Blank Check with Griffin & David - Drag Me to Hell with Jamie Loftus & Caitlin Durante

Episode Date: June 12, 2022

After the massive box office success of his Spider-Man movies, Sam Raimi went “back to basics” - returning to the gnarly demonic possession genre that he put his stamp on back in the “Evil Dead��� days. This time, instead of the chin-god Bruce Campbell, we’ve got a particularly cherubic Alison Lohman in the starring role! The Bechdel Cast’s Caitlin Durante and Jamie Loftus join the #TwoFriends to chat about the goofy gross-out scares and economic recession relevance of 2009’s “Drag Me To Hell,” plus, we attempt to put together the ultimate canon of Goat Cinema. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

Christine Brown has a good job, a great boyfriend, and a bright future. But in three days, she's going to podcast. Is that the tagline? That's the tagline. She's going to podcast. She's going to podcast. Worse than hell. A worse fate than hell.

A worse fate than hell. She's going to start a podcast. Horrible. What a good tagline, though. It is a good tagline, and it's the bold kind of um multi-line tagline so someone's got to stop and pay attention and read for a second but but it's worth it i just feel like when we cover older movies on this podcast they have taglines that really tell you a story like that and then any movie from like 1995 on maybe is just

like a fucking quip it's a joke you know yes of course this is a tagline that makes you walk as you said closer to the poster and go what's going on here and they're telling you a whole little story and look spoiler right off the bat it's maybe the greatest aspect of this movie that it fulfills the promise of the title and that tagline fully yeah well that's the whole thing with this movie right it's it's a promise fulfilled pretty much from minute one promise of the premise it promises something very simple and yeah and that's what it delivers. That's why it felt revolutionary. Right. People are like, is there more to this?

Where's the B-plot? I don't understand. They're lifting up the rug or whatever. They're looking in the kitchen shelves like, come on. Is there something else? No. There's nothing else going on. No.

Also, five minutes before it ends, you're like, I'm a fucking idiot for taking the title literally. Of course, that's just an evocative title that's a thing they call the movie who cares i whatever and then who it what i mean i don't want to be too hyperbolic here but in that sense it's kind of one of the greatest endings of all time just how abruptly it fucking pulls the rug out from you does the most extreme thing and ends yeah i mean spoiler alert she gets dragged to hell it is the ending i mean the best the best last minute of a horror movie that i can remember like truly i really think so yeah because there are other horror movies that play this game of like whoo it's all okay we're in the clear we're in the woods and then usually the worst they do is like,

you see that the person's still alive. Michael Myers comes back for one last stab or whatever. That's the thing. You can do the Carrie ending where you jolt someone to send them home laughing, right? And that's fine. But this is, I don't know, this feels more like it's breaking the rules

where it's like surprise unhappy ending credits go away title again and then credits yeah title card goodbye there's nothing more i do i do remember the first time seeing this movie i was like oh there's i like getting kind of like annoyed at the end i was like she's not even good we're not even gonna get her get like t like i thought at least we were gonna see her you know foot dragged to hell or like she's gonna be partially dragged to hell and then escape but with two minutes left on the run town like she hasn't even did i say on the run town yeah on the run time? Yeah. On the run time. Come on down to run town.

Or I think maybe I thought that the villain was going to pop out of a train because they're at a train station. It would be like one of those corny endings where you just, like the Michael Myers, like, and there she is. Here's what I thought. I wonder if someone will get dragged down. Because I had never seen this movie before. I thought because she had gifted the button kind of inadvertently to Justin Long by like

leaving it behind in his car. That he would get dragged. That he was going to get dragged to hell. Right. Is that what's implied? Is he going to get, did she successfully gift it? Or is the curse now null because. Because she got dragged to hell.

I think the curse is null. I think it's not a ring situation where it's going to keep going, right? No. And I mean this with absolutely no offense to Mr. Justin Long, who we will, I'm sure, discuss. But had that been the ending, right?

He was like, by the way, I have the button. And then he gets dragged to hell. The audience just bursts into tears, right? I don't mean that in a mean way. I just feel like everyone's like, ah, ha, ha, ha, right? Like, that would be the... I want to give him credit.

I think he's perfectly deployed here, and I think he understands how this movie is using him. I agree, I agree. But I think it's another incredible thing about this movie that it's like, this is the stock character that exists in all of these films

that's like the boyfriend that's a little too glib a little too jokey and this movie somehow frames him perfectly where it's like this character isn't annoying to the audience this guy is annoying in the universe he's in yeah you know like i just feel like you're just constantly like, dude, you're just being a little disrespectful in every scene. Do you always need to make it into a joke? Yeah, like I it feels it felt kind of like a cool. I mean, I guess subtle is not a word you can really attribute to this movie in any way. But I think it's like using this the same kind of qualities that would be attributed to justin long in past movies as likable right um

and actually in this same year because i think this is the same year as he's just not that into you yeah where he's playing a similar character but in the universe of that movie we love him and he's hilarious and he yeah ends up dating what? Jennifer Goodwin or something? Jennifer Goodwin. God, what a disaster. He was in seven, eight movies and a cameo in Funny People in 2009. Okay, but can we do the list?

Can we do the list? Can we do the list? Can we try to do the list? Yeah, some of them are smaller. So Drag Me to Hell, he's just not been into you. He's in Redo, the fake movie and funny people where Adam Sandler turns into a baby. Right, right, right.

That's his cameo, yeah. There has to be a Vince Vaughn movie that year, 2009. Is he in a Vince Vaughn movie that year? Not that I'm seeing. I feel like Vince would always flip him a scene. No, the other ones are a bunch of garbage. Oh, well, I would say that there's one outlier in there. Which is?

You got the squeakquel in there. You do have the squeakquel. He's reprising the role of... He's squeakquel himself. Of Mr. Squeak. He's squeakquelizing his performance in the original film. Wait, who would have a chipm film yeah wait who has the squeak wall who are the other chipmunks yeah just as long as alvin jamie i don't want to cut you off here i

can see you're excited to share the news oh okay well okay here we go uh let's see we've got uh well who are is it uh zachary levi he he's he's the replacement for dave seville he's he's uh dave's like cousin or whatever jesse mccartney is yes theodore and matthew gray goobler of criminal minds of course is simon yes he is and then i believe the chipettes are applegate polar and ferris that's right that's right wow incredible a's across the board i i regret bringing up long's 2009 because it's actually a bunch of garbage the other movies are serious moonlight the long uh the the movie the adrian shelley script oh wow heinz directed yeah uh-huh uh apparently The movie, the Adrian Shelley script that Cheryl Hines directed. Apparently he has a small role in Still Waiting, the waiting sequel.

That's generous of him to come back and reprise his role. He's in a rom-com called... What a terrible sequel. Still Waiting. Yeah. He's in a rom-com called Taking Chances with Emmanuel Shaqiri. Is that how you say his name? What? Shaqiri? Yeah. Shaqiri? How do you say shirik shirik shirik how do you

say her name i'm sorry i apologize emmanuel yeah i don't know how to say your last name um he was in something called beyond all no that doesn't count uh he was a voice in planet 51 oh sure rock and apparently griffin and you can confirm this for me, he was in Old Dogs, a small role in Old Dogs. Oh. Oh. The Walt Becker film. Uh-huh.

Not only is he in Old Dogs, I would argue he's the best performance in Old Dogs. Well, there you go. This is a big part of my- And he's uncredited. Yeah. It's kind of rude. He should be first built. He's like the only guy in Old Dogs who understands how to thread the needle, exactly what movie he's in i think he's very funny in old dogs but yes uh this this

is a really interesting i think subversion of just hey justin lung can you do what you're doing in every other movie but can we change the context around you to make you seem just like insufferable um and yes having him be dragged to hell at the end of the movie would be like the satisfying thing to the audience but uh but i'm not unhappy that no what is her name christine got dragged to hell that should have been happened that should have happened in the that should have been the inciting incident, honestly. There is. I mean, look, we're getting deep into it really early before we've introduced the show or our guests. But there's a bloody disgusting interview that Sam Raimi did like three years ago, a retrospective on this movie.

And they is the first William Bibbiani was the interviewer and he asked her if he thought she deserved it. And he said, no, I feel the poor girl was overpunished as it happens in life. Sometimes it's a morality tale. She did do the wrong thing. But holy cow, give her a break. He said, but that's how this particular tale ends. And then this is like the whole movie in a nutshell for me. But that's how this particular tale ends.

And then this is like the whole movie in a nutshell for me. He said, I thought it would be shocking to title the film Drag Me to Hell and actually end it with giving exactly what the title demanded and still make it incredibly shocking. I thought that would be a really funny cocktail. I mean, I mean, I don't disagree. I would have left disappointed if no one, if not a single person got dragged to hell yeah but then the interviews i was reading interviews he did in 2009 and he seems to really feel that she deserved it in 2009 but with the with the benefit of time he maybe changed it was weird he gave a couple interviews where he says that she should have been dragged to hell which i'm inclined to

agree with but then the reasons he gives i was was like, oh, well, that's not the reason. I thought, you know, it's open. He thought she should be dragged to hell because she was like a good person on the outside, but when you really start to look at her, the real person comes out. But it made it sound like it was more connected to... The context of it is he's talking about her more like she's an L.A. phony. She moved from a farm and she changed. I was like, well,

that's not why I disliked her. No, that's why he doesn't like her. There are so many reasons to dislike that character, but it's like, it sounded more connected to like, oh, she's an LA phony.

It's like, well, I get like, yeah, she does have a very nice place in Echo Park or whatever. Yes. Oh, my God. I'm not sure how she can afford it.

Well, it's his lease. It has to be. Right, right, right. It's him with the rich family. Sure. And his parents are paying for it. She did leave her pork queen or whatever was it called? The pork queen fair legacy behind.

She moved to LA. Now she's a cog in the corporate machine sure and that and that's why i hate her yeah yeah that's that's more i was like there's so many good reasons to want her to be dragged to hell but that just wasn't on my list wild she she you know we'll talk about it and griff you should probably introduce the podcast or whatever but um you know this was 2009 this was the height of the recession we were all you know you know ready to hate on anyone you know who was denying bank loans or whatever and foreclosing on you know crazy old ladies like that's that's yeah she's she's she's the villain so i also yeah i mean i think it's part of the magic of this movie is

that it's holding two things to be true at the same time which is she deserves it and also it's a little bit extreme yeah well no one deserves to be well i don't know about nobody but you know most people don't deserve to be dragged to hell i suppose she should at least be given a talking to maybe or you know i don't know something like that she should be given a stern talking to i would drive her boss to hell i would drive i would feel comfortable her boss dragged down yeah if anything this movie makes an argument you could drag four or five different characters to hell true yeah no problem stew stew take stew to hell yeah stew's not great there's a lot of a lot of a lot of strong contenders, power rankings of who should be dragged to hell.

