2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

Happy (Belated) Valentine’s Day! This week’s episode is a load of fun – a true Valentine’s Day film that flew under our radar for years. Finding such a hidden “so bad it’s good” gem was like biting into our favorite bon bon in a box of chocolates. Laugh along with us! Loyal listeners, we love you all.

Transcript coming soon!

So happy to have regular guest, Heather, join us to cover the latest Osgood Perkins film, Longlegs, starring Nicholas Cage in an almost unrecognizable role.

Episode 427, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd:  Hello, and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

And joining us here on the show for the, I don’t know, fourth, fifth time is our good friend Heather. Say hello to the people, Heather.

Heather:  Hi, everybody. I’m so happy to be back.

Todd:  It’s so great to have you here.

Craig:  We’re super excited to have you. Yeah. It’s always good to have you. I invited Heather because you and I decided to do this movie. Is this this is a request. Right? Or did you just decide you wanted to do it?

Todd:  Yeah. This was a request by several people, had put so we put it in our request pool. And then as our patrons always get to choose our request, we put it as part of a poll of, I think, three or four movies. And this one won out. So that’s why we’re doing it. Right. It’s high demand.

Craig:  Yes. We’re doing twenty twenty four’s long legs. And the reason that I asked Heather to join us last minute, like, I just texted her yesterday, yesterday. Like, we’re doing this. It’s because she saw it, like, a month ago and asked me about it and was excited to talk about it, and I hadn’t seen it. And I got around to watching it for this, and it made me think of her. And so I decided to, ask her to join us for the conversation. So, Heather, it’s been like a month since you first said something about it.  So what were you excited to talk about when you first saw it?

Heather:  When I saw the previews for it and I saw that Nic Cage was in it, I was intrigued because it felt like a totally different character than he’s ever played. We all know that Nic Cage well, I I enjoy him very much, but he is kind of a one note performer. Right? Like, it’s the same in most movies while enjoyable. This felt totally different, so I was really excited to see what it was going to be.

Craig:  Yeah. I don’t know if I would say that Nic Cage is one note. I think that he’s just wacky and, like, I don’t know. There’s always, like, a Nic caginess about him.

Heather:  Right. Right.

Todd:  A caginess. Poor guy. I think we’ve talked about this before, but I have no problem with the Nick Cage. I love the guy. I I watch most everything he’s in, and I I think more than anything, he is perfectly cast in everything he’s in because people kinda know what he does and, what his range is, and he never disappoints me in anything. Well, look. I mean, we’ve done what was that one, though? The Wicker Man? The Wicker Man remake. Yeah.  Not his fault. No. It’s just a silly, silly remake. You know, just a concept that didn’t fly. Not really he’s a bad actor, I think. So I was happy to do this.

Craig:  Me too. As a very, very amateur actor, I respect and appreciate actors who make bold choices, who go for it. Yes. And he always goes for it. Like, I and I respect that, and I appreciate it. Some does it come across as silly sometimes? Absolutely. Great. I would rather that than boring.

Todd:  For sure.

Craig:  I didn’t really know anything about this movie going in other than that he was in it, but I I didn’t know in what capacity or what role he was playing. And one of my favorite things about this movie, and I liked a lot of things about it, is that I felt like maybe more than ever, Nick Cage disappeared into this role.

Todd:  Mhmm.

Craig:  Now he he had a lot of help with he with makeup. Yeah. But if I hadn’t known if I had gone into this movie knowing nothing about it, I bet money I wouldn’t have said, hey. That’s Nic Cage. Right.

Todd:  Right. I wouldn’t have known. Yeah. Unrecognizable in this.

Heather:  Well, in in the filming itself, they they hide him. Do you know what I mean? Like, as we get into talking about it Yes. You rarely see a full face of him until closer to the end. So

Todd:  Right. That’s true, actually. And then when you do, he doesn’t look like Nic Cage.

Craig:  Right. It’s suitable to the character. Like, the character is intentionally masking Mhmm. Himself, which we’ll get to. I I feel like there is so much to talk about that we should get into it. The first thing that I would say is I was disappointed. I got about forty five minutes into it, and I was disappointed that I didn’t know more about it going into it. Because if I had, I would have asked Alan to watch it with me because it’s largely a crime procedural.  Yeah. Like, it’s mostly a crime procedure.

Heather:  Yeah. It has very silence of the lamb vibes that way, right, where you don’t see a lot of gore or horror necessarily. It’s just the the investigation itself.

Craig:  It’s an investigation. It’s, yeah, it’s a it’s an extended episode of, like, CSI or something and a good one, an interesting one. But I don’t know. There’s one of those I can’t remember which one of the maybe it is CSI, but there’s one of them that’s really dark. And Alan watches it. And every once in a while, I’ll catch an episode, and I’ll be like, I can’t believe you won’t watch movies with me when you’re watching this. Like, it’s Yeah. The it’s so dark, like, these dark scary serial killers.  And that’s what this is about. I mean, if we’re gonna get specific, it opens with a quote from a song. You’re slim and you’re weak. You’ve got the teeth of a hydra upon you. You’re dirty sweet. You’re my girl. And I couldn’t I was like, why does that sound familiar? I googled it. It’s from that song, get it on, get it on.  You know what I mean? Oh. Yeah. You know that song.

Todd:  Well, you’re slammed.

Craig:  That I think plays over the credits.

Todd:  Yes. You’re dirty, sweet, and you’re my girl. Oh, I get it. Yeah.

Clip:  Yeah. Yeah.

Todd:  You’re right.

Craig:  And then a station wagon pulls up to a snowy house and it all looks very seventies. It’s filmed in that aspect ratio that they filmed in in the seventies. And a little girl, like, goes outside to see who’s in the car, but she just sees somebody’s, like, humped in there. She hears something behind her, and I heard it, but I couldn’t hear what it was. It was only after I watched a YouTube video later. What she hears is

Clip:  cuckoo Mhmm.

Craig:  Really quietly behind her. And she turns around and she walks into her backyard. And in my notes, I said, there’s a creepy woman

Clip:  Yep. Who says There she is. The almost birthday girl. Oh, but it seems I wore my long legs today. What happens if I

Craig:  And that’s how it opens.

Todd:  Yeah. That’s like a typical seventies style opening. Right? What other couple of films have we done that open up with a loud music cue and then the time Cabin in the Woods references it Todd. Right? Just like bam. And it’s freeze frame and title. But I don’t know why. The movie doesn’t feel like it’s trying to be retro in any way. I don’t know.  I I mean, obviously, it’s a period piece.

Craig:  I thought that it was interesting the way that they anytime you’re seeing the flashbacks to presumably, like, the seventies, I guess, it is in that particular, like, TV screen aspect ratio.

Todd:  That’s true.

Craig:  And anytime it’s in their present, it’s in letterbox. Right. And they make a a point of, like, pointing that out. It starts, as I said before, like, in that TV ratio. And then with the opening credits, it slowly and slowly and slowly widens until it’s in Letterboxd, and then it’s in Letterboxd in the present day, which present day is only the nineties. Right. Yeah. I can only imagine that that choice was made for storytelling purposes, like

Todd:  To get cell phones out of it?

Craig:  Yeah. To get cell phones out of it, to get all of the technology out of it because you kind of need this to be an older school investigation. Like, we need to go through the stacks,

Clip:  and we need to, like

Craig:  like, look at the microfiche. Like, we can’t just have everything at our fingertips that would make it too easy.

Todd:  I miss that stuff so much. When when things required work.

Heather:  Right?

Clip:  Well, I

Craig:  mean, it was more of a pain it was more of a pain in the butt in the moment, but, like, it made for better montages.

Todd:  That’s right. You had always had to go to the library. Right. Now it’s just they sit at a computer and Google shit. It’s not nearly as captivating.

Heather:  I liked the continual reference to the nineties with president Clinton behind the desk. And every time we were in the office, it was like, oh, there’s Clinton again.

Todd:  That was funny.

Craig:  I don’t know if you guys saw it or not, but in the script, it was set one year before they decided to set it when they filmed it. Because if they had set it when it was scripted, George Bush still would have been the president, and the director didn’t want a great big picture of George Bush up in the background.

Clip:  So they

Craig:  bumped it up a year.

Todd:  The director is Osgood Perkins too. That was a surprise. I didn’t know.

Craig:  This is wild. Yeah. Do you know who he is?

Todd:  Yeah. He’s Anthony Perkins’ son.

Craig:  He’s Anthony Perkins’ son. Yeah. To read all of this, like, I had no idea. I knew nothing about this movie. I knew nothing about him. I looked him up. And the first thing that I recognized him from was Legally Blonde, Heather.

Heather:  Really?

Craig:  Yes. He was, the nerdy guy, her friend.

Heather:  Oh, you’re right.

Clip:  Yeah. I just looked up a picture. Wow.

Craig:  Yep. But he’s also apparently a filmmaker and, son of Anthony Perkins. And when I read that and I read quotes from him talking about he wrote this movie about family secrets.

Todd:  Mhmm.

Craig:  Like, all families have secrets. And, ultimately, that is at the core of this movie. I mean, it’s a mystery, and that’s the that’s what you find out. Like, that’s what we’re building towards. But families have secrets. And the secret in his family was that his dad was gay. Right. I can only imagine that that would be a traumatic thing.  You know, not not traumatic that your dad is gay, but that you’re all living with this secret. Like, that’s gotta be hard.

Heather:  Right.

Todd:  Well, and his mother was actually trying to keep it from them for a while. So, you know, it’s also just like the secret revealed. Right? That’s also, you know, like, oh my Todd. There’s been a secret for so long, and now as I’m an adult, I’m just now learning about this. Way to go, mom. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Right. You know? The skeletons in the closet coming out, and so that’s really a big focus of the plot of the movie too, I think.  And he also mentioned he took it after Ramsey murder, I think just a few days before she was murdered. She was murdered around Christmas, and I believe that’s still unsolved. Yeah. But it was a big scandal, and she had her parents had just given her a life size doll replica of her.

Craig:  Woah. Oh, I didn’t know or remember that.

Todd:  Yeah. So he kinda took those two ideas and just mashed it together. He said, you know, people gave him advice. Start from something interesting and and just go in crazy directions and see where it is. And so he’s like, I’m gonna go in this crazy direction from this idea of this doll mashed up with this family secret that my mom hid for me as I was growing up, and we’re just gonna go with it. And, that’s probably why the plot is so bizarre.

Craig:  It is bizarre, but I think that it’s very well plotted. That’s part of what kept me so into it is we’ve talked about a lot of things. We’ve already kind of revealed some secrets vaguely. But as you’re watching the movie, it seems, at first, to be very procedural. It’s divided into three parts. The first one is just called part one. And we’re introduced to our main character, agent Lee Harker and her partner, agent Fisk. And they’re going door to door.  They’re FBI, I guess. They’re going door to door looking for a serial killer. And while her partner is just knocking on doors, you know, have you seen this guy? She’s standing in the Todd, and she kind of hears things, and the camera perspective kind of swings around her. And she stares at this one house. And her partner comes back, and she’s like

Clip:  It’s that one.  What’s what one?  30 five 20 five. He’s in there.  When did you say that?  I don’t know. We should call it in.  What? No. Look. No. No. Because we’re not gonna call it a hunch on our first day out doing this.

Craig:  And he goes and knocks on the door and gets shot in the head Mhmm.

Todd:  Right away.

Craig:  Right in front of her. Mhmm. And she walks in the house.

Todd:  Oh, god.

Craig:  This is another one of those movies much like The Substance where I kind of had to suspend my disbelief. Like Yeah. Don’t be so stupid. Like, are you serious? Are you just gonna, like, walk you’re not gonna call anybody? Like Yeah. But whatever. She goes in there by herself, and the guy just surrenders. And that’s the end of that. But that sets up that she’s kind of psychic.  So another FBI guy, agent Carter, Blair Underwood, does, like, the Bill Murray Ghostbusters psychic test on her and determines determines that she’s kind of psychic. Yeah. And, like, they have a little talk about it, and he’s like, well, 50% psychic’s better than no psychic. I will stop talking and let you guys take it over, but I just wanna tell you that it drove me crazy that they never really talked about that again.

Todd:  You mean that incident or her psychicness?

Craig:  Well, that that she’s just kind of psychic. Like Mhmm.

Heather:  Yeah. It’s it’s like we’re in a world where it’s it is normal. Like, it that that felt like a whole big thing that should have been, discussed more.

Craig:  Maybe we can make a leap and say that it has something that has to do with what happened to her that we find out about later, but that’s never explained.

Heather:  Right.

Craig:  Like, it’s just established. Yeah. She’s kinda psyched.

Heather:  Right. No big deal.

Todd:  Yeah. You know, by the way, she, agent Lee Harker, is played by Micah Monroe, and we’ve talked about her before. She was in The Guest, which to date is still one of our most popular episodes, and that was a great movie.

Craig:  I liked that movie.

Todd:  She was also in It Follows, which came out in 2014 the same time as The Guest. So Yeah. I’m looking at the rest of her filmography here, and there just isn’t much that I have seen. It was a TV series called The Stranger in 2020 that she was a part of.

Craig:  Oh, yeah. I was watching this YouTube video. This guy was kind of analyzing things, and he very, very briefly mentioned that a lot of people who have watched this movie and commented on it said that her character is kind of autism coded.

Todd:  Oh.

Craig:  Not blatantly autistic, but it’s suggested. And I kind of see that. I feel like she’s making very distinctive choices in her acting, and and she’s kind of flat.

Todd:  And

Craig:  I think that that’s intentional. She’s kind of emotionally flat. Yeah. There’s a so I said I’d shut up, but you guys didn’t jump in. So she gets put on she gets put on this case where these families are getting murdered, entire families, mother, you know, mother, father, children. And it’s always the dad that does it, And it’s always within six days of the daughter’s birthday, which is always on the first fourteenth of any given month. And the only clue that they have are these letters that are left behind, but they’re coded and they can’t decode them, but they’re signed long legs. And there’s no forced entry.  Like, it doesn’t seem like anybody else came in there. So that’s the big mystery. The point I was trying to get to was she eventually goes to her partner’s house who has a daughter Yeah. Which it’s so obvious. Like, a a young daughter who mentions her birthday, asks Harker if she’ll come to the birthday party. Like, the it’s Yeah. Birthday is mentioned so many times in the beginning. Like, it’s so obvious.

Heather:  Well, and, specifically, the ninth birthday. It’s all the girls turning nine.

Craig:  Yes. Yeah. But that scene that scene with the daughter and Harker in the daughter’s room is a very awkward scene, and I could see how some people might think that Harker was autism Todd, because she seems very socially uncomfortable. And she’s that way through most of the movie.

Todd:  She feels like a traumatized person.

Heather:  Well, and she even says it because she takes Carter home that night, and he says, come inside to meet my family. And she says, do I have to? And he’s like, yep. So you can tell that she’s, resistant to social situations.

Craig:  Me too. Same.

Todd:  You can relate.

Craig:  I totally can relate.

Heather:  Well, after this is when she goes home

Craig:  Yeah.

Heather:  And she’s calls her mom, and we recognize that they have an interesting, possibly sort of strained relationship. But then she hears noises and goes to investigate what’s going on in her house.

Todd:  Yeah. This is another part where I had to suspend my disbelief because she’s sitting in her house. It’s quiet, and she’s alone, and it’s snowing outside or something. Is it snowing? In my head, it was snowing anyway.

Craig:  I mean, it’s very, you know, horror movie It’s dark. Outside.

Todd:  Right. But she’s got these big windows. So and she’s sitting in front of them with no shades drawn. And so, you know, I mean, you’re she’s pretty exposed in there. And, she sees something. And then we get this whole typical horror movie where she’s going out to investigate when she probably shouldn’t be. And then when she turns around, she sees a there’s a figure inside of her house

Clip:  Mhmm.

Todd:  Which, again, in my circumstance, I’d be like, alright. Call the cops or, oh, you know, get out of there. Do something.

Heather:  Right.

Todd:  She decides to go in just like she did before. Now are we supposed to believe that because she’s psychic, she has some kind of sixth sense to be able to avoid the danger that she’s walking into? Because she walks through her house not very thoroughly and when she gets to the room where she was just in she sees an envelope sitting on her desk and she instantly gets transfixed by the envelope and I was like girl turn around. Right. Clearly now you know somebody has been in your house. You were still there and now you’re just gonna sit down and engage with this envelope for a while. And this led to me doing the thing that I did the most throughout this movie, which I I continually found myself scanning the background.

Clip:  Yes. Yeah.

Todd:  And it’s so funny because, you know, she was in It Follows. I mean, that was another movie where after a while, you just continually are scanning the background just as much as the foreground. But we also talked about that in The Shining where there’s just these long lingering wide shots. Even in close-up, the shots are wide, where you can see lots of the background and things are slow and not much is being said if anything at all. And so your eyes just wander and you do kinda start to get a little nervous. And I think that one thing that this movie did for me more than anything else was it kept and maintained an intensity Mhmm. Where I felt like something bad was gonna happen very, very soon Mhmm. Most of the movie, and I was constantly watching the background so I wouldn’t be surprised by it.  I thought that was an accomplishment.

Craig:  When you were watching the background, did you see anything?

Heather:  That’s what I was just gonna say.

Todd:  So you’re gonna get to the the devil stuff. Occasionally, I

Craig:  did. Because you should have seen the devil. Because the devil is in the background a lot.

Todd:  Many times.

Craig:  I didn’t see it at all. It was it was only when I watched something that pointed it out that I saw it. But then when it was pointed out, I was like Yeah. Holy shit. Like, how did I miss that? Like, it was so obviously there in one scene in particular, but there are multiple times throughout where the devil is in the background. Spoiler alert, it’s the devil.

Todd:  Nothing less than the devil.

Heather:  I watched this with my boys the first time. And so they were the ones who caught the because the very first one you see is when she’s going through the house, and you just see, like, a silhouette of, like, a goat person. And it’s so cool and and simple.

Todd:  Mhmm.

Heather:  So it became their job for the whole movie to point out every time every time they saw it.

Todd:  Oh, wow. That’s Eagle eyes. It’s you know, and that’s that’s one of those things. Maybe it’s also a little subliminal for us

Clip:  Uh-huh.

Todd:  But also, like, once you find it once, then you’re gonna start looking for it more.

Heather:  For sure.

Todd:  And I remember, I think the first time I saw it, it was either in her house or at some point when she’s in the library doing some research, I saw it. Mhmm. And then I started looking for it everywhere. But even though I was looking for it, I missed most of it. Yeah. I also went online and figured out where they all were. There’s one toward the end where a door is closed, and for and for a brief moment, the it’s seen in the reflection of the door, and that one jumped out at me. Uh-huh.  But that was about it.

Craig:  You said she sees somebody in her house. When she comes back in, there’s nobody in there, but somebody has left an envelope, like, on her desk. And it says, do not open until January 14, and it has her name on it. But, of course, she and that’s when it cuts to part two. And part two and three have subtitles, which I thought was interesting. Part two is all of your things.

Heather:  Mhmm.

Todd:  I

Craig:  haven’t processed that. I don’t know what that means. But she o she opens it, and it’s a ninth birthday card that’s coded except for one phrase. That is a phrase from the book of Revelation, stood upon the sand of the sea, like but she uses that. It’s like a decoder ring. Like Yeah. She’s got you know, one phrase is decoded, so she can use that like a decoder ring. But at the end of the note I don’t remember if the end of the note or if she got another note or something, but it said, tell them how you got this, how it came into your head, and I’ll cut her hanging melt tits and bleed your mommy dead.  Was that the message?

Todd:  Yeah. I don’t even Yeah. I think that was the message. So clearly whoever left this is giving her the key is deliberately wants her

Clip:  Mhmm.

Todd:  To solve it.

Craig:  It also drove me crazy. She then goes to her boss and is like, hey, I decoded this. And he was like, how? And she’s like, I don’t know. I just figured it out.

Clip:  And that’s the end of the discussion.

Todd:  Why? Why doesn’t she want him to know?

Heather:  Which is probably Well,

Todd:  do you think it’s because it involves her mom?

Craig:  Well, she can’t tell.

Todd:  Maybe she intuitively knows her mom’s wrapped up in it somehow.

Craig:  I don’t think so. I just think that the note is a threat, and I think it’s a credible threat. This is a serial killer. This serial killer says you tell people how you figured this out. I’m gonna kill your mom.

Todd:  Mhmm. Yeah. I guess that’s true. It does raise the question, like, why did he decide to reveal you know, he he’s giving her a fighting chance of figuring out what’s going on and foiling his whole plot. And she is we learn very soon is intricately tied up in this to an extent that she doesn’t know yet.

Heather:  Well and we can’t I mean, without jumping to the end, I mean, he does want her to figure it out because it’s

Clip:  Yes.

Craig:  He does.

Heather:  It helps to release him. But, again, we you don’t put that together until you get to the end of it. Right. Because what’s next? Is this when they go to, the camera girl, the barn?

Craig:  She gets another weird phone call from her mom. She keeps getting these weird phone calls from her mom. For a minute, I thought, is her mom even real? Like Yeah.

Clip:  We’re never seeing her. Like, only she’s talking to her. This time, she’s like, will I see you on your birthday next week? Are you still saying your prayers? Our prayers protect us from the devil.

Todd:  Yeah. That’s a spot on interpretation, actually.

Heather:  It was.

Craig:  And then she’s researching satanic cult articles, and she looks at a book called the nine circles of hell. And she figures something out about symbols.

Heather:  Which is a nod to the zodiac killer.

Craig:  Yeah. Yes. And and then she says there’s just a repeat in all of her research, there’s a repeated reference to the fine time we had at the camera family farm. Heather, go. No.

Heather:  This is when Carter and her they go to the farm. Right? And it’s, like, pitch black outside, and they’re deciding to investigate right now. Mhmm. Right? So they go into this farm.

Craig:  Well, this was this is one of those cases. It was, you know, the the father kills the whole family. The only difference is in this case, the daughter Survived. Wasn’t there. Right. So she survived. Right. But but they go to the farm first.

Heather:  Right. But then they go upstairs. This really bothered me because it was pitch black outside when they arrived at the farm. When they go up to the the barn, attic, or whatever, there is light streaming through the windows, and it looked like daylight. And that bothered me. Anyway

Craig:  even notice.

Heather:  They, find a cross on the floor, which is a hatch, and they pull it open.

Craig:  Guys. Guys. Wait. Heather What? Todd. I need to I need to say something important to you.

Heather:  K.

Craig:  If you ever go somewhere and there’s something sealed with a crucifix on it, don’t open it, guys.

Todd:  Yeah. Don’t open it. We’ve learned that many times.

Craig:  Just just walk away. Just walk away. Yeah.

Heather:  We think it’s a person initially because of the shot of the camera. It’s coming from above. But then as they get closer, it’s a creepy ass doll.

Craig:  Yeah. Like a freaking Megan doll.

Heather:  Like, real creepy. Made.

Todd:  Yeah. It’s it’s big. And she takes it to the police station. Right? Yeah. And has them do an autopsy on the doll.

Craig:  It’s hilarious.

Todd:  They analyze the doll. And it turns out there’s a metal ball in its head.

Heather:  Yeah. Which the mortician’s calling the brain. I thought it was interesting that he went on to mention that, well, and I swear it was whispering to me about my ex wife, but I’m surely just tired. Mhmm. But he’s really complimentary of the doll. It was made by a craftsman. It’s human hair.

Todd:  Mhmm.

Heather:  So that that adds a weird element to this case in this moment.

Craig:  Heather, did you do that with Sadie? Did you, like, have a doll made of her?

Heather:  I did, and I keep it hidden.

Craig:  Cool. Maybe you’re joking. I don’t know. My mom, like, had a doll made of my niece, my sister. Really?

Todd:  You kidding me. Was it a full it wasn’t a life size, was it? Was it a school? No. No.

Craig:  It was just, like, an American girl

Heather:  Oh, wow.

Craig:  Style thing.

Todd:  Okay. That’s not so bad.

Craig:  Both the skin and the eye color, like, quickly discolored. So now it is just like this freakish thing. Oh my god. It is so funny.

Heather:  That’s amazing.

Clip:  Wow.

Heather:  No. I didn’t do that. There’s still time. Is there

Todd:  a metal ball in its head too? There is still time.

Craig:  The Harker is also constantly having these flashbacks Oh, yes. Of snakes? Yes. I what were the snakes all about?

Heather:  I think just more devil imagery because when we find out what’s actually going on. Yeah. But that happens when she’s in with the doll. Right? Because they’re talking about it. And because that orb is exposed, that’s when the we see lots of them in a row.

Todd:  He talks about opening it at one point, and then they just decide, no. Let’s not do that.

Heather:  They ask if they can, and he says, well, you can, but you don’t need to because it’s hollow.

Craig:  He says I can open it up, but I don’t think that we ever see that he does.

Heather:  Right.

Craig:  At that point, we see one get opened up later. Longlegs talks to Carrie Anne and says, I know you aren’t a little afraid of the dark because you are the dark. Mhmm. But I think that’s in, like, a flashback. Yep. Maybe that was when she was a kid. I don’t know. This is the point in the movie where we realize that this person, Long Legs, is an actual person who exists in the world because he drives around and he goes to a store, and he’s a weirdo.  Like, he goes into a convenience store and acts weird around the cashier, but she also recognizes him like he’s clearly a regular. He’s just a weird guy.

Clip:  Can I help you with anything else today? Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. I don’t know what that was supposed to be. What day is your birthday,

Heather:  Daddy, that gross guy is back again.

Craig:  Carrie Anne is the girl from the camera story Right. Who survived. They find out after the fact, when I say they, I mean the investigators find out that somebody had visited her and apparently it was Long Legs. And she had been catatonic before that, but she became lucid when he visited. They go and visit her, and then I feel like she reveals some things, but it’s all every revelation

Todd:  is just a mystery.

Craig:  It’s right. It’s just more mystery.

Heather:  Right. And did I translate this wrong? Because she’s been in a coma pretty much her she since her, whatever, ninth birthday. The doll is hidden and buried in the attic. And so I translated it as, as soon as the doll was out of the dark, she was no longer in the coma.

Craig:  Oh. That’s what I thought too.

Todd:  Oh, I didn’t even think about that.

Heather:  The well, the dolls are always covered until they get to the house, and then they get uncovered. And so it’s like because they’re out of the dark is when things can happen.

Craig:  That’s what I thought too.

Heather:  Okay.

Todd:  Why was her doll up in the barn

Heather:  Buried?

Craig:  Yeah. Under a crucifix.

Heather:  Who put

Todd:  it there? Do you guys know?

Heather:  No. Because the parents are dead.

Craig:  It was long legs. It had to have been long legs.

Heather:  He did it. Maybe. Yeah.

Todd:  And put a crucifix on it?

Craig:  Yeah.

Todd:  I guess. I mean, it couldn’t have been anybody else. It just

Clip:  makes sense when you know it had to be him.

Heather:  When you connect more with him later about maybe why he doesn’t wanna be a part of this anymore type of a thing.

Craig:  What it all comes down to is it’s all a very elaborate, but at the same time, pretty simple Oh. Plan.

Clip:  Mhmm.

Todd:  Please. And I think It’s convoluted and weird. I was very disappointed at the eventual revelation of what the plot what the scheme was.

Craig:  I think it’s pretty simple. I think it’s very much what’s that movie that we did What’s that movie that we did with our friend Jordan? Sinister.

Todd:  Mhmm.

Craig:  It’s just very much like that. Like

Todd:  It’s a little bit.

Craig:  There’s an evil entity that is preying on a particular group of people, in this case, families. In this one case, the daughter got away.

Todd:  Yeah.

Craig:  So I think that the whole thing with the doll had to be suspended because the daughter got away. Mhmm. And I think that the doll and the doll is still connected to the daughter. And putting her in that box with the crucifix on it shut that girl up. Mhmm.

Todd:  But she didn’t really get away. Right? She just, like he just sort of let her go. Am I wrong

Clip:  in this?

Craig:  I don’t remember. I feel like she just wasn’t there. I mean, yeah. I don’t remember.

Todd:  It’s not even her birthday yet when she meets up with long legs, but her mom okay. Okay. Never mind.

Craig:  We’re talking about different girls, I think.

Heather:  Yeah. This is the first one.

Craig:  The doll in the box is the camera girl. Yes. The girl in the institution. Correct.

Heather:  Yeah. Carrie Anne camera.

Todd:  But she’s also the girl that we saw in the beginning. Right? No. Story? No. You know, the the very beginning.

Craig:  No. I don’t think so. No. That’s That’s our main girl.

Todd:  Oh, very beginning is is our main girl. You’re right. You’re right.

Craig:  So Harker goes and sees this girl, and it’s weird. Mhmm. Like, they have a very weird conversation.

Todd:  It’s so bizarre.

Craig:  Carrie Anne says, I’ve seen you before. And Harker’s like, no. And she’s like, uh-huh. You’ve been in my house. And then I think it’s Carrie Anne who says, it’s like a long dream and so dark, a world of dark, like a nowhere between here and there, doing the limbo. So I think that she’s been trapped in the dark like her doll, and she only came out of it when they brought it out. And, yeah, seems like a coincidence that long legs went and visited her that day. But is it a coincidence? No.  It’s not. It’s all a plan.

Heather:  Right.

Craig:  But Carrie Anne then has, like, a flashback, and I’m just reading my notes. Her mom cuts herself and then stabs the doll and Todd. I don’t know. It’s all so weird.

Heather:  Well, to connect long legs

Craig:  I don’t wanna interrupt you either,

Clip:  but I just wanna say the man downstairs because that’s the part

Craig:  that’s coming up and I don’t understand. Well, he stairs because that’s the part that’s coming up and I don’t understand.

Heather:  Well, he signed in using Harker’s name to visit Carrie Anne. So now people are going, oh, wait. There must be a connection between the two of you, Longlegs.

Todd:  Right.

Heather:  That that’s how she just is really, you know, going, okay. I am more connected to this than I I thought I was. This is when she discovers that a police report was made.

Todd:  At the same day Right. The day of her birthday or the day before her birthday, her mother complained about a a stranger.

Craig:  The mom cuts herself and stabs the doll, and the dad then has the doll on his lap. Who is this? I don’t

Heather:  This is the flashback to Carrie.

Craig:  And the dad cuts off the head of a cow and then kills the preacher

Todd:  Mhmm.

Craig:  And the mom with an axe. Right. Okay. So we’re flashing back to to Carrie’s thing. Yep. When she’s talking to Harker, she says

Clip:  I was just waiting on him to come and get me. To come and tells me something’s to do for him. Or even better, to do something for the man down the stairs. And boy, I just wanna do whatsoever so he says me to do. Like if and he told me to take a jumpy out of window, I’d surely do. Just happy as peaches to watch the ground as it come up to meet me. Or if and he told me to kill you right right here in this room with my bare hand, I’d surely do. Just happy as peaches to watch your heavy heart go pop pop, and your eyes is to go all to blood.

Craig:  I feel like this is so important because it just goes to show that whatever entity, and we don’t really know yet, it’s the devil. Mhmm. But we don’t really know yet. Like, it has complete control over these girls. And we didn’t even they couldn’t figure out why the fathers were doing this. And at some point, Harker was like, there’s there’s gotta be an accomplice. There’s gotta be an accomplice. And she’s like, it’s it’s gotta be that somebody that would nobody would ever suspect, maybe a child.

Clip:  Well, it is the child. Mhmm.

Craig:  It’s actually just the devil, but the child helps.

Todd:  Right. Yeah. Not convoluted at all, Craig. Not convoluted at all.

Craig:  Heather’s got it. Heather’s quite smart.

Heather:  I don’t know if I do. Because what’s next? Is this when he’s on the side of the road?

Craig:  Oh, Todd. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.

Todd:  Is this when he sees her she goes to see her mom?

Heather:  Yeah. She goes to see her mom.

Craig:  Yes. You guys, did you recognize her?

Heather:  Yes. I know.

Clip:  So a mom?

Craig:  Yeah. She’s, like, our age.

Heather:  Yeah. She was an urban

Clip:  legend.

Todd:  How disappointing.

Craig:  Urban legend. She in mister Holland’s opus, she was, like, a young high school student. You guys,

Todd:  we are

Craig:  so old.

Heather:  I saw that in the movie theaters in eighth grade.

Craig:  Alicia Witt. She was in a lot of things, and I really enjoyed her in the nineties.

Heather:  Yep. Okay. So after she visits Carrie Anne, she goes home to visit her mom, and she’s talking to her mom there. We see that her mom is an absolute hoarder, doesn’t seem to be in the best of health. She says she was a nurse for a few years. She starts she brings up her ninth birthday. She’s like, do you remember my ninth birthday? And her mom just flat out says, nope. And she’s like, well, that’s weird.  Right? Like, why?

Todd:  Mhmm. Mhmm.

Craig:  She looks around in her mom’s house, and she sees a roach come out from a door

Heather:  Right.

Craig:  That she can’t open. Yes. It’s locked and she can’t open it. When that happens, then she starts having these weird flashbacks.

Heather:  Right.

Craig:  And I don’t remember who says this to her, but I have in Todd, somebody says, you’re not a child because you were allowed to live. I think it’s her mother.

Heather:  Yeah. I think it is.

Craig:  It’s all in your room. And then she goes and looks through her room, and that’s when she finds a picture of Long Legs that she Todd. And long legs sings this weird song.

Clip:  Let me in now and it can be nice.

Craig:  And we could just stop talking about the movie right now because, like, that when I heard him in his creepy, creepy ass makeup sing that, I was like, oh, no. Oh, no. No. No. No. I’m done. I don’t know what else is gonna happen in this movie, but I don’t

Clip:  wanna see it. Oh,

Heather:  yeah. It’s terrifying. He he plays a terrifying villain. But, yeah, she then sees the photo. She recognizes that it’s Long Legs, and so she takes the photo and turns it in, which then leads to his arrest. Finally.

Todd:  Right. And then they get him interviewed.

Craig:  No. Yeah. I I’m I’m going off script now because I think that we should just talk about the end and I they do get him. Like, now she has a picture of him and immediately they’re able to pick him up. Mhmm. Like, he goes to the bus stop like maybe he can get away but no, they they pick him up. You know, he is who he is and he kinda doesn’t really deny anything. They put him in a room with her.  Yeah. And she just talks to him and then that’s when it turns out that this was all just a long game about her.

Clip:  Right.

Todd:  Right. Yeah. It’s so I’m sorry, man. This is so convoluted.

Heather:  I mean, it is in the fact that he’s

Todd:  Kills himself.

Heather:  He well, he does. He smashes his face for which that’s a that’s a way to go. You know what I’m saying? Like, boy.

Craig:  But but but the revelations are so important. But yeah. Yeah. He does. He kills himself. And I wasn’t surprised by that. Really, I I saw it coming, but it wasn’t that. It was her stone faced sitting across the table from him while he just lays out to

Heather:  her Everything.

Craig:  Yeah. This was all about you. Yeah. Mhmm. That blew me away. And I should have seen it coming. It seems once the revelations are made, it’s like, oh, obviously. But in watching the movie, I I didn’t feel that way.  I didn’t see things coming.

Heather:  I didn’t either. The first time I saw it, I was I was surprised with where it is and who the accomplice is eventually. Like, I I I was surprised. So what I think is interesting is that he himself is not a killer. He No. Has never killed anybody. He has some sort of agreement with the devil.

Craig:  Mhmm.

Heather:  And in order to keep Lee alive, because he came to their house, the mom had to agree Todd, one, he’s he’s the man in the basement, the guy downstairs. He lives under their house.

Craig:  Yeah. He’s been living down there, her, since she was nine years old.

Heather:  Yeah. Which that’s terrifying.

Craig:  Crazy.

Heather:  And then he makes these dolls of these girls, and the mom dresses up like a nun. She dresses up as a nun and delivers them to houses. They match the daughters that live there.

Craig:  And the metal balls inside the dolls are satanic Yeah. And possess the family.

Heather:  It causes that that

Todd:  It’s got a little bit of phantasm in there.

Heather:  But, yeah, it causes the

Craig:  I love it.

Todd:  Oh my god.

Craig:  I fucking love it. I think it is so creative and interesting and good from a storytelling perspective. I love it. I love it.

Todd:  It’s creative. It’s certainly creative that this man is a magical doll maker.

Craig:  He’s not even a magical doll maker. He’s not even he just makes dolls. He just makes dolls.

Todd:  He makes the dolls and abuse them with the magic of Satan.

Craig:  Yeah. The ball.

Todd:  Then they have to be delivered to these girls. I don’t know how they’re selected, but they’re at least their birthdays are on the fourteenth, and it’s something about nine days before. It all makes this, like, diamond pattern if you, like, make a grid of the dates and the months, and she figures this out. And as long as he’s able to deliver these dolls, which then release Satan from these metal balls and make the father kill the whole family, and he completes this whole pattern over time, then it brings the devil to Earth?

Craig:  I don’t know.

Heather:  I I think he’s doing it because he’s trying to stay alive. Do you know what I I think it’s his bidding, and so he gets somebody to do it for him, and it’s all, like, a big cycle of you gotta choose this or your death.

Craig:  I Yes.

Heather:  I think.

Todd:  I didn’t get that.

Heather:  Really? Okay.

Craig:  I think so too. Why? No. I I know. I I I think that he is doing the devil’s work for the same reason that the mom is for some reason. You know, like, either you’ll die and go to hell or you’re I’ll take your kid or whatever it is. Right. There’s always a bargain, you know. When it comes to stories about the devil, there’s always a bargain.

Todd:  There’s usually a hail Satan guy who just, like, wants the devil to be back on Earth or he’s worships the devil and so he ushers his return and so Yeah.

Craig:  He could just be like a Renfield.

Heather:  Right. Sure. Right.

Todd:  Yeah. So he’s got these metal balls that have Satan in him. So he’s not magic. He’s just putting these metal satanic balls inside the dolls. Where

Craig:  do these balls come from? That’s what I the devil.

Todd:  How was Satan in the balls?

Craig:  Todd, like, you don’t The devil just delivered

Todd:  a bunch of balls to him and said follow this Why not? I’m gonna be. Or or or I mean, why not? Sure. I mean, you can make a story about whatever you want. I just think it’s really odd and convoluted. That’s why.

Craig:  I bet the devil has a ball maker. He’s got a doll maker. Why wouldn’t he have a ball maker? Like like, here’s my essence, put this in a ball and, like, the ball maker makes it and then he sends it to the doll maker and the doll maker, like

Todd:  Maybe there can be a prequel to this, like, something like Great Balls of Fire or something where we learn about the origin story of balls. Jesus. I mean, it just opens up a whole giant question that’s never answered, which is why is this the thing? Where did these balls come from? Why are the balls satanic?

Craig:  Honestly, I like that about this movie. I don’t need every question answered. Like, I I’m just I’m just willing to go along with it.

Heather:  Well, and just like the devil can possess anybody or any object or anything.

Craig:  I mean,

Heather:  why not? He can possess little Why not? Metal orbs.

Todd:  Yeah. Why not some metal balls that need to be put into the heads of dolls and delivered to girls on their fourteenth birthday to follow a pattern on the calendar? Why not? So their fathers will kill them all.

Craig:  As it turns out, she’s one of these girls, and I kind of figured it out. Like, when she said, it must be somebody who’s totally innocent that nobody would ever, you know, expect like a child. I was like, okay. Like, that’s a clue. Doesn’t it turn out that whatever possesses these people possesses the young girl? Right?

Heather:  No. No. She she dies.

Todd:  The young girl gets up getting killed. That’s the father kills the whole family.

Heather:  It’s just it just brings, like, a dark entity Todd the whole house, and the dad ends

Todd:  up committing familicide. Yeah. And then he delivers another doll. And this is done enough times, and it brings the devil. Not convoluted at all.

Craig:  Okay. The reason that I was confused, I guess, is because the doll that they put in there is connected to the girl. Right.

Todd:  Because it’s a birthday present.

Craig:  But it’s more than that that it’s just a birthday present. At the end, somebody shoots the doll and a black mist comes out of her head. Right. And a black mist comes out of the girl’s head too. So Really?

Heather:  So I took that at the at the end. So Ruth has a doll of Lee, and that that was the bargain she made. You know, don’t take my daughter. I will help you.

Todd:  Spare my daughter.

Heather:  A doll of her. And so that’s why she’s clairvoyant. That’s why she’s psychic because the devil’s been in her the whole time. But it doesn’t do it doesn’t have the same effect because the mom is now carrying out the real devil’s work by delivering the dolls to these other families. That way her daughter is spared.

Craig:  Right. Okay. Alright. Just to be clear, at the devil’s behest, Harker’s mother Todd save her own daughter is delivering the dolls that long legs makes and puts these orbs into into these families. The dolls, the orb in their brain or whatever, somehow possesses all of them or just the father

Heather:  Or just the dad.

Craig:  And leads to those murders. Mhmm.

Todd:  Leads them to kill them all.

Craig:  Okay.

Heather:  That’s it.

Todd:  Perfectly not convoluted at all.

Heather:  Well It’s

Todd:  just very simple and straightforward. I’m being facetious, guys.

Heather:  I know. No. And we

Craig:  and and, like and and we get we get the backstory. We get the backstory. Like, this was supposed to happen to Harker and her family, but her mother made a deal. I know, Heather, you’ve already alluded to that. I’m sorry. Her mother made a deal so that it wouldn’t happen to her. Mhmm.

Todd:  Yeah. The deal was she would deliver the dolls to all the girls and do his work for him. Because long legs, he’s creepy. I mean, you know, this guy shows up at your door with a doll. You know? It’s it’s not a good plan.

Heather:  Right.

Todd:  You need a nun. Right. Some trustworthy stranger to show up and deliver the dolls. Right. So it should have been part of the devil’s plan all along, really. But,

Heather:  Lee goes with another agent to her mom’s house because at this point, she’s connecting that long legs maybe was in her basement. I can’t remember why they all go there. But the mom shoots the agent, which is when we know all of a sudden that she’s the bad guy. And then the she has the doll of Lee. And, yeah, you’re right, Craig. She shoots the doll, and it it destroys the orb, which we can then go, okay. It’s destroyed the devil. The black mist comes out of Lee’s head, which means she’s no longer possessed.  And then she gets a warning to go to Carter’s house for the birthday party.

Clip:  Mhmm.

Heather:  And she notices that her mom’s car is gone.

Todd:  Yeah. This was intense.

Clip:  Yeah. Mhmm.

Todd:  Because now you now you know beyond a shadow of a doubt what’s happening, and that’s cool.

Heather:  It was, except the end really annoyed me. So they get to the house. The Carter’s acting weird. She walks in. She sees the girl sitting next to a doll. She sees her mom in a nun outfit sitting in the room. And, you know, mom, you don’t have to do this, and I I have to. I I am going to protect you.  And then, of course, the dad goes into the kitchen to cut the cake. He comes out with a knife.

Craig:  He clearly killed the mom.

Heather:  Right. Killed the mom in the kitchen. Lee has to she shoots him. Right?

Craig:  Yeah. And her mom.

Heather:  And her mom, who also turns like super demon by the end before she’s shot. Very, very quickly, she she glances, looks like a demon. But I if Lee is connecting all this, why the hell didn’t she just shoot the doll?

Craig:  I don’t know.

Heather:  Because then it would be gone. Everything will be done. There will be no more you know what I mean?

Craig:  I don’t know. The very last scene is of Nicolas Cage as long legs singing happy birthday and laughing.

Clip:  Yeah.

Craig:  And then saying,

Clip:  hell, Satan. Yeah.

Craig:  And smooching to the camera in the end.

Heather:  Really? Yeah.

Craig:  I don’t know. I really liked this movie. It reminded me Heather, you already mentioned Silence of the Lambs. It definitely reminded me of that. Uh-huh. Todd, we’ve done Exorcist three, and it reminded me a lot of that.

Todd:  It was similar to that. Honestly, it reminded me a lot of a lot of giallo movies we do.

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Todd:  And I was watching this thinking, you know what? If this were an Italian production, Craig would have nothing but

Clip:  what is this? What’s going on? I don’t understand.

Todd:  How is this happening? Blah blah blah blah blah. But because it’s an American director and directed by Osgoode Porkas, you love it. You love it. It’s different. That’s different. Todd straightforward and simple, and I just loved it.

Craig:  You’re right. I’m not gonna I’m not gonna deny it. It it also it it also reminds me of a movie that I don’t think a lot of people have seen, the Seventh Sign. I don’t know what year it came out, but it stars Demi Moore, and it’s very similar. And if you have watched this movie and liked it, I think that you would really like that movie. Plus, I’m just on a big Demi Moore kick. So you guys, she won the Critics Choice Award for best actress Todd.

Heather:  Really?

Craig:  Yes, she did. She is right in line to win best actress for the Oscar.

Heather:  That’s awesome.

Craig:  On fire. I’m excited.

Heather:  I haven’t watched it yet. I need to.

Craig:  Well, this was super fun. Do we have anything more to say about the movie?

Heather:  I mean, overall, I I really liked it. I thought it was creepy throughout. I thought it was it just gave a sense of dread throughout Performances, I thought were great. Yes. Talking through the story, it’s a little like, why? I don’t know. But ultimately, I Right. I thought it was a spooky demon movie. And when you’ve got demon or the devil involved, it doesn’t there are no rules.  You know? Like, he can do whatever he wants. So

Todd:  Yep. I agree with you. And, you know, I also agree that I think the big accomplishment with this movie more so than the convoluted plot that I don’t think made a lot of sense is that it created and sustained this atmosphere Yeah. That had me creeped out the whole time. I got a sense that maybe somewhere deep down in there people could decode this in different ways. Maybe there is a correct way to put this puzzle together and I’m not seeing it or maybe it’s just not intended to be that way. All that is fine. It doesn’t make it a bad movie, but I am going to remember this and Craig’s thoughts about this movie the next time we pull up some Lucio Fulci film or some Dario Argento giallo that he complains about and says, oh, this is so convoluted.  Does it make sense? Who is this and why and what? And this is devil possessed balls and something about the dates and then she just happens to find this and blah blah blah blah blah. And I say, you know, that’s not the point of the movie. The point of the movie is the style and the atmosphere and you go, well, I

Clip:  don’t know. I just don’t like it.

Todd:  I’m just gonna remember that.

Craig:  Listen, I have to respectfully disagree.

Clip:  I have to respectfully

Craig:  disagree. I understand why you like those movies and I like them too. I really do. But when you put everything together piece by piece, this narrative is pretty linear. We don’t know at the beginning that the whole movie is about this woman, but it is.

Todd:  Mhmm.

Craig:  And when you put the whole narrative together, it follows a logical narrative. I’m not saying that I think that that’s necessary. Like, I don’t care. It’s a horror movie. I don’t care if there’s a logical narrative, but this one does. I know I alluded to it before, but that’s a lot of what I enjoyed about it. Like, it was interesting throughout and it just kept layering and layering and layering new things on that I hadn’t thought about.

Todd:  Well, I could say the exact same thing about the house on the cemetery and I’m just gonna leave it there.

Craig:  Oh, my Todd. Todd, come on.

Todd:  Don’t make me don’t make me sit down.

Craig:  Todd don’t sit me down about quality and talk about the house of the cemetery and this movie. That movie, like, I appreciate it. I do. I appreciate it, but it was kinda thrilling.

Todd:  No. You don’t. You hated that movie.

Craig:  It was fine.

Todd:  You hated that

Craig:  movie. It was fine. But a movie like

Todd:  There’s no revisionist history going on here. We have the tapes.

Craig:  A movie like this is carefully crafted. And not that that one wasn’t. Come on. I’m not I don’t wanna be a dick. I’m sure the people behind that movie loved it. Whatever. But this feels like it was carefully crafted. And I don’t think it’s gonna be for everybody.  It’s not gonna be for everybody. But I could have watched it with Alan. Again, I know I’m doubling back but if you’re a horror lover and your partner, whatever, friends, whoever are not, I think that this movie could appeal to anybody who likes those crime procedurals.

Todd:  Mhmm.

Craig:  Because ultimately, that’s what it is. It just happens to be that the culprit is the devil. Right. But beyond that, it’s a crime procedural.

Todd:  Well, and these devil you know, the devil is the is the reason movies all have a similar feel to them. Right? And it’s definitely is pretty thick in that. I was also thinking of The Sentinel, for example. Any one of these just in the style and

Heather:  Well, and the ending is I would along with, like, referring to what you just said, Todd, about the the devil type movies is the ending is grim. It’s bleak. People are dead. We don’t know what happens with her.

Todd:  Yeah.

Heather:  She’s got this girl. I mean, it’s it’s it’s not a happy ending. It’s just over.

Todd:  Right. Yeah. Well, Heather, I just wanna thank you so much for joining us. It’s always lovely to have you on here. So much fun, and I know we’re gonna have you on here again too. Some of my favorite episodes that we’ve done Aw. Were with you, and I I still think about, killer clowns. Oh, so good.  Time that was.

Heather:  So good.

Todd:  Go back and listen to that one. It was so much fun. Those of you listeners and our patrons, we appreciate you guys too. Thank you so much for bringing this movie up and for voting on it. If you would like to, have some influence over the show like our patrons, go to patreon.com/chainsawpodcast. Consider being part of the club. You get first dibs on all of our shows. You get the behind the scenes footage, if you will, the complete unedited phone calls of our talk of which this one’s gonna be another interesting one for those of you patrons out there.  And, lots of minisodes and, mini reviews and all kinds of things. We even have a book club back there, and we’re doing more than Christopher Pike now on that book club. So, come check it out if any of this interests you. Patreon.com/chainsawpodcast. Also, you can just go to our website. Leave us feedback anywhere we are. Just Google Two Guys in a Chainsaw podcast. Find our Facebook page and all of our social media out there.  We love hearing from you guys, and we are anxious to hear what the next movie is you want us to do. Until that time, I’m Todd. I’m Craig.

Heather:  And I’m Heather.

Todd:  With two guys, a gal, and a chainsaw.

Dive into the surreal world of “The Substance” (2024), where Demi Moore’s stunning performance takes her from Hollywood darling to grotesque visionary. With nods to The Shining and the insanity of Eraserhead, this movie punches through traditional narratives and straight into the realm of allegory.

But what exactly is it an allegory for? Join us as we dissect this bizarre, critically acclaimed Oscar nominee.

Episode 426, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Just fresh off of a couple tribute episodes and our New Year episode, finally we’re getting around to a movie that we just decided to do. And you picked it this week, which I think was great, and, uh, you know, as always, we try to do a balance here of modern and older films, and we tend to do older films, too, just because there’s so darn many of them.

Yeah. But I know you’re you’re way up more up on the more modern films than I am, quite honestly, because I 

Craig: I’m not always, but I like to be. I’m always very interested in what is coming out new and fresh, and this is something that I was Anyway, in fact, one of our friends, one of our book club friends told us she had seen this weeks and weeks ago and I was interested then and now correct me if I’m wrong, but this movie is nominated for best picture of the year at the Oscars, right?

Todd: Yeah, it’s nominated for best picture. It’s also nominated for best director and best original screenplay also. Did it win a Golden 

Craig: Globe for, uh, Demi Moore, Demi Moore won a Golden Globe. I don’t remember if it won any other things, but Demi Moore won. And that’s a kind of part of the reason that I picked it too, because I’m a fan of Demi Moore, I like her and everything that she’s in and she’s been working since she was, I was going to say literally a child, I think she was in her teens, but I, I think of that as a child she’s been working forever and.

