too, Maddie. So he used the phrase, you're crazy, but I just, I feel like that probably is what's happening, but it's, as an audience member, it's hard to, I don't know, maybe I'm just dumb, but I feel like what the movie was trying to say, I had trouble understanding.
00:14:49
Speaker
i don't I don't think they were saying anything. I think it was just, I think it was just done with hopes that people just,
00:15:01
Speaker
The thing is the nostalgia doesn't hit you. I don't love any of the characters. I don't hate any, I don't care for any of the characters. You know, the dialogue was kind of bland. I mean, it was like, I mean, the dialogue was, I'm pretty sure was just kind of written quickly. Like they there wasn' there wasn't anything really to it.
00:15:29
Speaker
You know, you just you just had a great idea and you sucked people in with the marketing, but then the execution was just bad. Now, she tried this again and changed some things. I think it'd be great. I think it'd be fun, but this one, this version of the movie just ain't it. And like what I was saying earlier, I feel like as a writer,
00:15:56
Speaker
or like a storyteller of any kind, you normally have like, I don't know, I guess like the Matrix is something completely different. And I i don't see why she couldn't do that. But like, in my mind, I'm thinking of things in terms of a writer that writes like, spooky or surreal stuff, they're either going the route of like, it's supernatural, or it's like a psychological thing and we're purely it's just like the mental illness of the characters and I feel like I guess I feel like a writer has to pick one or the other so I'm like if you're writing a story that's like about mental illness now you're writing one and it's like what if it was like also surreal but not about mental illness for some reason in my mind a person wouldn't want to do both but that's probably just a rule that I made up for myself
00:16:50
Speaker
It's just, this the whole movie's confusing. You don't really... At least I didn't get anything one way or the other. I just, I sat through just like a visual representation of something. I ah didn't really understand what... And I don't understand a lot of movies. Don't get me wrong. I mean, there's a lot of movies I go in and I'm like, what the fuck did I just watch, you know? but This one wasn't one of those that if you sit and think about it, maybe, you know, this was just... Yeah, like, so the bottom line is I don't think this was meant to be ambiguous at all, but to me it was very and ambiguous because I was very confused. But I also acknowledge that I'm not that smart and I don't understand everything, especially the films on the first watch. I am quite often confused, so it might just be me.
00:17:44
Speaker
I'm interested to hear what Pat has to say because I know he really, really enjoyed it.
Analysis of 'I Saw the TV Glow' Themes
00:17:49
Speaker
I'm going to keep that to myself. It was a great movie for me. I think that It was made to be very personal on a person-to-person basis. So it was one of those things that was either like, you got it or you didn't. And a lot of people didn't, and that's okay. I don't think it was made, it wasn't made to appease the masses.
00:18:15
Speaker
And it certainly wasn't made to make money. um they they Everyone involved in this made that clear. They were sending a message to a group of people. um A lot of people liked it. A lot of people, more people hated it. that was That's life. That was going to happen. So I really applaud A24 for like being like, you know what? We're going to do this. um I think the actors that attached themselves to the project, they knew it was going to happen. And they went with it.
00:18:43
Speaker
Yeah, so like I applaud the, i applaud I love the risk and I love the the visual representation of it. I love that it was hard to follow and you had to like sit and think about it and really like try to track down what was happening, what's real, what's not real, what's what's in his head. Because like the the light, we see Owen's lifelong struggle with his own identity and who he is and um finding his place in the world.
00:19:11
Speaker
eight And I think it's fascinating the way they they represented that. like I love the scene when he like rips open his shirt and he sees like the television screen inside of his body. like that That was awesome. And um I didn't mention this, but if you asked me what this movie was about, Owen is like clearly written to be on the autism spectrum. And like if I had to say like what this is about, it's just a movie about autism and also being queer and having like mental illness because you have Owen who's like very clearly meant to be autistic and that kind of drives a lot of his character and Maddie is a lesbian and she also is shown to have like psychosis in the end with like thinking she's a part of the TV show and
00:20:03
Speaker
It's just that dynamic. So I assume this was like a very personal thing that someone wrote about these different facets of like their life or someone they know. Maybe. Yeah, no, like very clearly is that um there's some pretty great articles. um and People are interested in it. Just got to search for them that were written on this and they were all very fascinating. Pat really just told us this was really good. And if you don't get it, you should.
00:20:30
Speaker
okay No, no, I meant for other people. Like, it does nothing for Enrique. Like, he wouldn't get, like, it's not worth it for him to read an article on it. It's not worth it for you to read an article on it. Like, if he has, but, like, for people that are interested in it, I think that it is. And I like him as an actor. I also only know two movies he's been in, but three with this one. And I don't know if having anyone else in that role Like I don't think anyone else in that role would have made it better. Like I think he did what he could and what he had to do. And I i guess if I'm trying to see it as an artistic, in an artistic view, I guess you can see the story of a kid who doesn't know himself from beginning to end.
00:21:27
Speaker
and just knows himself less as he gets older. you know I guess you can see that, but I'm forcing myself to see that stuff. I guess my main problem is that the entire movie is about pretty much Owen's obsession with the TV show, and we don't really see any other facet of Owen's life besides everything surrounding this show. But what we see of him, like he also doesn't seem very interested in the show at all.
00:21:56
Speaker
like During the times that he's not with Maddie, during the times that he doesn't have any new episodes to watch, he's not researching the show. It's shown in the film that there are like multiple books put out about the show. and He's not reading them. He's not Googling the show. He's not on the subreddit for the show. like Like, he doesn't care about this show. But that's, like, part of Owen's character. He's resisting himself for what he is and for, like, what he likes. And he's just trying to do what his stepdad or his dad wants him to do, and that's to get a job. Yeah, but why make his obsession of the show was such a big part? But he's not... I think it's the resisting is the bigger be your part.
00:22:45
Speaker
I guess i I didn't get that from it, but again, that I didn't get it. So like I didn't see that struggle. I was just confused the whole time. Cause I'm like, this entire film is about you being obsessed with the TV show.
Critique of Owen's Character in 'I Saw the TV Glow'
00:22:59
Speaker
And all you do is watch like.
00:23:02
Speaker
VHS tapes of it. if You don't make any attempt to I mean, he's not a good he's not good at like his that life It's a very flawed character and that's what makes it entertaining for me I guess just like in the age that we live I had a hard time grasping that like This day and age being the age that he was That she didn't have like internet access and I think like they only touch the internet part when he gets like streaming and that's at like past 2010. Right. But like you're telling me this like teenager didn't use the internet until 2010. It's a little bit far fetched to me. I know that happens. I'm just saying like it's.
00:23:48
Speaker
yeah no
00:23:51
Speaker
it's It's kind of a strange detail to throw in there cause it's not believable. And I feel like if you're going to throw something like that in there, you kind of got to justify it in some way. Cause I'm like, like you're telling me this 15 year old in the 2010s doesn't know how to use Google or like anything like that. I don't know. And he's, he's obviously not like the brightest person. That's fair.
Introduction to 'Abigail'
00:24:19
Speaker
All right, let's move on to the next movie. All right, next movie. What's next? Abigail. All right. Cool. It's currently the third highest grossing horror movie of the year, which is cool. 51 million. um Do you guys think that this deserves a top three grossing spot for horror?