In the way that, like, Broadway shows, you get to end with the catharsis of the cast coming out and taking a bow individually and everything. More movies should, like, end and then the after credits scene shouldn't be some fucking cookie teasing the next movie. It should just be like, we agree with you. Here are the characters we're dragging to hell. You just drag a couple characters to hell at the end the next movie. It should just be like, we agree with you. Here are the characters we're dragging to hell. You just drag a couple characters to hell at the end of every movie. Whoever the audience really dislikes. That'd be really satisfying. Introduce our podcast, Griffin,

and our guests. Sure. Yeah. It's a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. Thanks. I'm David. Thanks. And it's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they get dragged to hell, baby. And this is an example of someone who did one of the most financially successful trilogies in history and then was truly given complete creative freedom to make the exact kind

of movie he made at the beginning of his career uh it's just like a perfect example of a blank check movie on a small scale uh we're talking about sam raimi the films of sam raimi this is the titular the namesake of this miniseries podcast me to hell we're talking drag me to hell and our guests returning together for the first time they've both been separate guests but from the bechdel cast uh jamie loftus and caitlin durantee hello thanks for having us yeah great to great to be back great to be uh in hell with you guys thanks for dragging us into this hell with you yeah we you asked us to do this like three days ago and we're like we don't know uh but we

got the buttons in the mail and here we are now you have no choice that's how we book our podcast we started sending people yeah yes uh welcome to hell everybody um this is a movie that is pretty good in my opinion there you go i'll say it you texted me i did your wording was uh him uh it's like someone made a horror movie for griffin newman i mean any horror movie where an anvil lands on someone's head basically and then their eyes pop out yeah i just feel like that's what you want out of a horror movie i'm not saying that in a negative way at all i'm just saying like it feels like this is you know a hundred percent griffin newman no you know me well i mean you love uh kissing in movies what i love is when a toothless woman sucks on someone's lower jaw and goo comes out twice i gotta did you so wait

did you guys see this in uh who saw this in theaters i guess that's my question i saw it in theaters i did i saw it like i think maybe a year or two after it came out because i and i i'm not you know this is one of the ultimate uh theater experiences i've had as like an adult yeah like this was just the perfect go to the local regal i saw it at the you know court square or whatever and just just the absolute astonishment of the audience the loud astonishment of the audience at every gross thing. It was, you know, everyone was just screaming and cheering pretty much for 99 minutes, and then we all left happy and chattering. It was, I'm sure, exactly the experience Sam Raimi

wanted me to have. It's just a good theater movie. Oh, I'm going to sound like an asshole saying this, but when this movie came out, I was doing an acting program in France. So I know i know i know i know i know wow i only bring this up to say i saw this in paris and in paris especially moviegoers bonjour bonjour yes uh moviegoers are like very reserved you know there's this whole like oh in paris we appreciate cinema unlike those americans unlike those groveling americans so even when you see like a big dumb american blockbuster in france audiences aren't that loud and reactive even for like a horror movie or a comedy or whatever it took like 15 minutes for this audience to

break down and then it was just absolute like screaming and convulsing and all of that. Yeah, it's a lot of fun for that very reason. Well, what do you guys think of Sam Raimi in general? Because when we approached you long ago, this is the movie you guys wanted to talk about. But are you guys Raimi fans, Raimi skeptics? I generally like him. I like the first two Spider-man movies i'm not a huge uh

i mean evil dead is is is fun um you know the evil dead one and then kind of evil dead two is just evil dead one again and then evil dead three is more money is them is the character time traveling which is the formula for all trilogies. Yes, the turtles, for example. Precisely. Turtles in time, yeah. Men in black, et cetera. I think we talked about this last time I was on the show.

Anyway. Well, that's why you have to come back for a third episode of Blind Check, and then you guys can travel through time. That's the time travel episode, yeah. Exactly. So I like that he makes bold choices. I like that he stays on brand. Do I think his movies are good necessarily?

Sometimes I don't think Drag Me to Hell is good. Even a little bit. Anti-drag me to hell. Caitlin and I got some gripes. I'm not a Raimi completionist at all. I mean, Spider-Man 2 is truly one of my all-time favorite movies of my entire life. I've seen it five trillion times. It informed my sexuality in a very direct

way oh well sure you're a fan that truly i don't think i'm uh underselling it when i say that performance i wasn't even thinking about my life in some way right that movie has to be a rosetta stone for you i mean there's no other movie with that much brightly lit shirtless molina right every other movie where molina has taken his top off oh and right it's more sort of moody and shadowy and artsy yeah like species or whatever but yeah my only problem with the da vinci code was that alfred molina was wearing too many clothes the whole time many layers too yeah i mean i like i appreciate the mystery but topless molina uh was was a touchstone for me and so for a while just because i had such a big crush on uh alfred

molina i was like sam ramey's my favorite director because he made alfred molina take his shirt off anyways i've been bopping around his filmography for for the the ensuing 20 years i've seen the evil deads drag me to hell i think when we were picking this episode was the sam raimi movie i'd seen the most recently that wasn't spider-man 2 and it's it's i i i struggle with this movie uh because like there's just one like the the treatment of romani culture is so horrible and that like it makes it just a tough watch in general for me but then as a horror movie like the the scenes are so goofy the roger rabbit seat like i really wish i could have seen the roger rabbit anvil drop in theaters um so it's like this movie has a lot of what i like about sam raimi and then a lot of like a lot of stuff that i was like man

you gotta you gotta talk to a second person that isn't you know directly related to you sometimes but um yes this movie has i would say a a uh a slightly uh broad uh villain that that one could maybe uh pick a few nits about uh i would say the sam raimi's entire oeuvre basically right uh is it goes broad he he's yes uh you know like griff we we saw the gift for example uh-huh uh a movie that that you know is is a very like uh broad portrayal of sort of southern gothic horror i was gonna say a lot of the characters in that one take on all of the south is very similar uh i'm trying to think of other sam raimi movies that are not just set in a cabin mostly his movies are set in cabins i guess that's how he kind of right um have not seen oz the great and powerful

law recently enough to remember how that movie treats oz people, though. It's more anti-witch. It's strongly anti-witch. Well, sure, right, right, yeah. It is funny that this movie has the joke of Justin Long saying, like, look, I know it's been a rough couple of weeks. Let's go up to the cabin. Let's take it easy. Like, the worst thing anyone can offer

in a Sam Raimi movie is, like, let's just take a weekend alone in the cabin. But in his career career this is such like you say griffin yeah what what's a good analog for this like how many other directors have sort of hopped off of whatever the franchise train been like i'm gonna go back like like it'd be like george lucas you know or whoever being like you know actually going you know paying off the promise of like i'm gonna make a movie for me you you'll you'll see you'll all see except you know he's never done it like and ramey actually sort of makes a small little horror movie that's evocative of his early

career puts it out and then never did it again like that's the weird thing like you you watch this and you're sort of like oh he must have a bunch of these scripts, like, rattling around in his drawer. I have some potential insights into that. But I'll say also, like, I think an interesting counterpoint to this movie is that the exact same year is The Lovely Bones, which is, in theory, Peter Jackson trying to do a similar thing. Being like, can I go back and make heavenly creatures now? I've done my Lord of the Rings trilogy i've done king kong can i find my my small good book and do an actor-driven story and somehow lovely bones cost a hundred million dollars it didn't cost a hundred but it did it cost way too much money well remember there's a whole thing with the boat in the bottle and like she's

because there's all that stuff where she's in purgatory or the spirit world or what right like there's all that stuff. Yeah anyway. The in between. Plus Saoirse Ronan's rate was 70 million dollars.

Of course she had an Oscar nomination. Yes. Yes. No but that was like Lynn Bramssey was supposed to make that movie for like 15 million dollars and she had the rights and then peter jackson like swung around and was like please and alice sebald was just like deal broken ripped up contract handed to peter jackson and peter jackson was like we spent like a year with Weta trying to design the in between and you're like it's so overblown it's so overthought it looks like a fucking Lisa Frank folder and Lynn Ramsey when it came out was like yeah I don't know I would have like shot her in

the woods or something I wouldn't have made some fucking that's not the point you're so caught up on the wrong details here and like it was so astounding that Raimi could actually go back and make a movie of this size. And it didn't feel like he was overburdening it. And it also didn't feel like he was. I think sometimes when people try to do this, like make the film like they used to make in the earlier part of their career, it sometimes feels like they're tying an arm behind their back. And they're like oh i'm like trying to make a movie i made when i was younger and dumber and trying to forget everything they've learned in the in-between whereas i think he's he's bringing everything

to the table here in the in-between of their career or in the in-between of peter jackson's the lovely bones both both okay just checking well speaking of peter jackson let me give you some context about the drag me to hell griffin um post spider-man 3 obviously is is when this movie is coming together uh first he wants to make an adaptation of the we free men the terry pratchett discworld book uh-huh uh which is like what a discworld is one of those sort of you know massive niche you know uh fan i love the discworld books or i loved them when i was a kid you know like that's never really been done uh by hollywood i don't know if like i think the terry pratchett estate is fairly guarded about it or it falls apart because they terry pratchett hated the script. So that doesn't happen.

And then speaking of Peter Jackson, Raimi wants to do The Hobbit. He put his name in for that, like when Jackson leaves The Hobbit and then they hire Guillermo del Toro instead. It was pretty much between the two of them by all accounts, right? Like it was, they were the only two guys seriously in consideration.

I mean, I don't know what happens if Raimi gets on board. by all accounts right like it was they were the only two guys seriously in consideration i mean i i don't know what happens if ramey gets on board i don't like i don't know if that thing was doomed no matter what or if ramey would have just been like sure i'll do my thing what is are we pro ramey hobbit i can't even i'm having trouble uh with that picture yeah i'm not really i gotta be honest i'm very pro del toro hobbit and i wish it happened as one movie and i wish when you see the first hobbit right that it resulted the del toro stuff in it is fun the weird little creatures he had designed are like you're like oh that's cool like this would have been good but yeah anyway obviously yeah it's it's a tough question because

on one hand it sort of felt like no one else could make it other than peter jackson at that point but also the circumstances in which peter jackson came back around and ended up making it felt a little bit dispiriting right everything about the hobbit is dispiriting those movies are funny though and i do kind of stick up for them, but they are also bad. Like, I would love to see a Sam Raimi Hobbit movie in a universe where the Hobbit rights were held by someone different and they could be entirely its own thing, you know? Like, if Sam Raimi just had the ability to adapt The Hobbit, I think that's actually well suited to him as a book. I think having to tie it into what jackson's pre-established is maybe like a little impossible that's fair yeah so this is a script he wrote with

his brother in the 80s it was called the curse so it had literally been like just in his drawer basically griffin like he he and and it's what we said it's just he gets he gets together with rob taper the guy his producing partner who's been running ghost house pictures and making those you know horror movies what do they have griff let's see the grudge remake that was the big one man oh yeah what was boogie man i mean this was the thing all of these movies would come out in january open to 2020 million, quietly make $50 million, and then disappear into the ether. Barry Watson.

Yes. The Messengers with Kristen Stewart, 30 Days of Night. That's Heartnet, right? 30 Days of Night was Heartnet, yeah. I don't remember The Messenger. That was, ooh, the Pang Brothers. Remember remember the messenger. That was the Pang Brothers. Remember them?