She did this movie, and I was excited that she did it, because she had a big career for a long time. You know, she was an A list actress celebrity for a long time, and then Basically, kind of what this movie is about By the way, we’re doing the substance. Sorry. We haven’t said 

Todd: it yet. 

Craig: If you 

Todd: haven’t guessed it by now.

There are many movies we could be talking about, honestly, but yeah. And you’re right. 

Craig: But basically what this movie about is she aged out, kind of, a little bit. in Hollywood. Now she’s continued to work. She’s done things here and there, but she’s not been the kind of a list celebrity that she was in the past.

And so I was really excited to see her come back to a starring role in what looked like an interesting film. And then she got a lot of acclaim for it. And I was really pleased, you know, before having seen the movie before knowing much about it at all. I mean, I, I kinda knew a little bit about it, but I was really happy to see that she was nominated and then I was happy to see that she won and her acceptance speech was 

Clip: I’m just in shock right now.

Um, I’ve been doing this a long time, like over 45 years. And this is the ever won anything as an actor. Um, and I’m just so humbled and so grateful. Um, 30 years ago, I had a producer tell me that, um, I was a popcorn actress. And at that time, I made that mean that this wasn’t something that I was allowed to have.

That I could do movies that were successful, that made a lot of money, but that I couldn’t be acknowledged. And I bought in, and I believed that. And that corroded me over time to the point where I thought a few years ago that maybe this was it. Maybe I was complete, maybe I would, I’ve done what I was supposed to do.

And as I was at kind of a low point, I had this magical, bold, courageous, out of the box, absolutely bonkers script come across my desk called The Substance. And the universe told me that you’re not done. 

Craig: I mean, to be a star of really popular movies that make a lot of money and are popular but are maybe not taken so seriously, or maybe you’re not taken so seriously as an actress, like, there are certainly worse things that could happen to you.

But I can only imagine that after four decades in film, being recognized for your talent, As an actress, would have to be really moving, and it seems as though it was very moving to her. And I was genuinely happy for her, like, like, like watching, yeah, as a person, like, watching that speech, I’m like, oh girl.

You deserve this.

We, as the general public, have enjoyed your talent for decades. You deserve some 

Todd: f ing recognition. You take 

Clip: it! 

Todd: You know, having grown up with her. I mean, I’m a little young. I’m younger than she is, but you know what I mean? Like, having grown up with her. Barely. Yeah, sadly, 

Craig: I mean, but that’s the thing. We’re barely younger than her.

So she was hot and young when we were really young. Yeah, exactly. She was one of our many dream girls of the eighties 

Todd: and she was cool. She was the cool one. She was. And I remember sort of the metamorphosis. I mean, she was kind of one of the brat pack in a way, like she was insane, almost fire and stuff.

And then just when I was in middle school, I guess she was in ghost and that was huge. Ghost was huge and she was kind of sexy in it. And that was such a romantic story. And everyone just kind of like really fell in love with her. Can I interrupt you just briefly? I’m 

Craig: sorry. Yeah. Because I read that she took this script because it reminded her of the experience of reading of the script of ghost.

She read it and she thought this could be amazing or. It could totally flop, and she was drawn to that. And, and reading that, I went back and watched Ghost again. Oh, did you? Yeah. It’s fantastic. 

Todd: Is it? Okay. I 

Craig: was just gonna say, I wonder if it might be a little cheesy now. It, it is. I mean, it’s a totally Our sensibilities are totally different now, but I know for a fact that you would put it on, and the beautiful orchestral score, and the romance, and the love story, and Patrick Swayze and Whoopi Goldberg, who is phenomenal in that movie.

You would melt into it exactly the same way I did. It’s so nostalgic and great and she’s fantastic in it. She is. Again, I apologize for interrupting. You were talking about her 

Todd: career path. Well, I’m just thinking about like, you know the press around her, right? She used to celebrate and ghost and then I think she went on to do a few Good Men and then indecent proposal, which was a little controversial in a way.

And then Disclosure, and then she did Striptease, and by the 96, okay, when she did Striptease, this is like only 6 years after Ghost, people were already giving her shit. Because she was demanding to be paid the same as her male co stars. She was one of those. Loud women who are actually demanding, you know, this equality and won’t they just be quiet and aren’t they grateful for their careers and things?

And then when she was pregnant, you know, she did that nude vanity fair thing and that was such a huge thing. And I think even for by striptease, she had gotten breast implants and people were like, Oh, you know, look at how desperate she is striving to be relevant and who would want to work with her and stuff like that.

You know, she goes on to do G. I. Jean, which I don’t think was a huge success, but she’s shaving her hair for that, sitting in the, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s all about, you know, a woman being in a quote unquote man’s role in the military, right? Right. And so, she just got a lot of shit that a man doesn’t get.

Craig: Well, but that’s interesting to me, listening to your retrospective of her career, like, it seems to me that she, in that period that you were just talking about, she was intentionally Taking role, like, Yes, she was. People make jokes about striptease, but, and I’ve never seen it, I’ve only read about it, but, it was kind of a serious role.

Yeah, it was. And G. I. Jane, too. And I think at the time, you know, it’s not as though she went entirely unrecognized, she was very famous. I think that people appreciated her work, I just don’t think that she got the same kind of acclaim that other women of her generation were getting. Don’t get me wrong. I love Julia Roberts, but I don’t think that Julia Roberts is necessarily any better of an actress than Demi Moore.

Todd: No. 

Craig: It just kind of depends on what people pick up on at the time. It’s true. And I’m so glad that people picked up on this. I swear to God. Okay, so I said to Alan, Would you have any interest in watching The Substance with me? This two and a half hour long movie? Uh, I didn’t, I didn’t know that yet. Oh, okay.

I, I, he said, yeah, how long is it?

And I looked it up and I said, oh, nevermind. You’re not going to want to watch it. It’s two, it’s almost two and a half hours. And he’s like, well, I want to see it. Like he was excited for me more too. Okay. He’s 

Todd: a fan. 

Craig: Yeah. And so then we were watching it. And we got, like, I don’t know, two thirds, three quarters of the way through it.

And we were just joking, like, And the nominees for Best Actress are And like And then getting, and then getting to the very, very end of the movie. And for Best Picture, The Substance, like This is a wild movie. I, I have no idea Why it has garnered the attention that it has, but I’m glad that it has because I think that it is An expertly crafted movie.

Well, it’s just insane. And it’s, it’s crazy that like the last three things we’ve done have been weird and surreal and it just so happens that this is too, like, we didn’t realize this was going to be our. Our Surrealism theme month, did we? I, I did not. You know, I’m, I’m looking at this and I’m seeing so many influences that we have recently talked about.

I mean, this movie is so informed by The Shining. It’s insane. It is. It’s crazy. Including volumes of blood. Yes. And The Shining was informed by Eraserhead so you see that in this too. 

Clip: Yeah, 

Craig: and I know i’m rambling but I it’s because i’m not exactly sure how to Approach it. How do you think we should approach it?

Todd: Well, I I like talking about the movie in the production even more but You’re right in a sense that it’s not a movie that is absolutely concerned about plot. They’re actually, when you kind of consider the story, there’s almost no real story. Well, there’s a story here, I guess. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t say there’s no story.

But it’s not really concerned with the story. It’s more about evoking mood. It’s more about getting into the minds of this woman or Quote unquote, women in here, some of it’s very caricature ish, you know, and deliberately. So, yes, like the way the men are portrayed in the movie as well. It, yes, you know, if you were to criticize it, you could say it’s a little bit on the nose in a lot of ways.

And a lot of points, even some lines are pretty on the nose. Is that a problem? I’m not, apparently it’s not because it’s, it’s got almost universal acclaim. And I think the rest of the movie. Makes up for it. Maybe the craft of the movie makes up for it because it is so well made and well acted. 

Craig: It is so well made, but I don’t think there’s anything to make up for it.

Like, I get what you’re saying. It seems almost silly in places, but you said it’s a little on the nose. And I see why you say that, but I also think that as obvious as it seems It could be obviously applied, like, allegorically. I think that this movie is meant to be an 

Todd: allegory. Of course. It’s very straightforward in one way.

Broadly speaking, it’s a straightforward allegory. It’s 

Craig: definitely, right, it’s definitely an allegory about Hollywood and how Hollywood treats women. And how women view themselves. And how women view themselves, but I also, I can’t imagine that you didn’t think of this too. I thought that this was equally as much an allegory about parenthood, specifically about motherhood.

Hmm. Sacrificing your own youth and beauty for somebody else. You know 

Todd: what I’m saying? I didn’t consider that before. I would have to think about that a bit. As we talk about it. But I can see what you’re saying. 

Craig: That’s all I could think about. There’s birth, you know? Well, for sure. You create a whole new person.

Clip: Yeah. And 

Craig: birth them out of yourself. And then you sacrifice your youth and beauty so that they can thrive. And you clean up after their messy ass and you deal with their sassy attitude. And 

Todd: as you age you get a bit jealous of their and how they’re using their youth. Yeah, you know, whereas I’m sitting here deteriorating.

They’re doing these basically irresponsible things and ultimately destroying their Potential. I mean, that’s kind of what happens in this movie. Why aren’t they just grateful for it? If I could experience that, you know, I would do it all over again. You know, we all feel that way in some sense. Well, and again, we all feel that way about aging anyway.

Not necessarily about having a kid. Ooh, that’s true. That’s true. You know, you can just see anybody’s kid and feel this way. 

Craig: But specifically here, Oh my god, we are totally jumping to, like, near the end of the movie, but I don’t care, it’s fine. Specifically here, there are moments where she feels so offended or hurt by the other one that she wants to end it.

But she can’t because it’s a part of her and she realizes that Do you see my parent connection here? Like she’s resentful and she’s she’s resentful and she’s jealous at the same time but at the same time that entity that she’s resentful and jealous of is An extension of her. Right. So, she can’t hate it that much, and she can’t even resent it that much.

Like, she, she still, despite being separated from it, she still feels the pride in it, and she values that. You know what I’m saying? 

Todd: This is where I think the allegory kind of peels away if you try to look at it too deeply, because the movie does have this nonsensical, unrealistic aspect to it. And I did want to talk about that with you, because I’m dying for another perspective on it.

And that is that there are parts of this that really don’t make sense. 

Craig: Okay, alright, wait, before I agree with you 100 percent and I think I know what you’re going to say, Okay. Just set it up real quick. Yeah, yeah. Let’s do it. Yeah. Okay. So the movie opens up with a shot of a cracked egg and it gets in an injection and then it separates into two perfect different yolks.

So there’s this drug out there. Demi Moore, Elizabeth Sparkle. She’s a Jane Fonda, but in the modern era, like it’s so surreal. Like these, yeah, I first, I thought it was supposed to be the eighties, but it’s 

Todd: not so, 

Craig: but it’s not, it’s modern era, but she’s like an exercise. Show host. Mm-hmm . And she’s famous or whatever, but Dennis Quaid is her disgusting, gross, oh God boss.

He’s disgusting and gross and great. I God like Dennis Quaid in this movie is like kind of how I think of Dennis Quaid now. And I hate that. I know what she mean. I’ve always loved Dennis Quain so much. He used to love him and now he, he always loved Dennis Quain. Oh, what’s 

Todd: happened to this guy? So, and now he’s just this guy.

Gross. I wondered if he realized. That he’s playing, essentially, what he’s become, or 

Craig: like, I mean, Oh, I hate it. Like, he’s been talking to Randy Quaid too much and now they’re both crazy. And, but let me talk about it for a second, 

Todd: but real quick, since we’re there, yeah, he’s the producer. All right. And he basically thinks she’s too old for the thing.

Yeah, he needs young and hot. He, yeah, he needs someone young and hot to be his, in his exercise video, which isn’t I get it. Unreasonable, you know, like, to be fair. That being said, he is the stereotypical sleazy Hollywood producer. He’s eyeing up the women around him. He’s gross. I thought, honestly, even with all the body horror in this, I honestly thought the one grossest scene in this movie that I did want to retch and almost throw up was watching him eat the shrimp.

Craig: I concur. 

Todd: The body was disgusting. Oh, and the slurping sounds and the whatever. And I, I’ve read in, I’ve read in the trivia that he ate like two kilograms of shrimp making this, which also grossed me out. Like. 

Craig: Everything. Oh God. It was disgusting. They have this disgusting lunch. It’s like when you see someone fart 

Clip: on screen.

People just love that. I mean, that’s just the way it is. So you’ll be people are just people and I. Have to give people what they want. That’s what keeps the shareholders happy and people always ask for something new. Renewal? It’s inevitable. At 50, well It stops. What stops? What? What stops? Um, you know the um, the um, the um, the um, 

Craig: Oh, George!

It’s always just him talking at her, and he’s gross, and he plays it very well. And look, folks, I may disagree with Dennis Quaid’s political views. I certainly do. But, I’m not gonna critique his acting. I’m glad that he took on this role. I think that he, much like Demi Moore, is a talented actor who doesn’t get a lot of recognition.

He works all the time. It’s true. And I appreciate that he took on this role where he’s disgusting and I hate him. Like, he’s gross. Yep. They have that disgusting lunch. I know that filmmakers do this on purpose because the, the physical act of eating is disgusting. If you’ve ever seen Girl Interrupted, the Winona Ryder movie, have you seen that?

I haven’t. 

Todd: No. 

Craig: There’s one character who only wants to eat in her room. When they confront her about it, she’s like, Do you prefer taking a shit? When you’re by yourself or when the supervisor is watching and they’re like obviously by ourselves And she’s like I feel the same way about eating like it’s as Disgusting going in as it is coming out and I agree I don’t like eating in front of other people like I’m very self conscious about it.

It’s 

Todd: gross I honestly think that the only way that I get to can eat in front of other people is because I’m eating too And so I’m distracted enough in my own eating that I don’t notice You know, I’m looking at my own plate, I’m hearing my own sounds, I’m chatting and turning around so it’s like, otherwise it would be gross.

You know that phenomenon, and this is another thing I don’t understand, have you ever heard of mukbang? Mukbang? Mukbang? I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know what it is. It is this thing, and it, it’s a Korean word, it originated in Korea, is there are pretty girls, actually not even necessarily pretty girls, who will just set their webcam up in front of a huge table with a godly amount of food, and chat with whoever’s watching them, the streaming that they’re sending out to the world, while they eat.

All of this stuff. And it is gross. I turned it on, one, to see what all the fuss was. I couldn’t last ten Just to see what all the fuss was. I couldn’t last twenty seconds. Before you came.

Craig: No. He just put it on just to, you know, just to see what all the fuss was about. Right, right. 

Todd: Oh, it’s some new internet streaming thing that guys are into. Let’s check this out. I could never be into that. No, no, it’s disgusting. You could be naked and straddling that food. I would never. Oh 

Craig: boy. So, so it’s disgusting.

They have that, you, every time you talk it just brings up so many things that I want to talk about. They have that disgusting lunch, but then when she confronts him about something, she just says that one line, like what happens to a man after 50 and he can’t answer it. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Craig: And he makes a scene out of something.

Seeing somebody else in leaves and then I couldn’t help but notice that she focuses in on a black fly in his chardonnay And I thought that was ironic

I’ve been saving that one since last night. Oh my gosh. Oh my god. Okay. All right Okay, so then immediately after that, she gets in a car accident, an INSANE car accident, and I thought, oh, this movie is going to be different than what I thought it was. It’s ghosts. I thought it was just She’s dead. She’s dead, or, or I thought she’s going to be horribly Disfigured.

Uh, injured. Mmm. And disfigured, and that’s why she’s going to want to do this. No! That’s not true. She’s fine. She is absolutely fine after this horrible car accident. But the nurse at the place can tell that she’s sad about being old, I guess. So he gives, so he, he hands her something and is like, this changed my life, or he slips something in her pocket and she opens it up.

And it’s a flash drive with a note that says this changed my life. And it’s for the substance. And eventually she takes the substance, but what you were talking about was being naked. Do go on. And there is so much nudity in this movie. There 

Todd: is. 

Craig: How old is Demi Moore? She is 

Todd: 62. She is 

Craig: butt ass naked in this movie for a lot of it.

Todd: Yep. 

Craig: And she looks Amazing. And I actually almost feel, even though I get it, I almost feel like that’s part of the message. There’s no reason for her to feel insecure about the way she looks. Right. She looks f ing amazing. Yeah. Like, to me more Looks as good, if not better, than she has ever looked. She looks amazing.

However, I do understand that one of the allegories that this could be is Despite the fact that she looks amazing. Hollywood is telling her that she’s too old. 

Todd: Yeah, she doesn’t look amazing enough, or she looks different than she used to, in very minute ways. And, by the way, did you know that, uh, Margaret Qualley, who plays Sue, the younger version of her, they actually fitted her with prosthetic breasts so that they would be more perfect than her actual breasts?

Mm hmm. 

Craig: I did. I saw an interview where she said, those aren’t my boobs. What did she say? It was a breastplate. 

Todd: She said she, they gave me the rack of a lifetime. Just not my lifetime.

Craig: You know, sometimes I criticize these movies, not really. Cause I get it. Like I understand the audience that horror is going for sometimes. Oftentimes, it’s the male gaze, and it’s just leering. And this movie is leering, especially when Okay, so It’s about 

Todd: leering, you know? It’s a movie about leering. It does leer.

Craig: It’s about that, right. Demi Moore is weary about the substance at first, and it’s all very elusive. She never talks to anybody. This is what makes it so surreal. She watches a video that tells her It just makes you a better version of your own self, but it’s very straightforward from the beginning There will be two yous and you have to share one week you the next week the other you But you have to always remember that you’re not two different people You are you are one you are one it reiterates that over and over and over again, but it’s so I don’t know what the word is, like 

Todd: Illogical.

Craig: It’s illogical, and I understand that the movie is suggesting that Elizabeth, Demi Moore, is so desperate that she’ll just do anything. She gets this number from a random guy, she calls this number, they don’t give her anything identifying, they tell her to show up at This back alley where she has to duck into this weird door and go through like this trash hallway into a very clean and pristine room that has like lockers where she can pull stuff out and then it gives her instructions.

Like, it’s a whole kit. The instructions are very vague. They’re like Ikea instructions. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: I would have 

Todd: so many questions. 

Craig: Oh my God. But at the same time, she has no problem with them at all. Like it’s about like sticking hoses into yourself and shit. And she’s like, Oh, okay. Like she started wrapping that rubber band around her arm.

And I was like, I turned to Alan, I was like. She has experience in this. Like, like, unless, unless you’re a nurse, or a doctor, or a heroin addict, like, how do you know how to shoot something into I 

Todd: couldn’t inject myself with anything. I 

Craig: can’t even look at needles, Todd. Any time there was a needle in this movie, I had to turn away.

Oh, wow. I had no problem at the end when, spoiler alert, she gets her head cut off. I had no problem. Looking at that, but I could, I, I can’t look at needles. I’ll pass out.

Clip: I have 

Craig: no idea what that’s all about. Okay, but she does this and then I didn’t know how this was going to work. I knew the basic premise of the movie was that she got this substance that basically made like a duplicate of her. But I didn’t realize that she had to be birthed. Out of Demi Moore’s back.

Clip: Yeah. 

Craig: And then that Demi Moore would just have that enormous. Yeah. 

Todd: It’s crazy. I had no idea. It’s crazy. In her unsterile bathroom. 

Craig: And she just leaves her. God, the movie is so crazy. Like, 

Todd: yeah, 

Craig: it drove me insane. I just had to accept that this is surrealism. Yeah. It’s not meant to be realism. I just had to accept that.

Yeah. Because the fact that they just left one another when they, when one or the other was in the other’s body, they just left them there on the floor in the bathroom for days or weeks or months at a time. It’s like a racer head. It’s like that tick baby in a racer head that just. sits on that dresser forever and nobody ever does like do they shit like Like what it’s definitely oh my god, you’re 

Todd: right.

It’s definitely surreal It’s definitely we’re not meant to think about this too hard but the part that bothered me the most was if they are one and this is where I just I don’t get it. I don’t get it. Yeah, you know, you know what I’m about to say. Yeah, the older version of herself doesn’t have memory about what the younger version of herself did and vice versa.

Right. So I 

Craig: was totally confused because my understanding based on the deal. Yeah, it seemed like they were going to share a consciousness. They were just going to be in different bodies from week to week. 

Todd: Yes. 

Craig: But that doesn’t seem to be what it is. So I don’t know if the advertising was misleading. 

Clip: Right.

Craig: Or if this is supposed to be some sort of message. Because they keep reiterating, You are one. There is no she, there is no her. It’s you. And yet, they are in Opposition with one another. Yeah. So, are we to believe that they are two separate consciousnesses? Or, are we to believe 

Todd: that they are one? This is where I have a hard time parsing out the message of this movie beyond just a simple, Oh, it’s an allegory about how women shouldn’t feel bad about how old they are or how young they are because they’re both problematic or something like that.

And if you Tried to change it then bad things happened anyway. I mean, like in doing this thing, which I feel like I guess for the story they sort of had to do, except they didn’t, right? She could have had them share a consciousness and the story more or less could have played out the same, because I could see where a conscious.

Elizabeth Sparkle in a younger body would want to maintain that younger body for longer and would resent going back into her old body. But even still, like in this movie, when the young Elizabeth Sparkle, you know, wakes up, it’s like, it’s like the next 

Craig: day to her. But it’s not even the young Elizabeth Sparkle.

She has a new name. 

Todd: She’s Sue. So she, it’s not like she’s getting recognition as Elizabeth Sparkle. It’s not like she’s revitalizing her career. No, she just sort of happens. To get the audition for the redo of the same show that Elizabeth Sparkle was on. 

Craig: Listen, there are so many things about this that drive me crazy.

Like if I were given, and I wouldn’t take it now, I’m too young to take it now, but in my elderly years, if I were given the opportunity to go back and be in a younger, hotter. Version of myself, the last thing that I would do was the exact same thing. Oh, yeah, absolutely not. You’re right. You’re right.

Absolutely not. Yeah, that drove me crazy. Like I just kept thinking in my head like what this woman must really really love leotards and exercise 

Todd: That’s well, that’s the way I read it was she really wanted to stick it To Randy Quaid. She needed to prove that this was wrong, right? That this was just a construct.

Like, I’m, I’m still the same person. Well, 

Craig: that’s sad and pathetic, too. It is also That’s sad and pathetic, too. 

Todd: Yeah, it is. But I mean, for the purposes of the allegory, it provides a contrast. It provides something for it. The movie’s saying, see, she’s the same person. She’s just younger. Except in a younger, hotter body.

And now everybody treats her differently. But she isn’t really. She is a different person now. Yeah, they’re totally different. The young Elizabeth Sparkle is out partying, bringing guys home. She’s really arrogant, and she sabotages the whole f ing 

Craig: She does sabotage the whole thing, and she’s selfish and horrible, but I Again, about I feel like this is about parenting.

Right. If I’m in my 50s or whatever, and I make some kind of weird clone of myself. Am I going to expect them to not be selfish? Like that’s ridiculous. Sure. Young people are selfish. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Craig: And self centered. And, and it doesn’t like the, the, the whole thing is the deal is, and it’s all very medical and body horror and disgusting.

They have to switch every seven days. And during those seven days, Young one has to extract some kind of serum from Demi Moore from her spine and inject it into herself to keep herself young and youthful and they just, and, and like they have to be fed through feeding tubes while either of them is living.

The other one is just lying on a disgusting bathroom floor. With a bunch of tubes in them 

Todd: and then eventually a secret room, but go on. 

Craig: Yeah. A secret room, which is ridiculous. 

Todd: That was the dumbest thing, 

Craig: but, but then they switch. I mean, that’s, again, we’ve talked about this a bazillion times, but it reminds me very, very much of a Brian.

Ian’s, uh, yeah, 

Todd: there’s no movie. Yeah, you’re right. It is very much like that. 

Craig: Very much. 

Todd: Or, or a David Cronenberg movie. 

Craig: Yes, but even more. 

Todd: Brian Yuzna. 

Craig: Because it’s just insane, but it presents itself in such a way that you just, well, 

Todd: it’s kind of go with it. That’s what 

Craig: it 

Todd: is. Yeah. And that’s fine. And we, we don’t mind that.

I don’t mind it. But when you’re analyzing it for meaning, these things do kind of matter. And so, it’s really hard for me to parse out the meaning. Honestly, like, maybe I, maybe we are on the wrong track if we try to make this about aging actresses and things like that. Maybe what you said about this being more of an allegory for a parenting is much, much more accurate.

It, it actually And the child 

Craig: just continues to take and take and take and the parent just suffers. Suffer. But couldn’t that, I, that’s one of the reasons that I like this. And maybe it’s one of the reasons that it’s getting a lot of attention is because it could be interpreted in different ways. This obviously could be interpreted as an allegory for the way that Hollywood treats women.

The older women. Get aged out and are put out to pasture or whatever and these young women Come up no fault of their own and and of course, you know, they should have their moment too but I also feel like there’s this narrative of Women should support and bolster women. But is that happening in Hollywood?

You know, like 

Todd: Yeah, for all the talk of women’s empowerment and stuff like that, are women helping each other out or are they cutthroat? 

Craig: Yeah, I’ve heard God, I wish I could cite a source or even a name. But I’ve recently heard a celebrity, some woman saying this whole idea of women supporting women in Hollywood just isn’t true.

It’s a man’s world and you do what you do. Now again, that is so far from my realm of reality, I have absolutely no idea if that’s true. But, I firmly believe that women have to face struggles when it comes to aging. That men don’t, and it’s not fair, and especially in our day and age, it’s ridiculous. 

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: Jennifer Lopez, Demi Moore, help me name a bazillion other women who are in their 50s or 60s who are just stunningly Shakira. Yeah. These women who are at an age that we used to think of women being old, and they’re redefining it. They’re not old. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: They are mature and gorgeous and thriving and Owning their shit, but I think that this movie is still relevant because it’s attacking these old stereotypes that we’re clinging to But I hope that go away soon and I think it’s doing it in such a way that’s, that’s entertaining and smart.

Todd: Let’s also acknowledge that there are women who are taken seriously and have long, very distinguished careers that are not getting those careers because of their beauty. You know what I’m saying? You know, you’ve got the Betty White, you’ve got the Helen Mirrens, you have the Angela Lansbury’s, you have the God, what is probably one of the most respected women in Hollywood today?

Meryl Streep. Meryl Streep, right? Meryl Streep. Thank you. Now, I’m not saying these women aren’t beautiful, 

Craig: but what I’m saying is like Exactly, but can I say that There’s a distinction. Like, if you’re not stereotypically beautiful, you can be taken seriously. But if you are stereotypically beautiful, you can’t be taken seriously.

Does that make sense? It does make sense. Now, I don’t want to say Meryl Streep is a Stunner. She’s beautiful. Like all of those women, all, actually all 

Todd: the ones that you just mentioned are gorgeous. But my point I’m trying to make is like nobody is suggesting that they do exercise videos . You know what I mean?

Right, right. And I don’t think that they feel like they’ve been shunned and, you know, treated as less than human or different than a man because they haven’t been asked to do exercise videos. Right. So I think this movie would have had a, a nicer, cleaner, neater sort of. It just would have made a little more sense if the reason she was being told that she’s too old isn’t because She’s aging out of an exercise video because like I said, it kind of ultimately is gonna happen, you know Yeah, 

Craig: it 

Todd: is it makes 

Craig: sense.

Vanna white is still doing wheel of fortune 

Todd: But that’s not an exercise video. You know what I mean? It’s not i’m saying like she’s still just a prop. That’s disgusting I’m, sorry. Yeah, but you know what i’m saying what If you had made this about this woman in a game show who was being told now you’re too old to stand there and turn letters, people don’t want to look at you anymore, it’s more tragic.

But anyway, I don’t think it’s that important anyway because the idea isn’t really about the circumstance, the idea is her feelings, right? It’s how does she feel and how is she being treated. So, we can still go with that. And you talked earlier about the craft of the movie, it’s just so incredibly good and I, for the life of me, thought that there was a lot of CGI and stuff involved in this.

And then I went on to YouTube and I found a documentary, a behind the scenes thing that emphatically shows that everything, with like a couple very small, minute exceptions, was practically done. And painstakingly so. Some of these things took months. to shoot and up to 200 people working the prosthetics, which prosthetics that could only be worked once because they were destroyed as soon as they did them.

And, uh, my God, is it good. I know. And the makeup on Demi Moore when she’s old, you know, I mean, we’ve come so far. It took 5 to 9 hours for her to get in that makeup. And then they could only shoot for a little while, like a couple hours because the makeup itself would deteriorate and start coming apart.

So, like, the pressure. And the care that went into making this look good from a practical standpoint is insane. 

Craig: It looks amazing and I feel like we could talk about it for 

Todd: hours. We could. I think that’s one of the things that people really admire about this movie, you know, because like I said, the plot, look, I’m not knocking the plot.

I’m just saying that I don’t think it’s as Mind blowing, as it’s getting credit for. 

Craig: Uh, God, but I don’t think it’s mind blowing either, but I think there are so many things to talk about, so like, She does it, and then they become two different people, and the thing that I was confused about was, I thought that they were sharing a consciousness, like, they would just swap bodies.

But that’s not what it is, and it took me a long time to figure out that that wasn’t what it is. They’re not even aware of what the other one is doing. They are two separate people. That’s why I thought that it was more of an allegory for parenthood. 

Todd: I think you’re right. 

Craig: Sue gets very famous. It’s hugely famous, miraculously instantly, we’ve not even talked about the cinematography of this movie, which is gorgeous, it’s stunning.

There are tributes to The Shining, the hallway from The Shining is in there, everything is shot through the fourth wall. So it looks like you’re looking at a stage. It’s very proscenium. You’re often pulled very far back from the action so that you are looking down like a long corridor or something and seeing the action at the end.

And it’s gorgeous. But ultimately, they’re not the same person and conflict arises. And the younger one, which totally makes sense, the more ambitious the young one gets, she starts to neglect the older one. Yeah. Again. There you go. Parenting. It’s true. Every time she neglects her, then Demi Moore gets older and older.

Like, first she just has an old crony witch finger, which was hilarious. Like, every time She kept poking it into the camera. Alan just kept saying, Witch finger! Well, but eventually she becomes an old, disgusting 

Todd: Hunchback 

Craig: Snow White witch crone! 

Clip: Yeah. 

Craig: When they first reveal her as an old crone, she steps into the pristine white bathroom and it’s just a shot of her disgusting foot stepping in.

It’s, it’s the crone from The Shining. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: so much of this is the shining 

Todd: you’re right I was also getting Angelica Houston and the witches a little bit too with some of it. Yeah 

Craig: Yeah, especially with her like curved back. Yeah 

Todd: It was really gross. 

Craig: There’s so much body horror in this and it looks fantastic like all up until now Everything looks great.

And I also want to talk about how to me more goes through a physical Transformation I just rushed through it, but it actually takes place over the course of time. The witch finger is the first thing, but then the other girl, Sue, takes more out of her spine, or whatever. Yeah. And she’s got like a, like a disgusting leg in her.

face is starting to get disgusting and her hair is starting to get disgusting. And she calls the people as she does regularly and says, 

Clip: yes, hi. Um, there’s been a slight misuse of the substance. A few. The extra hours were accidentally used, causing um, an alteration. So I’m just looking for the procedure to reverse it.

What has been used on one side is lost on the other side. There is no going back. No, um, I don’t know what she was thinking. And obviously, she was drunk. Remember, there is no she and you. You are one. 

Craig: I think that maybe this movie got so much recognition just because it’s so odd. 

Clip: But 

Craig: I see why Demi Moore got a nod for this movie because she just has to do so much.

Clip: And 

Craig: she just has to throw herself into it. And she does. There are so many scenes. There’s one scene where she’s Trying to accept that she’s not this beautiful young woman anymore. But there are, somebody says to her, you are, you know, the person that you are still matters. So she sets up a date with somebody who is super, super into her.

This was the saddest part of the movie to me. And the one that I related the most to. 

Todd: Oh, yeah. 

Craig: A guy who had bumped into her and was like, Oh my god, we went to high school together. And I’m sure you don’t remember me, but I followed your career. And to me, you’re the most beautiful woman in the world. 

Todd: And 

Craig: it’s very awkward.

And she gets his phone number. And then later, when she’s got like a A witch finger and she’s feeling useless, but somebody else who has been going through this process has said to her, Have you forgotten that the old you is still a person? 

Todd: Ha ha ha, who can have a life. 

Craig: Yeah, she tries to make a date with that guy that had complimented her, but she spins A half an hour in front of the mirror.

And when she first gets in front of the mirror, she is stunning. To me more. She looks amazing. But she, every time she sees her reflection in anything, or every time she sees a picture, of the younger version of herself, her insecurities get the better of her. Yeah. And she keeps trying to improve upon what is always stunning.

And every time she tries to improve upon it, it looks worse. And I feel like that is an allegory for Hollywood too. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: Women in Hollywood, f ing stop! Like, you’re gorgeous, stop! I don’t feel like it’s as much a thing now as it was 10 years ago. 10 years ago, Courtney Cox was filling her face with, I don’t know what, and it looked awful.

And eventually, she realized it looked awful, and stopped doing it, and talked about it. But I feel like that’s what this movie is about too, like, you, you’re a stunningly beautiful person when you start trying to do all of this stuff to yourself, you turn yourself into a monster. I can 

Todd: pull up so many examples of actresses who I was like, why did you mess with yourself like that?

Like I thought you were gorgeous. You seem to be aging great. Why did you go beyond and, and you’re right, this can be like a message, you know, don’t do it. On the other hand, who pulls the strings still, I can’t imagine the enormous pressure actresses are on either. I can’t either. You can’t be in the right, your right mind necessarily.

You just know that you’ve been told something by somebody who is in power. 

Craig: I would never judge. Anybody for doing whatever they want to do to their own body. Of course, that too. 

Todd: If you’re not happy with it, it’s fine. I, you 

Craig: know, You 

Todd: do what you want to do. I know somebody who has one of those little dark beauty marks, you know, we call them beauty marks, right?

The little mole above the lip. And I think it is the cutest thing. And she was teased relentlessly about it when she was a child. She has a very different relationship with it. She would love it to be gone. I can see that. I get it. And so I wouldn’t begrudge her, you know, if she wanted to take that off and had the money and the wherewithal to do it.

You know, that’s, that’s up to you. It’s your body. But also like, I’m like, man, I wish it didn’t happen to you. You know, I wish you could see it the way I see it and the way I think most people see it. It’s actually a really charming 

Craig: part 

Todd: of you. 

Craig: And I’m not going to speculate, but if Demi Moore has any, has had any work done.

She looks fantastic. I can’t get over how amazing she looks and if she’s had work done, good job. You picked the right people. I’m impressed that she was willing to show that regardless of the fact that she is Stunning at her age her butt’s a little saggy who gives a shit like 

Clip: yeah, 

Craig: I would Todd I don’t know.

I haven’t seen you in person in a long time But can you imagine getting naked in front of a camera for all the world? 

Todd: No, I 

Craig: can’t imagine. 

Todd: No, 

Craig: I would never Have that kind of vulnerability and for her and and not just her But margaret quali. Yeah, she’s fully nude Multiple times and not only is she fully nude from the time that demi more turns into margaret quali The camera cannot stop leering At her body, that’s the whole point.

And in any other movie, I would say gross, like stop it. But in this movie, it’s the whole point. It’s the whole point. Yeah. We’re talking about standards of beauty and what we focus and emphasize on. So every time that camera leers at her beautiful body, and she’s a beautiful young woman. Um, but every time I thought I get it, they’re making a point.

This is what we do. 

Todd: I love that the camera also equally forces us to leer on Demi Moore’s body. I think that’s part of the point. I love that too. 

Craig: But but then of 

Todd: course she gets grotesque. 

Craig: Yeah, and it’s gradual and I love the gradual change and that’s why. Do I think that Demi Moore deserved an Oscar nomination for this movie?

I don’t know, but what I will say is that she was given a lot. She had a lot to play in this movie. She did. She had the insecure, young, gorgeous woman to play. And then, as she evolves into this Crone and then ultimately into this disgusting thing. She was exploring Emotional space that I would not have necessarily Expected from her.

This is Big stuff. It’s an accomplishment. Yeah, she’s really getting into it. She’s really getting emotional if you just look at it Casually like it may come off as a little bit silly But if you if you’re watching this movie and thinking about what I think that this movie is trying to do I think that Demi Moore is trying to do it, too.

She’s Working she’s working. She’s acting 

Todd: and it’s And let me also say, like, as a guy who now is fortunate enough to make his living acting and know what it’s like to be in front of a camera and kind of what that takes, of course my acting is quite silly. So let’s, let’s put this all in perspective. Well, and it’s different.

It’s different. It’s different. But this is a two and a half hour long movie. It takes its time. You know, earlier you said it’s like The Shining, and that’s one of the ways it’s like The Shining. It takes its time. It lingers on faces. It gets up close to her face, to her eyes, and stays there for a while.

And in bright, stark light. It was pretty interesting. I saw that the director was talking about, and I think it was part of this, um, this documentary, they were talking about all of this very difficult prosthetic work and transformation and scenes and things that all had to happen in this bathroom, and when the director, when the, when the guys and And gals who were in charge of doing this, you know, read it on the page and were initially planning things.

They assumed that they were going to be in a bathroom that was kind of like maybe eerily lit. It’s going to have some shadows, maybe some wall sconces. It’s going to look like luxurious or whatever. Okay. Like we can hide some things, you know, with the light and all that. And the director was like, no, I want this to be stark white, clinical, bright light.

She said, this is basically the headspace. Of this character, you know, it’s representative of the headspace of the character and all of the most crucial scenes between the two of those people, pretty much I think all of them happened in that bathroom and so not just the prosthetics have to look good, but again, they’re exposed as actors, they are exposed and to be able to maintain and be convincing in an environment where you are so exposed is an accomplishment, the level and degree of emotion and subtlety that they have to provide.

It over a long period of time in this very exposed space, they really deserve a lot of credit for it. But ultimately it does get kind of interesting because it all comes to a head, right? They are in the bathroom, like you said earlier, they have a fight. And I believe it looks like Demi Moore’s, Demi Moore’s side of things, Elizabeth Sparkle’s side of things is going to put an end.

To her younger self once and for all 

Craig: when we say she’s a crone if they had just done the procedure As it was intended. They both could have continued on as is. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: but Sue Is a young gorgeous ambitious person and she has all of this opportunity. So she keeps stealing Extra time and when I say that I mean she’s stealing bodily Spinal apparently fluid from elizabeth until she can’t anymore until she can’t anymore It’s like black when it comes out.

Oh, it’s so great and the people that she keeps talking to on the phone like there’s Somebody is giving them this stuff. I I turned to alan at one point and said has there been any discussion of cost? Like Right. Neither Elizabeth They don’t seem to have paid anything. No, it seems to be something that should be only available to the most elite.

But it’s so elusive, like, She doesn’t know who she’s talking to. She doesn’t pay anything. She does meet I mean, she’s referred. By somebody who has used this service and then is later confronted by them who Basically tells her ha ha ha Why why would you do that to somebody like if you had done this right and it was not working out Why would you tell somebody else to do it?

Oh god. I don’t know but But ultimately, Sue keeps stealing from Elizabeth until Elizabeth turns into a disgusting, disgusting old crone with tits sticking out everywhere and Demi Moore’s face sticking out on her back and it’s disgusting. But she’s supposed to host New Year’s Eve and then I guess she goes.

Like, it’s so weird. We have left out so much. This should have been a two hour episode because there’s so much to talk about. And ultimately I really did like this movie and I’m not done. We can talk about the end. I really did like this movie, but it is weird. It reminds me of Cronenberg. It reminds me of the fly.

It reminds me of.

It’s wild because at the end, 

Todd: the shunting, 

Craig: just like society or the fly, it gets crazy 

Todd: at the end. The younger one ends up bashing the older ones. She 

Craig: ends up killing her. I mean, it’s a whole dispute and then they have a whole huge 

Todd: fight scene, 

Craig: cinematic fight. At one point, Sue kicks the crone, Elizabeth, across the goddamn room.

Like, all of a sudden, she can kick her across the room. It all, it drove Alan crazy. Yeah. At one point before. Demi Moore had turned into the total crone like when she was like half crone when she just had a half crone leg There was a whole scene how she couldn’t get up out of the chair. And then when she’s turned into complete Snow White witch crone she can just run around and beat bitches up 

Todd: It’s a little silly.

Again, you know, it’s, it’s an allegory and this is their headspace, I guess. So we’re just supposed to ignore that. And that’s, I guess it’s fair, but you’re right. It’s a little annoying. Like you didn’t have to do it that way. You know, you could have made it a little more logical, but yeah, so she kills her.

And then of course now she realizes she’s screwed. So she tries to basically do it again by going to some leftover stuff from that very first. Injection like that kicked this whole thing off that very explicitly stated it was one use only and Injects herself and what ends up being birthed out of her is the thing Yeah, it’s a crazy amalgamation of Demi Moore just, I mean, it’s hard, it’s impossible to describe.

It’s just like the thing, it’s the thing, it’s the shunting. 

Craig: Listen, give Demi Moore an Academy Award nomination for this. 

Todd: Was it her in there or was it the other Demi? I don’t 

Craig: know. It’s a monstrous. And her face is poking out of the back of it, just screaming. And I’m sure it wasn’t her. I’m sure she went through the excruciating process of having a mold made of her face.

But yeah, it’s just hilarious to me. Like it’s called the Monstro. Eliza Sue like It’s the two of them combined and it’s monstrous and disgusting in like a Toxic Avenger kind of way. Oh, yes. There are eyeballs and Tits and all kinds of things popping out of it. There’s an eye within an eye. That was cool.

It’s disgusting. And the whole, the whole thing is gross and it doesn’t make any sense. You have to look at it from a surreal perspective. Because that monstrous thing then goes to the New Year’s Eve party. Which I thought was supposed to be like Dick Clark’s, yeah, New Year’s Dick and Rockin Eve or whatever But all of the women had their tits out and I was like 

Todd: weird This is like some public television thing and you’ve got these like cabaret dancers.

Craig: What network is this on? It was crazy And, and she just walks out, but she has glued the picture of Demi Moore’s face on her face, but still whatever. And then she starts talking and she can barely talk and the movie for me subtitled it. Did your movie subtitle it? I thought that was an intentional thing.

Like the monster is like, but the subtitles said, it’s me, it’s me, it’s me. And I feel like that’s important. Like they loved and worshiped and adored her when she was gorgeous. But now that she’s monstrous. It’s kill the monster, shoot it, burn it. Yeah. And again, I just think that that speaks to the message of the movie.

Whether you’re talking about women in Hollywood or people who are different. Ultimately, you know, we accept and celebrate certain things and we immediately go to, ah! 

Todd: Yeah, we reject just as easily as we, you know, we put someone up on a pedestal and then we tear them down. Yeah. It’s kind of a vicious cycle.

It’s really terrible. But she, I don’t know, she has her revenge or she just Gives them what they’re asking for, a spectacle or whatever it is because somebody comes around and cuts her head off. And, I can’t remember exactly, did another head sprout out from that? Yes! Yeah. Yes, another 

Craig: monstrous head, like, ballooned out of the hole in her neck.

And then Wait, is this when it coughs up a tit? I can’t remember. No, that’s what freaked everybody out. Like when,

when she was just talking, like when she was just trying to host new year’s and everybody was sitting in the audience, like, Oh, then like a hole opened up in her body and a Boob just like, fell out, popped out of it. It was disgusting. That’s when they all freaked out. But that, 

Todd: no, 

Craig: at 

Todd: this point, it’s a literal fire hose of blood that just sprays over everybody.

And actually it was a fire hose. 

Craig: At this point of the movie, like I’m sitting next to Alan and I know that he has been tolerating this movie for two hours and at this point I’m like, huh. Yeah. Why? How do I justify? I know. And at the, and at the end, like all I could say was, it’s nominated for best feature.

You can. Talk about it with people at work. Like, how can I justify it to him? Not because I didn’t enjoy it, because that’s not true. I did. I think it’s a little bit too 

Todd: long. It’s a little long. And I think this bit at the end is a bit much. It’s 

Craig: a 

Todd: lot. That 

Craig: spraying of the blood everywhere goes on for like five.

Todd: minutes. It’s so long. It really feels indulgent and pointless. Like we got it. I don’t know. I don’t know why I, I, I don’t know why. It changes 

Craig: locations. Like they spray everybody in the theater and you get to see everybody’s face in closeup as they’re getting sprayed by the blood and then it moves. It just starts going to other places.

You know, 

Todd: I was thinking about other body horror movies that just kind of go to an extreme at the end, but. But we’re better. Like, the one that I think about is The Fly. I love The Fly, the remake of The Fly with Jeff Goldblum. And I especially love the ending. And that ending makes me cry every single time.

Me too. The Fly makes me cry. Crying that this big, ugly, monstrous fly that is trying to kill and destroy these people just crawls out of that machine and the dude blows it away. And it is sad, but it is over the top. That thing is completely over the top by that point, but it makes sense for the movie and God, the emotion in that, the sadness, it’s just beautiful.

It’s so powerful. This didn’t have that kind of power to me because it was just a little. Excessive. It did at first, but then when it kept going into the big blood spraying thing, which I think was supposed to mean, I don’t know, like, here’s what you asked for, or I’m giving you everything, finally, or I don’t know what it was really supposed to symbolize specifically, but it lost a lot of its original power by going on for so long and being so crazy, I think.

Personally. I 

Craig: feel, you know, yeah, I feel differently. I did think that that blood splatter scene was not excessive. It just went on too long. That’s what I’m talking about. 

Todd: I’m not talking about her getting out there and her body and all that. No, I thought that was powerful too. I thought the blood splatter part kind of.

Overshadowed that and kind of ruined it. 

Craig: Okay. Okay. I I’m down with that But I actually liked the ending where after that that big monstrous thing Leaves the bloodbath and then just walks outside and falls down and kind of explodes 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: so then Demi Moore’s face crawls Onto her her Hollywood star of fame.

This was great. And she envisions glitter and All of the things that she’s always wanted and that’s kind of where the movie ends. I liked it I liked it too. I understand why it’s getting attention. I think that it was beautifully made. I think that the cinematography is gorgeous. It’s, it’s beautiful to look at the way that it’s shot is awesome.

And Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley both do a great job. I’m just surprised because we’ve seen movies like this before. We’ve seen good movies where people put in. Excellent performances and the movie has been well shot, but it’s never got recognized. 

Todd: Yep. 

Craig: But a horror movie like this is getting recognized and is getting nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars.

That’s 

Todd: wild! We, we should all be super excited about this. Yeah. It is I fully support this movie. I’m so glad that And it’s one of only five or six horror movies before this have ever been nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. Silence of the Lambs. E1. I think it was the only one that’s won. It’s, it’s an accomplishment.

And it’s so odd to me that this movie has struck such a mainstream course. Me too. Maybe because of its messaging. Maybe because it, you know, again, Me Too. Ha ha ha ha. We’re right on the edge of the Me Too movement, right? Like that’s got to have played into it a little bit. I mean, surely that informed the production, but also the care and the craft that went into it is quite It’s hard to ignore the director.

She’s French. She, that most of this was filmed in France. She had done one other movie before this was a rape revenge movie that I’ve never heard of or seen. I’ve 

Craig: seen it. Have you really? So good. Is it? Yes. And it’s really good. It’s really good. Oh, that’s cool. It’s called revenge and it’s a shutter original.

It’s really good. It’s just so. 

Todd: Interesting and odd, and it’s, it’s great that a movie like this is getting this kind of attention. This just does not happen very often. And it, maybe it does also pave the way for more, you know, maybe audiences are getting more of a tolerance for this. The terrifier, who would have thought?

This movie is like a more acceptable version of that kind of over the top gore and guts and weirdness. And I think probably also paved the way for the toxic Avenger. The new Toxic Avenger movie finished shooting like, I think, two years ago. They wouldn’t distribute it. I think they were worried about the gore and how audiences would take it.

And I can’t help but imagine, I haven’t read this anywhere, but I can’t help but think that the Terrifier and this movie explicitly gave permission. Okay, you can take a chance at releasing the Toxic Avenger as gory as it might be. Yep. So it paves some way that, you know, in that direction too, and it’s really nice.

That said, like I said, a little long. Which is fine, I was into it the whole time actually. Until the very, very end. And then that was when I was like, all right, can we just get to the end now? The blood spray part that this felt like a little, a little bit much. 

Craig: Oh gosh. Yeah. I that’s, that’s kind of where I stopped caring about it.

Like, okay. You should watch it. Watch this movie. Support this movie. Check it out. Support horror. I think it’s amazing that a horror movie is being nominated for best picture of the year. It’s 

Todd: great. 

Craig: It won’t win. I can’t imagine it will win, but that’s amazing. And I also think that Demi Moore, I’m so glad that she’s getting some recognition and she works her ass off in this movie.

She is doing all kinds of crazy shit. She has to be hot. She has to be crazy. She has to wear tons of prosthetics. I think she’s deserving of the nomination, whether she wins or not. Amen. That’s it. 

Todd: Well, I hope you listeners feel the same. If you do, or if you don’t, just, uh, drop us a message at anywhere that, uh, we are online.

ChainsawHorror. com, obviously. We have a comment section on there. You can also check out our social media. All you need to do is google Two Guys in a Chainsaw Podcast and you’ll find all of that stuff there. We have a Patreon page, you can also get that through our website, a link on there. Consider subscribing!

This year, you know, we put out minisodes for our patrons. We have the complete, unedited phone calls, which are often interesting. That’ll give you a little bit of behind the scenes, uh, peek into what goes into the production of these in case you’re interested, and a little bit of personal stuff about us from time to time.

We have a book club going on up there, and lots of goodies. Just find the link to that through our website. Share this podcast with the friend, subscribe to our newsletter, which is linked on our webpage. And, uh, if you want to talk to us directly by recording an audio message that we will play here on our show, there’s a link on there as well.

Talk to us. Just click it. You don’t need any special software. Just through your web browser, record a 30 second or one minute clip for us. And it’ll go straight to us. And we’d love to hear from you in any way, shape or form that you reach out. Until next time, I am Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

In this episode of Two Guys in a Chainsaw, we’re already diving into our second tribute episode of 2025, dedicated to the influential and controversial filmmaker David Lynch, who passed away in 2025.

And what better choice do we have than Lynch’s surreal horror film ‘Eraserhead’? It’s his first full-length film, released in 1977. We discuss its impact, complex narrative, and unique style. We do our best to explore the film’s surrealist elements, its unsettling soundscape, and its enigmatic nature.

We also chat a bit about Lynch’s story, his filmmaking philosophy, and his influence on other directors and the cinematic landscape. Enjoy!

Episode 425, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, man, kind of right on the heels of another tribute episode, we just decided we had to dive in and do our, our first tribute episode of 2025. Paying tribute to a person who died in 2025. How’s that? Does that work? Okay, 

Craig: uh, you almost lost me, but you got me back at the end. Yeah, a little convoluted.

Todd: David Lynch died last week and we just were in a position to be able to jump right in and do a tribute episode for him. Icon of the cinema. Definitely a controversial and well respected artist. His works will definitely be talked about for years to come. And one of his works that is, uh, talked about obsessively, and has been as long as I’ve been interested in movies, is Eraserhead.

And it is probably the most horror, I suppose, of the movies that he’s done. If you go to IMDb, it’s listed as like 10 different things, you know? It’s, it’s, it’s listed as horror, sci fi, body horror, yadda yadda. Above all, I would say it’s, it’s a surrealist. 

