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Episode 55: Paranormal Activity 4 with Brook Pridemore
38 Plays5 days ago
Anti-folk hero Brook Pridemore is with the crew this week and they’ve brought an entry from a now classic horror series, Paranormal Activity 4 (2012). This found-footage film stars Kathryn Newton and an Xbox Kinect Camera, and who can forget that demon child? It’s classic horror action as the panel cracks into the genre as a whole and takes a look into other documentary work by the directors. There’s no jump scares in this episode, so tune in…
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Transcript
Introduction to Hosts and Guest
00:00:40
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to your favorite bad movie podcast. The only podcast that's a brave enough to ask the question, if this movie is so bad, why do you like it so much?
00:00:51
Speaker
We're your hosts. My name is Chris Anderson, and with me, as always, i have the Wyatt to my Robbie, Mr. Greg Bossy. Hello. Yes, good to be How are you doing, Greg?
00:01:05
Speaker
I'm doing all right today, and enjoying the weather. Yes, talk about this weather. It's fantastic. We also, of course, have the Ben to my Alex, my wonderful wife, Anna Anderson. Anna, how
Brooke's Passion for Paranormal Activity
00:01:18
Speaker
are you, my dove? Hi there.
00:01:19
Speaker
I'm doing all right. Yes, all right is all right. That's what we always say around here. And of course, we have a very special guest with us here today. You might know them as an OG of New York's anti-folk sound.
00:01:35
Speaker
They are not Toby Goodshank, but they are the Toby of today's episode. It's Brooke Pondmore. Brooke, how are you? I'm great. That's a like fantastic intro. Thank you.
00:01:48
Speaker
My pleasure. It's good to see you. And you chose this week's movie. You chose Paranormal Activity 4. Now, listeners, if you haven't seen Paranormal Activity 4, here's just a brief summary to hold in your mind.
00:02:03
Speaker
But also remember, this is also a found footage film. ah That's also important.
00:02:15
Speaker
The Nelsons are a typical boring family until a spooky neighborhood boy needs to come stay with them. And their teen daughter, Alex, begins to document the ensuing paranormal activity.
00:02:32
Speaker
Nice to include the, to work the name into the synopsis. Thank you. I felt very witty. I have an ongoing obsession about whether or not movies say the title.
00:02:44
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah. That's always kind of fun. I love a titular line. I don't think any of the paranormal activities do, but I did. Yeah, no, I don't think they do.
00:02:54
Speaker
That's a real missed opportunity, I feel like. Yeah. Uh-huh. These people's never do, but I don't think the first one ever does. What's with all this paranormal activity?
00:03:05
Speaker
You know, you're leaving money on the table with that one. You probably could get another $100,000 one character in each of these movies said paranormal activity. Now, Brooke, you chose Paranormal Activity for right off the jump, right off the dome.
00:03:20
Speaker
You were not one of our hammers and haars. I always
Personal Connection to the Series
00:03:22
Speaker
consider that a good sign. What drew you to Paranormal Activity when I asked you for your favorite bad movie? Well, first of all, I think...
00:03:31
Speaker
I think this is like the greatest film series ever made. I mean, okay. Interesting. In terms of horror and in, and I've been thinking about it a lot since revisiting, you know, just a standalone rewatch of paranormal activity for since about late 2015, I've watched this series about once every five or six months and Okay.
00:03:57
Speaker
And years and, and people always look at me sideways when I say how much I like this. But I, I love that it's one story.
00:04:09
Speaker
um I love that it's the deeper you dig into the lore around, it around how it was made and, and the people behind it, it gets weirder and more shadowy. And there's all these, there's all these fan theories about who Warren Pelley is. And like one of the pervasive theories is he won't deal with demon for fame and fortune, but that he had to make movies about the demon, you know? And so it's like, there's just all this, there's all this stuff about it. And like a lot of it doesn't make any sense.
Found Footage Horror Discussion
00:04:43
Speaker
um But then, you know, but it's like one great big messy story. That's true. You know, they never really show the demon. It's just here. You know, i was just thinking today.
00:04:57
Speaker
i definitely had a different reason for loving horror when I was a kid, but um there's not a single boob in the entire paranormal activity film series.
00:05:09
Speaker
That is unfortunately true. um It's a testament to the quality of filmmaking, but it's also a testament to like them really veering toward the reality of what the situation would be like, because like people don't just walk around with their boots off. Like, you know, like they do in tip of the typical horror movies, you know, there's not the, the blood and, Oh, I better take my bra off before I keep running. You know, fair enough.
00:05:38
Speaker
The, the, the hewing it's not obviously not a documentary, but it, but they play like documentaries, even in the, in a way that like the Blair witch project does it. You know, like even the Blair Witch Project, the last the last one, definitely, they abandoned the found footage thing eventually.
00:05:56
Speaker
Oh,
Paranormal Activity 4 Plot and Impact
00:05:57
Speaker
yeah, with Blair Witch 2? Yeah, yeah. No, but even in the 2014 or whatever Blair Witch, the latter one. Oh, there was another one? Yeah, there was a later remake that was pretty good. Yeah.
00:06:11
Speaker
But they really drop the found footage thing in this one scene where it's just suddenly these smash cuts between two actors. and And it's fine.
00:06:23
Speaker
One thing with with I have this thing where I really want to see the greatest movie ever made. And I also want to see the worst movie ever. Okay. I want to see the fucking worst movie ever made just to say it to know I've seen it.
00:06:38
Speaker
And I don't think paranormal activity for is the worst movie ever made, but it's certainly like the series is certainly considered like pretty gauche to a lot of people. I told somebody that i love that series.
00:06:52
Speaker
And i I discovered it late. I discovered it after the sixth one had just come out of the theater. And the way I discovered it was in October 2015, my mother died and she died after a long illness.
00:07:05
Speaker
um But like 2015 was really hard because she got sick and then and then my stepfather just dropped dead one day and she died a few months later. So it was this really hard year.
00:07:17
Speaker
I'm sorry to hear that. it was, thank you. it It was, it was a really, really bad year. And it was like, right when I started my touring schedule again, like I, I stopped touring when I got sober in 2010 and, and at like five years I started again, but it was like right when I changed careers and I'm out of town all the time, like two parents died right in a row. And I'm just like broke and like, wasn't really met like with,
00:07:45
Speaker
open arms when I started playing again. It was really hard to get started and like oh all kinds of crazy stuff. And I really needed the dumbest, most visceral um ah entertainment that I could find, and I needed a lot of it.
00:08:02
Speaker
And i so I got into harsh noise and really into um I watched the Gigi Allen movie many times that year.
00:08:13
Speaker
It's still one of the funniest movies I've ever seen and ah definitely funnier than anything else Todd Phillips ever did. um For sure. You know, and really and then I found the paranormal activity films and I was like,
00:08:30
Speaker
oh, this is this is perfect. Because I love found footage. I mean, watch the... Now Shudder does a new VHS. here And I watch it the day it comes out. just Just the instant I can sit down and watch it. I watch it right away.
00:08:45
Speaker
And I just, I think found footage, it's like, it's such a cool way to make film. And it's it makes it really, it's really easy to make. So it's still a relatively proletariat film.
00:09:00
Speaker
um filmmaking style. That's fair. Yeah. Yeah. It's accessible. Yeah. Yeah. youly PA one paranormal activity. One, it cost $15,000 to make, which like, yeah, I don't just have, I can't find that, you know, like I could put that together.
00:09:19
Speaker
um And so I, I got into these films cause I needed a lot of something really, really, um, I needed a lot of really easy work watching. And so I watched these films.
00:09:31
Speaker
Sure. And then among a lot of other things, and then, and then it just stuck and I got really, really into ah just like repeated viewing and,
00:09:47
Speaker
There's a certain phenomenon, you know, people watch The Office over and over again, and there's like a comfort view. It's a comfort watch. Right. And in the pa the PA films on the surface for me
Cultural Impact of Paranormal Activity
00:10:00
Speaker
are definitely a comfort watch. Like, i guys i love Katie.
00:10:05
Speaker
ah I love, um she's just this natural scream queen. You get to PA four and it's the real payoff after the explanation. It's two and three, and then it's the real payoff, actual sequel.
00:10:20
Speaker
That's true. It does. It does culminate because yeah, two and three are deaf. There are prequels to PA one. Yeah. And so, yeah, four does, ah pay off a lot of what is built in those first three.
00:10:32
Speaker
Uh, Greg, had you seen paranormal activity for, any of the paranormal? activity So I have not seen any paranormal activity films. Um, I basically, all that I knew about them was that they were found footage films. And I think that, uh,
00:10:47
Speaker
It's like a shot in this one where you see her kind of rise up out of the bed that they kind of classic exorcism shot where the person's floating and the limbs are dangling. I was like, that seems familiar to me. Like maybe I saw that, like maybe that's a classic image from paranormal activity, but I also know so little about it that I couldn't even confirm whether or not that was true.