Right. Oxide and Danny Pang. It's a Kristen Stewart farmhouse movie. Yeah. A sunflower farm in North Dakota is invaded by ominous darkness. I'm in. Yeah, it sounds pretty good. So apparently he's inspired by and oh no no no

i'm sorry it's that there was a trend piece written in the la times that tied together him sam mendes making away we go steven soderbergh making the girlfriend experience and angley making taking woodstock which is basically like all these guys are trying to to shrink it down like all these all these big shots are trying to go small again i don't know i don't know if that's a trend those movies are all very different yeah i was gonna say those are very different films uh the thing i do know i don't know if if jj pulled this up in his research but that raimi after seeing uh sean the dead handed the script to edgar wright and was, you should make this. You're like

a young me. And Edgar Wright was like, if I made this, it would be karaoke. Interesting. Like I could do an impression of you and make this movie, but what's the point? Like, you should make this. I think that was kind of the thing was that he pulled the script out of the drawer and said, like, maybe it's time to find a younger filmmaker to make this and i'll produce it and i think edgar wright saying that to him was the thing that made him question like could i go back and make a smaller movie again apparently edgar wright says he later visited the set of drag me to hell during shooting sam raimi was shooting in the graveyard he was wearing his suit as he famously always wears a suit uh on set and was covered in

mud and saw egger right and shouted this is all your fault at him so that's funny oh that's great um yeah i did not know that he wore a suit uh on set this is news to me fucking day yes that he has this whole i'm a professional doing my job i should right that's his thing right right there there's something very like uh squeaky clean and like straight arrow about sam raimi where he's like well i make pictures for a living and i take the job very seriously and so i wear a suit to show respect to the cinematic arts. I was going to say, that's very like grew up in Michigan of him. Yes. That's like, I am at work and this is my suit.

Was he wearing a suit? Wait, was he wearing a suit when he was directing The Evil Dead when he was like 12? I think he was 12 years old, of course. They called him the Wonder Boy. I mean, I think he was. I do think that is his class. I mean, maybe not for like the early, the first Evil Dead.

Like, you know, there you see pictures of him in like a button down or whatever. David, David. In our Quick and the Dead episode, Rem and Mars, our guest, was asking about the timeline of when Raimi starts wearing the suit. So JJ, our researcher, dug in and he sent us a thread, okay? So he said he showed us a picture from Evil Dead 2

where he's wearing shirt and tie, but like short sleeve, white button down shirt with tie. Like he looks like Michael Douglas in Falling Down, right? And then by dark man long sleeves tie by army of darkness jacket but it's not a proper suit it's like upgrading red jacket shirt right he's inching right uh-huh uh-huh right i mean the man knows how to build

canon over time good for him yes and then then I think it's somewhere around Quicker Dead and Simple Plan where it's a proper suit. It is a grown-up's suit. Oh, I don't know what I thought would happen. When you Google Sam Raimi's suit, it's a million pictures of the Spider-Man suit. Oh. I don't know what I thought would happen. Sure. That's rude, actually, though.

Yeah. Yes. The only other thing he says about developing this apart from the fact that he yes he just tried to get someone else to make it i guess because he couldn't trust that he couldn't make a small movie was that he he uh you know wrote it with ivan a zillion years ago it's all made up obviously it's all total nonsense based on true story no no but i mean like it's not based on anything it's not like some piece of myth it's not based on lore right sure right he was just like we just wanted a movie about a character who commits the sin of greed and has to pay a price for it it's in every mythology or whatever right like he's just like it's like we were trying to

be as simple as possible he calls it i want to find uh serving up spaghetti in meatballs but pretending it's a full course meal that is he just wanted it to be as dumb and stupid as possible is his apparently marty noxon uh who people probably know best from buffy vampire slayer and other tv shows uh rewrote the script and then they decided not to use her rewrite because it was like smarter is the way he puts it we like the direct dumb stupid version is what he says she wrote a movie that you and i uh defend a lot the fright night remake which which is an example of like this movie's a lot smarter than it needs to be y'all seen the Fright Night remake with Colin Farrell? Hot Colin Farrell. Oh yes, I have. But I don't remember it very well.

Do you like Colin Farrell's arms? Yes. Then I recommend it. Okay. With a lot of emphasis. If that's the bar for entry, I'm in, baby. I'm just saying, there are other things to recommend about that movie.

It's got poots. It's got sexy David Tennant. Really good David Tennant. With, like, eye shadow. He plays, like, Criss Angel, mind freak, essentially. Yeah. Right. Right.

But, I mean, like, if I was, like, on the street trying to get someone to come to a preview of this movie with, like, a clipboard, I'd be like, hey, do you like Colin Farrell's arms? Anybody? Anyone like Colin Farrell's arms, specificallyrell's arms specifically full theater in two minutes exactly i got a movie that's about 80 minutes of that and then 20 minutes of plot so i'd even right if i could unpack that further i would say obviously the arc of colin farrell's career is he was like they tried to sell him to us as like this is the hottest guy in the world right and never fully connected with the audience. And then he sort of refound himself as a character actor.

And Fright Night is the one movie where he figures out how to make being hot part of his character acting. Like it's like weaponized hotness in modern character actor Colin Farrell. It's a very special skill. He's traditionally hot in that movie, but good. Oh, that's a Craig Gillespie movie. It is craig gillespie such a weird career one of the weirdest careers yeah he is very hard to pin down because he also made the what's it called the finest hours is that what it's called yes yes the the chris pine you know he's got a the boat movie where he's in the boat man on a boat ben foster eric bonner yeah it's like well how does this guy pick his projects it's so funny cruella mr woodcock he did do mr wood right that's

right then there's the i tanya pam and tommy lane which seems to be what he's doubling down on now sure right yeah like this is biopic stuff but then the finest hours i've probably shut it out before chris pine going like we gotta get over the bar we gotta go rescue that boat all that it's so good yeah um all right so this movie got a 30 million dollar budget uh and elliot page was gonna be the star and i remembered that i remember the casting announcement uh and i guess i think it was a sag strike problem or there was some scheduling reason uh and allison loman like replaces him like you know it was i don't know there was whatever it was not like some dramatic thing what do you guys think of allison loman we have to have the allison loman this is for all intents and purposes her last movie she marries brian neville dean or is it mark now i get i'm confused neville

dean taylor who did crank and ghost rider spirit of vengeance and all those wacky movies she marries one of those guys the year this movie comes out and since then she has had three on-screen appearances that are all cameos in movies that he directed or produced this is her why that is she was like i got married i had kids i didn't want to act anymore okay well we well i'll say she's got a she's got a slightly problematic twitter feed i don't want to be rude about allison loman and people can do whatever they want to do or whatever but when i look at her twitter feed i'm like this is a lot of tweets about crypto and elon musk oh it's like for my liking um but uh but but but that aside do you guys have allison loman takes there was a you know there's sort of a six-year allison loman moment i guess starting with like white oleander come into this right you got like big fish matchstick men uh flicka flicka i was a you

know look i was a flick ahead at the time of course i liked you got flicked i got i got i caught the flick and uh i love a horse girl with some horse hair horsing around i don't know if i have a really strong take on her i was like she's fine i don't know she like in my head she could she could have been a bunch of people knowing that elliot page might have done the part you're like yeah that would have probably been a better performance i agree but i think she's good at you know being upset and screaming and i i you know and there is something to the performance you do buy that she whatever kind of might sell her soul to be a middle manager at city bank or whatever like right like that's sort of the crucial thing right you need to you need to you can't just be like oh

this is a wide-eyed innocent you know you need you need a little bit of that to go with it. I loved Alice Lohman in this. I think it's a pretty great performance. I think, if anything, it's like perfectly deployed. Her whole thing in this period, and it is truly like a seven-year career where she was everywhere. It was just like she was like unbelievably gentle, right? Like everything about her. Like she looks like an ann getty's like baby portrait and her voice is so like slight and everything about her just felt so kind of fragile

and so there was a lot of her playing like deeply emotionally wounded people or playing kind of like saintly impossibly perfect love interests, and things like that. And then this is... Flicka's best friend. Oh, Flicka's best friend. I'm sorry. That's the other thing. She would get typecast sometimes as Flicka's best friend.

Specifically Flicka's best friend, yeah. Right. I remember the Ellie Page thing being really interesting at the time because that sort of position that an actor can get into post-Oscar nomination, where it where it's like well you haven't won but you had especially like for page where juno was such a big hit on top of it but like your profile has grown so significantly and now there's this question of like are you a movie star are you like a leading star? What do we do with you? And Paige, I think, especially post-Juno, had like such a specific persona in people's minds. I think there was

the assumption of just like, you can make like three more comedies like that. You can be the like acerbic, fast-talking, quippy person, which seemed to not be of interest i i have to imagine just in terms of timing that inception is the thing that takes page out of the running probably right a different movie with uh dilly brow dilly brow who had one of the most incredible 18 month runs for an actor who also seemingly like disappeared yeah he's i believe he's an avatar too yeah he's in both of the i think that james kid uh james kidnapped james cameron kidnapped him i think so because he's in like maybe all four of the avatar sequels but i think we only know that he's in the first two but the next two are real mysteries but yes he is he's been down there filming with every with joel david moore who tried

to market correct justin long of course himself i hope for his sake it's worth it that's a that's a long time it does see it does seem tiring he was in one episode of mr robot that's the thing it's like right drag me to hell avatar inception all in months. And then it's like one episode of Mr. Robot, one episode of Children's Hospital, two episodes of Touch, one episode of Z Nation, a lot of short films. And three movies I've never heard of. Remember Amnesia, kind of an oxymoron, Extracurricular Activities, and Biba Boys. activities and biba boys i'm looking at his twitter feed he hates elon musk good just i'm just i'm just gonna tell you what everyone seems to think of elon musk but uh yeah he's and he's retweeting a lot of avatar stuff so i guess uh yeah he's excited for that i don't know thank god um he was dunking on scott walker the other day he tweets a lot tweet less delete come on come on let's more movies less tweeting i think as much as i am an ellie page fan and probably prefer page as an actor in general to low man i do think page might have been like a little bit too hard edge for this movie where i

think the main game ramey's playing with this film is like this is someone who is so sure that she is a good person you know like there's something about how innocent allison loman reads where when she starts to get like angry and bitter stuff it feels more subversive, but also that like her being cursed feels more, um, subversive, if that makes sense, you know, like,

especially coming right off of Juno, you're just going to be like, well, like, but Paige is always going to be the smartest person in the room, you know? Right. I think,

I mean, Alison's performance was a little hit or miss for me. And in some scenes I was like, wow, she's doing a pretty good job at this acting thing. And other times I'm like, I don't think she's doing a very good job. But I also think that might just be leaning into like the Sam Raimi-ness of it all. I would grant her that. I don't know. Yeah.