00:24:44
Speaker
So I know already from the jump that this is a super hot take, but I hated this movie. And um so let me rephrase that. I'm not just saying I hated it personally, because I don't like the movie. I'm saying I watched it, and I thought this is a technically like objectively bad film. This was extremely poorly made, like super low effort. So when I say I hated it, like that's what im I'm not just saying like in my opinion it's not my style I'm saying like this was lazy and they dropped the ball so I'm i'm kind of confused about the reception so okay no I think it's fair to this is but see the thing is the crowd who watched this is the crowd who watched Megan plus so you got
00:25:42
Speaker
You know, you you have like the, I don't know if it got the Megan treatment, but you got the crowd. But you like it's it's you got the the crowd who watched Megan, you're younger, it's about teens, maybe 20s. But then you also got the plus, which older people, you know, late 20s, early 30s and 40s, that.
00:26:04
Speaker
People were, when it came out, like as we saw well after it came out, when it came out, like people were talking about like number one movie and to see. I heard it was gonna be really good. And I, from the previews, I was like, I don't think this is gonna be my style. It doesn't look like something that I would typically enjoy, but I heard it was gonna be really great. So I was like, oh, I'll probably come away from it being able to say that was a good movie. I just didn't care for it that much, but it was like the opposite for me.
00:26:35
Speaker
that And that's fair. i mean I think this was marketed to the... like It was made for the general masses, not like the hardcore horror fans, but the hardcore horror fans also went out because they were very supportive. um So you got a lot of people. this This was like a conjuring, like how people go out for a conjuring movie or a Saul movie. like They just went out for it. they um It was lighthearted enough to where I think everyone just went in to have fun and have a few jump scares. Enrique, do you want to give a quick overview? Yeah, yeah, sure. Because I enjoy it. Unintentionally, you you did miss some of the movies, so I figured. Well, to be fair, I did ah did give the ah did give the review of of Imaginary, and I miss like
00:27:31
Speaker
30 minutes of imaginary. no no but So basically Abigail starts off with, you notice, it starts off with her doing some ballet practice or maybe a recital, maybe it was meant to be a recital, there's no one in it there's no one in a stand, she just rented out a an empty theater. but It starts off with that, she goes home, you can tell she's got money because she has her driver sit her in the car. And then you they quickly they quickly show what you find out are kidnappers. You can tell they're a team, they have their mask, they meet up, don't say no names.
00:28:11
Speaker
um they what She gets home and you know she gets home, she goes on about her business and the crew was paid to kidnap her. so You know, they did. They do just that. They take her to those to this hidden location and fucking bumble fuck. And they meet up with a man. What was his name? Luther, Lutheran, um whatever his name was. They meet up with a John Carlos Pazitos. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever his character's name was, which I'm mad they had. They didn't have that much of him in it, but that's for another day.
00:28:49
Speaker
they They meet up with him. He's like the, all right, thanks guys. You know, here's the rest of the job. You have to be here for 24 hours. And then you split the, I think it was like 12 million a piece or something, 50 million. Each of them got X amount of million. And you have your, you have- I think it came out to 7 million per.
Abigail's Vampire Twist and Its Impact
00:29:16
Speaker
Was it? Okay. Yeah. That's what, oh, you know what?
00:29:19
Speaker
when at some point it was 12 because one died but so you you you you quickly get introduced to the characters and what I mean quickly I mean like super quick there's not much to it like you just kind of get thrown in and they introduce the characters they give themselves names of the rat packs you got the Joey and the Frank and the this and the that and the Sam and the Dean and uh I forget, I don't know what the hell the Rat Pack's people are, but they they give themselves code names and Melissa Barrera's kind of- You named most of the Rat Pack, but yeah, go. I might've missed like one or two, but I feel like I did a good job. Nah, but then her like they're all kind of chilling. They're getting to know each other. Melissa Barrera's character is kind of like, oh, well,
00:30:16
Speaker
um She's like the mysterious, quiet, um know-it-all kind of girl. She goes by and she kind of gives everybody's like, she basically does a profile on everybody. Everyone's like, cool, man, that is so cool. Her task is to stay with the girl, which is Abigail, and to basically make sure she's still alive because they had the drug, her they hit her with a sedative to to knock her out, because you know that's I guess that's what you do when you kidnap 12-year-olds. And her job was to do that. So she goes in the room, and she gets kind of like manipulated with the sweetness of a little girl. And she's like, basically, she set her up to where she takes the blindfold off, and everyone else is um you know kind of pissed off when they find out. But it turns into this thing, like, who's the boss? who's
00:31:16
Speaker
um who hired us and how do you know them and who can we trust and eventually I don't remember specific details but eventually it got to the point where I think they found out um that it was like this mobster's daughter or she might have said it or I can't remember but they found out that she was this mobster's daughter and they're like nah fuck it we're out of here we're not you know we're not dealing with this I'd rather leave empty handed than fucking get killed by this dude. They go upstairs to take care of her, which in movie mob turns means kill her. And that's when they realize she's a ah vampire. She jumps up, she attacks. At this point, two people already died. You got your, like,
00:32:08
Speaker
white drug dealer kind of cool dude. Who wants to be Eminem? Yeah. And then you had your, these are just like the characters that they, you know, these these are like the characters that they added into this like dysfunctional group. Then you have this like older ex-military man who's got, who's obviously way much older and it's got this like weird obsession with um Melissa Barrera's character.
00:32:37
Speaker
Joey, I think her character's name was in the movie. um But quickly they die, they figure out, they say, oh, who's killing them? It must be this guy, it must be that guy. And you think it's going to be a whodunit, but then you find out, oh, shit, Abigail's a vampire. And then the rest of the movie is just basically her going one by one by one by one by one trying to kill them all, manipulating them. And it ends it it ends in your cheesy, romantic fashion where She ends up finding good in herself and helps Melissa Barrera's character defeat the bad guy and then go home to her son that she hasn't seen because she's a junkie. Not an ex junkie. She's a current junkie. They made that clear plenty of times. So you you that's pretty much the the movie. they They go on. She kind of traps everybody. She turns somebody into a vampire, which was pretty cool.
00:33:34
Speaker
And then somehow you get a twist that wasn't really twisted enough and you find out Giancarlo Spasito's characters like, oh, this whole time I'm a vampire and I've been here the whole time and they're trying to like manipulate other guys and you got the one guy that's say ambitious who's trying to take over and he's greedy and he'll fuck you over for a dollar. um So the movie had a lot of these like,
00:34:04
Speaker
cliches I guess like each character had their Like when they describe each character, it's like okay, that's the most obvious Like the one guy was an ex detect a dirty cop. She's a junkie one guy's military, but you can tell he's military He's the guy that's on the rooftop with a fucking scope on his rifle at some point I think he even made hand signals and You got the driver who you can tell is good for nothing except driving. They specifically yeah like they specifically threw that in your face that this guy is like, they said, you're not a professional. And you have your like rich girl who from the jump you knew was a rich girl. She's like your hacker. like It had a lot of these cliches that most movies have when you have this like
00:34:55
Speaker
um group of misfits that come together for a job. They've obviously never um they've obviously never worked together, so they're kind of winging it. This is their first job. um you know So it did have a lot of that stuff, so I will agree with a lot of that. But I was telling Pat, when Pat and I went to go see Furios, I was telling Pat when we were walking home, I think the problem with a lot of movies is And I'll explain myself is that they, they're lacking action. And that'll mean like fast X action, like jumping over a bridge action, but so immaculate had tons of action. It had like actual action, but then that scene where she's like creeping by, I think she's got a candle and then
00:35:46
Speaker
She's like looking through stuff like that. I consider that action just like suspense. Yeah. tension But I consider all of that to me. I mean, I know it's got different words, and but like to me, that's that's action.
