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Episode 006 - Abby Normal image

Episode 006 - Abby Normal

S1 E6 · Two Oceans
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10 Plays2 years ago

In this episode we continue our discussion on horror sub-genres

Sifting through decades’ worth of mass media consumption, my friend and fellow cinemaphile Scrumpy joins me in discussions on film from the low to high brow

CREDITS:

Intro scene from Mel Brooks' "Young Frankenstein" (1974) from Gruskoff/Venture Films, Crossbow Productions Inc., Jouer Limited(distributed by 20th Century Fox)

Opening music: https://pixabay.com/music/id-116199/

Closing music: https://pixabay.com/music/id-11176/

Two Oceans is a creation of Siouxfire & Scrumpy in association with SiouxWIRE

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Transcript

Introduction & Hosts

00:00:05
Speaker
Two oceans. Two oceans will begin. Would you mind telling me whose brain I did put in? And you won't be angry. I will not be angry. I'll be someone. I'll be someone.
00:00:35
Speaker
Abby who? Abby normal. Abby normal. I'm almost sure that was the name.
00:00:50
Speaker
Welcome to the Two Oceans Podcast, where myself, Sue Fire, along with my friend and revered colleague Scrumby discuss film and other media through a decades-long lens of mass media consumption.

Halloween Horror Series

00:01:01
Speaker
In this episode, we'll be continuing our Halloween horror series and walkthrough of horror genres. This is the Two Oceans Podcast. And so check in, go to room 237, ignore the woman in the bath, and relax as we begin episode 6.
00:01:21
Speaker
Right. Okay. Part two of our hopping through the genres or subject.

Exploration of African Horror Films

00:01:27
Speaker
Have you seen any new horror movies this week? What did I watch this week? Let's see. I watched a saloon. If I'm mispronouncing that, I apologize, but that sounds familiar on shutter. It's the one set in Senegal. That's an African. Oh, you know, that's been on my list.
00:01:48
Speaker
it. And, you know, what it skipped the reviews that are on there, because everything on there seems to call it is Tarantino-esque, which, you know, basically is for people doing film reviews that don't know anything else. Like, except that they liked it, and it's good. So for them, that's become I've seen the trailer for that. That looks fantastic. It's the mercenaries, isn't it? And there's something Lovecraftian going on. That's all I know.
00:02:19
Speaker
kind of it actually ties more, I think, into like tribalism or, you know, African spiritual spirituality. So yeah, it actually comes together really well, but they, the way they pace it out and tease it out is actually really smart. It's really clever. You could tell they didn't have much of a budget because of what they show and when they show it and that sort of thing. So it's yeah, it's pretty well handled.
00:02:49
Speaker
I mean, there is a creature sort of thing involved, and when they show it, it's fantastically done. It's not like anything outside of say Attack the Block that I've seen like a really new envisioning. Yeah, that's what I always forget about. People, you know, look at you, look at you dumbfounded, you know, if they've never heard of it, I'm like, you haven't, no, you got it. Well, you know, that reminds me of another great horror I watched a few months back called His House.
00:03:18
Speaker
And it's set in the UK and it's about this refugee couple that make this escape from South Sudan. And you see a little bit of that at the beginning. Yeah, I don't want to say too much about it, but it is just oozing atmosphere. It is a straight horror, you know.
00:03:41
Speaker
haunted house, his house. And they get this sort of temporary accommodation, but things aren't right. But it's so grounded, you know, overall, but it does sort of tap into that, you know, some of the myths and legends from South Sudan. So yeah, that's a good one. I mean, we could probably do a whole episode around African horror. That'd be interesting.
00:04:12
Speaker
You know, at least non-Western and non-Asian, right? Because you could really dive down into after the last 30 years with the Japanese and Korean. Yeah, wall to wall. Yeah, totally.

Innovative Film Techniques & Modern Twists

00:04:28
Speaker
So yeah, other than that, you know, I've been doing the, the other one I watched, so the genres, sub-genres I broke down for this year were
00:04:37
Speaker
comedy horror, female-led, remakes and sequels. And then assign them to a dartboard so the wife or I will throw a dart and wherever it lands, that number corresponds to a spreadsheet and that's what we watched. So one of the ones we watched under remakes was last year's 2021 Slumber Party Massacre. Okay, how did you find that?
00:04:59
Speaker
Which theater? Well, the original, you know, was female directed and, you know, from what, 85, 86, if I'm remembering right. And it's great for what it is. But it's still pretty much straight ahead, kind of slasher film. This one, this one also female directed, kind of a remake, kind of a sequel. I quite like it when they do that.
00:05:24
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's really smart. And this one, though, I mean, without giving too much away, they take everything and dump it on its head so that it's the hot guys, the ones dancing around having a slumber party and, you know, dancing around the pillow fight and showering each other with beer. There's a great shower scene featuring a male.
00:05:50
Speaker
that is straight out of an eighties or from just with a dude instead. And, but the, the story ties them all together. And there's even touches in it of a slumber party massacre two, which I know I had one yet, but, uh,
00:06:07
Speaker
but there's touches from it also in this remake as well. I mean, it's just like they cram so much in and they just have a ball with it. The gourd's good, the effects are good, the pacing's great, the performances are great. Last I looked, it was sitting at 100 percent on Ruddy T's, which I'm going to call around two minutes from now on after they made that reference on Berry.
00:06:35
Speaker
That's another great show. But not horror, that's what we're here to discuss. Those are the main ones. Also, she will. I saw that this week as well. What'd you think? I liked it. I think it could have been more.
00:06:59
Speaker
Yeah. Well, yeah. It's in Scotland. Had everything going for that. The cast is amazing. I'll say that right off the bat. Yes. They just knocked it out of the park. I couldn't imagine anyone else as the two leads.
00:07:16
Speaker
Yeah, I enjoyed it. It's very, it's almost like a sister film to the witch. Yeah, you know, they're in different eras. But something about it in the end, you know, this is the trick is just sort of making the landing.
00:07:36
Speaker
And just something didn't quite click 100% with me. I mean, I really enjoyed it. It's a solid, solid film. I'm kind of wondering if I wasn't distracted by Malcolm McDowell being in it. And maybe that sort of took me out of it. And I think in terms of the effects,
00:08:02
Speaker
It did really, really well in holding back on the effects. And it was really convincing with, you know, you had this mud and things like this. And I couldn't tell it was CG. You kind of know in that your mind it must be. But then later on, I think.
00:08:18
Speaker
they they they got a bit too confident with the effects and probably showed it a bit too much. And yeah, that I mean, it was fine. It was fine. But I felt like for the first half of the movie, I thought I am watching a modern classic. So maybe my expectations went a bit bit over the top. And then it
00:08:44
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it didn't fail at anything, but I kind of walked away and I don't know, I might need to revisit it at some point because maybe I missed something. What did you think?