I think that was it for a lot of it for me. But yeah, I mean, I bought that she was on the precipice of being dragged to hell so i believed yeah the nosebleed her nosebleed performance uh oh wow i can't take that from her not just a nosebleed she's also gushing out of her mouth she's bleeding out of her mouth it was a full face bleed it is a full face bleeded. It is a full facebleed. David Pamer really kills that scene. There's a thing on the Blu-ray, the Shout Factory, Screen Factory release that I guess was a couple years ago

where they did a sit-down interview with her, which is just kind of rare because she's pretty much stayed out of the public eye other than tweeting pro-Elon Musk, Johnny Depp stuff for the last 10 years. And she said that like this despite the fact that this was a script that he had had for several decades that it was like pretty much always in flux and raimi was very improvisational with it and she'd show up on the day and he'd be like today we're gonna pour bugs in your mouth and she'd be like oh okay when when

does that happen he's like i don't know we'll figure it out like there was a lot of i think her just being told like we're gonna do this thing now and you just have to react and she's like or i could just retire you know right i mean it does seem like it was a very intense filming process ramby was very much like i really tried to warn her you know that it was going to be very physical and very insane right you know so he's like i threw her out of a car i threw fake candy glass at her whipped her around the room in a harness i buried her alive like you know like he's he clearly feels maybe not guilty but he's just like i hope she knew what she was in for when she like read this script or whatever i mean i personally would not do this movie i would say no i might play david paymer i would take that role you take

the paper you can you can gush blood blood gush to the face right yeah and then i go like get on me i was fascinated stop bleeding he's like stop it anyway sorry i was fascinated by the story of uh lorna raver getting cast as as mrs ganush where they're the anecdote that i read was um so she's like the the main antagonist and that she only auditioned thinking she was a little old lady coming into the bank because they're foreclosing on her house and they didn't tell her what character she was playing yeah i was like that i feel like she should have known i don't know she had two film credits uh in her career uh she was a big new york and chicago theater actor i guess right and that so that was mostly her background but yes she says she had no idea which i guess they didn't give her the whole script

for the audition and then when then they were like here's the whole script by the way and she said quote oh my that's the end of the quote but it's also funny like even if you don't give someone the full script uh usually like if someone's going say, turn into a deadite for most of the running time, you have them do one scene where they walk into the bank and ask for a loan, and you have them do a second scene where they, like, scream and puke eyeballs on you. To not even in the audition be given any indication that that's a whole other part of the character you're going to have to play until you're hired is uh i don't know i get rami a lot of trust in her i guess yeah i'm like maybe he saw her perform before like i don't know i mean she she plays the hell out of the part like regardless of what you think of the part she did she does a great job but it's like yeah that was i was like they didn't give her the full premise before they hired her. I, yeah, I don't know.

I mean, you know, Raver says like, look, they were great stunt coordinators and the doubles showed Alison and I exactly what to do without hurting each other. Uh, but,

uh, she does, she does essentially say like it, it was a completely unexpected, insane thing to, to do all this stuff. And to have all this crazy makeup on and blah, blah, blah. To get your head crushed by an anvil,

which I'm assuming was a completely practical effect. Yeah, that was practical. They actually did do that. There was no stunt double or anything. You gotta tell an actor you're gonna drop an anvil on their head. Sam Raimi was just on a ladder. He's like, all right, stand there. Sam Raimi was just on a ladder.

He's like, all right, stand there. Yeah, I mean, the way Raimi talks about it is just like a joy. I think he loved making this movie. Griffin, are you reading these quotes? The most fun I've had in 20 years making a picture. Hired all the best technicians.

I guess it's the $30 million budget thing where it's like he's making The Evil Dead again, except he has, but comparatively, a massive budget so he can just, you know, have every expert on hand and it's still a quote-unquote cheap movie by his standards now. And he has complete creative control. I think probably the assumption was

because he made the three Spider-Man movies back-to-back, he didn't even do the thing that a lot of these guys do where like in between each movie you do a palate cleanser, you know? Like Nolan does Prestige and Inception in between Batman movies. Or the guys who are like, let me make a smaller thing. You know, Taika Waititi is going to do a Jojo Rabbit in between Thor's or whatever. That he did three of them back to back. They all were so huge even if you know three was unpopular it was the highest grossing movie of that year and it's like okay either he's

gonna make like a fucking disc world he's gonna launch a new franchise he's gonna make some huge new vfx thing or the other assumption would probably be he's gonna try to make like another prestige movie he's gonna go back to simple plan land and like try to win an oscar now to be like i just want to do a 35 million dollar horror movie uh especially when it's green lit with someone who is like recently minted as an oscar-nominated star uh even though they replace page with someone who like is a lot less famous i think it was still like you just you got it set up fine you You produced a bunch of these. Just fucking do whatever the hell you want. You know, like no one was messing with him at all. I heard a story that I cannot cite my source on this, but that the budget is on this movie was higher than it was reported.

But it was because Raimi started putting his own money into trying to like pump up the effects. Oh, that's cool. That he just like really was all in on this thing i mean the effects are the the effects in the seance scene are so wild like there's the goat yeah the goat i was like i forgot there's so many uh solid canonical movie goats. Okay. So who we got? Black Phillip, obviously. You got Black Phillip. You've got this. You've got the goat

in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. That was a personal goat fave of mine as a child. It went... His name's like Jolly. His name's Jolly and his only line is... What about the goats that the men stared at and

the men who stare at goats which i never saw yeah it's in the title yeah do goats appear in that movie i haven't seen it i have seen it there's goats i don't remember the men stare at them yeah yeah men do stare at them uh what about like every uh jeff bridges performance since 2008 yes absolutely um just shows up with a scrabble beer and chews on the can i do feel like i feel like i'm forgetting a goat i feel like there actually is another there's another demonic goat that i'm forgetting yes uh movie goats goats in movies let's see it doesn't help that there's that movie called goat but it's about like frat bullying that's not helpful right I'm seeing a movie here called goats which does have

a goat on a poster there's the goat that they feed a dinosaur in Jurassic Park I was about to say that's a big one okay yes and then I guess Pan from Pan's Labyrinth is sort of goatee he's like a fawn, right? He's goat-like.

Yeah. He's got goat legs. Yeah, you got a lot of goat-adjacent characters. Sure. That's true. I'm on hypeable.com slash goats on filming TV. All three looking at the exact same list. That's what I was looking at.

I got to cite my sources because i use the best sources scholarly journal what is it called hypeable.com there's i love how these articles are written it's my favorite that even harry potter can't resist a great goat they're like what are you talking about the goat tribune there was apparently aborforth dumbledore has a real fondness for goats well that's sure right of course dumbledore's brother likes goats yes i forgot about that i don't know if they weave that into the films though right they they may have cut that out of the movies there's the goat in the big green right i'm not getting it wrong that's the animal i think they have a goat. Never seen The Big Green.

Well, I talk about it a lot. It's kind of rude at this point because we've been doing this podcast together for almost eight years. That's the soccer movie, right? Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah, it was a pretty big important film.

Drag Me to Hell is in my top three goats. Wow. I would say just under Black Phillip. Mm-hmm, same. Right. Yeah, the goat required six puppeteers, FYI. Just. Right. Yeah. The goat required six puppeteers. FYI. Just telling you.

See, this is what I find impressive, though. Like, it's a puppeteer to goat where they clearly are doing some babe style CGI lip replacement. So they're able to get like a better mouth movement than you would out of just animatronic. And this whole movie, I feel like he is doing a very good job of combining practical and digital stuff. We were having this conversation, David, on our text thread with the Doughboys, and Mike Mitchell is like a big horror movie fan and who tends to dislike CGI. And he was saying like, what's the scariest movie that uses a lot of CGI? like making the argument that most horror films when they're it gets too digital it starts to lose some sort of like tactility and it becomes less scary and i think this is a movie where it's like clear that he built a lot of shit and did a lot of shit for real on camera and then uses the cgi to like just amp it up in a really good way and it all makes it feel kind of uh uh hallucinogenic yeah i i don't mind the CGI in this.

You know, you guys go ahead. Because I think there's a counter argument. There's some questionable CGI moments, most notably for me, the one where the anvil... Okay, so the anvil seems pretty real. That's a practical anvil. I love the Roger Rabbit anvil. And then the anvil falls on the head and then we get the

eyeballs popping out and then the splatter of like the eyeballs and face goo blood guts that go into christine's face is like some of the worst cgi i've ever seen in my life but this is what i like about it is that i think he he is incredibly disinterested in any of this looking realistic. It's more just like the weird feeling of like waking up from a dream and being like, I don't even know how to describe it. Like, you know, when you're trying to describe a nightmare to somebody and you're like, it's like she like puked blood onto me, but it didn't look like blood. It looked like chocolate pudding. Like everything has that odd otherworldly quality where you're just like this. This didn't look like blood it looked like chocolate pudding like everything has that odd otherworldly quality where you're just like this this doesn't look right like the

texture of this isn't correct yeah i kind of i sort of maybe i'm like wrong but i assumed when the when the cgi didn't look amazing it was like supposed to look kind of weird it didn't look amazing. It was like supposed to look kind of weird. It didn't bother me. I liked the combination of like practical and CGI with like the full awooka eyeball. I loved every single part of it. Right. I'm pro any of that just because it seems within the tone of the film. There's a world where this movie is

trying to be more serious and then that that's where your brain breaks because you're like well wait a second this is obviously fake or whatever and instead with this especially because anytime something like that happens then it goes away really quickly and everyone's just supposed to be like huh like right like every he wants the audience to then do the sort of the yelp the scream the laugh and then the sort of excited chatter right like that that little that little the eyeball in the cake like appearing and reappearing and disappearing eyeballs yeah a lot of eyeballs i mean it was it is the kind of genius thing of him making a pg-13 horror movie where it's like fairly light on blood and gore you know in quotes but like has snot and worms and eyeballs and like all kinds of stuff where you're like gooey movie right where you're like well i guess this isn't

violent in the way i would you know like i would associate with a horror movie like you know like it feels like he's pulling a little trick like on the mpaa in that way there's not a lot of blood but there is a lot of gross but there is a scene where she right she like throws up embalming fluid question mark all over him her yeah that's it i was like is that what that was supposed to be oh that is brutal that scene is really funny because it almost plays like someone you know like knocking over a bunch of glasses at a party or something that are filled with champagne where she like the by the the fluid keeps coming out and she's being like i'm sorry i'm sorry you know like it's it's almost just like comedy of manners shit it's peter parker trying to get the i'm sorry you know like it's it's almost just like comedy of manners shit

it's peter parker trying to get the brooms back in the closet it's just like this thing he loves of just letting everything go on for a little bit too long like he there is so much fucking of the rhythms of like when something crazy happens in this movie and then it ends so abruptly versus the time where it's like how how can this still be happening 15 seconds later it is interesting because i mean i think this movie was seen as something of uh an underperformer at the box office and i was reading like articles from the time where they were like why didn't this thing do at least as well as like the boogeyman like that was the you know they were saying like sam ramey's been releasing these movies in january and february are mediocre. And this one's so much better.