00:11:07
Speaker
Fair enough. I was just like, they think that's something that happens in everyone, but no. No, I mean, it would almost definitely would have been in the trailer. So yeah, that might be where you're familiar with it. Yeah, yeah. There's definitely like people floating.
00:11:21
Speaker
That might be the only scene where somebody gets like risen up out of a bed. Okay. All right. But yeah, no, I didn't know a lot about them at all. So this was a whole new ballgame for me.
00:11:33
Speaker
Well, now Anna and I, we watched them all together. Yes. What are your opinions and your history with paranormal activity, my dad? Well, i I, like found footage.
00:11:46
Speaker
And, ah because of that, I think, I don't know. I tend to be, um, more forgiving. um I don't know. i hadn't I hadn't watched them before you did
Narrative and Character Analysis
00:12:00
Speaker
because I knew that they were found footage.
00:12:03
Speaker
I knew they had been really successful. And I knew they were supposed to be really scary. and I wasn't sure about that. And they do scare me in yeah more than a lot of like jump scare movies um do. And I think that's probably the found footage conceit.
00:12:25
Speaker
ah But ah i think that I think that the series as a whole has ups and downs, but I think 4 is probably the high point. 3 might be a better made movie, but I think 4 is the ah the high point of the series. Agreed.
00:12:46
Speaker
I liked 3 better aesthetically. I think just because it being a period piece, I found to be more interesting. The third one is a period piece? It takes place in the 80s. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. I was thinking like 1840 something. I was like, well, how does that found footage thing work? Wait a second.
00:13:03
Speaker
They're using like kinesis, kinesis scopes, whatever you're called. Everyone's down on the Edison compound. Yeah, you got to put a penny into the Nickelodeon. well i guess you'd put a nickel into the Nickelodeon.
00:13:14
Speaker
Anyway, ah yeah, I watched ah the first six of these for a previous podcast where we did bonus episodes where we watch entire horror franchises.
00:13:26
Speaker
And I pretty in intensely disliked all of them just because i it It has a lot of strikes it against it already being a found footage movie. I don't like found footage movies.
00:13:38
Speaker
I find them difficult to listen to. there The sound is always really low quality. And as a person who's slightly hard of hearing, I find that really... I mean, but even before was hard of hearing, I didn't care for it.
00:13:50
Speaker
And I find them to, in general, be indifferently shot or maybe not indifferently. I find them unpleasant to look at. ah And I don't like ghost movies. I think they're too scary. They scare me in a way that I don't think is fun. i don't have fun watching them ah because it's all like those like long sustained violin notes on the score and you're like waiting for the jump scare.
00:14:14
Speaker
And I just find that like really ratchets up my anxiety in a very unpleasant way. ah But
Final Thoughts and Ratings
00:14:21
Speaker
I did find, oh, and we did watch part seven over this weekend.
00:14:25
Speaker
I finally finished up the trilogy or the, would you call it? Septology. Septology. Yeah. Yeah. And seven was, was seven was a little odd because it didn't seem like a paranormal activity movie, but it was, it was fine. Yeah. I liked it fine.
00:14:45
Speaker
That's the only film in the series that has been new since I've been a fan of it. ands And it's went to Paramount Plus on on like one day in October of 2021.
00:14:57
Speaker
And like, I shit you not, I was in front of my screen at 12.01. Right on. Good for you. It was a Friday night. I skipped everything to watch Paranormal Activity 7.
00:15:13
Speaker
yeah it's it's the only one that i really think is kind of it is kind of mid in that it doesn't connect to the rest of the series it's not immediately part of the rest of the story yeah it is sort of like the halloween three of paranormal activity and that it's sort of more linked up thematically than it is like plot wise yeah it's the same demon but that's really kind of it you know it's yeah i did like that they tried to like tie it into contemporary trends by making it folk horror, by making it based around an Amish family.
00:15:46
Speaker
I thought that was a funny play. And I like that they've mixed it up visually. Like if, obviously if you're a paranormal activity fan, you're going to want say, Oh, give me more, give me more.
00:15:57
Speaker
I love paranormal activity. to Keep it coming. But I do think that it is a good idea to and inject some new ideas. Like I really liked five when they made it about a Latin cast. I thought that was a smart, fun way to mix it up.
00:16:10
Speaker
And so I thought there just another way to like, let's, let's just add a little bit of sauce into the mix. It's been enough time. We can try something else. And you know, if there's interest in it, we can go back to a tried and true classic paranormal activity sometime in the year 2028 or whenever they would do it.
00:16:25
Speaker
And um just to touch briefly on the fifth one, it's, it's like rich people torture porn in a way. Cause these are like, these are all super,
00:16:36
Speaker
super affluent the only time anybody says it is when she's dragging Wyatt home from the house across the street in PA4, and she says, what if somebody had picked, had scooped you up and kidnapped you?
00:16:50
Speaker
And he says, we live in a good neighborhood. Like he's this like six year old boy that they're completely toddled where they live. And so it is neat. I was just thinking about that. That's what's cool about the marked ones is that it's like, yeah it happens to poor people for once. Like that's that's kind of a actually a nice change.
00:17:10
Speaker
Yeah, like every single other paranormal activity takes place in a McMansion, except for five and seven. And and it's it's tough to make a McMansion scary setting.
Exploration of Catfish TV Show
00:17:21
Speaker
So yeah i will I will tip my cap to them for rising to that challenge, because I do think these movies do have scary moments in them. I'm not going to take that away from them. Well, you guys want to hear what I found out about the context of ah Paranormal Activity 4? Sure. Yeah.
00:17:48
Speaker
I wish I had some context about the background of the film. Script director, actors on set. What was going on on screen?
00:17:59
Speaker
wanna hear some details. Gossip stand to all that shit. Can't imagine all the time.
00:18:17
Speaker
All right. Paranormal Activity 4 came out October 19th, 2012, just ah at the height of spooky season. ah Your two directors, Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman.
Games and Awards Segment
00:18:31
Speaker
And I found two taglines.
00:18:33
Speaker
One, it's closer than you think. Okay. Not great, but it is ominous. Yeah. And ah number two, all the activity has led to this.
00:18:47
Speaker
It's interesting. It's apt. to You know, it speaks to what Brooke was talking about, how it's the culmination. Oh, yeah. It's it's just interesting to refer to it as activity.
00:18:59
Speaker
Yes. I guess if they had said all the paranormal activity had led to this, it would What if they had just said everything's been leading to this?
00:19:10
Speaker
Well, not everything has been leading to this, Greg. Then you're going to where are the Transformers? Well, I was assuming people were going to operate within the the purview of of paranormal activity, not include, say, Flash Gordon or something as well.
00:19:24
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know why i said Flash Gordon, but anyway. No, I don't know why I said Transformers. um The first Paranormal Activity was made 2007. It was made, like Brooke said, in a budget of about but with about for post-production.
00:19:41
Speaker
okay ah They don't lead with that. No. But you get all this great footage. now I'm sure then you can get your investors for your remaining $200,000. Yeah. ah And it made $194 million dollars at the box office and is by most accounting the single most profitable film ever made.
00:20:00
Speaker
That's crazy. Yeah. That's crazy. Huge return on investment. It also single-handedly revived the found footage horror genre after no one was able to recapture the magic of the Blair Witch Project from, what was that, 98, 99?
00:20:18
Speaker
Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah, 99. So yeah, I'd been lying dormant for about eight years, and then Paranormal Activity came in and brought it raring back to life. It also spawned a horror franchise that was also very successful.
00:20:35
Speaker
Paranormal activity is fairly unique amongst horror franchises, ah which were traditionally slashers following a central villain or monster. Paranormal activity would instead follow an extended family that was harassed by a demon, all in the found footage style.
00:20:54
Speaker
And we've all, ah I think, gotten our thoughts out on found footage just as a genre. Yeah. Anna's pro, I'm con, Brooke is pro. Greg, where do you land on I am not. So I liked the Blair Witch movie.
00:21:10
Speaker
andm I'm trying to remember the Blair Witch project. I enjoyed. I'm trying to remember if it was shot like a documentary or if it was like just all the footage cobbled together. Generally, I don't like found footage.
00:21:21
Speaker
Because in the construction of making it look like a found footage documentary, it acknowledges the presence of film and yet tries to remain within the world. It's like, it's like so film exists, but this isn't a film. This is real footage from a real film, but not a film. you know I don't know if that comes across what I mean entirely entirely.
00:21:46
Speaker
I think so. It's like, it's like they're making a fake movie, but it's a real movie. Yeah. The disbelief you have to suspend is that, that the there's ah a regular kid in this family would just be carrying around a camera.