00:35:59
Speaker
You know, because it's gay like when I'm watching people beat the shit out of each other in an action movie, you're like, wow, this is exciting, right? um A lot of this movie was them sitting down and talking, even though the stakes were like insanely high. You're just sitting down and talking about it. But it had just enough moments where you have your small little narrow hallway. You have a very brief like very brief scenes where it's like, ooh, this is a little kind of creepy. It didn't have enough. I feel personally, I feel it should have had way more action and way less talking, but it had enough action. And there's movies have been lacking that where it's like they're too finesse. and And I'm not mad at it. I mean, a lot of the movies, the thing is a lot of movies have unnecessary action or suspense or all of that. so
00:36:58
Speaker
I was just happy to see like actual action. you know They're fighting a fucking 5,000-year-old, 12-year-old vampire. ah And there's like tons of blood all over the place. people explain like That's cool. you know But it did have enough of that tension and just that spookiness where it's like you you didn't go away from from that, you didn't try to make it into, i see the thing was with, I saw the TV glow, it didn't have anything
Marketing and Predictability of 'Abigail'
00:37:37
Speaker
to me. It didn't have moments of of that where any of that kind of had you on edge where you're excited either in a scared way or in a thrilled way or in like a hell yeah, kick his ass way. And this one, it did where at some point I was like, I think she's gonna fucking die. And then when it just somehow escaped,
00:37:58
Speaker
Cheesy, yes, don't get me wrong, a lot of it was cheesy, but it's like, when they killed us when the when she grabbed the the tray and blew up the girl who's already being part with Sunlight, that, you know, for a split second, you're like, one of them too is gonna get bit. And then they don't. So it's like, it wasn't enough, in my opinion, but it had just enough to make the movie what it needed to be.
00:38:25
Speaker
um Obviously the there are a lot of flaws in this movie. There was a lot of talking. There was a lot of, in the beginning, unnecessary whodunit finger pointing where they're like, this guy did it. And like they if you were if you went that route, you should have went that route. Because cause at first I'm like, oh, maybe one of them is working. Because you obviously knew she was a vampire. I mean, that's what the movie was advertised as.
00:38:52
Speaker
but they were making it pretty interesting when they're like, hmm, maybe one of y'all's working with them, right? Maybe Giancarlo's character was um behind it, which he was, but like, you know, like if you're gonna play that role, play that role, don't you? Yeah, cause like to me, that could have been interesting, but I'm watching it and like, I literally didn't care about that part cause I'm like,
00:39:22
Speaker
In my mind, I know this is advertised as a vampire movie and like the title of the movie, even as Abigail. So, you know, the title of a movie is always the villain's name, not the victim. So this whole time I'm like, this is just a distraction. And we already know from the marketing that Abigail is a vampire. So I kind of knew that like, this isn't a side plot. It's just a misdirection. And I think.
00:39:52
Speaker
Because they went with that, had you made us think that maybe there's more to it, then it would have, that would have made it work. But immediately, you know, after like the second kill, literally right after she, as you know, now she killed the fucking military guy. They go into the room and they find out, holy shit, she's a vampire. Right. It's like the whole first hour of this is like a whodunit.
00:40:21
Speaker
It's very, it's giving a clue. It's giving Agatha Christie. But that was unnecessary. Yeah. Cause like, it was just a waste. Like it they didn't do anything else with that time. Cause it, a lot of people complained about the marketing of this and said they should never have shown that she was a vampire.
00:40:39
Speaker
I think it doesn't matter because clearly a shit ton of people went out to see it either way. So it really wouldn't have made a difference. But just if you're going to market the movie that way, they they could have done something else for that hour of runtime because you're just sitting around waiting. And the whole time we know they're going to discover she's a vampire and like nothing else happens with the plot during that whole first hour. You're just like, this is weird. What's going on? But we as the audience know that she's a vampire already.
00:41:09
Speaker
And I would have loved if, and don't even know, I personally liked the movie a lot. I did. I really liked it a lot. But if I'm to kind of pick some things apart, it would have been better for me because I already knew basically the whole plot of the movie. She's a vampire. She's going to kill them. Like that's what the charlotte was.
00:41:30
Speaker
I think that was the point, though. like they just They were like. No, I was going to say, and I'm OK with that. I am. I'm OK with knowing right off the jump this little girl's a vampire, because then it's like, oh, I'm going to have a creative way she's going to kill people. And you know she was I think she did great as a vampire. I think she was fun to watch as that character. Personally, I think I would have loved the movie if, because they went with the whodunit,
00:41:59
Speaker
if they kept going, like we know it's Abigail, clearly, but maybe she's working with someone or if they, you know, find her eating someone and they're like, Oh my God, it's been, you know, if you would have stuck with the whodunit, even though we knew whodunit, um,
00:42:17
Speaker
I don't know. I think that would have worked too. I think that would have been fun. cause it's So this movie gave me Resident Evil 2 vibes, hard vibes. You're trapped in a mansion. You've got to solve puzzles to get out. Everything is locked. I mean, it was basically Resident Evil 2, no zombies, just a little girl vampire. So I love that. that Maybe that's why I think I liked the movie a lot was because the whole time I'm watching it, I'm like, oh, this is Resident Evil 2.
00:42:47
Speaker
but with vampires and more people. Because the one thing I love about Resident Evil is that you can play as either Claire or Leon and playing as the girls are always the best because they make it harder. That's not a fact. That's just one of my facts because it's always harder for me.
00:43:08
Speaker
i I like that. So this movie was very predictable, but in a good way. yeah It was clean. It was cut. And there was a lot of moments of unpredictability, like how the kills went down and how over the top the blood was. It was just like a fun summertime movie. You don't like think about it. You just watch it.
00:43:33
Speaker
And um they really did execute that well. They were like, we're going to let you know it's a vampire. We're going to let you know that the people kidnapping her are like the bad guys. like They let you know everything. And it was just gory silliness. And um I think that that's what did it for me. like Because it was done so well, like the gore was well done. Everything was kind of clean and then well executed.
00:44:01
Speaker
You know, the plot holes were used to plot holes when you watch horror. The thing is it was fun and that it was fun enough. The movie was fun enough.
00:44:16
Speaker
to hide a lot of the cheesiness and to hide a lot of the cliches that they put in there. But there cliches are fun sometimes. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. the That's what I'm saying. the These were fun. You know, like the movie was fun enough. And I know you you you had it and we didn't go with I saw a TV glow. But like this is a movie you put on. You don't you don't take like you don't go on a date and watch this movie.
00:44:44
Speaker
You know, like you wouldn I don't know. I think this works fine. for like No, this is a movie you put on when you're just like chilling, you know, like you got some friends over and it's raining. You're like, fuck, we were going to go out. It's like, oh let's just hang here and watch a movie. Like you'll put that movie on because it's fun. You know, like this is a movie you can put. Hell, you can put this movie on if you're babysitting and kids don't want to shut the fuck up. You put this movie
Mixed Opinions on 'Abigail'
00:45:09
Speaker
on. They won't speak for three days.