Why isn't it outgrossing those? And they were talking about how it sort of played against this movie that it was PG-13. Because it was clearly esoteric enough that it wasn't going to be sold to, like, teenagers as, here's your normal scary movie. Like, it looked weirder than that but to appeal to the more hardcore horror audience they wanted to see like super extreme viscera blood and guts which him doing a pg-13 movie to some people read as like oh is this a compromise so i watched which i hadn't watched before the unrated cut of this movie that's on the disc it is truly a difference of 10 seconds right it's six seconds of difference between the two yeah what's the difference the only scene that is different like wholesale and it's really a

scene fragment is her killing the cat is done differently oh okay it's like a close-up with her stabbing off camera but the blood spatters onto her face. Oh, I saw that cut then too. Yeah. And then outside of that, that's a good moment, but it's like outside of that, it's literally like an extra frame here, an extra shot there. When she does the CGI puke of the eyeballs and the goo, it's more red,

whereas in the theatrical, it's more brown. Like it's like tiny, tiny differences like that. Okay. I didn't bother me i mean i'm not like a huge horror like i i enjoy horror movies i don't know the like when it gets too granular i get lost but like i didn't mind this as a pg-13 movie at all like yeah no and i think watching the cut the unrated cut makes it clear that it was like always designed as a pg-13 movie it's not like he had to make any serious compromises and water down his vision and he gets a lot in there like we we watched the evil dead remake for patreon which the whole marketing campaign on that movie was like you're not gonna fucking believe how

bloody this fucking thing is it's right like all the posters and taglines are like it's fucking bloody and i feel like this movie is more upsetting on a sort of like goo and viscera level than that film is despite just using different colors and like non-blood substances and sound effects this movie gets such good fucking use design the fucking like jello budget the foley artist must have been given on this film there's a moment where mrs ganash like just squeezes the handkerchief that she has like snotted into and it's like so squishy it was like the grossest part of the movie for me yes i'm also yeah i'm more gross i don't want worms on my face i'm not afraid of evil dead happening to me that's not gonna happen to me i'm not i'm not that's not right that's not gonna happen i don't know worms on my face so much at that point

especially by 2009 it's like right he yeah we know what that is it happened yeah but face worms that's new. Right. There's stuff in this movie that's genuinely new. Like, I mean, we talked about the anvil, but leading up to that, the fist in the mouth, the amount of weird, like, shoving something into someone's mouth or something getting projected out of someone's mouth in this movie, just feels like kind of new territory to play with in a lot of ways. I have not seen a

person's eyeball get stapled shut i have not seen a ruler be used to stab someone in the back of the throat how how does she not die by the end of that scene uh but instead she has the strength to pick up a cinder block and throw it through the window of a car. She's fueled by rage. She's fueled by rage. I mean, that's true. I lost everything to Madoff! And then she's just throwing the cinder block. That blows my mind, too.

I don't know much about any, if at all, how much revising of the script took place, but how perfectly timed it was for a movie about a lone advisor much about the any if if at all how much like revising of the script took place but like how perfectly timed it was for a movie about a lone advisor going to hell like i can't imagine a better time for that to happen except maybe like uh later this year or something right yeah right exactly yeah except in three to four months um but no i think uh uh it because the film must have when did this shoot like 2008 right i mean right but like probably pre you know lehman brothers or whatever you know like and uh so it is funny how it just i remember when it came out people were like oh this is like

so timely quietly accidentally whatever timely and just kind of like perfectly met the moment yeah i mean so you know watching all of these and sort of trying to find the the through lines as as we cannot help but do you realize how many of sam raimi's movies are like morality tales in one way or another there's something very square about him in that sense, where I think he's really fascinated by these sort of very pure, like, someone is faced with a decision, and they make one decision, and the rest of their life spirals out from that one decision. And in most Sam Raimi movies, it is a decision that curses them for the rest of their lives, right? Like, in the supernatural Evil Dead dragging to hell way, or even in the Simple Plan way, where it's like, you find the bag of money

and you take it, rather than leaving it there. That fucks you up for the rest of your life. You never get over that. And Spider-Man is this weird outlier in his career, where it's like, those are the three movies where the guy has the moment, and he makes the right choice, and then the rest of the film is defined by him being, like,

such a moral, good, you know, boy scout um but i think he's always sort of fascinated by like that sort of human temptation you know and these small decisions we can make in like a moment and there is something i think just about how granular like you know you you can put on her the sort of she's someone who's clearly very concerned with seeming like a nice person i wouldn't throw hollywood phony shit at her right but like even in the scene where she talks about like i'm a vegetarian i foster cats like she's like bragging about the things she does that shows that she clearly is a good person right and uh and and has this whole

complex about being seen as a higher class person and not being seen as the daughter of a drunk as a farm girl as all these things you know wanting to move up in social strata and all that sort of stuff um but it does boil down to this thing of like David Pamer is this incredibly banal evil, right? This guy who just – he's not putting too much mustard on it. Very matter-of-factly says like, look, when people lose their house, we make bank off of that. Right. Like that's huge. And that's why we're here.

That's why we're here. That's what we're here to do. Look, I respect you. You're good at what you do. You're a very nice lady but like you need to be a little more cutthroat in this business and i leave this decision up to you like i i love that it is a test that she could it's not that he says to her you have to go fucking kick this woman out right that he kind of sits back in his chair and goes

i don't know what do you want to do this is your decision and she looks at that fucking empty corner office and she just makes this decision of like what if i try being an asshole for 10 minutes what if i just try being an asshole on for size and it fucking ruins the rest of her life right the three days she has remaining to live right it's till she gets dragged to hell yeah i okay so this is what really this is part of why i was like this i don't know what this movie is trying to do or say exactly because on one hand you have this character who makes this like capitalist like corporate complacency choice and from that on, I'm not on her side.

I'm not rooting for her. I'm like, I'm on Mrs. Ganish's side. Like, fuck Christine. She sucks. But then the movie frames her as like any horror movie protagonist generally does as like the character that we're rooting for. Like, oh, no, she's being haunted. She's being tormented by demons. I hope she figures this out and it all stops but then the movie does end in such a way where you're like yeah she got dragged

to hell and deservedly so because she admits like i just made this choice out of corporate greed and so that i could get a promotion but like i spent the whole movie being like well i'm not rooting for her so i don't care what happens to her. I, I will say, I think it's sort of like, it's got the kind of film noir thing where it's like, she makes a mistake where you're like,

I don't think she should have done that. But you're also like, yeah, but people make mistakes. And then you're watching the whole movie of her being like, come on, come on. Can I,

can I fix this? Like, you know, like, Hey, come on, come on. And then at the end,

it's like, no crime pays. You're going to hell. That's at the end, it's like, no, crime pays. You're going to hell. That's it. I thought I fixed it. I killed a cat. And I'm like, no. It's pretty harsh.

The moments that, like, I don't know. There were, like, little moments with her where I'm like, ah, there's probably more of me in a moment like that than I would care to admit. Like, when she shows up at Mrs. Ganesh's house, not knowing that her funeral is actively taking place and is like, you know, there to apologize, but also gets defensive when she's like, she just like can't really handle being directly called out for anything, which i think is like a pretty human

response to that sort of thing but when when uh mrs ganash's granddaughter is like uh what the fuck are you talking about like just doesn't buy her story at all she like you know turns to pudding and then randomly fat shames christine in a weird way i that that was that was one thing i was like sam like really the ramey brothers are gonna school us on this all right like well there's right there's a lot of readings on this movie that right i doubt sam ramey intended that people are like this seems like a movie about a girl with a massive eating disorder because so much of her like she discomfort is around eating she refused and and so much of the horror is around like stuff going in her mouth or coming out of her mouth and stuff like that that like the cake scene yeah yeah like that like that she seems to be almost like

seized with like anxiety around uh and it like you see it with obviously her her her uh you know the the photo the swine queen photo stuff like that right like all that's like so god knows i mean again it's like i feel like if you you you sit sam raimi down he'd be like no i was just trying to make a stupid movie like it's not like he's ever had any kind of highfalutin take on anything he's ever done like every interview with that guy, he's like, I was just trying to make a movie about a guy who's trying to do a thing. Like, you know, he's very simple about everything. But, you know, I have read takes like that. There is that school of filmmaker who avoids any accepting or sort of taking on any reading of their movies as correct, right just goes like i don't know i just made a

movie like whatever it is which i sometimes find a little annoying but i also think as a counterpoint anytime a filmmaker comes out with some sort of heady take on what they were trying to say in their movie it immediately goes viral on twitter is like get a load of this fucking clown why won't they shut the fuck up don't tell me what your movie is. Let me judge that. Right. So it's hard to tell with Ramey because I do think first and foremost, he is like an entertainer. I think when we were watching for love of the game and the gift, David, and it's sort of like, why is he making this? Why is his personality getting lost in this? It's because I don't think there's like, he loves to put on a show and he loves to get an emotional reaction out of his audience, right?

I think his two favorite things are to like put his lead character in a vice grip and then by proxy put the audience in a vice grip. Like he loves having these characters he can torture and test in some way and making that feel very visceral and very emotional and very heightened so that he's really playing the audience like an orchestra or whatever. And I think what's interesting about him is excluding Spider-Man, who is this like almost biblical, like Jesus-like figure of like moral balance, right, after he makes his like mistake i i think he like to what you're talking about caitlin of like am i supposed to like this person or not i think that's so much the game he's trying to play with this movie of like how do i get the audience to react to this how do i constantly shift from scene to scene whether you like this person or this person is

villainous like jamie's saying, these scenes where she comes in, and here's Alison Lohman, and she's so delicate and soft-spoken and looks like a baby, you know? And is sort of framed as the kind of person who in a movie like this is just, oh, how dare the universe burden them with these awful things? And then she has these moments where the facade breaks and she becomes a little bit unseemly. She lashes out.

She shows something petty in her personality. And it sort of like tests in a way that I think if it was someone like Elliot Page, who is more conventionally charismatic, right? You could sort of like, in a Bruce Campbell way, get into like, oh, it's like fun watching them go bad. When Alison Lohman like lashes out at at someone you're like this this is weird she doesn't really like she doesn't relish it at all she's like resisting it the entire time yeah she's like no i'm good i swear right and then like she protests that the more you're like i'm questioning it i really the the degree to which you remain so convinced that you are good and like the cat

scene is such a clear testing of that you know and then she gets so upset when she's like i killed the fucking cat for you like i did your stupid thing and what the she says like keep your cat you stupid pork queen or something like that which is a a great line, great read of that line. Amazing piece of cinema. Yeah, bring that line into more movies. It is, I mean, that does kind of support the whole, like,

loan officer thing, too, of just, like, she has to believe she's a good person to continue showing up to what she does. Making judgments. Yeah.

Yeah. Sorry, the exact wording was, I don't want your cat, you dirty pork queen. Now, to that end, and I don't, like like i think this movie is messy in a lot of ways and you can question a lot of the readings or or how things come off and all of that sort of way i if i could play devil's advocate for half a second i do think some of like especially when you look at the first scene of her coming into the bank asking for the loan right and as we said it's like the fucking squishing sound of the handkerchief right and

that like she's like coughing up green goo even before anything supernatural has happened in the movie like it's so overcranked and romani people are obviously like so demonized across all of western fiction like just like forever it's been like, well, it's so easy to just make them these creepy, terrifying people in their wagons, right? I do think this movie is trying to get at something of her self-assuredness that she's a good person versus her judgment of everyone around her at all times.

That the way she is, I'm what what is the the lorna raver character's name miss ganush the way she is it's spelled excuse me mrs ganush i think the way the way mrs ganush is like depicted to the audience is sort of trying to reflect the way she sees her as like oh this is like an uncomfortable gross old woman which even i just think there's a through line to like the scene where she goes to justin long's parents house and when she has her like freak out the thing she does is takes a glass and throws it at the door to the kitchen where all of their like domestic workers are you know yeah right shout out to uh hecubit the cat who's at that house by the way i i just think there's this like through line this quiet through line to the movie of her being like i'm a good person

and constantly trying to maintain her very safe white waspy space right she'll be a good person to a point i think that would have worked more effectively if we saw her perception of things and how she perceives Mrs. Ganish versus how Mrs. Ganish actually is. But because we only see one version of Mrs. Ganish, which is just like, yeah, she's got scary fingernails. She's coughing up goop. scary fingernails she's like coughing up goop oh yeah like all these things that like

demon like the whole like old women are disgusting and scary trope is like so which is like a very overdone thing in horror movies in general but like this is like fully leaned into but it that would have worked better for me if again like we like, we see Christine's perception of, like, oh, like, yes, I came from this, like, I grew up on a farm and I used to be the pork queen. And I have, you know, I am leaving that past behind me and trying to, you know, quote unquote, assimilate into, like, whatever bank culture yeah and like la culture and stuff like that bank culture man i'm an aspiring bank and that and that she sees like people who are beneath her she like perceives them as like gross but then if we see like mrs ganash is as like a different version of her that would have all worked way better than me. But instead, this movie just leans into the, yeah, I'm Sam Raimi, and I agree that old women are scary.

