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Barbarian (2022)
42 Plays1 month ago
In anticipation for Zach Cregger's WEAPONS release later this summer, Rick and Trav double-book themselves with Cregger's first solo-directed film and surprise hit, BARBARIAN (2022). You won't want to miss a drop of this one.
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Transcript
Financial Struggles and Passport Issues
00:00:18
Speaker
Listen, AJ, I gotta tell you, there's no new money coming in.
00:00:24
Speaker
I can sell the Michigan properties. Some of those make money, right? You're gonna have to make some tough choices.
00:00:41
Speaker
quick quick passport update. So what Trav and I did the Barbarian pod. I realized afterwards when I started getting messages from our Ring ah episode, we had some concerned citizens about my passport situation.
00:00:59
Speaker
and ah And we both realized we didn't mention it on the pod. You left our audience hanging with if you're going to make your trip or not. We figured since we haven't released Barbarian yet, we could provide a quick update there.
00:01:11
Speaker
I didn't know if it was more morbid curiosity of like, why would this insane person try to make an international flight work with getting their passport within mere days to go? Or they actually are concerned. Doesn't matter to me. Within hours, within hours before your flight. Yes. So how are we doing on the passport situation, Rick?
00:01:29
Speaker
We're doing good. ah i was able, so I don't have my driver's license either because I lost that. And then I was using my passport as my mode of ID. And then I lost that.
00:01:41
Speaker
So I had to, I had to use a passport for when I was 12 years old, which was a dicey situation, but we made it through, a little bit of sweet talking here and there, a little bit of sob story, little mix of both. And they, did they pushed me through the queue, picked it up about 30 minutes ago.
00:01:58
Speaker
I'm flying to Mexico in about four or five hours and we're feeling good. So I'll closing the loop on the passport situation. I'm good. It'll say he's not mad at me.
00:02:09
Speaker
She actually helped me out big time with the boarding pass situation. That's a whole other story, but I'm going to Mexico, going to Mexico. You boys like Mexico.
00:02:21
Speaker
super troopers. That's super troopers. Um, Hey, I'm proud of you, man. Who says you can't procrastinate and get things done? Here you are just hours before your big international trip and you got it all squared away. So you gave me a bit of a scare. You were messing with me right before we started recording, um making me think you were going to try to use your childhood 12-year-old passport to try to board the flight. cu You got denied for your expedited passport and I freaked out.
00:02:49
Speaker
You started making calls. What do you know? Do you know somebody on the inside? i don't understand. yeah i can call I got a guy. You need a fake passport to get out of the country real quick. I got you, man. another Another story for the pod one day. I actually was the ah fake ID guy back in high school. like i was yeah I was the middleman.
00:03:05
Speaker
Oh, wow. Can you say that? I thought that's like a serious... There's other crimes that cop up to, like smoking pot in high school, but I would never... I mean, I didn't make them. i merely distributed them. Does that make... Is that a... I mean, this is a long time ago. But that's fine.
00:03:18
Speaker
Yeah. Statute of limitations, right? Yeah. Anyways, hey, excited for you, man. Glad that we're able to let our concerned audience know that you are, in fact, going to Mexico. all All two or three people who reached out asking about... They weren't asking about our takes on the ring. They were asking about if I got my passport.
00:03:38
Speaker
But I did. And you can too. So you know what? If you lose yours, you can
Film Discussion: Barbarian's Structure and Success
00:03:42
Speaker
wait till the day ah you leave your flight and it'll be all it'll all be all right. Good advice. Good advice. Well, thanks for joining us. This is the Sunday scaries. I'm Travis Telerik.
00:03:53
Speaker
I'm Ricky Townsend. Today we are covering the film barbarian in anticipation for Zach Kregers second film, second feature film, truly that he's at least directing by solo effort for solo effort. trevor His buddy Trevor Moore and him directed Miss March.
00:04:09
Speaker
Yeah. two thousand nine I'm sure we'll talk about Trevor Moore and talk about the whitest kids, you know, here shortly. But he has his second film, horror film, Weapons coming out in just under three weeks from now.
00:04:20
Speaker
So we're going back to revisit Barbarian, which came out. Oh, geez. When did Barbarian come out? Was it 2023? was 2022. 2022. twenty three is twenty twenty two september ninth twenty twenty two That's right. that's right um I know that because I want to talk about the box office weekend that it had. Yeah. what Kind of surprising.
00:04:37
Speaker
I think we could jump into that real synopsis. Yeah. Hit us with the synopsis real quick and then let's start talking about it. Really liking IMDb synopsis on this one. One sentence. A woman staying at an Airbnb discovers that the house she has rented is not what it seems.
00:04:54
Speaker
Yeah, that's not what it seems. That's perfect. And that really is the premise of the movie that there's a lot of different moving parts. It's a film with, I think, truly three distinct acts. But that is where the film takes us from the get go.
00:05:06
Speaker
And i think it's the point that was the most captivating and and really brought people in was exactly that description and how the film starts. If you have not, this is one of those movies where maybe some of our other pods, you could get away with listening and having a few spoilers.
00:05:23
Speaker
This is one where you really should not listen to this. Yes. Unless you've seen the movie. It's so much more enjoyable going in blind. For better or for worse. It could be its crutch almost, but it's it's almost defined by its second act turn, which we can wait to reveal for a little bit if people want to hear a little bit about the movie, but It's got one of those one of those turns where you don't even want to know the cast list of this movie going into it. One of those huge going blind and even telling somebody to go in blind, it's almost unfortunate because then they're like expecting something. Yeah. ah
00:05:58
Speaker
But has a huge turn, which um I think played heavily for its word of mouth spread because said it did very well. Budget of $4.5 million. um Made $41 domestically.
00:06:11
Speaker
And for a September 9th release date, was not going up against much. It made $10.5 million in its opening weekend. ah Easily, easily number one for the weekend. It beat two films that I have not seen.
00:06:26
Speaker
ah The first is called Brahmastra Part 1 Shiva, an Indian action film. That brought in 4.4 million. And then the other one is called Life Mark, a faith based film, which I will never see. 3.6 million.
00:06:43
Speaker
But a huge breakout hit and was able to stand on its own in an otherwise pretty crowded 2022 when it comes to horror. Yeah. And the 41 million domestic box office is impressive.
00:06:54
Speaker
But I think what's even more impressive is they turned very quickly to a video on demand release. It was streaming by October, just a month after it came out. October 25th. And but that's when I watched it. I did not see it in theaters. I didn't really even know this film existed.
00:07:10
Speaker
i But within a month, I streamed it. I read, again, this is our half-assed Wikipedia research, but there was like two consecutive weeks as we neared Halloween where it was the most streamed film um out of the entire video-on-demand catalog. So everyone started watching it then. And so it really had a quick turn to a second life as a really popular streaming film right after it left theaters.
00:07:34
Speaker
and Much to my chagrin as a physical media enthusiast, one of those rare cases and and one that is a worryingly rising trend of not having a physical release whatsoever still to this date, ah which not happy about, as you probably understand, but ah no Blu-ray release.
00:07:55
Speaker
and very sad about that. But where did you see so you saw it? Where did you see it? What was your situation situation was again, not on my radar. This was a point in time 2022 where I hadn't been to the movie theaters in over two years. so i wasn't even looking really at new releases anymore. So it was a word of mouth recommendation actually from my sister who had just watched it streaming and knows I love scary movies. And so and night or two later, in and i watched this and it It really was one of our favorite films, not just horror, but one of our favorite films of 2022.
00:08:25
Speaker
It was. Rattle off some other 2022 films because it was a stacked year. You had Smile. Yes. but You had Scream, the reboot. Reboot. Some other 2022 horror films.
00:08:37
Speaker
There was Talk to Me, which was another great hit. The Menu, Terrifier 2. I think you said Scream. Nope. Megan. no dude no it's my favorite lot of good horror movies but honestly all these again i saw streaming which means very few of these i actually saw in 2020 you missed out with nope dude nope with nope in theaters oh my gosh well hoit hoit van hoitama if i'm saying his name right the dp had like a proprietary way of shooting that thing day for night with like special imax cameras and
00:09:12
Speaker
Whenever we do cover Nope, I'll come prepared with some but some fun notes about how they shot that. That movie looks amazing in theaters. If you could watch it on IMAX and a re-release, recommend it. Yeah. Well, now that I read off that list, it was a lot of hits. A lot of really good horror movies, especially.
00:09:28
Speaker
But again, Barbarian was one of the... few that I actually saw in the year was released and shortly after it was released where a lot of those other films I was seeing 2023 2024 a few of them I probably this is earlier this is one of the very few movies where I watched it was so enthused by it so excited by it that watched it again two nights later oh really I was living in Houston at the time um I was co-directing a docuseries on a the football team out there, University of Houston.
00:09:57
Speaker
And the person I was dating at the time, i was just like, hey, we got to, she was going to come visit. And I was like, we're watching this. And so I watched it again. ah i was like, I have to see this again. So I watched it again, um mainly just to see the other person's reaction, you know, just mainly to see like, yeah how are they going to respond to the the second act turn and it was fun watching it with somebody else.
00:10:22
Speaker
I would say it's lost a bit of its luster. I'm still excited to talk about it. um i i think I think it functions more as like a visceral amusement park ride than anything to like really think about and like unpack.
00:10:37
Speaker
um You know, thematically, it's got some things we can mention and we'll get into that, like why he made the film and stuff. yeah But um I do think it's more of a visceral, like an experiential a movie that is
Director Zach Kregers and Themes of Barbarian
00:10:49
Speaker
is fun. It's a ride. You get on You have a fun time. You get off.
00:10:52
Speaker
And not a lot to think about, at least for me. yeah um It's still still a good movie. I just think that um after you've gone on the ride a few times, you you can look at the ride and be like, hey, we had some times. And I don't know if I'm going to revisit it again.
00:11:06
Speaker
you know i maybe Maybe if ah somebody else is in the mood for a you know ah a fun horror film and there they're not into hardcore horror movies, but they're not a baby either. they don't want to watch something, you know, Hotel Transylvania.
00:11:19
Speaker
i might suggest this somewhere in the middle. Yeah. Still a fun time and I'm glad it exists. I just want to say I wasn't as like totally crazy about it. The first time watch is something special, but I think more than that, again, being a true multi-act film, the first act of this film was,
00:11:37
Speaker
still blows a movie with multiple acts. Travis, what is this very well defined, very different from each other. And the first yeah act of this movie still blows me away, I think is absolutely amazing.