Female Perspectives in Horror

00:08:58
Speaker
Well, I thought they did stick to that. I was afraid they went where they did.
00:09:04
Speaker
with the ending and just the idea of not only does the film sail past the Bechdel test as well but also being a story of not necessarily revenge more concerned with justice or protection or you know basically it's like the positive things of witches and that sort of
00:09:30
Speaker
uh black magic or something like that in a much more positive and naturalistic return to an order rather than
00:09:39
Speaker
the male-imposed judgmental aspect of it. And so I think in that sense too, I think being a companion to the witch is a good call, but I think it takes it because it's a female director and writer. I think it takes it once and further with the feminine gaze as well, giving it more of a say, less than a
00:10:03
Speaker
Like, oh, this is the evil. Like, well, no, this is really the evil. That's the interesting thing because, as you know, you mentioned before about the shower scenes and the slumber party massacre. And this film also plays on expectations from white male directors as well. So there are various points where you're like, this happens in every horror movie kind of thing. And it doesn't go where you think it will.
00:10:32
Speaker
And I also like the idea of the peat being in the water. It was almost like another character in the movie, the peat, the earth, the ashes. I think they refer to the ashes that fall from the mill or wherever it's coming from as witch feathers, which I thought was nice.
00:10:55
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, because all the earnings is burned into the soil, you know, the, the earth, remember, sort of thing. Yeah. And the, the central relationship, sorry, I was just going to say the central relationship, because as, as you're so used to there being like a romantic relationship in the middle.
00:11:13
Speaker
But it was so convincing how it grew and became, you know, by the end of the film, it's something entirely different to what it was at the beginning. Yeah, within the first few, it's not spoiling anything, but but, you know, it's her and her assistant. And in the first few minutes, you just think, why is she working for her? I mean, that poor woman. Wow, I hope she's getting paid well. Yeah, exactly.
00:11:41
Speaker
Well, and it's the thing too of dealing with trauma and especially female, feminine trauma in a male-defined world. But when you strip away a lot of those trappings, I think that's what they respond to. I think every woman in the, even the secondary people working at the resort or whatever you call it there where they go,
00:12:07
Speaker
There's a couple camera shots of them where they're giving a look like they kind of know what's going to happen or what's going on, and they're okay with it. They're like, yeah, we've struck a balance. There's this naturalization rather than the crazy locals or something. They're like, oh, they always know what's going on.
00:12:27
Speaker
But in this one it's more of an a I don't know if an affirming way, but I mean they almost like their shoulders and like more Okay, it's it's happening again. Just like the you know coming the seasons or something that did the don't even add an eyelash. Yeah