Yeah, it's kind of presented as fact. Yes, yes. The whole movie is like shot in Raimi vision. So you have to just like, everything is from that perception. Yeah. Right. Everything is cranked up to 11. i was feeling

the same way caitlin i've just like i feel like it could have been it could have been and this would not have resolved the portrayal of romani people in in this movie or you know in obviously like that not one movie is going to solve any like everything but just even like a small i was like at the funeral if we could have just seen that she was like beloved by her community or if there had been like a moment of that you're like okay there's a lot of people there right and that there's people they're having a good time and it seems like a sort of raucous wake but that's about all right yeah but if there was just some sort of indication or like more more because i think that you know you could argue there's seed planting that the way that

allison loman sees the people around her is really heavily skewed in one direction or another um but but i just yeah i feel i i feel like it wouldn't have taken away from anything to just give a little more and it would have helped i don't know also okay i'm just i'm thinking about this in real time but because i had never seen the movie and i didn't know what direction the story was gonna go in when in the first few minutes when you see the interactions between christine and her boss and her co-worker stew and it's between the two of them for this promotion and you see her boss and stew be like pretty sexist toward her where they're like yeah we don't know about you literally say get us sandwiches yeah get us sandwiches and yeah we're probably gonna overlook you for the promotion

in favor of this new guy who like is way more assertive than you. And I was like, oh, this is going to be a story about how like she's going to drag these dudes to hell. Like these people who and I like thought that was just going to keep escalating. But then all of a sudden it's about she's like, no, I still want to impress my horrible boss and I'm going to like shame this woman in public. And then I was like, well, I was so like I got so much whiplash because of the story, like the direction the story went in. Like I was like, the Evil Dead franchise is such an outlier in terms of letting the guy be the survivor, which is a thing that almost never happens in horror movies, right? Sure. There's a reason why it's, it's, the trope is called the final girl.

And it's like, here's the dumb doofus-y boyfriend who is usually the first one to get killed off. And instead, it's three movies of this guy being like he he is cursed to live through the cycle over and over again and as it goes on he just becomes kind of dumber and more arrogant and is punished more and more and more and this movie i think yeah it's like setting up the type of character we're far more used to seeing at the center of a horror movie like this and then constantly playing with the allegiances and the perception of her i think you know it's like in the sense that everything's made up and he's not pulling anything from any real like mythical culture or lore or whatever it probably would have helped to not make mrs ganush explicitly a romani person it probably would have helped if he made Mrs. Ganesh explicitly a Romani person.

It probably would have helped if he made up a fucking fictional country and a language and used an iconography that was not already tied to a group of people that have been demonized for centuries. But. Yeah, because she's speaking. I believe she's speaking Hungarian. That was what I read. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. that i read yeah i think so yeah yeah but i think there's something too that like to this woman the fact that mrs ganush is so disgusting right before anything supernatural happens

there's already stuff leaking out of her and she's putting things in her mouth and sure she looks like she doesn't belong in a bank right this is a bank right only only right like regular Only regular people are allowed in here. As you can see, I am a bank. Hashtag bank culture. There is this thing of her being like, well, if I'm going to reject someone, it's not that bad if they're this gross. It's almost like she's justifying it to herself where she's like, I can reject. I know she's an innocent old woman who's going to be put out, but look at how disgusting she is. She's like spewing GAC all over my desk.

She has a thing with like, I mean, I guess that in, in the context of like, who am I going to pawn the button off on? Like she seriously considers giving it to an old, like I was like, she has like an issue with old people. That's my favorite scene in the movie.

Let me kill this old man. Right her bringing stew in stew immediately getting so pathetic and her getting angry at stew where it was like i was gonna fucking curse you and now you've made me feel bad for you you asshole like she's like resentful of the fact that stew has humanized himself to her and then that long walk over to the guy on the oxygen tank at the corner of this Denny's or whatever, where she's talking herself into it. And I love that there's like no dialogue. There's no interior monologue,

but you can tell what she's thinking is, look at this guy. This guy's life sucks so much. Who cares if I kill him? He's already suffering so much. And then his wife comes over with a cake and he goes like, what a lovely surprise. Thank you so much. And once wife comes over with a cake and he goes like what a lovely surprise

thank you so much and once again she's like oh you made me fucking care about this person yeah like she's angry when she can't write people off and mrs ganush was easy for her to write off because mrs ganush grossed her out right but also right but also because her job demands that she write people off right like she has to have that ability to compartmentalize whatever her empathy to be like well this person just won't be able to pay their mortgage so i'm just gonna have to act in the interest of blah blah you know like you know like you have to have that uh element of your brain i guess which seems to be what sam raimi is sort of disgusted by uh and and you know in the diner she does have a mean streak like she you know when she's mean about tipping right she's mean about the waitress

yeah and that is also like tied into her what i thought was like the bizarro clunky body metaphor of like, when she gets mean, she eats ice cream. And you're like, she has two sundaes. Yeah. It is bizarre how threaded it is throughout the entire movie. I'm laughing at the scene where, okay, so she learns that she has to pay $10,000 to do some like seance or exorcism or whatever. And she pawns off all of her items and it's only like $3,800, even though she lives in a huge house in Silver Lake and it's like wah, wah, wah. But she's crying and eating like Turkey Hill ice cream because she like can't afford the 10 pounds.

Out of the tub. Out of the tub. And I'm just like, yep, women be crying and eating ice cream. Women be crying and eating ice cream. I just, I think the tipping moment. Sometimes. It's not only is she being an asshole about tipping, but she also like fucking like swings the envelope with the button in her face.

She's like, I'll tip you this fucking button. Like she's immediately feeling so.'s what i'm saying so power hungry but like power like i have the power to fuck someone over who's rude to me now i got this button i'm holding the hot hand uh i i do think like what you're saying david about like part of this culture and david paymer very like passively saying like you got to be more of a killer you know you got to be like tough in this business and whatever i i think part of the the soup of this movie is that if the old lady who was there at that desk who david paymer told her to be tougher with was rosemary harris as aunt may sure she wouldn't be able to do it right as much as she does it there's there's groundwork i was about to say brutal sam ramey

bank loan rejection scene oh yeah joel mchale is like no she doesn't even get the toaster that's that's that's the mean button he's a classic snarky asshole bank guy right like he's he's fucking enjoying being like sorry you're too poor he's like stew basically right he's too yeah and in this movie it's like i think she feels the latitude to be mean because it's just like well this woman isn't even human you know i think that's part of her being so monstrous now when you tie that into the romani shit it's like well i think he's playing off the fact that's this demonizing that's happened for a long time but it also unfortunately you cannot not play into it further by linking it again i also think that um

sam raimi was just like well i need horror imagery in my horror movie where can i derive that from and he's like well i have this old woman right yeah exactly so right it's just it's unfortunate that it had to be that i mean he's always been such a tropey filmmaker and i think that's he's leaning into every trope, right? Although I was going to say, I do think Dele Brow, you know, playing the, what is he sort of like a spiritualist? The mystic. Right. I like his whole look.

He's got like a blazer. He's got a very like confident sort of like energy in this movie. Like kind of quiet, sort of, you i i almost academic i i don't know how to i don't know how to describe it but he's vibe like that's like yeah kind of the part he played this is i feel like of of his incredible year and a half run this is like the least what he's doing yeah that's like what he's really good at i mean i i don't know i mean it's i don't go into a movie expecting it to be like a a dealie brow whatever you never expect it because uh james cameron kidnapped him and no one's seen him for 15 years uh but i i did like that in that scene you go into it

you know where it's clearly framed of like ah he's a fucking fraud like he's a scammer the album cover he knows everything right the album cover is great yeah that's what i love is that justin long's making these snarky fucking jokes you see the album cover and you go like okay so this guy's some fucking like hollywood sort of wheeler dealer con artist who's trying to start his music career and then the second d-lip brow walks out of the room you're like no this is just a guy with like a lot of integrity he's just like a very intelligent soft-spoken man uh who clearly is not trying to run any scam on anybody and justin long is like she's like he was real and just looks like she's a fucking con artist he took your money and she's like he didn't want to

take my money and justin long's like but he did ultimately right like there's this constant judgment of like this guy can't be for fucking real this character i saw was written to be much older and they cast you more of a classic wise old guy right right and rob tapper was like i do you think it works if the guy's this young and he was like he's got wisdom like dealie brow naturally projects a certain wisdom on screen that transcends age and i think that's going to work for this and i also think it works that he's kind of a contemporary of hers that you have to heighten it by bringing her to adriana barraza and that feels like you're a whole different realm with these sort of like wizened aged masters of the dark arts and whatever but that dilly brow is just some guy who was like look just trust me you're you're fucked although i did one of my favorite uh lines in the whole it this scene is

like probably under whatever when she goes back to him and she's like what do i do i killed the cat like what the fuck and he just very simply is like i need you to give me ten thousand dollars tomorrow and i was like okay cool very clear stakes great and then like next scene do you guys buy that you can just dig up someone's grave put the something in their corpse's hand to be like here is a gift like like i'm gifting this to you i did not buy a single shred of any world building that happened in this movie. All the world building was so weird. It was inconsistent. It didn't work.

So we can't exactly say the movie thinks it's true. But the movie seems to think it's true. Yeah, if you say something is a gift, I guess they they didn't specify and you have to really mean it it has to be a real gift it's not like the kiss of true love it's just a kiss it didn't work as she put the wrong envelope in her mouth she put the coin and not the button and if that was supposed to be a big twist that we didn't see coming woof i saw it coming. Really? Oh, I was... I did not see that coming. I was like, what? I was like, that coin in the envelope was planted.

It's there in my memory. I know all about it. And it's going to be that envelope. She's going to mix them up. That twist did not work for me at all. Skellington Ganouche takes some more hair. There are a couple of things that goes... Yeah, she does get a few more right and doesn't she say like that's the last

hair you're getting out of me but no but I like because I feel like movies will back themselves movies like this will back themselves into a corner where you're like there's clearly no way to stop this what fucking bullshit Deus Ex Machina are you going to come up with to like explain why

she saved herself and averted evil or whatever and the movie is like sort of making you think like okay i guess if she fucking digs up a grave and goes i am giving this to you and she frames it happy birth that you know whatever if she makes puts on the whole show of it being a gift, will that work? And then the movie goes to its artificial, like everything's good. Fucking nailed it. Everything's awesome thing.

And when she gets dragged to hell, I just immediately feel like, yeah, of course that didn't fucking work. Even beyond just giving her the wrong envelope. It's like, what a dumb plan. And I do like the dealer brow pretty much from the first scene.

