Low Key

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

His House is a haunted house story where the characters have a good reason for not leaving the house: If they do, they'll be returned to the horrors of tribal violence in their native South Sudan.

Set in the United Kingdom, His House follows the story of Rial and Bol Majur (played by Wunmi Mosaku and Ṣọpẹ Dìrísù), a married couple seeking asylum to escape the horrors of tribal violence.

The debut feature from Remi Weekes is scary, unexpectedly funny, and provocative — it inspires a talk among Keith, Aaron and Tim about our own immigration policy, and the ways people dehumanize each other.

If you like this episode, check out Tim interview with Remi Weeks at the MovieMaker Interviews podcast.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Horror. Science fiction. Non-fiction. Fantasy. Adventure. Coming of age. War. A lot of shows have a hard time executing any sole genre. Lovecraft Country, which just wrapped its first season on HBO, blends all of these together at once and still sticks the landing more often than not.

On this week's episode of the Low Key podcast, we discuss all things Lovecraft Country, including the very mixed legacy of H.P. Lovecraft, whether contemporary music works for shows set in the past, and how unfinished character arcs kept this season from being an all-timer. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The new British horror film Hosts seems designed to provoke people, with a mix of long, slow buildups and sudden, ghastly unpleasantness. This is never better exemplified than in a dinner scene that replaces Chekhov's gun with a hammer, very unsubtly. 

Hosts features a classic setup: a family invites a neighborhood couple over for Christmas dinner. But an unknown entity has taken over the neighbors' bodies and forces them to act out murderous violence. Hosts weaves together elements of several horror sub-genres, including home invasion, possession, familial violence, and supernatural mystery.

Does it work? We discuss.

Hosts is directed by Adam Leader and Richard Oakes and stars Neal Ward, Nadia Lamin, Frank Jakeman, Samantha Loxley, and Lee Hunter.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we talk about The Boys, Amazon's anti-superhero story.

Season 1 used superheroes to represent police, military, sports stars and Hollywood celebrities and explore blind hero worship. Season 2 delves into the dirty underside of manufactured heroism with a character named Stormfront (Aya Cash) who uses memes to gain fame and try to steal the superhero group The Seven from its leader, Homelander (Anthony Starr), a kind of demented cross between Superman and Captain America.

There are Nazis, a BDSM relationship between Stormfront and Homelander that involves lasers, and so, so many exploding heads.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today's episode is about Residue, the impressionistic debut from Merawi Gerima.

The award-winning film, which just premiered on Netflix, follows Jay, a young filmmaker who returns from Los Angeles to his hometown of Washington, DC and finds that white people are taking over his neighborhood, disrespecting the Black residents they're pushing out.

We talk about the challenging pace of the movie, its unconventional use of offscreen voices, and its complicated presentation of Jay's motivations.

Keith and Aaron also talk about their experiences with gentrification in Memphis, and Tim discusses his white interloping.

We almost talked about Cuties this episode and decided to do Residue instead. You're welcome, everybody.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hulu's new TV show 'Woke' follows the story of black cartoonist Keef Knight's "woke" awakening after a brush with police brutality leads him to re-evaluate his relationship with art and social critique. Also, inanimate objects are now talking to him about embracing his blackness.

It's a weird concept with great ideas, but 'Woke' makes some of the same mistakes it means to shed a light on. Keith and Aaron discuss in one of the most contentious episodes of the pod yet.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We talk about 1BR, the little horror movie that could... unseat Project Power as the top movie on Netflix. It's a story of utopian societies, utilitarianism, and keeping your cat close. Plus, Aaron and Keith recount their experience with a charismatic religious leader who eavesdropped on their conversation at the International House of Pancakes.

f you like this episode, check out our interview with 1BR producer Alok Mishra and writer-director David Marmor. And read Alok's piece for MovieMaker about the insane misadventures that went into making the film.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Project Power, the latest Netflix action-adventure hit, has a new spin on super powers: What if a pill could make you outrageously powerful — for just five minutes?

The film by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, written by The Batman co-writer Mattson Tomlin, stars a trio of stellar actors: Jamie Foxx, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Dominique Fishback.

But it also raises a question about the current action movie emphasis on universe-building: How can a movie tell a self-enclosed story while also hinting at the endless sequels and spinoffs to come? Can a movie do too good a job of universe-building, to the point that its main story feels incomplete?

We liked Project Power well enough, don't get us wrong. But we wondered at times if it was doing too much... or not enough. It definitely gave us a lot to talk about.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.