00:45:11
Speaker
You know, like this is the kind of movie you you you can put on and just have fun with. I mean, you could probably, you could probably watch this on a date, but it's not like ah Elisa Frankenstein where it's a little more tame. Like there is a lot of gore, there's a lot of action, fight scenes, you know, there's a lot of like unnecessary, she stabbed the guy with a chain a hundred times maybe, you know, like,
00:45:39
Speaker
That was great. It was. But like, there's a lot of that where I can see someone saying like, oh, no, this is too too gross or something. You know, so the the the movie was just for me, it was just fun enough where I can look past all that other stuff and just enjoy this movie, because sometimes I just need something to be fun. I don't really need to think much, you know,
00:46:07
Speaker
I think a lot. I have a list of problems with this movie. No, that's fair. I just want to say the best kill was when they used the sunlight and she just exploded. Yeah, that was awesome. It reminds me of what's, is it ready or not? Oh yeah. When they explode at the end. yeah This reminded me a lot of that. I, I think that I might just not like fun.
00:46:34
Speaker
But and I did not have any fun watching this. Maybe I went into it too negatively, but like a lot of the problems were just too big for me to ignore. And I felt like it was like a very silly, fun movie, but it wasn't ever funny. Not that it was supposed to be like a comedy, but I feel like something like this, if you're gonna be like,
00:46:54
Speaker
It was giving very much like knives out, Agatha Christie, Clue, like all these things we said, but there was not like a, there's like one joke in the entire movie and I did not laugh like once. I feel like a movie like that should be funny. And if it's not going to be funny, just be serious. It was kind of like over the top silly without me laughing one time. That was like one problem I had. I'm like, it was like- You laughed more in Godzilla Kong.
00:47:24
Speaker
right like there were really funny jokes in that but this was like very cartoonish even with the way the characters were like stylized or basically like caricatures but there's no jokes you also laughed more and i saw the tv glow yeah i think like some some jokes don't just land with you and some jokes don't i mean there's some things that are funny and i'm like oh yeah that's kind of funny but you know i'm not like laughing and then there's some things where You know, I kind of chuckle, like at the end when it's just like, she's like, they're like, oh, i'm um thank you for, seeing he didn't say this, but like, thank you for saving my daughter. And she's like, yeah, um I'm out of here. Like, I just, that's not, to me, that's not funny, but I'll chuckle at something like that. Like, yeah, like hurry the fuck up. You don't need to talk to these people. You don't like, but I get it where if if you're gonna,
00:48:22
Speaker
make a couple things be funny, you should make them, you know, either go all out or go in. I get what you're saying with that. The thing is, I think, too, it was classified as like a horror. And I don't know if like this is hard. I mean, I'm not going to say it's not hard, but I don't know if it was like necessarily maybe the horror you were interested in.
00:48:52
Speaker
or like a horror that you might've wanted to watch. You know, like you might be in the mood for a certain kind of horror and then this being labeled. I mean, it's not what, ah so I thought this was gonna be a horror comedy just from the previews and all of the marketing for it. I was like, this is clearly a comedy. And then I watch it and it's like silly, goofy, Scooby Doo with like zero jokes. So now I'm just like. And food.
00:49:20
Speaker
Yeah, like it literally like an episode of Scooby Doo. I mean, I have more problems with it. No, that's fair. I mean, I, I, I had a lot of things. Go on.
Character and Continuity Issues in 'Abigail'
00:49:33
Speaker
Yeah. you Okay. So I'm going to be that guy for a minute. One of the biggest, most major problems of this movie. So this is okay. Two parts.
00:49:46
Speaker
This is advertised as they kidnap a little girl and she's a ballerina vampire. Number one, from the jump, she does not do ballet a single time in this entire movie. And it like baffles me that they found a child actress that has no ballet experience just because that's so common and so easy to find. Or like they didn't have a single like reference person on set. Like it's, it was just so strange to me. And I know that I'm nitpicking because I know that a general audience member probably doesn't have ballet. They did. They did bring in a ballet coach. There's a whole interview with her. I read it. It's not important. I don't really care because they, they, they didn't use the coach and they didn't, you know, I know they hired one. I know they were there, but like, you don't see it. And I know I'm,
00:50:43
Speaker
again, nitpicking because most people aren't going to notice these things, but to me, as someone who does have experience and who does notice it, it it's super bizarre and it's really hard to watch because the entire character is a ballerina and she can't dance.
00:51:04
Speaker
so like For me watching it through my eyes, I'm like, what the fuck's going on? I'm waiting for the plot twist in the movie where they reveal that she was never a ballerina and it was like a joke. That's how bad it was. And I know you probably think I'm being dramatic, but it's. The only way I could describe it is like imagine if they kept calling her a football player and throughout the movie, she kept doing like baseball moves. That's like.
00:51:36
Speaker
It was like, as someone who knows what they're looking at, it was so like painfully obvious that it was kind of strange and literally left me confused. Like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop and it just doesn't. My second part of that is, okay, she was clearly a vampire, but if I'm one of the characters in the film, when I see her like turn and like do her vampire shit,
00:52:06
Speaker
it doesn't scream vampire to me. And I know vampires look different in every single movie. They even make like a funny reference and they're like, is it an Anne Rice vampire or a Twilight vampire? But like, they don't really show her drinking blood right away. They just show her like, roti and like kind of turn into a monster. So if I saw that, I wouldn't think vampire right away. Maybe later on when I see like more blood and stuff like that, but I'm just like,
00:52:37
Speaker
Like what made that her scream vampires then? I guess it's just the first thing that someone blurbed it out. Maybe teeth. Maybe the teeth. Yeah, but to me teeth doesn't say vampire. That's just me. Maybe, I don't know. i'm wondering i I wonder if they didn't mention anything about her being a ballerina. Would you care about it going into it? number'm not No, it's just like it was so ingrained into the movie. They make references to it at the end. of guard They advertise it that way. right yeah yeah At the end, the guards like I hate ballet and it's like this whole thing. Like I said, it was so bad that I was confused and I thought it was going to be a plot point and like revealed that she really wasn't because like she clearly like I'm not lying when I say ballet was not done in a single scene in this film.
00:53:31
Speaker
Like I know you think I'm being an idiot right now. Like you probably think I'm being stupid, but like it just wasn't like getting up and waving your arms around isn't ballet no matter how much you want it to be. And it wasn't even poorly done ballet. It just wasn't anything that exists in ballet. Like it's not like she's doing things wrong or doing like a stylized version, she's doing something completely different and unrelated to ballet. And it's like, if they just said she was a dancer, or if they just didn't really hound on it so much, you wouldn't really, it wouldn't bother me. But it's just so strange that that was such an integral part of the movie. But I'll move on. Um, just like, stupid stuff like,
00:54:21
Speaker
Abigail's flying around the room for like five minutes straight. She starts levitating again. And all of a sudden the one guy's like, holy shit, she can fly now. When she had just been flying for literally the past 10 minutes. Like the dialogue was really bad to me. Like just didn't make sense. One of the major, major issues I had is the continuity like did not exist at all.