Craig: Yeah. For sure. It’s, 

Todd: uh, it’s artsy. It’s definitely got enough horror elements in there that we Thankfully can give us enough of an excuse for us to talk about David Lynch and his career and try to I don’t know I don’t know if we’re gonna be I’ve almost said try to pick apart this movie Yeah it seems pointless to try to pick apart this movie and not because 

Craig: right see I’ve I have been aware of this movie and Familiar with what it is, and I know who David Lynch is but it’s never appealed to me I’ve never thought, Oh, I need to see that.

So this is my first time with it. I’ve seen it once like yesterday. I’m a little nervous because I feel like there are probably people out there who have watched it a bazillion times and who have given it so much thought and the things that I’m going to say are probably going to sound really stupid and ignorant because.

I’ve only seen it the one time, you know what I mean? Like I just, I cannot, this, this seems like the kind of movie, and I mean this in a very complimentary way, that people are going to have thoughts about and that people are going to interpret in a multitude of ways. So if you’re listening and you’re a big fan, just be aware that I am just scratching the surface.

So I’ll, I’ll probably misinterpret things and not understand things that may be entirely obvious. But like you said, first and foremost, it’s surreal. I mean, it reminds me of a lot of things. It reminds me of older movies. Like it reminds me of silent movies from the thirties. But as I was watching it, I kept thinking, God, this is so Kafka esque.

Like I do the metamorphosis with my kids and I’m like, it’s. Reminds me so much of Kafka and then of course later. I read that that was one of his Inspirations not just Kafka, but specifically that story and I see it that that surreal Nature. Yeah, and I don’t know like Kafka in general is also I don’t want to say obtuse But like the meaning it’s not bold on its face Face like, right.

I don’t know. It’s so surreal. That’s like, I don’t know, maybe I just don’t get it. Like the metamorphosis specifically, that’s kind of a broad allegory that you can apply to a lot of things, but a lot of his other stuff is just weird. It’s just really weird. And I have no idea what it was intended to be.

And that’s kind of how I feel about this. Like I watched it and I really appreciated the cinematography. Like I, I get why people talk about it. It’s weird. I don’t know that I get it. 

Todd: Well, I think David Lynch would be fine with you saying that. He famously refused to explain anything about his movies. And pretty much all of his movies are, well, I don’t know if any of them are quite as surreal as this.

But they have elements of surrealism, they have elements of magical realism, they have nonsense. They’re, they’re hard to pin down. They’re not straightforward and sometimes they’re just baffling, but he is absolutely loved for it. You know, it’s interesting because, uh, I was looking up for him and I always imagine David Lynch is this enigmatic figure just because he made these weird movies and didn’t want to talk about them.

But, you know, actually, if you go and you see interviews with him, he seems like a, just a very charming guy, you know, very affable, he’s willing to talk a lot, he doesn’t sit around and brood and in silence like, you know, J. D. Salinger or anything like that, he’s out there making movies, and I’ve seen clips of him directing, and he’s very passionate about it, and it seems very friendly, seems like a, he’d be a really fun director to work with, actually.

But, he very, very distinctly and clearly said, cinema is its own language. And for me to translate that language into English, it’s going to lose something. 

David Lynch: The film is the thing. You work so hard to get, you know, after the ideas come, to get this thing built, all the elements to feel correct, the whole to feel correct, in this beautiful language called cinema.

And the second it’s finished, people want you to change it back into words. And it’s very, very, um, saddening. It’s, it’s, um, torture. It’s the film, the language is cinema. When things are concrete, very few variations in interpretation. But the more abstract a thing gets, the more varied the interpretations.

But people still know inside what it is for them. And, um, And even if they don’t trust their intuition, I always say that if some girl named Sally, she comes out of the theater, I don’t have a clue what that means. She goes over with Bob and Jim to get a cup of coffee. Bob starts talking about what he thinks it is, because he knows exactly what it is, he starts talking.

Five seconds later, Sally is saying, no, no, no, no, it’s not that. And all this thing comes out of Sally. So Sally really did know. For herself. That’s the beauty of it. It’s just like life. You see the same, sort of the same things, but you come up with many, many different things as you go along as a detective.

You have everything in the film. That’s the thing. It doesn’t matter what I say. Zip. It can only be a negative. The thing is built so you don’t want to take anything away, and you don’t want to add anything to it. It’s complete. That’s the, that’s it. 

Todd: And so, that’s why I don’t talk about my movies. They are meant for you to go, they are meant for you to experience, and you can only get the movie by watching it.

And then, if I try to explain anything to you, if I tell you, start imposing my feelings about it, it’s gonna take something away from you and your experience of the film. It’s true. I get it. And I’m totally on board with it. Peter Greenaway feels very much like this. He may be even more hardcore that cinema is so much its own language that it doesn’t even need a story.

And he felt like cinema will not ever come into its truest art form until people stop trying to make stories out of it. I don’t, I wouldn’t go that far, but, you know, I think every piece of art is like this, right? You go to see an impressionistic painting in the museum. You, you’re meant to sit and look at it and experience it.

You’re gonna get something a little different out of it from time to time. You revisit it when you’re older. You’re gonna feel something different. You revisit it on a good day or a bad day. You’re gonna get something different. It just is, and so, I’m not gonna sit down and explain to somebody Van Gogh’s portrait or whatever like that.

It just, you can do it, but It doesn’t do justice to the original. And I think a lot of artists feel this way, but not many are willing to really hold to that like he was. And so, in some ways, it puts a movie like this a bit out of reach for us. But he would say, no, trust your intuition. Trust your intuition as an audience member and go with it.

The movie is meant to be experienced and, you know, you take away from that movie what your intuition tells you and don’t listen to me or anybody else try to tell you what to feel about that movie. Now. Sometimes when people say this about art, I feel like it’s a cop out. Ha ha ha ha ha! Sometimes when an artist is asked to explain their work and say, Oh, you know what?

It’s whatever you think it’s supposed to feel. There’s something behind that that I get very cautious about. I go, Oh, wait a minute. Were you just bullshitting me then? Did you really have an intention behind this? Are you really truly trying to communicate something? What difference does it make? Yeah, well, that’s true.

Exactly. And that’s the point I’m getting to. It makes no difference. The art is out there. It speaks for itself. You really got to see it and experience it. 

Craig: Exactly. And there are things that I want to talk about, but I agree with you that, listener, if you have not seen this movie, like me, it’s something that you’re potentially interested in, but you’ve not yet seen it.

If you want to watch it, you shouldn’t listen to this because we’re going to describe, we’re going to talk about some things and it’s going to sound weird because it is, but like you said, it is like a whole experience. I also think that it’s interesting that, I don’t know, I’ve read different things, but I, I read that.

He didn’t approve chapter breaks. Like if you buy any DVD or Blu ray copies of his films, if they are Lynch approved, they don’t have chapter breaks because he feels like the movie should be experienced from beginning to end. And I totally get it. And that’s fine. Whatever. I don’t care, but I kind of agree with them on this.

Like sit down with this one. Like it, cause it’s a trip if you know what I mean? Like, It’s uh, I don’t know, have a glass of wine or some other recreational material and sit in the dark and watch it. It’s wild. 

Todd: But, to be honest with you, I also feel like a movie like this takes a lot of pressure off of the audience because it should be very clear that this isn’t this, like, very easy to pin down, linear narrative that makes sense, that can be easily picked apart and stuff like that, so you’re not under the impress the pressure to try to do that.

You can just experience it like you would experience a painting and go with the flow and the feeling and get that out of it and not have to think about it. But again, if you want, if you want to dive into it and pick it apart, you can, but you’re not going to feel any stupider or smarter than the guy next to you because none of you are going to know.

None of you are going to be the authority on this film, you know? 

Craig: Yeah, I think that’s fair. Maybe if I hadn’t been watching it. specifically for the podcast, I would have felt differently because I felt like I needed to be so invested. Like I kept asking myself, what is that? What does it mean? What is, what is going on now?

Again, I did understand that it’s broad and you could interpret it in a lot of different ways. And I think a lot of it is. Clearly intended to be impressionistic and not to be taken literally like I have things in my notes bolded because I didn’t want to forget them like sperm monsters and foreskin in a tiny box Maybe 

Todd: I didn’t even think 

Craig: Yeah, okay I don’t know, such, such, just weird random things that you couldn’t possibly like, fetter out like the right answer, but I was, and, and I think that this speaks to the quality of the art.

I desperately wanted to know what was going on. Like, I was so, 

Todd: like, 

Craig: I kept waiting and hoping that there would be more explanation. And ultimately, like, I knew I wasn’t going to get it. So, I was being satisfied with just the little bit that it was showing me. See, I’m already getting all heady about it, because that’s the kind of movie that it is.

Like, how do you even say what the movie’s about? Like, it’s just, like, it’s absurd. It’s insane. 

Todd: You can have your ideas and your thoughts. For a long time, people assumed and thought very openly that this was, uh, had something to do with Lynch, like it was a personal movie. Because he said this is the most spiritual and personal of the movies that he’s ever done.

It was also his first real, I mean, he did some shorts, but this was his first feature length. And, and they’ve said, oh, well, because he You know, had a pregnant wife, very young, 21, they moved to this new house and whatever. It’s all about his anxieties as a, as a new father. And one of the things he has said explicitly is it’s not that.

However, I’d be hard pressed to not believe that watching this, because it’s clearly about a guy who has, among perhaps many anxieties, anxieties about being a new father. 

Craig: A new father, but God, it’s It’s so crazy, like, the first part of the movie was the weirdest part for me. Because it moves through things relatively quickly, I guess.

I guess I only say that because eventually it becomes Very focused in one place with a very limited group of characters. But they have to establish it very quickly. You say he’s a young father. No. He’s this guy who’s living in, like, some kind of industrial wasteland and has I guess been on a date with a girl, but then hasn’t heard from her in a long time.

And his sexy neighbor across the hall, who I want to talk about more, but um, his sexy neighbor across the hall tells him, 

Clip: are you Henry?

Yes. Girl named Mary called on the pay phone and said she said her parents and you’re invited to dinner.

David Lynch: Oh yeah.

Craig: Thank you very much. And he goes there and Everything is weird. Like, there’s no way to describe it. It is just surreal. They are all acting. Bizarre and it’s Kafka esque in that they’re all behaving in super bizarre ways and like having fits and freaking out and like really strange personal tics and 

Todd: yeah, 

Craig: like there’s an old lady that just sits in the kitchen and doesn’t move and they just stick a cigarette in her mouth every once in a while.

But it’s Kafka esque and surreal because like in a dream, everybody just acts like nothing is. Out of the ordinary, right? Yeah, when somebody just had like when somebody has a physical conniption like Right, like a seizure at the table. Nobody reacts like well, that’s just how things are like it’s yeah, so bizarre and The most bizarre part.

So many bizarre things happen and I wrote them down, but you’re right. What’s the point of talking about every little detail? But eventually the mother pulls him away as like, 

Clip: did you and Mary have sexual intercourse?

Did you,

are you asking me this question? I have a very good reason. And now I want you to tell me

David Lynch: I’m very, I love Mary 

Clip: Henry. I asked you if you and Mary had sexual intercourse. Well, I I. I don’t think that’s any of your business. Henry. I’m sorry. You’re in very bad trouble if you won’t cooperate. 

Todd: And then starts to make out with him? 

Craig: Yeah. Well, like, she’s like kissing his neck, like passionately. Until Mary comes in weeping, and she’s like, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, and the mom’s like, there’s a baby, and Mary says, 

Todd: They’re not even sure it’s a baby, yeah.

Craig: They’re not even sure it’s a baby yet, and the mom’s like, well it’s premature, but it’s a baby, so you’re gonna have to get married. 

Todd: And he’s like, that’s impossible. The implication is that it’s been too soon. Oh, yeah. Like, she couldn’t have possibly had this baby, because maybe they had sex like a couple days before, you know, who knows.

I think that the lead in to the whole movie is kind of important, because the opening of the film is a superimposition of this guy, sideways, kind of floating out in space, like literal outer space, because there is a small planet behind him. At least it looks like a planet. We’re 

Craig: never really sure anything in this movie.

I, in my notes, I call it the turd planet. The turd planet? 

Todd: The moon, the meteorite, whatever. It almost seems in a way kind of a parody of Star Wars because he’s floating there in front of this and he’s terrified. He looks like he’s slightly horrified pretty much throughout the whole movie. Until the very end of the film this guy has one look on his face.

Yeah. And that is like confusion and or terror but it’s also quite blank like I there’s nothing I can do about this like I have no agency. Yes. He keeps up that look through everything until the very last shot. I have to think that’s significant. By the way the man his name is Henry his he’s played by Jack Nance and Jack Nance sadly died in 1996.

He was in most of of David Lynch’s films. This was not his first movie, but it was among his first. He was in Ghoulies. He was also, we did, uh, the Blob remake. He was a doctor in the Blob remake as well. And he was, uh, working quite regularly up until his death. He has this look, and he, at one point, opens his mouth.

And when he opens his mouth, a superimposed, what can only be described as a sperm creature, comes floating out of it. 

Craig: Yes! That’s exactly what I said. And weird sperm creature comes out. Yeah. Yeah. This is all like just at the beginning. It’s crazy. Yeah. It does zoom in on the planet, but not before we see some weird monstrous guy, like sitting in front of a window, like Pulling levers 

Todd: it does well it zooms in on the planet it takes us through kind of a trench of the planet into darkness and then to this what looks like a Building or box or something on the planet that’s with a part of it That’s been torn out and zooms into that and then we get this guy looking out the window And I don’t know if the impression is this guy is on this planet inside this box.

He’s def he looks like he’s half melted In a way. Or he’s got boils and things all over his body. I just don’t know what’s going on with him. And he’s got three lovers. He 

Craig: shows up again later at like a really interesting time and I’m like, Oh, I’m supposed to connect this. And he’s like, I don’t know. I 

Todd: don’t get it.

I’ll tell you the impression I got first, right, was that he is maybe this sort of like, sad god like character. That he’s looking out the window from this high above place on this planet, but it’s all broken, and it’s all very depressing and sad looking. But then he pulls these levers, and as he pulls these three levers, it seems to set into motion the story, if you could call it that, of the film.

That’s true. I think he pulls the first lever, and that’s sort of when we see that thing float out of the guy’s mouth. He pulls the second lever, and then he pulls the third lever, and we see a puddle, I believe. I feel like his levers are launching the sperm. That’s what it feels like. Cause he pulls that last lever and that sperm just shoots into that puddle.

And it moves away. And then, there’s 

Craig: a That’s, that’s When you like, cut a YouTube trailer or something, that, that’s the clip. It just needs to be And the sperm just shoots right into that puddle.

Todd: And then it kind of zooms into the puddle and like we kind of see it fall into the water like we’re under the water And then we get clearly I think a birth type Into the light down a tunnel the tunnel even at the ends got a little hair on the outside edges of it and then And we’re into the light, and then suddenly, we’re now in this guy’s world, right?

Where he’s walking, and he’s got this wacky hair, it’s sticking straight up on his head. And apparently, this actor, because this film took so long to shoot, Oh my god. Five years. Five years. It’s hard to believe. 

Craig: It, I mean, it was his, it was his first movie. He did have some funding. It’s not like he, I don’t think he was funding it himself.

I think the American Film Institute was helping him out with funding, but Oh, it’s so funny. It went on for so long. But he was also, like, this was really his side gig. Like, he also had to have a day job to support himself. He was like roofing 

Todd: and stuff. 

Craig: And like painting houses and stuff. Mm hmm, mm 

Todd: hmm.

Craig: Just making money so I get it It’s just I think movies like this when I hear these backstories and this movie, you know is notorious It’s got a huge cult following so I knew there was something to it But when I hear these backstories about the fact that it took five years to make doesn’t impress me What impresses me is that the people involved in it were so invested that they invested five years 

Todd: Yeah, to 

Craig: do it and not only that, but the actors and maybe the crew too, I don’t remember worked for no money and even put money into it themselves.

Like that’s cool. 

Todd: The actor apparently just Kept his hair teased up all five years because he never knew at a moment’s notice when he might be called in to shoot a scene. It’s kind of funny. 

Craig: And I think his wife was the hair person. Well, it was a small crew. Yeah, it was a small crew and a small group, but they were tight knit.

Yeah. Friendly, apparently. They say, I mean, I don’t know that I necessarily noticed, but the actor that you mentioned who plays Henry and others have said that there are parts of the movie where From one cut to another, like Henry will close the door and then open it. And when he he’s aged two years, because literally he had like, cause it took five years to shoot.

I, I do feel like I kind of noticed him looking a little bit different from time to time, but not knowing the truth behind that. That is the least. Of the oddity, you know, like, Oh, he looks a little bit older in this scene. That’s strange. No, that’s not strange. What’s strange is that there is like just organic material.

everywhere that again, they just don’t acknowledge. Like I kept thinking there’s gotta be something to it. There’s gotta be something to it that there’s like a mound of dirt with a tree growing out of it on his nightstand. Again, I went into this movie knowing nothing. I’ve read a little bit about it now.

I I’ve read that this is just a thing that David Lynch does. Like he puts organic material in Scenes I guess where it shouldn’t be like the it’s also there’s something growing out from underneath the radiator And 

Todd: there’s a whole pile of that stuff on top of his he goes into his house Of course, he’s walking through this desolate.

It looks like a factory Wasteland like you said nobody else is around but we hear sounds I mean something’s happening But it’s all the sounds of machines and humming 

Craig: How did you watch it? Did you, or I’m, I should ask, how did you listen to it? Did you have a nice, cause I, as always, I listen to it with my earbuds.

Todd: I listen to it on a, on my big screen TV with the sound turned up. So, I mean, it wasn’t ideal, but, but it was, uh, I could hear everything, yeah. It 

Craig: was insane to me. There is always Always something going on in the sound and often it’s I don’t want to say grating but it’s not pleasant like the sounds in the background are unpleasant and so For me it made me tense A lot of 

Todd: the time it really is.

Yeah. 

Craig: Everything that was going on in the soundscape felt very, very intentional. And so I was glad this is one of the few times that I was glad that I was watching it by myself with earbuds in, because 

Todd: I 

Craig: felt like the sound was a big part of the Experience of the movie. 

Todd: It was a huge part. I mean, um, David Lynch and his, um, sound designer Well, they worked together to design and create the sounds for this movie and they spent another year just on Scoring.

I mean, there’s no music. Well, there is one song actually in it That is sung, but oddly enough, but, but the entire movie is scored with these sounds that are, like you said, they come in, they’re grating, they’re droning, they get shrill at times, they’re very uncomfortable, everything is kind of uncomfortable about it.

And honestly, I, if you watch this movie with the sound off Without that soundscape behind it, it just wouldn’t be the same. You really, really need to hear it. So, yeah, they spent a whole year on the sound just to get it right. Again, puzzling, but, uh, impressive. You know, that that much care and effort was, uh, was put into it.

I, uh, I, I was impressed. But, yeah, so there’s these, these cold and life threatening Uh, he looks nervous and unnerved the whole time. We’re feeling it too. He even gets into his apartment which is a, like, he lives in an apartment complex, it’s like a shithole. He goes in, he checks his mail, and there’s nobody else around.

He walks into his elevator and presses the button and has to wait, like, 30 seconds, patiently. That’s interesting. For the door to close and go up. It just feels very bleak, like we’re at the mercy of these machines, we can’t escape it. You know, you start to think, okay, I get it, the movie’s going in that direction.

It’s like Joe at the beginning of Joe vs. the Volcano, you know? 

Craig: Yes! Right? I thought of that movie too. Did you really? I thought of that movie. Yes, I did. I thought of that movie. And I also thought that in this scene, him just standing there waiting for the elevator doors to close and it’s a, the, the camera is pulled back pretty far.

It’s not unlike the shot from the shining Kubrick’s. The Shining, and they were fans of each other. Stanley Kubrick really liked this movie. 

Todd: Oh God, David Lynch also says, talks about this in another interview. Well, this is him reading from his audiobook. He wrote a book about himself and his life. He narrated it.

David Lynch: Stanley Kubrick is one of my all time favorite filmmakers, and he did me a great honor early in my career that really encouraged me. I was working on The Elephant Man and was at Lee International Studios in England, standing in a hallway. One of the producers of The Elephant Man, Jonathan Sanger, brought over some guys who were working with George Lucas, and said, they’ve got a story for you.

And I said, okay. They said, yesterday, David, we were out at Elstree Studios and we met Kubrick. And as we were talking to him, he said to us, How would you fellas like to come up to my house tonight and see my favorite film? They said that would be fantastic. They went up and Stanley Kubrick showed them Eraserhead.

So right then, I could have passed away peaceful and happy. 

Craig: Oh, that’s so cool. 

Todd: Isn’t that cool? Yeah. He was such a big fan. And, you know, when you think about it, Very similar in the fact that we talked about The Shining, and we talked about how that movie is more of an experience, you know, than a straightforward story.

Those long, lingering moments, this, this very deliberate soundscape. Uh huh. I imagine The Shining has a lot to, uh, 

Craig: A lot. A lot. Yeah. Yeah. I totally see the Eraserhead influence in The Shining. The Shining is far less abstract. Eraserhead is Um, mood, like, I feel like that’s what the kids would say today.

Like it’s, it’s a mood. And so I get, I get why Kubrick wanted to show his people to be like, this is the mood I’m going for. And I see it. I see it in The Shining. 

Todd: You’re right. You’re right. It is. The whole movie’s a mood, really. Yeah. And it’s weird! It’s weird. There’s the there’s the fringe of a story, but it’s hard to There 

Craig: is a fringe of a story, right?

And that’s what I feel like So, he’s told we have to get married, and Mary, through her tears, is like, You don’t mind, right, about getting married? And apparently he doesn’t, because the next time we see them, they’re together in his apartment with some thing. That, I guess, they Think is a baby. I, it’s, it’s the, it’s the weirdest, most surreal thing.

I, I read again, I think this is something that Lynch kind of was. Illusive about like he kind of said things here and there about it, but it was never clear You know how serious he was being but people believe that it was made from like an embalmed calf Corpse or cow fetus or something like that. It’s impressive and I can see that.

Yeah, I could see that Well, it looks organic. It looks real Yeah, it’s 

Todd: kind of wet and Skin, it’s like all skin and bone. It’s disgusting. It’s gross. It’s like, you know, when you first see what a baby bird looks like for the first time, you’re like, ew, you know, that’s gross. That’s not what I expected. Kinda.

But it’s an impressive effect. I mean, the eyes move and the mouth and everything and at some, at different points in the movie, it spits up. I think it’s kind of impressive, actually, for this otherwise. Odd, low budget movie. It’s fascinating! Supposedly, he blindfolded his projectionist, who projected the dailies, as part of some way to keep the projectionist from knowing how they accomplished this effect.

It remains to this day a closely guarded secret, for reasons we will never know. 

Craig: It’s fascinating. It reminds me of other movies that we’ve done. It reminds me of Basket Case a little bit. Um, the, uh, that other movie by, I think the same guy who did Basket Case where that guy had like a brain damage for that guy had like a Penis guy that would pop out of his neck 

Todd: or whatever.

Yeah. Uh huh. 

Craig: It reminds me of that in that we are in this world where this creature just exists and it’s, it’s, it’s strange. But 

Todd: they’re not happy. I mean, it’s strange to them too, right? is it? I mean, she’s trying her best to feed it. She seems very apprehensive about it. Now, one can argue that this is obviously the reluctant.

Look, I felt helpless when I had a baby. I felt like I couldn’t read. enough things to prepare me for it because I felt helpless and so it would cry and I wasn’t ever sure I was doing the right thing, the thing that the baby needed. Maybe my second child, I would have been full of confidence, but my first child, I felt lost and listless, just like these people do, so I can certainly see that metaphor, you know, in there.

Of course. But this thing is crying in the most annoying way, you know, Screeching. She’s trying to feed it. It’s spitting up everything she gives it. Finally, she just gets frustrated, right? And she storms out. She’s like, 

Clip: I can’t stand it. I’m going. What are you talking about? I can’t even sleep. I’m losing my mind.

You’re on vacation now. You can take care of it for a night. Well, you’ll come back tomorrow? All I need is a thesis and I 

Todd: sleep. Takes forever to pull her suitcase out from under the bed And leaves 

Craig: that was so weird. Everything was weird. Is 

Todd: that supposed to be sexual? 

Craig: I don’t know. I thought that she was trying to do something under the bed Like she’s got something like I don’t know jammed up Inside there that she has to unlodge or something.

But yeah, it looks like she just, she’s standing at the foot of the bed and the perspective is us looking from the head of the bed. So she ducks down. So where she’s mostly covered by the mattress and she’s just like thrusting and grunting like, And I only began to think it was weird because it went on for so long.

I imagine that that’s probably intentional. 

Todd: Of course. 

Craig: Because I, of course, I started to ask myself, is she jerking off? And then no, she just pulls that thing out. The suitcase that she apparently already had packed. Now look. Look, I get what you mean about how you get it about being a new parent and feeling helpless and not knowing what to do, as a metaphor, but this isn’t a baby.

It is some weird, freakish, tumor creature. I mean, but It’s apparently their baby. It has no explanation. I mean, it’s their tumor creature. It came from her. And maybe that’s his sperm monster? I guess? Who knows? Sure, it’s there. It’s fine, but like, it’s like the head of a calf fetus. And if you’ve ever seen an animal that’s been stripped of its Hide and seen the head like there’s still flesh, but no skin or fur.

That is really what it looks like Yeah, or if you’ve seen like a like a fetal animal, it’s kind of like that but Weird and you’re right like you said it cries in a really annoying way. I felt like it’s cries weren’t as Annoying as actual human baby cries. It was continual. Like it was constantly like, yeah, it wasn’t even that loud.

I’ve heard human babies cry. That’s an, that’s horrible. That weird head. But then the whole bottom of it, it doesn’t even have a body. It’s just got a really skinny neck that goes into, it’s all just wrapped in gauze. 

Todd: Yeah. It’s just bandages. 

Craig: bandages. Ultimately, it kind of looks like a tick, like it’s got this weird pointy head and then just this round weird mass at the bottom.

And it looks strange. You said she tries to feed it. She does try to feed it. She eventually leaves. It apparently comes to enjoy his company, but they never do anything with it. That thing never moves off of that pillow. On that bureau. Ever. I don’t think. 

Todd: No, it’s there the whole time, you’re right. It never leaves that spot.

I mean, the very end gets wacky, but it never leaves that spot. And he’s like, Okay, you should just go home then. Again, everything just happens to him. He is nothing but reactive. to this whole thing. So he goes over to the baby, and he decides to put a thermometer in its mouth. And he pulls the thermometer out, and I guess he determines that it’s okay.

So he turns around, but then the baby starts crying again in a different way. And when he faces the baby again, like when he turns right back around suddenly, the baby is covered in like gross boils and spots, and it looks like Even grosser than it looked before. And he goes, Oh, you are sick. And so he gets a humidifier going and he sits down there dazed by the baby for a while.

And then later it’s not sick, I guess. I don’t know. It’s not like it gets sicker. Later, we just see it, anyway, a lot of shit happens, right? He goes to check his mail, and there’s a tiny box, and he pulls out what you, I didn’t even think about it being like a foreskin, but that would kind of make, there’s so much sexual imagery in this movie.

There’s a puddle thing that keeps happening, you know, the very beginning of the movie, we saw that sperm splash in a puddle, but he steps in a puddle, or in the movie, later in the movie, he sees some people fighting down below his apartment, and around a puddle, and. The puddle comes in at the end and so there’s like this puddle imagery that I think was Supposed to be sexual.

I mean vaginal or something like that. I guess who knows But then there’s the woman who lives in the radiator

Craig: That’s right when you were talking about The baby creature being sick. It’s disgusting. Like when the, when the baby thing is sick, it is disgusting. Like its eyes are all pussy and like cloudy and looking around and it’s got this disgusting, like ooze coming out of its mouth and its tongue is moving around.

It’s got pustules. All over its face. It really, I didn’t make the connection at that point, but later the monstrous man, who I mentioned earlier with the levers makes another appearance and there’s a similarity in those designs. Didn’t you think like, doesn’t the monstrous man kind of have the same kind of.

Like, sores or whatever it is that that creature has? 

Todd: It sure does seem like it. There was a point where I was wondering, is this like, what that baby grew up to be? In the midst of the movie, I was wondering if this was some sort of looping kind of thing, like, or maybe the baby died and he’s kind of looking down from heaven and pulling the strings or something.

Craig: I just thought There’s some connection. Yeah Symbolic or thematic. I don’t know but it seems like there’s some connection there and you’re right I mean, then there’s the lady that lives in the radiator because He apparently can’t Leave the apartment. Right. If he tries to leave the apartment, the baby cries.

Like, it’s, it’s satisfied if he’s there, but it cries if he tries to leave. So he can’t leave the apartment at all. It’s surreal, so it doesn’t matter. But like, they don’t eat. It seems like they’re always emphasizing in the sound, it’s always emphasizing how windy it is. So, I’m thinking that they’re constantly cold.

Like, they’re just in this desolate. One. Room, apartment. Yeah. And there’s a lady that lives in the radiator. Right.

Todd: Yeah, sometimes you have to call an exterminator for that, but. 

Craig: How well versed are you in Lynch? Cause I’m, I’m really not. I haven’t seen a lot. 

Todd: I’ve seen, uh, Mulholland Drive, I’ve seen, I actually haven’t seen Twin Peaks, I’m going to rectify that immediately because I hear especially when you, when you add the new stuff that he’s done, it’s quite good, I saw The Elephant Man when I was a kid, like really young and I don’t remember it, I saw Dune, when it came out, and I remembered enjoying it, but thinking it was weird, but it was very sci fi.

And I saw Blue Velvet, I think, when I was in university, and I loved that film. It scared me a lot. And that is a really, it’s, it’s got a story, but it’s a very disturbing story. And, you know, people say that Lynch, you know, this is the kind of thing that he seemed very fascinated with, is the horror of suburbia.

That just beneath the surface of all the, you know, the kind of the niceties that we create for ourselves, and the relationships and everything in Suburbia. There are actually horrors happening, you know, behind closed doors. And so all of his movies sort of seem to play with this. I don’t know. 

Craig: This one I read, not, I don’t know if suburbia is the right word.

Todd: Well this doesn’t feel like suburbia. 

Craig: Yeah, he grew up in a pretty rough area 

Todd: of Philadelphia, I think? No, he moved there when he was 21. He had a really nice childhood in the Pacific Northwest. Oh. And then, moved, yeah, there when he was 21 with his, you know, with the woman that he, he got pregnant later, his wife.

And that’s, you’re right, it was very rough. It, he, he speaks to it, of it as like it was hell. Hmm. He says it was like, like seriously, like my whole faith in humanity just sort of changed. He’s like, he said, our apartment got broken into all the time. There were robberies. I got robbed on the street a bunch of times.

There was always fighting going on. It was just, he said, this nasty, filthy, horrible place. And so again, you got to feel like that, you know, when he says this is one of his most personal and spiritual films, like it seems like a direct correlation, you know, something he’s trying to get across here. Yeah. I mean, these people, they live in their apartment, the, the window looks right on to a brick wall.

Right. You know, they can’t even look out the window and enjoy, uh, anything like the sky. 

Craig: I have seen this, I’ve seen not the Twin Peaks television series, but I have seen Twin Peaks Fire Walk with me. And at once, when I was in college, I remember liking it, but that’s all I remember about it. And, Mulholland Drive.

I was talking to Alan last night, we were reminiscing because, we’ve seen Mulholland Drive because my sister and brother in law, we were visiting them, they were living in LA and we were visiting them, and they were like, you’ve gotta watch this movie, it’s totally up your alley. And so we started watching it, but it was late at night and I was so tired.

And like, they were trying to explain things. They were trying to explain things as it was going on. And I was like, uh, I just kept falling asleep and I didn’t know what was going on. That’s not a movie you can watch tired. I kept waking up. I’m like, who is that?

And I, I don’t think I even made it through. But what is Mulholland Drive inspired this? whole line of discussion because the thing that I remember most about that movie, there’s a great jump scare. And I feel like it happens more than once, but like this freaky lady thing pops out from behind something.

And I saw that kind of, uh, In this stuff too, because it’s, I don’t even know, like, from this point, yeah, there’s a foreskin in a box, and then he like puts it in a special foreskin cabinet, and I kept thinking, I don’t know what I was thinking, I was like, surely there’s gonna be something about that foreskin, I 

Todd: don’t know.

You call it a foreskin, I didn’t think about that, I guess, it looked like a little worm or something to me, but I didn’t know what it was. It, yeah. It animates at some point. 

Craig: Yes, and then it comes alive at some point. Gosh, you know, I feel like we talked about the first half hour of the movie at length and now there’s a big part in the middle where it’s not like not a lot happens, but it’s also isolated that it seems like not much is happening.

There’s a, there’s a whole other thing where His hot neighbor from across the hallway who I immediately recognized. I don’t even have her name written down, but I immediately recognized her. I was like, why do I know that lady? She’s gorgeous. And so I went to her IMDb page and she was the villain from that movie dead silence about.

The dolls and puppets. James Wan, I think. She was Mary Shaw. And I was not surprised that I recognized her from that because she has very distinctive bone structure. Oh, right, right. And she’s beautiful. And, and there’s a whole part where she comes over and seduces him. And then they do it in his bed that turns into kind of like a A puddle.

steamy cauldron hot tub and then it’s like another puddle a puddle that’s a good point and they go down into it so very slowly this was so odd I thought that this must have to do with the technicality of getting them both under the water because it happened kind of slowly and 

Todd: awkwardly 

Craig: they’re making out in this foggy Hot tub kind of thing that’s his bed and she hears the baby crying and just distracted by it momentarily But he brings her attention back to him and they’re making out or whatever and then they start to sink in and she Kind of comes over the top of him so that he goes down first and then she goes down, but it’s a little bit awkward and it takes a long time.

And at the end, her wig is left floating in the pool. And I almost had to wonder if like they, they’re like, Oh shit, her wig came off. And he was like, it’s fine. Shoot it. Like get a real good closeup of it. Like circle around it. We’ll make it look weird.

And then she’s gone and at some point he goes to her door and knocks on the door to like try to find her and when he comes back in the baby laughs at him. Like what happened? Did the baby eat the hot 

Todd: lady across the hall? I don’t know. Well, the hot lady across the hall is with another guy at some point.

Oh, that’s right! There’s just some weirdo there who she’s already making out with, and he’s just like, oh, okay. Did 

Craig: you notice, like, didn’t that, didn’t that weird guy that she brought home, like, he was older and not, like Stereotypically attractive, but it also looked like there was something wrong with his face.

Todd: Yeah, there was some, some mark on his cheek or something. It was on his right side at least, yeah. Well, when they’re making out and they’re going to that puddle, again, like I said, it was kind of reminiscent, everything is kind of reminiscent of that alien planet again. They go all the way underwater, and then at this point, the singing girl and the radiator sings her number.

Craig: We haven’t talked about her at all. 

Todd: The water’s kind of milky and the milk separates and then it’s darkness and then the woman comes out of the darkness and now she’s on the stage and she sings, In heaven everything is fine. Now, we’ve seen her before. 

Craig: And you and I have referred to her several times but we’ve never really explained it.

At first, well, I never really understood who she was supposed to be but apparently, when he looks deep into the radiator, a light comes on and it’s like a stage light. And you’re like in this little theater and this woman, she first appears, I think after Mary leaves. So I thought at first that maybe he was like projecting Mary, but I don’t think they’re the same actress.

I referred to her as. The Garbage Pail Kid lady, cause that’s kind of what she looks like. Yeah. Normal for her body, she’s, I feel like, kind of dressed like a baby doll, kind of, and she’s got blonde hair and kind of traditional baby doll, I think, if I remember correctly. But, like, monstrously, like, chipmunk cheeks.

Like, abnormally and, and grotesquely large. And it’s weird, and she just dances around. 

Todd: I thought she was supposed to be like a grotesque Betty Boop. Because Betty Boop has cheeks that come out. It’s that vibe. Yeah, it’s that, well and definitely with her on the stage and her singing and this kind of sweet high voice.

But she’s blonde of course. Do 

Craig: you remember that nightmare on Elm Street? I think it was five where there was like this really hot girl and so like when Freddie came to her nightmare, he made her eat a lot and he just kept shoving food in her face and eventually her engorged. It looks like that. Yeah, you’re 

Todd: right, it does.

Craig: But you’re right, it is a very Betty Boop thing, and like, we see her early on, and then we see her kind of midway when she dances, and those little sperm monsters start falling on the stage all around her. And I kept thinking, like, is one gonna land on her head? Like, is this gonna be like, Oh, look, she’s Pregnant.

Now I , but that doesn’t happen. Instead, she just goes around squishing them and it’s, 

Todd: at first she’s avoiding them and then she starts squishing them on, on purpose and, 

Craig: and they’re splatting all over gross the whole end, you know? Gosh, I chronologically, I don’t remember, but the ending gets wild. It does at some point.

Henry’s head. Pops off. 

Todd: Yeah, it’s when he’s watching her. 

Craig: Falls into the street and kid runs by and grabs it and takes it to a place where he, like, sells it to a man who, like, drills a hole in it and pulls something out and puts it in a machine that makes pencils. 

Todd: Yeah. Apparently, this is what set off the whole movie, was Lynch had a daydream about a kid running in with a head and a guy at a pencil machine taking a core out of the head and And making a pencil out of it.

I mean, the movie’s called Eraserhead. I know! After he makes the pencil out of it, on the machine, he sharpens the end, and he writes something, we can’t ever tell what he’s writing, and then he erases the hell out of it, so there’s big, there’s lots of these erasers, you know, god, I forgot what it was like having an eraser, but yeah, shavings of the eraser.

He turns and he goes, It’s okay, it works, or something like that, and they all look relieved. And then he brushes those shavings off of the table, and that takes us, transitions us into, once again, like, it’s like dust going into the air behind Henry. And that brings us back. Yeah, 

Craig: as though none of that happened.

Yeah, he’s just back in his room in his bed. I could see how one might find that frustrating because these things just aren’t explained. I feel like because of my limited, but my knowledge of Kafka and surrealism, I understand. That not all of the questions are meant to be answered. Right. They’re not. And so that doesn’t bother me.

I can understand how it might frustrate someone who’s watching this and has just watched this guy’s head get popped off and blood everywhere. And now we just come back to the same isolated mundane scenario that we were in before as though nothing had happened. 

Todd: With no 

Craig: explanation. 

Todd: If you wanted to get kind of literal about it, which you shouldn’t, but like, you know, one way to look at this is that Henry has this Just this propensity to slip off into dreamland a little bit.

Sure. And that some of what we’re seeing is his Dreams or his frustrations or whatever playing out as daydreams of his because it always does transition quite nicely In fact transition back to him in his apartment dealing with this weird ass baby. But it’s, it’s after this point that he sees the woman across the hall with the other guy and you said the kid laughs at him and he comes back in and it’s like he’s for the only time I think in the whole movie that he actually does something he decides he’s gonna Cut open the bandages on the child.

I don’t know if it’s out of curiosity I don’t know if he thinks he wants to kill the baby. It’s not really clear. No, it’s not He just starts snipping the bandages and it opens up and it’s like the bandages are his skin I mean it opens up and it’s just the inside of this creature. It’s like he’s halfway to killing it Really?

There’s a I wouldn’t call it a heart 

Craig: Well, it’s internal organs are exposed. Yeah. 

Todd: And he, uh, stabs his scissors into it. I 

Craig: know, I 

Todd: was surprised. Yeah, and the baby pukes up blood. And then, like, oatmeal? Oh my God. It just starts pouring out of this baby. That’s what 

Craig: I said too. It’s in my notes, I swear to God.

Mounds of oatmeal pour out of the body. The more I looked at it, I was like, No, I think that looks more like grits, but I just, I’m just gonna leave oatmeal in there. It’s an easier reference. It’s true. Grits is 

Todd: more accurate for sure. I’ll give you 

Craig: that. And the light Flicker and then there’s like a weird hippo in the room What the fuck was 

Todd: that?

It looks like it’s the baby’s head like in giant size. That’s what I that’s how I thought it was Well, because because the baby’s crying and you think it’s dying but then for some reason its neck extends way out Almost into darkness. Yeah, like feet To where it almost looked like the sperm again, I felt like uhhuh.

It was like the, the head was way out and the neck was really skinny and coming out, and I was like, oh, we’re, we’re back to that sperm imagery. And then, yeah, the lights are flickering and the electricity’s going off. By the way, the sound at this point is going nuts. Uh, it’s going nuts. And, uh, you’re right, the, when the lights flicker on and off, we see glimpses of this.

Huge head. I thought it was the baby’s head, head on, on the desk, and then kind of next to the desk, and then kind of floating over by the light, and it’s just like, in there. And he’s just staring at it, but then we cut to the guy on the planet again, who had the levers, and he’s even worse looking now. He’s, like I said, it’s like almost half of his face and body is melted, and he’s clearly struggling to put the levers back, but he can’t.

So, something’s been set off and he’s trying to End it, but he’s unsuccessful, I think, at doing that. 

Craig: See, I don’t know, I didn’t, like, to me it was just, Oh, him again. Like, I didn’t know what he was doing, it’s just the guy with the levers, like, I don’t know. Well, 

Todd: I mean, he pulled the levers at the beginning, so I felt like this was the He’s creating a life by pulling the levers.

He’s either ending or signaling the end of a life by pushing them forward, you know? I 

Craig: will tell you what I tell my Students, I think that that is a perfectly defensible interpretation. I, I definitely think that that is a defensible interpretation. Is that what it really is? I don’t know. Who knows? Well, I don’t know either.

It’s, it’s, it’s very abstract as is the whole movie. I’m glad that you mentioned the sound again here at the end, because in my opinion, the sound is essential. So, if you’re watching it with your lover. Like, great, but turn it way up. Like the sound is essential. If you’re not, if you’re watching it alone, I always say put on some good headphones, you know, if you have those nice, fancy, expensive headphones that people buy, put those on, you paid for them.

You may as well use them. But I just use cheap, cheap wireless earbuds and. Still, just because it’s in my ears and I can hear the nuance of it that I might not be able to hear if I were just watching it through my computer speakers, it makes a world of difference, an absolute world of difference in this movie, especially, I don’t know what to make of it.

And I feel like this is the type of movie that. deserves a second watch. And I also feel like it’s the type of movie that you could probably watch it over and over and over again and constantly find new things, things that you may not have noticed before, whether it be in the sound or in the. The visuals, the imagery, and I think, you know, it feels like art to me.

You know, it feels like something that deserves consideration. I don’t know that just one viewing is enough. I’m stu my kids are studying po studying. Poetry right now and I tell them you have to read it more than once you have to read it two three four times You’ve got to let it settle in 

Todd: come back to it the next day.

Craig: Uh huh, right? Yeah, sleep on it. Think about it go back and look at it again, and I feel like this movie deserves that That’s why I said at the beginning I was nervous about talking about it because I’m not well versed in it I’ve only seen it the one time so it’s these are my first impressions, but ultimately I understand why John water is and Stanley Kubrick and H.

R. Giger and Mel Brooks and and so many other innovative and creative filmmakers have been open admirers of Lynch’s work. I get it. He has a very unique Style and voice. It’s crazy. You know, Lynchian is, uh, recognized in all of the English dictionaries to describe things that are like him . I, I can’t, it’s like Kafkaesque, , Kafkaesque.

I, I, I can’t imagine. You know what a legacy like Yeah. Your na, your name. something, you know, a word that people are going to use for ever as far as we know. And even though I’m not super familiar with it, his work remains, I think, well respected and you had mentioned earlier, I didn’t watch any interviews.

I just read stuff. So, but. I assumed that he must either be good to work with, or a genius, or both. Because the same people kept wanting to come back to work with him. And he was the type of guy who, he found space for the people that he liked working with. And so you’ll see the same actors popping up.

across his body of work and, and the same, I think is true of the technicians and other people that he worked with. And I think I will be inspired. I don’t know how soon, but I think that I will be inspired to go back and watch some of his other stuff. Maybe even Mulholland Drive again, maybe I need to give it a shot, but I’ve always been interested in Blue Velvet.

I I’ve seen clips of it. And I know that Dennis Hopper is like famously unhinged in it. So I may have to check that out soon, 

Todd: especially for horror fans. You know, again, it’s more of a thriller. And drama than a horror, but I think horror fans especially would get a real kick out of Blue Velvet. Again, I haven’t seen everything of his, but it feels like it must be one of his more accessible works.

I feel like, even though it’s, you know, it’s got its odd moments and it’s a bit of unclarity as far as, you know, is this really happening? What’s kind of going on here? It definitely leaves a strong impression. It’s a pretty disturbing movie, I think. And I think an important movie as well. I’m with you. I agree.

It is so Rare, really, that we get a singular type of director, you know, an artist with this sort of singular, very distinct vision whose movies are instantly recognizable without even knowing who directed them. It’s just a rare thing in history for any artist. What a great thing! And to have a legacy of work behind him that he has left, he’s certainly been prolific.

108 Things he’s directed whether they be shorts whether they be episodes of something whether they be full on movies Definitely a lot out there to explore. So that is such a joy that we have this I’m kind of inspired to read his biography actually, I think that would be very interesting. I’m sure I’m not an audiobook guy But I’d kind of rather hear it narrated by him to be honest, and I do not Imagine that this kind of success for this kind of person doing this kind of thing would come as easily now as it did in the 70s.

I don’t know. This movie played on midnight circuits at the urging of its, of one of the distributors and producers who just cajoled a theater owner into continuing to show it at midnight even though it was not bringing in crowds. It was not a success. It was almost entirely critically panned when it came out, but just like, you know, we talked about it before, like we talked about it with movies, we talked about it with music, certainly with poetry and things like that, sometimes the more time you spend with something, the greater an appreciation you have for it.

And it’s just hard for me to believe that something like this would not come out, be seen, oh well that’s weird and that’s quirky and then people are already moving on to the next thing and are never going to give themselves the opportunity to marinate in it for a while and try to live with it and understand it or at least appreciate it for what it is.

I just It’s hard for me to believe that this, that this kind of thing could happen today. So, um, he was probably born at the right time and had the right circumstances as well to, to kind of let his light shine. So, we’re grateful for that. All right, well, it was great talking about this. Those of you out there who are big and maybe more aversed in his films in this film than we are.

Please drop us a line, let us know what you think, we’d love to explore this a little deeper with you guys. You can just find us online just by googling two guys and Chainsaw Podcasts, we have a comments section on our website. You can start leaving things. there. Our YouTube channel, obviously, Facebook, Twitter, X, you can call it now, wherever you can find us online, please drop us a note, we would love to have a discussion coming.

I’m sure our patrons are going to have a lot to say about this as well. Go to our website and follow the link to our Patreon page. And if you would like, for just five bucks a month, you can join the crew and get deeper discussions with us behind the scenes as well as mini sows and other things that we do as well for our patients.

Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Our first tribute episode of the year: Olivia Hussey died just a few weeks ago. Long after her starring role in Romeo & Juliet, she gave a truly unhinged portrayal of Norman Bates’ mother in the TV movie, Psycho IV.

Not only was it Anthony Hopkins’ favorite sequel (he died a few years later), child actor Henry Thomas scandalized the world with his fascinating portrayal of the young Norman. We’ve got incest, chain smoking radio hosts, lustful sexiness straight out of a 90’s erotic thriller, and the screenwriter of the original all assembled together for a compelling (and occasionally silly) final entry in the saga of the Bates Hotel.

Episode 424, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast.

Todd: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, it’s another first this year, you know, of course, we had our first podcast of the new year. Then we had our first guest of the new year, right, right, and now sadly we have our first tribute episode of the new year I guess we’re just gonna get it all out in the beginning, huh?

Well, I guess it was uh last December was it was just about a month ago Just after Christmas that Olivia Hussey died at the age of 73 in LA and wow This woman has been You know, it’s interesting, it’s not like she’s been in a ton of movies that I’ve seen, you know, it’s not like I followed her all throughout my childhood, but she was a very prominent actress in my childhood, there were some very big, important movies that really resonated with me that she was a big part of, earliest on, Romeo and Just a babe when she was in that one.

And that movie was a little before, you know, a few years before my time, but. It was. We watched that in high school. In school. Yeah, didn’t we all? 

Craig: Yes, yes, I think we all did. Now, I don’t know, did your teacher have like a special edited version that didn’t show her boobs? Because. No. There, there’s a 15 year old Olivia Hussey’s boobs in that movie.

And I feel like when I was, I also have the vantage point of having been in high school and seeing that. And then when I started teaching high school, teachers were still showing it like that’s kind of the definitive version. Well, it’s a good version. 

Todd: I mean, it really is. 

Craig: It really is. She’s fantastic. And she’s fantastic in it, but all I was gonna say was I think I remember my teachers editing that out But then I think I remember hearing stories of teachers forgetting to edit it out.

It was just boobs In freshman English. I mean that woke us 

Todd: right up. I’ll tell you that I was very impressed. I remember very distinctly Enjoying that as a as a young boy. 

Craig: I rem Well, I don’t think that probably stimulated me in the same way that it did you, but I remember really thinking that she was Strikingly beautiful.

Yeah, like I don’t even know what her heritage is, but she just has kind of an exotic beauty that oh man even at At 15 she was just absolutely stunning and and remained so her whole life. She’s just beautiful 

Todd: Well, she is mixed as far as her ethnic background goes. She’s British. I believe her mother is British and her father was Argentinian But she spent a little bit of time in Italy, which led me to believe, because she was also in, you know, a few Italian productions.

I always imagined she was Italian, you know, based on her looks and the fact that she was in these, these productions. And of course the, the Romeo and Juliet movie was also an Italian production. But, um, but no, she was, she’s British and she even said up to her dying day that even though she hasn’t spent A vast majority of her growing up years, I should say, in Britain.

She considers Britain her home. She feels at home when she is there. And so yeah, I guess we can just kind of go on and say that she’s British. Which, again, surprised me because she never struck me as particularly British in all the roles that I saw her in. 

Craig: I don’t know. She always has, like, an accent, but it’s just kind of an ambiguous accent.

It 

Todd: really is! Just, like, an ambiguous look and an ambiguous accent that works in so many situations. It 

Craig: does! She’s fantastic. And so, yes. Honestly, like, we have been talking about doing this movie. For years and years. Yes. I, I don’t think we ever spoke into existence. Maybe it, maybe it will be the Olivia Hussey episode.

Never. Cause I didn’t think about that. You know, I, I didn’t think about her being old. Cause she wasn’t really. She died of breast cancer, sadly. But Psycho 4, we’ve been talking about for years. Yes. I think both of us have memories of it. Olivia Hussey’s breaths are also a part of that 

Todd: memory as well. I 

Craig: didn’t.

I didn’t remember that she. Went topless in this movie. Kind of unnecessarily, frankly. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: I don’t In hindsight, you know, maybe show Olivia Hussey a little bit more respect. You didn’t need to show her boobs. There are other boobs in the movie. But, whatever. For those of you who like to see those kinds of things, that’s nice, I guess.

Well, 

Todd: you know, again, 15 year old Todd appreciated 

Craig: that more than I get it. Yeah. 

Todd: And 

Craig: she’s gorgeous. She’s gorgeous. I get it. 

Todd: She is. And honestly, Black Christmas, we did, but way back on, like, I think episode 11, was our Black Christmas episode. She’s wonderful in there. My mom was a huge fan of that movie. I think it’s called Lost Horizons.

It’s a musical. And I watched a little bit of that growing up, and she was in that as well. Now, Psycho 4 came out in 1990. 

