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It Follows
18 Plays1 year ago
We’re back! After a much longer break than we expected. We’ve been doing some recording and will hopefully be posting more regularly again.
In this episode, Katie, Carly, and Carly’s friend Kelly, discuss David Robert Mitchell’s 2015 film It Follows. Our conversation touches on the topics of horror, sex, youth, and death.
Music used under Creative Commons License
By: https://freesound.org/people/ADnova/
Come find us on instagram @whathauntsyoupod
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Hosts
00:00:06
Speaker
Welcome to What Haunts You, a podcast about the stories that haunt our dreams. I'm Katie. And I'm Carly, and today we also have a guest with us. We have a guest that is one of my friends from college, so we go way, way back and have some good horror times together, actually, from past then. Those were like my early horror days. So do you want to introduce yourself?
00:00:27
Speaker
Yeah, hi, I'm Kelly.
Kelly's Horror Movie Origins
00:00:29
Speaker
Like Carly said, we have some good horror memories in the past. I think it was actually you that got me into horror movies. You know, I watched like a couple in college, I mean, sorry, a couple in high school. But it was really not my thing until college when we would just like hang out and watch them at your apartment or
00:00:50
Speaker
room
Horror Movie Preferences and Traditions
00:00:51
Speaker
or whatever. Yeah. I feel like I have a recollection of us doing like a Halloween marathon. Yes. Like through the Halloween series. Which I have repeated since so me and my husband are more like movie people, I would say than horror people. Like we watch over 100 movies a year. And then we pretty much dedicate our whole October to horror movies. And I've gotten him into horror movies because he didn't like them at all at first.
00:01:19
Speaker
but he liked the Halloween movies. So like we'll do, we always take turns picking the movies. So he'll pick a movie. I pick a movie. So for October, I think last year he picked every single Halloween movie, like of all of them, every single version, every single reboot, whatever. And then I alternated with like other horror movies. And then this year we did the same thing he did saw as his franchise.
00:01:47
Speaker
Wow, from not a horror fan to watching all of the songs in order. So those were actually exceptions for him. He actually liked the song. Maybe it's because the traps. That's how I was. I watched before. Right. Yeah, it's like it's like puzzles. So, yeah, I liked even before I was like a horror person, really. Yeah, that one is not not my thing. I'm not a gore person, but I'll put up with it.
00:02:16
Speaker
So
Gore vs. Psychological Horror
00:02:17
Speaker
good. Maybe I need you to see it because I need to I had nobody else has seen it that I saw 10 that one. Yeah, I watched it again on an airplane and I think the person next to me was not like super
00:02:30
Speaker
It was good, actually. But I looked around and there were no children. I looked behind me, you know what I mean? I'm like, you can look away, lady, you're fine. The screens are so small, you can't see anything anyway. That was my thought. I was literally, I was actually watching it on my phone on the app. So I'm like, this can't bother you. This is way too small of a thing for this to be a big deal.
00:02:53
Speaker
Yeah, for some reason like gore was never a part of horror to me I think cuz like I watch like surgical videos a lot and like I like like medical body stuff So I think gore gore like almost feels separate from horror to me. It's not like scarier at all I mean there are things like when people are like violently killed where sometimes I'll like feel it in my body and be like oh But like I just got stabbed or my chest ripped open but the like the actual images
00:03:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely not like a scary thing for me.
00:03:25
Speaker
disgust feeling for me that I just, I don't want to sit with that for too long. Good healthy evolutionary response. Me too, but I like it. Gore is fine for me, but like when we watched, just as like an example, when we watched like Swallow and there's the like endoscopy, is that what that's? Yeah. When they go down your throat, yeah. When there's like an endoscopy scene, that is worse than every Saw movie put together for me. I'm like, no, this is horrible.
00:03:54
Speaker
And I've had like 15 endoscopies, so I don't care at all. Yeah, but you didn't watch them, I assume. That's true. I was asleep. But actually, when I was in Twilight sleep, and I'm trying to look at the camera to see what they're seeing, because it shows up on a screen, and they were like, we have to sedate or more. Oh my gosh. It's moving. You would be doing that. And I'm trying to talk. No, I just want to see the show meet. No. I'm going to keep my insides far away from things I can see, hopefully.
Analysis of 'It Follows'
00:04:25
Speaker
Yeah, so this movie today we're talking about it follows this this was actually scarier than I remembered it being but not like I'd say it's like a middle scary for me but lots of like anticipatory feelings. Yeah, I love this movie. This is one of the movies that I discovered in one of our October horror months. And I love that
00:04:51
Speaker
So I'm not a big jump scare person. I think that that's pretty cheap way to scare people. And this movie does not rely on that at all. It's very much in like the pacing and the way that it's shot. Like the actual filmmaking contributes a lot to the to the fear that just like sits with you after you're done watching it, I think.
00:05:10
Speaker
Yeah. I thought the pacing was really well done for like three quarters of it. And then I felt like they kind of panicked and didn't know what to do at the end. And the end felt off to me. Um, I also thought of the other day I was just like brushing my teeth after I watched it. And I was like, it's not a jump scare. It's a hump scare. I love it.
00:05:40
Speaker
Yeah, I, I felt like that's funny because I felt like it wasn't as scary as I remembered it being, but I also didn't do the thing that I have very often like said to Katie of like, you need to set the scene.
00:05:52
Speaker
in which you're watching a movie. And I was just like not able to do that. So I'm also not that used to, I haven't been watching movies. I've been watching these stupid fucking work trainings like so much. And so I'm kind of out of the flow of like sitting down and just watching something without like getting kind of scattered. And so I think that took away from the scares for me a little bit, which I did to myself. So I guess that's not a fair. Yeah, for sure.
00:06:18
Speaker
So Kelly, what is your favorite thing about the movie? What's your elevator pitch of this movie? So I think that my favorite thing about it is that it has so many levels in terms of the themes of the movie. The initial read, which we can get into more later, but the initial read of it being an allegory for STDs or an allegory for sexual assault, I think those things are definitely there.
00:06:47
Speaker
But I think on a deeper level, it's about the fear of death, the fear of growing old, the fear of losing your innocence, all of those things that are so universal and so much more broad than those initial readings, I think play really, really well. And it gives it a lot of rewatchability for me because I keep noticing new things and new themes and how these things are presented throughout the movie.
00:07:13
Speaker
And then my second favorite part is just the filmmaking itself. I think that they are so smart with the way that they use the camera, all of these 360 degree panning shots, the placing the camera right in the sphere of action, where you're never like behind someone's shoulder able to see like everything that's going on. You're either like looking at the monster with the person who's afraid behind you, or you're looking at the person who's afraid with the monster behind you. And so like it kind of places you right in the middle of the action in a way that's very
00:07:43
Speaker
Um, scary. Yeah. I like that too. That makes a lot of sense. I noticed this time so much more than I remember noticing before. I think this was my second watch, um, maybe third, but there's like, it's kind of like a world of teenagers. There's like very few adult presences at all. Yes.
00:08:01
Speaker
Yeah, there's an implication that the mom is like an alcoholic. Yeah, it was like not. Yeah. But I also think that something that this movie does really well is like it's doing like show don't tell of small town teenage life in a way that rang very true to me. Like I was just like, OK, I see what's happening here. Like these people have known each other since they were
00:08:22
Speaker
barely even walking, and they've never really been anywhere else. Like, even when she starts seeing the guy, right? And one of the friends is like, oh, like, who's she going on a date with? And they're like, someone new. And even that is just like this little nod to, like, they're kind of stuck here with all the people they've been stuck here with forever. And I think that they did a good job of capturing that feeling without, like, too much explaining, without too much getting into the weeds with it. I just feel like the vibe came through.
00:08:51
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. That's something that movie does really well in general is it doesn't over explain. It doesn't have someone sit down and tell you the rules. You have to figure things out as you go and that makes it scarier.
00:09:02
Speaker
Yeah. The opening scene, I had like completely forgotten where there's a girl who dies pretty quickly. So she's not in the rest of the movie, but she's like running out of her house and like silky pajamas and high heels. I was kind of like, why don't you change your shoes? But I guess she, like she's seeing something that we're not seeing and then she runs away. Yeah. I was just going to say, so I watched anatomy of a scene with the director. It's like a New York Times YouTube.
00:09:32
Speaker
series and they covered that scene specifically. And even, even talks about the shoes and how like, it's partially like, no, it doesn't make sense that she's running around in high heels, but it's partially like a nod to horror tropes. And then also like the element of added fear from, from the difficulty of running in high heels. Yeah. Right. And I think that when you don't see the thing chasing her and you just see her running,
00:10:01
Speaker
the fact that she's in high heels in my brain does like, Oh, so this is like so bad that you can't stop and take your heels. Almost like the gap that my brain starts to fill in is like, this must be so serious that even the two seconds that would take you to take your shoes off are not like sacrificeable seconds. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Something that I think was really interesting that I noticed the second time is before you even opened to that shot, like there's,
00:10:28
Speaker
like the producer credits are rolling, right? And the sound that you hear in the background is, it sounds to me like the water, like the waves lapping up on the shore of the water, and then it cuts to that silent street. And you're like, why was that sound even there to begin with? But that water keeps coming back throughout the movie. So I think it's cool that they introduce you to it like auditorily before you even get there.