00:54:50
Speaker
And normally that's kind of, I'm used to seeing that in like comedy movies. Like in a horror comedy, it's more about the jokes. It's not about the continuity. But again, this isn't a comedy and just the continuity was so bad that I couldn't help. Like from scene to scene, a character would be covered in blood and the next scene there's not a drop of blood on them.
00:55:16
Speaker
or just like someone spills something on their shirt. It's not there in the next scene. just Just constantly like a character turns the corner and they're holding a prop they weren't holding. There's literally a part where like Joey, her shirt is completely drenched with blood. Like they dipped it in a bucket of blood. Her jeans have like not a drop of blood on them. Just like little things like this, but I'm like,
00:55:44
Speaker
I start counting on my fingers, like the number of like mistakes like that I see, and I run out of fingers. and um I don't wanna be overly k nitpicky, but I feel like when it starts to reach, like it's like every single scene was filmed on a different day, and those days were like weeks apart. It was, like and again, maybe it's just me, but like that was blaringly obvious, and I just like couldn't,
00:56:13
Speaker
I had a really hard time being immersed in this movie at all, just because it was so, like, janky. and Do you think the casting the casting was done correctly? Yeah, the casting was fine. I just... I think the character, like... So there's certain things that... And, you know, I agree. There's a lot of stuff. I might have missed the blood on her, um you know, blood being there, blood not being there, because I have the coogly eyes for her.
00:56:42
Speaker
I'm making a crush list of 2024 and she's like up there in the top five. She's like the first five? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I might've missed that, but oh you know there's there's a lot of things that I did notice, but to me personally, there was just a lot of fun in it and not enough, but there was enough fun, I should say, in it to where, and maybe, I think maybe the saving grace for this movie for me,
00:57:13
Speaker
was that it reminded me so much of Resident Evil 2 that I just had a lot of fun watching them go through trying to figure out how to get out. I wish they leaned into that more. That would have been awesome like trying to figure out how to get out part. But the the casting also got it for me. like Each character, each actor fit the character perfectly.
00:57:34
Speaker
Like I don't even, they were probably even acting. Like I think that's just huge. Yeah, I think the casting was great. I just think like the dialogue was pretty poorly written. Like a lot of the dialogue just straight up didn't make sense. And just like another issue, like they mentioned Abigail is like roughly 300 years old. And again, I don't know what type of vampire she is, what the lore in this universe is, but She's clearly, and obviously it's a child actress, but you would think if she's 300 years old in a 12 year old's body, she's gonna act like 300 years old. But she's not, she's clearly 12, if that makes sense. It's not like- An acts like a 12 year old. Right, it's like if you've seen an interview with a vampire, you know what a little girl, you know when an adult woman trapped in a little girl's body looks like, acts like, et cetera. That's not what Abigail is.
00:58:27
Speaker
She's been around 300 years, doesn't speak eloquently, doesn't, and obviously there's parts where she's pretending to be 12, but even then it's like, her vocabulary her mannerisms are just that of a 12 year old, not of a 300 year old woman. And it's like, not to harp on it, but you're also telling me she's been alive 300 years and never learned any valet in that time.
00:58:55
Speaker
Yeah, that that I don't know, because I don't know ballet. I do get, though, what you're saying, because I do. and And when you said it, when we came out the movies and you said it, I immediately thought of like, I love Remember the Titans. I love that movie. I think it's great. And and I get it when you have because I play football, so I know what like certain bodies do in in in in the sport and like I do hate when they in movies when they get like some overly obese guy to play like left tackle and it's like dude there's no fucking way you're gonna get beat every single fucking time.
00:59:37
Speaker
you know, like you just, you're not fast enough, but they do it because you you need to see the the size, the size difference between this guy and this guy. So I do get it. And that's little, little things that really shouldn't matter to me, but they do kind of like, in and in then a lot of movies, they do kind of, um I guess they do kind of reach a point of like, oh my God, this is fucking stupid.
Introduction to 'Strangers'
01:00:03
Speaker
Yeah. Like I don't want to say you're,
01:00:05
Speaker
and say this movie was terrible because of that, but I think that kind of set the tone for me and like set a precedence from the opening scene where I'm like, you know what's going on here? And that was just the first of like hundreds of mistakes in the movie to where I'm just like, what's going on? And it's it's just so bad that it's distracting.
01:00:34
Speaker
And I feel like I'm woman explaining this movie right now, but it's like, and again, people that don't do ballet are not going to see what I'm seeing. But I feel like that's like a pretty common hobby that like a lot of people have experience with. So anyone that does is going to watch this movie and be like, what's going on? Like, why is she doing that? That's fair.
01:00:58
Speaker
And I just, like I said, it's it's so easy to find kids with dance experience because professional actors are like nine times out of 10 in a dance class every day, just because that's what you do in Hollywood. A lot of athletes are dance classes too, interestingly enough. A lot of running backs do ballet, interestingly enough, but, so I didn't mean to interrupt.
01:01:24
Speaker
But yeah, that's my my major problems is just like so many continuity mistakes, like bad writing, bad dialogue, but I also... This movie was basically like a cartoon, but not funny at all. So I think the whole time I was kinda like bored because nothing's happening. It's not scary, it's not funny, there's no action, the characters are bad, the dialogue's bad. Maybe I was having a bad day that day, but...
01:01:54
Speaker
I wonder what a second watch would do for you. Yeah, I don't know. I'd be willing to give it another try. um I think the only person I would show this movie to is someone who has never ever heard of it and someone has like no clue that it's about her being a vampire, hasn't seen any marketing for it. I feel like that would be a very fun watch. It's giving like from dusk till dawn, you don't know that it's about vampires. Right. And that's what makes it fun.
01:02:25
Speaker
That movie was also advertised, like all the previews showed that they were vampires, but someone might watch that like 30 years later, not know anything about it. I'm like, holy shit, there's vampires. I feel like that could be, like I would put this on for a friend who doesn't know. And then it's like a fun reveal. That's fair. But that just wasn't the experience I had. I feel like if you've never seen a preview, if you don't know what ballet is,
01:02:53
Speaker
If you don't like to laugh, I think you would like this movie. Also, if you have the googly eyes for any of the cast. I think she's... i Yeah, then you definitely want to watch this movie. because Personally, I think she's in like a mid off with Jenna Ortega. So I really could care less about her. she' like As far as I'm concerned, they for one of the they're like in a fight to see who can ruin the Scream franchise the quickest.
01:03:24
Speaker
Nah, I think they, um, I think they saved cinema, but that's that's neither here nor there. Yeah, you know. All right, Pat, let's move on to strangers. I think Pat left. I don't know. I don't know. I'm here.
01:03:40
Speaker
yeah He's like, when is she going to shut up? Pat, what who would you recommend Abigail to? It does. any I don't know. Man, it's just a fun movie.
01:03:51
Speaker
it like It fits on so many levels. Like if you're going to watch it with a reactionary crowd, go for it. If you're just and for background noise, I think it fits. It's not like a great horror movie. The thing is like for me is I think I put it dead in the middle. And for the the major yeah for the remainder of the year,
01:04:19
Speaker
um I asked myself, like was this better or worse than... um It was the one on Shudder where it was just the two people in the thunderstorm. Oh, yeah. Well, you thought it was about the racist house, but... Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So like I'm good. No, no, no, no, no, no. That that was different and different when we watched them on the same day.