Paranormal Horror & Suspense

00:12:43
Speaker
Exactly. So yeah, I really enjoyed that one. I think that might be the best performance I've seen. And Alice Krieg has been in a lot of horror movies as well. But yeah, this was standout. And I'm really glad that she had the opportunity to get a part like that. Really good. Right. Let's jump back to the sub genres. Did we leave off this quiz on Lovecraftian or paranormal? Or did we say paranormal for this week?
00:13:11
Speaker
I don't think we did paranormal. We didn't do Lovecraftian. That's where we stopped. We started because we'd already kind of, under cosmic core, we already kind of got into that a bit. Yeah, we talked a little bit about that in my mind. Lovecraftian is like a big chunk of cosmic core, isn't it? If you're doing it right.
00:13:39
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And the fact that it doesn't have to literally be Lovecraft, right? To be Lovecraftian, you know, there's elements like you already referred to.
00:13:50
Speaker
you know, talking about saloon kind of having that thing beyond right idea or something like that. It's always basically that that unknown where it's, it's like, it's not ghosts. It's not demons. It's just something you don't understand. And that's kind of, that's kind of good. That's kind of Lovecraftian cosmic or right there, right?
00:14:10
Speaker
Although it can be a literal thing, you know, like I would argue, you know, a carpenter's version of the thing. Oh, no, no, I was just about to. I was just thinking of that. Yeah, I would say that that fits in a love crafty and something from something unknown and unimaginable.
00:14:26
Speaker
versus his In the Mouth of Madness, which is much more literally, I mean, doesn't say Lovecraft, but it is, you know, just substitute one for the other. And while I still enjoy it, it's not as tight, I don't think, as the other one was that overt. It's still good. And I need to revisit it because I haven't watched it. Which one are you referring to there? Oh, you know, I've watched that in the last year because I wanted Jack to see it. And
00:14:53
Speaker
Yeah, he enjoyed it. I it's still relevant. It still worked for me, maybe even more so than when I first watched it. Just because at that point, you know, I had such high expectations and of a specific type of movie because I was thinking, OK, he's done the thing. He's done the fog. He's done all these movies and I was expecting something different. But he experimented there. He did kind of go off the road a little bit.
00:15:21
Speaker
Um, but it works. I think, I think it still works. Um, cool. Well, let's move on to paranormal in that case. Um, yeah, this is a big one, which, well, let's just say, yeah. And I like on their, uh, the puzzle box site, the description is probably the shortest one of anything they have on the page for this. Like, yeah, that's pretty huge.
00:15:44
Speaker
And that's pretty much it. I thought about this in the past week. I did see a movie called Relic. I can't remember what year it came out. It's the last five, six years or so that it came out. And it's about again, it's about three women in this house and the daughter of the oldest woman who's in the house is worried that she's getting dementia and
00:16:13
Speaker
Oh, yes. Yes, I did see that. Rose, not Amwen. Yeah. Yeah. I know which one you mean now. I was thinking when you said the relic, I was thinking the relic, which was this horrible thing. In the museum with the giant monster. Yeah. Do you know what? Yeah. It's not a great movie, but as a popcorn muncher, I did kind of enjoy it because I went to go to see it in the actual cinema. Yeah, fair enough.
00:16:39
Speaker
But yeah, Relic Relic is another interesting one that, you know, it's a good premise, I thought, you know, at the beginning, you know, is does she have dementia or is she actually seeing things? And, you know, it goes from there. Right.
00:16:58
Speaker
And yeah, paranormal, you know, it's like a, and I say paranormal paranormal, you know, the stop motion, uh, one that was pretty fun version of it too. And it's just to me, it's mostly, it's mostly ghosts, you know, refer to ghosts and hauntings, not demons and demonic possession. That's off to me as a whole other thing, but I guess, you know, although.
00:17:19
Speaker
you know like uh the uh paranormal activity obviously right there in the title and but those are about a demon demon haunting i i i suppose if it's not a physical manifestation of a demon like like exorcist right maybe that that is kind of more paranormal um
00:17:38
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. And yeah, there's a ton ton of take a quick look at our spreadsheet here. Just to just her. Oh, yeah, we job movies. Of course.
00:17:54
Speaker
Skip the first one's terrible. Second one is my point. I noticed that you only put the second one down. I saw the first one. I already felt trod in that one. No, but OK, I'll try out the second one. Well, it's the thing. Why would I come back to this? No, trust me. It's got nothing to do with the first one. I mean, would it follows be considered paranormal? That's kind of a thing.
00:18:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Anywhere there's a, you know, curse, you know, they don't call that something like a curse is paranormal, right? So, you know, drag me to hell and it follows the wailing, Blair Witch. Yeah. I think any of those
00:18:40
Speaker
would fall well under a paranormal thing because it's a lot of obviously a ton of speaking of Asian horror, right? Both J and K horror films, a lot of them embrace the paranormal. And the nice thing I like about paranormal is that you can get away with it with just old school filming techniques. You don't have the budget to show gore or a monster or action.
00:19:06
Speaker
You're like, oh, we can't see it. Well, isn't that convenient? Well, it totally depends on the imagination. And yeah. Yeah. You know, maybe a fleeting glimpse of something. I mean, well, this is the thing. How many movies can, like, adore slowly opening actually, like, raise the hairs in the back of your neck, you know? Exactly. It's nothing. Or every time they go in a house, they either go up to the attic or the basement. Oh, right. Of course they do. Of course they do.
00:19:36
Speaker
And they're these enormous, crowded, dusty, poorly lit, you know, none of them are ever, you know, done. Like, it's like, yeah, no. What did you think to be haunting a Hill House? I mean, straying under television territory, but.
00:19:52
Speaker
I loved it as well. I thought it was really good. I think it's a well-told story in the shifting perspective. It's tough to balance that too and everything else and using an ensemble cast.