00:11:48
Speaker
And I think the transition to the start of the second act just punches you in the face. It was done so well. But after that, you get to now you're almost at the second half of the movie. It it loses a little bit steam.
00:12:01
Speaker
talk production notes because i I think the best parts of that I want to save until we get into highlights. This is Zach Kregers again, his first film, Zach Kregor. I was first introduced to him um around the time I was in high school.
00:12:14
Speaker
He was in a comedy troupe that put out a show called The Whitest Kids You Know. yeah So he was one of the two front men that I recognize. It was him and then Trevor Moore. Who we co who we co-directed Miss March with.
00:12:25
Speaker
Yeah. Studio comedy. I loved Trevor Moore and The Whitest Kids You Know. Sadly, If I have my dates right, I think he passed away when they were in production for this movie for Barbarian. He passed away in August of 2021 while Barbarian was still in production. Craig was still making this film.
00:12:44
Speaker
Jeez, that's horribly. tough I didn't know he died. yeah I don't know how to i don't know how to get away from that. We're going to drop this news on you and our listeners who who are not aware. but Well, they just say he wasn't he wasn't on my you know, wasn't looking.
00:12:58
Speaker
ah wasn't unpacking Trevor Moore lore. Yeah, you know, like I was going to I was basically when I was doing my research for this, I was like, out you know, travis I'll let Travis do the Why does kids you know portion of this? Because you seem to be a fan and you dropped that on me. I'm a big fan. They have a sketch called The Grapist, which maybe it's fitting for some of the themes in this movie Barbarian, but they're pitching a commercial where the mascot is a grape who says he's going grape the kids.
00:13:22
Speaker
He's going to tie them to a radiator and grape them, which was always very funny, at least to my late teen mind. That's good YouTube fodder. Yep. um So, Kregger is very open about his inspiration for this film.
00:13:36
Speaker
um Read a book called ah like The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker, which is basically a nonfiction survival book about how to trust your instinct.
00:13:49
Speaker
um And there's a whole chapter about the experience that women have that is so different than men. And that they have to be more attuned to those, quote, red flags that they encounter every day where we don't um for the simple fact that men are pigs and we happen to be stronger, physically stronger than women. And that's basically it. And we use that to our advantage to accost women ah ah over the history of time.
00:14:16
Speaker
And so he was very taken by this concept of red flags and misogyny and but pretty much made a 30 page ah script that he tried to pack in as many red flags as he could.
00:14:31
Speaker
And he was really enjoying it. He had this Keith character. ah Keith was the killer initially. But then when he realized, everybody's seen this movie. Everybody's expecting this. I hate this.
00:14:43
Speaker
He then kills Keith and feels really good about it. And he's like, ha, but now what? Enter act two smash cut, which ended up being the best decision he could possibly make. yeah um And so finally writes the whole script.
00:15:00
Speaker
Pitches to A24 and Neon is denied. um Finally gets a couple people involved who were instrumental in getting this
Casting Choices and Character Dynamics
00:15:09
Speaker
thing off the ground. Because even for somebody who has a little bit of cachet like Zach Kreger,
00:15:14
Speaker
it's still post COVID and it's tough to find money. And so, um, you know, got some JD Liffes and, uh, Rafael Margulis are, ah producing partners.
00:15:26
Speaker
They brought in a guy named Roy Lee of Vertigo entertainment, which is a very important company to us, Travis, because Vertigo entertainment is a production company that is a pretty impressive little outfit. So they,
00:15:40
Speaker
they pretty much specialize in securing and selling IP. They also package projects together. Okay, so they get talent um and concepts, writers, directors, actors, and then go to pitch studios. well How they made their bones was securing and selling the remake rights to horror films.
00:16:02
Speaker
Their first film ever was the ring. Oh my goodness. Yeah. That's a great time. Our last episode, again, first solo directing effort by Craig or in, and he wrote the film is important to note.
00:16:14
Speaker
of how he was able to then script together the money to make this. I think it's also really cool. We need talk about three main casting decisions here with Georgina Campbell, who's a little lesser known.
00:16:26
Speaker
I had to look up her filmography, but she's actually in one of my favorite Black Mirror episodes of all time that came out before this, Hang the DJ. Have you seen that one? i haven't you know i haven't seen any. Oh, Black Mirror. So good. Again, a few separate conversation, but one day I can go through. I've ranked all those episodes. I'm a big fan of that anthology series. There should be a Black Mirror episode about your meticulous Black Mirror rankings. That would be good. little meta.
00:16:50
Speaker
little meta. But um she's actually coming back in Weapons. I think she's the second build a cast member in Weapons that's released in just a few weeks. So Kregers returned to the well with that one. And then outside of her being a little lesser known, he gets, I'd say one horror stalwart, one, say the last generation Scream King and Justin Long, as well as the up and coming Scream King and Bill Skarsgård, which were two big names because Skarsgård was just coming on off of it and the sequel. and that which Which, going ah not not to to pump up Roy Lee too much, but again, another example of a
00:17:26
Speaker
vertigo really helping out um i did see that vertigo released it and so yeah roy lee had an existing relationship with skarsgard and was instrumental in getting him involved who then goes on to be an ep and supports the film in his own ways so i also think that one of the most perfect castings um or a great casting for this film at least because Coming off of you know, he it was such a, the behind the scenes of Skarsgård turning into Pennywise was like very heavily marketed. So it's not like he was this unknown creature, this unknown monster player.
00:18:03
Speaker
Like it was Bill Skarsgård is Pennywise. And so... ah That being in the back of our minds is great. And this is going to it step on best lines. Oh, okay.
00:18:16
Speaker
But ah for Bill Scars to say, um thats what do you think? I'm um not some kind of monster. yeah And it's like, dude, I literally just saw you like a couple years before ripping kids' arms off.
00:18:26
Speaker
His iconic buggy eyes plays so well to this role, but I think it goes hand in hand with they also cast Justin Long, who is truly a Scream King, Jeepers Creepers, parlayed that you know into other horror films like Tusk, Drag Me to Hell.
00:18:41
Speaker
Great movie. And a lot of like good movies outside that, like Love Dodgeball. And my wife's favorite movie is Accepted. That was him in like really early Jonah Hill. Those are comedies, but... um Justin Long, who's typically cast as kind of like an everyman, he's not jacked and buff and he's kind of charming.
00:18:59
Speaker
But I love that one of the main themes to this movie is both Skarsgård's character, who has been cast as Skarsgård being cast as a monster in past films, trying to figure out, can he be trusted? Getting to Red Flag, can Georgina Campbell trust him? Is he a good guy or not?
00:19:15
Speaker
And you go through that similar thought process. with Justin long for he he's faced with these accusations early on. We all are are familiar with Justin long, usually in the role as a hero or a lovable loser.
00:19:27
Speaker
And this is a case where we start to question, wait, did he actually commit these horrible things? Not the first choice. and Not the first choice. Oh, really? Oh, Zach Efron. Yeah, I did see that. i Turned it down, which I think. so glad they got just long in this i love especially after He has.
00:19:46
Speaker
He has range. He's got the chops. He's he's he's got something. But ah this is definitely this is a movie made for Long's like capabilities. Yeah, I love Long has a line later in the movie, which I'll have a few other their best lines. I'm OK, Shane, this one now. But he says, maybe I'm a good person who just did a bad thing.
00:20:05
Speaker
And I love that because this is when we are still trying to figure out is the audience. is he a good person? You know, sometimes good people can make mistakes. But I think the film goes on to clarify the true nature of his character. And that's part of the enjoyment of watching it is to see. Yeah. And I think when we do highlights and best scenes, there's a, there's one scene in particular that you really learn who he is. And it's seeing that Zach Greger is in himself, who's in two scenes in this movie.
00:20:30
Speaker
He's in, he's the voice of the agent or the, the disembodied voice in the car when they call him. yeah And then he's his friend at the bar. Oh, I didn't realize that. So ah I have one other thing for production notes before we move into our horror rating.
00:20:46
Speaker
Yeah. but um So Zach Cooperstein, the the um the DP on this film, ah there was two mentions. He had an interview that I wanted to call out and and point to. So one is that...
00:20:59
Speaker
ah you know, they shot in Bulgaria 31 days here. um They did two days of exteriors in Detroit, one day in LA, but this is mainly shot in Bulgaria. And so they, they it for cost, you know, it's cheaper to film out there.
00:21:14
Speaker
And um they built a lot of their own sets. And he said something that I thought was so interesting was, which was um for the Airbnb, they, they had to make it have enough character to not feel like a set, but not too much character to where it feels lived in because an Airbnb should not feel lived in. It should feel a little static, a little, uh, hotel-y if you will.
00:21:40
Speaker
And so I just thought that was interesting thing that they had to like limit themselves on making this to find wine. Yeah. yeah Um, and then the second thing that he has said in several interviews, which I thought was really explains the, um,
00:21:52
Speaker
the tonality in terms of camera movement of the film, which is that, you know, before they went out to Bulgaria, he and Zach Kregor, which this sounds like a dream to me, but they sat down separately and watched a shit ton of movies together and had a shared document where they would talk about how they felt about these movies.
00:22:11
Speaker
The point of this, and I think this is a really good exercise for a first time ah collaboration between a DP and a director which is to establish a common language. So you often hear this on film sets, like, do the DP and director have a good common language?
00:22:24
Speaker
Are they speaking the same language? Because there's a lot of times where your director is not does not have a technical background. So he's not going to know the exact millimeter of the lens that he wants, or he's not going to know anamorphic versus this, or he's not going to know um maybe the right terminology to get the look he wants.
00:22:42
Speaker
There are directors who know that front and back, David Fincher, Stanley Kubrick. Soderbergh, who films a lot of his own films these days. Right, Soderbergh is a psycho doing that. know, DP and stuff himself, Paul Thomas Anderson.
00:22:54
Speaker
But you can be just as an effective director... but but As long as you have like a bold vision or a style, or like you can communicate in some way to your crew, namely your DP, what the look that you want.
00:23:06
Speaker
I don't know Zach Kregor's style, but all we know is that how they formulated a shared language was by watching movies and... you know discussing what things I liked about him. And what, what came from that was this idea that Zach wanted, Zach Kregor, the director, wanted above service to be Fincher and below service to be Ramey, meaning that above service is very motivated and controlled and in sync with, you know, with the character's movements. And, and I'm not going to say robotic, but like very clinical.