01:04:46
Speaker
The racist house was with the family. Right. yeah Right. Right. Right. No, I know what you're talking about. It's the guy who was killing women. Yeah. ah Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. OK. Yeah. Everything will be because that was a perfectly executed two person low budget film that shot above its weight. But it's like still wasn't like the best thing all year. So it's like, is this better or worse than that? Man, I got it at eight.
01:05:13
Speaker
So I think I really, I think I enjoyed it more than, the thing is I enjoyed it more than, than you would probably think listening to me describe it. I liked it a lot and it was fun and I think I don't want to see it again and from now for at least a year. Uh, let's move on to strangers though. So before we get into it, this is being rebooted as a trilogy. What do you guys think of that? So,
01:05:41
Speaker
i Listen, I have way different hot takes for this movie. I'm being very contrarian this week, but I think the issue with this was the marketing because everyone saw the title Strangers Chapter One and everyone thought it was a prequel and there was nothing about it that told us it wasn't a prequel.
01:06:03
Speaker
and they didn't really And they didn't acknowledge it being part of a trilogy that's going to be released until after they released this. So they really wanted us think us to believe it as a prequel, whether or not we like that or not. I'm not going to lie. I was so embarrassed that I thought the whole time it wasn't like a prequel. I was like, oh my God, if these guys find out that I think it's a reboot, they're going to fucking laugh me. They're just going to laugh me.
01:06:34
Speaker
Again, I have a hard time like watching movies for the first time. I'm not gonna lie, I am very often confused. And I literally didn't know that this wasn't a prequel until literally the after credit scene. like The entire runtime, like all 90 minutes, I'm like, how the hell is this a prequel when it clearly is present day? like um the entire time I'm telling you, I'm criticizing her makeup, the clothing style, the technology, the push to start car. I'm like, the stranger takes place in like 2008. How is that equal? And like, I'm genuinely embarrassed to say that I like sack her the entire time, picking it apart and saying, how the hell is this pre 2008?
01:07:32
Speaker
Yeah, they're like, it's they're like making COVID references. Yeah, I'm like, this is the worst prequel I've ever seen. Yeah. So like a big part of what makes The Stranger scary is that we don't know anything about the people doing it. um And over the course of three movies, we're going to learn probably a lot, if not everything about these, the people doing the crime. um Is that going to ruin this? So I'm going to say we'll have to wait and see.
01:08:12
Speaker
because just if you isolate just this film and hot take here, get ready. I thought this movie was great. And I know that like everyone universally, it seems like hated this. This movie was so good. Like maybe I just have to be different. maybe I think I have this disease where I need to have like hot takes. But this movie was so good.
01:08:41
Speaker
And that that plot point might ruin it, the fact that we kind of know who the strangers are. But i I don't feel it quite yet. Once they go into like the sequel and go deeper into that, it might start to get funny. But like.
01:08:57
Speaker
OK, I'm so happy your hair turned on because that tape was. I know, but in in general, what were your thoughts on this movie? So hear me hear me out for a second. I'm going to explain.
01:09:11
Speaker
Pretend for a moment you've never seen the the original Strangers. Okay. Explain to me why this movie is bad. Oh no, I didn't think it was bad. I didn't think it was great. No, I'm just saying like the general consensus seems to be that like it's too much like the original Strangers like some scenes were directly copied. Basically every complaint I see about this movie I'm like okay Act like you've never seen The Strangers and give me one single reason why this film is bad without referencing the first movie. There definitely are some major flaws still, but I don't think it's nearly as bad. And we just simply can't judge this movie based on the original because it's a different movie. There are billions of people that are going into this that have never seen The Strangers.
01:10:01
Speaker
True. And if you look at it that way, it's a really solid movie, I think, personally. I didn't have a problem with the movie. I thought it was, I thought it was fun. Uh, the thing is, so the way I rate movies on letterbox, and then I got to also remember that I have to explain to myself also is that if I had a good time with the movie, giving it like a three out of five is not a bad thing.
Trilogy Aspect of 'Strangers'
01:10:29
Speaker
Like I had a really good, like,
01:10:30
Speaker
The thing is the movie, and and here's a problem too, and I shouldn't have, I know I shouldn't have done it. I literally saw the original strangers.
01:10:42
Speaker
I want to say the night before we went to the movies, just cause I wanted to recap and I don't know why I did it. I could have saw this and be like, Oh, I remember the original cause it was kind of shot for shot. I mean, it was almost identical. It comes, you know, stabbed in the stomach, shotgun,
01:10:59
Speaker
accidentally shoots Dennis Reynolds. like it's Everything was shot for shot, but I wasn't mad at it. I thought, you know i I'm not gonna say it was great, because I don't even think that the strangers was great, but it was um was a lot of fun. And yeah, I'm being dramatic saying this was like great, but I feel like people are being so negative about it that I probably feel the need to like fight back against that.
01:11:28
Speaker
But I had a lot of fun and I thought it was really good. I thought it was a super solid movie compared to the other stuff we see coming out today. It was out of these three that we saw last week, it was my favorite. And I thought it was a lot of fun and I would show it to people. So interestingly enough,
01:11:48
Speaker
this movie, I, all right, let me backtrack because I lost my train of thought, but I got it back. Interestingly enough, this movie, during the movie, I was being those people. I can just remember myself thinking, God, this fucking, this shit is, this is the fucking same movie and bla blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But then it dawned on me, wait a minute. This is called chapter one. So when, you know, at the ending, I don't want to spoil it, but I also don't care. But like the ending, I was like,
01:12:27
Speaker
Oh, you know what? I'm not mad that this is part of a trilogy and that they're going to release a trilogy kind of right away because the movie felt short. Really short. Yeah. It was like exactly 90 minutes. Yeah. So, you know, there's there's that there's like a lot of stuff that kind of just threw me off guard. But again, I will say personally, um,
01:12:56
Speaker
I'm glad it's a trilogy. I love a good revenge story. I'm glad it's a trilogy. I hope that the twist either at the end of two or at the end of three, I hope there's a few twists. One, I hope that the boyfriend's still alive. That's probably not happening.
Plot Critique of 'Strangers'
01:13:21
Speaker
And two, I really hope that In part two, they beat the shit out of the strangers like they did Michael Myers and Halloween kills. And they get like all the people come out of their houses with like their toaster and baseball bats. I hope they do something like that. That would just be great. But I know that's not going to happen because there's like six people in the town and three of them are
01:13:47
Speaker
killing They all love the people who are in the Strangers. They're gonna protect them. Also, it's clearly, Baghead is clearly the sheriff. That's the only way he got in bed with her. the gu Yeah, the and one of the Mormon kids and the waitress that took him home. Yeah. but She literally said, I live right down the street. yeah who yeah and they turn At the end of the movie,
01:14:17
Speaker
they take that raggedy truck literally into a home two seconds away. I don't know. Well, they they just turned off the road. I don't think they were going to her house. I think the major flaw in this is how far fetched it is in the way that, and this is just me personally, in my life experience, I would never get got like this. I would never be caught slipping this hard because They go to a diner. The mechanic next to the diner very clearly and obviously sabotages their car. Like you're telling me like they watch them walk into the diner, they walk back out and their car is magically broken. And then their waitress from the diner is like, I'll drive you to a second location and you can stay at this rental house nearby. So now everyone in the diner and everyone that works at the mechanic
01:15:18
Speaker
all know exactly where they're staying. Yeah, probably all know like that the key is under the mat like and again, I'm a woman. So I probably practice certain things when I'm traveling that maybe you guys don't so I'm interested to like But like just as an example of like basic safety, I'm 29 years old. And if I ever stay in a hotel, I send my mom like the information of the hotel at 29 years old. Just for like... But that's common sense. every You should always give someone the exact location.