Craig: And it was a TV The same year that It came out, which she was also in. Yes. The, the miniseries, the Tim Curry miniseries. 

Todd: That’s right. Now she, she’s not one of the main. 

Craig: No, she was Audra.

She was, uh, the Bill’s wife. 

Todd: That’s right. My recollection and why I remember Psycho 4 so much is not just because of boobs, but, but also because I remember it being a very big deal. At least it was pretty heavily promoted. But this movie was coming out and I remember so in 1990, I would have been in middle school, but you know, I could read and I read the news and I was kind of up on things.

I do remember there being a lot of talk about how this is going to be a really unique film because they’re expecting this to be a more dramatically substantial exploration of Norman Bates’s character and particularly as childhood and guess who’s going to play the The young Norman Bates, it’s gonna be Henry Thomas.

And so you’ve got Anthony Perkins revising his role, you’ve got Henry Thomas playing a young Norman Bates, you’ve got Olivia Hussey in there, and as you see, a number of other people, and in fact, a cameo by John Landis of all people, who I was shocked to 

Clip: see in there as well! I know! Just 

Craig: I was at least halfway into the movie and I’m like, Is that John Landis?

Like, why is John Landis in this movie? It’s so weird and I looked it up and it was him. Like, it’s so 

Todd: random. It’s so funny and CCH Pounder who is another one of those just faces i’ve seen in a million things She’s still acting but I 

Craig: feel like she was in everything in the 80s 

Todd: She really was, right? So familiar.

So it had an all star cast, and my recollection was that it was on network television, because I got to, like, tape it off of TV and see it, but actually it was on Showtime. Right. Which it had to have been, with the nudity and I think the subject matter. And so I can only surmise, because I did really see this at the time it came out, that it must have either come out or been re shown during one of those Free preview weeks or whatever.

Craig: Yeah, I bet that’s it. 

Todd: And I remembered being really struck by the movie I remembered being a little scandalized by it the middle schooler that there’s so much sex and sexual situations and Really icky stuff that I had never considered before. I wasn’t that familiar with psycho at that age I don’t remember if I’d actually seen it or not.

I but I knew You know, what everybody else knows about Psycho? Yeah. And so, you know, I understood what they were talking about when they said they were gonna explore his backstory. And, what I remember reading in the papers at the time, was also that these were not new ideas. Because, way back when they were shooting the original Psycho, the screenwriter Who is the screenwriter of this movie as well?

The original screenwriter of the original Psycho. And Hitchcock, and I believe Robert Bloch, the novelist, all had discussions during the production of the movie amusing on what would Norman Bates childhood actually have been like. And, you know, in the process of trying to find his character and flesh out the original Psycho, there were a lot of discussions about what ended up in this movie decades later.

So the whole movie fascinated me then, it still fascinates me now, it was really great. To have an excuse to go back and revisit it even though it’s a sad one. 

Craig: Right. My experience is similar, I think. I think I had seen Psycho. That’s just one of those movies that I don’t know. I feel like I’ve always have seen it, you know, right.

Todd: You were born having seen 

Craig: it Right, right, right. 

Todd: Your mom watched it. You were in the womb, 

Craig: right? Exactly, but I Probably seen the other sequels too, but I honestly don’t remember and I remember nothing about them I know that Jennifer Tilly’s sister Meg Tilly is in The second one, I think that’s it. Like that’s the extent of my knowledge.

Anthony Perkins, the star of the franchise, says that this is his favorite of the sequels. It’s 

Todd: interesting. 

Craig: And I remember like you, I don’t think I remember being scandalized by it, but I remember really liking it. And it’s funny going back and watching it now. I still really like it, but I think that I realized that the reason that I liked it at the time, it’s so, it came out in 1990 and I felt like it was so straddling that line of 80s and 90s, like it’s trying to get a little bit edgier, I think, on the 90s still, the thing that I like the most about it, I think is it’s, it’s so melodramatic.

Yes. Yes. It’s so melodramatic to the point that it’s hilarious. 

Todd: Yes, exactly. My memories of this film are kinder to it. I still like it, but my memories of this film are much kinder. Now that I watch it through a modern lens, it just takes me back to the typical Showtime and Cinemax and HBO movies of the time.

These erotic thrillers. This is very much on the edge of You could almost call it an erotic thriller, it kind of is. And it’s certainly It is! It’s an erotic 

Craig: incest thriller, it’s disgusting! 

Todd: It’s filmed in that style, it has the same cinematography, the same lighting. For a while, I wondered if the whole movie was just gonna be in this extremely dim, where nobody ever turns the lights on and everything’s blue and red.

Oh my God, it was so dramatic. And we’ll get to the ending, but, uh. Of course. 

Craig: And listen, I love Olivia Hussey. I really do. And I love her in this movie. She is so over the top. She is playing this over the top crazy person. And it’s hilarious. And I love her. And I want to talk about her at length. But I also want to say.

Henry Thomas f ing kills in this movie. Yes, he does. He is so good. He is so good as a young Norman Bates. I think of Henry Thomas as Elliot. Now, he’s still working, he’s doing great things. He’s been working in all of, well, in some of those TV series like Fall of the House of Usher. Mike Flanagan, he’s been working a lot with Mike Flanagan.

So 

Todd: he’s still around. The haunting of Bly Manor where he played an older British guy. I had to double take, you know, I was like, wait a minute. That British actor looks familiar. I’m like, no way. That can’t be. Henry Thomas. He was utterly convincing in that movie. It was just great. 

Craig: Well in in this, he is a young.

Man, he is not the boy that he was in E. T. Not at all. But he’s I couldn’t tell if it was camera trickery or if he really was big. I think he was big. Like I think he’s got like really broad shoulders and he was lean and young and tall, significantly taller than Olivia Hussey. He looked like a big guy.

Like I totally believed him as a young Anthony Perkins. I thought he was big. He was so good! 

Todd: He was great. His acting was fantastic. I was enthralled every minute he was on the screen. Honestly, him and Anthony Perkins, both, I thought were wonderful. And I do remember that part of, again, I don’t want to say controversy, but just, you know, why this movie stirred up so much attention, it was such a big deal, is that you’re right.

Just for Or three years before this movie, all we had ever seen him in were these kid movies. E. T. God, one of my all time favorite movies, Cloak and Dagger. If we could do Cloak and Dagger on here, we could have a three hour episode about how much I love that movie. And The Quest. And then like, two years later, boom.

He is in this incestuous relationship with his mother in, uh, Psycho 4 as Norman Bates. And I know everybody did a double take at that time, like, wow, what would this look like? And gosh darn it, he pulls it off. And I thought, Anthony Perkins too? I got a, a real respect for him as an actor. Up until the very last scenes, I was, which I, again, we’re gonna get to, I’m sure, but like, up until that moment, you know, again, this movie is shot in that.

potboiler, erotic thriller style, which means we’re in everyone’s face most of the time. 

Craig: Yes. I love this. It also, there’s, there’s something very TV about it. Like, like you said, it premiered on Showtime, but it has the feel of an early late eighties, early nineties TV movie. And I, I don’t say that. In a derogatory way.

Todd: Right. 

Craig: We were big fans of those movies, or miniseries, or whatever. But, like, it feels like it’s built to easily insert commercials, first of all. But I also, it’s so, to me I don’t know, it’s so of the time, that the whole framework of the movie is that he’s calling into Norman Bates! Norman Bates! Who is just a real person who exists in the world that other people know about.

Right. Is calling into a radio show Where the topic is matricide The topic is sons who kill their mothers So he calls into this show And he’s like their star guest for the night and like at first he doesn’t identify himself. He calls himself ed It also just so happens that the guest on the show is this doctor who has worked With men who have killed their mothers Including Norman Bates, right?

And about halfway through the movie, the doctor’s like, Hey, I think that’s Norman Bates.

Todd: That long to figure out, huh? 

Craig: The radio host is like, holy shit. Really? And he’s like, yeah, I’m pretty sure. And they’re like, okay. And, and then why don’t you stay out of this from here on in, 

Clip: are you asking me to leave? No, Ellen will make you a cup of coffee, I’ll tell the audience You’re gonna question a psychopathic killer without professional help?

Maybe he’s had enough professional help! Maybe he needs somebody unprofessional! Do you want to be responsible for whatever he does after he hangs up on you? I suggest you trace that call, then contact the authorities. In the first place, we can’t trace calls here. And in the second place, I don’t think I like your attitude.

I’m not gonna be a party to this. Oh, now, just a minute. My way or yours? 

Craig: And they’re like, okay, get the f out of here.

We’ll take it over from here. This psychologist who has worked with him in the past, who has identified him, is like, I don’t know if we should do this. And they’re like, fine, leave. And he just does. And then they just keep going 

Todd: on. Since you brought it up, I want to address that silliness right away so we can get that out of the way.

Because it is the framing device for the story, and if you’re gonna knock this movie, you gotta say it takes the easy way out. You kind of expect a little more from the writer of the original, but you can just see that he was thinking, Okay, so we want to Psychologically explore Norman’s background and what caused him, you know, what was his childhood like?

Okay, why don’t we have a radio call in show where the topic is exactly that And have Norman Bates call in and the whole movie can be him literally explaining Bit by bit, moment by moment, what his childhood was like and how he felt about it and how it changed him 

Craig: It is also brilliant because the way that it’s Made, they can get, I think Anthony Perkins was a part of this from the get out, I think he was behind it, but even if he weren’t, like, it would be so easy to get him.

All you have to do is come in for like three days and walk around the kitchen on the phone. Like, 

Clip: and then, and 

Craig: then we’ll film some stuff on the universal lot at the house and it’ll take an afternoon and you’ll be done. It’s so 90s. Ah, I love it. It’s so great. It’s so 90s. And 80s. It’s right there. It’s right there in the cusp.

I love it. 

Todd: And don’t get me wrong. I was entranced. I was seriously kind of on edge and really focused on what he was saying and his mannerisms and his expressions. I didn’t feel like it was too indulgent where, you know, you’re like, okay, man, get me to the cutscenes already, you know, get, get me to the flashbacks.

Craig: It’s indulgent. No, it is. Those scenes. But. Those scenes of him in the kitchen are so funny. Like he’s always doing something so weird. 

Todd: Oh, the Apple one? Yeah, 

Craig: that’s the weirdest of them, but I actually like that one. It’s, it’s the least obvious. The Apple one, we should explain. We should explain. There’s one scene where like he’s frustrated on the phone and it cuts back to him in the kitchen and he just rips an apple apart with his hands.

Like he just like tears it in half. And, uh, you know, I, I, I read. That was his idea. He thought that just stabbing it would be too obvious. But that’s what I’m saying, like everything else, too corny, every, but that’s what everything else is. Like he’s like, he’s just constantly like pulling knives out of the knife block and like slicing a tomato and like close up, right?

Innocent things shot as though. Like, okay, I’m filming a serial killer. It’s funny. 

Todd: It’s really funny. It is funny, and it’s a little bit like, you know, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Dexter, I really haven’t, but I’ve seen a few episodes and I was just reminded of the intro to that where it shows all these, basically him getting ready for his day, doing normal things like grinding coffee and, you know, cutting up, breaking eggs and things, but it’s filmed in this really close up, fast, violent style, you know, with the music behind it, that it, it was kind of like a precursor to that.

The part that I thought was the corniest, that I almost fell out of my chair, was when he, for no good reason, nicks himself with the knife, holds it over the drain, and we get The same shot from Psycho of the blood swirling down the drain in the most notorious scene of that movie referenced so obviously and boldly in the most mundane circumstance.

I loved it. Oh. I mean, didn’t it just feel like they were checking that off? Like, we gotta reference this somewhere. How can we do it? Ah, just have him nick his finger and then we’ll zoom in on the sink like, what? I thought it was great. So there’s some silliness. It’s melodramatic. That I gotta get because I have a radio background, right?

So I want to come back to this radio framing story one more time because number one, I love, love how in movies, particularly of this era, they always showed radio stations as these super dramatic places and they’re always for some reason sitting around and working in absolute darkness. I Don’t understand that.

I guess it’s because if you shoot radio stations the way they really operate, it’s really boring as hell because, uh, nobody works in the dark. The lights are bright. And every one of these little talk shows, it’s like they have a premium on space. You know, there’s this huge room with this lone table in the middle.

With this person sitting behind a chain smoking and their guest across from them. They’re both really dramatically lit. And then far away there’s a window where there are at least three technicians who are just standing there watching the show, ready to jump in with ideas, advice, or whatever like that.

God, man, if only. 

Craig: It’s the biggest studio I’ve ever seen. It was hilarious. And you’re absolutely right. Like, it was, she was just sitting at this big oval table in the middle of an enormous room by herself, chain smoking marbles. The lights out. Oh, God. Yeah. With, with, you’re right. Like, and, and the booth, like 15 yards away.

Like, it 

Todd: was crazy. And you would think this is the most important production that is going on the way that all the attention that’s being given to it, stuff like that. I mean, I used to host like a morning call in show that we did on the AM station in a very small market town and people called in and stuff all the time, but let me tell you, nobody was helping me out with that at all.

We had like a three line phone thing, I’d hit a button to pick up the next caller, hope they weren’t crazy, do my own commercial breaks, anyway, there’s that. 

Craig: While we’re on that, I do want to say that, uh, CCH Pounder Is really good too. Like she’s the, she’s the radio host. Um, and she does a good job. I didn’t look her up.

I, she’s just one of those actresses that was seemingly in everything around. And I feel like a lot of TV. Just very recognizable. It makes a lot of sense to cast her as a radio personality because she has a great voice. She does. You’ll recognize her, uh, when you see her. And she does a good job. Like you said, the talk show is the framing device.

And so, her character is very much a device and could have been very formulaic and boring but I like her and it seems like she’s genuinely invested in Norman and his story. I believe by the end of the movie that she really, I feel like she cares more about him. Of course at first it’s just Great for her show, you know She’s got this killer on the show and it’s good for the show But she gets invested in his story and by the end I feel like she’s genuinely concerned Not only that he’s said that he’s going to kill somebody But she seems concerned about him too.

And even, you know, her show ends at 10 o’clock and the time is running out and she begs him to stay on the phone with her to keep talking. All that just to say the actress, I thought, was great. I just like, it’s, I like this movie. Ah, it’s hard for me to say it’s a good movie. I don’t know, but I enjoyed it so much.

And like, there are so many things like these performances that I really think are quite good and compelling, even when they’re melodramatic. And we haven’t even started talking about Olivia Hussey. She’s, she’s, she’s a nut bag, but 

Todd: I love it. You know, in a way, it’s a little bit like, I mean, it’s not like a giallo, but it’s got that same style over Overreality kind of aspect to it where you just kind of have to accept it’s going to be a little corny You kind of have to accept that it’s a little unrealistic But it’s full of style and even that style itself.

It’s kind of over the top the acting is, you know, very melodramatic But I think the story is interesting and the characters are interesting It’s just fun to watch things play out even though I was rolling my eyes just to kind of wrap up Because I think we can talk a little bit about the basic framing of the movie, but, you know, kind of finish that, and then go into detail on the Norman Bates story, because I think that’s the more compelling and interesting part.

Okay. So, here we are with this radio show. Like you said, one of the very first things he says when he calls in is he’s killed before and he’s going to have to kill again. He might even say tonight. Mm hmm. So The movie does a good job of creating, like, an urgency. It’s, if this were nothing more than just Norm debates calling into a radio show and, oh, isn’t that supposed to be interesting?

It’s one thing. But there’s some urgency created where, like you said, it’s like they kind of have to keep him on the phone, and that’s the whole reason why the psychologist, once he figures out who this guy is, he’s like, oh, I think this is real. I think this guy is dangerous. We need to do something about this.

And you’re right, their instinct is, well, we can’t call the cops. Don’t call the cops, no cops are gonna get involved. If you’re not cool with us hanging out with, keeping him on the line and how we’re pulling this out, you can just leave. And he just goes. And we never see him again. So it’s kind of ridiculous.

It’s really dumb. And I have to ask myself, is anybody listening to this radio show? Because anybody could have called the cops. Anybody listening to what’s happening. Who’s getting all the same information and detail that they are because it’s not like they ever make contact with him outside of the radio Right.

So everybody listening to the show is getting all the same detail. Anybody could have, maybe there, there ought to have been a cop listening to the show. Who would have been like, alright, we need to get involved here. Well, 

Craig: alright. And because eventually like, like I said, he uses a fake name at first, but he eventually identifies himself by his full name.

Like, I don’t remember. He’s like something, something Norman Bates. And she already thought, right. Like she thought that it was him, but she wasn’t sure. Then like, you know, yeah. Melodramatic closeup of her face. Like, oh my God, it is him. Like, this is apparently. renowned serial killer that people know about and he’s just on the radio identifying himself by name and nothing happens.

That’s, it’s, it is, it’s silly. It’s silly. There are so many things, like, I agree with you, we should get into the backstory of it, and we need to talk about Olivia Hussey, but all, like, it’s so silly. He says, you know, that he needs to kill somebody else, and he ultimately says that it’s gonna be his wife, whom he met.

While he was in a mental institution, she was his nurse. Oh god. But they fell in love and got married because she believes in him. What? 

Todd: What?

It’s so funny. You know, you know, you think about those real life stories of prisoners who have admirers, right? Very notorious people, like, I think even Even Charles Manson, like, married someone from his prison cell, right? Who was just kind of a fan. 

Craig: Both of the Menendez brothers are married. To people that they met while they were in prison.

Todd: But, I’ve never heard of the prison guards taking an interest in the prisoner and developing a romantic relationship. Maybe it happens, but I kind of equate this to that. 

Craig: That would be, I feel like that falls more under the realm of Abuse of power, but like this is just like my mother is a nurse I think one of your parents is in health care or both.

Oh, yeah, both of my parents are nurses. Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah nurses don’t Psych nurses 

Todd: don’t f their patients. Especially psych nurses Especially if your patient is Norman Bates. 

Craig: Norman Bates Notorious serial killer of women, but it’s 

Todd: fine. She trusts in him. We see her in her office, you know, with her co workers, and I just wanted to imagine all those co workers, like, what do they think?

Oh, good for you, honey. You know, was, was that gal that she’s chatting to with one of the bridesmaids at their wedding? Do they get together and play cards? 

Craig: He’s, yeah. They’re not even using a false name. Like he’s not even using an alias. Like her last name is Bates. Like she is Mrs. Norman Bates. But I really, I liked her because she seemed totally normal.

Like she seemed like a real. Woman of her, professional woman, smart. Not glamorous or anything, 

Todd: nothing? 

Craig: No, no, just a very normal, you know, she’s good at her job, everybody likes her, but just a normal lady. And I, I liked that, but it was just such a stupid conceit. Yeah. Oh my god. And he lives in her beautiful suburban house where he can walk around the beautiful suburban kitchen with a knife on a corded phone, I think.

I don’t know. Sometimes 

Todd: lay on the floor. 

Craig: Yeah, it’s all him. The whole movie is him telling his backstory. In which, Henry Thomas plays him as a younger man and Olivia Hussey plays his mother and obviously if you know anything about Psycho at all You know that this is a guy who has mommy issues. Why even in the first movie?

We don’t entirely know this kind of attempts to answer that and I think that it does it in a great way I think melodrama is totally the way to approach this. What makes this guy Cuckoo batshit crazy. Well, the story has to be cuckoo batshit crazy. And it is. It’s wild. Like, I don’t, I think Olivia Hussey is great in this, but I feel like they could have just called her on set in any given moment and she’s already memorized her lines.

And they just say, All right, just go f ing nuts. Like, what? Right. I mean She just delivers everything. Like, she is a lunatic. It’s a night and day thing where, in one instant She will be a doting mother. There’s all kinds of Oedipal stuff going on here, uh, too. This kid, I mean, I don’t know how old Henry Thomas was at the time, but he looks like he could have been 19, 20.

He’s a man. He’s a young man. And she keeps putting him in all these kind of awkward, sexualized situations. It’s just the two of them all the time. She makes him take off his clothes. All of his clothes and get in bed with her to keep her warm and like snuggle her 

Clip: and she’s 

Craig: like Caressing him and stuff and then there’s another part where they’re both Barely dressed and she starts rolling around with him on the floor and these are disgusting It’s disgusting but She is the one that’s being inappropriate and then when his body She responds, then she freaks out and is horrible and abusive and it doesn’t, you know, that’s later in the movie, like it doesn’t even take that, like she might freak out for any given reason and just go from being loving and doting to hateful and abusive and terrible.

And Olivia Hussey just fucking goes for it. 

Todd: She’s just. 

Craig: Going for it, and I love it. 

Todd: It establishes that pretty early on, pretty directly, when one of the first scenes we see is, he’s talking about his father dying, when he was very young. 

Clip: Boy’s best friend is his mother. What about your father? How’d you feel about him?

He died when I was six. He was stung to death by bees. They stung his eyes, his nostrils, even the insides of his mouth. I was worried about my mother seeing him lying there, in that box. 

Todd: And they’re sitting at the funeral, and while they are listening to the message at the funeral, she is rubbing him through his pants.

Well, he’s saying he’s being tickled. I think that was a euphemism from the point of view of a little boy that’s too young to understand what’s happening. And when he makes some noise, she immediately slaps him on the face and says, Don’t you have any respect for the dead? So she’s doing this thing. And then immediately punishing him when it’s, it’s really her fault.

Right. You know, this is not actually, I mean, it’s a melodramatic presentation of very real psychological behavior. I mean, I have known bipolar people who are quite literally like this. They are just fine one minute, and then the next minute seem irrationally angry. And almost just, you know, like a completely different person.

You don’t know what this comes from, and why, and it’s very confusing. And it would be very confusing for a child. And then that child coming up through adolescent, when a lot of confusing things are happening. 

Clip: What’s the matter? What did I do? Nothing, nothing, nothing! Then why are you hitting me? Who They’re not going to build it where the highway is.

No, because from there the world would still be able to see us. It’s going to be miles away. Nobody will even know we’re here. They’re putting us out of business. Oh, what am I going to do? How will we live? You, you’re just like my father. Never a drop of sympathy. I’m sorry. Sorry for what? What the hell good are you if you can’t show a little sympathy?

Well, I don’t know how. No. You just know how to cause trouble. Because of you my bladder’s damaged, I can’t hold my water. That’s why I’m always running to the toilet, did you know that? Yes, I know. I was fine until I gave birth to you. You caused a lot of damage. I should have gotten rid of you the day I found out I was gonna have you.

Not one thing you’ve ever said or done has made all I’ve gone through with you worthwhile, not one blessed thing. I should have killed you in my womb. You sure as hell tried to kill me getting out of it. 

Todd: And you have that aspect to where it’s just this boy and his mom. He has no father figure in his life I mean, I guess he’s going to school, but we never see do we see any portrayal of that?

Craig: No, he carries books and at one point his mom says get off to school or you’re gonna be late to school or something But no, we never see him go the whole thing Gosh, I think the entire movie and I’m sure that this is an economical thing, but the whole thing takes place On that lot and in that house.

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: I think it’s universal It’s on the the Bates motel and and the house is on the Universal back lot I think that it was on one studio lot and then this is the first movie where it’s the same set But they changed location. It was on a different lot 

Todd: The first three movies were all shot on the Universal back lot in California, which became a part of the Universal Studios tour 

Craig: Yeah, I’ve been there.

Have you? 

Todd: Not to the one in California. I’ve been to the one in Florida when they still had it. Right. I Me too, I think. They don’t have it anymore. They don’t do any of that backlot stuff. Oh. But when they first opened Universal Studios, it’s the same y I think it was like the same year, 1990. Cause I remember, God, it was all over Nickelodeon, you know, like you There was all kinds of promotional stuff for it, what you could see on the tour.

And it was like, yeah, and you can see the Bates Mansion and the Bates Motel. They built the set, you know, a copy of that set there in Florida and in Insisted on filming it there so that they could come out with a bang for the new studio tour and lots and, and, and amusement park down there and give people something to see.

So apparently people actually did get to see some of this being filmed while they were down there, and it’s a shame that that doesn’t happen anymore. None of that stuff happens anymore. You know, Disney built mg. At the time it was called Disney MGM Studios, now it’s Disney Hollywood Studios. That was built as kind of a rival to Universal’s gig, and they both put a lot of effort into making it so that at any given time when you visit the amusement park, you might be able to see a movie being produced.

And over the years, they realized that that didn’t really matter anymore, and people didn’t care, they would come anyway. And so they just started replacing them with rides, and that’s no longer a thing. 

Craig: Yeah, that’s too bad. I, I enjoyed that stuff when I was a kid. I went on that studio tour. I think that I went to the one, I think I went to the one in Florida too.

And, and I saw, and it was cool, you know, like the, the Bates, the Bates motel. The golden girl’s 

Todd: house was there, dude. The 

Craig: golden girl’s house. I was more excited about that. 

Todd: You know. When I, when I worked there, and that would have been in 1999, the fall of 1999, I was there on the college program, and I worked at Disney MGM Studios, and at that time the Backlots Tour, I think it was still going, but it was a very limited version, because they had already carved some of it out and stopped doing a few of those things.

But, there was this thing that Up until I think this last year was still going on called the Osborne family lights and I don’t know long story short I think this family called the Osborne family in Florida had a bunch of lights and they donated they used to do big light Shows on their street in their neighborhood and it got to be too unwieldy So they kind of donated them to Disney so that they could set them up every year and where they set them up Was on that back lot area Where all those houses and things were.

And so, a couple nights during the fall, when those lights were up and people were paying special admission to come to the park at night and tour those Osborne lights, I was literally standing there in those sets, like, in front of the Golden Girls house and all that stuff. Well, that’s fun. Yeah, just kinda managing crowds and And working a couple extra shifts for some extra money.

It was a, it was a cool time. It’s a shame that stuff’s gone. 

Craig: I agree with you. It is a shame that that’s not really a thing anymore. I just have a vivid snapshot memory of being on like that open air. multi car, tram type vehicle going by the Golden Girls house. It was so exciting to me. It’s my favorite show.

Todd: It’s sort of like, you know, Golden Girls house is to Craig as Olivia Hussey’s breasts are to me. We’re both getting very distinct memories right now. 

Craig: It is. It is. And you do. You see her boobs. Like, look, this is such a funny movie. Everything that we’re being. Shown and being told is from Norman’s perspective.

Perhaps if this movie were told from the mother’s perspective, she wouldn’t come across as a psychotic whore. Because maybe, I don’t know, just throwing it out there, maybe Norman is It’s the one who’s crazy and screwed up. But this movie totally makes it like his mom totally fucked him up. Like, like I said before, there’s kind of, there’s Oedipal shit going on.

Like he’s getting boners for his mom all the time. And uh, she eventually gets a boyfriend. He’s also. Killing people. He’s crazy. He’s he’s crazy. Yeah And he and like he narrates he narrates these murders and it all ties back to his mommy issues But like he’s a good looking guy and he can pull tail, but every time he does he kills them.

So like Like stop it stop it Don’t do it 

Todd: Now, did you know that Anthony Perkins himself had never slept with a woman until he was 39? 

Craig: Well, I think he was gay. Well, I think he was bi Uh, 

Todd: no, I think he was bisexual or or or pretty fluid, actually, because he he was married The internet 

Craig: will tell you he was bisexual because he did have relationships with women, but the fact that he didn’t have sex with a woman until he was 39 suggests That’s to me that he was probably gay.

Todd: Uh, you know, and again, there’s a difference sometimes between what people say in public and how they actually feel, but there was a quote also, uh, you know, where he had talked about, I don’t remember when in life, maybe in the late 80s or early 90s that he talked about not having had sex with a woman until he was 39.

He had had homosexual experiences before that, but he said that kind of sex always just felt very unfulfilling to him and kind of empty. And then when he met his wife, he just was absolutely in love with her again. And, you know, You say one thing, you do other things. He had lots of trysts with men, but, uh, he was apparently really, really into his wife, and she was really into him.

Up to the point when he died. Oh good, good for them. But anyway, where I was going with that was, I went back, when was the last time you saw the original Psycho? 

Craig: A long time. Yeah. I don’t know. I’ve probably only watched it start to finish a couple of times. I don’t know, it’s just so ingrained in my head.

It’s, it’s such a cultural touchstone, like, it just, it’s, it’s, it’s just there, you know? 

Todd: Well, I wasn’t planning to go back and watch the original, like, to research for this, I didn’t feel like I had to, but we ended up putting it on in the background today, and I found myself watching it again, and it is good, and it made me realize a couple things.

One of those was, Anthony Perkins was a good looking guy, when he was a kid. Young and old. He’s almost a spitting image of Henry Thomas. I mean, they picked, like, a great, great face for this. Great casting. He is just as good in the original Psycho as Henry Thomas is in this movie. They are fantastic at playing this.

And I guess I was saying maybe, maybe he could relate a little bit, you know, to his awkwardness with women. Like, but, you know, I don’t want to, I mean, the guy’s an actor. He should, he can act, right? Sure. I don’t want to diminish that. I get it. It’s just fun bit of trivia. But. You know, the other thing I was thinking of was, we really don’t know how his mother really was.

In the original Psycho, we hear his mother yelling at him, and saying all these horrible things and stuff. Which is very similar to what Olivia Hussey is saying to him in this movie. But in the original movie, it’s him! It’s his voice, is, you know, cause he’s got this split personality. I 

Craig: think maybe It was actually another voice actress.

I don’t think it was actually Anthony Perkins, but it was no I don’t mean it was the actor. I mean it was the character right where to believe that it’s him and the same thing here the first time He kills a woman. The timeline is a little bit confusing too. I’m not, I don’t exactly understand it because he says the first time that he killed a woman was this woman who tried to have sex with him, which is exactly right.

She’s this attractive, bubbly young woman who is. Clearly into him and they’re making out in the car and she wants to get a room and but this you know Pretty young girl is into him and they’re fooling around and it starts to get hot and heavy But then he’s like, oh wait, I have to go give my mom her 2 a.

m. Medicine

And he goes up there and he’s talking to her and she, you, she’s laying on the bed on her side with her back to us, to the camera. So you can’t really see her, but it doesn’t even look like she’s laying on top of the covers. I think it looks like a corpse. It doesn’t look like a person. It’s 

Todd: a hundred percent.

Craig: And then it talks to him and she’s like, 

Clip: Get that whore out of my house. 

Craig: She’s not a whore mother. 

Clip: I said, get rid of her. Oh, do I have to do it myself? No mother. I’ll get rid of her. Kill her. Kill her? I can’t, no! No, I can’t. All right. All right. Then I’ll do it for you. 

Craig: And it’s in a very affected voice. Like it doesn’t sound like Olivia Hussey’s voice at all.

And this happens multiple times. So, yeah, he’s nuts, and he is either, like you said, it’s kind of a split personality thing where he takes on her personality, and then he blames everything on and attributes everything to her, um, when it’s really him. He said that was the first time that he killed anybody, and we see his mom dead.

Then It goes back to her being alive. And he eventually kills her and her boyfriend. So, well, yeah, it jumps in time, right? But why do I say, I’m saying, why does he say that’s the first time that he killed anybody? When, when he did that, the mother was already dead. 

Todd: You know what I’m saying? Oh, good point. I feel like there was a trick of language that he used there, but I don’t remember it because I remember having that question myself.

Craig: Well, and he, to be fair, like we said, you know, it’s a limited narrative perspective. We can only trust what he tells us, and we can only trust what he is telling this radio person. Like, who knows how he’s Editorializing, you know what I mean? Of course, 

Todd: yeah. He does seem to be trying to garner some sympathy, but he’s also not at all concerned about admitting to all these things.

But I guess he’s done his time, right? I suppose that I mean, it’s kind of unbelievable, but I, I mean, I guess there’s some modern day equivalents to that, you know, where we have people who go on and become freaking celebrities after murdering people, I suppose, so. Oh gosh, yeah. So yeah, I mean, it’s possible, and it’s, it’s within the realm of possibility.

But yeah, anyway, that’s what struck me, was just that even this movie is not necessarily the definitive answer to what was Norman Bates mother like, because at nowhere are we ever getting anything that’s not through his voice. Even up to the original movie. She’s not even alive in the original film and everything that Sounds like her is really coming from him.

So yeah, that’s an interesting aspect to it. That will always remain a mystery I suppose. 

Craig: Yeah, that’s yeah, and that’s fine. Yeah That doesn’t bother me at all. Uh, I actually I like this. I like this as his origin. I love Henry Thomas It’s one of the times that she’s very inappropriately rolling around with him in their underclothes and he gets a boner and she freaks out about it and emasculates him and tells him he’s a girl and locks him in a closet and calls him Norma.

Oh god. That’s when he starts dressing up in her clothes and a wig and so, you know, we kind of get a little backstory. for that. And it’s silly and melodramatic and stupid and, but whatever. I mean, it answers the question. Sure. He kills another lady too. You know, in reading the trivia and stuff, I guess them showing him killing these women answers questions that were left unanswered in the previous movies.

But I’m not familiar enough. With those movies to know that whatever he kills another lady an older lady older than him not probably more his mom’s age not like an old lady, but uh, he kills her and then eventually the mom gets a A boyfriend and that part was all weird too. Like so weird. There are some weird lines in this like The first night that he sees his mother bring this man home, first of all, she takes him to the motel and Norman watches them through the peephole that’s been established through the whole series, and then the next morning.

She’s like cooking breakfast and she’s like, yes, this is Carl or Chip or whatever his name is and we’re gonna get married as soon as he gets divorced 

Todd: and Could they paint her in a worse possible 

Craig: life. She’s awful and and he used to be like a Security guard or something, but not anymore because now he works for us He works at the hotel and he’s gonna live here.

He’s gonna live with us and then the guy That’s a lot to throw on a kid. Yeah, a teenager. And the guy comes in in a robe and, uh, Henry Thomas says, take off my dad’s robe. I thought that he just was going to, like, I thought that he was just going to like, just stand there naked. But he says something gross.

He’s like, 

Clip: No underwear. You see, Norman. You only want to be naked around a lady when you’re having sex with her. Any other time, you just ain’t respectful. 

Craig: Or just impolite, or something like that. Oh god. And this guy is so annoying, like within the course of a day or something, like he’s trying to give Norman boxing lessons and he has to taunt Norman to even to get him to participate and then he eventually does and then he Punches him in the face and gives him a bloody nose And then the mom and the boyfriend stand over him and we see the POV from the ground like you’re looking up at them And they’re just laughing and pointing at him like like the boys got to learn someday like they’re just It’s awful.

Yeah. 

Todd: They are terrible, terrible people. So he kills them. I guess this is one way to get us on his side. And he does. The radio host asks him, how did you kill your mother? And he says, slowly. Oh my 

Craig: god. 

Todd: Commercial. You’re right. That was great. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, the way he kills them is, is what we know from the first movie.

You know, it’s, it’s said by the, by the cops or somebody that they were poisoned in, with strychnine. Now, in the first movie, it’s said that She, that the guy, that one of them kills the other, like she kills him because he wouldn’t get his divorce and then She decides to go with him. But obviously in this movie it puts the blame on Norman.

Craig: Gotcha, 

Todd: okay. And you know, I guess it’s supposedly you kind of wonder if in the original movie they meant that too. There’s no indication actually in the original movie that, that he killed his mother. So. 

Craig: This is off topic, but I want to get it in while I’m thinking about it. There was also the prequel series Bates Motel Starring Freddie Highmore and Vera Farmiga as Norman and and the mother Norma.

That’s 

Todd: the more recent one, right? 

Craig: Yeah, and it was really really good. Freddie Highmore was fantastic as Norman Bates too and and Vera Farmiga is always fantastic and she was great as Norma and it Explored their relationship, which was also strange and sometimes awkward and inappropriate but far more realistic and believable.

So if you’re, if you’re a fan of these movies and you haven’t watched that show, I highly recommend it. It’s a very good show. Yeah, so he kills, he poisons them with strychnine. Ugh, God, it was another one of my They’re just, the mom and her boyfriend are just loudly banging all over the house and he’s just having to listen to it.

And then when they’re done banging, the mom’s like, 

Clip: Go down and see what’s keeping that boy, I’m so thirsty I can hardly swallow. Well, we can’t have that now, can we?

Room service has arrived.

Not a word about my new kimono. It’s lurid. It just keeps 

Craig: walking away. So 

Todd: funny. Could you imagine? No, I couldn’t, but 

Craig: again, I can’t say enough how good Henry Thomas is because he’s just great in every moment, but the movie borrows some style from Hitchcock and there are moments when it does really tight closeups on his face.

He watches them die. Basically he watches the poison kick in from around the corner and his eyes like He’s he’s wide eyed and fascinated by what he’s seeing and I feel like he’s got his fingers up by his mouth like he’s Anxious and he just does a really good job. I imagine that he probably If not worked with anthony perkins, is that his name?

If he didn’t work with him on it, he at least watched his previous performances because they have similar, uh, idiosyncrasies and, and things. And I just thought he, I just, throughout the whole time I was watching, I just kept thinking, Oh my God, he is so good. 

Todd: Yeah. Supposedly, Anthony Perkins was really insistent that he meet with Henry Thomas and give him some advice.

But Henry Thomas was like. It ended up being like five minutes, and he didn’t really say much of anything, and so there wasn’t 

Craig: Well, Mick Garris, the director, said that Anthony Perkins was the most difficult actor he’d ever worked with. Um, so I don’t know what that’s all about, but usually when people say that, there’s a reason.

Todd: That’s true. Now, speaking of Mick Garris We’ve done movies by him earlier. He’s done a lot of horror. Sleepwalkers. Sleepwalkers. He did the story for Batteries Not Included, which is one of my favorites, but he wrote I love that movie. He wrote and directed Critters 2. He did the screenplay for The Fly 2.

But probably, you know, your favorite one is the wrote and directed Hocus Pocus. Oh 

Clip: yeah! 

Todd: Yeah, I don’t know if he’s involved in the new one that’s gonna supposed to be coming out soon. I don’t think he is. I don’t know. I don’t remember. But yeah, he’s done some good stuff. He has! He’s done a lot of things, both television and movie 

Craig: wise.

Once Norman kills his mom and the boyfriend though, then we just have to wrap up the frame story and that’s what it feels like. And it wraps up quickly and Is 

Todd: it though? Is it quickly? Well, conceptually, it’s quick. I don’t 

Craig: know. It sure goes on for a while. He tells the radio lady that he’s going to kill his wife.

Why? Because she let herself get pregnant. Oh my God. And he’s very angry about it because he told her from the beginning that they could never have kids because he didn’t want to pass on his evil seed or some shit like that. But she is pregnant and he’s going to kill her. And there’s. And the, the radio lady’s like trying to beg him not to, trying to keep him on the phone, but he eventually hangs up and he calls his wife and tells her, don’t come home, even though I’ve been preparing this meal for the last two hours.

Um, don’t come home. Meet me at my mom’s house. He’s so 

Todd: shady. He is super shady with her from the, from the phone call all the way up. To when she arrives and he’s like manhandling her and he’s being coy and he’s like just kind of like Pulling her up to the house and she’s just kind of going along with it.

I I just don’t understand why this woman Who knows his history? Wouldn’t be more alarmed. Yeah, 

Craig: she knows who he is Yeah, come meet me at my mom’s house. Your mom’s house where you killed all those people? Thank you, no. Like, 

Todd: I don’t think so. Grabs her by the arm, they go into this cobweb place, which looks like nobody’s been in there for decades.

He hauls her upstairs to show her something, then he goes into the cabinet where she had locked him in, and I guess he had planted a knife in there? Like, hidden? In a secret compartment, and not maybe it’s something from the sequels, I don’t know. Eww, gross. But, and he whips around with a knife in his hand, and she just stands there, like, This woman can’t run, doesn’t run for anything, it’s your typical, Uh, uh, uh, But I love you!

Kind of standing there, he gets right up in her face, I know, Norman, I know you’re better than this, And then, covers his eyes for a minute, like, rubs his eyes for a second, At which point she inexplicably decides, Now’s my moment to get out of here. So she runs away and then he removes his hands from his eyes.

He does like an almost comical, what, what? Double take. Like, where did she go? And starts chasing her. Oh god, that was so poorly staged. I laughed out loud. I don’t even remember. Oh god, it was so funny. He just chases her all around the house, and this is when it gets really dumb. Because, like you said, eventually he chases her down to the basement, cause we gotta revisit the basement, right?

MMM. 

Craig: The rocking chair, right? With 

Todd: that chair and all that, that the mom used to be in. He’s got her cornered, he’s gonna emerge She manages to go outside, but then, I don’t remember, he comes out of the cellar and then pulls her back in or something? It’s all really I don’t remember. It’s all really Really hard to believe, but 

Craig: All I remember is he gets her up against a wall or something like he’s got her pinned And he puts the knife up like he’s gonna cut her throat or stab her And he sees his own reflection And she’s like, yes, look, it’s you Look at yourself You’re not a killer And the baby won’t be either And then she says No more blood, Norman, please.

So he drops the knife and they embrace and he, yeah. And they embrace and he’s like cured now. So then he burns down the house, but then while he’s in there, he’s confronted by his mother, Olivia Hussey. And then all of the other people he’s killed in this movie. I really wish that he had been confronted by.

Victims from the previous movies too, even if they had to recast. Cause it just felt weird to me. Like, I want to see Marion crane, you know, like I want to see her with, I want to see her naked with wet hair. Oh, I 

Todd: know me too. I wouldn’t have minded that at all. But it’s just so, it’s just so silly, like, at this point it is total cheeseball territory.

I think this sequence looked a lot better on paper. And conceptually, it’s kinda cool. He’s burning the house down, where it all started, you know, destroying the last vestiges of his mother. But on the way out, he’s being confronted by the ghosts of those other people, and he almost gets trapped inside. I mean, I like the idea, but god, the way it’s staged and the way it plays out on the screen.

He’s mugging for the camera at moments. 

Craig: Yeah, yeah. And it’s 

Todd: so slow. I mean, this this seemed to this seemed to go on for ten minutes. But he makes it out and they embrace and he gets out and he says, I’m 

Craig: free. And then, and then we get a shot of the rocking chair in the basement, still a rocking. And I think we hear the mother’s voice like, 

Clip: let me out of here.

Craig: And then you hear a baby crying and then the credits roll. Like, this, we didn’t talk about Olivia Hussey enough. Her role in this movie is a little one note. Yeah. I certainly wouldn’t say that like, oh my gosh, this is, you know, if you want to see Olivia Hussey really acting, you know, check this out. No, there’s not range here.

It’s, it’s kind of one note, but it’s Not her fault. It’s hysterical. It’s so funny. I, I say hysterical. In both ways of that word like she’s hysterical like she’s insane Like you can’t predict who she’s gonna be or how she’s gonna act in any given moment And she’s crazy, but it’s also hysterical to watch and it’s not played for comedy I don’t think I do think that All of them knew what they were doing with the melodrama, especially her and Anthony Perkins.

I think that Henry Thomas plays it straight. And for the most part, they all do. But I think they were aware of the melodrama of the story and they allowed themselves to give heightened performances. And I think that it was the right This is a fun movie to watch. It’s not a great movie. It feels a little bit TV.

You can tell it’s kind of got that TV movie feel about it, which is fine with me. But the fact that the, uh, original actor reprises his role and you get backstory, the answers to questions that people have had since the first movie and the original score, uh, It’s back. That was so nice. And featured heavily and is great.

And I absolutely love it. There are so many good things about it. If you come into it thinking you’re going to be seeing something serious, you’re going to be disappointed. But if, but if you come in ready to have a good time, I think it’s a good time. 

Todd: I mean, in some ways, it’s a little in keeping with the original Psycho 2.

The original Psycho’s a bit of a potboiler itself. In fact, I read, and I don’t really understand this, but I read that Hitchcock actually saw it as a comedy himself. He said that when they, when he first watched the movie with an audience, they were laughing. Throughout and he said to even more than he expected and he said that was the first time that he himself had been Out thought or outsmarted by the audience like they didn’t just fulfill his expectations But they went even further than he thought they would so yeah, uh, I mean I feel exactly how you do I still enjoyed the movie.

It’s really silly. It updates my feelings about it a little bit because I took it a little more seriously when I was a kid. And it was more scandalous to me when I was a kid. And it still, real icky stuff, you know? I mean, I still, as silly as the movie is, those scenes of incestuous you know, it’s never full blown incest, but it pretty much is.

It’s really uncomfortable. It’s suggested, yeah. It’s pretty uncomfortable, and so, to that, you know, I applaud them for, you know, rising those emotions and pushing the envelope. Yeah! Pushing the envelope sure especially for television especially for this time to be honest even though it was cable. I do feel like You know, it was a bit of a groundbreaking movie for its time Yeah, and getting all these actors back together having this really really adult and kind of Very taboo subject matter being portrayed by these very famous people and for, I think, first grown up role for Henry Thomas himself, and one of the last roles for Anthony Perkins, unfortunately.

He died a couple years after this, but I, I mean, he was really proud of it as well. I guess, uh, I guess all around. I don’t know if it’s really well remembered. I know that reviews at the time were about as were very mixed, you know, there were a lot of people saying exactly what we’re saying, and then there were people who were like, no, it’s it’s good, it’s fun.

Mhmm. Yeah, I don’t know, it’s not an easy movie to find right now. Is it even showing on streaming services or anything? I don’t know. But yeah, there you go, and uh, obviously Olivia Hussey, we’re gonna miss her. She just, she just really left an impression on me. As a kid and as an adult. 

Craig: Beautiful. Talented.

Really cool. She’s my 

Todd: favorite part of Black Christmas. Oh, she’s great. I rewatched that movie a lot. I love that movie to death. She’s fantastic in it. Olivia Hussey, we’re gonna miss you. Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. find us online just by Googling us.

Two guys in a chainsaw podcast. We are all over the social media channels and of course our website is there. Leave us a message, let us know what movie you’re looking forward to us doing for the coming year. It’s not too late to get those Easter suggestions in. So you know, that and uh, and St. Patrick’s Day.

We got Valentine’s Day on lock. Anyway, thank you so much for your support and until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

As our first guest of the new year, Loyal Listener and Patron Tyler joins us to dissect Jordan Peele’s epic horror-sci-fi-Western film from head to toe. Nope might not have made the biggest splash, but it’s a big-screen story with plenty of nail-biting tension, and we had nothing but good things to say.

And since it clocks in as one of our longest episodes ever, you might think we had a little TOO much to say. You be the judge of that as you ride along and hopefully check out the movie for yourself – on a big screen, with a killer home sound system (or at least a good pair of noise-canceling headphones, yeah?).

Big thanks to Tyler, and cheers to the new year!

Episode 423, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: And joining us today for a very special episode is Tyler. Tyler, say hello to the people. 

Tyler: Hello, people.

Craig: When you say a very special episode, I feel like that implies something weird. Yeah. It’s not a very special episode.

I’m just thinking of like those very special episodes of 

Todd: the 

Craig: 80s TV shows that we used to watch. Yeah, the family ties when the uncle comes home and 

Todd: it turns out he’s like guzzling vanilla extract because he’s an alcoholic, yeah, from the kitchen in the middle of the night. Yeah, I remember that. 

Craig: One of Stephanie Tanner’s friends is being molested.

Oh God. That’s a very special episode. This is, this is just going to be a fun. It’s going to be fun. Well, I think it’s special. I’m excited. 

Todd: I think it’s special because Tyler’s on it. Tyler has been a longtime listener of ours. Tyler, how long have you been listening to the podcast? 

Tyler: Uh, let’s see, I would say since whenever you guys did Sleepaway Camp.

That’s how I found you. Oh boy. That 

Todd: was ages ago. That’s how you found us. So you searched for Sleepaway Camp and our podcast came up like high in the Google list or something? How did that work? 

Tyler: My relationship to media and how I consume it is, at first, I would watch a movie. And then I would immediately have to find a podcast somewhere to listen to it because I just had to get it out.

I was losing friends and family because I would talk to them incessantly about what I watched. So I needed a way to, it’s just how I needed to process stuff, especially horror films and nobody I had listened to. Had done Sleepaway camp, so I just typed in Sleepaway camp on Apple Podcasts. And you guys were the first to pop up?

Yes. Now I, you guys had like, it was more than, it was, it was more than 30 minutes and it was less than five hours. And it wasn’t your very first episode. Okay. I was like, oh, you actually have a few out there. All right, good. Let’s give it a. Sometimes I vibe, sometimes I don’t. I’ve listened to full episodes of podcasts and left them and I’ve never gone back.

Uh, you guys, I really clicked with. And I think I remember when, uh, when they’re talking about a specific uh, character, uh, the cook, um, and he does his gross line about, uh, How young they look or something. It just immediately, it’s a hard cut away from the clip that you guys shared to, I think Craig going gross.

That’s what I said. I 

Todd: remember that one. It’s like a row where he come from. We call them baldies, right? I’ll never forget that line. It’s so it’s one of the most. Disgusting thing. I had 

Craig: managed to forget. So 

Tyler: thanks. Yeah. Listeners, big, big hit for Sleepaway Camp. All of them. Watch them all. Seriously. One, two, and three.

Each one’s an amazing experience, but nothing like the first. We need to revisit that series. Yeah, I just saw two 

Craig: for the first time recently. It was wild. We should definitely do it on the show at some point because it’s, it’s crazy. It feels hell man, we’re off track already and that’s fine, but it feels like a totally different thing than the first one, 

Tyler: but they keep the vibe.

They never stray from the formula that constructs the film into a, almost a religious way that if you’re in number three. And you crack a smile once. I don’t give a crap if you hate them all. You’re a fan. Sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. Yeah, yeah. 

Todd: You’ve 

Tyler: come this far. 

Todd: Right. 

Tyler: Shut up and enjoy it. That’s true.

That’s true. You managed to. I hate people. Who poke fun too much and never realize, ah, crap. This is the 15 millionth time I’ve talked about how much this movie sucks. Oh, shit. I 

Todd: kind of like that. I must, I must actually like it to a certain degree, right? 

Craig: It’s kind of ironic that we’re talking about that franchise, which is so silly.

When I feel like the movie that we’re actually here to talk about today, it’s, I don’t want to be like, it’s so serious. It’s not so serious, but it just has such a different tone. I think of Jordan Peele. And the first thing that I think is, I know that this is going to be good because this guy is a skilled filmmaker.

Like I don’t need to know what the story is. It doesn’t even matter. Like I know that I’m going to get something good. So I’m in for it. I do have to admit that this is not my favorite of his movies. We’re doing 2022’s Nope. I think it’s great, and, and watching it again, Tyler, you had said that you saw this in the theater, is that right?

Tyler: One of the best theater experiences of my life. I could believe that. 

Craig: I saw it in the theater too, and I think if you’re going to truly appreciate this movie the way that it was intended, You have to see it in the theater. I don’t think that you can get the experience of it at home guys. I got it last night.

Tyler: Uh, I got it last night, Craig. So, uh, disagree. It definitely helps. Whoa. It definitely helps. And if you need to be lucky and have like five people in the theater. That are act I think are all secretly Jordan Peele fans. Um. Cause they were very quiet and polite. And I forgot they were all there for about 75 percent of the film.

Only when, you know, it was appropriate to laugh. Cause I laughed a lot as well. Sure. But like, when it was tense, I could feel my heart. In my throat, like I forgot I was on a seat for a little bit. I had to like keep shifting to remember I was sitting to this day. Only space odyssey gave me tingles like that.

That’s. Like one of my top five of all time, but only odyssey ever gave me like chills like that And i’ve never seen that in theaters. So 

Todd: guys, I I didn’t know a thing about this before Uh, I I just knew it was a jordan peele movie, but I didn’t even know the what the premise was supposed to be I mean, I think I was in china when the previews were showing and stuff.