00:23:37
Speaker
yeah Okay. Yeah. Whereas Beneath ah is just all over the place, zany, ah extreme versions of Evil Dead. um But also, Zack had just, it's funny you mentioned Drag Me to Hell. Zack had just watched ah Drag Me to Hell and just made the DP. Yeah, he just made Cooperstein watch Drag Me to Hell, which has Justin Long in it.
00:23:57
Speaker
um And so you got fast push-ins and canted angles and like a lot of cuts, a lot of cuts. um And like every, you know, every scene must have like a dozen shots in it.
00:24:08
Speaker
And so um I just thought that was a a cool rule to give yourself. And what a fun like way to, you know, nod to the the masters and be like, we're going to we're going to use that style and smash it up. And like you can kind of see the change right when they get beneath the surface. No, I knew that going into it this third time watching it. It's it's fun to pick up on that.
00:24:30
Speaker
yeah it it is again going back to just our overall reactions it is a fun film to watch it's enjoyable one other production note so a lot of the interior which is most of the movie was filmed in bulgaria the exterior they still did a lot of filming in detroit just two days typically in well a lot of the footage you see in the film of the exterior of the date of the daylight exteriors exactly is in brightmore which is truly a neighborhood in detroit
Visual Style and Setting of Barbarian
00:24:59
Speaker
i had to look this up because i think generally when you think of detroit and their housing market or the city overall as they lost jobs then going into the recession <unk> put let's just put it bluntly like detroit gets shit on a lot for being a city of white flight and dilapidated homes and it's
00:25:17
Speaker
lost a large amount of its population. It used to be the king of the Rust Belt, and now it has rusted. And I'm not going to speak out of turn and say that I know everything about Detroit. actually listened to the really good podcast, Dead Meat, which is like one of those top horror film podcasts.
00:25:34
Speaker
um And the married couple who run that podcast are from Detroit. And they had a really interesting take on this movie where the They were both appreciative that they that it ah brought Detroit into the fold, but a little disappointed that, again, here's another movie that really the only thing it takes from Detroit, and I'll argue against them a little bit,
00:25:54
Speaker
I think the whole thing about the music collective adds something else to the two Detroit lore. But again, they're like ah another horror film that uses Detroit's outskirts as a scary environment, which is, I think, what you're getting to with Brightmoor.
00:26:09
Speaker
Well, and exactly. i think Brightmoor is the ah case in point. of where the worst of this has occurred in Detroit. Because I've been to Detroit recently. My cousin got married there. Nothing about Detroit.
00:26:23
Speaker
It's coming back. It's very fun. Detroit Athletic Club. You go into Motown and see the music scene, like you said, going to Tiger's. ah the The city ah propaganda machine really got to you. You're like out here... this city is great but on kind of these suburbs of these neighborhoods just outside of the city brightmore being one this is an area that they had a huge cleanup project um in the 2010s because there are so many vacant abandoned homes the cost to abandon this home is less than just trying to essentially pay the utilities i actually looked up on zillow if you look at homes in brightmore right now hold on trab trab's putting his real estate hat on ah
00:26:59
Speaker
The majority of these homes are for sale for under a hundred thousand dollars, which is well, well below the national average for single family homes. In fact, I'd say almost half of them were for sale for less than $50,000 to buy a home there because so many of these are vacant. It still is a neighborhood that hasn't quite fully come back yet.
00:27:19
Speaker
But but at at Blue Pebble Homes with Teleric Real Estate, you can get a home for much better value and see it increase. Take it away, Trav. It costs you 50, I'll get it for you for 30. But yeah, it's it's crazy to see homes priced that low, especially coming from Denver, which is a fairly expensive real estate market now.
00:27:40
Speaker
And it's just such a different feel to see that much supply of homes that people don't want to buy. So I i agree that it probably highlights some of Detroit's um lesser than qualities but it's still a reality that's a real thing perfectly in this in this neighborhood i think it was cool to capture that there's a very creepy shot of the first morning when tess wakes up and she's just leaving her airbnb going to her job interview of all the vacant and dilapidated homes around her. And this isn't overtly scary.
00:28:12
Speaker
This is a very real scary feeling because this doesn't need monsters or anything like that to drive the point home. It's just like, no, this is, you know, part of America. Another movie that a similar setting, i don't think, if you've seen it, but don't breathe.
00:28:27
Speaker
Yeah, I haven't seen. those So take the whole thing takes place in a same situation, hey a home in an abandoned neighborhood, which is a very unique look.
00:28:37
Speaker
You know, you're still in a neighborhood, but it's just been abandoned. So it makes the busyness of a bustling neighborhood is gone. You just have the frames. It is scary to just know you don't have the neighbors, ho social society is redundant. Our culture is built on this American dream of, you know, a lot of people still want the neighbors in the community setting there and to not have that in your immediate vicinity. Which is, I guess, the one argument for that flashback.
00:29:06
Speaker
is that it shows you when you go back into time and see the homeowner, the original homeowner's life. And that was our, and I know I said Fincher on top, Ramey on bottom. The one other reference that he publicized was a movie called Angst, which I have not seen, what I'm familiar with, leveraged that,
00:29:25
Speaker
that look and that shot style um to the flashback, which is very unique for the rest of the film. Yeah. I, I was going to bring up the same point. The only portion of the flashback that I really enjoyed was seeing at one point, this was a flourishing neighborhood, but we're seeing at the tipping point where people are starting to sell their homes and move out. um So it was good for that point. Again, maybe that could have been built in exposition wise. i Belabored it a bit.
00:29:53
Speaker
But um I agree with you. All right, horror rating? Horror rating. Let's move our categories. First being one of our newer ones. I've been calling it internally. I've been calling this the scarometer. How do we do about the scarometer? love that.
00:30:04
Speaker
The scarometer, I think, is going to stick. Let's do it. So for reference, we had just watched The Ring. Out of 10, we gave The Ring an eight. Where would you land on barbarian for before? Before I give my answer, um I went back and retroactively graded all of our other films.
00:30:21
Speaker
Okay, I think about those as well. I think it's a good frame of reference. Yeah, okay, you go through it. I'll tell you where I agree and pause after each one. i want to weigh in as well. Cool. Against I'm going against what you like to do, Travis. I'm doing least scary. up Okay. Most.
00:30:34
Speaker
Yeah. So ah at the bottom, I had um Jaws at three. Yeah, I think I'm about there. Three or four feels right. Okay. um Also at a three, i had 28 years later.
00:30:48
Speaker
would put that just... Yeah, no, I'd agree. I think it's the same a Covenant of Age, Vision Quest movie, a few scary moments, so it's not a two or one. There's a good jump scare in there that we covered in that episode, so that's why maybe it's like a half point higher, I think it's in the same way. I could see it being a four, but yeah, between three and a four. Four, had 28 weeks later.
00:31:08
Speaker
You just said 28 weeks later. No, 20 years later. Oh, years later was a four. Yes. No, no, no. So 28 years I have as a three, 28 weeks have as a four. Yeah. I know. I know we covered all three of those films. I'd actually have years for myself, just slightly scarier weeks.
00:31:25
Speaker
I thought were starting with weeks. I'd be. You would flip flop those? I'd say about weeks, a three, years of four. Yeah. I would flip flop those. Okay. my my My barometer here is like that you don't reach to a five until there's like some level of sustained fears where like there's fear. There's a scary thing happening every other scene or maybe yeah every other other scene. And I feel like 20 weeks later is action. 28 years later is more drama vision quest.
00:31:54
Speaker
I think to be a five or even above a five, like once again, the six neighborhood, it actually has to be considered a scary film, which is different. I'm glad you bring that up because I have 28 days later right in the line right there at five. It has a lot of scary moments. yeah it is sustained tension, but it's not it's not overwhelming you at any point.
00:32:16
Speaker
um I then have Barbarian here at six. So those moments under the the under the surface are scary. That scary ass swinging tit woman is freaking me out in my dreams.
00:32:32
Speaker
Nightmares, not dreams. I want to make that clear. yeah I was at six actually. Exactly. There's, we we we have a good little, uh, there's portions where my heart rate gets up and I'm scared, but I don't think so much. So some of the other films we've covered.
00:32:46
Speaker
right. And then to round it out, bring her back at seven and ring at eight. Yep. I completely agree. I think at most films, I'm just a half point off. So I think. I'll take it. The answers are scariest film we've covered today.
00:32:58
Speaker
Bring her back closely behind that. And then somewhere finishing out the third place would be this film, which is, it is a scary movie, right? So that's why I think it belongs at like a six.
00:33:11
Speaker
I think it just, it, it lacks. It doesn't like, it doesn't have dread. is like the bring her back in the ring or like, like we said it earlier, like feels bad man movies where it's just like, you don't feel good about the human condition.
00:33:26
Speaker
Whereas this one's a bit more punchy and it's a bit colorful and it's, yeah it's really funny. We haven't mentioned that enough. This movie is really funny. Zach Kregor's comedic ah chops really do shine through in a way that even people don't as much. Going back to, I know we weren't able to think of other examples, but I really like,
00:33:43
Speaker
You know, there's maybe two big schools of movies coming out right now with modern day horror. We have like our elevated horror directors and Aster and Eggers who make just really these dread inducing films with a lot of trauma, very serious. You know, i' I'd group the Filippo brothers into this as well is what what they're kind of putting out there.
00:34:08
Speaker
But then you have these comedians turned horror directors and Peel, now, uh, uh, Crager who are making films that are still fun to watch. Um, it's horror light. It's a good gateway horror movie for big people.
00:34:22
Speaker
Craig are more than Peel. Peel's movies have humor in them, but I wouldn't call them funny movies where there's funny moments, yeah but this is a funny movie, I would say. Um, all right. i'm like Highlights. Yes. That seems mine is very long winded. It's no longer seen, but we've touched on it. I just want to elaborate a little further.
00:34:43
Speaker
is that entire first act. The movie starts your thrust right away into my favorite part, pulling up to the Airbnb, which I love that to begin with, because we don't need needless exposition or something as like title credits rule, it's showing her trying to track down a job or flying to Detroit.
00:35:02
Speaker
She is pulling up her car and immediately thrust in the situation where when she tries to get into the Airbnb, she realized someone is already staying here. And it's Bill Skarsgård, like we said, who has a past and we might identify him if we're familiar with his other horror movies as a villain, as a monster.
00:35:20
Speaker
And just like you were saying with the red flags, I think Skarsgård perfectly dances on the line of, is this guy trying to be accommodating and kind and a good person?