01:15:57
Speaker
Right. I know not everyone does that, but the fact that this couple and also it's it's the woman in the couple who's like, babe, they're not scamming us because the guy comes out of the diner and he's like, come on, are you serious? Like, they clearly sabotage your car. And she's like, oh, my God, no, they didn't stop being rude. Like, and I'm like, I think she was trying to save face, but she like totally agreed. But what are you going to do? Like, I saw it as like See, that's why it's not bad to be prejudiced, man. That's what he was. He was like, look at these fucking and I'm joking. I'm saying. I just feel like he like made a really good call and it was like a little far fetched to me that the girlfriend was the one that's like.
01:16:42
Speaker
no let's stay at this strange house that now they all know exactly where they're staying because the waitress dropped them off like yeah like in airbnb in the woods where multiple people know multiple people know where you're staying but no one that you can trust knows exactly where you are like that was super far-fetched yeah because Yeah, like I said, just me personally, I've stayed at Airbnb's before and whenever I do that, even when I'm with other people, someone that's not on the trip with me always gets the link to the Airbnb where I'm staying. Just, just because, just, you know, safety. Yeah. And I might even send it to them just be like, Oh look, this is where I'm staying. But also I'm thinking in the back of my mind, now they have my location, like,
01:17:34
Speaker
I'm showing them just for fun so they can see where I'm staying, but also they know where I am. If anything happens. Yeah, that's a common safety thing. They didn't really express any type of safety. Um, like they were just like, Oh, our car is a mysteriously broken and all right, we'll stay here. And like, Oh, there's a, like they ignored every like factor of, um,
01:18:03
Speaker
of what's his name. So when they go into town, someone cuts them off and goes like, get out of here. Were they trying to warn them? It was very strange. In the beginning, they're driving down the road and someone comes driving towards them in the wrong lane, going the wrong direction. And it's never really acknowledged that. What the fuck was that person doing? Why did they drive in the wrong direction and then act angry?
01:18:34
Speaker
What was that about? And but then I'm like, is that one of the strangers? Were they trying to get them earlier? But then that's not the typical there formula. They're not at a house. So I don't know.
Character Dynamics in 'Strangers'
01:18:45
Speaker
i I took that as like it's the perfectly red herring kind of like they were like, get out of here. Maybe it was someone who like, you know, kind of knew something like they don't treat outsiders well because the last outsider, they was a guy that went missing.
01:19:03
Speaker
suspiciously right after leaving the the diner that was staying at the Airbnb like it was super um Maybe he was just like, fuck this, you know, I'm a part of this. Get out of here. And, you know, they completely ignored it. But also like in my head, I'm thinking if someone does that, I'm just leaving that town. Like they had enough gas to go to steal. Like I saw it like they had over a half a tank. They could have gone another like 50 miles to the next town, like.
01:19:38
Speaker
I don't know. Cause it, if I'm in that situation, I'm probably so shaken up that I want to pull over and stop immediately. Like I'm i'm getting off at the next exit. Well, remember, I think it was Friday, 13th, one or two where the guy drives, rides his bike and say, you're all doomed. Well, yeah, hes he's in a bunch of them and he always is the red herring. That's like guy, the harbinger. That's like, guys, don't go there. You're doomed. Right. Whoever listens to him.
01:20:07
Speaker
Right. And that's the same thing that happened here. the part These fucking idiots driving down the wrong way. that One thing about this is I feel like so it follows this couple on a road trip. And to me, it's like not believable that they're on a road trip or they're just like extremely ill prepared for this role road trip. It's a road trip to an interview.
01:20:30
Speaker
Oh yeah. I keep forgetting. It's like she's going to a job interview. That makes a little bit and a little bit more, but they still felt underprepared, like under packed. Like like ah it was like a throwaway line that they're just talking about this interview. That does make it make more sense, but it's just like one throwaway line. So I keep forgetting. Yeah. Like they have no luggage with them. They have also, it's like, I assume they're like mid twenties, early thirties. And it's just like,
01:21:01
Speaker
At my age, I don't really fuck with road trips anymore personally because like just thinking about it, my back hurts. like I'm too old for that. I went on a couple of road trips in my early 20s. I've been on exactly two and I'm over it. Don't need to ever do that again.
01:21:18
Speaker
Well, I think it was just it's because of they were like, it's our anniversary weekend. You have this interview like in a couple of days. Let's make a ah road trip. We'll drive out there. If you get the I viewed it as like if he gets the if she gets the job, he's going to move with her and like leave his job. So like there was a lot like. But it's they they even bring that up in the movie and it's kind of weird. They don't discuss.
01:21:45
Speaker
him, like she actually asks him like, Oh, if I get the drop, are you going to move with me? And it's like, wait, you guys didn't discuss this already? Like, do you not communicate? Like, don't you already live together? Like, what was the plan? Like, and maybe they talked about it. and This place doesn't do zoom interviews.
01:22:07
Speaker
I guess maybe it's the final round of interviews and they want it to be in person yeah that it it being specifically for an interview makes the whole road trip thing make a little bit more sense yeah like just cause like you kind have no other option it would be too expensive to fly just for an interview when you don't know. if you're gonna get the job or not And I'm like they tied it in they were like they you know, it's an anniversary They're just gonna make like a little vacation of it and it either ends their relationship or takes it to the next level And in this case it ended their relationship because one died yeah that's fair Do you think she gets the job i was gonna start i don't i wonder she got do you think i mean that's too much baggage
01:22:52
Speaker
You just almost got killed by serial killers. like val one In real life, if we're being realistic, companies are really shitty and I don't think that they would give a single shit that you almost died in like a home invasion attack, but they were not there.
01:23:06
Speaker
It could be plastered all over the news. They're going to be like, we're on to the next candidate. Oh, sorry. i mean If the job, since the job probably paid well, Julia's right. If the job wasn't like, they would be like, Hey, Hey, we'll reschedule. Um, yeah, there's no, for the movie's sake, I think it would be really fun. Like an Easter egg in part two.
01:23:32
Speaker
for her to be working at the new job when the events of part two take place. I don't know whether or not that's gonna happen. It would just be fun. i Well, in the in the post-credits scene, she literally wakes up in bed, in the hospital bed, and the guy with the bagged mask is laying next to her. What a creep. Like just in the hospital. So that, I think it takes place, because they don't want it to leave Venus, the town that it's in.
01:24:01
Speaker
um But also, I think it would be hilarious if they like were like, well, we don't normally do this, but since this is a highly publicized like serial killer case, we'll let you do a Zoom interview. And like they're doing like a Zoom interview and like the strangers are in the background of it. She's working from home, from the hospital bench. She's got her company issued laptop.