00:22:00
Speaker
Right. Exactly. Right. And so, and then there's like a lot of like any time that's like, Oh, it's a long shot. It's like, but this was a documentary. You wouldn't include this long shot. That's pointless.
00:22:11
Speaker
yeah because for to a documentary, but to a horror movie, it's not pointless. And so it just becomes really confusing to me where it's just like, this is the weirdest documentary I've ever watched. It's like, that's because it's a horror movie, but it's like, but it's horror movie that's a documentary.
00:22:24
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, i think a lot of I think a lot of found footage movies, horror movies, aren't framed so much as documentaries. They're framed in the same way that horror novels are often like, I found this fucked up journal.
00:22:41
Speaker
in my attic, and here it is. It's, right we found, you know, here's the footage that right was found, and and so it's it's, so the conceit, I think, is that it is that it is unedited, and doesn't have the ah documentary point of view.
00:23:03
Speaker
um Sometimes it does. and i they got Depending on how big you want to make the genre really. in ah in The other things that I mean too, like in the book House of Leaves, I remember he talked about the Zapruder film and how you knew it was real was the fact that the actual thing that's in that we're supposed to be focusing on is not in the center of the frame. It's actually down in the corner. It's not framed up properly and all these things.
00:23:31
Speaker
Yeah. And so you so you tried you see that a little bit with film footage, but you also see them trying to lead the eye. And so all of it feels like they're making a movie that's not supposed to be a movie, but it is a movie that you're watching.
00:23:47
Speaker
I would suggest you watch the movie Ghostwatch. Which originally aired on the BBC purportedly as a documentary ok in like the mid-90s.
00:23:59
Speaker
um Just because that's one where I watched it with a group. And at the end, like more than half of us realized that we had just like missed the ghost.
00:24:12
Speaker
Oh, yeah. That we just literally not seen the goats because we were watching other things happening on screen. And that's the best example I can think of. Yeah. a found footage release yeah And I don't like it's not to poo poo foam footage or anything. No, I don't. I didn't take it. as um I just sometimes get out of it a little bit because of the way that they're trying to get me into it, if that makes sense.
00:24:38
Speaker
I find one problem that I have with found footage when it's not well done at the very least is that the, when the person ah holding the camera is a character and that camera work doesn't ring true to that, what that character is doing.
00:24:55
Speaker
i see. Yeah. Like there was that Spanish one that we watched and I don't remember what it was called. Wreck. Wreck. Wreck. and the ah camera in that it was supposed to be like a news cameraman, but it kept on like zooming in and out on people all the time, like mid sentence. And it was like, you're doing that because it's ratcheting up the tension. But if you were just a news cameraman filming this, you wouldn't be doing that.
00:25:21
Speaker
And it kept on pulling me out of it. Yeah. That's the, that's the feeling that I felt with this one. I don't know if I always feel that. And it also might be because I was watching it at like 11 o'clock.
00:25:33
Speaker
in broad daylight on a laptop on my computer, you know, on my kitchen table or whatever. Okay. Yeah. We got to press on, baby. We are running long already. Yeah. Yeah. Now, uh, by the third paranormal activity, they had brought on a pair of directors, Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman.
00:25:50
Speaker
Joost and Schulman had broken out a year earlier with the documentary they made about Ariel's brother, Neve and his online relationship. And that movie was called catfish.
00:26:01
Speaker
Yes, it was. Ariel Shulman, also a Tisch alumni. Go Violets. And also a school friend of Justin Reamer, anti-folk mainstay.
00:26:13
Speaker
Yes. They knew each other. Yeah, we all would have been going to NYU around the time, but I did not know that he knew Ariel Shulman. Very quickly, I remembered my point, and it was that because I was watching the movie in the middle of the afternoon, anytime there was a long shot, I would set my cup of coffee down because I was like, so there's going to be a jump scare here or not. I don't know if they're trying to fake me out or not, but I just don't want to be holding any liquid.
00:26:34
Speaker
very Fair enough. Yeah. ah Now, Catfish didn't just go on to create the term Catfish. It also spawned the Smash It TV series that's been running for the last 13 years. Anna will have more on that later, listeners.
00:26:51
Speaker
Just to tease you for the rest of the show. Now, ah Paranormal Activity 3 brought a little bit of fresh air to the series by making it a period piece set in the 80s and was also a huge hit.
00:27:03
Speaker
So Joost and Shulman were brought back for part four. They were the first directors that were ever brought back to a paranormal activity. Okay. Justin Shulman wanted to return the franchise to the modern era for a proper sequel.
00:27:15
Speaker
Both part two and part three were technically prequels. ah They also realized that the ubiquity of different cameras in the modern American home would allow them a decent amount of coverage. they realized that but the different types of cameras could be used to different ends.
00:27:30
Speaker
ah The most obvious example of this in the film is the Xbox Kinect camera. That's really interesting. I love it. it's I know it's it's kind of corny, but I think it's really cool. No, no, I actually wrote best use of Kinect I've ever seen.
00:27:47
Speaker
Way better than using it to play video games. Exactly. Some seriously scary shit. that they get away with. It does add a very creepy visual. ah Now, while the camera itself, that's not the special part per se. It's the motion detecting apparatus that offers a unique system of lighting.
00:28:06
Speaker
Specifically, it works by shooting out an array of infrared lasers that when filmed with an infrared camera, make everything look like it's covered in glowing green dots. Obviously, this would be a great way to imply that something invisible was getting caught on camera.
00:28:22
Speaker
And also, you get a nice little product placement check from Microsoft. Fantastic. Win-win. The other thing they realized was ah the found footage potential of laptop cameras and Skype.
00:28:35
Speaker
ah Normally, a found footage movie will have most of its footage shot on a camera pointing away from ah the person that's using it and at what the character is looking at. A laptop camera will be pointed at the character in a close up in a reaction shot while not capturing what they are reacting to.
00:28:54
Speaker
It also might capture something behind the character, ah something that we can see and the character cannot. So you get to, you know, play with visual information and and holding out on who sees what.
00:29:05
Speaker
it's Yeah. And I've seen a couple of movies. um I forget the exact term, but that, that take place entirely on a laptop screen. ah One called Den and one, a shorter film called Host ah that took place within a zoom call. And It's fun. You can do a lot with it.
00:29:26
Speaker
The Unfriended movies also took place entirely in laptop screens.
00:29:33
Speaker
Now, Justin Shulman were able to use these additional diegetic cameras to expand the visual language of paranormal activity and really help the franchise grow in its fourth installment, a point when a lot of horror franchises really start to stagnate.
00:29:47
Speaker
Yeah. And audiences, they ate it up. It was the last perle paranormal activity to break $100 million dollars at the box office.
00:29:57
Speaker
The well began to run dry two years later with the surprisingly good paranormal activity, the marked ones. ah Paranormal activity, the ghost dimension was another step down, perhaps because they didn't go to the ghost dimension, something that I'm still very upset about.
00:30:12
Speaker
yeah It's true. That would be upsetting. You know what the tagline that one was? was tell me this time you can finally see the activity you know what i couldn't see was the fucking ghost dimension
00:30:30
Speaker
uh the final entry in the franchise paranormal activity next of kin limped onto paramount plus in 2021 about six years later at that point it's almost a legacy at least in terms of horror franchises will say my my favorite thing about Next of Kin, honestly, was just seeing them wearing masks at the airport in an early scene.
00:30:57
Speaker
and The guy said he'd had COVID five times, you know. Yeah. So irresponsible. So now, ah other horror movies of 2012. You got Cabin in the Woods.
00:31:10
Speaker
Very fun meta horror movie. You got Dario Argento's Dracula 3D. and you The Lords of Salem. You got Rob Zombie up in the mix.
00:31:25
Speaker
Oh, yes. Then you got the first VHS.
00:31:32
Speaker
Then you got The Woman in Black, a little spooky Daniel Radcliffe movie, I think. and Okay. I think I read that novel. That sounds like the type of novel you would read.
00:31:46
Speaker
Yeah. and Something called Would You Rather, presumably bla based on the classic party game. Okay.
00:31:56
Speaker
So with that, do you guys want to talk about the plot of Paranormal Activity 4? Yes. All right, let's hit it.
00:32:22
Speaker
Plot bumper, listen to me. I'm gonna give you the plot summary. Come on, baby. Here's the synopsis.
00:32:34
Speaker
Plot bumper, plot bumper.
00:32:47
Speaker
All right, so we open on footage of Katie, who we know from our previous three paranormal activities. And also her newborn son, Hunter.
00:32:59
Speaker
They are in Carlsbad, California in the years 2006. We then see security camera footage of Katie killing her sister and abducting Hunter. An on-screen text tells us that Katie and Hunter are still missing.
00:33:15
Speaker
which is plainly not true because we see them later on in this film. That's true.