00:35:35
Speaker
Or is there something more insidious underlying that? And Tess, which is Georgina Campbell's character, is she at risk? I thought it was so well made with that whole concept and credit to Kregor's writing as well.
00:35:48
Speaker
where there's multiple instances where he asked stuff like, do you want me to make you some tea? And so even not as a woman, I can understand like he could, he could drug that something could happen. Or he's got these traditional values, right? Yeah. You're sleeping in the bed. I insist. I won't take no for an answer. And Regina Campbell does a great job than in reacting with,
00:36:10
Speaker
you know, navigating the line between what is appropriately having your guard up and trying to protect yourself as a woman versus being kind and courteous. And maybe this is just a mishap.
00:36:22
Speaker
And they even they even talk, they they eventually talk about it once they get comfortable with each other and they actually do get the wine going. Like they make they they talk about the very thing that interests Craigor to make this movie in the first place, which is like,
00:36:36
Speaker
guys can just blast through places and not worry about things.
Character Analysis and Gender Dynamics
00:36:40
Speaker
Whereas women have to think about this kind of stuff and, her inviting him, inviting her in is a very different dynamic than the other way around. Exactly. She, she brings it up. Had she been there first, Bill Skarsgård showed up, she would not have let him in at all, but it's only because he was there first that they're in this situation. So i love that. I love the exclamation point on it at the end of that first night, because they actually are able to, you know have a glass of wine bond over music. There's even some light attraction there, but then she wakes up in the middle of the night,
00:37:10
Speaker
Wait, sorry, before we get into that, can I, can we talk real fast about his band? The line tamers music scene going on here. So, so he, uh, she says she's there for a job interview for a documentarian who made a documentary called blue easy, which is a documentary documentary and almost not a real document. Huh?
00:37:31
Speaker
Okay. Okay. No, not a real, I looked it up. Um, And he goes, oh yeah, a good movie. And she doesn't believe him at all because look, and you know, as a documentarian myself, a a little bit of a slight, but one that we understand, she's like, there's nobody seen that movie.
00:37:47
Speaker
You haven't seen blue easy. And he just so coolly mentions like, oh yeah, the part of the, the, the kids playing Coltrane on the, on the rooftops. I thought that was a really, uh, you know, really special part of the movie. And she's like, how do you know that? And then he ends up saying that he is part of the lion tamers now.
00:38:04
Speaker
we never get, we never find out what genre of music he plays. It could be assumed that it's jazz, but the second documentary that she is, that this director is, or not second, but the next documentary that this documentary is making is about all of these, um, musical projects that have started up collectives on the outskirts of Detroit, where they are usually taking some of these abandoned homes and converting them into space, like creative think tanks and place places and creative hubs where people can come together and share ideas and make music.
00:38:36
Speaker
Um, and so we don't know what kind of band he's in, but I, I did, I did, uh, want to share some names of some of these Detroit collective bands and some that I, um yeah, yes, real ones. Okay.
00:38:49
Speaker
You have the Interdimensional Transmissions. You have Mother Cyborg and Seraphine Collective. This is a feminist DJ that is fear that ah ah dabbles in noise and experimental music.
00:39:02
Speaker
Noise. and experimental music. thought that was very interesting. and And then there's this place called the Ham Tramp House, which a place where you can, again, they house they house ah people and musical groups.
00:39:20
Speaker
um Some some place some ah artists that this place hamtra hamps sorry Ham Tramp ah houses, some of the musical artists that go through there are called Wolf Eyes,
00:39:31
Speaker
Death Genesis and Mecca not tour. So a real live look into the Detroit music scene. Uh, and also a shout out to music documentaries. Trav, do you have any music documentaries that you like? There's specifically that I love and it's called stop making sense.
00:39:49
Speaker
which is the talking heads kind of behind the scenes one of their most iconic concerts. This is one of the first DVDs talking about physical media. It's cliche. like emily we ever owned It's cliche to say how much we like this movie.
00:40:03
Speaker
It's cliche to say it. I mean, this is just known as it's one of those things that it's like people talk about this being the best music doc It's because it is. I love it. I mean, I still love the talking heads because as a kid or I guess, you know, late kid, early teen, when DVDs became a thing, I was in my late kid era.
00:40:24
Speaker
Look at that late kid there. But having this DVD, like we had like four DVDs. I think we had this, Apollo 13, and maybe it was The World is Not Enough. Your cool points just went brother. Early Bond film. Playing the straight man on this pod and you've seen ah Stop Making Sense. That's pretty awesome. you're putting Detroit music scene. I had to bring that up because that's really the only way I can hang. When you start naming all these hip music collectives, like i'm I am outside of my league. Like I am a...
00:40:49
Speaker
casual lover music. And I really do love to you know, blast music for my girls and song and have that on in the morning. But when people start talking about like their music collectives, and actually know what they're talking about, or our musicians themselves, I don't have a musical bone in my body. i' I'm quickly outclassed to the point where I just kind of shut up and listen.
00:41:09
Speaker
Well, you could do a lot worse than Stop Making Sense. That's like a top five favorite movie of all time for me. And I think it's it's one of the coolest projects because it's not just a concert. It's not just a doc. It's like made for the audience there and the audience at home. And it makes me really happy. get very...
00:41:26
Speaker
i get very yeah joyful watching that movie. Some other good ones I want to mention before we move back in the highlights, just because we're talking music docs, Gimme Shelter, an observational doc about the Rolling Stones during their fateful concert at ah Alamont, where Faithful concert where the hell's angels murder occurred.
00:41:49
Speaker
ah That's made by the Maisels brothers and Charlotte Zerwin Monterey pop, which is by D.A. Pennebaker. They cover the iconic music festival where you have Jimi Hendrix lighting his guitar on fire and Mamas and the Papas and ah The Who, just some great stuff.
00:42:09
Speaker
And then um one I need to watch that I haven't seen yet that I hear all about all the time is Scorsese's Last last Waltz about the band. Bob Dylan's old How do you feel about the... do what is it? The Dewey Cox story, uh, walk hard.
00:42:23
Speaker
The, the satirical biopic, uh, about the wrong yeah brother dying. It's a, it's a classic, the wrong late kid died. of that movie but yeah, the first half of this movie, I think is what makes the movie right. You know,
00:42:39
Speaker
if you include the cut to AJ as well. But yeah yeah, it's a great, and it's cute too. They like each other and it it feels like they They pond this niche and there's a romantic spark even, but then he does the gentlemanly thing and he he leaves her in the room to sleep while he goes to sleep couch. Wait, what would not be the gentlemanly thing? Well, you could tell there was, there was vibes like they might be getting it on.
00:43:02
Speaker
But what would he, what would his move there be? Like, hey, actually, baby. That was the gentleman, he waited for her. so Oh, I see. we We did talk about this probably a bit more, even though it's kind of silly coming from two guys talking about this. But again, it was a guy director and writer.
00:43:15
Speaker
This movie has very strong themes of men who take it too far and women who who's the character attests who are. You're a woman. for sure I'm a women.
00:43:27
Speaker
You're a woman. I wonder if you're right. I say women. Oh, women. That is that is not a word. that is Women is not a word. If I do that wrong, you know start, start your phonics hooked on phonics. God, I thought I was an ally after all these years. But um my point being like, Tess is alert to this and trying to protect herself as best she can.
00:43:47
Speaker
And so you actually get the one example of a guy who is allowing her to make the first move. He knows she doesn't feel
Suspense and Personal Experiences with Fear
00:43:54
Speaker
safe. And so that's why it ends with him saying like, good night and closing the door and leaving her room where the other male characters in this film, Justin Long or or Frank, again, who's the kind of,
00:44:05
Speaker
The original homeowner. Held up person from the 80s, the original owner, are the opposite side of the spectrum to varying degrees. I think different degrees, but are examples of that. one made a career out of it. are Yeah.
00:44:18
Speaker
um And so it's refreshing to see, again, Skarsgård do the right thing here and understand maybe not tonight. There's something here, but don't need to act on it. Let her, when she feels safe, he closes the door.
00:44:30
Speaker
And that's important because the exclamation point on the end of this long set piece I've been describing is she wakes up and the door is now a job. And she goes, oh, no. Did I mystery the situation? Am I in danger?
00:44:42
Speaker
is it Bill Skarsgård? And so she kind of ventures around the home. This is a one of the scary moments in the film because he is not just sleeping, but he's also moaning aloud in his sleep. um First time seeing this. Well, you also get there's a suckling noise when she first wakes up, too.
00:44:57
Speaker
Oh, I didn't. I had my I was watching with Ilse. Ilse did not like this movie, by the way. no She is not a fan, but we had subtitles on ah because when I watch with her and we're so there's a suckling subtitle. Yes. Suckling.
00:45:15
Speaker
So I did not have subtitles on, so I i completely missed that. but But I love this full, i mean, it's probably the first 20 to 25 minutes of the film. It's just this first evening because you go on this roller coaster of...
00:45:30
Speaker
who is Bill Skarsgård? Is Tess safe? Is she not? Okay, I feel a bit safer. And it ends on the exclamation point of, wait, something still is amiss in this home. And he's the one scared now. He's like, what the fuck are you doing? wakes him up by grabbing his arm.
00:45:44
Speaker
He freaks Again, it's very weird that he was moaning aloud in his sleep as well. So she, the right state of mind. Can't knock it, we can't control it. Because I would have been terrified and wake someone up too if I heard them moaning aloud in their sleep like that.
00:45:58
Speaker
I actually suffer from night terrors. We do really. Yep. wait We might have talked about this trap. Pretty infrequent. But I have on dozens of occasions in my life woke myself up by it's ah usually the nightmare where you are trying to yell or scream, but there is no audio.
00:46:18
Speaker
Nothing will come out. Your vocal cords don't work. So you force it so hard in your dream that you actually yell. in real life. um And you you wake up yelling.
00:46:29
Speaker
And so Anna is a saint. And usually this is correlated to like my stress levels. I've been much better these past few years. But I remember the first time when I woke her up in the middle of the night and she was, you know, she starts screaming. Of course, if you care, the guy next to you screaming, she starts screaming. And I had to be the one that I want urge john and be like oh sorry i want to understand this better.