01:24:25
Speaker
Yeah, they they overnighted it. Like your first day orientations now, you're lucky we're doing this for you. She gets written up cause her because she's idle for too long and she's yeah literally running from the strangers. They're like, ma'am, can you please turn your camera on? and She's like, I can't, I'm getting stabbed by a guy in a bag. It is on, it's just covered in blood. yeah So, um, officially she signed on for the next two. I don't know if that ruins this or not. He signed on for the next one, which means he's probably going to do some post scenes or like some extra scenes that like are flashbacks. The boyfriend. Yeah. Oh no, man. It's going to be what I think. I think he's, that's the twist. He's alive.
01:25:15
Speaker
Maybe. I hope these, did these guys are not good at killing. Um, you know, we they just aren't good at killing. No one in this movie was good at killing. I don't know, man. They did kill the owner of the house. Yeah. But outside of that, he, he, he froze up. He had the gun to her head, but there was also a dead body, you know, in, uh, yeah, that was the, but that guy tripped and felon died.
01:25:42
Speaker
Really? what Oh no, they they killed him in the very beginning. Wait, did someone trip him fall though? He tripped and that's when he fell and then they caught him when he was running. Remember that's the opening scene?
01:25:58
Speaker
Probably. Oh yeah, see I always forget when when opening scenes are like not related to the rest of the movie like that, I always forget that they exist. So I didn't even put that together.
01:26:10
Speaker
Yeah, that was the I was the rich guy he whose wanted poster or missing poster was in the diner. And then she found it when she was hiding in the leaves. I found him. My attention span, once we get into like the actual plot of the movie, I forget that something exists. That's that's me. And that's what happened.
Should There Be More Sequels?
01:26:33
Speaker
I. I hope I mean, we're going to get two more movies. We don't need two more movies.
01:26:41
Speaker
I'm just, I thought this was pretty fun. Like I said, it's not perfect, but I think it was fun to wear. I'm looking forward to the next two because it's, it's just something to look forward to. It's like, you know, you know, a movie's coming out and it's probably going to be okay. And that's, that's the best we can ever hope for. That's really what drives us here. Especially if it's a part two, because in most cases it's the same exact movie.
01:27:11
Speaker
So if you like the first one, chances are you may like the second one. Well, let's see what happens.
Reevaluating Past Movie Ratings
01:27:18
Speaker
Yeah. If I were, if I were to rank these three movies, not like if I were to rank these three movies, it's like, it's an obvious, um,
01:27:33
Speaker
Abigail stranger's TV glow, but I feel like. It's not going to make a difference, but I feel like maybe I should watch rewatch. Um, I saw the TV glow. It's not going to make a difference. I already know it's not, but I should probably see it again at some point in my life. I did it. I did it recently with the nightmare, the nightmare on Elm Street reboot. I saw it recently for like, yeah, I just watched that this past weekend.
01:28:09
Speaker
And I tried to give it another shot, but I'm like, I don't know. He just really missed the mark on it. So that was like really bad. I'm not going to lie, but I actually had a lot of fun watching it because I watched it with friends and like some of whom have never seen it before. So I had fun.
01:28:27
Speaker
Yeah, I saw it by myself. so There's some really good elements in the Nightmare reboot. There's some dumb parts too, but I'm not mad at it. Yeah, just I feel like maybe I need to see, I saw the TV glow again again and again. I don't think it's going to make a difference, but I owe it to that movie to see it again.
01:28:53
Speaker
because it's as of now, it's ranked as the worst movie I've seen probably in the last two years. And I don't think that's fair. you know I don't think that's fair. Yeah. not when We've seen a lot of bad movies like Planet of the Apes, Terra, Night Swim, ISS. I had more fun with those movies though. there was one thing like In there was probably like one thing that made me say, nah, better than Madame Web.
01:29:21
Speaker
and then I watched, um, I saw TV go and I was like, Oh, I don't know, man. The Dan Webb had one thing that was better, you know? So I owe it to that movie to give it another chance. At some point before the year's over, I'm going to rewatch all of the movies that didn't get that just got a half a star. And I'm going to reevaluate them because maybe I didn't give them a chance.
01:29:50
Speaker
Yeah, we should have like an end of the year roundup where we do like best of the worst. Yeah. Um, Julia, what rank your three? Um, strangers with the best.
Comparing 'The Strangers' to Other Home Invasion Movies
01:30:04
Speaker
And then I guess I saw that TV glow and then Abigail was the worst for me. That's fair. Pat, we need yours. Man, I saw the TV glow. Number one, Abigail and then strangers.
01:30:18
Speaker
How far apart is Abigail and Strangers? Very. Interesting. okay not almost not Not even in the same stratosphere. OK. All right. I'll put it this way. The Mavericks are up 103 to 73, and that's about the gap. OK, so blow out. Yeah. Right, right, right. So like, OK, that makes sense.
01:30:45
Speaker
Yeah, I just saw it there's nothing to The Strangers to me. And I'm not a big fan of home invasion movies outside of like Black Christmas. I did recently talk to someone and I mentioned if you like The Strangers, then you'll love Hush and they haven't seen Hush yet. Well, good luck trying to find it because it's not anywhere.
01:31:08
Speaker
it's not nope yeah It's been for the last like six months because it got kicked out off of um Netflix and no one has its streaming rights. that's thing i'm telling you we are just in an era of lost media Yeah, I mean, it's crazy because and like there's no way, like right now it's like there's no way to watch Rush. I think like outside of paying for it maybe, but I don't know. that That's neither here nor there. There's a handful of home invasion movies that are really good. The Strangers, this was too similar to the first. If anyone, just watch the first one. No, I feel like you could. Yeah, I'm going to argue that just just to make a point
01:31:49
Speaker
to really give this one a chance. I would say if you haven't seen either, go ahead and watch this one. Because if anything, I feel like watching the first, the first one is amazing. But I feel like watching that first kind of spoils this for you. Whereas this can be like a really solid, fun movie. Especially I feel like maybe for someone who's not big into movies and and and not big into horror movies, which you probably aren't if you haven't seen the original Strangers,
01:32:16
Speaker
You might like a more modern movie. like I wanna say people that aren't big movie people don't really wanna watch something from 2008. They would rather watch something from 2024. So if you are going into this completely blind, go ahead and watch the new one.
01:32:33
Speaker
no It's also kind of lame. I think it's lame that they use the same quote in every single one, like, because you were here, like, we get it. I feel like you got to, because I feel like that's the whole point. I feel like that's the catchphrase.
Final Thoughts on Sequels and Future Releases
01:32:47
Speaker
And I feel like that's that's the one thing we know about the strangers. Well, like, this one was way more targeted. It wasn't just because they were there, they put them there.
01:32:57
Speaker
Listen, you're not wrong. I will say, and we didn't really mention it too much, but the sequel to Strangers, Pray at Night is like the worst fucking movie I've ever seen in my life. Yeah. We don't need to mention it. It's terrible. I just, I just want to make that clear. But let's hope that this sequel isn't that. Right. Like I just don't understand how they went from like the Strangers to having the worst sequel ever. But then the reboot was decent.
01:33:27
Speaker
Well, let's see what happens. Yeah. All right. Any final thoughts on anything? Nope. Nope. All right. Cool.