00:33:21
Speaker
I had a very, when I started this movie, I was like, okay, so these our main characters. And then she shot someone and then abducted him. I was like, these are not our main characters. I don't think. Nope. Nope. You figured it out.
00:33:32
Speaker
Yep. We then jumped to 2011 and it's Henderson, Nevada. And we meet the Nelsons, a surprisingly handsome family, composed of mom, dad, 15-year-old daughter Alex, and six-year-old son Wyatt.
00:33:50
Speaker
And there's also Ben, who is Alex's friend that's a boy, but he's not her boyfriend, okay? Jeez. I mean, he wants to be. Yeah. But he's not.
00:34:01
Speaker
But he's not. This guy, he's going to become a ah friend zone Reddit incel in the next five years. You can see it coming. yeah ah We see them trick or treating.
00:34:14
Speaker
We see Wyatt playing soccer and some creepy kid is watching him. Then there's a little teen hangout where Alex and friends play with the Xbox Kinect.
00:34:25
Speaker
check We're setting up that Xbox Kinect. and Then after all those kids leave, Alex and Ben ah go outside so she can show him her treehouse.
00:34:38
Speaker
If you know what I mean. But when they go up into the treehouse, they find the creepy kid from the soccer game hanging out inside. It turns out that his name is Robbie and he just moved in across the street with his single mom.
00:34:55
Speaker
Now, the next night, when Ben is trying to convince Alex to flash him over Skype, she hears sirens across the street. It turns out that poor Robbie's mom had some sort of medical emergency.
00:35:07
Speaker
Now Robbie's going to have to stay with the Nelsons for a little while while she recovers in the hospital. This seems weird to me, but yeah this is what the movie needs to do to make it happen. So here we go.
00:35:18
Speaker
Now, the next day, when Robbie comes over to stay with them, Mom introduces him to Wyatt, prompting Robbie to look him in the eye, shake his hand and say, nice to meet you.
00:35:30
Speaker
Ben thinks that this is the goofiest thing he's ever seen. so I'm going to put this question to the panel. Is Robbie just autistic? um I think at this point, I think at this point he is very autistic coded.
00:35:46
Speaker
i think he is actually of a little devil boy at this point i think you know you know who's to say the devil wouldn't choose an autistic boy perfectly reasonable there's nothing wrong with robbie being autistic he certainly seems just awkward like yeah oh yeah on introduction But, i you know, I imagine, you know, this little young autistic lad whose father isn't around to raise him. We know that he's being raised by a single mom and his pop pop is talking to one day and he says, you know, when you meet somebody, you got to look him in the eye and you shake their hand and you say, nice to meet you. And he's like, I will do that.
00:36:30
Speaker
And then he goes and he said, now Ben's making fun of him. Ben's being a jerk. That's what Ben is. It's not Ben is one of the more likable boys in the entire paranormal activity. Yes.
00:36:42
Speaker
That is one of the most unfortunate things I've ever heard. i think he is the best. I, well, I'd have to watch five again because I remember the protagonist of five being all right.
00:36:54
Speaker
um But I think he's like the best boyfriend. Okay. By a long shot. Because at the point when like Robbie is just like, my friend doesn't like you. And he's like, what does that mean? He's like, you'll find out. I was like, good.
00:37:15
Speaker
Well, yeah, maybe it's because we had seen the other paranormal activities, but I found Ben to be surprisingly likable and easy to root for. ah
00:37:26
Speaker
ah So they settle Robbie into the top bunk and Robbie has brought everything he needs with him, including his favorite fork, which can see into the future. He was touching. I really liked that moment.
00:37:40
Speaker
Apparently that little boy improvised that moment. Nice. Oh, really? that and That's what I read somewhere. Great actor. Yeah. They're like, here, just ah grab a bag and fill it with a bunch of different things and take them out and tell us about them. And that was one of the things he said.
00:37:56
Speaker
I think both child actors are pretty good in this. Yeah. Yeah, I would agree. Yeah. Yeah. Overall, I think the cast is very good. Hunter, the kid playing Wyatt, it seems like a real child.
00:38:09
Speaker
Oh, for sure. Yeah. Like, And, you know, it probably helps that this isn't the kind of thing where they need to memorize lines. You can just be like, okay, yeah pretend to be Wyatt. Now, ah they settle, let's see, Magic Fork.
00:38:25
Speaker
ah He does wake up in the middle of the night, old Robbie, and he goes to stare at the front door. But other than that, everything is pretty normal. The next day, though, Ben makes a confession to Alex.
00:38:40
Speaker
He has been recording all of their Skypes without her knowledge. pretty shady. Yeah. Way to go, Ben. Yeah. I wrote down, as I was like, I can't believe this is why everything has been recorded.
00:38:54
Speaker
Yeah. That's why we have paranormal activity for it. Because Ben's a creep. Yeah. But if that weren't creepy enough, last night he kept a recording after she fell asleep, recording her sleeping for eight hours.
00:39:08
Speaker
But he also recorded Robbie, the scared little boy, crawling into sleep next to her. Out of the two of those, I got to say, Robbie's coming off a lot better than Ben. I think so.
00:39:20
Speaker
Now, the next day, Robbie and Wyatt are becoming fast friends. Robbie has introduced Wyatt to his invisible friend, Toby, and they've even started using the Xbox Kinect together.
00:39:34
Speaker
Is Toby a thing in the other movies? I mean, obviously there's like like a thing, but is it called Toby? Yeah, it's it's it's established, I think, in the in the third one. So in the 80s that they're that they're that's what they're trying to bring to life.
00:39:54
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. They they affectionately call the demon Toby. Okay.
00:40:01
Speaker
But boy, that Xbox Kinect looks like some fun technology. ah Ben shows them and Alex something that's even cooler than using it to play the latest Xbox games. ah If you turn on the Kinect and film it with the night vision camera, it makes everything look like it's covered in glowing green dots.
00:40:19
Speaker
They then proceed to have a space dance party in total darkness to the tunes of Rob Zombie's Dragula, which you have to remember, none of them can see that green light. So they think they're all just standing in the dark and dancing, which I think makes that even funnier.
00:40:36
Speaker
It's fun to dance in the dark. It's true. They should have been dancing to Dancing in the Dark. Too meta. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, and Ben doesn't strike me as a guy that appreciates old hits.
00:40:50
Speaker
Right. Now, later on, when Alex and Ben watch this space dance party footage, they notice the vague outline of an unseen figure in the dots next to Robbie.
00:41:02
Speaker
Much to consider.
00:41:06
Speaker
Now that night, we get the return of my favorite character, in the paranormal activity series. That character spooky. Oh, Oh, spooky. Oh, clock is a little clock that appears in the corner of the screen to let you know something spooky is about to happen.
00:41:27
Speaker
He is a trademark of the paranormal activity. Cause it's just like, it's 3 AM or whatever. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he'll tell you the night and the date and then we'll hang out just telling you the time.
00:41:40
Speaker
So first, we get night one, November 6th, 2011, 3.02 a.m.
00:41:52
Speaker
Robbie is downstairs playing with the Kinect. When Alex asks him about it, something flies past the camera.
00:42:06
Speaker
It's scary. It's scary. It's a whoosh. It's a classic PA jump scare. So Alex shows Ben the footage. While Ben isn't completely convinced that something is going on, he does agree to install surveillance software on every computer in their house.
00:42:25
Speaker
Night three. November 2011. 3.23 a.m.
00:42:31
Speaker
three twenty three a m Wyatt and Robbie go downstairs and play pretend. Mom catches them and sends them both back to bed.
00:42:51
Speaker
Now, a day or two later, Alex comes home from school. She thinks she's home alone, but then ah she hears a basketball falling down the stairs.
00:43:03
Speaker
So she goes upstairs and looks around then she finds a neat orderly line of toys leading into Wyatt's room and into the crawl space, like half sized closet that he has in his room that kids have in a lot of these paranormal activity movies.
00:43:19
Speaker
Yeah. I think they really tapped into how freaked out kids are of those closets. God knows those little closets are places of imagination because they're kids only rooms.
00:43:32
Speaker
Oh, they do all have those. Holy shit. Yeah. Yeah. It's a just like, ah like we see in a moment, the swinging chandelier, another running visual theme and the paranormal activity movies.
00:43:46
Speaker
Only this time the chandelier crashes down just inches away from Alex. Her parents come home and are very freaked out. Dad's calling the contractors very upset.
00:43:57
Speaker
And Alex tries to convince her parents that Robbie had something to do with it, but they do not believe her. Predictably, parents just don't understand. No, they don't.
00:44:09
Speaker
Night six, November 11th, Veterans Day, 2.11 a.m. Alex wakes up and sees some lights across the street at Robbie's house.
00:44:24
Speaker
When she goes to investigate, she runs into a friendly middle-aged woman and leaves.