00:20:07
Speaker
where everybody gets a say is always difficult, but I think he handled it exceptionally well. And for me also, technically, there's a nerdy gun on that side, the episode in the funeral. Oh, no. No, I was just about to mention that. Is genius. I mean, I've read about how they shot that and everything else.
00:20:26
Speaker
It's just like, wow. And I think it's such an apex of craft, but he hasn't done anything really like that since I think because it was so freaking hard, right? None of his other stuff has had quite that level. The original story is from a great writer as well.
00:20:47
Speaker
for getting her name right now, but Shirley Jackson, Shirley Jackson. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. If you haven't read her short stories, read them. I mean, some of them, I think her most famous one is just so brutal. It's like four pages.
00:21:03
Speaker
But you can't be prepared for those lessons. It's really good. Actually, another one in the paranormal is a Polish one I saw earlier this year called Demon. And I don't know, something about the foreign movies in horror, especially, they have this authentic texture about them.
00:21:29
Speaker
So this couple, the guy has been living in the US. He's come back. He's getting engaged to his childhood sweethearts. They're arranging the wedding and all this in this big old house, which they're planning on renovating. But it's kind of a bit beaten down. And when they first arrived there, they seem to have unearthed
00:21:57
Speaker
uh a body in in the ground but very old right uh and you know some people are superstitious some people are not um they don't know what to do about it oh don't tell anyone we got the wedding coming kind of thing and that kind of just just very slowly and meticulously it slowly threads its way into the movie
00:22:22
Speaker
And yeah, before you know it, it's it's it's it just goes in completely weird directions, but really, really good one. And yeah, the English title is just demon. Yeah, just looked at them 2015, 2015, it came out.
00:22:39
Speaker
um oh uh there's okay this is another one i keep recommending these movies where where there is another movie with either the exact name or very similar that is shit uh but la la rona there
00:22:55
Speaker
There is a good version of that. And this one was actually produced by Guillermo de Toro, I think. But it's really good. It's kind of like a political... You got this family. They're part of the upper echelons. There's a revolution going on.
00:23:24
Speaker
Okay, it's that one. Yeah, that's what I was just going to ask. I've seen three different versions. I didn't realize that there are three. I haven't seen that one. That one is good. That one is solid. But it's like a mixture of genres. So the first half, you're like, oh my gosh, they're under siege in this house. But oh, what's going on? And
00:23:48
Speaker
Yeah, it turns, but that's very good. But I've heard that, I think the other one's called The Curse of La Rona. Curse of La Rona, yeah. And it's to be very good. It's not good, no. It's very boring. I found myself doing the little, when you watch things online, you can do the little 10 second advance thing. I found myself doing that, just like, okay, come on.
00:24:15
Speaker
uh... but that the gals a social worker and that she's worried about her kids and and because they they mess it up and so uh... the ghost is going for her for her kids and can changes to that but there is you see if i can find it because there's a another one i saw so i saw those the these two i saw that one well i was most of them uh... gathers a curse and then there's the legend because the first was the mayor and then there's just a legend uh... uh...
00:24:44
Speaker
The Legend one is set in Mexico and it's a family on vacation. An American family? No, it's all Danny Trejo shows up here and it's all mostly brown people. There is another Mexican movie that I've seen in the last year. I've watched a lot of movies in the last year called Tigers Are Not Afraid.
00:25:12
Speaker
with, I don't know if you've seen it, but yeah, that's a very good one. And in fact, there's a movie I've seen recently that is very, very similar. That's come on Netflix called Black Phone. It does do something different, but it did remind me a lot of that movie. And in my head, I kept comparing the two. Tigers are not afraid kind of stood out for me.
00:25:43
Speaker
Yeah, agreed. Yeah. When you go back to horror stuff, like it seems like that's the oldest sub genre, right? It's the literary, you look at Poe. Yeah, that's a good point. Edgar and Poe, and then, you know, contemporaries back then.
00:25:58
Speaker
even before in terms of popularity versus creature features. It's the paranormal. People love that unseen thing. It's the same thing and I'm going to just jump out of the genre for a moment in Star Wars, the Force. Because when we were kids, it was this mysterious thing that anybody can interpret it whatever they
00:26:22
Speaker
way they wanted until they tried to explain it scientifically in this prequels, which was as the worst decision ever. But yeah, that whole thing about the unseen and the fact that you can get away with it on a low budget as well. Yeah, there's just something really interesting. And then you can fill in the gaps for yourself as well. You know, you can make up your own lore if you want. And fans do, you know. Exactly.
00:26:52
Speaker
Kind of taps into the shared nascent recesses of everybody's, you know, collective unconscious and builds it in there. And I think it's part of the part of the appeal of horror as well. It can put you into that state for a short amount of time. And then I mean, it's hard to, I mean, in Poltergeist, I think is one of my favorite.
00:27:13
Speaker
uh, ghost movies. Um, I, I, I think Toby Hooper just did a great job with that. Um, it's, I think it's hard when you actually show the threat, but then you have movies like the shining where the scary thing is two girls standing in a hallway. Um, uh, one of the scary things. And then, uh, I mean, you know, dad run around with an axe. Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:44
Speaker
or just the being in the bar or some of the weird stuff. It's actually some of my favorite parts of the movie is when Shelly Duvall is running away and she keeps looking in the rooms and it's like, just stop looking in the rooms. Because you're something fucked up going in every single room. You're not going to find anything good.
00:28:08
Speaker
Cool. Yeah, I think we could probably revisit paranormal movies at some later stage and create sub genres of paranormal as well.