He meets her is like, you're done. Yeah. Right. He's like, I'm'm sorry i don't see a way out of this right every time she goes to him he's like i have a thing i could try but i want you to know i think you're not running away from this yeah and i i and i feel like that like ties right into her thinking that she's a good person then there's gonna be a way out of like oh well no i i'll be able to like redeem myself because i'll just apologize to her granddaughter or like i'll do this or i'll do this and it's like nope sam ramey doesn't think sam ramey doesn't think you can get a jacket i don't know why why did she get a jacket at the end what So that Justin Long could be like,

why'd you get a new jacket? I found your button for your old jacket. And she's like, no! I stuffed the wrong envelope into the mouth of the lady. Serves her right for dating such a drip. Yeah. Right?

But that's her hubris, like you're saying. She. But, but that's her hubris. Like, like you're saying, she's like, I surely I can, this can all be like explained away with an apology or a meeting or something like, right. Like,

come on. Like, that's how, that's how polite society works. Right. So, yeah, it's,

it's, is there any other stuff? I really, I really liked the scene with Chelsea Ross. I really liked the, the eye cake, the, so yeah, it's, it's, uh, is there any other stuff? I really, I really liked the scene with Chelsea Ross. I really liked the, the eye cake, the, you know,

yeah, the Pasadena rich family scene like that, that, that, that's, that's all perfect. Like queasy, like the double layer of horror,

right? Like the actual grossness of what's happening to her. And also her trying to be like, I'm trying to, you know, present well for this rich family. Like the just i love that i mean unless chelsea ross shows up in doctor strange fingers crossed uh i think this is now our final chelsea ross of this mini series where we we shot him out a couple times but just a thing i was thinking about with him is for a guy who is so distinctive looking, right?

He looks like a happy otter. You know, he's got a very specific energy. It is kind of incredible how much range there is and how you can use him. Like, to put him in this movie as, like, this waspy, blue-blooded asshole. him like to put him in this movie as like this waspy blue-blooded asshole and then there's like a sam raimi movie where he's like a rural kind of doofusy sheriff you know like i think he is astonishingly flexible in terms of like he works equally well at being a figure of warmth and integrity in a movie being a sort of like bureaucratic asshole being genuinely scary being a goofball being high status being low status like i just always like this guy hard agree remember him in

buster scruggs he's a perfect example yeah great imposter scruggs he's the fucking prospect the trapper yeah the guy with the big beard yeah in the in the stage coach to hell yeah final one yeah yeah drag drag that's that that stage coach got dragged to hell got dragged to hell uh no that whole scene is is so good and i do think it's like this layering of the like she's getting these projections of these things that are causing her to freak out but also even minus the supernatural mrs ganush haunting this is like her nightmare like she's already overheard the phone conversation where her mom's still trying to set justin long up with other people she's aware of how they perceive her

they think she's a bank teller she's trying so hard to impress them the the weirdness of the her confessing her mother being an alcoholic right and then and then that fixes everything for a second i like i liked that scene a lot i like and the the the moment where i don't know i was like oh i don't know if i've ever seen this in a movie before but it makes me feel like sometimes when i'm like on a zoom call at work uh where you're just like in another place having like a visceral nightmare and then someone is like right jamie and you have to say yes or no and and then you say the wrong answer and then the person's like what the fuck are you talking about we did meet at a bar yeah yeah i was like oh god that well that's jamie that's when you should close your eyes so

your avatar disappears on zoom that's that's the move i also think something did for us earlier yeah we've talked we've talked about it already at this point but because you weren't on that episode i need to i need to call out there are the two moments in spider-man 2 where he kind of does that with mary jane doing the play and looking at either Peter not being in the seat or being in the seat where you can't figure out if she's forgetting her line. Right. Or she's thinking about something else. It's so good. Yeah.

interaction is because it happens to me at least once a day in any like writer's room where i'm just like i just am in another place for a second and then all of a sudden it's i i am delivering a wrong answer that i'm guessing i think you should just do what i do and i say i'm so sorry i was not paying attention to you at all can you please repeat what you said but you have to emphasize at all a little bit and then continue like because i don't because i think you're boring and yeah um my deepest apologies but i fundamentally do not give a shit it works every time i have so many friends the other by the way we we've talked about it briefly but the other sign of her villainy is just that she's like make a sacrifice she kills a cat pretty much right away she kills a cat which

i do appreciate sam ramey breaking the holy rule of screenwriting or whatever where he's like she's not going to save a cat she's going to kill a cat basically on screen basically at the drop of a hat and then all cats know because the next cat she encounters is mad at her like every cat can tell that's maybe my favorite allison loman performance moment in the entire film is when she's like weird i i usually love get along great with cats i had a cat and it just hangs there and justin Long's like how we have a cat unless something happened to her and he says it like a joke and she just stares at him for like five seconds and then says well I don't know you can't keep track of things who knows what's happened while we're

gone yeah cats they come and go it was good we're weirdly defensive yeah yeah and I just like the way as you said Jamie like admitting that her mother is an alcoholic, a thing that terrifies Justin Long that he thinks his parents are going to judge her for immediately fixes the situation for five seconds. And then when she freaks out and he runs after her, the first thing his mom says is like, she's crazy. There's nothing to fix there. And it feels like obviously she's

had this blow up but immediately the fact that she admits that alcoholism runs in her family is being weaponized against her like the second she does something uncouth it's like well but she's a crazy person which is like another way that that allison loman i mean i even in the space of this conversation i've ping-ponged back and forth so much and like how i feel about her but you do get that like that element of like she's like the inbid like she she is going into this pasadena situation being like i'm poor like i'm not being taken seriously because of my class but then she's doing the same shit to mrs ganoush by being like oh ew poor let me just you know like deny and but she doesn't seem to understand that at all like

you know it's like being from a lower class is only sympathetic when it's her that is coming from a lower class right with everyone else it's gross and her behavior is justified like i like that right you want to vault out of it and pretend you were never yeah yeah you don't want to act like you're one of them or there's a lot of like uh starly in our gift episode was talking about um how there's that aspect of of ramey liking to torture people right that like so much of his filmmaking was based around the idea of fucking with his best friend on camera right and what are funny things i can get this big galoof uh bruce to do on camera who was always just like ready and willing and able and all of

that and then he loves sort of like fucking with his audience in a similar kind of way and re-watching spider-man 2 in particular i'd forgotten how much that movie is just like the entire universe fucking with peter parker just non-stop like anytime that character bends down to tie his shoes a backpack hits him you know like he just he loves putting a character at the center of the movie who we can sort of just throw shit at and make look stupid and whatever but i think very often they're sort of like they're naive you know they're they're sort of too innocent or they're hubris or whatever it is and i think this movie is playing such an interesting game with constantly

trying to get you to question the morality of this woman how bad what she did is what is the appropriate punishment for this the scenes that totally push you away from her where you're like i hate this person the scenes like you're talking about jamie for a moment you're like fuck i really relate to what she's doing here you know and just constantly playing that game of identifying there's been so much like i feel um uh tweeting i've seen recently about bruce campbell and sam raimi i think largely because everyone's just fucking amped that there's a new sam raimi movie and we're all hoping it's good uh but um there's this one tweet i saw that i just think is like perfect that i just want to read uh the the user's danny vegeto and it's it's like uh written like a script he's bruce campbell

wistfully sam is my oldest friend i can't imagine my life without him sam ramey once a month i feed bruce some poison mushrooms and nurse him back to health as soon as he recovers we go for a walk in the woods and i kick him in the dick and then the follow-ups are sam ramey is bugs bunny and bruce campbell is his daffy bruce campbell bleeding out of his skull hey sammy boy i was thinking maybe i could do an adult drama or something maybe with another director ramey nice try do another flip clown i mean yeah sam ramey does always seem a little bashful in these interviews where he's like i really dumped a lot of worms on allison i hope she's not mad at me like you know like he does have that like like that sort of mid Midwestern embarrassment about it all.

But yes, he is always like, look, I mean, I gave them the script. And I mean, I hope they read it because, yeah, a lot of not nice things are going to happen. Right. Well, he did eventually. Eventually. I mean, before they made it. The day of shooting. The day of shooting.

After the premiere, he let them read the script no i do i think there's that like fundamental shift where it's like there was something just so perfect about the ramey campbell dynamic where you sense that these guys were best friend you sense that bruce campbell was like ready for anything that he sort of was a glutton for punishment where like you purely feel joy at watching this guy go through this shit as awful as it is it does feel like bugs bunny fucking with daffy duck right right yeah and this is a movie that's like digging into the weirdness of the ramey torturing the character torturing the audience thing a little bit more and questioning like what are you rooting for here do you want her to be saved and if so why but also are you paying money to try to see this woman get barfed on a lot is part of the premise the promise of a horror movie that you want to see horrible

things happen to this person and if so why like he's asking both things at the same time which i think is really interesting and i do think that mrs ganesh is like a really like re i mean especially because of like the specific year that this movie came out and it's really easy to like be rooting for mrs ganesh to just like kick the shit out of the allison loman character because of who she is like or what she not who she is who she like what she represents is like the banal evil in 2009 it's like yeah that's the anyone who's like symbolic of bank loans we want to see get dragged to hell in that specific year um so yeah i don't know i just think it's wild that it came out when it did it's insane

i i do agree with you that i feel like the movie could benefit from like especially in the sort of mrs ganush memorial scene someone revealing some side of her that we haven't seen like you want to hear from her granddaughter or someone some testimonial of like someone's saying to alice in loman's face you think she's this gross old fucking puking like creepy crawlers woman like she's like a human being like here's like she loaned me a dollar you know but instead everyone in that scene too right right yes no everyone in that scene it feels like the fucking Hunchback of Notre Dame. Right, right. The Disney Hunchback of Notre Dame

where they're having the party in the sewers. Another very considerate movie towards Romani people. Yes. Right, exactly. It's like, look at the people from this other culture and let's double down on how we think it's weird. Right. It's all super vague, yeah.

I like the whiplash of her going in there thinking she's going to be able to apologize to this woman and walking into a party and then seeing a dead body and i like it puking all over her the embalming fluid i do just think somewhere in between there you want someone and maybe it is the granddaughter at the door rather than just being like fuck you you former fatty right you do want her to be like she was like a human being she's not some like right this is her house right yeah she doesn't just take from her exist in relation to you you're coming here to try to make yourself feel better uh yeah which she is i mean and and to stop being dragged to hell but she does get dragged to hell she does

get dragged to hell it doesn't she gets uh she falls onto the train tracks and to stop being dragged to hell but she does get dragged to hell she's dragged to hell she falls onto the train tracks and then she's dragged into hell and her face turns into a skeleton right before she goes down and then the screen goes black and it says drag me to hell and that's the end of the movie before we play

I love that too before we play the box office game is there anything else we have not you know any other bit we haven't mentioned to that to that point what you just said david i read an interview with ramey where someone asked him like have you ever thought about making a sequel to drag me to hell and he was like i mean it ends with her being dragged to hell i don't really know what you would it just be called hell like she's in hell? Drag me from hell. Hey, you're in hell.

And you're like, am I nice to someone? Drag me around hell? It's a trilogy. Drag me to hell, drag me around hell, and then drag me from hell. Wow. Drag me across hell. Justin Long has to do 100 good deeds,

and then Alison Lohman can come out of retirement stop talking about Bitcoin and emerge from hell where she was banished the sequel to this movie is My Name is Earl but with Justin Long trying to do little mitzvahs for people My Name is Earl makes way more sense

I was thinking of that Nickelodeon show 100 Good Deeds for Eddie McDowd where the dog wants to be a boy again. Or a man? I forget. I think he was a boy. I think he was like a young man. It's another thing I like about this movie.