00:10:57
Speaker
Yeah, the sound and the music were really good throughout. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then the first scene is like a really good intro to the filmmaking style, right? Because it starts with like a 360 sort of pan around of this neighborhood that's very objective and you're kind of like looking for something in the background that nothing's there.
00:11:19
Speaker
And the movie does this all the time where it just does this full pan and shows you everything that you could possibly see if you looked around and you're always looking in the background for something to pop up, something to be there. And then it starts tracking her as she runs out of the house. But I think that whole scene, that whole setup, it doesn't connect back obviously to our protagonist later. That girl is very dead, but it lays out the horror
00:11:48
Speaker
so well, you're like scared within the first minute of the movie. Yeah, it sets up the stakes.
00:11:54
Speaker
Yeah, I love the shot where they show that she's dead, where she's awake the night before on the beach and kind of panicking. And then in the morning, it shows her face and her foot. And you know that her leg is at a bad angle from just how you can see her foot and her face. Yeah, mangled as fuck. And then it pans out to show. And you still can't imagine what happened when they got her. You just know it's really bad.
00:12:22
Speaker
Right. And I like that. I like when you have the like the stakes kind of laid out for you before you have the villain or monster, you know, insert thing here laid out for you, because then it like you said, it's like just that sense of like, oh, so this is bad. This is like not good from the beginning. We know that there's there's something that's really going to fuck you up.
00:12:42
Speaker
Yeah, I kept wondering where that girl who died was connected to the chain of people that ended up with our protagonist, Jamie. Right. We don't even know if it's a prequel scene or if it's something that happens actually. Is it a flashback? Is it a flash forward? We really can't place it.
00:13:02
Speaker
Yeah, I actually was confused for like the first five minutes that they were showing Jamie where I thought that those girls looked very similar and I was like, is this a flashback to that girl? And then I was like, no, they're different girls, but they just look very similar. That's what I thought the first time I watched it too. I had to look up the actresses like, okay, nevermind. Yeah. Yeah.
00:13:25
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Also, so then we after the girl dies, we've moved to Jamie's in her pool and her little boy neighbors are kind of creeping on her. And I really like how they did the little boy neighbors because there's like this actually menacing thing. But then there's like, I mean, little boys can be menacing too, but they're like seem pretty harmless but are creeping on her in like the same way and just kind of like always there and watching her. Yeah. And that that comes up later with one of the forms that it takes.
00:13:55
Speaker
down at the beach house. I think it takes the form of one of those little boys later. So it makes that creepiness. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I hadn't actually connected with that. I was like, why is this a little boy? But that makes a lot of sense.
00:14:08
Speaker
I do think that is anything that's shape-shifting is extra scary to me because of those types of things. I think at one point, Hugh slash whatever his real name was, is I think it even takes the form of people you love just to mess with you or whatever or just to hurt you. I do feel that the familiarity of the thing makes it so much scarier.
00:14:30
Speaker
When it was people she didn't know, I kept wondering if it was people who the monster had killed before, if they were showing up. I thought that was a universalizing of all of these people want affection and intimacy and it killed them. Yeah, that's interesting. That's interesting.
00:14:55
Speaker
Yeah. Cause there isn't an explanation for the people that we don't recognize. So it is interesting to like wonder about what that, where, who are those people and like, where does that come from? Yeah, absolutely. And this is another appearance of water. I'm just gonna point it out. There is so much water in the movie. The first time we see her, yes. The first time we see her is in this backyard above ground pool, like the most innocent possible.
00:15:20
Speaker
place for water to be. So the symbolism of water, I think there's a lot of different ways to interpret it in this movie, but in general in movies, I feel like the most common use of water is this concept of baptism and rebirth and going into the water and coming out as someone else.
00:15:41
Speaker
But it also can symbolize life
Themes of Death and Innocence in 'It Follows'
00:15:44
Speaker
in general. It can symbolize change. When you're talking about the ocean or lake, it can symbolize mysteriousness, depth, obviously death in the context of the dangers of water. And there's the unknown, the seen and unseen. Yeah, the seen and unseen. There's self-awareness and reflection that's also seen in mirrors, which are also frequent throughout the film. At the end of the movie, we see that kiddie pool again, and it's empty.
00:16:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've moved on from that phase of our lives. And then her friends are watching TV Killers from Space, a 1954 horror movie. I was wondering what that was. I'm glad you looked at it. Yeah, and Yara's using her weird clam phone. I want one of those.
00:16:42
Speaker
I know, but I love that juxtaposition. I think that's the first time in the movie that we really get this disorienting, when are we kind of aesthetic, right? They're watching this old movie on an old TV and then she has this technology that we've never seen before.
00:16:57
Speaker
Yeah, I wrote what year is this because she has like a 90s looking TV in her bedroom, Jamie, and she's putting on a puka shell necklace. I was like, wait a second. But yeah, the clamshell. But I think that universal. It does remind me of like Polly Pocket.
00:17:18
Speaker
Yeah, it makes it kind of universal and also it makes it kind of dreamlike, I think. Like a little bit detached from reality. Like something just feels a little bit off in every scene because of that kind of stuff. And it definitely follows dream logic a little bit throughout the whole movie of just like, like things are almost normal, but there's something happening that just like totally disrupts that. But it's not, it's like,
00:17:45
Speaker
It's almost a movie grounded in reality, almost. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Also, her friends seem to be her sister's friends, and she doesn't seem to have... I mean, it makes sense that she's close with her sister's friends, but they seem to...
00:18:00
Speaker
There's a conversation that happens between her and I don't remember who, where it's implied essentially that all of her friends have gone on to college and she has not been able to do that. I think probably for financial reasons that are not gotten all the way into, but with the mom.
00:18:18
Speaker
like not being around and whatever. But I think that's some of it is that she is still in this small town that everyone has moved on from. And so, but actually, while we're talking about these friends really quickly, though, how old are these sisters supposed to be? Because there's some things that I had some questions about. OK, I hope that that guy was 18. That's what I'm going to say. I'm going to say that I hope the guy friend was 18. I had questions and concerns.
00:18:47
Speaker
I don't know. I think they're all supposed to be right around like 17 to 19 kind of range. I think they're all like supposed to be like within a year or two of each other in age at least, but yeah. One thing I wanted to point out here that I looked up to because the book that she's always reading on the clam phone.
00:19:15
Speaker
It's the idiot, which like a big theme of that book is mortality. Yeah. I did notice that about all of the quotes and I was, I was really like, I really enjoyed.
00:19:31
Speaker
the way that they brought those quotes in to kind of pad the themes. I, as everybody who's ever met me knows I'm obsessed with Stephen King. And this is like a very big like Stephenism that he will kind of, he will set the stage with quotes, sometimes from songs, sometimes from other books, from poetry, whatever. But it's just like, here's the vibe, I'm gonna hand you the vibe so that you know. And I really like that. Yeah, yeah. So it's a Dostoyevsky.
00:19:58
Speaker
novel and explores like a bunch of different characters that are basically like navigating death and mortality like one of them is like content condemned to death and like has like process that and one of the character that is condemned to death he talks about it as like like so I guess he has an illness that he talks about as a death sentence and he
00:20:24
Speaker
conceives of the idea of suicide as the only way left to him to assert his will in the face of nature's death sentence. So anyway, there's a bunch of different characters, but I think it's really interesting. So to me, the biggest theme of this is death. It is death, and we can continue to get into that more. But the fact that they're incorporating this book off the bat, I think, calls that out a little bit. Yeah, it's so interesting also that she has Dostoevsky in her little clam thing.
00:20:54
Speaker
like this really deep and gruesome little clam folk inside of like this feminine cutesy thing. Yeah. Well, I think it's interesting too that there's a theme of death throughout because I think sex and death are pretty inextricably linked together. When we take the fun of sex out of the conversation, sex is right. Like procreation, sex is about like extending yourself beyond your own mortality, right? And like lasting. And so there is this thing where once you start having sex, it's like,
00:21:23
Speaker
okay I'm in right again taking like the rest of the meat of that out of it it's like this idea right of I could be bringing in the next generation who will replace me when I'm gone that is kind of fundamental level wrapped up in sex even though obviously like society has moved away from sex as like only procreation and all of these things but there's still that kind of underlying like next step in the lifespan thing yeah and I think like the time in our lives when we have sex for the first time and
00:21:52
Speaker
the time that we realize, like, death is a thing to be afraid of, that's happening a lot around the same time, right? At the age that they're at, it's a big part of coming of ages, both having sex and coming to terms with the fact that you're gonna die. And now, you know, it takes some time to come to terms with it, but I don't think we even are really aware of it as children. Whereas, like, as we start to become adults, we're like, oh, shit.
00:22:20
Speaker
So then after that scene, right, Jay goes up to her room to get ready. She's wearing a pink dress. She wears pink all the time in this movie, like constantly, sometimes mixed with white, sometimes not. The scene there she's putting on her makeup, it's like a Carrie reference. Yeah, it has that energy. Yeah. And then down in the, she looks in the mirror and one of the photos in the mirror is a picture of her and her dad.
00:22:48
Speaker
And another is a picture of her in a swimming pool again. And then we jump over to the line in the movie theater where they played the trade game, which is like one of the most interesting parts of the movie. So when they play that game, right? Like Jay assumes that Q is jealous or wants to trade places with a guy who's on a date with a cute blonde.