Post-Apocalyptic Horror

00:28:20
Speaker
What we got up next on the list is post apocalyptic horror, though. Horror. Yeah, I mean, they list things out like The Road.
00:28:34
Speaker
Right, which, you know, I wouldn't call horror. I mean, it's again, that whole thing. It's horrific. It does have a horror segment in it. But overall, I wouldn't wouldn't class it as a horror movie. I mean, you can't make a pleasant post apocalyptic movie, really. Right.
00:28:53
Speaker
I mean, I would argue that, uh, any of the, you know, pretty much any zombie movie is, uh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's a good way of looking at it. Okay. Right. Because it's a, but, uh, yeah, some of the others like, uh, throw up there of like, uh,
00:29:09
Speaker
argue that would fall. That would be because that is possible. Again, the apocalyptic thing is right. There's an event that occurs that affects all of humanity, or at least all that you can see. David Triffids. Yeah, but not children and men.
00:29:26
Speaker
No, I guess not. I mean, that's kind of, it's veering into that area, but I wouldn't call it a horror. It's headed toward the Mad Max Fury Road part of the spectrum. Yeah. With some politics thrown in, but not additional horror elements really. Right. I mean, one, I think you could argue to throw in would be the comedy horror end of it.
00:29:52
Speaker
Uh, apart from like Zombieland, uh, would be, uh, this is the end, the one with, uh, Danny McBride and, uh, Franco and, and all those guys, Seth Rogen, Craig Robinson, all those guys, because it really does. I mean, it is horror that it plays out, but it plays on, you know, horror thing. You know, Jonah Hill gets possessed at one point and then is allowed to finally speak his mind, you know, as a character, it's actually a girl.
00:30:18
Speaker
But it is horror, ultimately. It is end of the world, doomsday idea of survival and what it takes to survive. It's just what these idiots would do with it rather than somebody who's capable or just trying, you know, that you're rooting for to get by. I mean, I've not seen the whole list, but I would I would also class in this some of the alien invasion movies.
00:30:41
Speaker
I think Spielberg's Were the Worlds is fantastic, by the way. And I usually don't have much time for Tom Cruise. He gets under my skin. But that movie, I think there was boldness that we hadn't seen from Spielberg in a long time, like the choice to have the bodies floating down the river.
00:31:03
Speaker
the tension that they put on the sound in that movie, and it really is chilling, you know? And it was the, you know, the post 9-11 stuff it was tapping into, wasn't it? But yeah, I'd class that as a horror movie.
00:31:19
Speaker
If you say so, because I have yet to see it. It's been on my list for a while, but I have not bothered with it for the same. Really, really. Yeah. And do you know what? I just can't. Yeah, me as well. But that movie is an exception. And to be honest, he plays a character that's a dick. So I'm like, yeah, I'm like, whoa, you're convincing. So but the pacing is so good.
00:31:46
Speaker
The build up at the beginning doesn't sort of build up, reveal, and then crash. It keeps everything out of the corner of your eye. And you see just enough to be afraid. And like I just referred to, the sound in it is unbelievable. It's so good. It's worth checking out. It's worth checking out, for sure.
00:32:14
Speaker
Uh, two others that I would call out that are basically both apocalyptic or hinting at it or something like that. Um, uh, one is take shelter, which I think I brought up before Jeff Nichols movie with Michael Shannon in it. That's a, where he's having these visions of the end of the world, but you don't know if he's just crazy, you know, it's a whole reliable narrator.
00:32:37
Speaker
or nothing that is just exceptionally well done. That's very much worth it. The other would be, again, leaning into the comedy side. Yeah, that's a good point. You're right. Yeah, yeah.
00:32:49
Speaker
You know, because it is obviously stuff has happened and you can't see, you know, there's just that fog, right? So you can't see beyond the world. So this is people trying to survive and make do, but it's how they make do, you know, that comes into question. And what, and it also makes a point to what, what part of humanity should survive or would be good to survive.
00:33:10
Speaker
Uh, another one too, just to keep rattling on there, but, uh, it's a good sequels to bad originals, uh, is called beyond skyline. Not heard of the original was originally skyline or right. Skyline skyline. And then it has some, I think colon, some other crap after it's garbage. It's terrible, but beyond skyline, uh, Frank Grillo is one of my favorite action actors working out there. Basically if he's in it, I'm going to watch it because I know it's going to be.
00:33:39
Speaker
probably be a little better, but it's alien invasion thing, but it's handled really well. It's just a small group dealing with it in LA and trying to survive and fight back and that sort of thing in much the same way, but it's actually really well done, but it is more horrific in that the
00:33:57
Speaker
The totality of the invasion is so swift and strong and seemingly insurmountable. Those elements, I think, tie together to qualify it as a horror movie versus something like The Road or Snowpiercer or Day After Tomorrow or something like that. I just remembered another one.
00:34:22
Speaker
a lot of African horror, which I, you know, if you'd asked me, you know, what African horror have you seen, I probably would have went, oh, not sooner. But did you see the girl with all the gifts? Yeah, I have not seen that one yet. It's in the queue for a while. And that's a zombie one. Yeah. It goes in an interesting direction. When you watched it, we'll have to have a chat about it. But yeah, that's another one that's kind of post-apocalyptic that
00:34:50
Speaker
goes into the horror bit. But yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's weird how often it's more the it's pretty much just stays within zombie zombie or sci fi, right? That's end of the world. Everything else is like, like, like, as terms of horror, it doesn't really, but because the zombie films are so dominating, you know, regardless of what kind of zombies, you know, you've got
00:35:15
Speaker
Right. World War Z, or 20 Days Later, or Zombie Land, or Omega Man, or, which is, you know, Last Man on Earth, I Am Legend, you know, all three of those. I mean, the zombies have the same thing as the ghost films in that, you know, at least in like 80s and 90s, it was a cheap,
00:35:37
Speaker
The cheap monster you could actually show on screen, you know. Yeah. Cool. Well, let's move on to the next one, which is psychological.