00:44:36
Speaker
The next day, Wyatt is riding his big wheel around the kitchen and an unseen force moves a kitchen chair in his path. This is one of the few, I think one of the first times in a paranormal activity when you're seeing some paranormal activity during the day, very early on in the movie.
00:44:50
Speaker
Is that fair to say, Brooke? Yeah, I think it might be the first. Yeah, an interesting break with tradition there. Yeah. ah Later on, Wyatt and Robbie are playing with magic markers.
00:45:08
Speaker
Magic markers. And Robbie uses them to draw sigils all over Wyatt. When Ben asks Robbie about it, Robbie tells him, he doesn't like you.
00:45:27
Speaker
Night 7, November 12, 3 a.m. Wyatt goes downstairs and talks to Robbie's imaginary friend, Toby.
00:45:44
Speaker
yeah The next day. Alex needs to go investigate and do some research about demons. That's right. She goes to the modern day equivalent of library, Wikipedia.
00:45:57
Speaker
Oh Lord have mercy. Yeah. Oh Lord have mercy. We get a research scene. She wants to investigate one specific sigil that she's seen. And cause you've seen it in a couple places since Robbie started popping up. It's the circle inside the triangle, your classic ah Harry Potter tattoo,
00:46:17
Speaker
That's a recurring iconography throughout the paranormal activity. Okay. Now, it turns out that this is an ancient Hittite sigil that's used to mark someone for demon possession.
00:46:31
Speaker
Sure. Good to know. Later on, mom is using some very poor knife skills to dice some red bell pepper. Yeah. ah But then when she has her back turned, the knife flies upward and disappears.
00:46:47
Speaker
I don't like knife scenes. They always just make me feel. Yeah. It's just like, I know what you're doing. It's effective. I just don't want you to do it. And I don't want to see it.
00:46:58
Speaker
Yeah. It's one of those things that really ratchets up my anxiety. Yeah. And getting cut with a kitchen knife hurts. So bad. Yeah. Yeah. for So long. Yeah. And you know that like a lot of damage can be done very quickly. Yeah. Yeah. One moment of inattention. You're like, now I got to go to the fucking emergency room.
00:47:19
Speaker
Anyway.
00:47:23
Speaker
Night eight, November 13th, 239 AM. Alex hears a thud and goes to look around.
00:47:35
Speaker
a book falls off the bookshelf in the living room. And when she goes to put it back, it falls off again. but
00:47:48
Speaker
the next day, Robbie leads Wyatt over to his house. Alex chases after them and almost gets run over by a Prius and shouts, fucking Prius.
00:47:59
Speaker
One of the good laugh lines of the movie. 2012. right. that's right But also a good sign of the dangers of the ah Prius. They run very quiet.
00:48:10
Speaker
Yeah, they've had to change that now, I think. Yeah. Yeah. They got to put bicycle or baseball cards in the spokes. Mm-hmm. Now, ah she runs into the house where she finds the boys playing.
00:48:23
Speaker
But she also finds Robbie's mom. And Robbie's mom is Katie from the beginning of the movie. And also, cool like, alllthough all the furniture is covered with sheets. It's obvious nobody's living there for a long time.
00:48:37
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Well, they were just moving in.
00:48:40
Speaker
ah is Is that woman the Katie from the previous ones? Is she in the previous ones and it's the same actress? yeah Yes. okay Katie Featherstone keeps on coming on back.
00:48:51
Speaker
um can i just ah i I think the scariest moment for me in this entire film is when she first appears on screen and then she like... She like lights up pretty immediately, but there's this instant on her face where it's like i it where he just said there's just nothing in her eyes. and like that is that's I had to rewind it and watch it again. like Fucking terrifying. And it's just this tiny little moment where it's like you can see there's no Katie there. and she just like
00:49:23
Speaker
And then she snaps too. Anyway, that's enough. No, that was a very effective little moment. No, uh, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. Oh, yes, of course. Night number nine.
00:49:36
Speaker
November 1.21 a.m. Dad is up watching TV. When the computer in the kitchen turns on, he goes to the kitchen, and the knife Mom was using before falls from the ceiling, and it almost hits him.
00:49:54
Speaker
Ah! um Yeah, yeah. It's Chekhov's knife.
00:50:04
Speaker
The next day, Alex asks Wyatt what was going on when he was over at the other house. And ah Katie said to Wyatt that she knew that he was adopted and also his old family needs him back.
00:50:20
Speaker
Now, this to me raises. I'm going to spoil the alert for the next like 10 minutes or so. Wyatt is Hunter. why did Katie give Hunter up for adoption?
00:50:33
Speaker
To more effectively hide him? But she's running around with Robbie, and Robbie's a demon kid too. it's it's got it's I've been puzzling over this because that's there's a lot of stuff in this fourth one that really doesn't make any sense.
00:50:47
Speaker
And one of them is maybe it's like, so that's a one-year-old toddler. They took it away from the mom and she had to go hide it somewhere because it she had to go hide him somewhere so the key you know so the kid could mature to the point where the demon could enter him or something.
00:51:05
Speaker
And it's like, so we go hide him there. Or maybe it's like, they have to be invited in because they invite Robbie in um Or it's like, maybe like there has to be a welcome or something.
00:51:19
Speaker
There's all this stuff that's not answered that, that I like, um I wasn't able to figure out. And I think a lot of it is, it's, it's like,
00:51:31
Speaker
When the demon is coming for someone, they're not going to tell them why they're doing things. You know what I mean? Like, it's like the devil works in mysterious ways. Yeah. the The devil works in his own way because fuck you basically, or it like on fear, you know?
00:51:48
Speaker
Fair enough. Yeah. So wait a second. yeah I realize now that I'm confusing Robbie, Hunter, and Wyatt. and like yeah Not necessarily Robbie and Wyatt, although sometimes I get the names mixed up. I remember the two names and the two boys, but sometimes when you say Robbie, I think Wyatt.
00:52:05
Speaker
But Hunter is someone that I forgot about. So... Robbie is Hunter? No, Wyatt is Hunter. Wyatt is the one that's in the house already, and Robbie is the one that's introduced. yeah And so Wyatt the whole time has been the hunter from the opening of the movie?
00:52:25
Speaker
Yes. Katie gave him up for adoption for devil reasons. Sure. I'd say devil reasons. Sure. Maybe she didn't want to take care of a kid. Yeah, maybe now that he's got a career to think about.
00:52:37
Speaker
Yeah. Um, okay. Didn't, okay. This, things are making more sense to me now. Okay. I'm glad they're making more sense for someone. Okay.
00:52:50
Speaker
Night number 10, November AM.
00:52:55
Speaker
three eighteen a m Wyatt goes downstairs and bathed in the invisible green light of the Xbox Kinect, he tells an unseen figure that his name is not Hunter.
00:53:14
Speaker
Makes that scene make a lot more sense. Yes. No, you thought he was generally like, no, Hunter's across the street. i i was i I was just like, the demon is confusing him for this Hunter boy.
00:53:29
Speaker
This is going end poorly. This is a classic mix them up. Yeah. Yeah. Now he's coming. So he thinks he's Hunter and that's why he's coming after him to speak because he actually is Hunter is why he's coming. in Yeah. How about that?
00:53:41
Speaker
Now the next night it's bath time. Mom tells Wyatt that he can bring his laptop to the bathroom and keep watching TV in the tub, which allows us to keep watching Wyatt, which does sort of paint large the very obvious issue that ah Ben has been using spy software to record children and is now getting footage of them bathing.
00:54:02
Speaker
And it's definitely gotten footage of them changing their clothes. Yeah. Should Ben be in jail? Yeah, I would say yes. They should put him under the jail, I think.
00:54:17
Speaker
If I was Mr. Nelson, I would be coming for Ben at this point. Sure. Now, Mom is distracted. She leaves the bathroom and leaves Wyatt alone to watch TV and bathe.
00:54:30
Speaker
And something grabs Wyatt and pulls him under the surface. And when he comes back, he's different. And this is something that happens in a lot of the paranormal activities, too. People get killed and then they come back different.
00:54:45
Speaker
November, uh, night, night 11, November 16th, 12.03 AM. Mom has given Alex one of her sleeping pills and dad is pissed off about it.
00:55:01
Speaker
Wyatt wanders into Alex's room and Toby, the invisible friend rips off her covers and picks her up.
00:55:13
Speaker
Yeah. The next day. Real paranormal activity. Yeah, that was some real paranormal activity, Red. Yeah, definitely. And at this point, by the way ah Alex isn't able to watch any of this shit happening. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:55:27
Speaker
Because something, something happens and yeah, she doesn't know how to download the file. i actually, I wrote, I was like, why record it if you're not going to watch it?