I think this came out Shortly after COVID, right? He wrote it during like lockdown time, almost as a response in that he wanted to have a, like a big movie that you sort of had to go see in the theaters to really, really appreciate at this time when most people are sitting at home and not going to theaters and everybody’s discussing, will we ever go to theaters again?

And plus with streaming who would, and. Cedars were doing poorly anyway. And so like, this was kind of his idea to do this big cinematic movie that looked good on the big screen. I didn’t know anything about this stuff when I watched it and I’m halfway through this movie and now the screen I’m watching is pretty darn big.

I mean, it covers a good portion of the wall. Don’t get me wrong. And I appreciated that, but I was also like, God, this deserves to be seen with all the surround sound that you can muster. And I really was jealous of the fact that it sounds like you, you guys did that because you know, watching this, I was getting serious signs vibe, you know, M night Shyamalan and, uh, and I hear that clearly it was very inspired by that among other movies, but.

You know, obviously the, the theme of it is similar, you know, the setting is similar. But I remember when I went to see Signs in the theater, and I know everybody seems to hate Signs, or at least they hate the last ten minutes of it. I actually don’t mind it at all, I liked it as much, because I remember 

Tyler: They don’t hate Signs, they hate M.

Night, and when the and when people hate and people are starting to love M. Night again now after Servants, so now people are probably going to be talking good things about Signs. Right, it’s like a love to hate 

Todd: thing, right? Yeah. 

Tyler: He’s too interwoven into his own material, kind of like Jordan Peele is a little bit.

Unfortunately, M. Night feeds into it. Jordan Peele just is, reacts to it. 

Todd: Yeah, maybe yeah, that’s pretty fair, but I’ll tell you I get I got the same feeling like this really intense Just this intensity these moments of quiet. We’re just a slight of sound. I you know, I mean, I mean, I’m just in tune to everything that’s happening and it was just Fantastic.

I love those parts of the movie and then enough of the rest of the movie was just building a mystery slowly in like puzzle pieces that, um, even when it was kind of slow, I have to admit, I thought the first 30 minutes or so, I was like, when are we going to get to the real meat of this? I was still into it because I, you know, like I said, there were these little mysteries, 

Tyler: Craig, thank you for bringing up, uh, uh, The theater experience because that makes me want to ask both of you.

How was your viewing experience last night? Like, how did, how did you recreate your viewing experience? Couch, headphones, no headphones, daylight. He was on his laptop. Yeah, 

Craig: this guy. I was on my laptop. Still hasn’t figured out how to plug his 

Todd: computer into the TV screen. Come on, Craig. 

Craig: I know how, Tyler, the thing is when Todd was still living here in the States and we would get together to watch these movies, he had a modest house, you know, very similar to the house that I live in, but he had this one room that was this, just this tiny, like extra bedroom off of the garage, but he had the biggest TV I’ve ever seen in my life.

It was a projector. Yeah. Was it? 

Todd: Hell yeah. It was just a huge, you couldn’t get TVs that big back then. Yeah. 

Craig: And so we would sit back there in the dark on this janky little like dorm room couch, eating pizza and drinking beer and watching these movies with surround sound in this room. Like I swear that room was probably like 12 by 12.

Like it was a tiny little room. 

Todd: And that’s 

Craig: how we used to do stuff. I don’t have, I mean, I’ve got a reasonable size TV in my, my room. But I, I usually am hanging out in my living room and, uh, yeah, I’ve got a TV in my living room, but if I were to put it on the TV, I’m sitting far enough away that I can see better if I just have my laptop right in front of me.

The downside of it is, yeah, I put in earbuds and I, I, that always helps because I appreciate getting the full soundscape, but also, yes, I watched it in the daytime and it was a very, very different experience because there are some. Scenes that you just cannot see what’s happening if you’re watching the scenes where you can 

Tyler: see what’s happening during the daylight You’re missing some of the lavish beauty and the stark difference if you’re in a dark Surrounding area and guy listeners.

I mean just wait till night and turn off all the lights in your room Like you don’t need a theater level unless you have a home Built theater. Yeah. Like you’re a, you are rich enough that you can do that. No surround system, surround sound system or soundbar is going to match what you could get in a theater.

It’s just, you’re never gonna be able to recreate it. Correct. You need to literally have a gymnasium sized room to get that level of acoustics. The only way you can recreate it. Is over the head, noise cancellation, really good headphones and turn off all the lights, agree to immerse yourself, 

Craig: especially turn off all the lights because the, um, seeing it in the theater the first time, this is okay.

It’s a big mystery. Well, we can talk about it. I don’t know how detailed we want to get into the plot, but there’s a thing, some phenomenon going on. They, they. initially think it’s maybe a spaceship. And so maybe there’s aliens. Okay. All right. So whatever. And they’re on this horse ranch. One of the scenes that I remember, Tyler, you had talked about, you know, your heart racing.

One of the most frightening scenes to me in the theater was when the main character, OJ played by Daniel Kaluuya, hears something. In the stables and then goes out to investigate it. And knowing nothing about this movie, God, I feel like I have so much to say. And Todd, you said several things that I wanted to respond to.

You said you had no idea going into it. What was about, I didn’t really either. They were super coy about it. The trailers didn’t show much. You didn’t really know what it was about going into it. But at this point, you know, we had kind of seen something moving in the clouds and you know, your instinct is okay.

It looks like a spaceship to me. So you’re expecting aliens. And then in this scene, in the, these dark stables, these little aliens just start to, like. Slowly, slowly, slowly appear. That one image in particular where the camera just focuses still on a shot where there’s like a post right in the middle of it and it stays there for so long with nothing happening.

And of course the score is trying to freak you out too, but then the alien head doesn’t pop out. It slowly, slowly, slowly reveals itself from behind. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: I was 

Tyler: terrified because it’s making you think you’re in a different alien movie. Yeah. Because everyone knew just if you saw the title on the cover, but this is a sci fi film.

Western sci fi. Western. I 

Craig: knew Western more than I, I mean, I knew that there was going to be something weird going on, but I didn’t. And, you know, I watched this stuff pretty closely. You know, I was interested in this movie coming out. I was genuinely surprised by what I got. It was not what I was expecting at all.

Todd: Yeah, me too. And again, all this, all this time, 

Tyler: Uh, western weird shit is what I call it. It’s one of my favorite type 

Todd: of facts. Western weird shit. Like it 

Tyler: is, like you get this, Todd, I don’t know, uh, how, what, if you have any experience or Greg, with the west, uh, specifically in the area where Nova 7, I think in middle of uh, California.

Todd: Nevada? Oh, you mean like, um, Area 51 and those kinds of things? Is that what you’re referring to, or? 

Tyler: Yeah, like, the desert. 

Todd: Yeah, yeah. The 

Tyler: American desert. My 

Todd: parents live in Arizona. It is in 

Tyler: there, yeah. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Tyler: Oh, wow. Okay, then you understand, because like, where he lives, Jordan Peele does such a good job recreating the type of acoustics that can happen in only that type of area.

There is so little moisture that the air is very, very dense and can be very, like, like, you can get updrafts and weird Pulled all of a sudden, it can be, it can be completely silent and still. And all of a sudden, boom, you’ll be blown over by a huge gust because all the air is being pulled down around the mountains.

And sometimes it can be pulled away. You can be standing at the edge and feeling the breeze and all of a sudden silence as all the air gets pulled by like. I forget how, how it works, but like it’s a cold draft or something like that. Like all the air gets pulled out of the valley at once and he’s able to recreate that.

So it’s, it’s not just the score going away in real life. All ambient sound gets sucked away. 

Craig: It’s wild. And he does a brilliant job with it. It’s it’s shot in like this desert Valley and all of the things that you just said are so true. And I just loved that they could have scenes of dialogue with people who were hundreds of yards away from each one another, yelling at each other.

You can just shout. You can just shout because there’s nothing. To block the sound. And it was so believable. Like it, to me, like those were really amusing scenes when Kiki Palmer yells to Steven Young, Jupe, uh, Hey, you don’t have to come any closer though. She is so funny. And that was such a funny and satisfying interaction.

But the fact that they could even have that interaction, I mean, he was at least a hundred yards away from her. And then they have. A whole conversation, just shouting back and forth to each other because they can, because of the environment. And it does, you know, even this mysterious threat that they don’t know what it is for a while.

It causes changes in the atmosphere. It causes. Electromagnetic changes, um, but it also causes changes like in the wind. And, and so we get those sound cues where you won’t even notice the ambient sound of nature and of wind until it drops entirely away 

Tyler: and 

Craig: when it drops entirely away, you notice, and you know, some shit is about to go down.

Tyler: The sound it makes when it like when all of a sudden the score drops and you hear like a hum and right before it drops out of the clouds you hear a I interpret that as like, it’s descending so fast, but very quickly that it’s breaking the sound barrier and then stopping, showing us that it’s at a different level, that it, this is how it moves.

And at first you’re thinking, When you first see the, uh, cause what do you see? You see a flying saucer. And at first I’m like, Oh, Jordan Peele, you sly devil. You’re doing the OG flying saucer. You’re bringing it back. You’re going to do it. And 

Craig: yeah, does he do it? I wanted to say too, that I think that the sound.

Department on this movie should have won every award because that stuff that we were just talking about blew me away. All right, guys. So it seems like it’s a spaceship at first, but it’s not. It’s an alien. It’s like a flying alien and it eats things. Is it an alien? 

Tyler: Thank you, Todd. Yeah, like you’re, we are assuming it’s an alien.

Right. Could this have, could this have always existed? 

Craig: Exactly. That’s what I was going to say. Only because we haven’t seen them before. Right. Or we don’t know about them. Well. So it’s foreign, at least to us. Uh, but just real quick, it eats people. Um, and there’s a point when it eats us. A whole bunch of people and the way that it eats them, which I’m dying to talk about, they don’t immediately die.

They’re slowly ingested and slowly digested. And so when it comes near, 

Tyler: slowly digest, I think it’s mimicking 

Craig: them. 

Tyler: No, I think it keeps them. Screaming. Learning that if we hear the screams of our kind, we will instinctively look towards that sound and give it what it wants. That makes sense, actually. See, 

Craig: but I thought it didn’t want to be looked at!

Tyler: Well, it’s a, it’s a spectacle. That’s possible. All right. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m getting a little, I’m getting really a little into it. Why I think this is obviously the least favorite of Jordan Peele’s movies. Like he was incredible with get out. We, you guys have covered it. So then it came out with us.

People liked us a little less, but the true fans championed it. And then nope came out and I would say almost fractured the fans. Um, I heard a lot of people either love it or hate it. How could anybody hate this? Like, just, just put it on and just like put it on for ASMR for God’s sakes. It’s beautiful.

Peele makes his movies on multiple levels because he’s an artist in a way that I never, he was a comedian for right. He’s known for doing goofy things. And underneath that veneer is a very, very beautiful. Very artistic soul to a level that I am not if I was to create art or make a movie, it would be very shallow.

It would not have huge levels because I don’t think like that. I can see it when I critique it. I can philosophize on it. I can talk about it on a podcast. I can’t generate it instinctively as he can say what, yeah, what he did with get out. There’s so many things about that, like so many different levels, but on the, but on the top.

It’s just a basic horror film. Top, there’s a creature in the sky and we want to catch it. Yeah. Like Jaws. Yeah. And you can look at it. But, if you want more, he gives you everything you need. The beginning quote about spectacle. I should have wrote it down. But um. I wrote it 

Craig: down. I will cast abominable filth at you, make you vile, and make you a spectacle.

Tyler: Hmm. From 

Craig: the Bible. That’s. From the book of Nahum. Three seven. Of. The. 

Tyler: A very negative depiction on being a spectacle. Is it good to be viewed? Because a lot of times we, uh, it’s something that is a, is a Believe to be instinctively that what everybody wants, uh, everybody wants to be either maybe not watched but known That we instinctively love the idea of fame that if you put a camera on somebody immediately like oh my god I’m on TV.

This is amazing smile. Everyone sees you to be 

Todd: seen figuratively and 

Tyler: or yeah or being known Or be watched. Specifically, we see this happening through the pandemic, where a lot of how we viewed the world, we don’t interact with it, we viewed it through our smartphones, computers, through our car windows or our house or apartment windows, and we became spectators and turning everything, including our world.

Craig: Do you mind if I ask how old you are? 

Tyler: I’m 34. 

Craig: Okay. I know. So you’re, you’re a little bit younger than us, but you know, I feel like you probably remember a time, maybe, I think that you’re probably still coming from the same perspective that we are, that this wasn’t always the way of the world. Before.

Reality television before TikTok, uh, and, and YouTube and, and the internet in general. Celebrities were celebrities, and they were an elite population. The reason that this probably, and I, I feel like this is what Jordan Peele is specifically, you know, commenting on, is Today, it’s just this culture of celebrity popularity.

Like everybody, everybody has a podcast, 

Todd: including these two douche bags. 

Tyler: Like exactly like character. I would a hundred percent believe juke has some type of weekly podcast, YouTube channel. Something where he talks about Gordy and, uh, the TV show and stuff like that. I could imagine that as some true crime thing.

I could imagine it perfectly. 

Todd: Joob’s character is so interesting because at first the opening scene of the movie is, if I’m not mistaken, This tantalizing piece of this destroyed set, this sitcom, this stage, basically, where we are on the stage. 

Craig: Looks like an 80s sitcom, right? 

Todd: We are on the stage in a position to be looked at, except there’s nobody in the audience and there’s a chimpanzee.

Walking about, and there’s obviously been some kind of horrible thing that happened. And some legs there, and the monkey comes across as very sinister, and then turns and looks at us. That lingers there for quite a while before we get to figure out what exactly that is, and how it relates to what we’re doing.

That’s why I tell 

Tyler: you don’t 

Todd: work with chimps, 

Tyler: hun. 

Todd: Yeah, no, yeah. 

Craig: Don’t work with animals or children. We keep returning to that and it’s important. It’s difficult to talk about this movie because it’s so artfully crafted. It’s difficult to talk about it like sequentially, because that story really only has to do with the rest of the stuff that’s going on thematically.

Plot wise, it’s really not important, but it is important thematically. And it’s one of the most compelling. Parts of the movie, in my opinion, I am compelled by that point of view shot that we get of this chimpanzee covered in blood on its hands and clothes and mouth. You see a pair of legs. Seemingly women’s legs sticking out from behind the couch.

Like you said, it’s a studio, but the studio is totally empty. I think maybe there’s an alarm going off or something. I don’t remember. We come to find that we are seeing from the point of view of Jupe, who was a child actor and he was shooting this television show and this show could have happened. It’s not like this is fantastic.

You know, like it’s, it’s an eighties. Sitcom about a family that like adopts a chimpanzee and like, it’s hijinks, right? Like we totally would have seen this in the 80s. Sure. But with a real chimpanzee, which we totally would have done and probably still would do, they’re filming a episode about the chimpanzee’s birthday and the little girl in the.

Scene brings in this giant box and it’s a big gift and she opens it up and it’s a bunch of Mylar helium balloons and the they all float up, you know towards the ceiling and the audience applauds and but then the Mylar balloons hit the electric equipment, which was obviously I don’t know who the people were working on this show, right?

This is their fault. Um, but they start exploding and the chimpanzee goes

And violently kills everybody on set except for the boy. And then it approaches the boy and we’re watching all of this happen and like reaches out to give it a fist bump because that’s like the thing they did in the show. God, the way that this was shot, I was terrified. I was horrified that this was happening.

I felt such empathy. For that chimpanzee. And then when, you know, the boy and the chimpanzee are going to do their fist bump, the chimpanzee just gets its brains blown out right in front of the boy. You know, I had to, had to happen inches. From the boy’s face, that’s such a compelling part of the movie to me.

But again, it really doesn’t have a whole lot to do with the plot. Yes, we meet Jupe later, you know, he’s the guy that runs the Jupiter’s whatever that we’ve been talking about, and he plays a pivotal role. But that backstory is more just about thematic stuff about making spectacle and also trying to tame wild things.

Todd: Also kind of about trying to make sense of our world and and and misguided ways in which we do that because like Joop, he has clearly been traumatized by this. What Craig just said comes to us piecemeal throughout the film Before we finally get that long flashback But what we do get is you know our introduction to Joop as the head of this It’s like a little theme park a little Western theme park and they certainly have these Out in the West.

Oh yeah. You know, he’s this sort of well known child actor of this sitcom that, you know, this horrible tragedy happened, but he’s talking about how they made fun of it on Saturday Night Live, and 

Clip: But of course the star of the sketch is Chris goddamn Katana Escorti, and he is undeniable, okay? Because of this.

Everyone’s trying to celebrate Gordy’s birthday, but every time Gordy hears something about the jungle, Gordy, Catan, goes off. And it’s, it’s Catan. He’s just crushing it. He is a force of nature. He is killing on that stage.

Todd: Yeah. I mean, how complicated is that, you know? Gosh, I was just, this is only 10 

Tyler: He like, replaces the memory of what happened with him with that SNL skit. Yeah. Cuz every time he’s, he’s recounting it, you see like, tiny flashes of the actual thing which is, to me, going like, Oop, oop, little flash, let’s remember the SNL bit, which, by the way, I don’t know if those are real names from the SNL actors.

Yes, yes. They are? I thought they were fake names. No, Chris Kattan, yeah. I don’t recognize a single one of them. 

Craig: Chris Kattan played Well, he played a monkey character where he would like, like chew on apple. 

Todd: Yeah. It 

Craig: was. Yeah. Oh my God. I could picture it exactly. I was like, did this really happen? Cause it definitely could happen.

I 

Tyler: haven’t watched a frame of, I probably have watched 25 minutes completely of SNL in my entire life. And thanks to Jordan Peele. And the actor, I was able to picture it too. Perfectly. Yeah. Oh 

Craig: yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Steven young. I apologize if I’m mispronouncing his last name. He’s a really, really good actor.

He doesn’t have a whole lot to do in this movie. What he does in this movie is great. Uh, I believe him, um, he, you know, is a businessman and, you know, he’s trying to provide for his family and he’s doing some kind of shady shit, but he’s trying to keep it on the up and up. Uh, I saw this guy in a TV, not TV, a streaming show called Beef.

Yes. I think it was him and Ali Wong. Yes. Holy shit, you guys. It’s not horror. Walking 

Tyler: Dead. No. 

Todd: Oh, yeah. He’s the most beloved character. Walking Dead was 

Tyler: his breakout role. He was like 12 years old, I think, or 13, and he was Glenn. And he’s one of the first characters to join, like, the real cast. I think he’s like the first person Rick meets.

Todd: It’s insane. 

Tyler: Uh, that stays with him and he stays all the way until, honestly I forget, I don’t want to give spoilers because I can’t really remember how it goes, but he is, uh, up until late in this show, he was like the huge fan favorite. 

Todd: Yeah. And mine. Yeah. Yeah. Season, he, uh, the, the, I think it’s the opening of the fifth season.

He gets it pretty bad. And that was when I stopped watching the movie, the show. And it was about the reason I stopped watching the show because I was like, you know what, this isn’t bringing me joy anymore. Like this show is just brutal. And it’s ugly. I get it. It, you know, people do terrible things to people, Lord of the Flies, blah, blah, blah.

But I don’t need to fill my entertainment. 

Tyler: No, they didn’t want to pay the actors more. 

Todd: Yeah. That’s probably part of it too. Well, 

Tyler: no, but well, the actors wanted to leave the show. They were getting huge offers for other gigs because they’re really good. The kid in the show literally was like, I want to attend at least one year of public school before I graduate or like of like regular school before I graduate.

I want to be a kid. Just a little bit. 

Todd: Yeah, but to be fair, his character 

Tyler: dies in the 

Todd: comic book too. So I mean, it was, uh, it was in keeping with the original story. 

Tyler: Oh, they wanted to keep him in. They, they restructured it. That’s why the Neek and stuff was happening. They were structuring to like, the future was going to be him in the show.

I think he like effed their entire plans. This is not Walking Dead. Um, but no, Steven Yeun is awesome. I wanted to comment one thing about the Gordy. Because that’s, that’s interspersed throughout the movie, but it’s a big part of it. So I think we could talk about it all here. Um, some people say that if you excise the Gordy, all the Gordy scenes, that you really wouldn’t lose almost anything.

And I completely disagree because what I think Peele wanted to show. Was and he’s a respectful man. He could legally do this But I’m glad he didn’t and he created his own thing and then referenced what he wanted to show when Otis says Ask Siegfried and Roy. 

Todd: Yeah, 

Tyler: it all came back to me for listeners If those you don’t know Siegfried and Roy are where are are still you’re retired But 

Craig: uh, but they’re still around one of them 

Todd: is One of them died.

He may have yeah, you’re right. Yeah, but he didn’t die in the attack. He recovered. 

Craig: No, no, no No, 

Tyler: he survived 

Craig: the attack. Yes. 

Tyler: So yeah, well Siegfried and Roy were Vegas performers and they had Sasha A white Bengal tiger. It was their pet as well as their performer. They referred to it as their partner I’m glad that the documentaries that have come out since have shown that they took incredibly good care of this animal after What would you guys say?

20, like 15, 20 years of performing or something like that? Way more than that. Yeah, way longer. Like 40 years. With this tiger, like, I think there are pictures with this tiger when it was a kitten. And one day, something happened. The 750 pound Bengal tiger with claws like razors and teeth like, like nails, ripped up either Roy or Siegfried.

Like one of them was taken out in an ambulance and one of the last things that he shouted, it was recorded by so many news media, do not, I’m still the owner, do not put her down, do not kill her. Please. She is just a creature. She didn’t know what she was doing. Yeah, they even tried 

Craig: to spin the story. I don’t know if this is true or not, but they tried to spin the story that he was having a medical emergency and the cat tuned into that and was actually trying to help him.

And because I, I think She got him into her mouth. Well, she picked him up by the throat and takes 

Todd: him off. Yeah. 

Craig: And you really knows what happens. However, I would think if you are one of those guys, exactly. But I also think that if you are one of those guys, if you’re a Siegfried and Roy, you know, that, you know, that you are dealing with deadly animals.

So it doesn’t surprise me that he said that I would say the same thing. If my Rottweiler. Attacked me. It wasn’t her fault, you know, like, yeah, well, 

Tyler: boxers are fighting and one kills the other because one falls and breaks their neck. We don’t throw the other boxer in jail of as a murderer because we understand there’s a contract involved.

We it’s how we are different than the rest of nature and peels movies always show that how we exist in reality. In the world, but we always set find weird and sometimes even otherworldly ways to differentiate ourselves from nature, whether it be through get out, trying to change the natural order of things by dying and eating upon others, or in us trying to hide behind Our real fears and what we could be with a better version of ourselves and what kind of legacy we built up on or in Nope, our interactions with the world and nature, those who have respect for somebody who says, Hey, tell the horse it’s we’re ready to do the take one of my favorite freaking lines said with pure sincerity.

Tell the horse we’re ready. Yeah, it’s yes 

Craig: I don’t think that this this is it’s too simplistic to suggest that the ultimate message of this movie is Don’t blame Animals for doing what it is in their nature to do But I think that that’s a part of it. Like this creature, whatever it is, whether it is earthly or, or extraterrestrial, it doesn’t really matter.

It’s just surviving. Like it’s just doing its thing. And it’s only when they start to try to exploit it, that they really run into trouble. Yes. I guess what they just not noticed, like before they started, because Jupe definitely tries to exploit it. He tries to basically train it to perform. A show by feeding it horses in front of audiences, but the other folks, they’re trying to exploit it too.

They don’t care about it. They don’t care about what it is. They just want to get the Oprah shot. You know, this great shot of some extraterrestrial being that they can sell and make money off of. And I don’t blame them. I’m not passing judgment on them. I’m just saying that before it was just kind of hanging out in the clouds and eating the horse here and there.

Like, No big deal. 

Todd: Yeah. And Emerald, I think I would say Emerald is the one who’s pretty gung ho on that. And OJ is going along with it until he realizes it’s a creature. And, but of course, by the time they realize it’s a creature, like everything kind of goes off the table and it’s more about taking care of the surviving.

I think, you know, Jupe is the counterpoint to OJ’s character. Peele does such a good job throughout the movie of continuing to come back to the steam and hammering at home without feeling like he’s hammering at home. You know, he has that talk with his dad on the ranch and then he’s got the horse out on the set.

He can’t, you know, obviously he doesn’t keep the horse from kicking somebody because you can’t. But, you know, he can’t have eyes everywhere and that happens. And then when he’s the one to observe that this is actually a creature, because he’s so in tune, he knows as a trainer this is how they act. And so he’s kind of the best.

Whereas I feel like Joop is the antithesis of that. He’s a kid who kind of got the wrong message from that tragedy that happened. Even though he was knee deep in the middle of it, even though he saw that happen in front of him, and he’s been traumatized by it, he’s still trying to profit off of the movie, the show.

And he has this notion that he can tame it because I think probably what’s going through his head that he can’t stop wrapping his mind around is that that monkey reached out to him and wanted to give him a fist bump like I had the power you know I was the one who had the power like I was the trainer here and I could have had that under control if they you know just hadn’t blown him away you know so this is like his way of I 

Craig: think 

Todd: that he believed he 

Craig: believed I think that he believed that chimpanzee didn’t hurt him because it trusted him.

Todd: And I think 

Craig: that he thought that he could make the same relationship with the thing in the sky. Don’t threaten you. And if I just provide for you, then we’ve got a deal, but it’s a, whatever it is, it’s, it’s wild and you know, to a large extent, I think that that’s true. I mean, obviously you could point to circumstantial evidence of people taming wild animals.

It can be done, but you’re always taking a risk because they are wild. This one. So, okay. So they think that it’s a spaceship for a long time. Eventually it reveals itself to not be a spaceship, but to be a sentient being that stalks and hunts living things. And then ultimately in the end, it reveals that it’s not a shape shifter.

Like I can kind of understand how, what it ultimately means. reveals itself to be, could be compacted and concealed within its smaller form. I buy that. I get it. Yeah. Especially since it seems very much kind of like a sea creature. 

Tyler: Uh, Greg, uh, can I ask, are you and Todd, are either you two anime fans? 

Craig: Not seriously.

No, I appreciate it, but I don’t watch it. 

Todd: Yeah, I’ve not seen a lot of anime, but I do understand he was very inspired by what? Neon gel, uh, what was it? 

Tyler: Neon Evangelion. Yes. I knew it. I knew it. I’m a huge fan of that. When I watch stuff in theaters, I never watch podcasts in brain. I turn my brain off and I let the director and the movie maker do the thinking for me.

If that sounds kind of like lazy, I just I want to experience it. Last night, I’m actually thinking about stuff and writing notes down. And I’m like, when it unfurls. And it does this really amazing thing when the little square box flips out and changes colors. I was like, Oh my God, it’s an angel. And I don’t mean angel, like biblical, or maybe there’s a reading there, but like, I think it’s more in design form.

It looks like one of the angels from the anime Evangelion. I would highly recommend it to you guys. It’s great for people who are not like super into anime, but want to dip their toes in. It’s like 22 episodes long and it was conceived to be a movie, but the writer had so much more to say, he was, he expanded it outward and it’s about a world that is continuously pelted.

By these extraterrestrial creatures called angels. And the only way they can beat them is bio cybernetic, gigantic transformer like suits that are operated by children because only these children can link to them. And basically it’s revealed in the show that angels are types of life. that could create.

That we are one type of version. The idea is that the world can only handle one supreme being. You can’t have multiple different types of high functioning life like we are. Otherwise we would just destroy each other. And humans, for whatever, whatever reason, we are the ones who achieved it. We went into space.

We have the ability to just literally destroy the planet. And the angels represent different forms that could have happened and are coming to show their full development. We either can destroy them or they will destroy us. So it’s two apex predators, us, or this thing. Is this extraterrestrial or has it been evolving alongside of us?

Yeah. 

Craig: Right. And that’s fascinating. And that’s something that the movie doesn’t address and I’m fine with it. I like that this movie is local. We’re concerned with these people. What’s going on. And other places, who knows, but this is a story of these people in this very localized place. When we first see it and it looks more organic, the closest thing that I can relate it to would be like a mushroom cap, like a portobello mushroom cap with the stem taken off.

Cause it’s got a big hole in the middle and that’s apparently it’s mouth that it can, but. Also, it’s butthole that it imagine a parachute 

Tyler: completely hitting the ground for the first time in the air billowing under it as it settles in waves, but keeps doing that. 

Craig: It can suck up horses and people and anything at once really or anything that it can be tricked into sucking up Oh God, when it sucks 

Tyler: that horse up sideways.

I jumped in the theater. I kind of jumped on my couch a little bit last night He’s like whispering like lucky come on, come on girl run and it just goes And opens its mouth and looks like jaws for one little second. I’m like and We’re no longer ruling the planet anymore You 

Craig: Wild. It’s wild. It’s a good movie.

It is yours. 

Tyler: I’m out. Yeah. 

Craig: I, yeah, but that, see, see, that’s the thing. Like we don’t really know all that much about it and they’re not trying to defeat it. They just want to get a good picture of it. They just want to get video of it, but they can’t because it has like this electromagnetic thing that takes out the power and shuts down cell phones and cameras or whatever.

Eventually they get this. famous cinematographer to come in and he immediately is like, Oh yeah, it’s an alien. Okay. Oh, how I loved this, how they set up this whole thing. They lure it with loud noises, loud music and animation. They steal Kiki Palmer. It’s just a klepto and it’s like, she just steals everything.

Um, she, how the fuck did she steal that huge ass horse by herself? Right? Come on. Um, 

Tyler: you answered your question at the beginning when you’re like, here’s the closest conversation you can have out there with someone. Hey! How you doing ? I, I tried to really move back from the mic. I hope that worked . It did.

Todd: It did. It sounded gorgeous, 

Tyler: but no. So yeah, like she probably just pulled up next to it and had about three or four hours before some happened to walk by and got it up in there. It’s not like the city where you have, okay, I have one second. Fair enough. Like it’s, it shows the world that they live in and he, June knows that that’s his.

And I love how she does that when it’s just like My favorite line. 

Clip: What’s up? We setting up a decoy! For ice training! Oh good! You know we got some of those! Where’d you get Where’d you get yours? I’m not really sure. My wife would know. 

Tyler: Where’d you get yours? I can’t really recall because if he says, I got it from Dom’s on blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, Dom’s is great. Like mine? I got 

Craig: it from him too. She beats him to it in that line. And that is so funny. And like, to me, that just establishes that this girl is a hustler. This is what she does, but 

Tyler: it shows Western rules. Like you can’t call your neighbor out as a thief because you don’t just pack up and move out there.

They have ranches. If I don’t like you in a city, I could literally, I have moved because of neighbors. In the city, you can’t do that if you’re on a ranch. You can’t just sell and move your ranch. 

Clip: Yeah, 

Tyler: no, that’s 

Clip: generational. 

Tyler: So you need to like, well, if I call him a thief, you really can’t take that back.

And I might need his generator if the power runs out. And they have a bar of stuff. Yeah. Like you. So we can’t. Turn is that I do need his effing horses for my alien thing. 

Craig: The first time I saw this, it totally went over my head that Jupe was buying their horses to feed to the alien. I missed that a hundred percent.

Lucky’s okay though. Lucky makes it right. Lucky’s a lucky 

Todd: one. 

Craig: Wait, wait. Yeah. Okay. All right. So it’s this. It’s like, it’s, it’s, it, I call it the butthole alien cause that’s what it looks like to me. It looks like a big butthole. It comes down and like swoops people up and like kind of grinds them up inside slowly so they can scream.

But then, is it taunting them when it goes over their house and poops all the blood and shit out? It’s 

Tyler: flexing. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Tyler: You created. An image of my f’n food that hurt me. That’s right. And 

Craig: like, what the heck? It does seem to work based on Instinct and learning because when it eats that fake horse and it f ks it up, they had also attached a line of flags to it and from that point on it’s afraid of those flags and they can use that, which is smart.

I love that whole last part where they set the whole thing up. They’re going to lure it there so that they can get the, you know, handheld not electric camera footage of it and Daniel Kaluuya has figured out Don’t look at it. If you don’t look it in the eyes, it won’t get you. And he puts blinders on his horse, but then he also, you know, wears this hoodie so that when he puts up the hood, it looks like eyes that are looking up at it.

And that can lure it. But then he throws out a parachute with all of these flags on it that scare it away. It’s so good. Like it’s, it’s so good. It’s so good. And I don’t know, I don’t know if you guys read anything about this, but Daniel Kaluuya was riding that horse. Horses isn’t easy. 

Tyler: And I really want to know because it would affect your casting because you could be like, Hey, can you ride a horse?

Don’t lie on your resume actors. Because if you lie and say you can ride a horse and you show up not knowing how to ride a horse. That’s not good. Guess what? You can’t learn that overnight. No, 

Craig: if they want you bad enough, they’ll teach you, but it’s, it’s not as easy as one might think. It’s not just a matter of getting up there.

Like, it requires strength and core strength and Yeah. I was impressed to know how to 

Tyler: communicate with the animal. Like even the most well trained horse still requires you to be able to understand how to communicate with them. That is 

Craig: so integral to the movie too, though, because he being a horse trainer does know how to work with horses and horses are fascinating.

I don’t have a ton of experience with them, but I have been around with them in my life. They are so big and they are so powerful and they are so good. Reactive one way or another, they are easily frightened. They are easily startled and they are very, very dangerous. They are magnificent animals. Like they are just pure muscle just to, to run your hands over their bodies.

They are just beautiful, powerful animals. And they’re very gentle. 

Tyler: And they are 

Craig: very gentle. 

Tyler: Have you ever fed, have either of you two fed a horse before? Oh, yeah. 

Craig: Yes, absolutely. I fed, I’ve ridden. They’re very sweet. They’re, I jumped out of 

Tyler: my skin when the guy told me when I was like 10. Now make sure you lay your palms flat.

You hold out your hand. And he’s, and I was like, oh, he’s kissing me. And the guy, the handler was like, kind of. And then he took the apple out of my hand and then he started kissing my hand again and then moved his head away. He’s like. He’s feeling for the food before he opens his teeth that could bite your fingers clean off.

I was like, ah, and I chained my, I like almost jumped away, but that’s why he was feeling your lip with his lips. It doesn’t want to hurt you. 

Craig: What’s OJ’s understanding and relationship with horses, which I really do think is a very special thing. Like people who can work with those animals, they have a very special skill, but I think that that skill enables him to understand this thing, even though it’s a foreign thing, it enables him to understand it better.

And that’s what gets them through. And ultimately they trick it. Now, this is, it’s really strange at the end. You know, they’re, they’re luring it around, they’re tricking it with things, and then there’s the whole TMZ photographer part, which I enjoyed watching, but feels too boring to talk about. 

Tyler: Yeah. 

Craig: Um.

It’s functional. They needed the motorcycle. 

Tyler: Yeah. 

Craig: Eventually it unfurls itself out of this mushroom butthole into like I don’t know. It looks like a sea creature because it moves its movement is as though it’s moving underwater. It lives in the air. 

Tyler: Yeah. 

Craig: Just as you would in the sky, we only 

Tyler: assume, we assume nothing lives in the sky because we’ve never seen anything in the sky.

You look up. There ain’t nothing there. How often do you pay attention to a cloud that doesn’t move? Right. Never. And it’s gorgeous. It could be out there. 

Craig: Why not? Who knows? But it unfurls into this billowy, gossamer y, billowing cloud. Kind of like a jellyfish, but it’s enormous. Like it’s enormous. It’s going to get Kiki Palmer for a minute, but then Daniel Kalua is like, no, I’ll distract it.

And he distracts it. And then Kiki Palmer rides that electric motorcycle to Jupiter’s Hollow or whatever it is. I don’t know. And she does a great motorcycle slide, like right up to this well that we haven’t talked about, but she knows about it because it’s like coin operated and you crank the thing and it takes a picture.

I have no idea how she came up with this idea. I guess she knows that it’s just attracted to moving things. She releases this enormous. Theme park parade balloon of this like animated cowboy and it floats up into the air and it’s all very suspenseful. And eventually the thing, whatever it is, attacks it and eats it.

And she gets her Oprah shot through the well, but then the balloon pops and explodes the whole creature at the end. It served 

Tyler: its purpose. And it also. Remind members, you have to create an agreement with a predator. That’s the thing. This thing is a predator. It is an apex predator. And so are we, we cannot exist with a, with a predator that we can’t control.

Therefore we must destroy it to preserve our own life. I am not saying that, that I advocate for killing animals that can kill us. I am just stating that as a evolutionary fact. Uh, we have things floating around in the sky that could snatch us up. They need to be either controlled or taken out. 

Craig: And I understand what you’re saying and I don’t disagree at all.

I mean, they were working in survival mode. I would be doing anything that I could to survive too. The only thing that I’m saying is to me, the conclusion felt a little bit contrived. She just figures out to let that balloon go. And then I understand like it eats the balloon, but I don’t know a lot about physics, but if the creature swallowed the whole balloon.

All popping the balloon would do would be release the tension around what’s already containing that air. It’s not like it would cause it to explode. Like a bomb went off in there. Is it 

Todd: because of the helium? And was the idea that there was filled with helium? Is that what I don’t, I, I didn’t get that either.

Yeah. 

Craig: So I mean, helium is combustible, but maybe it’s more dense than oxygen. 

Tyler: Hydrogen is way more flammable, but helium can, uh, under intense pressure. Yeah. They pop a balloon, you feel the force, uh, imagine a balloon that size. Um, under, yeah, but if you 

Craig: popped, this is so stupid, but if you popped a balloon with a match, would it, like, if you, I’ve seen that I’ve seen in my science classes when I was in elementary school, they would fill a balloon with hydrogen and then pop it with a match.

And it would like go up in a huge ball of flame, but helium wouldn’t do that. Not that it matters because that’s not what happens. By the way, 

Tyler: me coming up with the idea that this thing is a sky creature, we have sea creatures. That move and are weird looking that exist. You ever seen a box jellyfish? What the F?

Craig: Well, and, and certainly, certainly there are still creatures in the sea that we have not discovered. I’m sure that’s true. 

Tyler: It’s our hubris to think that just because we look up and we stare and we see it, like, So, I like the idea, One of the things that made me realize last night, Because I always go with the idea that this is a wild animal.

Whether it’s an alien or not, this is an animal. This is not Independence Day. This is not a creature coming to mine for resources or to probe us to figure out what we are or impregnate us. It’s just eating. It’s just eating. I know. It’s just trying to survive like we are. That makes stuff a little bit more simple, but at the same time a little bit more complicated.

It makes us see ourselves a little bit. Yeah. But, there’s one scene. It’s after it sucks up all these humans. I think at that moment with June made an understanding that we are not just like horses, we are more dangerous. We are more nefarious. And from what we can tell of its radius, there’s only one other group of what we are.

And that’s them mother effers over there with the cameras. Cause all of a sudden, lots of things, cause I think it has an instinctive sense when things are looking at it. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Tyler: Yeah. And that either makes it mad or lets it know, Hey, I could eat this thing cause it’s looking at me and it’s alive. Let’s go eat it.

Um, and it can’t eat the cameras, but it knows it’s being watched. So when it gets over their house and opens its maw, you hear those people screaming now in the theater. I thought it was echoing. No, they’re still alive. It’s nightmarish. Until it goes and silences their voices and 

Todd: the blood runs down. Joop is the one that caused the trouble in the first place.

I mean, it wasn’t bothering humans until he directed everyone’s gaze towards it. You know, I mean, that was the inciting incident. Yes, but 

Tyler: most animals would learn to fear. This thing is asserting dominance. I love that. 

Craig: We 

Tyler: have not seen that, uh, we have not inter interacted with that as humans for a very, very long time.

Mmm, right. The closest we can get to it is like a shark killing us, but we’re in the water so we expect that. If it gets out and runs at us, that’s different. Or a 

Craig: chimp ripping off a lady’s face. A lady that he was Very familiar with, had interacted with many, many times. You know, these things do happen.

You talk about hubris, you know, I think as human beings, we have a lot of hubris and, and think that we are dominant and the top of the food chain. And we forget that these animals have been here as long as we have. And we are just very fortunate that we’ve created our own environments. If we were to find ourselves in their environment, we would not be necessarily at the top of the food chain.

Tyler: It’s a social. Agreement that we have made with the world. Right. And 

Craig: we’re dicks about it too. Like that, that’s the other thing. Like we have populated play. God, this is so heady and stupid, but like, you know, we’ve, we’ve urbanized and created these spaces and said to these animals who were here, as long as we’ve been, you’re not allowed here.

And if you come here, we’ll kill you. Even if you’re just coming here. Because you don’t have anywhere else to go and you’re just working on your basic instinct. 

Tyler: Yet you have the five year old, uh, to eight year old Tyler who is afraid of spiders but doesn’t want to kill them and has my mom help me pick them up with paper and a glass and set them outside.

So like, yeah, like I kill them now, you know, I’m, I’m old and tired, but at one point in my life, I had an understanding of my, a natural understanding of the world around me. And I think as humans, we And we have an individual connection with the world and we have a social, uh, spacial connection with the world.

And this movie interacts with that on both levels, I’ve noticed. 

Todd: Well, and I think too, if you were to take the idea that this is a creature that’s always been here in a way, it’s. It’s just kind of been backed into a corner, right? We have taken over so much of the airspace and, you know, we’re looking up at the sky and monitoring the sky so much that this is maybe one of the few places on earth that it could retreat to where it could be safe.

It could stand, it could be around. How many times did a 

Tyler: jet like take out a group of these things? 

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: I know. I thought about that too, right? And it begs the question. It also begs the question, this surely can’t be the only one. Well, and, oh my god. Every 

Tyler: time you see chemtrails, it’s one of them getting torn to pieces.

Oh boy. And Jordan Peele has, 

Todd: he has said this, this might not be the end. He said that he had deliberately left some things in there to keep the story open because he feels that there is um, there’s more tales to tell about this. And uh, I’d be, I’d be very, very interested to see if he does end up making a sequel, what that would be like, my God.

Tyler: Speaking of Jordan Peele, um, have you guys ever seen, there’s a YouTube video, there’s only one of them and I hate it, I wish he did more, where it’s just him standing in front of a white screen and he answers seven Reddit questions. About get out and one of them where he flat. He’s like the scene where the girl is eating Cereal and has a cereal in one glass and milk in the other I love that scene because it tells me that she deliberately is not wanting to mix colors and whites and Emphasize your theme of racial and he pauses and looks it goes Dang.

That is brilliant. I did not think about that. I just wanted to show her being a weird girl eating cereal like that. Who eats cereal like that? 

Craig: That’s so funny because as an English teacher, like I’m constantly with my students analyzing literature, but I’m, I’m always telling them there’s not a right answer.

The only way that we could know what the author was trying to do is if we could ask them. And we can’t like most of the time we can never ask. them. So all we can do is try to figure out stuff for ourselves. Are we right? Are we wrong? We’ll never know. You 

Tyler: know, that’s a part of writing literature, movies, acting spectacle.

It is that like you have, you have the, the person who wrote the book, that’s Or the person who made the movie, or painted the painting. And then you have the audience. People who are looking and getting different reactions. We entered into an agreement. I’m giving you something to listen to, and now you’re listening to it and going to interpret it.

Yeah. And, uh, I see that as the overall theme in this entire movie. Everything from Gordy and, and the show to this thing being looked at for its food or to, to be related to its food and its consumption. 

Todd: We’ve been talking about this movie so deeply, but you know, if you’re listening to this, You can be enjoyed in that level, but it also can be enjoyed on just the level of spectacle and entertainment.

It’s a very exciting movie. Oh, yeah. It’s so much fun to watch. These moments where, these sweeping views. He shot this in film. This was the first horror movie apparently shot on IMAX, and it deserved to be, because he’s really, uh, Paying respect to all those great John Wayne westerns that I remember, you know, with these sweeping landscapes, really does justice to what it is like out there.

It’s just gorgeous to behold, but then also adds to the terror of the fact that, like, there’s nowhere to hide from this thing. And so you see, you know, they’re just these scenes of guys tearing off across the landscape, being chased by this thing. You really don’t know what’s gonna happen. You really don’t understand how they’re gonna hide, and how they’re gonna take this thing out.

And it’s just, it’s thrilling too. It’s, it’s a really thrilling movie. Like I said, I felt like it took a little while to get into it, but it wasn’t boring. Once the action starts and, God, probably the last 30 minutes or so are just, can be nail biting. It really can be enjoyed at that level as well. You know, you don’t have to think about all these deep things that we’re talking about to just enjoy it.

It’ll wash over you and you’ll love it anyway, I think. 

Tyler: Thank you, Todd. And I, to my, to all the listeners, if you didn’t see all of this crap that I’ve been talking about, that’s fine. That was my, my enjoyment and relationship with it. And it’s mostly, I’m speaking to the people who, who watch. When I see a 1 or a 2 star out of 5 review of this, and I see a 5 page comment section about it, and the first thing I read is, Man, he was great with Get Out, and even Us was awesome, but man, it’s a decline.

And I’m like, okay, you just, you brought in a lot of expectations. Yeah. And you demanded that Jordan Peele give you what you want. He’s an artist. He’s not going to do that. You vibed with what he gave you already. It’s your job now to, if you really want to see the deep stuff, you need to do the work. But if you don’t, turn your brain off and just enjoy a really good visual spectacle.

Craig: Well, and I think that, and I have to admit that I maybe fell into this Pool a little bit. Expecting social commentary. And I’m not suggesting that there’s not social commentary in this film, but especially in get out, obviously, but also in us, there’s a lot of social commentary also dealing specifically with race, not that race isn’t important in this movie, it certainly is.

But I was expecting more of that. And it really becomes, like I said, more of a localized family kind of thing. So it was different, but just because it’s different. Doesn’t mean that it’s not of the same quality. As I said from the beginning, he’s a brilliant filmmaker. My last deep thoughts are, I joked in the beginning, like, you know, this movie is about being seen and our desire for spectacle and to make spectacles of ourselves.

I joked, you know, everybody has a podcast now and it is a joke because it does seem like everybody has a podcast now and that’s fine. When Todd and I got into this, honestly, Todd jokes that I didn’t really know what a podcast was. That’s not entirely untrue. I mean, I knew that they were a thing that existed and I generally knew.

You know what it was, but it’s not why I got into podcasting. I got into podcasting for much the reason that you said you did in that there aren’t really other people in my lives, my life, my life that are really interested in talking about these things, especially going into deep dives about them and I want to, and Todd brought this up and I was like, okay, whatever, we’ll give it a try.

But then as soon as we started, I was like, This is the kind of conversation that I’ve been missing. This is the, I want to have these kinds of conversations and I didn’t think that anybody would be interested. I, uh, shared the first episode with my parents and they’re like, Oh my God, that’s so cool. And that was like the epitome to me, like that my parents would think that I was doing something cool.

And then we, you know, Kept doing it and we kept doing it and people like you and other people started commenting that you Liked it and that you enjoyed it and i’m not gonna lie and pretend that that doesn’t feel good It really does so i’m not gonna pretend that i’m Not a part of what he’s talking about in wanting to be seen.

I do. It feels good. I’m glad you have a good 

Tyler: relationship with your parents, Craig. Because I could imagine your dad if he didn’t like you. Hey, you guys want to listen to my loser son? There’s hours of these things. Nerding out on this shit. My dad is the f 

Craig: ing coolest. My dad is the f ing coolest. He’s been on the show.

We should have him on the show again. You should. I 

Tyler: love the episode when he was on. My parents 

Craig: are 

Tyler: f ing amazing. 

Craig: I do get it. Like it’s honest, I swear to God. And, and people can disbelieve me if they want the being seen part, isn’t what drives me. What drives me is hearing from people who say something that you said brought me joy, listening to you makes me feel like I’m having a conversation with a friend.

Like it really, no, it really feels good to know that other people are getting enjoyment out of it. Now, honestly, I don’t know. If we didn’t have people. Contacting us if we didn’t have people following us and stuff, would we keep doing it? There’s a part of me that says, yeah, because I just enjoy talking to Todd and Todd and having a reason to watch these movies and to talk about them every week, but the fact that people connect with it does make a huge, huge difference and I’m so grateful.

I’m grateful to you. Thank you. This has been. Amazing. You’re great. I’m not surprised to hear that you have experience doing this because uh, I mean, you’re right on it. You’re sharp as a tack and it’s, it’s been a, it’s been a great conversation. It’s been a really, I hope 

Tyler: in front of me at all. It’s all natural.

Craig: Well, I, I hope that you’ll, you’ll join us again sometime in the future. 

Tyler: Absolutely. Could I add one little thing before we finish? Because I, I cannot believe I forgot to bring him up. The only white man in this movie and my favorite character, M. O. J. They’re amazing. June, incredible. But Michael Wincok 

Todd: as 

Tyler: Antlers Holst.

Todd: So hilarious. 

Craig: He’s great. There was a whole other character. We didn’t talk about it all either, right? Like the tech guy. It was great, too. 

Tyler: Yeah, 

Craig: fantastic. I thought he was fucking hilarious. I want to be in this 

Tyler: movie and I’m going to keep coming back. I told you not to look at our shit. I know, I know. But. I did it anyway.

So look, let me, we’re friends now and 

Craig: I’m just going to hang out at your house all the time. 

Tyler: I’m on your podcast now. I just keep tapping in like, but Antler Holst guys, like he like, cause Angel’s comedy relief, you need him in there. You need him to like, uh, say what the audience is like, kind of thinking Antler’s Holst.

Yes, you could take him out a hundred percent, 

Craig: but don’t you dare. Oh no, you can also give him his own movie easily. Oh yeah. I would so watch a movie about that guy. Would you, 

Tyler: would you get, I remembered him because what are you brought up that Jordan Peele shot this on film? And I just remembered him going, you know, this man’s going to be brought up in here with a, with a non electrical camera.

Todd: When he, when he dramatically recited Purple People Eater, I about fell out of my chair. That was the funniest part of the movie to me. Just brilliant. We, you know, 

Craig: we, we, we really haven’t, we haven’t done justice. The actors in this movie are amazing. Kiki Palmer is a fucking queen. Like, she is Hilarious and totally believable.

And she and Daniel Kaluuya, their sibling relationship was so believable and relatable to me, like they, they could, you know, 

Tyler: I’m sorry. You know, that moment in a film when you just like, okay, am I going to, cause I knew it was going to be about the two of them. And I’m like, am I going to be down for this?

Am I, are they going to start to grade on me? The second. He stopped when she’s like raiding dad’s liquor cabinet, and he turns and goes, I got that happy weed, you know, okay. 

Craig: All right. Yes, that moment because they had been, they had been like arguing and disagreeing and he had been so sullen and she had been trying to be cool and like, why aren’t you fun?

And then he says that and then immediately. The dynamic changes and that’s so the way that it is with people that you are so close to and you so love like you can be in such a shitty mood and you know that they get it and then it just takes one moment to change it that and the moment. I don’t remember exactly when it was, but it was, I think.

Maybe at the same time that she talked about, you know, I knew he was going to have that camera and they look at each other and beat their chests and, and fist bump each other. Like that was so a sibling moment that I believed 100 percent and I knew that these folks We’re right or die like it was just so believable 

Tyler: when antlers Holst kills himself basically for no Reason the thing like I half of me was laughing because it was so funny where he’s just like it’s gonna be Glorious.