00:23:17
Speaker
And he instead answers, right? No, he wants to.
00:23:22
Speaker
trade places with a small child. Yeah. The answer when you're on a date is I wouldn't trade places with anyone because I'm here with you. Just saying. That is the correct answer if you're on a date. But I like I actually like his answer. And I think how well it goes with kind of the themes of the of the movie to write of like he's looking at this child and being like, oh, remember that? Like, remember when things were simple and I was more innocent and I didn't have to worry about as much and I could take a shit anywhere I want to take a reference.
00:23:51
Speaker
And I didn't know that I was going to die. And I didn't have this thing haunting me. And I didn't know. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's also the scene where he's he says, right, like having your whole life ahead of you. And she's like, well, you're only 21. Like you're not old. And he kind of like shrugs it off a little bit. But obviously later you find out that he has this thing going on and he does have this kind of death sentence like hanging over his head. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:24:18
Speaker
The theater, fun fact, the theater where this is filmed is the historic Redford Theater in Detroit, which is where the Evil Dead premiered in 1981. Awesome. I love that. I love that. And then obviously, when it's Jay's turn, Hugh guesses the girl in the yellow dress and she can't see the girl in the yellow dress. Yeah. And then he's like, we got to get out of here.
00:24:44
Speaker
Yeah. It is interesting because I think that a lot of the people that we see when it transfers over to Jay don't seem very inconspicuous. They don't seem like you could really mistake them for something, at least once they're close enough that you can see their faces. I think that part scares me because it makes me wonder, can they blend in a lot more than they have been? You know what I mean?
00:25:11
Speaker
can it be more inconspicuous because he's pointing at that like it's regular. You know what I mean? And I wouldn't necessarily point at most of the other incarnations of this thing as something that I would not be alarmed by immediately. So that's kind of scary too. Yeah, that's true. It's interesting actually that it's a girl in a yellow dress apparently because it almost always wears white.
00:25:40
Speaker
and almost always wear, if not white, like flash tones. So it's kind of weird that the, I just thought of that. But I think the girl who looked pretty young, who shows up in Jamie's kitchen is the only one who wasn't, she was wearing like a denim skirt and sneakers. I think she might've been the only one who was wearing shoes at all, actually. Hmm.
00:26:06
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's part of what made me think that it was people who the monster had killed because they were mostly shoeless and in various states of undress. Hmm. Yeah, I think it also like it has this effect of evoking like, especially when it's older people, but evoking this like death robe almost look like or like you're like in a hospital gown kind of vibe.
00:26:34
Speaker
Um, super creepy. Yeah. Oh yeah. I was going to say when we were talking about Yara in the book, that the only time that we hear her read aloud is when she's in the hospital. No, that was interesting. No, she reads aloud, like at a couple of different points during like sleepovers and stuff. Okay. That was the only one I remembered. Yeah. Cause I, but they're all kind of like, they're all morbid, like the one in the hospital book. I think that one was the most direct, but they're all kind of the same tone.
00:27:02
Speaker
Yeah, and they're all from that same book. Yeah. So when they leave, they leave, right, they head over to a restaurant to eat. And we get like another one of those super creepy shots where, you know, it's like it's like a wide shot and it slowly zooms in on Jay. But like in the background, you can like
00:27:25
Speaker
you're always searching the background in this and you start to see someone sort of like walking towards them and you're like, is that it or is it not it? You don't really know the rules yet, but like on rewatch, you're like, you notice this person walking in the background and like anyone walking slowly towards the camera. Yeah.
00:27:42
Speaker
Yeah. And then they go off and bang it out. And I have to say, I think it's interesting and I think it's important that they have this like very explicitly consensual interaction that she initiates. I think that is like kind of important to the movie that like they're out there like in this area, right? And they're like laying around and she's kind of the one starting everything and she's on top when they have sex and she's like,
00:28:07
Speaker
She has some amount of control over the situation, which I think is important with the rest of it. And I think that there's tones of sexual assault in the movie, but there's also tones of just consequences to making adult decisions. And sometimes the only question relevant to sex is not, is it consensual? That's an important question.
00:28:33
Speaker
Right. It's like necessary, but not sufficient. Right. It's like what actually comes after this. Yeah. It sounded like they had gone out before also. This wasn't the first time cause the friend group had asked her if they had had sex yet. I don't remember this, but I, I, I wrote down that they were sitting by the water before they went to have car sex. They were. Yes, they were.
00:28:58
Speaker
They were, and in between their dinner date and when they're actually like walking through the woods and go to the water, there's like a, I think it's a flashback, right? Where Jay is talking with her sister about their date.
Consent and Horror Tropes
00:29:15
Speaker
So, and that's when she asks if they've had sex yet. And we get another 360 degree pan again.
00:29:26
Speaker
So I don't know why they cut it that way, but the tracking shot of them walking there reminds me so much of like Halloween. Yeah.
00:29:36
Speaker
like when Lori and her friends are walking through the neighborhood and the camera's like tracking them and you don't know like is someone in hiding in the background waiting to jump out at them because we still don't know what it is at this point. The final shot actually gave me similar Halloween vibes too. Yes. Yes. I can't wait to talk about the final shot. It's so good. So yeah, so they stop on the beach. It's not the ocean. It's like lake
00:30:02
Speaker
is it Lake Michigan in Detroit? I don't know which one it is, one of the Great Lakes, but it looks like the ocean is so big. And then they have sex in the back of a car, very teenage. And like outside of an abandoned parking garage, I was like, this is so sketchy. And I think I did things like this when I was 17. Oh, yeah, for sure. For sure. And then I, I,
00:30:29
Speaker
Totally agree, Carla. The importance of her having so much agency at the beginning is interesting. I think there's a couple different ways to read that, right? When you're consenting to sex, maybe you're not consenting to everything that comes along with that. You don't know what else that really entails. Especially as a teenager, or a very, very young adult. Right, right. Are you consenting for that person to hurt you later? Are you consenting?
00:30:57
Speaker
And with the STD metaphor, obviously you're not consenting to that. Um, she hasn't been informed of any of that. And then when she's laying down in the back of the car, she starts talking about how she used to daydream about being old enough to go on dates and driving around and she's playing with, um, some dying white daisies. Yeah. I wish daisies normally symbolize innocence.
00:31:27
Speaker
impurity and they're like literally dying in this shot when he comes up behind her and we get what very much feels like sexual assault, right? He, I guess, chloroforms her. Yeah. And then her hand goes limp in the flowers.
00:31:48
Speaker
I like that shot. Yeah, that's such a good shot. You have the very pale hand over the dark ground and the flowers are the only little pockets of something that's light colored on the grass. It's just such a contrast is great. And then she wakes up in the parking garage abandoned structure. Yeah, and it's overlooking
00:32:09
Speaker
The building's overlooking a cemetery too. Well, I didn't even notice that, that's all. I didn't notice that either. It's so creepy. That's so funny. Yes. Oh my god, yeah. So she's like tied to this wheelchair and she's looking around like, what the fuck? And I can only... So the thing of it is, this sounds weird, but if I woke up in that situation with someone I had not yet had sex with, I would know exactly what was coming.
00:32:35
Speaker
in a way, maybe not exactly, but you would have like an ink, it would take you less time to orient yourself to like what was maybe imminent for you if that hadn't already happened. But the fact that she's already had consensual sex with this man makes that situation, I think, more disorienting because you're like, wait, what's going to happen? Like, what is the plan here? Yeah. Yeah, what is going on?
00:33:02
Speaker
Am I going to be murdered? And he pretty quickly is like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, and I'm not going to hurt you, which makes it more like, okay, if you're not going to hurt me, then what's happening?
00:33:15
Speaker
Because that makes me think this person is, that makes me think, at least in the context of a horror movie, that makes me think, okay, maybe this person is crazy and has multiple personalities, which is obviously a controversial horror trope, but that's almost where my mind went the first time I watched the movie. Because I was like, okay, he's here saying I'm not going to hurt you, but someone's going to do something.
00:33:35
Speaker
Yeah, I also think within the STD metaphor, it's interesting to not warn somebody ahead of time, but then afterwards explain everything about the situation. But I think within this, if he had tried to tell her beforehand, she obviously wouldn't have slept with him, which I think is true for STDs a lot of times too, unfortunately, even if people are trying to be safe.
00:34:02
Speaker
Yeah, which of course he's not. No, he's not. He's trying to keep himself safe, but I don't know about anyone else. But also, I'm just going to say it, in the context of horror movies where I don't have all of the qualms I would have in real life, I think he did a pretty good job of handling the situation.
00:34:28
Speaker
I think he tries to act magnanimous and thinks of himself that way, but I think he's being pretty selfish. But you also texted me something that I was like, what? While you were watching it because Carly texted me and was like, Carly was like, this is such an easy situation. You just drive far away and sleep with a random person. And I was like, what?
00:34:46
Speaker
I'm just going to say, in real life I wouldn't do this, but I also watch horror movies and cheer on people with chainsaws. It's just different. It's just not the same. What I would do in real life and what I would do if I was in a horror movie are not the same things. I would probably not chloroform someone like he did, but I think that he was on track.
00:35:08
Speaker
He was like on track to a good approach though of like, I'm going to go really far away. I'm going to make sure the person knows what they're dealing with so that they can deal with it how they want to right away. And so they don't have to like have this period of time where they're questioning what's real and questioning what's really happening. And like, they will be like, okay, I have to just deal with this because it's happening. So you just go or move or move to Hawaii. Yeah, I mean, I mean, he does still violate her consent.