00:55:38
Speaker
And then they're just like, I can't get in. What's happened to the passwords? was like, okay, so they address it. They address the fact that no one is watching the footage because they literally can't watch the footage because I guess,
00:55:50
Speaker
Toby has changed the password. And they address very early on that it's just a thing that Ben's computer does where he just records. It just records video. I think he was lying. I'm pretty sure he was lying about that.
00:56:04
Speaker
And never. occurred He's also just like, yeah, you just saw it and just wicked ah blah, blah, blah or whatever, you know. ah Yeah, I think maybe he got like the one week shareware trial version on everybody's computer and it probably expired. That's my theory.
00:56:17
Speaker
ah Interesting.
00:56:22
Speaker
it's Night. Oh, sorry. The next day, mom and dad head out and leave Alex to babysit. Little Wyatt. Night number 12. November 1248 a.m. Alex, here's something in the garage.
00:56:37
Speaker
alex here's something in the garage She doesn't think it could be her parents coming home at one in the morning for some reason. She's like, it's too early for my 40 year old parents to be coming home at one in the morning. Uh, you're at the party.
00:56:51
Speaker
So she goes in the garage, uh, where the doors lock and the car starts on their own. Uh, Alex begins to succumb to carbon monoxide poisoning, Katie goes into the house and up to Wyatt's room and tells him Hunter, you're almost ready.
00:57:11
Speaker
Alex breaks into the car and drives it to the garage door in order to escape.
00:57:17
Speaker
When her parents get home, they don't believe her, ah even though. And I guess she can't show them the footage because her software isn't working. Oh, true.
00:57:29
Speaker
Yeah. Now, the next day, ah dad is willing to listen, maybe because he remembers this whole falling knife situation. Yeah.
00:57:40
Speaker
So the two of them leave to talk. They got to get out of the house. while they're out, Toby, the invisible demon friend, kills mom by slamming her into the floor. And then Ben comes over to grab a Pepsi and goes upstairs to Katie's room and or to Alex's room. But then Katie walks in and snaps his neck from behind and throws him in the closet.
00:58:05
Speaker
And then she leaves with Wyatt. When Alex and dad are coming home, they see kaie Katie bringing Wyatt to her place across the street. They split up.
00:58:16
Speaker
Dad goes to investigate. Alex goes home. Alex finds Ben's corpse hidden in her closet. So she runs across the street only to see her father get killed by the invisible demon.
00:58:30
Speaker
And Katie, who now has a distinctly demon-like appearance, chases her around. She hears Wyatt in the backyard, and when she runs out to find him, he stares at her in stone-faced silence as dozens of ladies wearing the Hittite sigil pendants emerge from the darkness, including Demon Katie, who leaps at her just as the camera cuts and the credits roll.
00:58:55
Speaker
The end. Mm-hmm. So, final thoughts. Five-star rating on our two-axes rating rubric.
00:59:07
Speaker
Weirdness and watchability. Who wants to go first? I'll start. Perfect, my love. um I would give this a four stars for watchability. It's very accessible.
00:59:20
Speaker
It has some scary parts. It has ah some cool effects. And it's also not particularly challenging. um I don't think it's very weird, though.
00:59:33
Speaker
I would give it maybe a one and a half for weirdness. That's fair. Yeah. How about you, Greg? ah So as far as weirdness goes, I agree. I don't think it's very weird, especially if you are accustomed to like horror movie tropes. I'm willing to give it a half a star, which is no ah not like a problem. or I'm not saying that that's bad. I'm just saying... like this felt like a lot of like kind of your horror imagery and ideas and so if you are accustomed to horror movies i feel like this won't be too surprising or strange or anything it'll be you know just your kind of standard fare um and as far as watchability go a i would say that this is not my cup of tea
01:00:17
Speaker
But I do agree, it's probably a four on the watchability scale, because I think the average person is just going to have really no problem watching this and probably have a ah decent enough time with it. So I think that that's that's where I'm at with it.
01:00:29
Speaker
How about you, Brooke? First of all, this is a five-star watchability. i I said earlier on, I i watched this... whole series about a couple times a year. i think it's fantastic. But um I do not think it's very weird.
01:00:47
Speaker
um I think it's, i you know, just by definition, like, You know, this is like a very, wasp like for lack of a better term, a very waspy family that just like when they come home there, he's home at five.
01:01:01
Speaker
The lights are out at 1030. It's odd in the course of the movie that he's sleeping on the couch. There are clearly problems, but it's very first world problems that they have.
01:01:12
Speaker
in all of these movies until until the demons are introduced. So just by the nature of of of storytelling, no, it's about a one star for weirdness. Okay.
01:01:23
Speaker
no Well, I i landed at about a three for watchability. I think it was very breezy. You know, for me, it's mostly just that I found the, i find the found footage genre to be very grating for reasons I explained before.
01:01:39
Speaker
ah So your experience may vary. I did like it more on the second watch and I, I feel like I'm beginning to shed my, the found footage chip on my shoulder and approach it on its own terms, but I'm still just not quite there yet.
01:01:54
Speaker
In terms of ah weirdness, I gave it one and a half stars just because I thought it was very weird to have this very Hollywood pretty family in a found footage movie like ah dad looked kind of vaguely Kurt Russell Lee and mom looked like Jane Seymour and Alex our lead was a very beautiful teenage girl i and I want to make sure that I'm saying that in the least creepy way possible you know kid looks like he got pulled off the life cereal box these these were clearly actors in a film
01:02:28
Speaker
Did you guys catch that in your research that the mom and dad were married or a married couple in real life? Yes. oh And he died of a heart attack between production and release.
01:02:44
Speaker
Like that was his last film. That's really sad. That's crazy. Yeah. It's. Something that that still makes me think, you know, you clearly heard me go off a little while ago. I think really hard about these. It's something I think about a lot, like the casual series and stuff. Anyway, just wanted to make sure we got that in there.
01:03:02
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. well and And all due respect, and he did a fine job in this film. And maybe that tinge of sadness will bump it up another half-starred weirdness for me. I'll bump it up to it, too. ah With that, do you guys want to get to the third act of the show?
01:03:20
Speaker
Yeah. no All right. Well, Anna's got our segment this week, and they're going to be talking about TV. Yeah. TV. We talk TV. You talk some TV.
01:03:31
Speaker
Bye, bye, bye, bye.
01:03:37
Speaker
Talking about TV. Talking about TV. Talking about TV. Oh, can't you see? We're talking about TV.
01:03:54
Speaker
All right. So Chris talked about ah how the directors got their Start with the documentary Catfish about Ariel's brother, Neve Shulman.
01:04:06
Speaker
ah Since 2012, Neve has co-hosted Catfish, the TV show on MTV for the first ah like seven and a half seasons. It was with Max Joseph.
01:04:19
Speaker
And since then it's been with Cammie Crawford, who actually, Chris, I ah announced in October that she is leaving the series, which is shame. Oh, so they're going to have an opening.
01:04:30
Speaker
yeah Yeah, you should write in. Yes, I would be a great co-host. I wanted to mention what the term catfish actually meant within the context of the documentary because it's interesting.
01:04:45
Speaker
um that It comes from an urban legend. This story is not true. ah But the um in the in the documentary, the catfish's husband um tells Neve They used to tank cod from Alaska all the way to China.
01:05:05
Speaker
They'd keep them in vats on the ship. By the time the codfish reached China, the flesh was mush and tasteless. so So this guy came up with the idea that if you put these cods in these big vats, put some catfish in with them, and the catfish will keep the cod agile.
01:05:21
Speaker
I guess because they're predators? And there are those people who are catfish in life, and they keep you on your toes. They keep you guessing. They keep you thinking. They keep you fresh.
01:05:31
Speaker
And I thank God for the catch-ish because we would be boring and dull if we didn't have someone nipping at our fin. So that's one way to rationalize the fact that your wife has been messaging a 25-year-old um yeah and using another woman's photos.
01:05:51
Speaker
um the term But the term... really started taking off ah not even with I would say the first season of the show ah but in 2013 after Mante Teo was catfished It was added to Merriam-Webster's dictionary in 2014.
01:06:10
Speaker
So the setup of the show, if there's anyone who hasn't watched it, ah it's set up that, you know, the hopeful, someone who is in an online relationship but isn't sure if the other person is real, ah they send an email to Niamh and Max or Niamh and Cammie, and, you know, then they investigate...
01:06:34
Speaker
ah They'll you know reverse search the images and look at you know the phone numbers that they have and you know see what other people um they connect to.
01:06:48
Speaker
um yeah um Now that's how it's set up. That's how the story is told. That's not what actually happens. um it It's usually the catfish thing.
01:07:01
Speaker
who reaches out apparently, um which, which really makes more sense, you know, because, because otherwise you would, you would, you would start shows, you know, you would, you would start a story without knowing how it would end.