He’s like, uh guys Uh, Hull’s saying a bunch of creepy, cryptic shit, and he just grabbed his camera and ran up the side of the mountain. And I’m like, oh man, I knew it. I knew something was wrong with that. Like, Kiki gives this look of like, oh crap, he’s about to do some weird artist shit, isn’t he? And I’m like It was great.

Oh, I just, I had to bring it up because it, it, it’s such a, it’s such a joy because you keep thinking the movie’s going to end, but it doesn’t, it, it just keeps ramping up and uh, like, and by the way, uh, props to Jordan Peele for not killing Angel. I thought for sure he was going to get bisect or like torn apart by all that barbed wire.

Yeah. Sacrificing himself. Me 

Todd: too. 

Craig: And 

Tyler: he was 

Craig: supposed to die. He was scripted to die. They made the decision not to kill him. 

Tyler: He’s too likable. Mm hmm. I did. I’m so glad he’s 

Craig: alive. And he’s so funny because he’s that lovable douche that you love, like with those that dumb, like bleached hair with the. Inch of roots showing like he’s such a douche, but he’s such a lovable douche.

Like I would so be friends with that guy. I would go to his apartment and smoke weed and do virtual reality. 

Tyler: My, uh, my boss is going to ask for a survey and five stars, ain’t five stars. All right. I’m leaving now. Bye. Kiki 

Craig: Palmer. If you’re listening, I’m a huge fan. You’re fucking hilarious. Come be on our show.

Tyler: And he plays Angel. Come on to the show, please. Because, like, when he goes, like, Well, I guess you’re all crashing at my place tonight Because, you know, you totally can. 

Craig: Hilarious. It’s a funny movie. It’s a really fun, it’s fun and it’s funny and it’s blockbuster. If you didn’t have the opportunity to see it in theaters, like we said before, like try, if you can, to set yourself up, watch it in a dark room on a big screen.

Um, because that’s where you’re at with either the sound turned all the way up, or like Tyler said, some sound canceling headphones, because the score adds a lot to it, but, um, the visuals are. Breathtaking, uh, throughout really, but especially at the end. Uh, and I will agree that this is not my favorite of his movies.

It’s, it’s just not, but I did enjoy it. I was very entertained. Um, it is worth the watch 100%. 

Todd: Yeah. Tyler, thank you so much for joining us here, um, and thank you for your patronage, everything. It was so great having you on here. Great to have this other perspective, have a third voice in here, so that people don’t have to listen to Craig and I rambling on and on for this episode.

Tyler: As someone who’s trying to start creating, I always, I’ve been asking every friend, every family member I have, hey, if I know you, you can be a guest. And they’re like, I’ve never been on a podcast before, I don’t know how to do it. That’s great. Uh, because you’re going to be my window to my audience. 

Todd: Oh, that’s fantastic.

You 

Tyler: can ask those dumb questions that I won’t think about. 

Todd: Well, hope to have you on again so you can plug that podcast. Uh, when’s it going up? 

Tyler: It is currently in, uh, development. I promise it, you will know about it and hear it before The next avatar movie that gives me about 10 years. Uh, I had to take, I had to take, uh, some time off, uh, to fix some stuff in my personal life.

I, this is a work of passion, but it’s called black and white all night. The title came first, the podcast came second because the title was so perfect. Um, I will review. Any form of the black and white medium, uh, it’s going to be bi monthly. And first part is basically, it’s going to be two parts. First part of the episode is going to be me giving history, story, background information.

Where you can watch it. I will not choose something that cannot be found. Then the next part will be me and a guest. Wonderful. Going through what we love about it. And, uh, yeah, just, I, I always feel with black and white, people either see it as artsy or pretentious. Or old. So therefore not relatable. And not only is that not true, it gives you something that kind of gets taken away with color.

But also gets at it because one of the questions I’ll always ask in every episode is Will this be helped or hurt by a colorization? 

Todd: Hmm. I think it sounds fascinating. I think your first episode should be pie by Darren Aronofsky followed by Ed Wood, Tim Burton, and then you should just start at the beginning of everything Vincent Price has ever done and just plow through that Yeah, that’s my suggestion to you 

Craig: Yeah.

And, and, and I’m, I’m, I’m sure Tyler was dying for your feedback, . Yeah, I know. No, I could, I could 

Todd: hear, I could hear your pen moving on the, on the paper. Yeah. Taking notes. I could hear that 

Tyler: write it down right down. No, 

Craig: but whenever you get that up and running, let us know. We would love to give you a shout out and, uh, if you ever want to do a crossover episode or Yeah.

Have one of us on as a guest. We would be, I think, when I say we would be thrilled. Uh, absolutely. 

Todd: Well, thanks again for joining us and thank you guys out there for listening. If you enjoyed this one, please share it with a friend. That’s the best thing you could do for us. Also a great thing we’d love for you to do is go and give an honest review everywhere that, uh, our podcast is or wherever you happen to be listening, like on the Apple podcast site, you can go to our website, chainsaw horror.

com and give us feedback, especially Well Google US two guys in a chainsaw podcast. Find us wherever we are, as well as, uh, find our Patreon at patreon.com/chainsaw podcast. Obviously, Tyler’s a patron. We love our patrons. We have a lot of great stuff behind the scenes. This episode, is gonna be at least half an hour longer for our patrons.

We have had a lot to talk about. So, uh, if you want to hear the nitty gritty of everything that we chatted about, uh, please go back, uh, stage and, uh, consider supporting us that way and becoming part of the crew. It’s a lot of fun. We put out mini sows. We do a lot of fun stuff for our patrons. Uh, it’s a blast.

So, thank you so much for your, uh, for listening. Tyler, once again, thank you for joining us. I am Todd. I’m Craig. And I’m Tyler. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Happy New Year, Loyal Listeners! We kick off 2025 with a film about a new year’s party that goes awry for all involved, simply because nobody can keep their eyes out of their damn phones. Social Media is the enemy here. So, it’s a documentary, you say? Pretty close…

Thank you for all your support in 2024. We’re looking forward to the coming year and wishing you and yours loads of laughs, scares and surprises in 2025.

Transcript coming soon.

So it’s come to this. Based on the unprecedented performance of this unprecedented Christmas horror movie, there’s no way we COULDN’T cover it this holiday season. And you know what? We actually enjoyed it more than we thought we would.

At the very least, even if extreme gore ain’t your thing, it’s a Christmas movie through and through. And that’s how you know that Art The Clown has finally come into his own: He has his own holiday special!

Cheers, and Happy Holidays to you and yours this season. See you next year!

Episode 421, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I am Todd. 

Craig: And I’m Craig. 

Todd: Merry Christmas, Craig . 

Craig: Hey, Merry Christmas.

Todd: Christmas time. Finally is here, then the new year, and then we go into 2025 and see what that’s going to turn out to be like. Yep. It’ll be something. It’s been a mixed feelings this year, just sort of like our episodes, I would say, this Christmas season.

We did try to strike a bit of a balance between things we knew were going to be fun and funny, and things that we knew we may not like or would be a little more dark and gruesome. Today’s, uh, movie, we had really no choice, I think, but to do Terrifier 3, because it turns out that it’s, I think, I mean, last I read, it was the highest grossing, unrated film of all time.

Craig: Yeah, something like that, crazy. 

Todd: Yeah, like, I think the only other unrated film that came close to it was like a Beyoncé concert movie or something that was released to theaters. 

Craig: Yeah. And I think it had a limited run too, like, I don’t think it, I don’t know. 

Todd: Well, it kinda had to, right? Yeah, because usually theaters don’t play unrated films.

Oh yeah, right. Especially unrated films like this. And I know that the first two installments had that issue. The first installment was, I believe, crowdfunded. And I’m not even sure that it got much of a theatrical release. 

Craig: It actually wasn’t crowdfunded. He tried to crowdfund it, but he couldn’t make the money.

Todd: Oh. 

Craig: So, a producer came in and said, I’ll fund it fully, but I want my name on it as a producer. And so, he did. And that you know, got it out there. And then for the sequel, that one, he did crowdfund. They made tons of money. Like they, they got way more than they had targeted for. I think 

Todd: they asked for a small amount.

It was like 35, 000 or something like that. 

Craig: I think the second time it was 50, I don’t know. I could be pulling these numbers. I I’ve watched a lot of like videos. About it today, so. 

Todd: I see. 

Craig: I hope, I don’t know if this is right, I think it was like 30 the first time around when they couldn’t raise that much and then I think he only raised it to like 50 for the next one, but they far exceeded that.

And then, because they exceeded it, they were able to do a lot more. 

Todd: Right, and then, and that ended up getting released in theaters, right? But, there was at least one studio that had been interested in it but ended up turning it down because they, uh, 

Craig: He didn’t even want to go through a studio because he knew that they would force him to change things.

And he’s right. I’m sure he’s absolutely right. I don’t know what studio But I also think that this is really interesting because I feel like this really opens a lot of doors. It goes to show that you can, it is possible, if you can find your niche and you can find your audience, you can, like, self fund or crowdfund or whatever.

Put out movies that are going to make a lot of money and this movie has made a lot of money and in doing that You free yourself up so much, you know The studios and the producers have so much oversight that often what we end up getting was Is only a mere sliver of what was initially intended I don’t remember if it was the producer or who it was The only thing that they asked of the director damian leon was to keep it under two hours and he got really close He got really close, but I also read that Hit the the script that he turned in the runtime was 205 and that’s what the runtime of this movie is So it sounds to me like they shot his script as he presented it and that’s awesome 

Todd: Yeah, I don’t know.

I read that he had to throw away a bunch of pages while he was shooting the last segment of it Because he knew it was going to be too long I don’t know, you know, this movie comes in with a lot more of a budget, a lot more resources than his first two movies. I remember that the second movie and the first movie were shot on a shoestring.

He seems like a guy, I don’t, I don’t know, you probably know better than I do, but he seems like a guy who got into movies because he was very interested in practical effects. And uh, Then the first two, well, All Hallows Eve was a bit of a showcase for him in doing his effects. We did All Hallows Eve and we found it pretty bad, but we did enjoy the Art the Clown segment just for how quirky and bold it was.

And then I guess a lot of other people did too. The first two Terrifier films were shot with a crew of like five or six people at any given time. He was doing all the effects himself. He directed it. He edited it. Then this movie comes along and Affects teams who were impressed with the first one came in and said we want to work with you And so I think this is the first movie that he’s done where he didn’t work on the effects if he did some work on The effects it was minor There were multiple effects teams as you scroll through the credits because all the effects in this movie are pretty much gore effects and makeup Effects.

I mean, yeah, there’s not much else There’s no magic happening. There’s, you know, there’s nothing else. Just people getting caught up in creative ways. So, which is on par with the first two movies. The first one, what all took place in a warehouse. I watched it with my dad and I warned my dad about it. We did that on this podcast as well.

And I think, uh, at the time I’d said, you know, I mean, I can see why people like it, but it really is a one trick pony. You know, it’s just a bunch of people locked up in a warehouse, there’s almost no story to it. It’s just Art the Clown pops in, and you know they’re gonna get it, and it just remains to be seen how gruesome it’s gonna be.

And then the second movie I never saw, and I believe that was a Halloween movie, right? And that came out, what, last year. That took like six years to make. Because, you know, he was scrapping together resources. And then this one here, he had to get it done in under a year. And so that’s why he had so many teams working on it.

And that was a different kind of pressure, he said. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Todd: So we figured we had to do it this Christmas. We had no choice. So here we are. Merry Christmas, everyone. Terrifier 3. Craig, I wonder, had you seen the second movie as well? Yep. And you, you still haven’t? No, I, I meant to watch it, but I didn’t, I didn’t get the time.

Well, then I can only 

Craig: imagine. 

Todd: My confusion? That you, 

Craig: yeah, and that you may not have been, you know, all that invested in these people because I didn’t, I don’t know. I mean, I figured it would be a continuation, but I kind of didn’t realize that at this point he seems to be doing something that I appreciate because I agree with you that I was getting a little tired of, how bloody can it be?

Like, okay, I get it. Great. Great. Good job topping yourself each time. That’s great. But now I feel like he’s trying to build a mythology and I can get on board with that. I like a mythology. Right, right. Some story at 

Todd: least. 

Craig: I like a continuing mythology, you know, like I’ve stuck with Chucky for decades and this movie, I feel like.

Seems very much intended to continue that core mythology. And I read that he started doing that in part two, which he did because he regretted the response to the first movie was good. He got a lot of positive feedback about it, about art specifically. People loved art. They thought he was a great villain, wanted to see more of him, but they felt like.

The other characters in the movie were thin and undeveloped and you didn’t really care about them. So, Leone or Leone wanted in the second one to have more round, more fully developed characters. Characters that you’re invested in and that you care about. And, this girl, Lauren Lavera, who plays Sienna. She is The final girl of part two she’s introduced in part two and is the final girl in part two and she Continues that role.

So she’s really the the female lead in both of these movies I don’t know how you felt about her coming in post trauma, but I got really invested in this girl in the first movie. She’s vulnerable, but she’s tough. I like that they’ve cast her. The actress is petite and so potentially very vulnerable, but also really strong.

And ultimately they make her special. But what I’m trying to get at is I think that this actress is really good. And so I’m into her and I’m rooting for her. So that does it for me. If it weren’t for that, I think I would still be, eh, kind of meh about it, but I think I may end up defending this movie more than you would expect.

Todd: Yeah, I’m, you know, and I think it’s probably a good thing I didn’t watch it because we come in with a completely different mindsets and that helps our listeners, I believe. I would tell you right now, if you’re interested in seeing this movie and haven’t seen the second one, you really ought to see the second one.

Clip: Yeah, you should. 

Todd: Because I was very confused at the beginning of this, and I felt like the movie did a decent enough job of piecing some stuff together for me, but they didn’t make it very clear. The way it starts out with these different characters, and there’s this kind of monstrous woman, and there’s a flashback to what I thought was the first movie, but now I’m not sure.

You know, I just, I had to eventually go, okay, there’s this, there’s some backstory here, I don’t know, I’m just gonna roll with it, and ultimately I was fine. But it did affect my ability to, like you said, care a bit about these new characters, because I didn’t, it was only about three quarters of the way through the movie that made it very clear to me, oh, okay, this girl was the final girl from the first one.

I mean, I had my suspicions, but I also thought maybe there were some other characters too who survived, and you know, I wasn’t quite sure who they were and how they were related, and some of the things they were talking about, you know, I just couldn’t make a lot of sense of. I just had to chalk that up to, okay, this is just backstory that’s either going to get filled in for me or I really needed to watch the second movie for.

So, if you really want to see this movie, you really ought to see the second one first, I would say 100%. Because, ultimately then, for me, not being so invested in this family, what this movie felt like was, literally, because I looked at the time stamp, an hour and a half. Of Art the clown randomly killing random people just like he does in the first movie while There’s another story of sorts playing out parallel to it.

You know in these movies, there’s always like someone you’re following and they’re gonna be They’re not gonna be attacked until the end or they’re gonna be menaced until the end when there’s a showdown And so I knew what was happening. I was just like this family’s not even being menaced So, for about half of this hour and a half run time, I’m switching back to this family and hearing about their trauma, but I’m not really getting much else out of it.

It’s just, like, their interactions with each other, she’s clearly traumatized, okay, that’s fine, but, like, other than that, I’m just like, alright, well, when is Art gonna show up on this side? They’re not even being menaced yet, so, they’re just waiting here in the wings for me, and I, I felt like the movie could have been a lot shorter, you know?

Yeah. Had there not been So much of that, that ultimately, you know, didn’t matter to me. Now, maybe you found it more interesting because you were more invested in the character from the second one. I don’t know. 

Craig: Well, I guess because things developed from the first one a little bit. But you’re right. I mean, it’s an effects driven movie.

It’s a art the clown character driven movie, like, it’s just giving him a playground, you know, a Christmas playground to play in and chop people up. In fact, you know, we don’t immediately return to these characters, and so I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I don’t even remember if I had watched a trailer for this movie.

I didn’t know if those characters were going to be featured heavily, if they were going to get killed off in the first scene, if we were going to see them at all. And when the movie opened, the opening scene, I thought was A great opening scene for a classic Christmas slasher. Yes. To be fair, far more gory and graphic than many that we’ve seen, but not all.

And it was great! You know, it’s a beautiful outdoor shot of this beautifully decorated home decorated for Christmas, and the Christmas music is playing, and the colored lights are glowing, and it’s perfect, you know? It’s this perfect Christmas place, and this perfect little family lives there, and you hear, like, the footsteps on the roof, and little Sally, or whatever her name is, goes into her parents house, and it’s like, there’s somebody on the roof!

It’s Santa Claus! And they’re like, no, go back to bed, blah blah. Like, it’s Exactly, you know, 

Todd: it’s perfect, frankly. Yeah, it’s like homage, really. We’ve seen so many start out like this. 

Craig: Yeah, right, and he said that he was inspired by those Tales from the Crypt segments. There was the original one and then the remake.

I think we’ve talked about both of them. Oh, all through the house. Uh, all through the house. And this is very much like that, too, because eventually the mom and dad go back to bed, the brother is in his room asleep, and the little girl still hears stuff, and so she goes down there, and there’s Santa Claus, but it’s Art the Clown, and she runs and hides before he sees him, he pulls out an axe and goes and chops up her whole family in a really, really gruesome, display Now I will say that I think these effects look great What I like the most about them is they don’t make me sick Because they ring of the effects of the 80s.

Yes. It’s almost that it’s so extreme As to be beyond the realm of reality and so it just doesn’t bother me like i’m like that’s fake There’s so much blood just blood Covering every surface. It’s bright red when you see the and you do all the time It’s all the time people getting chopped up getting their faces ripped off chopped off limbs chopped off Every gory nasty disgusting thing you can think of in Captured in great detail on camera, but the effects look practical.

I don’t know Maybe that is what skin would look like if you were chopping into it But it looks like a practical effect to me and I like that I’ve always liked practical effects and so I can get on board for that, too 

Todd: Mm-hmm . Yeah, I, I would say that extreme violence didn’t disturb me as much as I thought I would normally when it comes to this kind of violence, it’s more the idea of it, you know, it’s what’s happening to the person and what that would be like if that had happened to you more than just, you know, what you’re seeing visually on the screen.

So, you know, you’re right. You watch a movie like Misery for example, and you see your hobble, poor James Conn in the bed, right. You’re gonna get a, uh, perhaps, I mean I anyway, are gonna get a much more emotional reaction than when I see Art go in with a chainsaw, you know, to rip apart, you know, two people in the shower.

Something about that, I just can’t imagine that happening to me. It’s a little too detached from my reality, and it’s not presented, like you said, in a realistic way. Yeah. I mean, it is. I, you know, like you said, I suppose there’s only so many ways you can thrust a chainsaw into somebody, but, you know, I, I, it’s just, uh, there’s somehow there’s a detachment there.

So, I can understand why this movie would have more of a broad audience than I, uh, Originally expected the series to have because more people I think can take it because it is so in a way Fantastical like you said, although I have to admit I was impressed with the effects of the first movie when leone was doing it That scene where he saw straight down through a person that was pretty horrific and that turned my stomach a bit And I thought that was as realistic as I imagine it could be this one I also thought the effects were good and I thought they were a couple notches better Probably because you had more experienced teams working on it.

I did appreciate that aspect of it as well. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah, and you know a two million dollar budget is significantly larger than 50, 000 or whatever for the second one, but the other thing that removes those kills Many the many many many of them it removes them from reality is because He and his little sidekick who we’ll talk about in a second are destroying these people’s bodies and yet they remain awake and alert.

Like that is absolutely impossible. 

Clip: So 

Craig: in my head, I’m like, this is fiction. Like it’s, I am removed from this. I don’t have to be scared of it. I don’t have to be even grossed out by it. It’s not real. It’s, it’s all good. 

Todd: Now, can you answer a quick question for me before we go on? Yeah. The girl who survived, I suppose, the Christmas Massacre in the very beginning scene?

Because Art is about to leave the house, and then he hears a noise in the cupboard, and he opens it up, and the girl is cowering in there, and he waves at her. Are we to believe that he killed her, or am I off and she is now an adult somewhere, or an older person somewhere in time? 

Craig: I think that they are intentionally leaving that open so that they could potentially use her later.

Because you, you, you see in this movie that they need hosts, right? It’s a whole thing, like in the first movie, and I just ended, I just finished watching like a history of thing in all of the shorts, including the All Hallows Eve or whatever. There was a supernatural element to art. He decided in the first Terrifier movie that he wanted to abandon that and make art just a real guy.

Just a guy. A killer. A serial killer. But then, when he resurrects In the second one, it’s just his body or, or he’s been reanimated by some, some outside supernatural force. And now he’s supernatural. In the second movie, there’s a little girl character, a little evil girl like him, and it’s unclear what their relationship is, except for you do see a newspaper article that says a little girl was murdered at some point.

And it looks like that girl. Her name is Emily, and in the first movie, the crazy lady who had the doll in the warehouse said, This is my baby, it’s, her name is Emily. Speculation at this point is that whatever is possessing this little girl is the thing that brought art to life. And at this point, at the end, you saw the aftermath of this, but at the end of the first, er, of the second movie, he and Sienna have a huge fight.

I, I, I read too that the finale was toned down for this one, for time purposes, and I don’t, I’m not surprised because the finale was super long in the second one, and I’m glad that they had to shorten it for this one because it was so, And I just got really sick of seeing that young woman brutalized for my entertainment.

Like, it just went on, it just went on for too long for me. It was too much. And it was impossible, there was no, you know, it was just impossible that she could move. Now, to be fair, the other part of the backstory that you missed is she somehow is a chosen one. Her dad was a cartoonist. He started apparently having visions of art and other things and was drawing them.

And he drew this hero that he designed for her that you saw in this movie. And that’s what she dresses for his Halloween. And that’s what she fights art. With and with that sword, but it goes on forever. She ends up decapitating him And that’s when we go back to the monstrous woman that you were talking about who is the final girl from the first movie I believe oh Oh I pretty sure she is the she’s either the final girl from the first movie or the reporter that interviewed her I’m a little iffy on that one, but she’s definitely from the first movie And she, at the end of the second one, I guess at this point we’re supposed to understand that she killed herself and recently died.

So now she’s now possessed too. And possessed her birthed Art’s head. What? Oh! Gave birth to it. It came out of her. That’s why it was like, It had like a umbilical cord like attached to its neck. 

Todd: Was that like an ending in the second movie? Yes. Is that where we’re supposed to? Yes. Okay. That was the, 

Craig: that was the shocking ending of the second movie.

Todd: Yeah, that would have been hilarious if I had seen that first. 

Craig: After that opening scene, it cuts back to five years. Later five years earlier 

Todd: earlier. Yeah The the 

Craig: time jumping confused. Well as it turns out these events take place. I don’t even know I’m 

Todd: confused now. I think what happens is no because it jumps to five years earlier So the christmas scene we’re just talking about is present day.

Craig: Yes, that’s right 

Todd: It jumps to five years earlier to catch us up on that’s right What you just described basically and then how that turned out 

Craig: they had to explain how he came back Yeah 

Todd: And it seems like, and correct me if I’m wrong, the way he came back, okay, so his head was birthed, the cops came into the room and discovered, you know, after the massacre, discovered his headless corpse, then they came in and discovered this girl and Art’s head is chewing on another body, and then, um, the The head and the body Reunite somehow.

Yeah, yeah. First he grabs The body reunite Reanimates without the head. And it kills the policeman. And then Art decapitates the policeman. And then he sticks the policeman’s head on his body. And they’re on the subway. And then Somehow he gets his own head back. I thought 

Craig: he was just gonna like Jeepers Creepers it.

Yeah, I think that he rides the subway to wherever his head is and he goes in there. You’re right as that as right as Chris Jericho is about to get killed he shows up It’s crazy, and he gets his head back and so now he and Victoria, that’s the monstrous woman, and she is. She’s disgusting to look at.

Because she got her face ripped off at some point. 

Clip: Oh, 

Craig: gosh. So now they’re a team. There’s a funny part where they like ride the bus and they’re always covered in like gore and viscera and stuff. And another guy dressed, because this is the same night. Like, as the end of the second movie, at this point.

It’s the same night, so it’s still Halloween, so another guy dressed as Art gets on, and is like, 

Clip: Yo, yo! You guys, you, you look so good. I mean, way better than mine. I was gonna do the blood thing too, but I, I was just worried about the cleanup. But, can I, can I get a picture? I’m gonna post this. You guys, seriously, you killed it.

This 

Craig: And then it cuts away and it cuts to the next scene and they’re walking back into his lair, which apparently nobody ever disturbs. And he’s wearing the clean costumes. Obviously he had taken it from that guy, which is funny. He does that. He steals costumes. It’s his Zemo. So, okay, so you’re right.

We’ve got two parallel stories, and what it seems to be is that Art is trying to make his way to Sienna. They are connected. Sienna’s brother figured all this out somehow in the last movie. He was a much bigger part of the last movie. I suspect that either he was unavailable or was uninterested in reprising his role because He is not.

Like, he only films, I think, one scene with her. The other scenes, he’s off at college doing his own thing. He’s really not doing much. He’s not in the movie a whole lot. He’s a big part of the first one. He’s kind of replaced in this one by Sienna’s niece. They go, okay, so once he gets his head back, they go back to the lair, and they just like, hibernate.

Yeah, that 

Clip: was 

Todd: interesting. She goes and sits in a bathtub, full of disgust, and cuts her arm. I thought she was trying to kill herself or something? I think she’s already dead. She saw herself in the mirror and was like, I look so 

Craig: ugly. Oh, maybe she’s not. I don’t know. Maybe she’s not dead at that point.

Maybe she dies then and that’s when she gets possessed. I don’t know. But anyway, whatever. 

Todd: Yeah, she just and she sits in a bathtub and Art sits in a rocking chair that reminded me of Psycho You know the mother sitting in the rocking chair up in the high window of the of the tall house But yeah I also read that you know It was meant to be an homage to Amityville because the shape of the window and also an homage to Black Christmas 

Craig: It immediately made me think of Black Christmas.

That’s 

Todd: the first thing that I thought it makes sense This being a Christmas movie too, right? And him being, at first, looks dead because he’s covered in cobwebs. When we switch to present day, and there’s, um, I don’t know, a couple Cleaning crew or something? Demolition guys. Demolition guys coming into the house and they go up into the attic and they see this What appears to be a corpse, you know facing the window and she is in now her bathtub is filled with muck I don’t think it was before so I don’t know if she just bled out an all awful lot or what the deal was Just time.

It’s gross It’s pretty disgusting and they walk over and, and Art is eyes open, just staring straight ahead in this obviously like hibernated state. And as soon as the cops discover, or the cops, these two guys discover these two, they come to life and they murder them and. Now they’re back. And here we are in present day.

Craig: Brutally. And I feel like, I feel like people would want to know how they do it about these kills. But that’s, that, that would be my, that would be my complaint about the movie is that I just didn’t find it particularly interesting. It was just an opportunity to show off. Really the same kind of effects.

You know, it’s not really creative. Like, he chops him up with an axe. He smashes their head with a hammer. He cuts him up with a chainsaw, and it just looks like blades cutting into flesh, and bones breaking off, and legs getting chopped off, and heads getting smashed, and it looks good. But it’s kind of all the same.

It is. And it ceases to be, it ceases to be shocking. Like, 

Todd: yeah, 

Craig: I’ve seen this. 

Todd: A, it ceases to be shocking because it’s not creative. You know, those old slasher movies, part of the fun was just seeing how, how, what were the odd different ways people were going to die? This movie doesn’t really have that.

And then number two, it really doesn’t have a lot of suspense either. And that’s kind of his shtick, I guess, you know, aren’t the clown shows up and you know, that whoever he shows up in front of is going to be doomed. And, he just plays with them for a little bit. They’re more confused than anything, or they just think he’s a guy in a costume, goofing, and then he kills them.

And that’s really it. I mean, there’s very, there’s no stalking really involved, and it’s not shot in a way where Typical slasher is with the stalking and the suspense and the POVs coming around the corner of the teenagers hanging out You know, there’s just none of that. It’s just very much in your face like oh here comes art the clown He’s coming into a bathroom and we know there are two people showering there and we see art doing all of his Preparation before he finally goes in and kills them.

And so I didn’t get the same What do you want to say? Emotional investment, even with the kills, and the process leading up to it that I would get in a typical slasher movie. 

Craig: I was still entertained because I do really like art as a character, and David Howard Thornton is a really, really talented performer.

Um, He didn’t originate the role, but 

Todd: Well, that’s what I mean when I think I say that’s like his shtick, you know? It feels like that’s the movie. That’s what people are gonna have, are gonna come to see. Yeah. You know, they’re not coming to see a suspenseful slasher. They’re coming to see their favorite Art the Clown guy and how goofy he’s gonna be.

Craig: Right. You know, so Right, I mean, we did that too. That’s what, we did that with Freddy for years. 

Todd: We did, but the But, but let’s be fair, the Freddy movies had a strong degree of suspense and creativity that this one just doesn’t have. Sometimes. Well, you’re right. I mean, look, I mean, they’re all kind of the same, but like, Freddy lives in the dream world, and the, there are very elaborate kind of situations, and sometimes they would escape, or they’d wake up, or things like that, like you never quite knew if he was going to get them at that moment, but you’re right.

We mostly saw it for him and his quippiness and especially towards later movies and we liked him as a character 

Craig: But also those movies we did go to specifically for the creative kills because you could do anything in a dream Yeah, and they did and that was and this is different. I mean I do I honestly think that that’s what he’s working towards I think that he’s working towards a larger mythos, but he only started establishing it in the second movie and It’s so piecemeal at this point that I’m not really sure what’s going on like I get that Sienna is like a chosen one But who chose her like and I get that Like her dad kind of knew and it seemed like he kind of her dad’s played by Jason Patrick, by the way Who I never would have recognized.

Todd: Yeah for sure 

Craig: and it’s a small role He’s only in a couple of flashbacks, but it seems like He was somehow connected to it in some way or he knew something but he didn’t tell her and like why not and what are the rules at this point it feels futile like she’s killed him once what like every every time we’ve seen him die he has been immediately immediately reanimated 

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: The only reason that any time has passed here is because he decided to take a nap. Like, what are the rules? And why, why is he taking a nap? Why wouldn’t, it’s the same. He’s back. He’s beat the shit out of her. She is weak. Just go get her again. 

Todd: Yeah. I didn’t get that either. I 

Craig: don’t understand that. 

Todd: Maybe he needed time to, for his head to fuse back, you know?

I don’t know. 

Craig: Like fully or something. Well, and there’s this, maybe, I guess? Oh, or? A healing time, I guess? I don’t know. 

Todd: Craig, maybe it’s like a whole, uh, Jeepers Creepers thing where he, every five years, you know, he, you know, He comes back or something. 

Craig: Well, that would be new. I don’t know. 

Todd: Speculating here.

Craig: You know, Jonathan wrote that letter. She reads that letter. He said all of these things in the second movie. They just had to get him said again. That like, as long as she’s alive, they’re vulnerable and they know that. And so they’ll always be coming after us. Okay. 

Todd: By the way, I was really mad at that letter scene, because, for me, and having not seen the second movie, I’m like, this letter’s important, and it is way too long for me to read while in the short amount of time it was up on screen, so I literally paused it, and I was glad I did, because if, you know, if I had not read at least half of that letter, I would have still been in the dark about this whole demon thing, because nobody else really cared.

explains it in the movie. It’s literally this letter and apparently the second movie. 

Craig: Well, and I don’t even remember if it was a letter then it may have been, he said all those things to her. He, he figured them out somehow. Again, I don’t really understand how. 

Todd: Well, make the letter a little shorter or at least have somebody come up to him and say, you remember what we, what I told you before, right?

You know, this or read it out loud or something like. Throw me a bone here, you know, so I don’t have 

Craig: to She says the last line aloud, but that’s not enough context if you don’t know. So, okay, so, I feel like what the movie is trying to do is, it’s paths that are going to converge is just going to take a while, and it does take forever.

Like, I think that he’s making, he’s making his way to her, but he really doesn’t get to her until the very end. Meanwhile, she is just freaking out. She’s been in the mental institution this whole time. Her uncle came and picked her up. I think the uncle is married to the sister of her mom, who was killed in the last movie.

And they have a daughter, Gabby, who apparently Sienna’s really close with. Gabby, I feel like, really kind of becomes the surrogate for Jonathan. She’s the Jonathan of this movie. 

Todd: Gotcha. 

Craig: So, we’re following their story, and she is like, having hallucinations of her friends that were killed in the last movie, which by the way, it totally was not her fault at all.

Clip: Mm. 

Craig: Art was coming after her, they just happened to be in the way. She’s having those hallucinations, and she starts Thinking that she’s seeing art, but she is because then he’s around but like he’s not even like there’s one part Where they’re in the mall and he’s right next to her and he stands and stares at her for a while And then he just walks away and goes to do something else like he doesn’t seem to be in any particular hurry I don’t understand.

Yeah, what is happening? 

Todd: You know, this was the thing that kind of annoyed me, is that she’s freaking out, but her freaking out is because she’s having dreams, mostly, and flashbacks to the old one. It just goes on for far too long. Like, I would have expected him to at least be You know, in another movie, what happens here is that The final girl’s friends are getting murdered or at least the people around them at the university or at the high school are getting murdered I’m not saying that this movie has to follow, you know any particular convention I’m, just like that’s what kind of keeps that interesting is that the final girl feels this impending doom Because they see this real evidence around them that Something’s happening.

It’s probably this murderer that I just dispatched coming back for me. I’m freaking out and I need to protect myself but In this it’s just you know, this stuff is sort of happening parallel that she doesn’t even know about I don’t think it’s until this mall scene that she hears about the mall murders and just But she hears 

Craig: about it later the murders happen right after that encounter right after she sees him Yeah, they happen right after that, but she doesn’t she learns about it on the news later So even more stuff happens between that You Exactly.

Todd: And it’s, it’s an explosion, ultimately, at the mall. Artist dressed as Santa. 

Craig: Yeah, I was gonna say, what I think we should do before time gets away from us is just, I don’t even think sequence matters. But I feel like we should talk about some of these, the setup for some of these kill scenes. Cause the setups are great!

But that’s the thing, like, I don’t know, I don’t want to be too critical because, I ultimately, I did enjoy the movie more than I expected to, but it almost feels, it feels episodic and then they’re like, let’s set up this great scene. 

Clip: Yeah. 

Craig: And then after that, let’s set up this great scene. Like they don’t, but they don’t tie into a, feel particularly close.

Right. A story. 

Todd: Right. Yeah, they don’t tie into a coherent narrative, unless it’s just, you know, you consider it a road movie. These two are just slowly making their way to her, even though, as you said, they could be at her house at any time. Like, it’s not like she’s halfway across the country or anything.

And like you said, he’s literally next to her at one point and just walks away. So it’s not that. It’s just a whole bunch of, Hey, this would be a great scene and a great kill. This would be a great scene, a great kill. Let’s have them do all of these things while Sienna’s freaking out and worrying. But again, she, she only has reason to worry later in the movie when it becomes clear to her that art is back or he might be back because I’m just going to say this explosion, An explosion can happen somewhere.

I’m not sure why you would piece together. Oh my god. That was art and he’s after me Even that incident that causes her to suddenly feel like it’s real doesn’t feel Real 

Craig: she thought she saw him But then she was doubting herself because she’s seeing other things too then when she heard that she thought oh, oh It was him.

Oh. I can follow that. I can follow that train of logic. Perhaps. Perhaps. 

Todd: Okay. 

Craig: That scene, I liked that scene. I thought, and, and, you know, we, we glossed over the opening scene. It’s very violent, and not only does he brutally chop up the parents, but he chops up the kid too. Nobody is safe in these movies.

Nobody. This scene, it made me very anxious because we’ll talk maybe next about how he got the Santa suit. But he’s got a Santa suit and he comes into a mall and he sees a mall Santa, but he takes advantage when the mall Santa goes on break, he sneaks up to the stage and coaxes the children towards him.

And I was like, Oh my God, is this, is he just going to like massacre these children? In broad daylight in front of their parents in the mall. I was thinking that 

Todd: too. 

Craig: And so I was, because he’s digging in his sack. He’s always digging in his sack and he’s always pulling out something horrible to like, murder you with.

Todd: Yeah, the sack is, is basically um, his toolbox, you know, of, of random. It’s 

Craig: Mary Poppins bag, frankly. He could pull a bulldozer out of there. Right. But instead, now, he starts pulling out toys and he’s just giving the kids toys and they’re all happy and I kept waiting. I’m like. Are they gonna be full of razor blades?

Yeah, I did too. Are they gonna come 

Todd: to life? Is this like, you know, What was it, Silent Night, Deadly Night 4? Or 5? The Toymaker? 

Craig: Yeah, something, something. And I just was surprised that nothing was happening. Everything seemed to be fine. And then they, they grab him and throw him out and he’s resisting slightly, but, you know, He’s going and then it starts cutting back to this boy who’s unwrapping this box and I’m like, Oh, this is the thing.

This is the thing and I, my, my immediate thought was Oh shit, it’s a bomb. Yeah And it was the kid the kid is unwrapping. He goes. I wonder what I got Oh and this big surprisingly some of the some of the kids had seen Scattered, so hopefully it didn’t 

Todd: get too many of them. Yeah, surprisingly kind of, um, light on the gore and blood in this one because there’s a big explosion but it’s just fire, you know, and even lingers on the scene for quite a while and it’s just the stuff burning up.

It was a very low budget, typical low budget explosion where people are supposedly dying but you never see body parts flying or, or anybody burning or anything like that and I was actually kind of disappointed. In that respect, because it was very unclear how many people were actually I just had to assume.

I guess the idea is that he blew everybody up. I don’t know. 

Craig: The news report said, but I don’t remember how many it said, This is just, you know, again, like I said, I do like, I really like the setups for these scenes, and they are fun scenes. I think that David Howard Thornton is great. I just think he does a really good job.

You know, he has mime experience and one of the documentaries that I watched, the director and everybody who’s had anything to say about him said, he’s just magical. Like he’s just a real life Roger Rabbit. He can just do anything. You know, they, they’re showing him behind the scenes and they’d say, you would never believe that this guy was Art the Clown because he’s so affable and funny and nice and kind.

He just gets the darkness of it. And he said, once he gets a character, it’s. Locked in and he can just turn it off and on and that’s what he does And I think I think he just gives a really good performance. I mean the franchise I think rests on Him. 

Clip: Yeah, 

Craig: like you said before people are coming to see this character.

Todd: Yeah, 

Craig: so that’s a lot of responsibility And I think he’s really gifted 

Todd: It is very much like Freddy Krueger and, and Robert Englund, you know, I mean, you couldn’t imagine. Although he didn’t play Arthur Clown in the very first one, but, you know, it was a, it was a short. But it had the same spirit. I 

Craig: think that he only took over in the first full length.

feature. Yes. I’m pretty sure that. Correct. The guy who played him before was just a friend of the director. He wasn’t an actor, but he enjoyed doing it when it was just for short periods of time. But I think it was a mutual parting that the director wanted somebody with more experience because his friend was not an actor at all.

And the friend didn’t enjoy the idea of being in that heavy makeup for extended periods of time. So I think they parted on friendly terms. But this, and, and this guy, David Howard Thornton was the sixth person to audition. He improvised. That’s what got him the part. He improvised a kill where he killed somebody and then started carving their flesh and he tasted it and made a yucky face and then started seasoning it with salt and pepper and then eating it again.

And that’s what, that’s what got him the job. But yeah, I mean, these scenes, another scene, this scene actually comes before them all. I’m not even going to remember all the kills because there are so many, but 

Clip: The 

Craig: scene in the bar was funny. And it was a great Christmas bar scene. Yes, it was. I really liked 

Todd: this bit.

Craig: It’s Christmas Eve at the dive bar and it’s just kind of the last scene. Sad stragglers and the corner Santas and stuff and and that’s exactly what you got here It’s just these three guys, you know, one of them Santa one of them’s Clint Howard and one of them’s the 

Todd: bartender Yeah, well and the Santa is Daniel Roebuck I mean super familiar face has been in like hundreds of movies and I was surprised to see him in this I thought it was cool.

Craig: I didn’t recognize him. Is he a horror guy? Is he just 

Todd: He’s in every like he was in The Fugitive and Final Desti Well, he was um, he was the agent, one of the agents in Final Destination and he’s like in He’s in so much stuff, man. IMDB, I’m looking at it right now, 263 credits. 

Craig: Wow. I think that people would not hesitate to do a cameo in these movies.

These movies are wildly successful. They’re wildly successful and they have A devout cult following the people who like these movies love these movies and can’t get enough of them So heck yeah, if I had an opportunity to cameo in one of these movies you bet your ass I 

Todd: guess he was in I haven’t seen it, but he was in three from hell I’m just looking right now and I noticed that so Walking dead, mostly not horror, but heck he was in, he was in the remake of Halloween too.

Craig: He’s the Santa and he’s a nice guy. Like Art comes in and starts acting like he’s super, super excited to see Santa. The other guys maybe kind of start to rib him or something. They’re like, no, no, no guys. Uh, he wants to see Santa. He gets the, everybody gets the same show or something like that. And so he humors him.

Clip: And 

Craig: I also didn’t know where this was going to go because it seemed like Art was almost genuinely like. Having kind of innocent fun. Yeah, ultimately, I don’t know if he was maybe he was having some fun But as soon as they’ve had enough of him Like he’s sitting on Santa’s lap at the bar and as soon as Santa’s like seriously, buddy That’s enough get off then he starts pissing on him 

Todd: You know, and this is another cute thing, which I think a little adds a little bit to this character They get him a drink and he drinks the drink, but he doesn’t like the drink.

It’s like he’s never had alcohol before Or maybe he’s just miming it. I don’t know. But anyway, he spits the drink out of the guy’s face and then pisses all over him. That seems to turn the tables. Unless Art was always planning on killing them. It’s hard to know. 

Craig: Probably. He kills everybody. Yeah, but Except maybe that little girl.

I don’t know. He shoots one guy. He starts using guns in part two, which I don’t really like. Slashers who use guns seems too easy. It’s lazy, but he shoots one guy and then kills Clint Howard somehow I don’t really remember how and then he ties Santa up and steals his suit and Tortures him with nitrous oxide, which okay.

That’s that’s something different. 

Todd: I appreciated that That was a little thing. He put together in his workshop before he was testing it on rats, right? That was so funny Fine. 

Craig: Silly, but funny. And yeah, that’s a fun gag to, you know, freeze a guy and, you know, start shattering his frozen skin and stuff. And Santa had, you know, Art had grabbed his beard and pulled it.

Clip: Hey Santa, looks like you got a fan. What’s with the outfit, pal? Yeah, did the circus come to town? Oh! Oh! Hey, buddy, watch it. That’s the real deal. That’s my, that’s my beard. If Santa doesn’t have a real beard, he’s not a real Santa 

Craig: Claus. And I knew as soon as he said that, that was a mistake. And exactly what I thought would happen, happened.

Art rips his beard off and takes it with him. 

Todd: Puts it on. 

Craig: And that was a fun scene too. It was a fun scene! It was a fun scene. And then there’s the shower scene. I mean, what is there to say? 

Todd: Yeah, to, to Who were these people, by the way? Were they friends? These were, these 

Craig: were randos. This was Jonathan, the brother’s college roommate and his girlfriend, who is also a douchey podcaster.

That’s right. Who wants to get them on her podcast. 

Todd: I like that. Now we’re starting to see a lot of douchey podcasters in, uh, in movies. This is the second one this month. Yeah. I’m starting to get triggered, man. 

Craig: Yeah, I think they’re onto us.

Todd: Well, they go into late at night and I don’t even remember where. Is it a school? I guess it’s supposed to be the shower room at the school and some locker. 

Craig: It’s like a, it’s like a frat party. I thought there was going to be more to this frat party because they made a big deal out of it. But the only thing that happens that I remember is she promises to f k him if He’ll try to get his roommate or the roommate’s sister on the podcast.

Todd: Yeah, that’s right. 

Craig: So then they go down to the shower and They 

Todd: do it. In the shower, alone, and Art sneaks up on them, pulls out of his bag, like you said, very improbably, a chainsaw, starts it right outside. She’s like, what’s that? And then just breaks through the door and chainsaws the both of them. Um, he kind of manages to slip out on a broken leg and is crawling across the floor.

And after he basically just hacks her to pieces inside the shower, as he’s crawling away, Art takes the chainsaw right up the middle starting at his groin. And that was, uh, that was pretty gross. But, again, not the first time he’s seen somebody just cut someone up from the groin to the head. I don’t know.

Is there a term for that? 

Craig: I don’t 

Todd: know. I don’t know. Anyway. 

Craig: And so now we are finally, finally, the only other important thing that we need to know is that in talking to her brother, Sienna thinks that Art is back and so she needs to go back to the city. scene of the finale of the last movie to find that knife.

We don’t see her do that, but we see her come home with a box gift wrapped and her hands are filthy. So we are, we know that she dug it up and she’s wrapped it in a box and hid it in the back of the Christmas tree. There’s at some point there’s the shining, but I don’t remember when that happens. 

Todd: Oh, well it’s, it’s at the house, right?

I think this is the finale bit where they’re in the house, Art shows up. I don’t remember exactly how he manifests himself. 

Craig: She just wakes up. Okay. So, so Sienna’s. Aunt drugged her and gave her sedatives not before Sienna talked to her brother and said you better come here and he said okay I’ll 

Clip: come 

Craig: the uncle went off to get him.

He called him on the phone. He’s like, I’m I’m outside Where are you and the kid’s like, where are you? And he’s like, well, I’m right outside your dorm now We learned in the last movie that they can Mimic people’s voices, and they did this on the phone. It was mostly the little girl, who’s not in this movie, by the way.

It was mostly her that was doing it in the last movie, but they can do that. And so, I knew this was the setup. I didn’t know if you would or not. But so, Sienna wakes up in her bed, and goes downstairs, and Art and Victoria are just there! And Art is crucifying, apparently Art carried that body from the frat house to her house to crucify it up on the wall.

I don’t even know what the other crazy is doing. 

Todd: She’s got a crown of thorns on. Remember she put on a crown of thorns, he put a crown of thorns on her at some point. This is maybe one of the few. Christmas horror movies that we’ve seen so far that, that dare to have Jesus imagery in it as well as Santa 

Craig: imagery.

Oh my god, there was also a weird weird scene where she, Sienna was dreaming and she saw like the Virgin Mary overseeing a demon forging this Sword? Yeah. That was so weird. 

Todd: That was so bizarre. I thought, this is gonna come into play later. You know, maybe a later movie, right? This, this looks like something from the past or whatever?

I don’t know. 

Craig: It’s nothing we’ve seen before. 

Todd: Wasn’t it forging the sword she was gonna use to Yes. Yes. 

Craig: So, again, it is suggesting a much larger mythology that surely they’re going to explore later. But, he gets the better of her somehow, he knocks her out or something with a mallet, and when she wakes up again, she and her aunt are both tied up in chairs.

This finale really does go pretty quickly. You think so? What? I thought so. I thought it was pretty long. Victoria is taunting Sienna and ultimately she says something I wrote it down, but I’m not gonna look for it. She says something like I’m who? 

Todd: Jess Right? The ant, right. They’re both sitting there.

That’s her ants. Yeah, her ants. They’re both sitting there tied up. And she starts kind of tormenting the ant first, right? 

Craig: Basically what she tells Sienna is I’m going to take everything that you love. Or I’m going to destroy everything that you love. So they do. She and Art do. Oh my god. God, I, I was saying, I was saying it wasn’t creative and I lied.

I forgot about some of these kills. This one was gross. This one I read that the actor, art, the actor, this one made him physically ill. You want to tell about it? 

Todd: I mean, well they show her a cage. They show the aunt a cage. Which has a, basically a skinless head in it that’s being eaten by rats and tell her that it’s Gabby’s.

So she freaks out and then they grab her and basically he has a big acrylic tube that he pulls out of his bag, hammers it down her throat, and then they pull the rats out of that cage and they force them down her throat and then as the rats are about, I don’t know, down into her throat and who knows where, he slits her throat and the rats come out the throat and She’s obviously very dead.

I, it’s just like really, really creative, I suppose. Wasn’t, isn’t that to take it off of some kind of, um, ancient torture that the Greeks used to do or something like that? I don’t know. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard of this one before, but 

Craig: maybe. I have no idea. It’s, yeah, yeah, kinda, but I’m not sure either. At some point, Gabi shows up, and I’m not sure why they don’t kill Gabi right away.

That seems weird. If they’re really trying to destroy everything that she loves, I don’t get it. Cause she obviously loves Gabi the most. But, Victoria tries to possess Sienna, and it, like, it seems like it’s starting to work. Like, both of their eyes are glowing red, but Sienna’s still too strong. Yeah. So, Victoria says I’m gonna take everything you love, and 

Clip: then I’m gonna invade that pretty pink flesh of yours and destroy you from the inside out, just like I did this bitch.

But first, I have a confession to make. That’s not Gabby. Okay, 

Craig: well I’ll kill Gabby and then You’ll be totally empty and you’ll lose all will to fight me and she goes and acts like she’s going to and Art’s there with her And Gabby says I’m sorry. I didn’t get to give you my christmas present And for what reason Victoria’s like, Would you like to have your present?

And Sienna’s like, Yeah. And she’s like, Would you like to open it yourself? I’m like, Why is she doing this? 

Todd: I know this is so weird. So then instead of freeing her by cutting her bonds, Art comes over with a hammer, smashes both of her hands into bloody messes, then cuts her bonds. And I’m like, Well, she can’t open her present now.

But this woman perceiv Her hands would be USELESS. Her hands looked useless when she held them up. They were exactly like you would expect them to look. But then, the movie completely ignores that for the rest of the movie. And I’ll tell ya, that really bothered me. I was like, come on, how lazy is this? Why would you even do that?

Cause then, she opens the gift, and it’s the sword. And that makes all the difference. That was a big miscalculation on Victoria’s part. But anyway, I know she’s got the sword and now she’s can hold this heavy sword and swing it around and leap around the room 

Craig: and her hands are fine. I’m not being sarcastic when I say.

I think she’s a superhero. Like, I really do. You’re right. I think that she I do. I think that in the movie, she is some sort of super She’s like Buffy or something. 

Todd: It makes it clear, because at some point I don’t think she even knows 

Craig: that. Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah, because at some point, the ground opens up. So she It looks like she’s got the best of them.

Well, she kills the 

Craig: woman. 

Todd: Right. 

Craig: She, she decapitates the woman and the, the light goes out in her eyes, in the woman’s eyes. So it seems like she’s dead. 

Todd: And then Art has disappeared out the window, right? Like she turns around and he’s gone. 

Craig: They, well, no, there’s a big moment. She’s fighting him and she gets the best of him, too.

But that’s when the floor opens up. That’s when the floor opens up. We’ve seen these hellmouths before. There was a hellmouth in the finale of the last one too, but I don’t recall it just like opening up out of nowhere. I don’t really understand why that happened. I guess it was like fog started coming out of Victoria’s body and it like ate away at the floor or something.

But just as Victoria is about to best art, she’s got him pinned to the wall with the sword in him. All she has to do is finish it, just push it all the way in. But in that very moment, the girl dies. And Art looks at her, and the conversation, you know, the subtext between them is, You have to make a choice.

You can kill me, or you can save her. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: So she makes the choice to save her. 

Todd: Yeah, she doesn’t die, she falls into the hell pit, but she’s like, hanging on by a thread. Right. So she grabs the sword, and she, because it’s the only thing she can find, And she holds the blade end With her hands and asks her to grab the handle and so the she grabs the handle but The sword slips out of her hands and it cuts her hands and the girl 

Craig: it’s a knife blade Yeah, of course knife blade.