00:35:40
Speaker
But also I don't think it is a great solution, right? Because as soon as that person dies, you're back on the hook. It's not like you're passing it on forever.
00:35:48
Speaker
In my mind though, if everybody who has this situation happens drives far ass away from them, some people can fly if they can, but even if you can't just drive and you go and you tell the person- What if you're on a plane and it shows up on the plane? Because it's always walking, it can't show up on the plane. Why can't it walk onto a plane and board a plane? And wait to show you that it's there. I guess it could, but-
00:36:13
Speaker
You always have time. That's what I'm saying. That's the reason that I didn't find it quite as scary this time is because I was in my head. It would be very easy to buy yourself time. No. That's what my thought was too in terms of what I would actually do. I'm flying to Australia for a couple days and then I'm going to fly back.
00:36:34
Speaker
in a couple days that things got across an ocean like it's just like i i don't know like it took a lot of like i i really had to suspend a lot of disbelief for this movie i don't remember feeling that way when i first watched it that's why i go back to like what this what's what is it like what's the theme right like it's death right you can try and put it off and you can try and run away and you can like try like all these things but like it's coming for you eventually and you're gonna die eventually and the real life version of me
00:37:02
Speaker
in this situation would kill myself immediately. I said that in the descent, I say that in anything.
Trauma and Relationships in 'It Follows'
00:37:10
Speaker
I'm watching The Walking Dead right now and my dad has been asking me about some of the ethical dilemmas and I'm like, I would have been dead so long before this question you're asking me would come. Yeah. Well, and I think that's kind of like, it's maybe not directly addressed like that solution, but I think there's hints in the background that that's a potential solution.
00:37:31
Speaker
Like I mentioned with the book, that's one of the things that's discussed in the book that's referenced, but also there's a scene later in the movie where they re-encounter Hugh, and he has bandages on his wrist that could very well be indicating that he has attempted that.
00:37:46
Speaker
Oh, I didn't notice that. I totally missed that. Wow. Yeah. I missed that too. That makes sense though. Yeah. I have a lot of questions about Hugh. But I think, I was thinking when we were talking about him earlier, like he said that it happened to him just from a one night stand at a bar and like he didn't have the experience of somebody leading him through it. So I think that's probably why he did that. And that sounds extra traumatic. And it makes me wonder too, like how did he find out?
00:38:16
Speaker
Did he just notice something coming towards him? Or did he accidentally pass it to someone who then died? Because I think that's more likely. Oh, he could have passed it to the girl at the beginning of the movie. Yeah, very well could have. Yeah, that makes sense, especially since he knows that it will come back for him. Yeah, he knows a lot of the lore. Yeah, like he could have found out what happened. So I think I think that's probably the case. Yeah, but yeah, so he explains the rules to her, right? And then
00:38:46
Speaker
wheels her away after we see the woman, like the middle-aged woman walking slowly towards them. He wheels her away. He like dumps her outside her house where her friends are playing Old Maid. Yeah. The Old Maid is funny. And actually, this is one case where Yara reads a line from The Idiot. I think that if one is faced with inevitable destruction, if a house is falling upon you, for instance, one must feel great longing to sit down
00:39:16
Speaker
Close one's eyes and wait, come what may. Yeah. And then one of the friends is like, that's why we're drinking on the porch. And that actually, that references exactly how Annie, who's the girl from the first scene, like how she eventually dealt with it. She does, she just drives to the beach and she sits down and waits. Yeah.
00:39:39
Speaker
I wouldn't let that thing get me. I'm doing it myself. That's the thing. Any any other response I have to any of these situations when I'm watching movies is like rendered kind of bullshit by the fact that like I do not want to live through bad things. Oh, man. I feel like that to a certain extent, but I think that I like I don't know. I think I have a higher threshold.
00:40:04
Speaker
for like what I am okay going through. I think if I feel like there's potential for things to go back to stable eventually, that I feel more like I can tough this through, but I was gonna ask Kelly, have you seen Smile? I haven't yet. Okay, I won't go into it too much then, but this movie reminded me a lot of that premise. It was like a similar kind of passing it on thing related to trauma.
00:40:30
Speaker
Yeah, I think that like my ideal movie like this would have been like a perfect combination of those two movies because they both have things that didn't work for me, but like opposite things that didn't work for me. So it would have been like a good. Have either of you two just while we're doing that, have either of you two seem contracted? No, I remember you telling me about it. Yeah, so that one is, I think, like much more explicitly an STD one.
00:41:00
Speaker
But it's really good. I don't know how many. I don't really remember what the like two sentence description of it. So I don't want to say anything else, but very, very good movie. Highly recommend it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I was going to say also, so when he drops her off, I also like.
00:41:18
Speaker
It kind of bothered me that he just kind of like throws her in the street especially when he like knows where her house is and like sees people sitting outside like you'd think that he would at least try to make it look a little nicer but I think he's like I'm never coming back here again so it doesn't matter but it's yeah.
00:41:35
Speaker
He couldn't like put her clothes back on or something. Right. And explain it to those other people too so that they're not just like, okay, this girl's crazy. Right, right. Yeah, because it was like a while where they were just like, okay, I guess she had a psychotic break because something traumatic happened to her. And then the police come and the neighbor is looking out and says to the girl that he's with, those people are such a mess. Yeah, that family is such a mess. So we get another hint of like what's going on with her family.
00:42:03
Speaker
which we don't ever really have fully answered. We just know that there's some shit and the dad's not there anymore and the mom's an alcoholic. And we see there's like one conversation where the mom is talking to her friend or something and talking about what happened to Jay, but we like don't ever see their faces really. It's just like showing like their hair and like panning really fast between them and showing the room. Yeah.
00:42:25
Speaker
I mean, I think that that's almost deliberate, like in kind of in thinking about, I think you said it, Katie, that there's like no adults in this movie. And I think that part of that might actually even be that like who at that age has a safe adult that they can talk to you about like something like sex or like something like STDs or something like sexual assault.
00:42:44
Speaker
And I wish that more people did, but I think very few people actually do feel that they have someone that they could turn to. I was going to say, I hope somebody does. I think there are people who do. Someone must, but I think many, many people don't. And I think many people even who maybe do don't feel like they do. You know what I mean?
00:43:08
Speaker
even kind of stretching it to that point of like, maybe someone really is there and would be supportive, but like, you don't necessarily feel that way. Yeah, it definitely seems like there's some level of neglect there. And like, maybe the mom is rationalizing it by that they're like, technically grown up, but it seems like they could use a lot of help that they're not getting. Yeah, I think the absence of any kind of parental figure
00:43:30
Speaker
really feeds into the terrifyingness of losing your innocence and going through something like this and having a face death, not having anyone you can look to who can help talk you through it. Yeah, I thought that was especially interesting with like towards the end they're talking about how their parents, I think Yara brings it up first, but they're talking about how their parents told them not to cross 8 Mile where the city starts because it's like unsafe there. But there's like actually unsafe things happening where they are and they're not getting help.
00:44:00
Speaker
And that's a nod to a lot of the slasher movies too, honestly, because a lot of what those movies are about are like the...
00:44:07
Speaker
the presumed safety of white flight and suburbia, right? But then like, actually, no, like bad things will follow you everywhere you go because like, that's just what happens. So I feel like that definitely, but I thought that was kind of interesting because kind of like what I was saying about the show, Don't Tell, that was like one moment where they were like, we're going to tell. And it kind of felt really like, I don't know. It didn't, it felt like out of place a little bit to me that they just like randomly said that kind of
00:44:32
Speaker
with no real context, with no real prompting. I totally get what you're saying, but I do think that in that part, that's much later in the movie, right? They are traveling south of 8 Mile. 8 Mile's a real place in Detroit. It's a real dividing line in Detroit, and they're commenting on their own, crossing into this threshold.
00:44:55
Speaker
that was forbidden to them when they were younger and to me it felt like natural to comment on that like wow I can't believe we're like doing this right now. Yeah that makes sense. That made sense to me but I also was confused because it sounded like they were talking about going to a pool that they went to in their childhood a lot. That's a good point. But they also talked about bringing beer there and having their first kiss there so like I don't know that they were like supposed to be there maybe. Yeah I think that might be what it is.
00:45:21
Speaker
like one of those kind of secret places that you go with your friends and you break in and you're not really supposed to be there. Yeah, the kind of monologue that Yara gives about that had a very similar vibe to me of what Jay was saying when she's playing with the Daisies right before she gets chloroformed. Yeah. Paul has like a similar, there's like a couple different ones of those where they're just kind of like musing about
00:45:43
Speaker
how they used to think about things or how their childhood was and like the coming of age loss of innocence kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. So where we left off, I guess. Oh, can I say one more thing? This is kind of going back to the narrative too. So okay, when I forgot I wrote this down, but when they're having the conversation that's the presumably the mom and the other person, the main takeaway from that
00:46:08
Speaker
is that one of them says, I think the friend says, did she catch anything? And like she did, but not in the way that they're thinking of. Yeah. You also wouldn't know that after one day. Just for anyone who didn't know that that's listening, sexual health tips, three month window. Yeah.