Psychological Horror Themes

00:35:46
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Again. Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the ones that sort of jump to my head first are hereditary mother. Mm hmm.
00:35:58
Speaker
with an exclamation point, I believe. The Lighthouse, Rosemary's Baby. Not really horror, but have you seen the Ninth Gate? I think that would actually be Lovecraftian, actually. Yeah, that's closer. But yeah, that'd be more psychological, because you're not sure again.
00:36:24
Speaker
And, uh, I would say, you know, throw in Jordan peels stuff. Yeah. Um, you know, those are all kind of, they're more psychological than there is the actual outright, the ones that I could have really lean into and think, yeah, that was psychological are the ones that actually left scars, you know, like, like mother. I mean, honestly, that, that, that, and I really liked it. And I, I, I think.
00:36:49
Speaker
thinking if you don't didn't kind of catch on the subtext of the movie you'd probably walk out angry with it but I thought it was really interesting and hereditary. Well that's you know an interesting thing with a lot of people that are fans of you know horror films when it is psychological horror they get a lot of the traditional
00:37:09
Speaker
You know privilege white guy view is that they feel right out right or? Like that, you know, it's like that wasn't over movie. I'm like, well actually yeah was you know Had a lot of things who it just you know, you could you call that the shining. Yeah, that's definitely one Oh for sure. I would throw in I would throw in silence of the lambs because even though it's more smaller and
00:37:31
Speaker
There is a serial killer in it. There is a horror aspect to it, even though at the end they do not stick the landing, in my opinion. No, no, it's pretty sensational. Huge fan of that movie. It's not aged well. There's a killer in the house. No. And yeah, so there's stuff like that that plays into it. Or the Invisible Man with the Elizabeth Moss. That's excellent. I went into that with very low expectations, and it just knocked it out of the park. It just blew me away.
00:38:00
Speaker
how well they handled it. And, and again, that gets into that same thing. It's like, you know, we trust her mostly. Yeah. You know, but even, I think, you know, even get to that point of like, are we, are we being taken for a ride? We've talked about that a lot where the unreliable narrator, um,
00:38:21
Speaker
and how good that can be when you play around with it. Did you see Saint Maud? That's actually set in a seaside town near me. Not yet. And that is, again, it's got the unreliable narrator. And yeah, that would definitely, with both feats, be psychological horror right there. But it's really good. And
00:38:46
Speaker
The actress in it does such a great job in it. Now she's glad real in the Lord of the Rings show, which I've not seen yet, but she is she is really good. And this week I saw The Invitation. You might have seen me posted on Facebook and it's from Karen Kusama, who did Jennifer's Body. This just, you know, between those two films, I mean, this one is a lot more mature than what she did before. But
00:39:12
Speaker
Oh my gosh, Noland, watch it. It's so worth it. It's definitely psychological horror, but it's got a great ending. It's just got a really, really good ending.
00:39:28
Speaker
And it also plays into that, uh, similarly named, but crappy. That's right. Because there's one that just came out called the invitation. That's probably not supposed to be awful. Yeah. Yeah. So just be aware listeners, um, choose one of the pills. One is poison one is candy. Um, uh, another though, I think, uh, the, at least the,
00:39:56
Speaker
parts of the stuff that kind of get thrown into or or or associate with or or purely psychological it's a absolutely i guess. As well you know specially for me it's between last time robert blake right turn lost right.
00:40:12
Speaker
uh majority of fire walk with me uh and then you know the the the lady behind the diner oh my god that is one of the you know you could call out these things that just like but they're you know he just grabbed it you know because he just mashes up that is the best jump scare in my opinion behind the diner but isn't that great yeah that's one of the best of all time in broad daylight
00:40:36
Speaker
you know, just everything against the grain and it still works. It's so good. Um, okay. Yeah. I've got to keep an eye on time here. The next one is scary documentaries.
00:40:51
Speaker
Interesting. And again, I called it out earlier that Ghostwatch was probably my favorite in this, you know, obviously a lot of that goes to the found footage, scary documentary thing, but that Ghostwatch movie about the BBC coverage and that it basically the spirit enters the
00:41:09
Speaker
Enters and distributes by going through the through the lens, you know, so it runs they become culpable in their own own thing, you know that one was like That one and that one's that one's scary. I mean it has good scare to it very psychological in it because it's goes, you know, it basically covers everything we've
00:41:28
Speaker
uh, except post-apocalyptic, but it leads, it's, you know, it's going to lead to post-apocalyptic basically, uh, without giving too much away. You know, it's like everything we've talked about, that movie hits it. If you have a chance to see it, I would say do so. But yeah, more of them, I don't know. I don't think I've seen any like true documentaries, like, you know, the stuff about the Amityville house and stuff like that.
00:41:51
Speaker
But I have seen a movie called, oh my God, what is it called? It's the problem with watching too many movies. Exactly, right? Yeah.
00:42:09
Speaker
While you try to think of that, I'll point out that Shudder has been really good at compiling. There's the horror noir, the Black Horror series they've done, as well as the Folk Horror. Oh, excellent. I forget the name of the exact one they did, but there's a good Folk Horror one there.
00:42:28
Speaker
And then the queer horror when they just released. I mean, Shudder has been so good at sort of supporting the horror genre. And I bet they're doing so. Really defining these sub genres, right? To like make them real, like to say, hey, here's another way to, we're going to call this horror and here's why. And it just attracts more people to the genre. Whereas before it used to be like, okay, you got to be a jock.
00:42:56
Speaker
You know, you got to be white and you know when we were growing up that that that's not even an exaggeration That that is pretty much what they were tailored for. Um, I just remembered the name Well, I had to look it up on facebook. Uh, we're all going to the world's fair and um It's it's it's it's psychological horror um, it's weird I I I didn't
00:43:22
Speaker
I don't think it was entirely successful, but I did respect what it was trying to do. And it's really short. I think it's just over an hour long. So it's this girl, she's doing this sort of webcast. And apparently, there's this trend to do this challenge that invites a demon kind of thing. And tons of kids are doing it. But it's done in such a low-key way.
00:43:46
Speaker
that you start to get the feeling that this is doing psychological damage to people who do this. And so it is quite interesting, but it didn't quite carry it over the top like I would have liked to have seen it. But yeah, it fits in there. But it's not really a documentary. It's more sort of found footage, I suppose.
00:44:10
Speaker
Yeah, I can say that sounds more like, yeah, the ones that are the actual documents and the ones they've got, there's three of them and they're all like three plus hours or four hours long are the end of the darkness series, which go in depth to basically a lot of, you know, if you were around in the eighties and would go into a video store and pick things solely by box art, that's kind of how they approach it. Um,
00:44:36
Speaker
So there's some gems in there, but I think for me, part of it is like, okay, this could really be tightened up a lot. But I think they're overindulging just because they have the resources that are still around or with us to talk about making the movies or what they were. So sometimes some of the interview segments especially drag on way too long.
00:45:00
Speaker
for it, and there's just more of a fan service in general. It's not really calling out anything specific because of the ones that were bigger hits. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, not bigger hits necessarily, but making sure that smaller stuff gets its due as well. So they really... I mean, it's a definite deep dive if you're interested, and especially 80s horror is really what it latches into, because there was so much, you know, they exploded with the home video market.
00:45:29
Speaker
That it's kind of a testament to that too, but it's for me. It's it's it's like some of it's kind of a slog, you know, somebody edit this, please. Okay. I mean, I get what you're doing. And, you know, I'm not saying it's not wrong to include this, but it's like turn off the fanboy service and turn on the filmmaker service. Would you?
00:45:51
Speaker
That's what that's which my favorite director cut anything he said you be talking about is not got this person they were so nice yeah right the next one we got and we've touched on this already is sci-fi.
00:46:08
Speaker
sci-fi. Yes. But yeah, I think we've touched on it. I think we hit all the big ones, to be honest. Yeah, because other subs, which is weird when you start defining subgenres, you know, with the others, you know, would cosmic horror be a sub of sci-fi horror or