Come on, you dummy. 

Todd: Don’t do 

Craig: that. And so the girl falls in anyway And the hole closes up and then She turns around and art is gone, you know He’s he the window’s open and he’s gone 

Todd: and she looks at her hands And we see that her wounds on her hands mystically heal right in front of us So you’re right we can explain away the smashed hands.

Craig: She has to be there’s no other explanation Yeah, there’s no other explanation because there’s no way that she could survive The beatings that she’s been given in these last two movies. It’s impossible. To be fair, her brother in the last one gets pretty beat up too, but I don’t know. He’s her brother, maybe he’s special.

At some point, they said that that head was not really Gabby, which we know because we’ve seen her alive, but they insinuate that it was the brother. Now, we don’t see the brother die on screen, and I know horror movies. They are leaving that door open on purpose. Yeah. 

Todd: They can bring 

Craig: him back if they want to.

They 

Todd: got a lot of doors open in this movie. You 

Craig: Yeah, they do it because she says, I’ll find you. I promise. Like, okay, great. I guess I got to see part four now. We see art just sitting at a snowy bus stop and like the Christmas music is playing again And he just gets on the bus and the woman on the bus is reading a book called the ninth circle Which was the title of the original short that art was in and the bus drives away And that’s just 

Todd: the end, right?

Uh, yeah, it is. I think probably the next one, part four, is gonna be Art Goes to Hell, or something like that, right? It’s gotta be. I have 

Craig: no idea. I don’t know where they’re planning on taking it. 

Todd: I mean, or she’s gotta go to hell to find her. 

Craig: Well, it seems like they are invested in this through line. With Sienna.

It seems like she has emerged as the Laurie Strode of this franchise. 

Todd: Right, and like you said, she’s like a literal superhero. Like, she’s got a costume ready and everything, like her dad drew it. And you’re right, she wore it, I guess, in the second movie, right? So. 

Craig: Yeah, she made it and wore it. 

Todd: Maybe this will be a, become a superhero franchise.

Ha ha ha! Aren’t the clown is the, is the Joker? 

Craig: Yeah, I don’t know. You know, I, all of the things that I can tell that you are Are not fond of I understand and I really agree with you on on those fronts Well, 

Todd: don’t get me wrong. I I still enjoyed the movie. I enjoyed it way more than I enjoyed the first one I’ll tell you that because at least there was a story of sorts Even though I couldn’t necessarily pick it apart or understand it or I got a little impatient with it I appreciated the fact it wasn’t just a guy in a warehouse murdering a bunch of people Although like I said, you know in a real sense, that’s what the first hour and a half kind of is Yeah, at least it’s far more interesting You know, and there’s a story building.

It’s obvious they’re trying to do something with it. And I appreciated that. I heard that Damien Leone is only interested in doing like one more and that’s it. But I can’t see why somebody else wouldn’t pick it up if the next one is just as successful as this one. You know, I mean, if you’re David Howard Thornton, you’re sitting here happy as a clam.

I’m sure. 

Craig: Yeah. He’s icon status at this point. I mean he could make a living just doing cons, right? But I I would really be interested to see what you thought of the second one because frankly I think that the second one is a better movie than this one 

Clip: Oh, 

Craig: and that makes sense to me because they had a long time They could really take care with it.

Not that I don’t think that they took care with this I do they had a lot more help on this and that makes a difference too, but I think the story is better but I like this one because It is through and through a Christmas movie. It is. It is saturated in Christmas imagery. Art 

Todd: is basically a killer Santa for half of it.

Craig: It is. I mean, it’s in the vein of Silent Night, Deadly Night, whatever. But honestly, like I want to see. The Christmas episode, you know, I like Christmas episodes of TV shows. I wish more film franchises like this would do a Christmas episode, do a Halloween episode, do a Christmas episode. You know, people have been shouting out for a Jason in the wintertime movie for a decade.

You know, people want to see these familiar faces in different Circumstances. Yeah, dress art up as Santa for one of the movies. I love it. And I’m not as fervent a fan as some people are. Our friend Caroline is a huge fan of these movies and I, I’m sure that she, if she hasn’t seen it already, I’m sure that she’s waiting with bated breath to see it.

So for those fans, I get it and I’m happy that That you have something like this, and, and I’m with you, I’m just a little bit out on the fringe, I’m not as fervent about it. I’m happy that you have something like this, because these were, especially for me growing up, Freddy and Jason and, and Mike Myers, I, I so looked forward.

To every new installment, even if it was bad, I looked forward to it. Yeah, it definitely has that flavor. I’m glad, I’m glad that people have that. And it was fun. I’m glad we did it for our ultimate Christmas episode. It put me in the spirit. It really did. 

Todd: It was a special. Solid christmas horror movie with plenty of homages to classic christmas horror movies.

We had our killer santa We had a lot of christmas stuff. It had that nice heartwarming holiday message of you know, family is important And uh, yeah, it was great it was a great thing to do for christmas It was a great way to wrap up this year. We are going to be coming at you again with another New Year’s episode next week.

So stay tuned for that. Thank you so much for joining us on this journey this year. We are really grateful at this time of year for all of you out there, whether you’re our patrons or whether you are just a long time listener or a fresh new listener. One of the best Christmas presents you can give us is just to introduce this podcast to a friend, wrap it all up in a box with a pretty wrapping paper and a nice bow and hand it to a horror fan that you love.

We love to welcome new people into the Two Guys in a Chainsaw family. Until next time, I’m Todd, 

Craig: and I’m Craig. Merry Christmas. 

Todd: Happy Holidays. Merry Christmas indeed, from all of us here at Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

Imagine this: The TV’s on your favorite yule log stream and suddenly, you hear talking and see some legs move across the screen. That’s the concept behind this surprising oddity from Adult Swim, which manages to sneak a horror movie into a typical yule log video.

Videos of a fire blazing were never so entertaining. We just cannot tell you ANYTHING about this movie before you watch it, or it’ll spoil all the fun. All you need to know is: You MUST watch this. And then come back here and we’ll chat about this Christmas treat.

Episode 420, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Week three of Christmas, and Craig, I think we had something else in mind, and it must have been after that Await Further Instructions movie that you, I think we’re looking for something to bring us back to the lightness of, there’s something in the barn?

I was too, and then you just kind of out of the blue sent me this thing. Hey, this Adult Swim Yule Log, that looks like fun. I barely glanced at it, but it looked like it was, it said it was a comedy horror. So I was like, yeah, I’ve never heard of it. That should be great. Let’s do it. And so I was more than eager to jump on it.

Where did you find this thing? 

Craig: I heard about it last year, and I don’t know a lot about Adult Swim. Is it a channel? What I know is it 

Todd: like a Part of Cartoon Network. I’ve never figured that out. It’s 

Craig: like a part of Cartoon Network. I think it’s like a production team. Again, like I didn’t look it up. I should have.

I think it’s a production team that does mostly animated shows. And yeah, they are connected to some network. And it’s, it’s animation for the most part for adults. And so it’s, it’s adult humor and I’ve always heard good things about it. It’s just never anything that I’ve gravitated towards, but I heard about this movie last year and I don’t remember how I, you know, I, I look at all these horror websites, so I’m sure that’s where I saw it.

And I just remember reading in the first thing that I read about it. And I want to emphasize it right now. If you have any interest, movie and you should because it’s good and it’s funny and it’s a good, it’s funny and it’s a good horror movie. So if you’re interested in a good funny holiday horror movie, stop listening right now because the fun of this movie is not knowing anything about it.

And there are so many just insane, twists and turns and surprises that you would never see coming and that is the fun of it. Is it like a cinematic masterpiece? Absolutely not. 

Clip: I don’t think it’s a cinematic masterpiece, but I think that it is great. 

Todd: You know what you sent me this and I read, like, a thing.

What starts as a simple Yule log feed devolves into a surrealist nightmare, and that’s about all I read. And I was like, oh, that sounds clever. And then I saw Adult Swim, and that reminded me, and the whole concept reminded me of, Oh, this must be, like, Too Many Cooks. Have you seen Too Many Cooks? 

Craig: No, if I have, I don’t remember.

Todd: Dude, too many cooks came out. God, I could think it was before I came to China. Was it 2015 or 2016, something like that? It was this weird thing that came on at like 2 a. m. or like close to midnight or whatever, unannounced on the Cartoon Network or the Adult Swim time or whatever it would just, it just popped on and it starts out as a introduction.

Like it’s like the full house introduction, you know, the, the TV show full house. And the people popping in and smiling with the freeze frame while their name shows up, you know. Jim Jones as the next door neighbor and so and so is this, right? And it’s got this peppy song in the background. It takes 

Clip: a lot to make a stew A pinch of salt and laughter too A scoop of kids to

Todd: And it starts out like that, but it keeps going. It’s like, how many people are in this? And then you realize, Oh, this is a joke. And then the joke goes on. It gets weirder until finally it gets so bizarre that it’s like, strange things are happening. Like the picture kind of gets weirded out, like somebody’s intercepted the transmission.

And then there’s this like sinister character that starts popping up in the background. Again, this is another thing that if you, if you want to see it, I shouldn’t spoil it for you, but it just devolves into craziness. And it ends up being like 20 minutes long, this thing you expect to end after 30 seconds goes on and on and gets more and more insane.

And I have showed it to everybody who has never seen it before. And so when I saw this and I saw, oh, it’s kind of a thing that probably was similar where it’s supposed to be just this yule log. You probably just came on and you started watching it, but then it evolved into something else. I thought, I wonder if this is by the same guy.

And it turns out it is. Casper Kelly. Mm hmm. What a great idea! 

Clip: What a great idea, I wish I had thought of it. It is a great idea, right? 

Craig: It’s so clever, like these, going to look for this movie, I think I found it on Max, but instead of typing in Adult Swim Yule Log, I just typed in Yule Log. Oh, big mistake.

And 

Clip: there were like, Fifteen different ones! 

Craig: Heck yeah, there are. Like, this is a thing! Oh, you don’t know this? I mean, I knew it was a thing, like, I knew you could get a Yule log. I didn’t, on your TV, I didn’t know that there was, like, a whole 

Clip: genre. 

Todd: Oh yeah, dude! Bic and I used to turn on a Yule log, I mean, like, pretty much from the beginning of December to the end.

If the television isn’t on, we’re watching something, we’ve got a Yule log video playing. Just cause it keeps things cozy and warm. It’s really nice. 

Craig: It is nice. I, I’m a fan of Roku city. You’re in China, I don’t know if you know what that is. When you leave the Roku on, it just does this nice like animated cityscape.

I enjoy it. 

Todd: It 

Craig: pans 

Todd: by, and different buildings come up. It’s nice. And it changes every now and then. 

Craig: Yeah, and it’s, it’s nice. Seasonal. Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd: I saw that at my parents house. I dig it. 

Craig: Yeah. The Yule log stuff. It’s nice. And that’s how it starts. Like, there are so many things that I love about this movie and I couldn’t find anything about it behind the scenes, but it’s, it’s plot heavy and I don’t know how much of the plot we want to go through, but I just thought it was, it just starts.

It’s a Yule log and you’re just watching a Yule log and there’s Beautiful instrumental, good King Wenceslas music and the crackling fire. And it’s just exactly what you would expect of a Yule log. And that goes on for two minutes and 25 seconds. And you kind of maybe hear some things in the background.

Like maybe you hear a car approach or something. I don’t know, but it’s very subtle. Doing this podcast, I have learned if you really want to experience a movie, you really need to listen to it. With good headphones or earbuds. Yeah, because there’s there’s so much in the soundscape that you’ll miss Otherwise now, of course, I enjoy watching movies with my partner and part of that experience is reacting and talking and and So I don’t, I don’t want to sit with Alan, both of us in earbuds, just so that we can hear the subtleties of the soundscape.

If you’re watching it by yourself, pop in the earbuds, because there’s little sound things that are going on throughout. Yeah. So, when we finally hear something, this woman comes in and she’s on the phone. And she’s saying like, I don’t know. It was like, people are in the wrong place or something. So now I have to clean this cabin and she’s cleaning it.

I thought she was just a cleaning lady. I think she is also the landlord. It comes out later, but whatever, it doesn’t matter. But we’re only seeing this through the lens that is shooting. The fireplace. And that’s one of the things that I love about this movie is because I thought, Oh, this is going to be really interesting because we’re going to only see a movie that’s shot from this perspective.

And that doesn’t end up being the case, but when it changes, I thought that I would be disappointed, but I wasn’t because it continues to be interesting. 

Clip: Yes. Oh God. 

Craig: Anyway, but, so this lady’s cleaning and then somebody knocks on the door and this woman is like, 

Clip: can I borrow your phone, my phone? Don’t you have a cell phone?

It, it died. This, it just ain’t my day. Oh, this, here’s my son.

Wait, what are you Now you can’t Now you What are you You can’t come in here!

Craig: And you see run across the frame, cause the camera hasn’t moved all this time. We’ve never seen anybody above the knee. You see this big, scary man chase this maid, landlady, whatever. Across the frame and then you hear that other woman’s voice say Remember to say nice things to her girls like to hear nice things 

Clip: Mm hmm, 

Craig: and then there’s this horrible like flashy Violent imagery over the fire that we’re looking at.

Clip: Mm hmm 

Craig: And the woman stops screaming and blood sprays all over the fire and the mom says You Did that feel good? Did you get your yuckies out? Oh God, 

Todd: that was so gross. 

Craig: And I am thinking, what 

Todd: am 

Craig: I watching? But that is the magic of this movie. Yes. Because I kept feeling that over and over again. What am I watching?

And ultimately, because of that, I thought it was like a super, super fun experience. 

Todd: It was. So I found an interview with the director, and he said that they were orig he his original idea was maybe we do this whole thing in like, mostly audio. Watching this Yule Log video at home one day, he was like, what would happen if like, some blurry legs just kind of walked by the Yule Log?

You know, how would people respond to that? And then he was thinking, what if we did a whole thing with mostly audio? But then he kind of thought that might not be as great. And so he ended up pitching this idea to the folks at Adult Swim. And because he was able to shoot it for such a low budget, he was able to more or less shoot it under the radar.

Like, it didn’t have to go all the way up for approvals, you know, to the top. As long as he kept it, I read in the upper six figures, he said? Mid to upper six figures? Because anything over a certain amount, you know, has to be greenlit. And and he didn’t think this would get greenlit just because it’s such a weird concept.

He originally was gonna do like Two hours of yule log video before the movie kicked in and then he realized they because they were gonna put it in this Prominent location on the time slot it came after I guess the season 6 finale of Rick and Morty which I’ve never seen But I guess it’s a really really popular TV show.

Clip: Yeah, 

Todd: he was like, oh we need to shorten this up So people don’t click away So what he said that first they were gonna they tried 10 minutes and he said that felt like three years 

Clip: Yeah, and 

Todd: so they ended up shortening it to what two and a half and that felt about right 

Clip: Yeah 

Todd: That was like the genesis of this idea and all these a couple other filmmakers who do weird things like that I mean in a way this movie gets very lynchian there are parts in here that are a little bit like eraser head 

Craig: Yeah, 

Todd: it just gets very surreal after a point.

Craig: Yeah 

Todd: And so, he got some great ideas from some other people, and, uh, it just all kind of spiraled out from this. Uh, he got an idea from his daughter for doing the whole elevator thing. Oh god, that’s great. Yeah, I don’t know if we want to walk through the whole thing. Maybe we I guess that’s What we do here, right?

But, ah, it, at some point, it does come out, and it’s clever, the way that it comes out into the big scene. You hear that the murderer and his mother or whatever, like, oh no, someone’s at the door, quick, we gotta hide the body. So they’re cleaning up, and they drag the body out, and then you hear this couple come in.

And then he kind of walks over and says something, she says, oh, there’s a camera here. And he says, oh yeah, that’s just the thing, the thing I was recording. And then he zooms out from the camera to the whole room. 

Craig: Yes, yes. And so that’s our first big shift in perspective is just a zoom out so that you see the room, you know, that the fireplace is in.

And then we stay there for a very long time. 

Todd: Yeah, like 20 minutes. 

Craig: I felt like every I don’t know. I’m not going to put a timestamp on it, but every so often it just felt like it became a different movie. Yeah. You start out, this seems like a crazy slasher with this, these crazy, who knows who they are, but they’re weird and, and, and violent and raping and killing, and then they run and hide.

And then this couple comes in and it’s a romantic drama for the next, like 20 minutes, 

Todd: at least. It’s like a, Lifetime Christmas movie or something for a little while 

Craig: almost yeah Because you know, they’re they’re lounging in front of a fireplace in this rustic cabin, which looks very nice And and you know, like it’s got a bear like they’re he’s lounging on a bearskin rug and stuff This is Alex and Zoe I didn’t write down all the actors names because I didn’t recognize any of them Alex is played by Justin Miles Zoe is played by Andrea Lang if you want to see the other actors You’re gonna have to look him up because I didn’t write him down because I didn’t recognize anybody.

So Like this is a thing that he does like he films fires for these yule log videos and he’s real proud of it Yeah, 

Todd: apparently he doesn’t make a killing but he makes enough to get by is what he says. Somebody actually asks him about it Oh gosh, it’s funny. I wondered about this though. Every time I turn on that yule log video.

I think What if I were the guy who had my Yulog videos up on Netflix? Like, is somebody making bank from this? YouTube especially, because that pays you by the watch. You put a three hour video up on YouTube and if people are looping it and watching it all the way through, that’s your way to potential riches.

Craig: Yeah, there’s a lot of meta commentary. Which I also, like, it hits, like, I don’t, I don’t know if this movie will stand the test of time, but for right now, all the meta commentary really hits, like, there’s, you know, meta commentary about the fact that all he does is set up a camera. An expensive camera because he’s bougie, but he sets up a camera and films fires, but he’s a content creator, you know, like, and he’s making money and he’s really proud of the fact that like, he went to like Bali or something and like filmed it.

Filmed a campfire and that became really popular. That one really hit big. 

Todd: Well, 

Craig: the, I know we were kind of going plot wise, but he, I don’t know. There’s a lot of stuff with them. What it comes down to is that he’s brought her there to propose to her. Yes. And he eventually does. She 

Todd: doesn’t agree. Like she just, she’s not ready to say yes, but she’s not ready to say no either.

It’s like, she keeps steering the conversation other ways. 

Craig: But one of my. Before you go on, one of my favorite things about this part is that while we’re seeing this, Yes. the way that the camera is framed, there is an ice bucket in the right corner. And while the people in the background are talking, this ice bucket is in the foreground.

And I thought that this was so clever because I thought this would really happen. I didn’t have to suspend my disbelief for this. The camera focused on them while they were talking and doing things. But at some point, the crazy man killer who’s hiding in the house. Peaks out from a door behind, but it’s reflected in the ice bucket and the camera refocuses.

Yeah. It pulls focus away from them and focuses on the ice bucket, and I believe that that would happen. Mm-hmm . With 

Clip: if. 

Craig: A good stationary camera, if the stationary camera detects motion in another place, it will readjust focus. And it was just so, and he’s not doing anything. He’s just this big hulking guy and like.

Overalls or something and a creepy like paper mask. We never see his face, but he appears to be deformed underneath it. But he’s just wearing this like paper mask of like a blonde, handsome guy. 

Todd: Pleather face. 

Craig: Yeah. He’s credited his pleather face. 

Todd: Oh 

Craig: boy. But I loved that shit. I like, I just thought there were so many clever things and it keeps doing that.

Like, so he’ll peek out. And the, the camera will refocus on him and then he’ll go back in the room that he’s in and it will refocus on them because now that’s where the motion is. So there’s 

Todd: always this, like, you can’t get too wrapped up in this because you’re constantly reminded that there’s a sinister presence that could burst out and kill them at any time or one of them might walk away and, you know, get murdered and, you know, you just don’t know what’s going to happen, but it’s there until the cops show up.

And there’s a knock on the door, and they open it up, and they go over there, and you can, and the sheriff and his deputy come walking in. 

Craig: They’re doing rounds because they found a body on the mountain. 

Todd: And then, the cop starts talking about 

Clip: Where’d you get the log? Uh, just down the road a little bit. From the tree with the rocks around it in a circle?

Yeah, I think so. Why? Is there something wrong? Mm hmm. That’s a hanging tree. They used to hang slaves on it. Oh my god. I, I, I didn’t know. I I mean, how was I supposed to know? It just was a cool looking log. And the branch I cut it off was dead, so Didn’t you see the plaque? No, I didn’t see the plaque. Did you see a plaque?

No, we, we saw no plaques, Sheriff. Oh, Diane took down that plaque, Sheriff. Yeah, she rents that place out for weddings down there. They don’t want to read about slavery. She took down the plaque? Yes, because of weddings. Well, it’s her land, but she shouldn’t have done that. 

Todd: And then he goes into this lore about how that tree is a sacred tree to the Indians nearby.

And I’m like, oh my god, this is getting hilarious. So now we have 

Craig: And the tree feeds on fear and the iron from all the blood spilled there. 

Clip: And at this point I’m like, yesss. Like, I’m so into this. 

Todd: And so he asks for a glass of water and the woman comes in and like, they’re just chatting and then he like, when she gives him the water, he dumps it on the log.

The guy’s like, what are you doing? He’s like, I really think you should stop burning that log. In fact, you should take it out and you should bury it somewhere in like a sacred way and don’t even touch it. Say a 

Clip: prayer. He calls it like the Hillbilly Bermuda Triangle or something. It’s crazy. 

Todd: And then the guy’s like, uh, or, I can’t remember who our main character is.

He looks at the guy and says, you really believe this stuff, don’t you? And then his deputy goes, oh yeah, ask him to tell you sometime about the aliens. So then he leaves. And I’m thinking in my head. God. God, I hope they’re going to be aliens in this movie after this, because they’ve already piled two things on.

You’ve got the killer in the house and you have an evil log, 

Craig: right? Well, a cursed log, right? Like, I don’t know what’s going on here, but this is also the point where all of a sudden we start having lots of flashbacks. But the way that they do flashbacks, I love, 

Clip: oh yes, 

Craig: the flashbacks are set. In the same location in different time periods and the way they do it.

Todd, you’re the technician. I don’t know how to 

Todd: explain this, but they like, it’s like dragging a split screen across the screen, but maybe you’ll, you’ll go all the way across, or maybe you’ll only go halfway across and while the action still going on, or 

Craig: maybe that, yeah, maybe the flashback will just be a segment that travels across, but it’s, but it’s.

It’s all in the same location, so it’s just like, you’re seeing people in black and white. 

Todd: Like the same cabin. Yeah. 

Craig: Yeah. And it’s all in sync, like it’s all happening at the same time. 

Todd: And the guy sets this up because you hear an audio when they first come into the house before we ever meet this couple.

He says something to her, to his girlfriend about, oh yeah, like this cabin’s been here since the Civil War and has hardly changed at all. And that’s what you see in the flashback. It’s like, perfectly overlaid. When the screen swipes over, so it’s just, it’s just so fun. It’s 

Craig: neat. Yeah. Yeah. It’s neat and it’s fun and it’s not just one time period.

Like you see multiple time periods of different things, mostly bad things, but you don’t see those bad things from the beginning. Like you just get glimpses of like two boys in like coonskin caps playing. More. I don’t know, any other of number things, there ends up being like two or three different past plotlines.

Clip: Yes. 

Craig: But they don’t start out scary and violent, they just start out kind of as establishing shots, and they go by very quickly, but then you learn more about them as they go on, and you see that lots of bad things have happened here. 

Todd: Yeah, and think for a moment. of the technical wizardry required for this because the director said, he said, you know, we did not have time or the ability to go in and like do crazy editing here.

This is all one long 20 minute shot from the Yule log at the beginning until eventually We slip into more of movie mode, but until then, he’s like, we had to get all this in one take, and we had to get the timing right. These characters had to leave space, right, for these flashbacks to happen on half the screen or in front of the screen.

And so they rehearsed like crazy, these two, before they went in to do this extremely long scene where they even had to get the timings right to allow for the flashback. I mean, it’s pretty incredible. It is. This is all in one shot for so long, with these things happening. 

Craig: Yes, and the acting is great. Like I really don’t have any complaints if I were to complain about anything It would just be nitpicking and eventually there’s some cgi And it looks like they didn’t have a lot of money and I don’t care probably they didn’t I don’t care It’s it’s it’s fun.

And like I get it. It’s cgi. Whatever. I Yeah, it looks like cgi fine. Whatever they worked with what they had. This is an entertaining movie and You It’s, it’s well shot. They, you know, a lot of times I talk about cinematography and mostly what I’m talking about is just if things look beautiful. In this, I think it’s very skillful cinematography in terms of style and technique.

There are just so many cool, innovative, in my opinion, I’ve never seen a movie like this. 

Todd: It’s very unique. 

Craig: It takes you in such different places. Again, like it feels like several different movies, but they are interwoven so well that it doesn’t seem jarring. Like, like you said, we know that those killers are there.

But we almost really forget about them because after the relationship movie, this Hallmark movie where they’re dealing with their things and he wants to propose, but she’s reticent for reasons that we don’t really know. But eventually after he proposes and she can’t decide, he’s like, you know, I know that you’ve been through a lot.

Do you maybe need to up your medication? 

Clip: Right. 

Craig: Which is a really difficult to say. Conversation to have with anybody and then there’s this whole debate in that part I’m trying to get to the next part but I there were things that I wanted to hit here where He wants to get married and she’s like and this seems very melodramatic, but I understand her point of view She says The planet is dying, Alex.

How do you plan for the future when there is none? And she goes on this whole thing, like, how do you bring kids into this world? And it feels very melodramatic, but I think that people are feeling these feelings, so I get it. This feels very timely. Yeah. And then he says to her, every period of time feels like the worst time when you’re in it.

And he says, pick an era. And then we get like a flashback to slavery, which we’ve already kind of established before. And then they have this whole debate about panicking about the state of the world. And I know this movie came out in 2022. And people were thinking about this then, but I think that this is something that is on people’s mind.

And I just thought that this was a very timely conversation. And it actually hit me somewhere. When he said, Everybody thinks that the time that they’re going through is the worst time. 

Todd: Yeah. Yeah, it’s true. 

Craig: Maybe that’s true! I think it is. 

Todd: Whenever I get really, really down, I go back and I think, Now, wait a minute.

It’s not World War II. Yet, anyway. Yeah. And I imagine how scared people were, and how people thought the world was going to hell, and nothing was ever going to be the same again, and just, just this living nightmare. And so, like, that ended, and, you know. Everybody kind of recovered from that and so that these kinds of thoughts give me hope the black plague world war ii You know that kind of stuff.

Craig: Yeah, right. Yeah, right change is scary and I you know, I understand that a lot of people are You know concerned about the state of the world as am I? God, I I need to up my meds. I get it, but that actually kind of hit home for me. Like it does put some things in context. So the thing that I was trying to get to is then it turns into another movie because.

Not unlike a movie that we reviewed, I think, in the last year, Barbarian, another group of people shows up and they’re like, We booked this place too! 

Clip: Yep. 

Craig: And it turns out they did. 

Clip: Mm hmm. 

Craig: And so nobody’s really in the wrong, but they’re in this bad situation, and this other group of young people, there’s Two guys and two girls, I think, and the one, the most stonery of them all, is like, Yeah, we all took edibles to hit right when we got here, so

We’re gonna have to stay. 

Todd: They’re there because they’re going to investigate lynchings and alien abductions that have been linked to the cabin for their paranormal podcast. And this one, you know, this one offended me because,

I just love, they’re really poking fun at the podcasters, and fair enough, they should be, it becomes obvious very quickly that, yeah, like, These guys have a podcast, but probably not very many people listen. And there’s certainly not making money from it yet. But, but at first the stoner dude sort of tries to pass it off as his job.

There’s so much comedy and I just loved it. Also, you know, you were saying barbarian that was obviously instantly coming to me with that mix up. The other thing I was thinking of was because we’re in the single shot for so long. And very soon it does change. But we’re in the single shot for so long that I was getting almost like alien abduction vibes.

You remember that movie? 

Clip: Yeah. 

Todd: Now it’s not that that was a static camera, but that was a very home movie type feeling. And I think the stuff that we’ve been talking about would have felt more melodramatic and more fake had it been shot in a more Hollywood style. Yeah, absolutely. But because it was just this one take with this static camera, like, I could buy into all this totally because, you know, people are just awkward, people have awkward conversations and all this stuff.

It was great. I loved it. I was so into it. I did too. But I was also laughing my head off at some of these people. 

Craig: Yeah, but, and it feels more real because, you know, people are having conversations and whatnot and that’s fine. But the camera doesn’t go to focus completely. Tight on them. It’s just filming the whole room So you also see all the other people in the room and at you know At some points there are four or five people in the 

Todd: room 

Craig: And some of them are listening and some of them are not and 

Todd: walking in and out of the frame 

Craig: Yeah, it it feels more observational 

Todd: Mm hmm.

Craig: I don’t know, you know, it’s just a style choice, but for this it really works. At some point They try to call the landlady and they hear the phone ringing because she’s the one that got killed apparently and they find her phone under The couch and then the new people who’ve arrived. 

Todd: Ben, Beth, Holly, and Henry.

Craig: Yeah Here are my notes. Ben with the mustache Beth the blonde, Henry the stoner, and Holly the slut. That’s a mean thing to say. That’s a mean thing to say, but that’s what I wrote about her in my notes. She seems like a nice girl. 

Todd: But it was also classic, like, you know, Friday the 13th. 

Craig: Yeah, right, right, right, right.

Like these stereotypical characters. All of them. 

Clip: Mhm. 

Craig: But they talk about, you know, they’re doing this podcast or whatever, and they’re telling them all these things that they know, because they’ve done their research. So great. I love that. Like, you know, bring in these characters. And on the one hand, they’re a little bit douchey.

But on the other hand, they seem like fun people, you know, and they talk about, as you’ve already mentioned, how the mountain has been the site of alien objections and lynchings. And they start to tell this story about this lady named Esther Dinkins. And this is another, like, flashback, you know, like, I think it turns out that she’s abducted by aliens.

I don’t know. It was a little bit difficult to follow. But as they’re talking about all of this, somebody says enough about your podcast and I just died laughing. I just died because. I have nothing else to talk about. Like, like, I work and I do this. And so when I’m at work with my friends, I talk about the podcast a lot.

And I’m sure they are sick of it. Craig was triggered. I’m sure that they are like, enough about your f ing podcast. We get it. 

Todd: Oh, it’s funny. Cause I can 

Craig: only imagine how annoying it is. If I were in their shoes, I would just, I don’t know how they keep from just rolling. Their eyes like popping out of their heads from rolling so far back.

I don’t know. 

Clip: Uh huh 

Craig: Boy, and then we get introduced. Yeah, isaac and rosa. You should talk about isaac and rosa This is 

Todd: isaac and rosa are the the in the past, right? Is this where we get that scene with the two of them? 

Craig: Well again, it’s a lot of cuts, you know Like we get these backstories in 30 second increments So you don’t know who these people are, you have to put it together, but over the course of the movie you figure it out.

Todd: Isaac is very conveniently sat at a table right in front of the fire, perfectly framed for us. He is a guy, who is a slave owner, and Rosa is his slave gal. She is serving him his dinner, and they have some very pleasant conversation. I don’t remember how many flashbacks this plays out. At first, we don’t really get a sense that anything’s wrong.

I think we just, they just have some chat. 

Craig: It seems very friendly. 

Todd: I was thinking, oh god, this could get really cringey, right? This whole slavery thing, 

Craig: you know? No, of course, of course. I, I, you know, I, I don’t know. It, it is. It’s a sensitive subject. But, I think Even in this very first one, or one of the early ones, I may be jumping ahead, but she says You know, he compliments her on the food that she’s made him and blah, blah, blah.

The 

Todd: cornbread. I love it. It’s so moist. 

Craig: Right. And she says 

Clip: I made a quote for William. It is getting cold and it wasn’t ready when he was sold to Mr. Luther. But um, you know, he’s scared of thunder. So now he can look at this in every day’s blue skies. And he always was scared of thunder, that boy. It’s a nice blanket, Rosa.

I’d like to touch it, but I don’t want to get corn on it. It looks soft. So will you take it to him? And while you’re there, can you see how he’s doing? 

Craig: I think that’s all we hear at that point. But then the movie changes again because at this point, I don’t, if it’s time for bed or something, I don’t know.

Well, 

Todd: they all just decide Yeah, to go up to their various areas. Somebody goes up to shower, somebody goes into a hot tub, somebody goes to get changed. I think the other two go to their bedroom. The room’s empty, right? And the fireplace reignites on its own. And only at this point do we change from our static camera to a view from inside.

Inside the fireplace and suddenly it’s like a POV shot almost of like a demon or something kind of like Amityville 2 or whatever and it goes up the stairs and into the room where is it? Ben? Is he the guy showering? It’s classic person showering right? The shower curtain swings open and Ben looks down like what and then whack whack whack and I was like This is the log killing him, isn’t it?

The log? 

Craig: Oh, I had no idea what was going on, because it’s the camera. Yeah. The camera is smashing his face. Bro, the RPOV. 

Todd: Oh, I instantly thought, this has got to be the log. I was just laughing. I’m like, so the log floated out of the fireplace, went upstairs and whacked this guy in the head. Oh my God. It was brutal though.

It was very bloody. 

Craig: Well, and then it’s immediate, it’s immediately confirmed. You see the log fly back into the fireplace. Oh boy. No, but I’m, I’m, I’m right there with you. Like I thought, Oh my God, that is so funny. Like this is, 

Clip: this is literally a 

Craig: killer Yule 

Clip: log. 

Craig: Oh my God. So funny. I’m 

Todd: also thinking, where did the killers go?

Where did the murderers go? If they all retreated to their rooms, there can’t be that many rooms. 

Craig: They’re gone for so long. I know. And where are they? I don’t know. They do come back. That was 

Todd: weird. 

Craig: Yeah, more goes on, like, I don’t know. They all come 

Todd: back in and kind of sit around. 

Craig: They’re all sitting there in front of the fire again and like talking and flirting and blah blah blah.

And now 

Todd: it’s all, it’s like regular movie style at this point. We don’t have the static camera anymore. Uh huh. Yeah. 

Craig: One of the new girls is flirting with the guy that proposed to his Yeah. Fiancé or whatever. Kind of silly, but the big stoner guy who happens to be Asian and it’s a joke because they say that the girl that he’s with only dates Asian guys and she’s like, no, I don’t.

But he starts seeing things. First it’s the bearskin rug moving, but then there’s a little Southern man calling to him from the pub. And when this 

Clip: happened, I was.

Craig: This to me, that’s why I said, don’t listen to this. If you haven’t seen this movie, because this weird shit just comes out of nowhere, 

Todd: like 

Craig: what, like now there’s 

Clip: a little man in the fireplace. 

Todd: Because I had seen too many cooks, and I realized this connection, I was really ready for everything. I’m like, okay, this is gonna be one of those movies.

And it is, it’s also very David Lynch, where just bizarre shit happens, and you’re not sure if it’s real, or if it’s a dream, or what’s going on. Yeah, he crawls, the middleman says, come here into the fireplace. He crawls into the fireplace, through the fire, and ends up in a room. Behind the fireplace and the man’s like you must be really good at this because you didn’t get burned by the fire And it is a room that is half on flames, but it’s like cheesy CGI effects actually Yeah, and he’s like, why don’t you come sit down and I’ll serve you something 

Craig: but I like it because it’s surreal.

It’s dreamland It’s 

Todd: just super surreal There’s like a bartender behind a little bar there that has a the head of a deer and doesn’t even move 

Clip: Yeah. 

Todd: And eventually, he just says, I want What, he tries to serve him some stuff, he tries to give him something to drink, he asks for a Dr. Pepper, and he’s like, Well, I don’t have a Dr.

Pepper, but I got a nurse What was it? 

Clip: Nurse Nutmeg. That’s even better than a Dr. Pepper. That’s ridiculous. 

Todd: And easier to find if you know what I mean. Anyway, he says, well, let me show you something and he leads him to an elevator 

Craig: yeah, but even before that like real quick out of nowhere a Second Henry pops up over the first Henry’s shoulder and it’s like don’t listen to him.

Don’t do what he says

Wild it is wild it’s entirely Surreal Anything can happen and I love that. I love it. And then you’re the fireplace becomes like an elevator, but it’s so cool. 

Todd: He takes him into the elevator and it closes and there’s a little fireplace. It’s just like an opening. With a fireplace behind it and he presses a button.

It’s almost like Willy Wonka where this this elevator is sideways and up and down and it takes him into behind different fireplaces. And this was the idea that the director’s daughter gave him this idea of this elevator that could take you from fireplace to fireplace. I don’t know. Kind of like the flu network in Harry Potter or something, right?

It’s brilliant. And he goes by these different scenes looking into people’s homes and really briefly. Was, unmistakably, the guy from Too Many Cooks is one of the scenes, like this big kind of, I, I just want to say odd looking guy with a beard and everything who’s sitting there, and I was like, oh my god, there’s, I wonder if he’s gonna come into play, he never really does, but, uh, there for a brief moment I thought he was the crazy pleather face guy, but he wasn’t.

Oh. But anyway, yeah. And he takes him to one fireplace and he says, do you know who that is in there? 

Craig: Cause he says it can go through time too. Yes. Yes, that’s right. 

Todd: And he says to him, and this is kind of the theme, right? That you referred to earlier. 

Clip: So I hear you’re the screw up of the family. 

Todd: Oh, 

Clip: that’s what I just heard.

Sisters are two doctors. One’s a surgeon. Yeah, but um, my parents just want me to be happy. So they’re happy you’re a drug dealer. Well, they don’t know that. I’m also a podcaster. Podcaster? Good for you. What if I told you I could wipe all the failures from your life? 

Todd: Just wipe it clean. Take this magic marker and crawl through this fireplace.

That woman in there? Do you know who she is? Oh, that’s my mother. Yeah, and do you notice anything? He’s like, she’s pregnant? Is that with me? And he’s like, yep. You crawl through the fireplace, take a piece of paper from that pad next to her while she’s sleeping, write on it A and put it on the fridge and come back through.

And he’s like, well, what if I wake her up? She’ll, like, totally freak out. It’ll change everything. He’s like, well, you’re not gonna do that, right? You’re gonna be very careful. So he does. He crawls through there, writes A on the paper, sticks it on the refrigerator, crawls back through the fireplace and stands in there.

And then suddenly, he’s holding a red magic marker instead of a black one. And I don’t remember exactly what the dialogue is here. 

Craig: The, well, he says, I think you did it wrong or something. And the kid is like, no, I did exactly what you said. I put a plus plus on her stomach. I mean, on, on the refrigerator. 

Todd: I mean, on her stump.

What? On her stomach? With the magic marker? And he’s like, that’s not a magic marker. And he looks down, he has a bloody knife in his hand. 

Craig: It’s mean. 

Todd: And, yeah, his, uh, mother’s all cut up. Like he’s stabbed her. And then it cuts back out to The crowd in the living room and there’s a new Asian man in the sofa next to the woman.

He’s 

Craig: replaced. He’s replaced. I felt bad for that. 

Todd: It’s a devil’s bargain kind of thing. 

Craig: It is. And the kid is like, but I did, I just did what you told me. And the little man, he says, well, I’d love to debate with you, but I don’t debate with people that don’t exist. And then he disappears. And like you said, he cuts back and he’s been replaced with a new Asian guy.

It’s 

Todd: so sad. Yeah. 

Craig: Who doesn’t even have a name because it doesn’t matter because they find the body in the shower and then the log just comes out It 

Clip: goes crazy Oh my god 

Craig: starts killing people crushing it crushes beth’s head It’s henry the new asian guy tries to put it out and like it flies him all around the cabin and kills him 

Todd: Yeah, it’s also talking.

It’s like crying out. It’s almost like Rosa, I think. I think it’s, I think we figured, I figured out later it was like, 

Craig: it’s saying weird things and I couldn’t figure it out for a while. 

Todd: Mm-hmm . 

Craig: But as it turns out, honestly, I don’t really understand exactly what’s happening because it’s seems in the end that the log is possessed by Rosa, but it also says things Yeah.

That. other flashbacks that have nothing to do with Rosen like at one point I wrote in my notes. Did I hear? I’m not a sodomite. And then, yeah, I did. I heard that because it comes up later, but like the log at some point is just flying around and say, I’m not a sodomite. What?

Todd: Oh, it’s hilarious. 

Craig: This goes on for a long time. They try to call the police and they’re like, the sheriff was already here earlier. And they’re like, uh, we don’t have a sheriff. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So the sheriff is shady now and the log it’s flying through the window. It’s talking, it’s saying arson is another thing that it, that ends up being something else like arson, A R S O N is what I heard.

And I think that’s what you’re supposed to hear, but it, it comes up more. This part, honestly. It, it didn’t feel slow or convoluted to me, but it seems weird, like, to, to go through it point by point, because honestly, not a lot happens, just the log follows them around for a long time. 

Todd: Yeah, and they hide, and 

Craig: And she says, like, the sheriff was shady, I didn’t tell you before, but I saw him sprinkle something on the fire.

Yeah. 

Clip: Why are you just now bringing this up? I know, right? Like, that seems so, like, weird. 

Todd: But this is what, they’re stuck in the closet, right? The couple. Yeah. We get this long scene of the couple in the closet where he goes through like every horror movie in like ten minutes. I found this to be funny, almost like a parody of horror movies.

He just keeps reassuring her the way that he does. characters in horror movies reassure people, and it goes to these absurd lengths where he’s also like, by the end of it, this is going to be great because the camera’s still on and we’re going to be rich because there’s going to be a movie about this and who do you want to play you in the movie?

Craig: It’s just, it’s just, it’s going to be, it’s going to be. Theatrical, not straight to Netflix. Yes! 

Todd: It’s just this absurd thing going on. In the meanwhile, the log is out scoping out the hallway and sees the vent, hears their voices and I was like, is this log really going to crawl through the vent? It sure does.

And that’s what scares them out of there. But then I think it’s when they leap out of there that they get ambushed by, finally, the murderer. And his mom, and then we get this scene. That was, I think, by far the most disgusting scene of the whole film. 

Craig: Now we are back to the slasher movie that we visited briefly for one minute in the beginning.

Todd: Mm-hmm . And 

Craig: we are fully. 

Todd: Yeah, it’s like the log doesn’t exist anymore. 

Craig: Yeah, the big, crazy, gross, disgusting guy has these two beautiful women tied up and is menacing them and is debating which of them he’s going to rape. First, it’s disgusting and like, it’s dark and gross and the mother has the guy, I don’t remember his name, tied up in another room.

This was 

Todd: so nasty. Oh my 

Craig: god. It’s so gross. But he’s trying to, I don’t know, talk to her. Sweet 

Todd: talk her to try to kind of get her to untie him. Sweet talk 

Craig: her, right. But she’s on to him. But all the while. She is eating pimento cheese off of a knife, and it’s like smeared all over her face, and like she’s kinda gross anyway, like I’m sure this actress is lovely, but they’ve uglied her up and she’s gross, and she’s got like gross hair.

teeth and stringy hair. And she’s got this like deep, weird Southern accent and everything she says is disgusting. And she’s defending her kid. And then she starts trying to seduce him. And she’s like putting pimento cheese all over his mouth. And like, she’s like, I hope you’re not offended by my pimento cheese bread.

You’ve got pimento cheese bread too. Like, Oh my God. It was so funny. She 

Todd: wipes it off his lips and licks it from her fingers is disgusting Disgust by far the most gross part of the whole movie 

Craig: But honestly in that moment when I was watching this I was like, this is great. Oh, yeah 

Todd: 100%. 

Craig: This is a great scene.

She is up and scary like he’s trying to manipulate her and she’s playing along. But it’s also obvious that she totally knows what he’s doing and she does and she calls him out on it eventually. Like she is a psycho. She is a psycho right out of the hills have eyes or any of those other movies. 

Clip: Yeah.

Craig: Like it’s in the midst of this. Ridiculous film which I’ve been having so much fun with but seriously like it’s one movie to the next and this movie is Scary. 

Clip: Yeah, it is 

Craig: and then the aliens are

Todd: Sure enough there’s a bright light coming in it interrupts hit her interrupts pleather face and she goes to the window and sees a spaceship like a classic flying saucer land and through the door comes this alien that is sort of an amalgamation of different aliens. It’s got that classic black eyes, you know, round head look, but it’s also has all these weird pores all over his head and it’s carrying this disgusting gun.

And the director said, it looks 

Craig: like a flashlight. 

Todd: Yeah, it really did. I don’t think that was an accident. The director said that he had the help of this alien. Friend of his he’s an effects artist that this was all shot down in Georgia and the director is from Georgia and most of these Actors are from Georgia or North Carolina, South Carolina that this is how they were able to kind of shoot It’s so cheap, but he said that this friend of his he’s got a warehouse full of effects stuff It just he never throws anything away when a productions done with stuff.

He grabs it So he’s like the kind of guy who’s just got everything and he is game for anything and a real go getter He said he’s the kind of guy you can go to and say hey Could I have like a creature that’s just like made of eyeballs and he’s like And he’ll be like, yeah, man, I got like a thousand eyeballs in my truck there.

Let’s glue them all together. Let’s go. And it was their brainstorming that came up with this alien. And he said, this guy was totally game to cobble this thing together. And it is crazy. He’s got a giant bottle hanging off of his shoulder attached to this gun. He shoots this flashlight gun, which shoots tendrils out and goes in the eyes, nose, and mouth.

It’s crazy. of this woman, and then sucks, I guess, liquefies all of her internal organs and sucks it into this, uh, gun, which then starts to fill up this tank that he’s carrying around. And she just gets sucked down to a comical, like, Judge Doom, you know, flat, Skin person on the floor. Alex manages to get out somehow.

Craig: No, no, he gets sucked too. He 

Todd: gets it too, but not completely, I guess. But he’s worse for wear. Yeah. But then, while this is happening, we get this clever stuff with a split screen. Where in the other room, while this guy is assaulting the girl with the boobs. Holly. We get a split screen of those two kids playing Cowboy and Indian.

They have a knife. 

Craig: It’s because we now get the story of Isaac and Rose. That’s right. Like, she Oh, God. She had We didn’t know who the person was. I didn’t know if it was her husband. You know, sadly, and this is obviously very serious, but sadly, slave families were split up on purpose because they didn’t want them to have familial So I didn’t know if it was her husband or her, I didn’t know what it was, but it turned, he had been sold off somewhere else.

And Isaac, the white man had promised that he was going to sell him to this nice slave owner, but 

Todd: instead he sold him to the bad 

Craig: one, to the bad one. And she gets very angry and he kind of tries to put her in her place and says, I’m sorry about your son. And she says, it was our son, our son. And then she throws the blanket that she made over him and stabs him in the head.

And so we realize now that the log hasn’t been saying Arson, it has been saying Our Son. 

Clip: Mm hmm. 

Craig: Right. And so at this point, I thought, okay, the log is Rosa, but ultimately I don’t know if that is the mythology of this. 

Todd: I think it’s just like a bunch of Past spirits of the yeah of the house or something the 

Craig: bad.

Yeah, maybe it started with her I think it started with her because then we also see that she gets hung from that tree 

Clip: Mm hmm, 

Craig: and the log came from that tree So maybe it started with her but I don’t think it’s just her because we see other things too. We see some guy who’s Dressed in women’s lingerie who gets beaten by a, to death by another man.

I don’t have any idea what was going on there, but you’re right. But Rosa, the knife that she used to stab the guy, she had hidden up inside the fireplace. And when the boys were playing, it had fallen out and I don’t think they, did they do anything with it? I think they just put it back, put it back. 

Clip: Yep.

Craig: And so then while these two women are being menaced by pleather face, it falls out again and she gets it. 

Todd: I don’t 

Craig: even remember what, what, what is she able to do with it, just cut herself free? 

Todd: Yeah, she cuts herself free and she escapes. Is this the point, though, where she also sees the little man in the fireplace?

Craig: We should just jump to that. I don’t know, like, there’s more alien stuff. There’s a bunch of 

Todd: shit going on, honestly. 

Craig: Yeah, but, but she, but that’s important. She sees, yes, kinda while all this is going on, yes, and then she goes in there, too. And it’s the same thing. She gets tempted with something, too. I don’t remember what it was.

Like, oh, this is the, a hundred million sperm story. And for every pregnancy, there are a hundred million sperm that could have, you know, fertilized that egg. And did you ever think about if one of those other hundred million, maybe they would have done better things than you, and maybe they wouldn’t have been so miserable, blah, blah, blah.

So go stop your parents from f ing and making you. And she’s like, no.

And I don’t know, they have a funny, you know, they have kind of a funny dialogue. 

Todd: Alex somehow comes in, I can’t remember how, but does he pop into the fireplace too, or? 

Craig: I don’t know, she, well, I think when, when Zoe refuses the deal, she pops back out of the fireplace. 

Todd: Oh, and he, no, he stabs a poker through, into the fireplace.

At one point Oh, that’s right! Yeah, the guy, like a giant poker comes into the room and pins the little guy to the wall, and she crawls out of the fireplace, and you see that Alex had poked a a poker in there, so. 

Craig: Right. And she stabs Plutterface in the dick, and then in the eye, and she Alex begs her to kill him, cause he’s not looking good.

Todd: No. He, I thought he might have an alien inside of him, but I guess he didn’t. 

Craig: I didn’t know what was going on with him. It doesn’t really matter. He didn’t. Ultimately. 

Todd: They get chased around by the, by the log a bunch more. They get out, Holly runs into the forest. 

Craig: That was so funny to me like they run out to the car and they realize they don’t have the keys and they’re like the Keys are inside and Holly’s like that.

I’m getting out of here. She just runs away 

Clip: and you never see her again. No 

Todd: Not like 

Clip: slow clap for Holly like she must be fine. She’s fine. Holly must They should have just gone with her 

Craig: they do go back in and Holly like has an accent And the log is like threatening them and she’s like, I’m going to Paul Bunyan your ass mother.

But she, she like knocks it into the refrigerator and they somehow lock it in there and then they leave. And then there’s a whole, like, they just, they’re driving, they’re trying to get away and they come to that. Tree the hanging tree or whatever and there’s like a cult of people including the fake sheriff and the deputy Like chanting around the tree.

It’s 

Todd: now a satanic cult movie. Yeah 

Craig: She plows through them and there’s like this ghostly naked woman in the barn. I have no idea who that was I 

Todd: thought it was First that that was, uh, what’s her name? But Holly, but it’s not. 

Craig: No. 

Todd: Yeah. And 

Craig: the guy is like, keep driving. And she’s like, I’ll keep driving until we run out of gas.

So then it cuts to the next morning and presumably they’re very far away and he’s in really bad shape, but she stops at a stoplight and they have a romantic moment where she takes out the engagement ring that he gave her and she was, you know, skeptical, but she puts it on. She’s like, yeah, I will marry you.

And then the flaming CGI log rises. up, you know, right outside her window and, and crashes into them and blows them all like, like blood, like the whole car explodes full of blood. 

Clip: And 

Craig: then it cuts to some weird Modern office. 

Todd: Yeah, it’s like the film freezes pulls out and it’s like it was like a video playing on a computer screen or something And when it pans over it’s the same actor that was playing the slave owner 

Craig: Yes, it’s isaac and rosa, but it took me a second to figure that out because they look very different They look modern.

It took me a second. I was like, why did why is that guy so familiar? But it’s isaac and rosa and rosa. Is it the boss? But what is, what are they doing? 