00:46:28
Speaker
And yeah, so then after that, she's in the bathroom and she's kind of like holding her underwear out and looking down and hyperventilating. And then a ball or something, I think it's a ball hits her window. Yeah, it's like a kickball. Yeah, it's one of the kids like hiding on the roof, right? Watching her. Yeah. So she's like being violated again. Yeah. Yeah, that was super greedy.
00:46:52
Speaker
Yeah. He was like fully crouched on the roof. Like that's just like a next level creepy thing. Yeah. But to back up for just a second too, I think it's interesting. So in the background, when Jay and Greg's moms are talking in the kitchen about how he like created a fake name to rent a house in the city and the cops can't find him and all that shit that cuts to a group of family photos. So I like paused that when I rewatched it and looked at it. So we have.
00:47:20
Speaker
Most of them are like Kelly and Jay. We focus in on one with Jay and her grandparents. Both of those grandparents reappear later and it's it.
00:47:29
Speaker
And then in some of the pictures on the side, we have young Jane a pink dress holding a bunny rabbit and another teen Jane a pink shirt has her arm around Kelly. So I like that it again, it like ties the pink to her kind of childhood innocence. And then it also like introduces us to some of the forms of it that we're going to see later on. I totally miss the grandparents thing. That's interesting because I think the next the first it that we see that's hers that isn't like the first first one we see is when she's
00:47:57
Speaker
tied in the chair and there's a naked woman coming towards her, but the one that is like directed at her is an older woman. That's the grandma. Yeah, that's the grandma. And then the man on top of the roof is the grandfather. Oh, wow. That's really interesting. I also was wondering, I guess this just came into my head, but there's some pictures of her dad
00:48:20
Speaker
there, which makes me think maybe that he died because I feel like if there was some kind of parental estrangement, it's less likely that they would have kept pictures of the dad up. Yeah, that's what I thought as well. That was my interpretation. I've read other interpretations that he did something to her, but I don't think that jives with having pictures up in her room and all that stuff too. Right.
00:48:44
Speaker
And I don't think that drives with like the loss of innocence. Right. Like vibe of the movie because that would have already happened. I mean, that's like a gross way of saying it, but like that would have already happened. Yeah. And so it just wouldn't land, I think, at least for my mind. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Carly has taught me to pay a lot of attention to things that they say in school classrooms, like whatever they're reading. So the next scene. Yeah. And so the reading
00:49:14
Speaker
Oh, that was in our hereditary conversation, right? Because they were talking about is the tragic, is it more or less tragic if he's doomed? Yeah, they're reading. I like this line that I've seen the moment of my greatness flicker. Yeah. And then Lazarus come from the dead and she's like not really paying attention. But we like hear this sound pretty loudly. And as she like starts seeing, I guess her grandma come towards her. It was the love song of Alfred Prufrock. I looked it up. I haven't read the whole thing. But
00:49:43
Speaker
It's a dramatic interior monologue of an urban man stricken with feelings of isolation and an incapability for decisive action that is said to epitomize the frustration and impotence of the modern individual with visceral feelings of weariness, regret, embarrassment, longing, emasculation, sexual frustration, a sense of decay, and an awareness of aging and mortality.
00:50:06
Speaker
Yeah, that hits the nail on that. But yeah, obviously we're in the classroom and we have one of the most terrifying scenes. I think it's panning repeatedly around the classroom and they have the big picture windows and you're always like scanning, okay, now I know what I'm looking for. Like, is anyone walking towards the camera right now? And finally it pans around and we do see the woman walking. And the moment that we see
00:50:35
Speaker
for the first time, the old woman in her like white pajamas or hospital gown or whatever. It's during the quote, I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker and I've seen the eternal foot man hold my coat and snicker and we see like the eternal foot man. Yeah.
00:50:53
Speaker
And in short, I was afraid. Yeah. I had just thought of her as an old woman before. It makes even more sense with it being with grandmother, but that was kind of making me think of like, like you don't really talk to your grandparents about sex and you kind of try to like hide. And I think it's like kind of this shame feeling attached to her being the first person.
00:51:18
Speaker
And then also I think that our grandparents for most of us are the first time we have to deal with someone that we love dying.
00:51:29
Speaker
And that also makes sense with like the Lazarus kind of theme too of like, here's her grandma who probably is dead, right? Like that's how I'm working at least. And like here she is walking towards her and just like that kind of risen from the dead. That's like a very surface level of the Lazarus story, but just that like risen from the dead, like I'm looking at you, I shouldn't be looking at you feeling.
00:51:53
Speaker
It's also like an interesting show don't tell thing where like I wouldn't have connected that and you figured it out from like pausing it where like it's or I guess like if you saw it many times you might figure it out but it's interesting that she didn't go home and say like I saw grandma. Yeah. But I think that she knows that that would have like further made people think that she wasn't serious or that she was not in her right mind. Yeah, absolutely.
00:52:20
Speaker
I think there's also a protective element of protecting her younger sister too, because there is another scene and I can't remember if it's the scene where it's taking the form of one of the friends or if it's the dad. I don't remember which moment this is, but there's a scene where like, what do you see? And she's like, I don't want to say. Yeah, that's with the dad. And I think it's because she doesn't necessarily like
00:52:41
Speaker
Like she's not, she does, it's like she's sharing some of this with them to like have the support, but is kind of almost like wary of oversharing and like kind of scarring them in this way. So like not letting them all the way into the experience. Yeah. I imagine not as a therapist, but you can elaborate on this as, since you are one, right?
00:53:01
Speaker
But the way that a lot of people deal with trauma and be the way that a lot of people like respond to people dealing with trauma, like the second guessing and the judgment and the not understanding, and then the person who's dealing with trauma wanting to communicate it, but not having the tools to because people can't understand what they're going through. And like you said, wanting to protect them from going through
00:53:24
Speaker
or even secondhand experiencing that trauma. Yeah. And I think that it's really common for us as humans to convince ourselves that we are allowing ourselves to be held and supported when we're really not. And we keep people
00:53:37
Speaker
kind of like sitting at the edge of the trauma like what they're like like for let's go back to the water right with their feet in the water right and what we don't often do is like let someone get in the water with us and like sit in it and like really break down and like really like it's it's I mean I don't even kind of like think about like
00:53:55
Speaker
something like suicidality, how you might know somebody who has chronic suicidality, but you don't know what that really is in their head most of the time, even if you know it's there. And it's only if you really are willing to let someone be hurt by your pain, which I think is often looked at as a really negative thing in our society, but I think is not actually. I mean, get consent, whatever. But I think that when you let someone all the way in,
00:54:25
Speaker
that's like where they can support you more. Because think about how much worse this situation is that she's watching people she loves try to kill her. And like, that part is totally glossed over for outsiders. I actually don't think they even know that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think she ever says that it's anyone she knows. And it seems like when, well, I guess it's Yara briefly, but then changes. But I think most of the time when she's with other people, it seems less likely to be people that she knows.
00:54:54
Speaker
Yeah, or at least it's not going to be those people. So she flees, obviously, and she heads straight to the ice cream shop and has a pink, which has a pink ice cream cone. She has chocolate vanilla swirl ice cream with rainbow sprinkles, which is like the peek-a-go-to kid ice cream.
00:55:14
Speaker
So it's funny like to cope I think with this confrontation with death with it like she retreats back into this child self and does like the most childish thing possible and eats her child comfort food. Yeah, I was thinking when she was
00:55:29
Speaker
home. Like that night, Paul says he'll stay over to like keep her safe or something, which I was kind of like, what are you gonna do? I don't like it. But I think he's just like, I'll be comforting. But when she like comes to sleep on the couch with him, she's like kind of bundled up and kind of using like a little kid voice. Yeah. Yeah, this is the first intro, I think, probably is in that scene when they cut so we cut back to the house at night. All right. The synth track
00:55:59
Speaker
here reminds me a lot of Halloween again. And we get shots of like, again, like Halloween, we get shots of the house, we get a shot of the open back gate, we get a shot of the pool. So we're constantly like, okay, where is it? Where's Mike Myers hiding behind the sheets?
00:56:20
Speaker
Yeah, that scene was really scary to me the whole time. That's one of the times where I felt like the most anticipation and just like going at the top of the elevator, not elevator, roller coaster feeling. And then Paul is watching, I think, another old horror movie and the line that stuck out to me was, a girl or a monster. Isn't that what all horror is?
00:56:51
Speaker
The movie is The Giant Claw, which is from 1957. And then Jay's mom is passed out on the bed with an empty wine bottle on the dresser. And she has her shoes on. Yes. Kelly's fast sleep yard is reading again on the floor and Jay comes downstairs and joins Paul on the couch. And this is where they talk about how he used to spend the night when they were kids and how
00:57:17
Speaker
They were each other's first kiss, and then he kissed her sister. Glass of dumb boy shit. They talk about remembering when they found dirty magazines, and then the glass shatters, interrupting them. So obviously Paul says there's a broken window in the kitchen, but no one's there, and gets Callie to call the police, and then we see it in the kitchen.