00:46:51
Speaker
Do you remember what is scaring you? Yeah, it's well, again, it's almost always a dream where you're trying to yell. It's kind of silly. It's you're being chased. You're trying to alert someone. It's not always even like terrifying. Like, okay, it's just and it manifests in like an audible way, but it manifests in an audible way in a wake up. I'm able to move right away. Usually, you know, if you wake up yelling, you it's not a slow wake up you're not drowsy you're suddenly heightened uh alertness and so i i quickly recover but it is scary it was scary for her the first time but one more um one more thing about having sleep tears
00:47:25
Speaker
that if any of our SMU friends are listening to this, some were there for this instance. I went to grad school. Oh, no, it was actually my senior year of college, I believe, in our accounting program. I was taking a finance course.
00:47:37
Speaker
I believe the professor was Kinlay. It's one of those larger lecture halls for college. So there was over 100 people in my class, one of the larger auditoriums in the business school there.
00:47:48
Speaker
And we were actually getting ready for, it was either a final or like midterms, a big exam. So we all showed up in the evening for a study session. And this was a challenging finance course. So it was a full house. There's at least a hundred people there, but credit to me.
00:48:02
Speaker
i i think I was pretty well versed going into the exam. And since it was late evening the night before, and I'd been cramming and whatnot, I got very drowsy and I fell asleep in the lecture hall.
00:48:14
Speaker
with over 100 people in there. And I literally, i dare I woke up yelling in the middle of this study session lecture hall to the point where i interrupted the professor, Kinley, who was like, oh, Travis, are you Oh, wait. How did Kinley sound? I want to apologize, but that is how he spoke. oh Is this a man of a different nationality than others?
00:48:38
Speaker
Yes. Well, his name is Kinley. So that's a really Chinese name. Oh, okay. but that's it yes i interesting completely disrupted the whole study session i tried for like a minute to like resume and play it cool and go back to like paying attention but i was so embarrassed i had to just walk out of the lecture hall shortly thereafter so michael shapley haley cook were sitting right next to me they can verify this instance i thought where i thought you were going with was the iconic video of you getting woken up during like a bachelor party or something and you start
00:49:09
Speaker
dancing because the people around you are dancing yeah don't don't fuck with me when i'm sleeping i well in this case you seem very fuckable with because you like start jiving and you blow up your cheeks like you have water in there and you're like dancing around the firewall between my sleep state and my awake state is much thinner than other people so because of that i don't sleep but there's some weird interactions weird liminal space for you trev It's a relatable space. You know, that's what I'm saying. I see a guy getting night tires. like, yeah, that that makes sense.
00:49:41
Speaker
She should wake him up. That's helpful. Yeah. You and Bill Scott are two pieces of pot. Yeah. Anyways, that was my very, very long winded highlight of the film, which is really just encompassing the majority of that first act.
Character Arcs and Narrative Techniques
00:49:55
Speaker
I'm curious. Do you have anything? I mean, you know, I'd also have a smash cut shortly after the first act of Justin Long, which we already covered. yeah My feeling is that via the categories, we will naturally suss out most of this film. It's a pretty simple movie.
00:50:11
Speaker
So ah another highlight I liked was when Justin Long's character goes back to Detroit. He's seeking refuge, not refuge. Sorry. He's finding a way to liquidate his house so he can like afford shit.
00:50:26
Speaker
And it's a monumental scene because this is where we find out like what he did and that he's actually guilty because his buddy played by Zach Kregor is, Hey man, like, so come on. i got the r you way at it yeah yeah Sorry. They're at a bar They're drinking.
00:50:42
Speaker
i love how this is shot because it trains on long the whole time. So it's not your typical over-the-shoulder cut scene. That's why you didn't notice Kregers in this scene because you're really only seeing his back. it's folks Well, ah yeah, initially when I first saw it, I was like, I wonder if they're doing this because Kregers, you know, he doesn't want to. He's camera shy?
00:51:06
Speaker
don't know. He was starred in that other movie, Miss March. Yeah. and But he doesn't have the same chops as you. He's got, quote, professionals now. um But I think it's less about hiding his acting ability ah and more so about enhancing Justin's acting ability and like allowing Justin's face to communicate a lot without saying much because as we see Zach say things like Because I know, I mean, you you could tell me, man, like she's probably a bitch, right? And like Justin's face is searching for ways to explain himself.
00:51:44
Speaker
And there's a lot of interiority going on. And, you know, and that's the moment where, of course, he says, you know, i yeah, of course, initially she said no. And, you know, for me, like I get after what I want, man. Like, well that's where you learn. verbatim line, like wrote down is,
00:51:57
Speaker
She just took some convincing. That's all. Which is up there with. um Yeah. 28 days later. Like I promised them woman for like, oh, my God. Woman or women? Oh, my God. Not again.
00:52:09
Speaker
you The line from 28 days later, which is the big reveal that these are horrible, horrible people. You get the same reveal with Justin Long where you realize, oh my God, like he he clearly raped her. Another observation.
00:52:20
Speaker
Again, highlights, I think, will reveal themselves through our categories. But um Once Justin Long, he's in the lair, he found the old guy laid up in bed.
00:52:32
Speaker
frank He's still not sure this is a bad dude, but what announces to himself that he this is a bad dude is he finds and another ring callback, a bunch of shelves of VHS tapes.
00:52:44
Speaker
So I paused and I wrote down every single name of these tapes. Do you remember any of them? No, it's a quick cut. So I did not take that. It's two cuts and it's, it's actually, it's one.
00:52:56
Speaker
It's a slow, uh, I mean, we're going say the right word this time. Tracking shot. I would call it a pan, but yeah, you everything everything's a pan, pan up, pan down. Uh,
00:53:08
Speaker
I'm not going to read them all, but mainly these tapes are... Most of them are women's names. wow Ruby, Michelle, Sarah m But interspersed, you have other descriptors. and I'm going to read some of them to you.
00:53:22
Speaker
And again, the point of this part of the movie is like, oh, he... Because there's ah there's ah one of the videos is playing on the TV, assumedly. And so it's like, oh, he... you know, take steal, kidnaps these women, rapes them, and yeah films it. Kidnaps them whole time. So not ah not a funny concept, but I do think the production designers and set designers might have had some fun naming these tapes because they're kind of ridiculous.
00:53:47
Speaker
Blonde Skinny 3. Brunette Crazy. um Pregnant. Very old. There's one that says Asian slash Biter.
00:53:58
Speaker
thought that was interesting. Blonde Heavy. Face scar. Doctor dash red. So I don't know if that's like on one part of the tape, there's a doctor and another part of the tape. There's a redhead or if it's a doctor, that's a redhead. I'm not sure there's several dashes here on some of these.
00:54:15
Speaker
ah One of these says one breast. ah so Why are you laughing? Do you know what's on these tapes? That's abhorrent, Travis. ah ah Very fat.
00:54:28
Speaker
Liquor clerk. Smiley dash old. that one That one's hard to read. Smiley animal, like an old smiley lady. That's kind to elderly people. It's tough. Jane Dash Screamer.
00:54:42
Speaker
Hitchhiker. Won't stop crying. That's just a bit on the nose. um No teeth. Redhead homeless. This is not funny, Travis. These are victims of male crime, and you're just sitting there laughing.
00:54:58
Speaker
Junkie. Bad, I'm almost done. Bad Nose Bleeder, Irish Accent, Blonde Skinny 2, not to be confused with the first one I mentioned, Blonde Skinny 3, Black Maid, Suicide,
00:55:13
Speaker
ah Blind, and then the last one I wrote down was Puker. Oh my God. That was his film. That was his snuff film collection. So that was the movies that he had, the collection he had.
00:55:26
Speaker
And i I want to know who was charged with with creating these names. ah I do think they went a bit off the rails. I mean, bad nosebleeder and Asian dash biter. those those are some choices.
00:55:39
Speaker
ah The whole reason I did this was because I thought there was a a missed opportunity in the ring where um she's at the log cabin and finds the VHS tape. And I did pause it there too, and I just didn't mention the pod, but there were several movies listed, and most of them were fake, but randomly the one real one was al Pacino's Scent of a Woman.
00:55:58
Speaker
Hoo-ha! who ah Uh, uh, oddly enough, uh, oddly enough, there's a one movie called blind. I was guessing missed opportunity for Craig or he should have put one real VHS tape in there too. Like one actual film just to, you haven't seen redhead homeless. That Travis, that's a 2009 classic. Dr. Sleep. Um, haven't seen Dr. Red.
00:56:22
Speaker
um having say dr red I'll be watching won't stop crying after this. spot Oh, God, we're horrible for laughing at this. Anyways, that was Yeah, those are some observations. I had a fun scene.
00:56:35
Speaker
All right. We move on to this is yeah so far. Here's what I need help with. Again, going to the scary rating. We recently renamed some of our awards. We have the Ben Gardner Award for best jump scare.
00:56:47
Speaker
This Ben Gardner from Jaws. um there wasn't really a notable jump scare in this one to me. Okay. too Well then lead us because I have nothing to add here.
00:56:58
Speaker
One you already mentioned, but it's when she wakes up Keith, that his arm and he I remember this because i remember Ilse, she's on my screen watching as well. And she like flipped, she's like her whole comforter went up. Like she, that was not fun for her.
00:57:12
Speaker
um That was one. And then the killing of Keith that comes out of nowhere. Yeah, you're right. I mean, There's slightest bit of a second or two second telegraphing, I think, for each of those where I was able to brace myself more, maybe other jump scares, like we said, for the ring scene where it really hits you out of nowhere.
00:57:32
Speaker
And so because of that, i I didn't jump as much. But you're right. I'm true momentary scare. If you're OK, I like to spread the wealth if we can. um I think that the killing of Keith might win another award. So I'm going to say Keith, wake up Keith is the Ben Gardner award. Unless we're all about If this is a meritocracy versus. I'm with you. I think that was the jumpiest of the jump scares.
00:57:55
Speaker
So let's go to maybe what you're talking about there with the ah bring her back cantaloupe award, which is. I just, I laughed. I listened to our pod yeah yesterday the ring and i you can hear me chuckle. Cause I didn't know which ones you were going to agree with the naming of. And in this one I had recommended the OLLI award, which.
00:58:16
Speaker
You know, because Ollie's the character's name. But then you do a swerve and call it the cantaloupe. Well, I forgot Ollie's the character's name. I think by saying cantaloupe, that will elicit memories from bring it back. It's just a funny name. Cantaloupe's a funny word to begin with. Yes. I had... Cantaloupe word. So this is, again, watching through the gaps in your fingers. It's either because it's...