Sci-Fi & Mad Scientist Horror

00:46:24
Speaker
sci-fi horror? Oh, it definitely overlaps, for sure.
00:46:28
Speaker
Yeah, you know, some of them are just so yes. And yeah, there's a huge variety of ones that we've we've missed, because I don't know how many times we've mentioned the thing, but deservedly so. A couple I would call out for sci fi who are invasion of the body snatchers. Yeah, three of them. All three versions. And I think they're all really good. Yeah, no, no, no. And I couldn't name them all by title. But some of them don't even advertise themselves as being
00:46:58
Speaker
an invasion of the body snatchers, uh, you know, continuation, but it is, you know, um, yeah. Um, another, I would throw out there to the stuff. I mean, yeah, it's, it's, it's goofy as hell, but you know, that's definitely sci-fi, right? Could you consider, um, Sean Connery's Outland to fit into horror or.
00:47:25
Speaker
It's more of a Western, isn't it? No, just because it feels like it's action, more space action West. Yeah. I mean, it's a really good high noon. You're right.
00:47:35
Speaker
Uh, so yeah, less, less horror. I mean, there's some things in there that are horrific, but more because of the setting. But no, the other thing for, for sci-fi or because it's the science of science fiction, we usually think, oh, it's gotta be space. But you know, the mad scientist, so any invisible man, uh, you know, whether that's the Kevin Bacon one, the one we already talked about or, you know, Claude reigns fantastic.
00:47:57
Speaker
original. Or even the, in Amazon Women on the Moon, the parody movie, with the son of Invisible Man, where he's, he, Ed Begley Jr. thinks he's invisible, and he's not, and everybody just like, tolerates him. He's run around naked. That's just, that's fantastic. Anyway, but the mad scientist, right? Because the scientist and something about it is bad. So, you know, in that, yeah. And, you know, in the same way.
00:48:24
Speaker
Right. In the same way, you know, Frankenstein could fall under that. Oh, totally. Because he's a, he's a mad scientist, you know, and reanimator, which we haven't told. Actually, that's a, that's a good one. I mean, that, that covers quite a few of the categories we've seen. So Lovecraftian, you know, yeah. Lovecraftian and the, and the, which we won't get to this time, but the next listing of Splatterpunk, that is definitely
00:48:54
Speaker
Yeah, you know on there and a lot of 80s ones are gonna fit into that but but yeah sci-fi horror seemed to be good You know, there's some like night of the night of the creeps I would say because it or it literally begins in space Or I just watched the the blob remake from 88 and that one, you know, it's still meteor based the the alien
00:49:19
Speaker
And again, no friendly aliens. That's what I love. Critters. Never a friendly alien. Yeah. They show up and they're just bad.
00:49:32
Speaker
Uh, you know, and that's, uh, well, and that's, you know, talking about, you know, how to identify the one, you know, it's like alien versus aliens. You know, it's an alien, definitely sci-fi horror aliens. No, totally. No, that's exactly a really good example. But the first alien home. Yeah. That's just like, for me, that's like,
00:49:52
Speaker
almost top of the chart for it. But anything, you know, Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, anything like that, again, where you've got the the mad scientists and, you know, it's always my thing is like, what drives them mad? Why? Why do they go crazy? What is it they, what is it that, you know,
00:50:08
Speaker
Makes them go to the point where you know a lot of times we meet the mad scientist when once they've been rejected By the scientific community and so but we never get to what makes him that that's why I liked the Kevin Bacon Invisible Man because you see What you know basically how he breaks down? I mean, no, it's not great There's a lot about that movie that really bugs me but that part I'm like good good on them for actually showing You know the breakdown how he goes crazy how he becomes a mad scientist
00:50:37
Speaker
you know, why would he, why would he just, you know, test something on themselves? I realize there's something that we haven't done. And in this category that we have now, I have to mention Dead Space, the game.