00:57:48
Speaker
Yeah, when Jay was walking into the
Confrontations with the Monster
00:57:50
Speaker
kitchen after that, that was like, that's probably the scariest moment of the year. You're like, Oh, I know it's there. I know it's there. That's like the closest thing to a jump scare. I think that we get in the movie probably. Because you have that feeling like the jump scare is coming. And that's what really is scary about the jump scare. It's not like the jump itself. It's like when you know it's coming. But
00:58:11
Speaker
This is a weird one, right? So it's like a half dressed young woman. She's walking slowly and she starts urinating on the floor. And I don't know, like to me, her appearance there, it kind of
00:58:25
Speaker
reads, like, sexual assault victim. Yeah, the disheveled, like, state of undress, yeah. I agree. I'm not totally sure that she was peeing, though. I thought that she was when I saw it, and that kind of added to the victim ceiling for me. But when
00:58:43
Speaker
When Greg ends up getting attacked, the it is like leaking fluid all over him and that seems to be what kills him. So I think that interesting kind of releases some kind of fluid. That's I think is not maybe like that would kind of make sense like with the rest of it. Yeah.
00:59:05
Speaker
I also thought it was reminiscent of how when people die, they lose control of bodily functions. And so it has that death element to it. So she hides in her room. And to me, this part is probably the scariest scene in the movie. It's up there. She's hiding in the room, and she lets Paul and Kelly in. There's a knock at the door, and it keeps jiggling.
00:59:33
Speaker
And this is, again, the camera is placed directly in the center of the action. It's facing Jay or it's facing the lock. You never get a shot of Jay and the lock. It's just like back and forth, back and forth. And then we open the door and it is Yara. Okay, great. We flip back to Jay and we're like, okay, but there's a dark hallway behind Yara. And we flip back and turn of like the giant person.
01:00:01
Speaker
is there. Yeah, that was pretty scary. Yeah. And so this is a fun fact. So that's Mike Lanier, who is a seven foot seven Detroit resident. He's one half of the world's tallest twins. And he designs engines for General Motors.
01:00:21
Speaker
I think that part was scary. I think the size of the dude is really scary too, but I also will say there was a part of me in that scene where again, I was like, this is a really easy solve and you're running up to your room. I'm a little taken out of it. Sometimes I don't care and sometimes it really does take me out of it. In that moment, I was like, you literally did the worst decision possible in this situation.
01:00:50
Speaker
That's how I felt when I was watching it, but she did have a way to get out. I don't think it was the best way. It seems like she probably hurt her ankle or something, but she got out the balcony. She should have just left the house though. I hate when people in horror movies, people are always running upstairs when they should run outside and it always disturbs me, but I think that you're supposed to be like, why? Yeah.
01:01:18
Speaker
But I also feel like it bothers me more in this movie because the thing is always walking. I think that if something can run, I mean, I guess a lot of slashers are walking too. But I just think of like, if this thing is always walking, hop on your bike, which they do after. Like, that's what happens next. But I am just like, hop in a car, hop on your bike, just run as long as you can run. Like, I don't know. Like, just buy yourself a little time. I don't know. Buy yourself more than the three seconds it's going to take this thing to get up this chair.
01:01:44
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think they like she wises up pretty quick here, at least, like they do start doing smarter things with the exception of the pool. At the end, I think is probably the dumbest thing they do in the whole movie. Yeah, that bothered me. Totally. There's something really childish, right? About like running up and hiding in your room. Yeah. And then realizing it doesn't work. Like, right? Like, she does that childish thing and then gets there and is like, Oh, this actually doesn't work. Like, and I just leave.
01:02:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. After that scene, right, they run to the park and then there's the scene where they're driving through like the older part of Detroit with all of like the abandoned buildings and stuff to find Hugh's house, right, where he was hiding out. And Greg finds them at the park and is the one driving, I think. Greg the neighbor. Yes, yes. Greg drives them after he finds them at the park. So,
01:02:45
Speaker
This is kind of interesting trivia. So that dilapidated house that he's staying in, it's called an American four square and they're like designed so they have circular traffic patterns. So there would be never be a place where he'd be stuck in one room. So it's a really smart hideout. And this is where he has the bottles hanging. Yeah. All the newspaper on the windows and stuff. I thought it was pretty funny that they,
01:03:11
Speaker
that he had a bunch of playboys in there. Like he still had time to jerk off. And the dirty issues. Oh my gosh. And then there's a high school pick of him. And I think it's Annie. I haven't been able to confirm that. I think it's the girl from the beginning in that photo with him. I was wondering that. I thought it might've been. Yeah. Like it looks very much like her. I haven't been able to confirm that part, but it definitely looks like it to me.
01:03:40
Speaker
But that brings them over to the high school, right, where they go and find the yearbook. We again get like a big panning shot that's very creepy. We see someone who we're not sure is like it, and then like we pan back. Oh yeah, it's still walking towards the camera. But doesn't catch up with them. Anyway, they get his real name and then we go to the scene at Hugh's house.
01:04:07
Speaker
which I think is an interesting one. We get a little more insight into his character. Yeah. I think that his name is Blair. Oh, Jeff. Yeah. Jeff. I thought it was funny when they go to his house and his mom is just like, yeah, come in. All your friends come in. She doesn't know what's going on. Yeah. Another like clueless parent who has like no insight to what their kid is going through. Yeah. Yeah.
01:04:36
Speaker
So he again explains the rules. He's so freaking callous. You like when he's like, she can just do the same thing I did. It should be easy for her. It's she's a girl. Like, oh, that one line. I agree. I also feel like, I don't know. I just like, honestly, this is the this is the fucked up thing actually, is that she could go explain this to some man and he'd still fuck her.
01:05:05
Speaker
But probably because he wouldn't believe her. I mean, that does happen with Greg and Paul. Wait, but that's what I'm saying. That's like what I'm saying. Like she actually could do this and tell somebody they don't they wouldn't believe her and they would take advantage of her thinking that she was vulnerable and crazy. So like, well, that's it. That's exactly what happens when she fucks Greg.
01:05:24
Speaker
That's like exactly what happens, right? Right. And so I'm like, right. So I'm like, why did you do this with your neighbor instead of someone far away? Because honestly, the man who would sleep with her after telling her that would kind of deserve it, because he would be, in his mind, taking advantage of someone who is really mentally unwell. So I stand by my solution. Like, if you tell someone because, right, because that because that's the thing. And I think that's
01:05:49
Speaker
And at least in my mind, kind of underlying what he said, it should be easy because she's a girl. A woman is not sleeping with a man who's telling her this story, period. A man is going to sleep with a woman who's offering.
01:06:01
Speaker
You know what I mean? And is it going to tell himself some story about why it's actually OK? And so I don't know. I kind of feel like I agree with Jeff. I don't like his tactics. But once this situation has gone in the way that it goes in this movie, I do feel like she could have done that. I think you're probably right, Kelly. Also, I think that maybe Annie was his girlfriend, or at least they were friends. And he probably slept with her, and she died. And then it came back for him.
01:06:31
Speaker
trying to avoid that happening again. And he said, like, I don't even think we should be in the same place. Yeah. Yeah. So it's very like isolating this curse, like not like the people, the other people are suffering from it. Like you shouldn't be around them. Yeah. So obviously he's extremely on edge in that whole scene.
01:06:54
Speaker
I don't know. I, we can, we can argue about the morality of spreading this thing. I like her. I like what she does by the end, but, but yeah, I mean, there's a question of whether or not, like, like, is Greg really like consenting to it because he, like, he does, he, he doesn't believe it. Right. So you could like, okay. Yeah. Like he deserves it because he's taking advantage of her or something.
01:07:21
Speaker
Maybe he thinks he's gonna help her, you know? He genuinely is like, you know, like, if sex with me will help you feel better, like, great, I'll do it. Right. Which what man doesn't think that about this?
01:07:34
Speaker
seems like he does think he's he's I think he doesn't think it's real but he thinks that within her delusion if he takes it away from her she'll feel better but he he doesn't actually see any risk to himself also I think it's really interesting that they have sex in the hospital there's a lot of hospital scenes in this that seems to be like one of the major recurring themes which makes sense with mortality and
01:07:58
Speaker
And especially like the sex and mortality thing. So from Hugh slash Jeff's house, we go up to Greg's cabin, right? Yeah. So he he mentions that his mom won't even know and his dad used to take him hunting up there a couple times a year, which implies that his dad is also gone, which I thought was kind of ironic since the mom like the other mom was like, Oh, their family is such a mess. Like, I don't know what's going on with their family either. The scene where they're driving down the road, I think is a
01:08:29
Speaker
Night of the Living Dead reference, very similar scene in that movie, driving down the road and having this feeling of claustrophobic dread. Yeah. So they get to the lake house, they're putting up cans on the window and everything, and then Greg teaches Jay to shoot a gun.
01:08:52
Speaker
So whether he believes her or not, he's at least trying to help her feel better. And then we get the scene on the beach where it takes the form of Yara, which is so creepy. Yeah. And I love that it shows Yara in the water so that you have zero questions in your head. It doesn't leave it open to being her for real. It's like, no, she's way over there. Yeah.
01:09:18
Speaker
And this scene answers an important question that we don't really know before then, which is like, is this monster like a physical being that exists versus something that's like transparent? Like, and we, cause it's able to actually physically interact with her friends and like punches Paul or like shoves Paul or whatever. So they finally believe her.
01:09:41
Speaker
That's where Paul seems to start believing it more because he sees the chair move and Greg like still doesn't believe and Paul has bruises. Also the actress who plays Yara Olivia La Carte. She is in one of the seasons of Channel Zero, which was a show that I really like and is also horror.