01:07:19
Speaker
um And when you have the, when you cast the liar first, you can kind of work backwards from that. And so the producers, would do that. um You know, they would do all the, all the legwork and background investigation. They would, they, you know, do background checks on everybody, which yeah makes sense. And everybody has to sign waivers before filming, you know, legally.
01:07:45
Speaker
um But the hosts aren't provided with that information. um So it's set up that they start at the other end, And, you know, sort of follow ah who sort of yeah follow clues to get to the catfish.
01:08:05
Speaker
um and This is what Niamh had to say about it in a 2014 interview. A lot of the stories that we get come from the catfish side of things. People who feel so terrible that they've been lying to a friend or a lover on the internet for a long time.
01:08:21
Speaker
They want to come clean, but they fear if they simply told the truth, the other person would be very upset that they've been lied to and deceived and likely discard them. And so they're hopeful that by coming on the show, maybe we can facilitate some kind of amicable exchange that they can be heard, explain themselves in a more objective and nonjudgmental way.
01:08:41
Speaker
ah So it's tricky, but everything is real. The feelings are real. The relationships are real. We haven't created any scenarios We don't tell people what to say or do. It's very unpredictable.
01:08:53
Speaker
So, I love this show. Great show. Yeah. i it is It is trash. It is exploitative to a large extent.
01:09:06
Speaker
But what I love about it is part one, ah you know, I love a mystery. um now it's It's fun to watch the investigations. But Two, it's also one is one of the few shows, even reality shows these days, like, tend to cast pretty people.
01:09:30
Speaker
And Catfish just doesn't do that. Like, you know, sometimes sometimes people who are on there are attractive, but, like, a lot of people a lot of people catfish, you know, because they're fat or because they have another insecurity.
01:09:48
Speaker
um about themselves. And so a lot of the times, you know, it's just these very ordinary looking people and the show at least pays lip service to the fact that, you know, they deserve love for who they are. um And that, you know, and the show also, i think, pays some, again, you know, it may be lip service, but at least they're saying it, that, you know, it is,
01:10:16
Speaker
you shouldn't lie to people that you want to be in a relationship with. ah But you should also maybe recognize red flags and ah et cetera, et cetera. Chris, do you want to say anything about this? I know you've watched, you're a fan of the show as well.
01:10:33
Speaker
Yes. And, and I have watched a lot. I'm going to say pretty much every episode of catfish together. Uh, and I, I like that as formulaic as it sounds, you genuinely never know what person they're going to discover at the third act of the show.
01:10:48
Speaker
And I think that's always fun. You can always get wrapped up and be like, I bet this guy's fucking fake, you know, or maybe this is, maybe this one's real. That's always a fun tension that exists consistently throughout the show.
01:11:01
Speaker
Have they turned out to be real every now and then? ah Okay. I'd say maybe one in five. Okay. Oh, wow. That's a, that's a great twist. Sometimes it's just someone that was shy and didn't want to meet you.
01:11:14
Speaker
You know, sometimes they just, you know, are agoraphobic or something, you know, sometimes they just are who they claim to be. They just have legitimate reasons not to come meet you. And I do feel like that it is very humane.
01:11:26
Speaker
and i like that. It's, uh, coming from a place of sort of emotional maturity, but it's never talking down to people like this is the kind of stuff that you would be seeing on like Maury Povich in the early nineties, but made in a better way, you know? So you, you get to have a little bit of ah exploitative voyeurism, but you also, you don't walk away feeling gross about it. You do feel like there is some sort of,
01:11:58
Speaker
genuine and obviously it's TV I don't know how genuine any of it is but you walk away feeling like it's at least genuinely emotionally supportive of these people yeah yeah i mean I will just mention my favorite episode though which contains the hopeful who you do not root for because he thinks that he's been in a relationship with Katy Perry for like six years and will not believe them when they say he's not in a relationship with Katy Perry that one is great That's so strange.
01:12:30
Speaker
Like every now and then throughout the course of the episode, the last one, like on a scale of one to 10 at this point, based on what we've shown you all this research, that it's not Katy Perry. Where do you think you're at in terms of this being Katy Perry? And every time he's like, gotta be a 10.
01:12:45
Speaker
This is exactly the kind of thing Katy would do. Wow. Interesting. So that's a great place to start. Well, with that, do you guys want to play this week's game?
01:12:57
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. All right, we're going to be playing Guess the Title.
01:13:10
Speaker
Let me tell you about this brand new game. Where you guess the movie's name. You just tell me what the title is prove you know about showbiz.
01:13:25
Speaker
Guess the title. Whippa, whippa, whippa, whippa. Guess the title. Gooby, gooby, gooby, gooby. Guess the title. Guess the title.
01:13:36
Speaker
Come on, honey. the title. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:13:48
Speaker
That's right. We're playing Guess the Title. And we're going be doing the films of an actor called Robert Clotworthy. That's one. That's a heck of a name.
01:13:58
Speaker
It's a great name. Chemophiliacs love to see this guy coming. Yeah. He ah was credited just as voice.
01:14:09
Speaker
Okay. Maybe he did like spooky ghost voices, or maybe he did a voice on a TV that was in the background. It's tough to say. he is most famous for narrating the shows, ancient aliens and the curse of Oak Island. Oh, okay. Interesting.
01:14:28
Speaker
Good credits. And he also, he did a bunch of films as an actor. He did video game voice work. ah So I went through his filmography and I found nine films. I'm going to give you a brief description of the film and three titles.
01:14:44
Speaker
I want you to guess what the title is. and This is a buzz in game. You'll buzz in by saying your own name.
01:14:54
Speaker
And if you don't get it, your opponents will have the chance to steal. Does any of you have any questions? Nope. um All right. Question number one.
01:15:07
Speaker
A little Jeep had its engine fan replaced with an airplane repeller. And dreams of taking to the skies and flying like a plane. Is that Tugger's Tale?
01:15:22
Speaker
Tugger, the Jeep four by four who wanted to fly or here comes Tugger. Brooke. Brooke. It's Tugger's tale.
01:15:33
Speaker
I'm sorry. It wasn't Tugger's tale. Very good guess. Can either you guys steal? ah Greg. Greg. What was the third one that you said? That was here comes Tugger.
01:15:44
Speaker
That's the one.
01:15:47
Speaker
Nope. I'm sorry. Anna gets the point. It is Tugger, the Jeep 4x4 who wanted to fly. Great title. One heck of a title. It tells you what it is, which is what I like about it.
01:16:00
Speaker
I hope they say the title in that one. Yes, I hope they do too. Question number two. International disaster looms as the USS substandard has to race to get a nuclear weapon ahead of Russian forces.
01:16:17
Speaker
Is that going under dive dive or the craziest sub in the Pacific? Dear Lord. Anna.
01:16:28
Speaker
Anna. Dive. Dive. yeah I'm sorry. It was not dive dive. Brooke. Brooke. I'm going to guess going under.
01:16:42
Speaker
That's correct. Brooke is on the board. Okay. Good work. Quick. Question number three. a security specialist is hired to deliver a valuable computer.
01:16:54
Speaker
She is joined by her former lover who has plans of his own for the computer. Must be a special computer. It is.
01:17:05
Speaker
That's the premise. Is that two of a kind spelled T-O-O triple cross or sooner or later? Greg.
01:17:17
Speaker
Greg? Sooner or later. That doesn't make any sense. And that's why it's not it. that's No, that's a good reason to eliminate it. But not always. Yeah.
01:17:29
Speaker
Anna or Brooke? Anna? Anna. Triple crown. Triple cross? Triple cross. Correct. Hey. Hey.
01:17:44
Speaker
Question number four.
01:17:47
Speaker
When best friends win a trip to LA in a music contest, one of them has to pretend to be a girl to collect the prize. Oh boy. Is that LA or bust?
01:18:01
Speaker
Mixing it up for he's my girl. Brooke. Brooke. LA or bust. Now that was a Chris original.
01:18:12
Speaker
Greg. Greg. He's my girl. That's correct. Greg's on the board. That's unfortunate, but here we are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a rough one.
01:18:24
Speaker
Question number five. When Duke Jarrett is sent to prison, it's more like a zoo than a jail and the inmates are in charge, which makes it unlike a zoo.
01:18:36
Speaker
Yeah. Is that do in time, human garbage, or the goofballs of cell block D?
01:18:49
Speaker
Anna. Wow. Anna. Due in time. Correct. Oh, thank God. I wanted it to be goofballs real bad. That's a really good one.
01:19:03
Speaker
Yeah, maybe I should write that. and Question number six. Frustrated with the rat race, Richard Jackson decides to buy a goat, disconnect the electricity, and become self-sufficient.
01:19:17
Speaker
But will this life be any less annoying? Is that Jackson's folly? Like our ancestors or the checks in the mail?