00:58:37
Speaker
a longer set, not a jump scare, but a longer period of the film where it is terrifying and hard to watch, maybe dread inducing, raising your heart rate or, or it's eliciting similar emotions because it's so cringey to watch.
00:58:52
Speaker
Not cool. Let's, let's be careful cringey. Cause I could sound like stupid and can't be, but I mean, cringey meaning like it's, it's in a, it's going to be gross. It's hard to watch. So I had four with a clear winner. What did you have?
00:59:05
Speaker
Um, I have three with a clear winner. So but save the winner. You give one. I'll give one. Yeah. Um,
00:59:16
Speaker
there was a you know It wasn't as effective as it was when I first watched it, but when the... the the What's the right way to say this these days? Not homeless man, but displaced man?
00:59:27
Speaker
Yeah. and Houseless? Is it houseless? Is it Andre? Yeah, Andre. who who Andre, let's give him a name. but There you go. but People first language. yeah Andre is without home, and he's running after...
00:59:40
Speaker
uh tests yeah and i got little it's one of those classic like you're trying to fiddle with the keys and get inside the house and someone behind you is running and um it's good i got i got a little tense can i say these actual lines are i wrote this down for better lines but no he do it yeah what accent are you going to do navigate the line between is this person a threat or is this person helpful, a good person, but we are introduced to him because she's just parked her car back of the Airbnb after being told that Brightmoor is a horrible neighborhood. In fact, the person she's interviewing with tells her you need to get out of there ASAP.
01:00:15
Speaker
And in the background, right as she's parking, you see this black man charging down the street at her car and he yells out, he yells Hey, little girl, come here, come out that house.
01:00:27
Speaker
ah Which I could understand why she was a bit panicky. And instead of taking his advice, which was sage advice, as we can understand because of how he looks, I know I could understand why she ran into the home terrified, because even though that was sage advice, we'd later learn the way he delivered that advice was probably not the best way of communicating it.
01:00:50
Speaker
ah Second was cantaloupe nominee. Is it my, no, you turn now it's your turn. Sorry. I said homeless. You you say one. Yeah. i I have searching for Keith in the basement. So this is the scene. no That's what I had. That was my next one. He's told Keith, like, there's something down there. You need to go check it out.
01:01:06
Speaker
He goes down. He's down there for way too long. And she realizes that there's yet a second hidden compartment past the first with another set of stairs going even deeper down. And as she starts to search for him,
01:01:19
Speaker
Yeah, I wrote down creeping around to find Keith. So, yeah, scary. You don't know what's to happen. It's dark, whatever. All right, the third one, um i have the suckling.
01:01:32
Speaker
Oh, see, so this is my clear winner, but I'm assuming since you're bringing it up now, this isn't. Maybe it's because I'm a boob guy, and I'm like, hey, baby's got to eat. Yeah, we...
01:01:44
Speaker
you know it's foreshadowed a bit because there's a breastfeeding instructional video that is playing like an old 80s vhs tape that you glimpse earlier in the film and sure enough the the mother creature the the monster of the movie has these nurturing instincts and she wants justin long to suckle at the tit like a baby uh did you ever hear the schoolyard jingle
01:02:13
Speaker
So do your um boobs hang low? Can you swing him to and fro? Can you tie him in a knot? Can you tie him in the bow? Can you throw him over your shoulder like a continental soldier? Do your boobs hang low?
01:02:27
Speaker
Yeah, i I am familiar with that. I've also heard people sing the song swing low, so sweet chariot. I'm in here to carry me home.
01:02:39
Speaker
Also reference. I want to I want to mention This is not a body shaming ah pod. i I appreciate boobs of all shapes and sizes from A to F, ah saggy to perky.
01:02:53
Speaker
So this woman, we're just describing how she looks on screen. She's older. This gravity happens. being you know Being realistic with you, it's honestly one of my knocks on the film because they wanted to make her look so much a monster that It is far but a nice rack on her. from out No, her her visual appearance is so far from reality. I think it's one of the parts of the film where I don't think the second or third act are as great as the first because she's almost comical in appearance. Well, that's what Ilse. Ilse's comments were was was she's her verbatim. She goes, What is that?
01:03:31
Speaker
And I said, that right there is something that maybe is not as as much in Mexico as it is in Alabama, but the product of incest. Thank you, America. That's what we have. ah I didn't have, so what we're mentioning though is when she force feeds, is trying to force feed Justin Long to suckle on her teeth.
01:03:50
Speaker
and he's refusing, and then- Drink it! Just fucking drink it! Test does it willingly. ah You don't see Test do it willingly, but she infers to him that, hey, you just gotta go along with he eventually does do it. Yeah, she enforces Justin Long too, and Test discovers him while she's breastfeeding him.
01:04:09
Speaker
Right. Yeah, so there's some suckle- I was watching the fingers for sure. that I thought it was kind of sweet. But are you saying your winner then is ah Bill Skarsgård? getting tossed around oh what what is yours then no what your fourth dude the eye gouge oh yes the eye gouge it turns into applesauce pretty much i hate that shit i hate eye getting i hate people fucking with the eyes especially when they turn into mush we have big category overlap then because i put the eye gouge down for my best death well sorry to what is the opposite of burying the lead blowing your load what am i trying to say
01:04:43
Speaker
the Yeah, I think that is actually the opposite side of the spectrum from bearing the lead. Very different metaphors. But yes. where Are we done with boob talk? I just want to make sure we covered all grounds there. Yeah. like I mean.
01:04:56
Speaker
Yeah, she's naked. She's tall. She's very tall. The actor who played her is very tall. So she's like a giant of a woman and very just fake. It it feels like it's going to age kind of like early CGI in the 80s where years from now people watch this film and it's maybe one of the detractors of of the film overall.
01:05:14
Speaker
All right. Well, we stepped on a little bit of... Okay. So yeah. I had a different answer for that. but Okay. Your winner for the Cantaloupe Award though, you're saying is the eye gouge. Yeah. im going to say the So can have two different answers.
01:05:27
Speaker
The teeth suckling was more sweet and nurturing than anything to me. um I thought that was a nice moment, whereas the eyes was just horrible. All right. Well, best death. if If you already have given this one to Justin Long, getting his eyes gouged out at the end, I think we also need to know, again, it's a bit of a jump scare, like you said as well, but Slaughter, you have a few seconds of foreshadowing for when Bill Skarsgård's character, Keith,
01:05:54
Speaker
Tess does find him in the basement and he has just enough time to whisper to her, someone else is down here. and then you see this monster just race up from behind them and bash his head in i had that for best death best death okay perfect so we're in agreement there which then we can jump to cannon fodder which is an obvious answer yeah there's really only one other death we haven't touched on well there's four point there's there's four point five deaths frank commits suicide you're right and you're saying the mother's death there a is a half is point five because we don't know if she died
01:06:26
Speaker
Okay. Yep. Because the gunshot happens and the only other death we haven't mentioned yet was like you said, our displaced friend, Andre, good man at heart saves tests looking like he's going to be the hero of the film.
01:06:39
Speaker
Um, Cass and Justin Long's character, AJ, have escaped the home. They go retreat to him. What, where is he staying? Is it a abandoned the water tower? water Okay. And she doesn't go over there too much. Yes. They're asking like, you know, are we safe here? And I think verbatim, he says, um,
01:06:59
Speaker
verbatim he goes shit i've been living in the place for 15 years she ain't never come in this motherfucking and immediately he's cut off as she bursts through the wall grabs him rips his arm off and then beats him to death with his own arm so quick clear clear cannon fodder that is what i want for my cannon fodder deaths in horror movies and they craig are delivered expertly there Yeah. And the yeah, I mean, that would that must have been pretty fun to storyboard. It's like, yeah, we're gonna take this guy arm ripped off, kind of beat him over the head with a good death.
01:07:32
Speaker
ah Keith's makes sense for the best because it's the most shocking. ah changes the film for for best death. Yeah, I'm saying Keith, I'm saying the reason the homeless, ah sorry, the displaced Andre, da or the the cannon fodder awards DA, displaced Andre,
01:07:52
Speaker
I almost picked that for best, but narratively, he he was literally just there to die. Like that's the only reason he was there. Whereas Keith's death maybe wasn't as fun or interesting to watch. It was shocking and it was violent and it it just you just cut to the second act right there. so Yeah, and he's a key character too, which we try not to give those to Cannon Potter. Like you said, Andre was truly, they they wrote his role, I think, for the sole purpose of watching him tough go for Andre. Yeah. I mean he had great intention and and unfortunately is not rewarded for that.
01:08:27
Speaker
um Best lines, which ah don't go in there. Oh, I'm sorry. You're right. So um I texted you this, the whole movie. Yes. His don't go in there. Yeah. I really liked there's one scene when test first goes into the basement and discovers the first hidden compartment. She pulls on a rope and opens the door up.
01:08:46
Speaker
She sees this dark dimly lit passage. She pauses for a second before just very resolutely saying, Nope. Nope. And I love that it's the opposite don't go in there because she's a smart character, of course, you know, a minute later, she goes in there. She smart, but she does do some questionable things though. She goes in there. So yeah, I mean, I like to give her that award. You can't have a movie about red flags unless the person's going to ignore some of them.
01:09:11
Speaker
mean, that's what makes it interesting. Yeah. it would not under where if she I think that you could, You could say going in the house initially, going down to find Keith again, going down to find I would say, you know, let's throw some blame at the feet of the men here.
01:09:25
Speaker
She clearly tells Keith what is going on in that basement. Oh, yeah. And he says, now I'm going to go check it out. And not only does he go check out what she said, but he decides to, once he has verified that there is a creepy room in the unfinished hidden compartment of the basement with a camera set up,
01:09:42
Speaker
a really dingy, disgusting mattress, what looks to be blood on the wall. He decides, hey, let's go a little further. Like that's not enough to convince him. And he has to go into the lower portion of the. Maybe this is an indictment of of. a Misplaced male confidence, but let's put yourself in this situation.
01:10:02
Speaker
So Anna's like, dude, trap, we got to go like this. There's something creepy down there. just trust me. Just trust me. Can we please leave? What what do you do?
01:10:13
Speaker
100% I trust her every time i try to object when it's something material and critical like that. I am proven wrong. So I'm slowly learning. You know what? Take it. Worst, worst case scenario.
01:10:24
Speaker
I go down there to peak like peer on a corner. Well, I am a coward at heart. day that's If I even see just there's a hidden compartment down there. I'm like, Nope, that's enough. That's I don't even need to walk down there that what you said is true.