01:10:01
Speaker
I think she's a really good actress. I really like the different vibes of her it monster character and Yara in the pool who's just like, or in the water. Yeah. Yeah. And you just keep like, Jay, look behind you, Jay, look behind you because everyone else is facing that direction, but they can't help her. Like she's the only one who can see it.
01:10:28
Speaker
And so then we see her hair like start to levitate from the perspective of her friends. Yeah. Yeah. That was super creepy. Over now. Yeah. Well, and that's also scary because that is like also where you find out that this thing doesn't just want to kill you quickly. It wants to fuck with you. You know what I mean? Like it's like because she could have just died. Like that could have been it. It could have just killed her and it would have been over. And instead it's like, let me just like tug on your hair a little and see what happens.
01:10:56
Speaker
Yeah. Then they run and hide in the shed. And I think Greg is like the one who's left out and grabs the gun and tries to shoot it, which it does fall down. It seems to be like semi affected by bullets, but like it seems like it feels pretty quickly, but she is like not even really paying attention and like almost shoots Greg. He's like, yeah.
01:11:22
Speaker
What's happening? Obviously, I can't see it. She's like, okay, she's shooting at me or there. What's happening? Then we see the giant, which starts banging on the door and breaks open a part of the door, and then it becomes the neighborhood kid to climb through the door. So creepy. And Jay runs for it.
01:11:50
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting because Hugh Jeff had said like don't ever be in a space that doesn't have two exits. And she like they show a lot of scenes where she seems like she's in a space that only has one exit where like it builds all this tension and then she like suddenly has another way out. Yes, that was one there too where I was like, she's seriously hiding in here right now. But then like the the side door opens. Yeah.
01:12:17
Speaker
And then she tries to leave without them and she ends up getting in a car accident and then is back in the hospital again. All the times that she was in the hospital, I was like, Oh my God, it's definitely going to get her here. But it like, I don't think we even see it in the hospital ever. I don't think we do, but, but definitely when you're like sitting there, you're like, Oh my gosh, she is really cornered.
01:12:39
Speaker
Like hopefully that hospital is just far away enough that she can get out. Yeah, some hospitals are massive. Maybe it just like doesn't know how to navigate to her. And of course, that's where Jay and Greg have sex, which is like a really uncomfortable sex scene. It's super mechanical. Jay is like looking up away from him, like off to the side. Like she's not even really there.
01:13:05
Speaker
I don't know. And then afterwards it cuts to her alone, staring at the ceiling. I was wondering what was going through her head at that point. Is she feeling guilty? Is she feeling used? Is she the person doing the using or the person being used?
01:13:18
Speaker
sounded like they had said that they had some sort of relationship or had had sex before. Yeah. Yeah, she tells Paul that they had sex in high school. And that was why it was no big deal. And she also went when Paul is like, why did you choose Greg? She's like, I thought he would be okay. Yeah, yeah. Right. Because then we immediately cut to like the lunchroom where Greg has like three girls hanging out around him. And then
01:13:45
Speaker
then it's like, okay, well, he doesn't even believe it. Like, how many people is he gonna pass it to and just not even tell them because he doesn't believe it? Like, ugh. I know that was freaking me out. Also, after the car accident is when Jay then has a broken arm and has a cast for the rest of the movie. And she does not give a fuck about this cast and is just like doing all the things that you're not supposed to do with casts. And that drove me crazy for the rest of the movie.
Consequences of the Curse
01:14:12
Speaker
Going into the water.
01:14:15
Speaker
Yeah. It's like, well, it doesn't really matter if I die, like, if my arm was healed or not. I was just imagining how bad it must smell. Oh. Oh, yeah. She's like getting it wet all the time. And I'm sure it was like not a real cast and she like took it off and she was done filming and maybe they like wrapped in new ones. But I was just imagining it like
01:14:39
Speaker
over like weeks of her getting it wet and stuff. Yeah. Very gross. So then like there's that scene where like Greg is by Jay's hospital bed and they're holding hands and Paul's like jealously watching from the hall. Yeah. Greg says he still hasn't seen it yet, which is another thing that makes me think that he already passed it on. And it's only comes for him later once, like that other girl.
01:15:07
Speaker
dies. I thought that too. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Once it came for him, I thought, oh, he didn't pass it on. But yeah, maybe it already came for the person who he passed it on to. Makes more sense. Yeah, especially if he didn't warn her, which he wouldn't if he didn't believe it. Yeah, right. Yeah. I also was thinking like the there's she seems so like wanted by all of these guys, but it's like the
01:15:34
Speaker
The thing that gets her attention is also the reason why she's targeted by this thing. Yeah. Well, Yara at one point is like, your sister's so pretty, it's annoying. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And Greg says he thought that she'd be doing better after that. And Paul's like, she didn't make it up. And he says it's not what she thinks it is. Does he though? Or is he just seeing an opportunity? This is what I'm saying. I don't trust men.
01:16:04
Speaker
So that goes back to what we were talking about earlier. He thinks he's going to help her by doing this because he doesn't believe her. And I think especially because then Jay does actually try to save him and puts herself in danger by doing that. And yeah, he doesn't actually think he's taking on any danger when he's trying to help her.
01:16:32
Speaker
I mean, I, I, no, I, I, I don't know. I don't know what to make of him. I don't, obviously it doesn't take her seriously. I think it's a mixed bag, but obviously if it, if he got his comeuppance, whether he deserved it or not. She sees it walking up into the house. Like it throws a rock through the window. She tries to call him known answers and it crawls through the windows. She like runs across and then upstairs.
01:17:00
Speaker
She sees Greg's mother wearing a white robe knocking on Greg's door. He opens it. His mom, her breast exposed, like leaps on him. And does the monster not like rape Greg?
01:17:14
Speaker
as he dies. That's very much what it looks like. It seems pretty rapey. I think there's still clothing barriers that it looks like, but there's all these juices that seem to be what kills him. I think it's definitely a form of sexual assault. It's not clear to me. It looked like there was clothing, but yeah. What a horrible way to die. Not the last thing you want to see before you die.
01:17:42
Speaker
Right, right. Especially being his mom. This is why I would just kill myself. Yeah. Yeah. And this is the first time we see how the monster kills someone, right? Because earlier we just saw the aftermath. So yeah, super, super creepy. Obviously, Jay runs again, drives back to the lake, falls asleep on her car hood.
01:18:06
Speaker
wakes up and it's daytime. I was kind of like, why are you sleeping here and not in the car? But I guess it's easier to run if you're out, but it seems also easier for it to just get you without even noticing if you're asleep out there. Well, and if you're in the car, you don't need to run. You can just while when you see it, it's not that fast. If you see it 10 feet away, turn your car out and drive away.
01:18:33
Speaker
And then she hears music through the trees and she goes through and there's the lake again and there's some guys on the boat and she starts undressing. It seems like she went and slept with one or more of the guys on the boat. Yeah. So I think I thought that like like when I originally watched it, like I thought that that was what was going to happen in that scene. That she was going to have sex with them, like walks into the water and she drives back home soaking wet.
01:19:00
Speaker
But I, in real life, I think maybe that's where she decides that she's not going to pass it on. Like, like she thinks about it and she decides, okay, like I can't live with like more death for me, like passing this on. So I have to figure out some other way to deal with it. That makes sense because it does come after her again pretty quickly. Yeah. Yeah. And she, she drives back home.
01:19:26
Speaker
So I forgot to point this out earlier, but earlier in the scene, right after what happens with Hugh slash Jeff in her room, there's this plate with bread and a pickle on it or something like that in her bedroom.
01:19:46
Speaker
in this next scene when she comes back, Jay, Kelly, and Yara are all sleeping together in the bedroom. We see the same plate of food and juice that we saw from that earlier scene. And the bread is like totally moldy. The pickles dried out. It's the only indication we have of any time passing. And also kind of hints that she has some kind of like eating disorder going on. I don't know if it's temporary from this trauma or if it's like a recurring thing that she was already dealing with.
01:20:13
Speaker
Yeah, I hadn't noticed that I did feel like the timeline was unclear a lot of the times which added to like the dreamy feeling. But yeah, that's interesting that there was that measure of time passing. It's like all we really get. And so then she has this conversation with Paul there where he offers to do it to pass it on or like that she can pass it on. She says no. And then
01:20:40
Speaker
He keeps trying to kind of convince her and tell her it's okay, whatever, they move on. And then we head towards the pool scene, right? We already talked about the conversation about Eight Mile. They come into this abandoned school with a pool in the basement. Yeah, it was interesting. The pool seemed to be in good condition, even though the rest of the building wasn't. It was strange. Yeah.
01:21:05
Speaker
Yeah, it was like lit up interior and like it was yeah, like the water was clean. She sits and she kind of like twirls her fingers in the water in a way that reminded me of the beginning flower scene as well. Oh, yeah, for sure. I also I think the like actual approach getting into the pool is super disorienting, right? Like going through all those hallways and all those tracking shots, like it reminded me of the shining a little bit.
01:21:29
Speaker
in terms of you just have no concept really of like where this thing is. And like, does this do these always even fit together? Yeah.
01:21:39
Speaker
Yeah, and then they set up all this electrical equipment. The whole time that they were talking about this plan, I was like, this is a terrible plan. What are you doing? And they put the stuff like one it like this made me so mad because they put the stuff like one inch from the edge, which was not necessary really for their plan to like make it so easy for there to be an accident. I don't know. I was like, this is how you kill people by mistake.