Horror in Gaming & Unexpected Broadcasts

00:50:54
Speaker
I don't know if you've played that, but
00:50:58
Speaker
I blame the first time I made it through because it was because it was turned as good. Right, right. It is. It is just everything echoes and and and things just get worse and worse and worse. And it is. Yeah, I never got to the second. I made it to the end of the first one. But man, you know, it had the psychological horror in there. It had everything. There is a there is a bit where, you know, you
00:51:27
Speaker
At every point, you barely get out alive. And you get to this point where the only way that you can get to the part of the station that you need to is there's this huge globe ball of a room that's full of debris and zero gravity. And the door is on the opposite side. And you've got this tiny little thruster that only works in bursts. And you've got to get across.
00:51:53
Speaker
And the way that they did it, Nolan, was that they had all these bits floating around. The room's really dark. There's like a single light source up at the top. But all these bits of debris are throwing shadows all over the place. So you cannot tell what. But I mean, it's so cinematic. It'd be a great movie if the right director sort of picked that up. But man, yeah, some video games.
00:52:19
Speaker
Yeah. Like you say, because you're, you're, it's you, isn't it? Or you're convinced it's you, your mind's telling you it's you. And, and you do, except it's not like when you're watching a movie going like, I wouldn't go in there. And in the game, well, you just stop playing. Yeah, I know what's going to happen. Exactly. Yeah.
00:52:43
Speaker
That's the thing with the sci-fi horror too, versus the cosmic horror, the sci-fi horror, it's seen. You see the alien, whatever form it might take, whatever craziness. We talked early on there on Attack the Block, which I would think would fall under. They live. They live, absolutely.
00:53:03
Speaker
Wherever there's a foreign-born menace coming to ruin our way of life, yeah, even like you said, War of the Worlds. And playing with it the way
00:53:20
Speaker
Uh, Orson Welles did with the, uh, as well, where, you know, it was so legit. The idea took so little, you know, handled it so straightforward and legitimately that people thought it was people would still fall for, which apparently with ghost watch, apparently that was a car, a reaction to the BBC got flooded with calls.
00:53:41
Speaker
because people actually thought it was going up because they actually used anchors at the time. I don't know if you recall, I think it was in the 90s or they did, um, or maybe it was, was when we were in school, they, you know, you had those TV shows which are post-apocalyptic like threads and the day after, but they, they did one that was meant to be a broadcast. Uh, and they did it straight faced, but they had like teeny little warnings, like the commercials.
00:54:11
Speaker
And it was about a nuclear bomb being dropped and the nuclear war starting. And a lot of people took it the wrong way.
00:54:20
Speaker
The British one, right? What's the name of that one? I thought it was American. Maybe not, maybe not. I'm seeing the cover art for it with the guy, the guard and the bandages. We're not doing great with the names today. Next week, Siri will be joining us. This will be, it's a part of listening to a podcast of old men.
00:54:48
Speaker
see what we remember and forget. I'd be on board with that.
00:55:06
Speaker
There isn't a category on here that I think, and we might might have to pick this up in December, but all the Christmas horrors, you know, the Krampus stuff and, you know. Oh, yeah. And. Oh, yeah.
00:55:25
Speaker
That that'll be a hold. Well, yeah, let's say because I've got you know, like I do for December or for October I do the same kind of thing for December for viewing just Christmas because there's And some you know cover everything we can because there's some actually good Christmas orders versus Christmas adjacent, you know the die-hard the
00:55:49
Speaker
the diehard argument of it being adjacent or not versus ones that actually involve crazy Santa Claus. I just had a memory that goes to sci-fi horror with you going to the downtown cinema to see a remake and that remake was a remake of the 1950s movie invaders from Mars.
00:56:11
Speaker
I remember you being quite angry when we got out because you had the Emperor who was flanked by the two Martians that kind of looked like testicles and you pointed that out in the movie and then I just couldn't take it seriously after that point.
00:56:34
Speaker
But the original, I remember scaring me. And a waste of Tracy Lawrence talent. I remember the original scared me because it was about a kid in bed and hears a sound. He looks out the window and it was really, really bad acting in the original. And there's a glowing over the hill kind of thing. And then he has Martians kind of thing. And I think that one actually ends with the unreliable narrator where you're like, did the kid dream the whole thing?
00:57:00
Speaker
But the new one, yeah, the really, really, really annoying kid. But then the new one, yeah, I don't remember much aside from what the Emperor looked like. You know, this weird cobra thing. I had blocked out so thanks. I had blocked out so much. I know. I'm bringing out these great memories you have from that cinema like Howard the Duck and Invaders from Mars.
00:57:29
Speaker
You could see some good ones. Right. We've just hit the hour and we still haven't finished this list. So I think next week we'll get a couple more categories and we'll have to come up with something to fill up the rest of the hour. Yeah, I think we will. We'll come up with something before next week. Somehow. Have some of that pumpkin beer and see where that takes us. That's right.
00:58:18
Speaker
I be normal.