01:10:37
Speaker
So you're an ally with a with a lowercase a. Yeah. Most times you would trust your partner. It's a very high probability if it was me as Keith here. think it's... mean, I guess it's different, right? He doesn't have that rapport yet with Tess. They're still feeling each other out.
01:10:50
Speaker
But I would have chickened out much earlier. i think it's a nice little ah smart writing there because it does... The whole movie is kind of like a what would you do in the situation situation.
01:11:03
Speaker
um and so for me, it was like... Would you have gone down there? Would you have explored more? I'm so curious. It's less about not trusting a woman. wouldn't have been terrified when you saw it. would have, but I, I'm like, before I leave all my stuff, like she's asking, i mean, I guess, I guess I could have just grabbed all my stuff and left.
01:11:22
Speaker
That Airbnb was once. I, I, I, it begged the question for me of like, you know, is, is there some moral or an ego complex in me? Like, well, I just need to go see it. And and I don't know if that's gendered. I don't know if that, like,
01:11:37
Speaker
I don't think it matters if a man or a woman ah or a non-binary person is telling me this, or it doesn't matter who's telling me. Is the male kind of I'll be okay, ah morbid curiosity, and know I don't know that's more of a Ricky thing or a male thing, but I think I still would have maybe gone down. I think it's more than just a peak. I would have been like, what i what has got you so rattled? I told my girls there's a giant spider outside.
01:12:02
Speaker
They don't just take my word for it. They want to go see that giant spider. there's something They know they're putting it in harm's way. So I think it is gender neutral to some degree. But I agree. maybe Maybe there's a bit of a trope of men. I just think, I was trying to think, I was trying to put myself in Craig's shoes writing this. Like, was that an example of of a guy not of a guy not trusting a woman, basically?
01:12:22
Speaker
trusting her, the gut instinct that she feels very sure about, which is what that whole book is about. The, the gift of fear, like she fears something, she feels like something's bad. Just trust her. um One of the other ones I had for don't don't go in there now. I don't want to you play the part of like,
01:12:40
Speaker
giving aj who is an abuser any advice here because you're going to nearly just but i'm not this isn't advice for him this is just me observing that don't do this in my opinion, don't call her.
01:12:57
Speaker
he calls the ah yeah he calls he call He calls the accuser after the bar when he's drunk. Yeah. So yes, he should not have done that. But for the purpose of the movie, I liked how Justin Long portrayed this character so much because I mean i think i think it's a great writing.
01:13:14
Speaker
I think it should have happened. I'm saying for the character's choice, Trav. you know like the character the The character should not have called Okay, I agree with you. But to flesh out the point more, there is a, during the midpoint of the film, you think Justin Long might still be a redeemable character, which is why it makes still the second half of the film intriguing. You're curious to see, is he going to try to atone for a sense, is he going to step up and essentially save Tess in this movie now? He has a chance to save someone. Did you really think that they were going to do that?
01:13:45
Speaker
After we've already learned that he raped somebody? i think Crager gave him, yeah know, gave him an opportunity in the film, gave his character to say, hey, you could try to do something redeeming.
01:13:55
Speaker
But then, like you said, made the right choice for the film. And you know justin long aj's presented with this opportunity it completely well he just he shows who he is he shows who he is that he's not going to change and that he is subject to the you know the same destiny as frank it looks different yeah but there's some parallels between those characters yeah 100 but yeah don't go in there don't don't call her don't call her um all right best line what's what's winning what's winning just the whole movie Yeah, I'm with you. I think it's okay to go meta and say the whole movie is a big don't go in there trope.
01:14:32
Speaker
Best line. I've said a lot of mine already, but few more. i Yeah, so you've mentioned Nope, which I thought was great. I wonder if if that would have hit differently, if Nope didn't come out that year, um which came out earlier in the summer.
01:14:45
Speaker
um I mentioned it briefly, but I'll say it again. i really liked the, what am I some kind of monster from Bill Skarsgård, which is kind of tongue in cheek. Cause he literally just played one of the most iconic monsters in the film previous he was in it.
01:15:00
Speaker
um All right. I love this line and it's kind of a throwaway, but I think it gives you a lot of insight into this character. i know I just went off on Justin Long saying he doesn't deserve deserve any sort of um atonement or redemption, but I do think this gives insight into like family dynamics because he's calling it, he calls his mom.
01:15:25
Speaker
or she calls him and, and he's, uh, he's lying to them. They're like, well, when you come to Detroit, like come visit us. We're only four hours away. And I think he's not saying that he's there. Right. Uh, yeah, he's kind of like dismissive on the call, but i' what's going on. It doesn't want to share too much, but he's, he's dismissive. He's looking at his backpack, but then he goes, wait, dad wants to see me.
01:15:48
Speaker
and remember that and and then the mom goes well like she she kind of backtracks like she said something that makes she's like we want to see you and he stops in his tracks and he's like dad wants to see me and and then she has to backtrack a bit and goes like well you know how he is he he's just concerned about you and then he realizes oh no it's just her who wants to see me he's embarrassed by me or but Just so little a little light.
01:16:17
Speaker
ah light ah What I trying to say? It's a little insight into maybe wasn't loved as a kid. Maybe always tried to please dad. and Unfortunately, now he's a I like that. I did not notice. So talking about just a long throwaway lines, that's really my only other one we haven't mentioned is when he's hyping himself up to go down in the basement for the first time. He's realized, wait, there might be a squatter is what he thinks of someone there. And it's like, I'm a man. Like I can handle this.
01:16:46
Speaker
Oh, but I just love like his self pep talk. He gives himself before going down there. Another one from him is, uh, when he tries to gaslight Tess into thinking that he's trying to help her, even though he just tried to kill her. you know He's like, I'm saving you. It's like, dude, he was so good at this. Not in reality. He was great at playing a bad person.
01:17:07
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, I like that. I think the rest of that she said, like someone else is down here. She took some convincing. That's all. Drink it. Just fucking drink it with the breast milk.
01:17:19
Speaker
ah Maybe I'm a good person who just did a bad thing, which he says, i you know, we saving you. Is it a testament to this movie that we're able to oscillate pretty cleanly?
01:17:30
Speaker
between some really harrowing, like sexual violence, and then like, like, and then pretty fun, weird scenes. I think it's a testament to the movie that he wrote that line pretty well. It's hard to make a movie about sexual violence, but also like, find pockets of fun and humor, like his points and messages are
Societal Context and Critical Reception
01:17:49
Speaker
salient. And even if they don't give me a lot to think about, at least see them and does make you question motives or see red flags or wonder about misogyny or just see it play on act like I just think he did a good job of keeping the terror real keeping the victims yeah you know legacy or or or respect intact while also lambasting the perpetrators ah but giving them three-dimensional characters too i just think that's ah ah that's a big juggling act that's hard to do i think it helps that he has all the sexual assault happening off screen right Justin Long finds out about it through a phone call
01:18:25
Speaker
um Frank, you never actually see what he does. You just see the setup for how he abducts these women. You didn't see what happened to to bad nosebleeder or puker. Exactly. So i I think that's a way to still incorporate these heavy themes, but by not focusing so much on actually portraying that, you're able to still find notes of how can I make this enjoyable and even fun in some parts.
01:18:48
Speaker
Yeah. Really hard to do, especially you know, in a, in a, again, i would say 2022 was a bit more of a woke time. Maybe, maybe a little too woke. Some might say that people jumped down people's throats for saying the wrong thing and doing the wrong thing. And I don't remember this getting much blowback and I don't think it should have gotten any blowback. I agree. I think Craig does some tightrope walking. I think that's what a lot of the film is about too. Like, again, going back to Skarsgård, should we trust him or should we not?
01:19:14
Speaker
The audience first meets him the beginning. Like, I think that's what I like most about this movie is he so well walked a tightrope for a lot of different portions of this where any other director, if you were more ham fisted could easily screw this film up.
01:19:30
Speaker
All right. right. You have a winner for your best line or I keep going back to the what am I some kind of monster? Okay. I like that. I really like when test is just yelling at Justin long when they're captured by the monsters going drink it just fucking drink it.
01:19:46
Speaker
I mean, that one is a bit more on the nose. We can do that. i mean, it's I actually like that. We can drink it. All right. It's like a perverted version of there will be blood milkshake scene. Uh, dual knives.
01:19:59
Speaker
So I got a few. So don't you have to check out of an Airbnb? Like when, when his, property managers like, Hey, nobody's been there for a few weeks. Is that just, are we supposed to assume they're incompetent or winners and losers? i wrote down the Airbnb property manager for a loser because what is going on? here I put Airbnb as a, as a whole for those. No, this is checked out.
01:20:23
Speaker
Double booked, double. Oh yeah. That's two mistakes. And, And also, like this is like crazy that she's... you know If I was an owner and I found out my place has been vacant for weeks, I would hope my property manager would call me to be like, hey, do we need to lower our pricing or do we need to locate things? It is not making money. You're thinking the business side of things. So likes just the absolute worst property. The cost of... Yeah. Yes. So they I'm okay grouping her into dual knives cause there were so many misses on her part. Yeah. like get Get a new property manager.
01:20:51
Speaker
um oh and I see this off pod, but Trav, trav ah Is there any chance he makes any money off the sale? There is no neighbors. What is the point of him flying all the out there? That's why i looked up property values there. Like, yeah I think he's making tens of thousands of dollars if he can sell this.
01:21:10
Speaker
But judging by his his spending clip rate, that's going to last him like a week? that's what When he finds that there's additional square footage in the home, it is a comedic moment. But the price per square foot has to be so low there. Like,
01:21:23
Speaker
in its unfinished space, like maybe it's adding like tens, tens of dollars, maybe a couple of hundreds. dollars So I was going to, let's deviate from dull knives real quick. I guess it has to do with dull knives, but in Googling inside of a movie can be hit or miss for me, but he Googles the square footage versus usable foot. It was, sorry. It was that all real? Like, yes, there's a huge, so when you're lay out the distinction for us, well, usually should we call it in the trade finished square footage first unfinished.
01:21:53
Speaker
um there's also distinctions though on listings with basements you have to put above grade which is again above ground or below grade because there's a different value assigned to even if it's finished but in a basement so he is absolutely looking at that right they did some good half-assed internet research beforehand and for knowing that that additional square footage he found it could add some value but not as much relative to like finished and above grade square footage but again But you're saying like the context of the overall real estate market and in this area Detroit. like You're saying tens of dollars they would add?