01:22:03
Speaker
Yeah, it was very precarious. And there's like thunder and lightning outside. And I was like, she's not gonna be electrocuted by the lightning, but she is going to be electrocuted by her own plans. Yeah, incredibly stupid plan. So it's not surprising that it doesn't work. Right? This is one of the only scenes where Jay doesn't wear pink, weirdly enough, she's wearing a black swimsuit in this part, like she's taking control. Yeah.
01:22:30
Speaker
No more innocence. Yar is eating a Twizzler and reads, I don't know why she's like constantly eating in this movie. It's in juxtaposition to Jay, like not eating anything ever. But anyway, so Jay announces it just walked in the room. We don't see it. And Kelly asks what she sees and she doesn't want to tell her like we're talking about like trying to protect her. And it's her dad. And then it starts walking around. Yes. Yes.
01:22:58
Speaker
it starts walking around the pool and starts throwing electronics at her in the pool. They were warned too, right? It is not stupid. It is intelligent. They should have known that this is not going to work, right? Hugh actually warns them about that in the earlier scene, or maybe the very beginning even. Yeah, he's like, it's slow, but it's not stupid. Yeah, yeah.
01:23:22
Speaker
Yeah, she also doesn't really seem to be getting electrocuted, but I think maybe it rips out of the cord at the time, it seems like, but she's hit by a couple of the items. Yes, yes. I kind of wonder how long ago her dad died, because it sort of seems like this also could be seen as the journey of her accepting that her dad's dead, and that way of her coming to terms with mortality and her own mortality through her dad dying.
01:23:51
Speaker
Oh, I really like that. We finally see her dad again in white pajamas throwing a TV at her. And they, at some point they throw a sheet over it, which is again another Halloween reference. This director loves Halloween. You can tell it's just like all over the place. And Paul shoots it in the head and it falls in the pool. And then we get that scary shot where it's like trying to pull her leg down into the pool.
01:24:20
Speaker
And they finally, like, they just shoot it repeatedly, I guess, until she can break free. And she has like a handprint on her leg from where it grabbed her. And she climbs out of the pool and we just see like this pool full of blood. And like, it's unclear what happened to it at that point.
01:24:43
Speaker
I was wondering that too, because the gun didn't seem to hurt it before, but something about the sheet or being in the water, I don't know. And then I thought it was a really scary scene when they ask, is it gone or was it hit? What happened? And she crawls very slowly towards the edge of the pool. I was expecting her to be dragged back in again, but then we just see all the blood. Yeah, it's really creepy. For a second, you're like, okay, well, maybe they beat it. I don't know.
01:25:14
Speaker
Right. It seems like possible. Right. And then the next scene is Jay and Paul having sex on the couch. She's on top. So it's again, it's much more like that first sex scene where she has like, she's like reclaimed agency. She's actually interested in having sex with him. We don't know how much time has passed here. Like,
01:25:37
Speaker
Was this like, okay, like the pool thing didn't work so, so fine. Like, let's deal with this together. Or is this like, we've formed a relationship because of everything that we've gone through and we're having sex later on? Like, I don't know. I think it's kind of ambiguous. Yeah. I think it's probably some combination of them. Yeah. Paul still seems to think that there was some potential risk. It seems like he's thinking about trying to pass it on to a sex worker, which I also was like, you're a dick.
01:26:02
Speaker
but he seems like the quintessential guy who thinks he's a good guy but is kind of a dick. Yeah. That's why I don't have that many qualms about the passing it on because all of the men are just trying to fuck her. That's literally all that's happening. Yes, I think he's concerned about her safety, but he's also trying to get his dick wet. I don't know. It doesn't feel right and it doesn't really feel
01:26:28
Speaker
I guess I have a hard time not looking at the situation and being like, yeah, I bet you do want to help her. I think he genuinely cares about her though, unlike what's his name, Grant. Yeah, I do think he cares about her a lot more than Greg. Greg. Unlike Greg, I think he genuinely cares. Yeah.
01:26:51
Speaker
That's why he believes her, you know? He believes her from the beginning because he takes her seriously as a person. Yeah, I do think that he cares about her. I also think that like, this is like, whatever, but I don't think that most teenage boys can care. Like, can care from like an entirely unselfish place and can care in a way that does not prioritize their own sexual satisfaction. Like, I just like, that's not like,
01:27:20
Speaker
I just don't, I don't know. Like, and that's not like literally like as a rule, like obviously that exists in the world. But I also do think like, I've had a lot of people who like have cared about me and still done very fucked up things who probably still actually cared about me. And I feel like most of like the teenage sexual experiences that I feel like I would hear about from like friends, it's not that they don't care. It's just that they are so wrapped up in their desires that the care doesn't really matter. Yeah, I think teenagers in general are
01:27:50
Speaker
focused on their own desires more than care. And I think it's hard to fully see outside of yourself as a teenager. But I think that's very wrapped up into teenage sex. I think that's very particular. I think, yes, all teenagers, because that's a developmental stage. But I think there is something about the way that teenage boys view sex that overrides their dignity and their care for other people and their concern for even people that they genuinely love or care for.
01:28:18
Speaker
And I can't not watch this movie with that like hanging over it. Yeah, I think that's fair. I I do think he does seem to care more about her. And I obviously I still think that's a factor. And then there's the question is like, OK, is any teenager really capable of signing up for this? Right. Like really understanding what does it mean to be followed around by something that wants to kill me the rest of my life?
01:28:47
Speaker
Well, and I think that's the question of arguably the movie is are teenagers mature enough to be having sex? Which isn't anyone's place to say, but I do think that is one of the conversations that the movie is having. Is the maturity there?
01:29:07
Speaker
And are they mature enough to understand death? I mean, we all go through that change in our lifetimes, and this is definitely looking at people who are right in the middle of that, and they're not on the other side of it, but they're going through it. And something else that also I think about, that I didn't think about until right now, what else can follow you around for the rest of your life from having sex?
01:29:29
Speaker
That's what I was just thinking too, is this actually about babies? Because you had brought that up at the beginning. Do teenagers have the genuine understanding? We have the physical understanding when we're teenagers, at least in this day and age, that if you have sex, you can get pregnant. And then you have to deal with that one way or another. But is there the real understanding and maturity there, that this is something that could follow you for the rest of your life? I also think it follows you is a really funny concept when you're thinking about it.
01:29:59
Speaker
children. And is anyone at any age really capable of, like, like, yeah, I mean, they're teenagers, but is anyone, I don't think anyone really knows what being a parent is like until they're pregnant, right? Like, you really know what you're signing up for ever. I don't know.
01:30:21
Speaker
So there's so many bad parents. Right. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And this, especially with this movie showing a lot of not great parents, especially with the eighties, nineties vibes, it was also making me think of AIDS, which is now usually not fatal, but definitely was at that time. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So after they have sex, right.
01:30:47
Speaker
And we have Paul drive past the prostitutes. He doesn't stop. So it's again, it's kind of ambiguous. Like what is, what does he do? We cut back to Yara's hospital room. She's again eating and reading from the idiot. Yeah. Paul looks like he's falling asleep in this scene, which to me is like, okay, maybe he's having trouble sleeping now that he has this, this thing. And she reads like the best quote,
01:31:16
Speaker
from the movie, right? And the most terrible agony may not be in the wounds themselves, but knowing for certain that within an hour, that within 10 minutes, then within half of a minute, now at this very instant, your soul will leave your body and you'll no longer be a person. And that this is certain. The worst thing is that it's certain, like the worst thing in the world is that death is certain and it's coming for you.
01:31:40
Speaker
And then she takes a bite of her tuna sandwich and sips her off. I think the least believable part of this movie is that someone who reads as much as Yara would be still reading the same book by the end of the movie. I think it's a pretty long book. It's a long book and a hard book to read.
Final Reflections and Ambiguity
01:32:03
Speaker
And then of course we get this great last scene, scary last scene.
01:32:09
Speaker
where we're back in the neighborhood. Birds are chirping. Jay and Paul are walking down the street holding hands. So at least he's still interested in having a relationship with her. And in this scene, they're both wearing white and black. Like it's like they fully come on to this other side of like accepting death. And it closes up on their hands and we zoom back out and someone's walking slowly behind them.
01:32:39
Speaker
Yeah. Is it in? Is it a coincidence? We don't know. Yeah, I like the unknowing. And I also, that scene kind of bothered me when I watched it, actually. And I was like, this is a stupid ending. But I'm seeing the depth in it more now. And I think it is kind of like, we all have to accept that death is coming. And like, how do you learn how to live with that and like still enjoy the time that you have? Yeah. Yeah. And when you accept that it's coming with
01:33:09
Speaker
another person that provides this source of like comfort and meaning to get you through it. I think you don't have to walk away from death alone or you don't have to like be stalked by death alone because we're all going through it.
01:33:44
Speaker
Oh, one last trivia fun fact, Jay. Jay is short for Jamie, which is a reference to Jamie Lee Curtis. And also Jamie Lee Curtis has a sister named Kelly. Oh my God. I love that. Wow. Wow. Wow. There you go. Yeah. Final trivia. Thanks for having me. This was super fun. This was very fun. Thanks for joining us. You were a fantastic guest.