Todd: I don’t know. He’s working on some design for something like the Armfield cotton mill lofts or something. And she’s like, Oh, that’s approval. That’s I’ll prove that now she’s his boss.

You know, it’s this kind of this role reversal. 

Craig: But they’re also. 

Todd: But they’re also married. Yeah. Yes. And they have a kid apparently, but, and cause you see a picture of the kid. 

Craig: Yes. You see a family picture of them on his desk and the actor who plays pleather face. Is like their maintenance guy. 

Todd: That’s right.

That’s right. 

Craig: So it’s like this, I, I, I didn’t, I didn’t know what was going on, but then she’s like, come on, let’s go home. And he’s like, I don’t know. I’ll have to ask the boss. And she’s like, okay, we’ll go ahead and ask the boss. He’s like, well, can I go home early boss? And she’s like, yeah. And they’re smiling and they’re in love and they’re walking out and they see the pleather face guy and he’s happy too.

But then, Everything just starts burning. 

Todd: Mm hmm. And suddenly they’re like back to their previous identity. 

Craig: Yes. And they realize that all of this is fake and so I didn’t know if it was meant to be that they’re in hell or they’re just still the log. Like, I don’t know. 

Todd: I’m not sure we’re ever gonna know.

I’m not even sure there’s a point to it. 

Craig: I know. Well, no, I don’t really know about that, but I watched this movie. I woke up yesterday morning and watched this movie first thing. And then I, you know, had my whole day and chaperoned a high school dance until 1130 at night. And then I came home and I wasn’t tired.

So I watched the sequel. 

Clip: I want to see it so badly. 

Craig: I was a little skeptical of it in the first five, 10 minutes. And then I was like, Oh, I see what they’re doing here and it landed for me hard. 

Todd: Really? 

Craig: Yeah. I 

Todd: read that’s a little different. 

Craig: It is. It’s great. Like the, it calls back to most of the things from the first movie at some point, but it does different things too.

We’re not confined to this one cabin. And so it makes it one part horror movie. Equal part Hallmark Christmas movie. Oh, and it’s, it’s perfect. And it does really cool things cinematically. Like when it’s the horror movie it’s shot in letterbox and in really dark tones. And then when it switches to Hallmark, it’s full screen and like really bright and like fun Christmas music.

And sometimes it will do that. Split screen thing, like, where she’ll be on one half of the screen in her horror movie, and on the other half of the screen, the people are in their Hallmark movie. Oh, God. And it manages to Lampoon both these types of slasher horror movies and hallmark movies and just I think the perfect way because I think the best way to lampoon those types of things is to just be since mostly sincere You got to play it straight like like 

Clip: yeah, 

Craig: yeah play it straight like they lampoon themselves So you don’t have to try too hard the conventions that you’re trying to satirize are ridiculous themselves.

So just, just go a teeny, teeny step further and do it tongue in cheek. I loved it. I thought it was great. I think we should do it next Christmas. I think we should 

Todd: too. I, I totally am down for that. Isn’t that, didn’t Will Ferrell also do a satirical lifetime movie horror thing called like, A Deadly Adoption or something like that?

Craig: Maybe, maybe. Where they played 

Todd: it 100 percent straight to the point where I think probably people don’t realize it’s a, it’s a parody because it’s so straight, you know, I, this was the director’s very first movie, full length movie. He did a lot of writing and directing for television, a lot in the adult swim area, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and, and he was really nervous about doing this.

And one. Odd situation to be doing your first feature because he had to do the whole thing in secret because they didn’t want anybody to know about it. And they were, you know, they were trying to keep it from the upper, the higher ups at the company as well as keep it quiet from the general public so as to not to spoil the surprise because they wanted it to be the same kind of thing like too many cooks where you would just discover it.

And I think it worked so well. I just love the surreal oddity of it. It’s just something completely unique. It’s fun all the way through. So it keeps you guessing. You get to a point where you realize the movie’s just gonna be wacky, and we’re just along for the ride, and it’s fun, and yet it still manages to be scary.

Yeah! At points. So it, uh, it just checks all those boxes. I’m so glad to hear that the sequel feeds off of that, you know, kind of continues it, instead of just trying to be something entirely new. Ugh. I loved it. Me too. And so next week, we’re gonna go and we’re gonna do something very, very mean spirited, aren’t we?

Craig: People will probably be able to figure it out just from that. That was that was a good enough tease. But yeah, 

Todd: it’s the movie. We can’t help but do this year. Well, I think we’ve got it. We’ve struck a good balance, right? 

Craig: Me too. I’m really glad we did this one. I’m glad that we I mean, I like all these.

Movies, but the one that we did before this was dark. The next one that we’re gonna do is dark. This one was fun Yeah, I had a really good time with 

Todd: it. It really was fun. Well, that is up for week three We’ve got one more film to go this holiday season Then we go into New Year’s and a brand new year ahead of us.

So if you enjoyed this Please share with a friend some of that holiday cheer. You can just send them straight to our website, ChainsawHorror. com, or just tell them to Google Two Guys in a Chainsaw podcast so they can find it wherever they listen to all of their podcasts. And we hope you guys are having a good, happy holiday season right now.

We will see you next week for Christmas time. Until then, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

We turn from last week’s bundle of holiday cheer to about the bleakest, most depressing Christmas horror fare you could find.

Does it intend to make a political statement? Yes. Several. Kind of akin to spending an awkward family holiday dinner with your most overtly racist relatives, it’s not gonna fill you with warmth and goodness. But this is a horror movie, after all, so whaddya expect? So drink up and drink in this highly-emotional feature-length Twilight Zone episode of what happens when a family’s already-awful Christmas Eve festivities get turned completely upside-down.

Episode 419, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, Craig, we’re week two into the Christmas season, and, uh, last week we kicked it off with this just nice and warm, fuzzy feeling Christmas movie. I guess it’s only fitting that we follow it up with a terrible, dark, depressing I guess. Story of Christmas gone wrong when this movie started out It started to feel like a cautionary tale about family that doesn’t get along getting together for the holidays Anyway, but devolved into something else entirely.

What we’re doing is Await Further Instructions. It was a 2018 horror film recommended by a number of our patrons. Yeah. Yeah, I had never heard of it before Obviously hadn’t seen it before it looks like it’s a shutter produced film or co produced film Like I said came out in 2018 and was directed by Johnny Kevorkian who did He did a few things and then, sadly, passed away a couple years after this movie was released.

Oh, I didn’t know that. Yeah, of a heart attack. Yeah, this is one of, I think, five or six films that he’s done. And then the writer, Gavin Williams, here, wrote a few things. This, I think, was his very first, uh, feature length credit for writing. And then since then has gone on to be a writer on a couple things.

Just really not much, actually, to be honest with you. This is a British production. And yeah, like I said, I have, I had never seen it before. I’d never heard of it before, but the premise was very intriguing. How about you?

Craig: I watch everything. Right. Uh, so yeah, I’d seen it. 

Todd: Oh, okay. 

Craig: I vaguely, you know, I vaguely remembered it.

I didn’t remember having any strong feelings about it one way or another, but I remembered that there was more than meets the eye to like, The thing that eventually like traps them in the house or whatever. Like I knew where it was going this time around. Okay. Yeah, but I honestly was kind of surprised.

I, I honestly, I think several, multiple people either suggested or specifically requested this movie. 

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And I was surprised because I just didn’t think anybody knew about it. I just thought it was, you know, one of those. Just random things on the internet that I stumbled across, but I don’t know. Like you said, I mean, ultimately I feel like it’s, it’s commentary about so many things, so many things, but all of it comes, all of it comes down to like, everything is awful.

Like, uh, fam, families are awful. People are awful. Technology is awful. Everything is awful. 

Todd: It’s a really depressing movie to watch at Christmas time. It’s a particularly depressing movie to watch at Christmas time of 2024, to be honest. 

Craig: Well, and I feel like it’s kind of a trick too, because it takes place at Christmas, and like they have Christmas dinner and they open Christmas presents, but it’s almost like that’s the bait to lure you into this movie.

Like Christmas isn’t, it’s not really that important. It could be any family gathering. I suppose that could be said of. A lot of Christmas movies, but that’s true that Christmas takes a backseat aside from a lot of interesting lighting choices Right. I I did like that like the Christmas lighting scheme Made it visually interesting and it was a it’s not a bad movie I I feel like I’m dunking on it already and I don’t mean to because it’s not a bad movie In fact, I think it’s kind of interesting.

Yeah, it’s but it’s not like a Cheerful holiday romp If that’s what you’re looking for, 

Todd: God, no, it’s not at all 

Craig: turn away. 

Todd: Well, I was, I was actually thinking about that myself after I finished watching it. I was like, did this movie really have to take place during Christmas? And you’re right. It could have been Thanksgiving.

It could have been any excuse really for family that is kind of at odds with each other to get together anyway. So I did, when I kind of came back away from my thoughts, I thought, you know, maybe it does at least serve the theme a little bit. Or at least. In a technical way of getting these people together who honestly wouldn’t be getting together otherwise and oftentimes, sadly, that is the holidays for a lot of us.

It is the time for us to get together when we’re far flung, make that extra effort to get everybody in the same room. People who maybe talk on the phone or maybe haven’t seen or heard from each other for a while. In this case, one of the main, basically, I guess you could say the main character, who is Nick, he’s an adult son.

It sounds like he has not been heard from or seen in three years. He hasn’t been calling his family much. He’s been a bit, I guess you could say, estranged from them. And his mother is very happy to welcome him into the house. But his father is just really off putting from the get go. Angry in a way that like I’m still your dad and how dare you come back after not contacting us You know, it’s a very oh my god.

This guy 

Craig: Nick has been estranged from his family I I I’m under the impression that his girlfriend slash fiance. I don’t know on G I I think that it’s very relevant that are the family is Caucasian and on G is Indian. Right. And they’re, they’re also British, which I guess is probably also relevant. Right.

The reason that he’s been estranged for, it seems like she has encouraged him, you know, let’s go to your family’s house for Christmas. You haven’t seen them in a long time. This is subtext. I’m, I’m Reading this into it. Yeah. It’s never, but that’s, 

Todd: that’s it’s, it’s never explicitly stated. Yeah. 

Craig: That’s the feeling I get because it doesn’t really seem like he wants to go.

Like as soon as they get there, he’s like, seriously, I feel like we’re gonna be ruining everybody’s Christmas. And he’s been estranged for three years and the dad’s pissed off about it. It seems like the reason that he’s been estranged for them for that long is because they’re horrible. Awful people.

Yeah. Aside from the mother, the mother seems lovely and you feel so bad for her that she has to live with these other disgusting, nasty people. Yes. I don’t blame him for being a strange and I feel like that’s a, that’s another thing that the movie addresses and very prescient in 2018 because I feel like this is totally relevant right now.

Sometimes it’s really difficult to get together. with your family if you have significant difference in values and all those types of things and this movie suggests just don’t because It’s not gonna end well Whereas most of these holiday movies like even violent night that we did last year a couple years ago Where you know, like it’s bloody and they’re killing everybody Still, the message is, come together as a family and cherish your family.

No, this movie is, if you come together with your family, you will end up killing each other because 

Todd: people are horrible. It’s true. It feels like the movie’s starting out as like a Twilight Zone episode because immediately, well, look, I don’t want to go there yet, but what I’m trying to say is the movie starts that seems to start out as like a classic Twilight Zone episode because it does this high concept premise and it seems to have this moral message that it’s trying to get across at first when I watched it.

I thought, okay, this is like pandemic. Era commentary, right? This is about control and obedience, and to what lengths do we go to to protect each other, to what lengths do we trust the authorities? And 

Craig: that is interesting. I find that part of it interesting. It’s just very bleak. 

Todd: It is. It’s super bleak. And then I checked it, and I was like, oh, this is 2018.

Uh huh. You know, this is actually pre pandemic by two years. And so I thought, okay, well, they’re not making a direct commentary on that, but you can certainly read that into it. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s similar thematic material. You know, this is also one year after Brexit, I guess? And will you add the racism element in there as well?

And these guys are just absolute dicks. The grandfather especially. The grandfather just sits in a chair and cackles maniacally whenever he pisses somebody off with his racist comments. Or here’s his adult son Tony also do the same. 

Clip: I don’t know what’s going on. Letting anyone come flooding in. It’s always got to end like this.

Gramps, you can’t say that. Everyone’s entitled to their own opinions, but still. Mr Milgram, I know we’ve only just met and I don’t know much about your life, but that’s not fair. You’re right. You don’t know anything about Gramps? Kate, please, let’s not blow it out of proportion. Gramps is being out of order.

This country used to be great, till all them Johnny Ackmeds and Bobby Bongo Bongo started coming in. All I’m trying to say is that if we let these things go, then we’re perpetuating those views.

Todd: He just encourages and prods and pokes and seems to love to see this woman squirm and be offended. Of course I hate people like that and it’s nasty. Played by David Bradley, I’m sure you know the face if you don’t know the name. Felch, right? The guy there. But he’s been in a million things. I mean, he’s veteran of the British screen.

Oh, and these people. It didn’t catch this until afterwards. Their surname is the Milgrams, and they are on Stanford Street. Did you catch that? 

Craig: Well, I mean, I read about it, but I don’t really know what all that means. I, I, I know that it has to do with, like, studies on obedience and authority and stuff like that, which this movie becomes, and I think that’s Again, very clever, but I don’t really know much about what those things were.

Todd: You probably were now. I might be jogging your memory a little bit, but it feels like none of us could get through high school or college without talking about the Stanford prison experiment that was conducted by Professor Stanley Milgram, I believe, who set up this experiment in the basement of one of the dormitories at the school.

And had volunteers play prisoners and volunteers play wardens and, and, uh, guards at this fake prison. Of course, they all knew it was fake, right? But, uh, very quickly, it sort of descended into chaos as The guys who were playing the, the wardens and stuff started using their power in pretty cruel ways against these, you know, kids who were playing the prisoners.

And that study’s been cited for decades as a example of how humans, when given power and given control, just seem to maybe have this odd, natural inclination towards using it to make other people suffer. Now, interestingly enough, In the years since then, more has come out about that study, and it’s a lot, it’s a lot more complicated than it was originally presented to me, especially as a kid, and it sounds like the methods, and it sounds like there was actually, Milgram himself interjected himself and gave instructions and commands to people to actually do certain things, and maybe muddy the results a little bit, or at least the grand conclusion of it, so I’m not really willing to go as far, I’m a pretty optimistic person, you know, I would like to think that we’re not always gonna just descend into a lord of The fly situation by default when we’re faced with some difficulty, but we do have some tendencies that we’ve seen, you know, to get us there.

So obviously, you know, naming this family, the Milgrams, they’re on Stanford street, yada, yada, yada. He’s making a direct reference to that as well. And like you said, that is a very definite theme in here. It’s like this family is patriarchy all the way down. And it seems like the kid Nick hates that and is bucking that trend.

He’s like the young, more progressive person marrying this. Who’s got this girlfriend anyway, they weren’t engaged, were they? I can’t remember. I don’t remember. And it, and it pisses his family off and there’s Brexit stuff in here. There’s, there’s a lot of setup for some serious social commentary. 

Craig: Right.

There’s like political, like they’re on opposite sides of the political spectrum. And that’s one thing, you know, that’s fine, whatever. But these people. Like you said, especially the grandfather, but the apple clearly doesn’t fall far from the tree because the dad, I feel like is at least a little bit more diplomatic at first, but the pregnant sister, 

Todd: Oh God, she’s insufferable.

Clip: Six letters. That’s not a real word. It really is. Indian words. Don’t count. It’s English. Shall I get the dictionary again? Don’t be silly. It’s just a bit of fun. 

Craig: She is disgusting! Like, and, she’s People don’t like when we talk politics, so I’m not going to, but I’m gonna talk about the movie, so I’m just gonna say, she’s the character, this character, is stupid, and she’s clearly threatened by Someone who is more intelligent than her the movie establishes this.

I’m not generalizing. Right. It’s true But she’s just ugly like just ugly ugly Blatantly openly racist. I actually found that one of the most difficult things to believe because first of all, I If I were, what’s the main guy’s name? Nick. If I were Nick, I don’t care how much Angie encouraged me to make amends with my family, which I understand.

I have personal experience with this kind of thing. Right. I just, I just would not like, I would just say to her, you don’t understand. My family is horrible. Yeah. And I wouldn’t have done it. And then, and then as soon as any of this, right. Ugly, ugly, blatantly racist shit started happening, I would have been out the door, I would have, like, sent FedEx to pick up my bags, like, you couldn’t have gotten me out of there fast enough.

Yeah. But they don’t. They stay. 

Todd: This is a problem I had with the movie too, is that I felt like the characters were very caricatured and everything was very overplayed. Again, I think it’s in order to service this point, but whereas this kind of thing works for, like, a Twilight Zone episode or something where you only have 20 minutes to tell a story.

For this long hour and a half movie, I expected to see a little more depth. I expected to see a little more explanation. I saw a glimmer of it in the father later on. Right. There’s a moment where his father dies. And so he’s coming to terms with that, and he goes into this little soliloquy monologue, internal monologue, I guess, that he says out loud, revisiting these moments from his childhood where his father gave him these harsh truths, and you can see that he is both I’ve been changed by it and hurt by it, and it’s through his pain, you know, that I don’t know.

I guess you’ve you get this. You’re supposed to get the sense that he’s this asshole guy because he was taught by his father that that’s how you’re supposed to be if you want to be a man. And he’s been trying to live up to that because he’s been seeking the approval of his father that he’s never been getting, which is, I mean, you know, that’s life, that happens, but I just feel like in some of these situations, things wouldn’t have been so black and white.

Craig: I can’t find sympathy for that guy. Yeah. I just like, like, so your dad was a dick. I’m sorry. You know, I never went through anything like that. I had a lovely childhood. So I don’t know what that does to people. But, repeating the cycle, like, What are you doing? I don’t understand how you’re justifying that in your head.

Like, your dad was a dick to you and it ruined you, so you’re gonna do the same thing to your kids? Like, I don’t get it. And I don’t know Well, it goes to 

Todd: certain extremes. Go ahead, sorry. 

Craig: Yeah, it’s just, well, no, I was just gonna say, it’s so hard. Like, I really do like the main people. Nick, who looks like Ronan Farrow, I don’t know.

But he, like, he’s a young, you know, liberal and, and his beautiful girlfriend and, and they seem to be so open minded. I think we’re supposed to sympathize with them. I, I think that, They are supposed to be our surrogates in this. Right. I like them. And then you, you feel awful for the mother who is, you know, when they get there, she embraces them and she’s so glad and, and she’s, She’s trying to keep things together, and she’s trying to avoid conflict and break up conflict and do whatever she can, but the dad, the grandfather, and the sister are just so awful, and the sister has a boyfriend who also seems like he could potentially be kind of redeemable, but he just becomes a puppet for the dad and the sister.

He’s so empty. Well, I kind of felt bad for him in that, like, I felt like he, I mean, you feel a responsibility to your partner, you know, especially she’s vulnerable, she’s pregnant, it’s not, I mean, I guess it’s his fault for being with her, but it’s not his fault that she’s awful and she kind of manipulates him, and then, I’ve never been in this situation because I’ve never had a girlfriend or a wife, but I would assume you want to have a good relationship with your girlfriend.

Wife’s dad, you know, like if your wife’s dad asks you to help him change all the batteries in the fire alarms over Christmas, like my dad does with my brother in law, like you do it because you know what I’m saying? It’s like, I, he seems like a nice guy and I feel kind of bad for him, but ultimately he becomes their puppet and he’s kind of bad too.

So it’s hard to feel. I don’t know. It’s just hard to find sympathy overall. And we really need to get to, okay, so they have this big blow up over dinner. There’s a lot of racist talk, a lot of finger pointing. It’s, it’s horrible. And Nick and Angie don’t leave immediately. She convinces him for some reason to spend the night, even though they have to sleep in separate rooms.

And again, this doesn’t make any sense to me. Why spend the night when they’re, I guess just to avoid conflict, but their plan is they’re going to get up super early in the morning before anybody else is up and they’re going to sneak out and leave. And that’s what they do. They get up super early. They tiptoe around and they go downstairs, but they find that the door is blocked with this black material that I think at some point they think is metal, but immediately to me, it looks weird.

It looks to me, it looks corded like, 

Todd: yeah. Like, 

Craig: corrugated. It’s grooved. Yeah. Yeah. 

Todd: Yeah. Like, highly corrugated metal. Not like, you know, with wide corrugations. Very narrow. 

Craig: And it’s black, and it’s covering every entry, including the windows, and eventually the whole family gets up, and they can’t figure out a way out, and then the TV starts talking to them.

And then that happens for the next hour. 

Todd: Yeah. Yeah. The TV is black, but it’s got these, actually it looks like the old VHS, you know, you remember, your dad was a big camcorder guy, you remember when you put the titles in your camcorder, it had that particular pixelated font, it’s totally that, which, I thought that was kind of cute, but it just says, stay in your home and await further instructions, hence the title of the movie, they have really no choice, Now instructions start appearing on the, on the screen at first.

They’re like, okay, well, let’s at least have a nice Christmas dinner. And so they prepare this great spread. And of course, there’s more arguing and more racist talk. 

Craig: Oh, and I know it’s all like, 

Clip: oh, we need to wait for more instructions. But in the meantime, we are going to celebrate this special day. As you would any other year.

If we don’t uphold our values and have a proper British Christmas, The term is the wordy one. 

Craig: Right before that, he had stopped the son in law, Scott, and, oh god, this was, like, his son, his own son walks right past him. And then right behind his son is the son in law, and he stops the son in law. And he says, can I count on you, Scott?

I need to know that you’ll back me. We need to protect the herd, even from themselves. Yeah, it’s very political. Yeah. There was grandpa earlier, like talking about how before all these foreigners coming in this country used to be great. Before all the, uh, boy, 

Todd: I mean, we can, we can empathize with this right now, but, uh, you know, again, Brexit in particular, this being a British movie in this 2018 movie, clear parallels to that too.

I thought it was a little heavy. 

Craig: It is for sure. 

Todd: Look, I know that this stuff goes down all the time, but. My god, it’s like everything that comes out of these guys mouths is something offensive or talking or complaining about the foreigners 

Craig: Yeah, and and to be very fair. I don’t encounter people like that in my everyday life Even people who I have fundamental disagreements with I do not encounter ugly people like that most of the people that I encounter who have different values than me are kind polite Decent people we just have differences of opinions and I think that there are significant differences opinions But I I don’t come across in my day to day life ugly people like this 

Todd: Exactly and look ugliness does happen and I’ve been in the presence of People suddenly bursting into arguments that just were not appropriate for the moment and just seemed to come from some deep passion like they just got to get this stuff out every 10 minutes or so.

But like, I just find it hard to believe that a family, especially that is now in this particular situation, is going to go so out of their way to continue to piss each other off in these brief moments. Blatant ways, you know, 

Craig: that’s what I’m saying. No wonder this kid didn’t come home, right? He had the right idea.

He should have just stayed away. I Think that’s kind of the ultimate lesson of like He should have stayed away. Things would have been, even if, oh God, I don’t even care about spoilers. If you’re listening to this, you don’t care about spoilers. Even if, as the movie suggests in the end, this problem is widespread and potentially worldwide, at least they could have just been trapped in their own apartment with just the two of them and not with all these assholes.

Todd: They might’ve even just been fine, you know, as we go through this, I’m hoping that You and me talking, I’m gonna discover the point the movie was trying to make, because I think it gets really muddied, and I’m not even sure what the moral result, the moral tale is supposed to be. 

Craig: I think it, the message is supposed to be that, ultimately 

Todd: Don’t submit to authority?

Craig: No, that they do. That we’re easy to manipulate and we’re easy to, gosh, I don’t know what the word is. I’m trying to come up with a fancy word, but I can’t submit to, uh, yes, yeah, yes, yes. We’re, we’re quick to submit to authority. And I don’t think that that’s untrue. No, I don’t know if I believe it to the extent because the dad just has an epiphany that these messages are coming from the government.

Todd: Yeah. 

Craig: And the government knows what it’s doing. So, we have to, you know, whatever they say, we have to do. And so, you know, they sit down to this beautiful dinner that the mother has been slaving over all day. And then, before they can even carve the bird, you know, they have these terrible fights, racist shit getting thrown around.

And in the midst of this, somebody happens to glance at the TV, and the TV says, All of your food is contaminated. Eat nothing. And they do like, they throw everything away and what’s his name? The smart kid, the one that we like objects because not only are they throwing away everything on the table, they’re throwing away everything like canned goods, like packaged goods.

They’re throwing away everything. And the guy’s like, the kid’s like, We don’t know how long we’re going to be here, right? What are we going to do? And the brother in law is like, we have running water. It didn’t say anything about water. You can survive without food for weeks. There were also so many times, and, and there were so many times in this movie where I also didn’t understand is Nick, Nick is the name of the, the.

Kid, we like there were so many times when I didn’t understand his decision making, because if I were in that situation, I would have said, fine, throw all the food in my room. You don’t eat it. Don’t you’re right. It’s probably bad. Don’t eat it. Throw it all in my room. And then there’s another part. I feel like coming up pretty soon where they get a message that says.

One among you is contaminated. Well, first of all, they all have to scrub themselves with bleach, which they act like is no big deal. I would think that that would not be pleasant. I know, I was thinking about that myself. I would think it would burn. If you 

Todd: rinse it off fast enough, it’s not gonna be too bad.

But you’re right, if you let that sit on you, and they’re all taking their sweet time with it, for sure. 

Craig: That’s a big, long thing. We get to watch Grandpa scrub his balls for like, a minute. A minute. 

Todd: Well, before the bit you’re going to talk about, there’s another part that I really want to talk about. And that’s when Down the Chimney, which was an opening that I guess they all forgot existed.

That’s right. Drops a plastic baggie with a syringe for each of them. And it tells them that they need to take these vaccine. It’s already been established that Angie works at the hospital. Did she ever say what she was? Was she a doctor? Was she a nurse? 

Craig: I think she’s a nurse, but I’m not sure because they said she works at the hospital and, but so does the son in law, but the son in law doesn’t really, he doesn’t really seem to have any medical knowledge at all.

So maybe, I don’t know, maybe he’s like a clerk or something or something. I don’t know, but he works at the hospital. 

Todd: Yeah, well, of course she’s immediately suspicious. She’s like, first of all, these syringes look used. I mean, they’re not properly capped. They’re not sterile. So just that alone, you know, is not good.

And Tony’s like, nope, we’re going to do it because this is what we’re instructed to do and it’s going to save our lives. And this whole argument, I really liked this bit because Again, I’m thinking COVID, I’m thinking people with general distrust vaccines these days, and the medical establishment in general, and even when authority is telling you you need to do this, they’re not quite so sure, and we’ve also had reason lately to believe that maybe things are not being told to us in our best interest, and so like, this is a dynamic I could get behind and I could understand, I was really interested to see how this was going to play out, especially with this father, you know, this is a dynamic I could get behind and I could understand, I was really interested to see how this was going to play out, especially with this father, Was just dead set on following everything that the TV, which he thinks is the government, is telling them to do.

His 

Craig: government. I think that’s what it comes down to. I mean, even with, you know, we say vaccine distrust, some people might say, you know, like maybe we’re foolish. So being so trusting, you know, I, I think that it just, this is, he believes this is his distrust. telling him to do this. Right, right. So he trusts, he trusts it.

Todd: Yeah, he just grabs it and he jabs it right in. He’s like, I don’t care, and he jabs it right in there. But then the next scene shows that they sterilize the rest of them. And also, kind of a point, it looks like they boiled them, right? To sterilize them? 

Craig: Yeah, 

Todd: yeah. You probably shouldn’t do that because that would probably change the medication inside.

Craig: Yeah, I have no idea what those, you know, like, I have no idea. Ultimately, like, that part is kind of silly. It is really dumb. Who, who put that? Like, Who bagged up those syringes and dropped them down the chimney? Good point. Because when we find out, Who’s behind this? 

Todd: It’s all very strange. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know if we’re meant to look at this too closely, but, uh, yeah, I agree with you.

Craig: I was just going to say all of the vaccines that I’ve had over the last 10 years have been cold. Like, like they have to keep them chilled. Yeah. So yeah, it’s, it’s dumb, whatever. And there’s a whole thing where, you know, he, he basically, he doesn’t have to strong arm most of his family because again, Patriarchy he says to do it.

So they do it. I was a little bit surprised that Nick and Anji did it. I guess you know, what choice do you have? But 

Todd: I don’t know they did have a choice I mean they were standing so strong against it the whole time and I thought okay Well, these two are not gonna take it. 

Craig: Well, and this is another one of those times where god I maybe it’s me maybe if maybe other viewers will feel differently, but I’m putting myself in Nick’s shoes and when he They’re like there’s only two left and you know, it’s him and Anji and he picks up the syringes I would have thrown that shit on the floor and stomped on it.

Like what are you gonna do now? Like yeah Yeah, I’m not taking it. Like what are you gonna do? Like, you can’t throw 

Todd: me out, but, but they do it. Well, not only that, but he turns to her and he says, We have no choice. I’m like, what, what are you talking about? You’ve been sitting here all along arguing your choice, and nothing has changed except that everybody else has taken them.

You still have the same choice you had from the beginning. And then why does she take it too? I just did not get that at all. I 

Craig: also hoped, like, I felt like in a better movie, They would have faked it. Like, you know, like I, I thought when she like poked it in his arm, I thought maybe she could have like poked it off to the side and just squirted it out.

Like, Oh, we did it. 

Todd: It doesn’t look like anybody was paying that close attention. Well, where I thought this was going was the two of them weren’t going to take it, and then something was going to happen to somebody, you know? Either to one of them or somebody else, and then that would throw a question onto whether it was a good idea to take it or not, you know?

Craig: Well, something DOES happen to one of them! Something 

Todd: DOES happen, yeah. Grandpa suddenly starts gets up and starts puking out blood, I guess. 

Craig: Well, I don’t know what it’s supposed to be. It’s black. It’s like tar. I don’t know. 

Todd: Yeah, I don’t know. 

Craig: And what is that about? Like, again, I think that this is, it’s all just about control.

Like, how, whatever is behind These messages, how far can it push them and it just keeps pushing them a little bit farther and so in this moment, it tells them all to take these injections and they all do. And then one of them dies a violent and mysterious death. The dad says, Oh, well, he was old. These things happen and not on.

She’s like, are you kidding me? Like, are you going to try to 

Todd: pretend this 

Craig: is a coincidence? So they know, you know, like. I, I, the dad doesn’t, the dad just continues to trust and because of that he just continues to keep doing whatever it says, which leads to the next message is like, one of you is contaminated or one of you is infected, isolate them.

And so immediately they’re like, Oh, it’s, it’s Angie, because she coughed once at dinner. Yeah. Yeah. It’s not because she coughed once at dinner. It’s because she has brown skin. Like it’s, it’s so. Like you said before, it’s a little heavy handed. It’s a little in your face. Thank God. I’m sure there are people like this exist, but I, I don’t know them.

And thank God, because these people are just so like, it just so blatantly, obviously, Disgustingly racist and and this is the part that you said that I was getting to and you were right when they’re like we have To isolate her. It’s obviously her and Nick’s like no. No, I won’t let you and she’s like, no, it’s okay.

We can’t fight this Wasn’t it wasn’t it your immediate thought like if you’re him, don’t you just say fine? 

Todd: I’ll go with her. Exactly. That was my exact thought, and I thought he was gonna do that. So that was irritating. The other irritating thing was they decided that they, for reasons I don’t understand, were gonna put her in the same room as the corpse.

I’m like, you have five rooms upstairs here. Put the corpse in one room. She can go in the other room, with or without Nick. Why is this happening? I didn’t get that at all. I don’t know. I don’t know. So I know, but really, this was the point where I started to detach from the movie because I didn’t get, it’s just started to feel too, too fake.

Like, I just didn’t, I couldn’t believe these characters would actually make these choices. I couldn’t believe Nick, who is going to secret her out in the middle of the night, and they were both going to leave this place was just going to be okay with leaving her in a room by herself with the guy’s corpse.

It just didn’t make any sense. 

Craig: Yeah. And, and, and, In breezing over the plot, we’ve left out things that aren’t particularly consequential, but there’s been a lot of violence. Like they hit each other all 

Todd: the time. Men 

Craig: in this family are constantly fighting each other. Like, yeah, they’re Nick. At some point fights both Scott and his dad like they’re physically fighting and to stop them the mom starts singing a Christmas carol Oh, yeah, and as ugly as this is I was like, I almost can buy this Like family like families coming to fisticuffs and the mother doing anything she can to break them up.

Todd: Uh, 

Craig: I think it’s about that time too that I, I think Angie’s just talking to, to Nick through 

Todd: the door 

Craig: and she says, I think the TVs are watching us. I think that the messages that they’re sending are reacting to the things that we do. So in other words, I think what she’s saying, and I think that what we’re meant to believe is that it’s, it’s playing on their conflicts.

And, and pushing that. She, she tells him to turn 

Todd: off the TV. In a way, it’s, I mean, Speak No Evil was a better movie than this, but it’s similar to that. At least it seems to be at this point. That the, the television, the messages it’s telling them, it’s trying to push them to see how far will they go, how far will they obey.

That was obviously a better movie and a very different situation. But yeah, that was, that came immediately to my mind. He goes downstairs, he sneaks downstairs and runs into his sister again. And then he unplugs the TV. She catches him doing it and she gets angry. And then they all kind of come in there and there’s a fight.

And then Kate tells him that Scott needs to like beat him up or hit him. I mean, she’s like, be a man. 

Craig: Oh my God, it was so gross. Like she is such a disgusting character. Like it’s so like, it’s hard. Like I’m having these terrible feelings about a pregnant woman. I’m like, that is awful. She is pregnant.

Todd: She’s just going through terrible. It’s just a hormones, Greg. It’s that’s 

Craig: all it is. She’s egging on her. Well, the dad plugs the TV back in and it flashes red and it’s like, warning, interrupting emergency signal puts lives at risk. And then, Nick and Scott, the son in law, start fighting, and yeah, she’s egging them on.

She’s like, get him Scott, get him, get him! Like, what is wrong with you? That is your brother! 

Todd: Follows them up the stairs? 

Craig: Yeah. She follows, she’s right there. Like, They’re fighting. She’s not more than two feet away from them and they’re up on the landing. And I don’t even remember who pushes who, but it’s accidental.

I think it’s unclear. So close. Yeah. Because she’s so close to them, they’re fighting and they move and she gets knocked over the banister. And falls on her back. This movie is dark. 

Todd: Yeah, it really is. 

Craig: You don’t see that very often. I mean, she’s, she’s literally due in two weeks. She, she is ready to give birth.

And she falls over the banister. Now, she lands on her back. And, she’s not dead. Dead. 

Todd: Breaks a leg. Yeah, her 

Craig: leg is terribly broken, like the bones are coming out. They try to make her comfortable and, and do what they can. She eventually passes out from the pain and, God, things are kind of pandemonium.

During, during that fight, Scott happened to look over at the TV and just for a brief second the TV flashed, I see you? Yeah. 

Todd: Why? 

Craig: I, I don’t know why. 

Todd: Why would it reveal that? Yeah, I’m not quite sure. 

Craig: But this, at this point, everything is crazy and Kate is hurt and they don’t know what’s gonna happen. The dad just checks out.

He’s like, I’m gonna go to work. I’m gonna go to my study. And he just goes and hangs out in there for the next 20 minutes. I don’t know what’s, I don’t know what’s going on there. 

Todd: By this point, has Josh run over to the The opening, because they were at there was an opening in the doorway. 

Craig: There’s a slot that 

Todd: Vaginal slot, yeah, that they have to push the 

Craig: Syringes.

Clinical 

Todd: materials back through. And, uh, he runs over there to try to pry it open and then putting his fingers in there, the TV also flashes like, oh no, contamination of the portal or Opening or whatever and it just bites his fingers off 

Craig: and in those moments when you see that opening and I would say that before The reveal near the end the this is the only time that it’s suggested, but I do feel like it’s suggested enough When that slot like opens and the sides of it are kind of moving it moves Organically, 

Todd: yeah, 

Craig: it doesn’t move That gives you some indication that there’s something, something weird going on.

I mean, obviously there’s something weird going on, but it’s not just like these are metal doors that have been bolted to the front of their house. 

Todd: Yeah. Well, at this point, I think Nick gets smart. He sticks his phone to a selfie stick and Pokes open a second floor bathroom drain. I don’t know. I don’t know exactly how this works if the pipes go directly out of the house or whatever, but anyway, it’s some way that he can penetrate through the wall of the house.

So I guess the house isn’t totally encased, even though the impression is given because he’s up at the roof at one point. He tries to. Pry away the roof and going 

Craig: through walls. 

Todd: Yeah, it’s so weird. Yeah But anyway, he pokes that through the wall and he’s able to get a video of what’s outside and you can see there’s this sort Of looks like a bunch of he calls them snakes.

I say cords. Uh huh coming down thin skittering 

Craig: kind of like kind of like almost It’s a definite turning 

Todd: point in the movie for us because now we have an idea of what, what’s actually happening. I mean, we don’t know why, but you know, at least, you know, it’s not, for example, some weird experiment that people are doing to them.

It’s clearly the, some kind of entity that has encased the house. And so, uh, the, the TV goes crazy when this happens and they, uh, Again, obeying the TV, run upstairs and grab him and say, what did you do? And this brings on the part that I also just couldn’t really get behind either. 

Craig: I think that the only way that we can justify this is that Kate falling and being What comes to turn out to be mortally injured because she dies.

I think we’re to believe that he was at the verge of breaking maybe his whole adult life and that’s what did it. And he just broke The father. The father. So when the TV tells them that there’s A spy among them and they need to extricate information. Like he’s more than willing to tie up his only son and torture him.

Right. For what information? 

Todd: Like a terrorist that he himself, well, yeah. It’s weird. What does he think he’s going to get out of him? He cuts him in the face, he cuts him in the leg, he’s He lines up a bunch of tools like he’s been doing this for years. Like he’s one of those, like, uh, stereotypical German Nazi doctors, you know?

Right, right. Doing terrible experiments on people. It’s a little much, I thought, and I I don’t know. I mean, like you said, okay, he was a little crazy. Alright, I guess I’ll just go with that. 

Craig: The only thing that stops him from torturing the kid is the mother screams from downstairs. And they run to see what’s going on with her and the daughter has died.

The pregnant daughter has died. And is this the point? That finally I was so glad. I don’t, like, the dad says something insensitive. I don’t remember it. At some point he says something like, There are always casualties in war. And the mom just slaps the shit out of him. And she’s just done. She’s just Yeah, that was a long time coming.

I know! And I’m so, I’m so happy in that moment, like, finally! Put this asshole in his place. Oh god. Right. At some point Anji’s messing around with the black stuff that’s covering and she pulls, you know, it’s like it is cords. Like just a lot of cords side by side in a sheet. And she pulls one loose and we kind of get POV from the cord.

And I, I wondered if it was like a camera, like a, like a fiber optic camera or something. 

Todd: I was thinking fiber optics. Yeah. So the idea may be that it’s just kind of ever watching in some way. 

Craig: Yeah. I think that what we’re ultimately to, I don’t know, these could be machines. We’re, we’re never told. Yeah.

What they are they could be machines. We don’t know or they could be some kind of alien that’s actually like Seeing and and sentient 

Todd: could be demons from another world. Who knows? Yeah, I 

Craig: know at another point she Plugs in I think another tv like an old analog tv and it’s giving the same messages But she takes the back off of the tube Of the tv and she gasps and shrinks away from it, but we don’t see it at that point, but she tells Nick later.

She’s like in the, 

Clip: in the, in the room. I found an old tv. I opened the back of it. There was something inside, something livid like a creature, like a heart beating. What if that same thing is in the TV out there? What if it’s in every tv? 

Todd: Now I have a question about this. So, this television which was just being stored in the closet upstairs suddenly has this entity in there?

Are we to believe that all televisions have these like latent entities in there that are we’re just gonna wake up over time? Or It’s 

Craig: loose, I don’t know. 

Todd: So she’s like, well, there’s probably something in the television downstairs as well, but all hell kind of breaks loose because, because she did that, I think the entity starts pumping in black smoke into her room and ultimately all of the rooms upstairs through these pipe, they were like little pipes 

Craig: that were 

Todd: poking out through those cords.

And, uh, that gets everybody freaked out, and he manages to break her out of that room, and he’s trying to break his mom, who has, I guess, locked herself in the bathroom. 

Craig: I don’t know what’s going on there. 

Todd: Yeah, I don’t, I don’t remember when she ran up there, why she did that, but anyway, she’s kind of locked in the bathroom, and they’re trying to get the keys, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and it has this glass door, but it’s one of those glass doors with the wires in it, too, which, uh, I guess you might have inside your house.

I don’t know. Anyway, he’s trying to break it open and he can’t do it in time and the mother just explodes 

Craig: Against the glass like the yeah, I mean first it seems like the gas is like Burning her skin off like it’s acidic or something. Yeah, but then just She just explodes. Okay, alright. Ha ha 

Todd: ha, whatever.

So now you, I was like, close the frickin door, guys. Like, they left the door to the other room open. I was like, why don’t you close it? The gas is just flowing in from above. So, they run down the stairs and they try to barricade themselves into the living room and they stuff You know, towels and things in the cracks.

Craig: And the gas is coming down the stairs, like it’s rolling down the stairs, but it stops at the bottom step. Like, like the gas itself is, is sentient. And then, on the TV, is something new. It’s a green butthole. It’s a butthole. 

Todd: Some might call it rays of light from heaven, but you know, it depends on your perspective, I guess.

Craig: Okay. So there’s a green butthole on TV and I think Nick tries to unplug it, but it still doesn’t go off. And then the house starts shaking and then it starts spewing out. The TV starts. And I say spewing out, it’s just typing the same way it has before, sending these messages. I am reborn, I bring salvation, resurrection.

Yeah, it gets 

Todd: Very religious here. 

Craig: So now the dad thinks that it’s God like he looks up there like they have a crucifix above the TV and like It’s a little heavy handed like he’s looking at the TV and it’s saying these things and then we see him look up at the cross and then back down like 

Todd: The camera actually pans up to the cross and pans back down to the TV.

I almost laughed out loud at that point Subtle this is not 

Craig: and even though Kate is dead Her stomach starts moving, so apparently the baby’s alive, so the dad thinks it’s a miracle. Like Jesus or something? I’m not 

Todd: I guess. I was so confused at this point. I was like, where’s this movie going? What’s it trying to do?

I thought we were about to be presented with something kind of profound that’s suddenly religious, or to me it just kind of descended into a whole bunch of shit that I cannot begin to unpack. 

Craig: I know, and there’s, there’s been weird dream stuff that’s been going on, and that happens here again too, like, out of nowhere in the middle of all of this, Nick and Anji both wake up in a beautiful field, and for like 30 seconds, and then snap back into the house.

Yeah. I don’t know what that’s all about. And when they snap back into the house, the message on the TV is, make a sacrifice to save the unborn. And so the dad is trying to sacrifice Angie, but she says, no, I’m the only one who knows how to do a C section. So instead the dad kills Scott. Yeah. And then Angie and Nick fight the dad and Nick kills him 

Todd: with the TV 

Craig: with the TV But then the TV writes itself and all those weird tendrils I started calling them tendrils at this point all these weird tendrils come out.

They’re coming through the window They’re coming out of the TV and it’s like some all of a sudden some hellraiser shit. Like some of them have like Claws and hooks on the end? Like where did that come from? And this is very Hellraiser, like those tendrils like go into the dad’s head and lift him up so he’s like upright but kind of floating just above the ground and they reanimate him and talk to Nick and Anji threw him, and they’re like, Join with me.

Become me. Worship me. God. Worship me now or face your extinction.

But one of them, one of them just figures out, I guess, It can’t kill us. It needs us. It’s a parasite, and we’re the only ones left. Okay, sure, I don’t In a house? In the world? What? I think in the house, but I think that they underestimated it, because 

Todd: Doesn’t mind killing them. 

Craig: No, it does. That’s it. I mean, the tendrils end up cocooning both of them, and then the dad axes them to death.

And the dad, and I say the dad, but it’s really the thing animating as people. Sets up the TV in front of the pregnant belly, in the dead woman, and then the tendrils, like, cover her, and I guess, somehow, eat away all of her flesh, leaving only her bones and the baby.

Todd: I wasn’t sure how that worked, but okay. At this point, I wasn’t sure of anything. 

Craig: And the TV that Alien Dad had set up right in front of the belly starts playing, like, these pretty pastel colors. And text comes on that says, Hello, Ruby. That’s the name they said they were going to name it if it was a girl.

Worship me. And then it pans out to show, like, I typed in the whole neighborhood is covered and then I had to go back because it kept panning out like the whole town is Covered like I don’t know. Maybe this is happening all over the world. Who knows? I don’t care. 

Todd: I just didn’t get it, honestly. I mean, and I, you know, I was thinking, am I just being lazy?

Do I need to sit down and sort this out? But the more I thought about it, the more I thought, I’m not even sure if the writer knows what he’s trying to say. If they’re trying to say something here, it’s so buried under layers that I have no interest in peeling away, honestly. It just, okay, if the, if like you said, the whole message is that people are terrible and they’ll do terrible things to each other when somebody tells them to, and even the people who go against it eventually die anyway, I’m not sure what kind of message that, I mean, it’s a message of sorts, but it, It’s not like anything profound.

It’s more of an observation than anything else. You know, bad things happen to people and bad people do bad things to each other for very poor reasons And that’s life, I guess. What is this whole thing about worshiping this thing as a god? Is there some religious element to this? Are we pulling religion in as now the the thing that’s demanding obedience that we blindly follow?

Yeah, 

Craig: I don’t know. I think that’s Yeah, I think it is. I, I think they are trying to say it. They, they just kind of But 

Todd: then is this thing God? Is it being God is bad? You know, I mean, like 

Craig: I don’t know. I mean, this is something that has been on a lot of people’s minds. You know, the, the election in America didn’t go the way that some of us wanted it to go.

And it went the way that the majority of us wanted it to go. And, and I think that a lot of people have been apprehensive and nervous about getting together with family, especially if there are differences of opinion. You know, I’m just to the point where I just can’t take it anymore. I can’t take the division and the ugliness.

Like I just want to go back to a time that existed in our lifetimes where we just agreed to disagree. And. And. And. We left it at the door. 

Todd: Yeah. And not everything was so apocalyptic. 

Craig: Exactly. Exactly. You know, things are going to be what they’re going to be. I’m, I’m just, I’m, I’m just exhausted being anxious and I’m exhausted on both sides with all of the, animosity and finger pointing.

I I’m just done with it. Like you think what you want to think and I’ll think what I want to think and let’s just have lunch, you know, like, 

Todd: uh, 

Craig: I’m, I’m just so, I’m just so tired of it. So the way that I, uh, I’m approaching it is just, you know, I know the people in my life that I love. And, and if we have differences of opinion, let’s just not talk about it.

Let’s just eat and get fat and tired and tell jokes and, and just not talk about it. I know, I know that ultimately things have to be talked about, but. Not right now. Things are pretty much established here for a little while. Let’s just open presents and, and have a good time. And, and I know, gosh, I’m reluctant to even say that.

And I’m getting a little misty saying it because I know that I come from a place of privilege where it’s easy for me to say that. And I know that it may not. Feel so safe and easy for a lot of people and if you’re in that position where you don’t feel safe with your family Then I agree with the message of this movie.

Don’t go if you don’t feel safe with your family Don’t 

Todd: yeah 

Craig: find family that you are safe with and go there. 

Todd: That’s a really depressing takeaway But uh, it has some truth to it. I was just thinking in the midst of what you were saying maybe Their ugliness towards each other is what brought this down upon them You 

Craig: Yeah.

Yeah, I think so, 

Todd: you know, and, and of course the whole neighborhood, like the idea is that everybody at that, at that point was just sort of being ugly. And, and so that gave this entity license to the ability, 

Craig: wouldn’t it be interesting to find out that this entity was objective and like, they really just were responding to whatever was going on in the house.

So, like, if everybody loved each other, maybe it would have told them, You win a trip to Tahiti!

Todd: Eat all the food. It’s perfectly 

Craig: fine. Oh, boy. Who knows. I, you know, it’s not a bad movie. I don’t think it’s a bad movie. I do think it’s heavy handed, and it’s Whatever that messaging is meant to be, but it’s not badly acted. It’s not badly shot. It doesn’t look bad. It’s, it’s intriguing. It’s, it’s a fairly unique concept.

I’ve never seen anything just like this before. Yeah, it was with it. It was fine. It’s bleak and save it for after the new year. 

Todd: Yeah, don’t watch it now. Find 

Craig: something more fun and lighthearted and uplifting to watch. Alan and I just watched Spirited. It’s a musical with Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell.

And we watched it last year too, but I had kind of forgotten about it. And it’s like almost two and a half hours long. It’s just a fun, jaunty musical with lots of singing and dancing and good family chemistry. Stuff and watch that instead 

Todd: Not a black tendril or racist grandpa in sight, huh? 

Craig: Not at all 

Todd: All right, well, thank you guys so much for recommending this movie we love hearing from our patrons They are the ones who pointed us in the direction of this and a lot of the movies actually we’re going to do for this This holiday season, not just our patrons, our listeners out there as well.

You guys reach out to us on the website. You reach out to us sometimes by sending us voice messages and we actually have a recent voice message. Craig, would you like to listen to it? Yes. This is from our listener, Nikki. 

Nicky: Hey guys. I recently found you as I was looking for a fresh horror podcast to listen to, and I have fallen in love with you both.

I’m binging all my favorite horror movies you’ve done on Spotify, and the more I listen, the more I enjoy. Todd, you have a beautiful voice, and before I even knew this podcast existed, I listened to a few of those erotic werewolf stories you’ve mentioned, which is too funny. Craig, I love your sweet laugh, and I share your love of Stephen King.

Keep doing what you’re doing, guys. You’re great at it. Love you. Love your show. 

Todd: That was nice. Now that’s some of that positive encouragement we need to be hearing. 

Craig: Yeah. Yeah. Very nice. It’s always nice to hear from people. 

Todd: I think it’s funny that she brought up the, uh, the werewolf stuff. I don’t, did I talk about that on an episode?

I don’t, I, I don’t know. 

Craig: I mean, we did the whole werewolf month thing. 

Todd: Oh, I must have brought it up then. 

Craig: I don’t know. It’s, it’s all, it’s, it’s. Try 

Todd: to keep that secret. 

Craig: It’s, it’s, it’s always nice to hear from people who have found us recently. Yeah. Like, I love hearing from people who have been with us for a long time.

That’s amazing. But it’s, it is nice. It’s to know that new people are coming around. It’s fun. 

Todd: And Spotify, a lot of people come to us through Spotify. It’s kind of surprised me lately how big that has blown up as a podcasting platform. So it’s doing us a lot of favors. I’ll tell you that. Nice. Thank you, Spotify.

Please keep doing what you’re doing. And Nikki, thank you so much for sending us that lovely message and for those wonderful compliments. And any of you who would like to reach out and, uh, send us a message like Nikki did, you just need to go to our website, ChainsawHorror. com. At the very top, there’s a button that says talk to us, and you don’t need any special software or anything.

Just write the website, just use your mic attached to your computer or whatever, your phone, whatever you’re using. And that’ll go straight to us as soon as you click send. And we love hearing from you guys, no matter how you find us and how you hear about us. Until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.