01:22:26
Speaker
i mean, maybe I'm being a bit hyperbolic, but like hundreds of dollars. like I don't know if it's going to add more than like a thousand dollars. bit too excited about that double basement, basically. um I thought, you know, despite...
01:22:43
Speaker
Cops in urban areas maybe not being the most helpful to your standard person. I did think it was a bit unlikely that he just straight up says, hey, ma'am, no one's being murdered down there. Nothing's happening. is Detroit. They got real emergencies. They got a tent. I don't see anybody in Detroit. That's the thing. Where else they going? looks all vacant to me. There's nowhere Brightmoor. But I mean, there is. i mean, you could tell there's been vandalism. that It is a high crime area relative to the low population who lives there.
01:23:13
Speaker
ah This one, I keep picking on this scene. i just don't like it. But the flashback with Frank... I think the whole point of that was to show two things. One, like you mentioned that the neighborhood is once prosperous, whether it's like white flight, which actually happened or it's people just leaving is about to go down the shitter.
01:23:34
Speaker
But it's also to show that he's a little creepo that and he, but I guess I just, he goes in, he pretends to be this electrician or whatever, pest something. He opens her window in the bathroom and leaves.
01:23:48
Speaker
Is that supposed to work? Like, isn't she going to feel a draft and like 30 minutes later, just go close the window? Like, I just don't think it's a very good, not a great plan. I was okay with that. I mean, he he probably doesn't bat a thousand on his abductions. it's I think it's more so, again, the numbers game, by just showing that.
01:24:07
Speaker
Craig doesn't have to show her actually getting abducted or sexual assault or anything like that. It's just to imply what he's doing. But to your point on the overall scene, I agree that that was a lot of time spent.
01:24:19
Speaker
It's probably one of the least interesting portions of the film. like It looks a the other way unique, make but it almost looks too unique. It looks like a little different movie. um I'll round out my dull knives. I think you said... yeah we yeah you What? Is this the same thing? I did not write this down, but this is clearly a dull knife. okay The physics of the last... Physics of the one of the final scenes of the movie, which we should get back to another jumping debate we've had in our friend group, which I've got out windows.
01:24:46
Speaker
But Justin Long's idea is to throw Georgina, sorry throw test off off the water tower. yep take to get the mama monster off of him because she seems attached to her.
01:25:03
Speaker
So he, in his mind, he's like, okay, then she's just going to jump off and then I'll be rid of both of them. And I was quite the gamble that was quite the gamble exposure to the mother. But then she defies physics and somehow reaches a faster terminal velocity than Tess and is able to,
01:25:21
Speaker
ah fall quicker to get underneath tests and then protect her from her deadly fall. i was just like workshop in this for another second or two. Like Tess had at least a second or two headstart.
01:25:33
Speaker
So the amount of time she was, what the water tower is maybe like 30 feet tall. ah I give it 50. It looks pretty tall. Okay. Wow. I, I didn't think you had it eleven even 50 feet. We got to bust out the tape measure like Justin Long. You're you're hitting the ground at like, ah ah what, a second and a half jumping from there? Two seconds?
01:25:54
Speaker
So I don't know how, again, the mother was... abnormal already, if you point it out in physicality. But that's not possible, right? I mean, the only way it's possible is if Tess, if she creates more surface area, starfishes her way down there, you know, and Mama Monster, like, makes herself into a pencil. We already talked about this floppy breast on the mom. Like, she's not that aerodynamic.
01:26:18
Speaker
those those bags are gonna frickin drag shoots yeah on either side of our resistance i pass i think that dull knife's the the winner um the only other one i had to add which is far minor compared to that but it's detroit she really couldn't get another hotel room oh yeah online bill scars brushes it off with like oh there's a convention there's there's a medical conference like if if she was really that worried and tried hard enough i guarantee she's getting a room somewhere else that yeah Yeah, that is a close second because that that is the third time I saw this every time I'm like, there's, I'm on this has been disbelief to believe that one to yours with the the velocity that test. You have to suspend belief in physics. Exactly.
01:27:03
Speaker
all right. What is the losers? You, you already mentioned, your loser or one of your yeah one of them, the the property manager. Yeah, I just had I had Airbnb in general as a winner a loser as a loser.
01:27:16
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yeah, I agree with that. um Winners. I got duvet covers. And then I after watching this movie, actually I mean, it's kind of silly how he goes about it. But the two we have a duvet.
01:27:28
Speaker
And they are incredibly hard to get the fabric shell on the outside, the cover to go over the duvet itself. And so by making a two person job where one person holds it up from the corners and then the other person holds in the duvet itself from the corners.
01:27:43
Speaker
Incredible, incredible advice. i Wait, so you took, did you try it? Oh yeah, we've tried it. we we We do it all the time now. We've put it into practice. Because of that movie? Because of this movie. So it's probably oh one of like the top 10 experience. Real life application. this That's gotta be the winner.
01:27:56
Speaker
Yep. That's got to be the winner just because you are a loyal ah student of of Bill Skarsgård. Duvet instructions. Yeah. And then also the wealth manager is a winner. You know, like he's he's given it to Justin Long straight.
01:28:11
Speaker
This is what it's going to look like. And at the end of it, he's like, also, not going represent you anymore. Like he takes the higher ground and is like, hey, we we got to separate our working relationship because of what you've done and kind of where you're at right now. So good good job, wealth manager. chair But that's it for winners and losers. Any any others you can think of top of mind?
01:28:29
Speaker
I had two others. One winner I had was the Me Too movement. Yeah. You know, in in the on the heels of me to kind of depicted a pretty from an observer's perspective, realistic viewpoint of what happens to those people and what that they had coming to them, you know.
01:28:46
Speaker
But like you said, allowed for a bit of gray. i do agree with you. There is a bit of nuance there, like did he or didn't he? And think that also captures the moment really well to the Me Too era where there was a lot of um very clear accusations and important these are bad people, but then kind of near the tail end of that movement, we started to get like the ah Aziz and Zaris, which there was a lot of eight in the public forum about yeah Where do we draw the line? Right.
01:29:15
Speaker
Like believe you should err on believing women, of course, but that's not to say there's not cases where, yeah. yeah um I think it's a testy area, especially with two dudes on a podcast, on a horror film podcast, but let us tell you what we think. Right.
01:29:29
Speaker
I will say the first time I did watch this movie, I, I admit, what does it say about me? I don't know. But like, I did think until the bar scene, I was like, maybe he was wrongfully accused.
01:29:42
Speaker
Yes, he's calling her a bitch. And yes, he's being insensitive and not really thinking about her. But then what does it say about me that I had to hear him admit it? You know what? I don't know. But it's it's intentional misdirection, right? Again, that's why Justin Long is so well cast in this role. And that's why I don't think it would have worked as well as Zac Efron.
01:29:58
Speaker
Because I have grown up trusting and loving this charming character. And he's Justin Long. Zac Efron, I mean, still charming. But to a degree, like i think he is not as typecast as Justin Long is...
01:30:11
Speaker
typically a good guy and so i think there was intentional misdirection there which makes it more real for questioning it yeah um the only other winner i had a little let's do losers oh for a loser i had detroit slash brightmore yeah just ah just kicking them they're down again and then i also had music docs as a winner yeah uh we are a win We already went through some that i recommended. um Oh, Summer of Soul is one I want to see. it recently won.
01:30:41
Speaker
That was the best documentary feature, but it it gets overshadowed because that's the award that was being given when Chris ros chris Rock gets slapped but by a Will Smith. So yeah.
01:30:52
Speaker
Winner, winner ah music docs in general, but documentaries about jazz got a little mention there. All right. Well, let's move on to our last category. Who is our Scream King or Scream Queen in the movie? Who won the movie?
01:31:06
Speaker
I kind of led this last time and gave you my thought process because went in and out between a few characters. So I want you to take the lead on this. have few here as well. Okay. Well, similarly, my nominees, we keep defaulted to directors. But again, Crager, this is his first feature film he solo directs and writes. And for it to be a success like that, he has to be named.
01:31:27
Speaker
Skarsgård again, I think from flipping from, you know, came out after this, but seeing him in Nosferatu as a monster, seeing him in It as a monster, and here seeing him as a regular individual was great, but...
01:31:40
Speaker
I would lean towards Justin Long. I have seen a lot of Justin Long horror films, so and this might be my favorite acting of his. And so to see that now, you know, a few decades now as a horror vet, as a true scream king, i feel like he's deserving of this because without his character, um i think this movie feels very different. And again, I don't even like the second or third act. I know that's what's weird. was so well cast in this.
01:32:06
Speaker
Yeah, I think we had a very similar thought process. oh it was between long or Craig or. And even though Craig or is the one who wrote the second act, obviously wrote the whole movie, I think,
01:32:19
Speaker
if you picture picture Zac Efron in this movie, and it doesn't, it's not a winning movie. It doesn't work. fat And he's more of a himbo, whereas Justin Long is the more trusting and you've seen him in horror films, but in different worlds, different, different. Yeah. It's kind of a goober. He's like a charming goober.
01:32:38
Speaker
Yeah. I think I had Justin Long as well as our, as our scream King. And it's close. I
Closing Remarks and Future Engagement
01:32:43
Speaker
mean, Craig, we'll see where his career goes. And if weapons is great, then we have a new, you know, horror auteur on our hands.
01:32:51
Speaker
But um i think I think Long just... And I wonder if we would have picked Kreger had we not picked Gore Verbinski in this last one. Yeah, i I think there's some truth that. But I think it gives... it like ah You know...
01:33:05
Speaker
his loss is another gain. And I think it's just no shame in celebrating a role that without it, probably the movie would have suffered. Definitely. Yeah. Great cast all around. Georgina, Georgina Campbell.
01:33:18
Speaker
Fantastic as well. Very excited to see her on weapons. Oh, she's in weapons. Yeah. Did you not hear me? She's the second highest billed person in the cast list. I was probably thinking about more tit jokes that never made it to the pod.
01:33:31
Speaker
I kept on the cutting room floor. All right. Well, for all you guys, I'm i'm sure with the long duration of this podcast, your boobs might be sagging a little more than when you started listening.
01:33:42
Speaker
Thank you guys for listening. Go let go follow us on the Sundayscaries.pod. ah We don't know what movie is next, but it likely will be Poltergeist, depending on where you listen to this movie, this pod. See you guys next week.
01:33:58
Speaker
Enjoy Mexico. Bye. Bye.
01:34:13
Speaker
Bye.