01:19:33
Speaker
Greg? but hang The checks in the mail? That's correct. okay That was one where I was just like, that doesn't make any sense. So I'm going to go with it again.
01:19:46
Speaker
Yeah, that's one I want to come up with.
01:19:51
Speaker
Question number seven. Mary becomes a nun at 16, but she never gets used to the strict rules of her new life. And when she falls in love with Father Tim, she wants to withdraw her vow.
01:20:05
Speaker
Is that original sinners, shattered vows, or for the love of Wow. wow
01:20:17
Speaker
Brooke. Brooke. Shattered vows.
01:20:23
Speaker
That's correct. Nice. Okay. Yes.
01:20:29
Speaker
It is two to two to three. Still very much anyone's game. Question number eight. This is an interesting filmography. He had about 190 credits, if I remember correctly. So he had a lot that I could pull from. him Yeah.
01:20:40
Speaker
Wow. This guy worked.
01:20:44
Speaker
Question number eight. A very intelligent teenager is sent to college where he meets his roommate, a popular jock, and must learn to adapt to adult life, wild parties, and romance.
01:20:59
Speaker
Is that the new odd couple, Gadzooks, or the kid with 200 IQ? Greg. gregg Greg.
01:21:11
Speaker
Gadzooks.
01:21:15
Speaker
I'm cutting that out for the soundboard. but Brooke.
01:21:22
Speaker
The new odd couple. Fuck it. No, I wish. Anna gets a point. It's the kid with 200 IQ. The kid with 200 IQ played by Gary Coleman.
01:21:35
Speaker
Oh, Gary. All right. Last question.
01:21:42
Speaker
Devastated by the death of JFK, Dallas-based hairstylist boards a bus for the funeral in Washington, D.C., where she meets a perplexing father and daughter who greatly impact her journey.
01:21:56
Speaker
Is that Freedom Bus, Love Field, or Camelot Down? Anna.
01:22:06
Speaker
Anna? Love Field. Love Field. Correct. It was Love Field. Hey. Stars Michelle Pfeiffer as the hairdresser.
01:22:17
Speaker
How about that? ah Congratulations. for Michelle. Yeah. she She liked to work, too. I wonder what she's up to these days. ah Congratulations to Anna.
01:22:28
Speaker
You're the big wiener this week. And that just means one thing, everybody. It's time for the Batty Awards.
01:22:41
Speaker
Now you're messing with the Batty Awards. Congratulations to all the nominees.
01:23:05
Speaker
That's right. Congratulations to all our nominees. Congratulations to you, listeners. You made to the Batty Awards the only award show that is good. Greg, do you have a Batty Award? Yeah, my Batty Award goes to the last thing that I expected to be in this film, and that is ah ah the song Dragula.
01:23:23
Speaker
yeah So I'm going to give my Batty Award to Dragula. It was just like this song in 2012 in this movie. This is this is an interesting choice. It's late, isn't Yeah, like it like, I was like, is this is this like jet set radio? Like, is this ah if my is it sophomore year college again?
01:23:40
Speaker
ah It was very it was just strange to hear it. And then also now that you mentioned that they're in complete darkness dancing to it, it just becomes that much more hilarious to me. that It's just like two 15 year olds and an eight year old just bouncing around in the dark to to Dragula.
01:23:58
Speaker
So to enjoy your batty award. Dragula. Fantastic. Congratulations to Dragula. Slam this award in the back of you Uh, I'm going to give, ah my baddie award to, uh, obviously we all remember when mom was doing a really bad chopping up those red bell peppers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then the knife disappeared and, uh, she gets the best backup knife.
Kitchen Talk: Santoku Knife
01:24:22
Speaker
We all have it in the kitchen. We never use it. The Santoku knife. I think this is the only situation that would probably need to go grab the Santoku. Here's to you, Santoku, the best backup knife. Mm Anna, do you have a Batty Award?
01:24:40
Speaker
I do. It's ah one in my occasional series, Hey, That Person Was on Supernatural. Carry my wayward son.
01:24:52
Speaker
And that is ah Catherine Newton as Alex. um This was actually a couple of years before she played ah the teenage Claire Novak on Supernatural.
01:25:06
Speaker
um She's actually, I think, the most successful actor to come out of that series. Because she's done and several um like fun horror movies ah recently. She was in ah Freaky, which is by... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The script is by...
01:25:27
Speaker
um Christopher Landon, who wrote several of the Paranormal Activity movies. ah She was also supporting cast in Abigail, which is about a vampire ballerina.
01:25:38
Speaker
i haven't seen that one yet, but it's about a vampire ballerina, so how bad can it really be? ah for good thing That's not the one about the doll? What's the one about the haunted doll? Megan. No, no not that's the robot Companion.
01:25:51
Speaker
No, older. Companion was great, by the way. Hmm. Yeah. Okay. Good to know. I love Well, there's another one that's like part of the insidious universe.
01:26:02
Speaker
That's like Annabelle. Annabelle. What did you say? Abigail. Abigail. It's close enough. Come on, Hollywood. Cut me some slack. Brooke, do you have a Batty Award?
01:26:13
Speaker
I do. I was going to give it to Katie, my favorite screen queen, but I'm going to throw it to ah Alex's ah songwriting skill as, ah you know, in that you know that improvised little song about Bobby and then hiding in the treehouse.
01:26:30
Speaker
Yeah. You know, I write songs every day. It's part of what I've been doing for a while. And so and ah they often sound like that. I know it's not.
01:26:42
Speaker
That's a little favorite little touch of that movie for me Nice. Very nice. Yeah. the The journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step. She just needs to keep chopping away at that marble. She'll get that great song. Sure.
Brooke's Music Projects
01:26:54
Speaker
Sure.
01:26:54
Speaker
sure Well, thank you so much for listening this week, everybody. Thank you for coming out and hanging out with us, Brooke. Do you have anything to plug? I know you're always doing a million things. I'm working on a record. I've got a record coming out later this year called only I can prevent forest fires.
01:27:10
Speaker
Um, nice. That's my eighth record. But the most recent thing I have is, uh, a, a split seven inch single with a band called milk street from, uh, or in O main.
01:27:20
Speaker
Um, they're just a band I met a couple of years ago and we agreed to do a, a seven inch together. And my side is the first, the first thing I ever um produced entirely by myself. It's all home mixed and nice it was very, very tiniest exception. All the instrumentation was made.
01:27:39
Speaker
on an OP1 keyboard. Really? Oh, sick. Yeah. well I'll send a link to that. Please. Yes, that will be our closing credits this week.
01:27:50
Speaker
So listeners, stick around and listen to that. Pick up Brooks 7-inch. We'll put a link in the show notes. Send me a link and we'll direct people right to you. Totally. and And if people wanted to follow you online, what's the best place to do that?
01:28:03
Speaker
I'm at Brooke Pride More on everything. ah Brooke with no E, Pride More. B-R-O-O-K-P-R-I-D-E-M-O-R-E on everything except Reddit where I'm the guy from Pearl Jam.
01:28:15
Speaker
um And ah at Pride More on Letterboxd. um But it's just like the three word sound in the English language, Brooke Pride More. i Most active on ah Instagram and TikTok and threads lately.
01:28:33
Speaker
All right. Well, listeners track down, Brooke, track down. Brooke's music is all great stuff. And ah come back next week when we'll be having our second anti-folk guest in a row and a latest member of the
Upcoming Episode Teaser
01:28:48
Speaker
three timers club. but Preston Spurlock will be back and we'll be talking about Neil Young's human highway.
01:28:55
Speaker
I'm very excited to check this one out. Interesting. You don't want to miss it. And hey, you know what I'm going to do right now? I'm going to tell you to give us five stars.
01:29:07
Speaker
Five stars is free, brother. That's what I always say.
Listener Engagement and Farewell
01:29:10
Speaker
I would give you five stars. You know that that's true. It would. Yeah. In fact, if you want to shoot us an email at favoritebadmoviepod at gmail.com, possibly favoritebadmoviepodcast at gmail.com. No, it's pod.
01:29:25
Speaker
It's favoritebadmoviepod gmail.com. Email us. Tell me something you want me to give five stars to, you know, I'm going to do it. And, ah You can also, you can find us on blue sky at favorite bad movie.bsky.social.
01:29:42
Speaker
ah You can find us on Instagram. You can get all that through the link tree and you know, anything you can do to spread the word about the show is always very much appreciated. You know, that's true.
01:29:53
Speaker
ah So I guess that wraps things up until next week. Be good. Goodbye. Goodbye. good bank
01:31:08
Speaker
I tell you I can drive, but I can't. tell you I can drive, but I can't. I tell you can drive, but I can't. I tell you I can drive, but I can't.
01:31:19
Speaker
I tell you I can drive, but I can't. I tell you I can drive, but I can't. I tell you can drive, but I can't. Oh. So for a change, I'm gonna know