I do like that they are like young adults. Like they are not teenagers. They're not college students. They're also not like 45. They are not 45. They're not college students. They're also not like 45. They are not 45. They're not 45. They're famously not 45 in this movie. They might be 45 now.

I don't really know. Griffin, when did this film come out? Do you know? I can tell you. It came out June 2009? May 29th, 2009. Wow. Memorial Day weekend.

End of May. Yep. Memorial Day weekend. End of May. Yep. Memorial Day weekend. I was trying to find anything to support this, and I couldn't, so maybe it was created in my brain, but my memory was that this was a thing that they had on, like, a less desirable release date, and then they got so bullish of how it played at

festivals and at test screenings that they pushed it up to, like, a primetime summer date, and there it kind of couldn't withstand the're saying the competition that's true no i might be confusing it with like i know there were a lot of examples of this at that time where like land of the dead the george romero movie was supposed to come out in halloween and they were like fuck it fourth of july and then it performed like a george romero movie on the 4th of july right because this film premiered at the can film festival yes a mere week before its release and they screened it unfinished at south by southwest yes right um and it went over really well it got good reviews and then people

were like why is this making less money than most horror movies right well it opened to 15 million dollars it made 42 domestic 91 worldwide so yeah it, kind of, right. You would think it could do a little better, just as, like, I think the summer release hurts it in that regard. I think so, too. It's tougher to compete, yeah. and we've been asking for so long like why didn't ramey make more movies like this i think he felt kind of defeated by the fact that where he's like this didn't even do as well as the messengers that movie i produced that no one fucking thinks about it did better than the rest that's surprising to hear i mean maybe it was because i was like in this in high school when this movie came out but i felt like everyone i knew had seen Drag Me to Hell.

Except for me. We all saw it. Us youngsters. I guess it's just no one else did. The kids wanted to see Alison Lohman dragged absolutely to hell. And we got what we wanted. Kids only care about one thing. It's absolutely disgusting.

We get everything we want. Us dang millennials. A participation trophy.ison loman being dragged to hell no everything else in here is a blockbuster basically like everything else is a big movie number one at the box office is a film for children uh-huh um but it's one of those you know movies that everybody saw and it got a best picture nomination uh it's one of those, you know, movies that everybody saw. And it got a Best Picture nomination. It's the motion picture Up. It's Up in its first weekend.

Yeah. Yeah. Up. Okay. Which is not my favorite Pixar movie. And anytime I say that, people go, why do you hate Up? And I'm like, I don't hate it. I just don't think it's as good as the other ones.

I don't know. What do you guys think of Up? It as the other ones i don't know what do you guys think up it's the one where i've just really felt my buttons being pushed and i was sort of like i'm not that's what i don't appreciate about i felt my buttons being stolen and put a curse on exactly just you know exactly i felt like yeah i felt like a button was being put in my jaw and then they kicked my jaw shut and they said happy birthday bitch or whatever she said made out that's what it feels like when I see the first scene in that. I don't like

because it's a thing. If a movie tells me to cry, I will cry, but then I'll also feel like deep resentment because I'm just easily manipulated. I like Monsters Incorporated. Yeah, Monsters Incorporated fucking rules. Me too. Yeah. That one's good. Perfect movie.

But I'm literally not, I've also never rewatched Up I've never had the desire or whatever it's not nor I it is one of the ones I rewatch the least for someone who rewatches

four Pixar movies a day yeah number two at the box office is it's a sequel film Terminator Salvation no no it's a family sequel.

Okay, it's Night at the Museum. But you just guessed number three. Number three. Night at the Museum Battle of the Smithsonian. Yeah. That's right. I remember this weekend. It's a pretty dire time.

I'm not, you know, I mean, there's good stuff in this, but like, you know, this is, this sort of, the Marvel era is also, you know, one dimensional and we keep getting the same movie all the time, but like this late two thousands thing where they were like more night in the museum.

Like, you know, we're kind of like, no, that's, you know, like, like it wasn't great.

No. Is this the second, the Smithstone is the second night of the museum? That's the Amy Adams one. She's Amelia Earhart. Yeah. Oh, right. It's a perfect example of that thing

roger ebert used to say where like when i watch a movie with a great cast or yeah i don't even think he he limits it to a great cast but he says when i watch a movie i always ask myself is watching this film more or less entertaining than watching this exact cast of actors have dinner would be that's a fun yardstick right like the effort they're putting into this stiller amy adams owen wilson robin williams hank azaria christopher guest right you know the new burn falls this is what i'm saying the new additions for two are like burnthal adams Christopher Guest, Bill Hader, Alain Chabot,

famous French comedian Alain Chabot. Rami Malek. Rami Malek's back. Dick Van Dyke. Yeah, early Malek. Yeah. Yeah, apparently George Foreman is in this film too. I don't remember.

Apparently he's playing himself. Famous museum exhibit, George Foreman. He's famously at the museum. Yeah exhibit george he just has the grill um number number three is terminator salvation which is which is a real bummer of a terminator movie i guess i don't know which one is that which sucks that's the christian bale one mcg directed sam worthington it's all just future war stuff yeah it's the Christian Bale one McG directed Sam Worthington it's all just future war stuff yeah it's McG it's a McG movie it's the only one with it's a McJoint

Arnold right there's no Arnold Schwarzenegger although they have weird creepy CGI naked CGI Arnold yeah I do remember that Anton Yelkin is also in that one Anton's really good in it actually he is Kyle Reeves he is good I remember him being the only performance that kind of pops in it.

And that movie is so wildly unfun. Yeah. Late 2000s reboot culture is all kind of uniquely joyless and weird and sad. Right. Because they're learning the wrong lessons from the Christopher Nolan shit. Yes. Where they're like, right. So it should be completely realistic with no fun is that is that what you want like that's not that's

not the idea like but yeah i don't know that movie i think uniquely but also mcg is a horrible match for anything like yeah like if anything you want that guy to be making the stupidest movie of all time you don't want to make you something that's to be making the stupidest movie of all time. You don't want him making something where people are going to cry. Anyway. Yeah, he made the stupidest movie of all time. It's called Charlie's Angels Full Throttle and it rules. Right. Yeah, sure. Number four is Drag Me to Hell.

Number five is another reboot which features Anton Yelkin. But it's a good one. Oh, it's Star Trek. It's Star Trek. But then to to continue with down this list angels and demons no uh you know dance flick dance flick is that that's a spoof movie right that's damon wayne's junior flicka um dance flicka five comedy points

x-men origins wolverine likeine. This is dire stuff. These were dire offerings. And then Ghosts of Girlfriends Past and Obsessed is the rest of the top 10. Oh, I saw Obsessed. Were you going to say the problem is? I was going to say the biggest problem with Angels and Demons is that

Alfred Molina does not reprise his role. He's not back. As Bishop Aaron Garosa They should have brought him back for Angels and Demons And let him take his shirt off And I think that would have solved all the problems I had with Angels and Demons I love

Alfred Molina I truly forgot he was in the Da Vinci Code Who is he in the Da Vinci Code? He's one of the priests He's like a bishop or something He's one of the church guys I remember seeing bishop or something he's a bishop or something i just remember guys i remember seeing the trailer for angels demons a thousand times and i had seen the da vinci code and i did not enjoy it but the trailer if you remember it just has like the word illuminati with like lightning flashing and tom hanks is like we gotta get them

and i was just like i'll see this and then i never did like it was so despised that i i never even bothered but i was like i i was on board for tom hanks fighting the illuminati man in theory i watched it in the pandemic for the first time and i could not believe how boring it was like it was just so uninvolving yeah but but you're right caitlin that they should have taken a lesson a little further down on the box office charts. And rather than just adopting another Robert Langdon book, they should have done – excuse me here. Let me get this right. Da Vinci Code, Origins, Bishop Aringarosa.

Aringarosa. Bishop Aringarosa, The Squeakquel. The Squeakquel. And that would have gotten butts in seats. It would have gotten at least a butt in a seat. Yes, one butt. It is funny. It feels like the two things that fucked everything up

for a couple of years there were Batman Begins and Bourne Ultimatum. Or Bourne, yeah. Bourne whatever. And then Marvel sweeps in and everyone's like, oh, we'll just try this. It's not like that's better. I'm just saying that this was also a sort of weird studio scrambling to's like, oh, we'll just try this. It's not like that's better. I'm just saying that this was also

a sort of weird studio scrambling to be like, what is it you people want? You know, like every rival trying to imitate. But I think you look at like Star Trek is actually doing well that summer. And it's because people are like, oh, this thing's fun. And the next man in the world is just like, cry for me. Right.

Anyway, that's it. We're done, Griff. We did it. We got dragged to hell. We're all in hell now. I think we dragged some other people to hell in the process. Jamie, Caitlin, thank you so much for coming back. Thank you so much for dragging us to hell.

We'll get dragged to hell with you anytime you want. Drag us back, baby. We'll drag you back. Do you have anything you want to plug aside from obviously the Bechdel cast? Jamie, you've got a thing. Thank you for teeing me up. Amazingly. Thank you for teaming up.

Amazingly. I've got a new limited series podcast that is coming out through the end of June called Ghost Church that is about American spiritualism. Actually pretty fitting. Like pretty kind of on theme with Drag Me to Hell. I kept my little mouth shut about it but yeah the the seance scene in this movie is uh is interesting uh but yeah it's all about american spiritualism and i uh spent a week with some mediums in florida and so it's about that if you're interested in that sort of thing uh there's exactly one show about it and uh i made it. Hell yeah. All your shows are so great, Jamie. I mean, all so relevant,

but you did your incredible Lolita series, and we're getting ready to do Stanley Kubrick this summer, and that is very much a movie I am dreading talking about and will be probably re-listening to your episodes several times. Guys, if you really want to drag me back to hell if you want to be in hell seriously we had the conversation and our question was does she ever want to talk about lolita ever again right right right i would i would happily i mean not happily but i would i would be i'm always happy to talk uh lolita

well we'll we'll talk about talking about Lolita. Yeah. What we talk about when we talk about Lolita. Sorry. Shouldn't have said that. Shouldn't have said that. Annoying. Yes.

Anything else, guys? Anything else you want to say? Caitlin, anything you want to plug? Yeah. I teach screenwriting classes if you want to check those out. And yeah, otherwise, yeah, just listen to the Bechdel. Excuse me. I'm getting dragged to hell in that moment.

Listen to the Bechdel hour. I was spitting up goo. And now I'm done spitting up my goo. Okay, please listen to the Bechdel cast. And yeah, I guess, you you know follow us on social media I'm at Caitlin Durante on Twitter and Instagram yeah and I'm at

Jamie Loftus Health or at Jamie Gray Superstar you figure out which is which wow yeah well thank you both for being here thanks for having us guys thank you all Thank you all. And now I'm shifting who I'm speaking to,

the listener, for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media. Thank you to Leigh Montgomery and the Great American Al for our theme song. Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for our artwork. J.J. Birch for our research. Alex Barron and A.J. McKeon for our theme song joe bowen and pat rounds for our artwork jj birch for our research alex baron aj mckeon for our editing uh you can go to blank check pod.com for all sorts of nerdy

shit links to all our things including uh our patreon patreon.com slash blank check blank check special features uh where we do commentaries on franchises and we're doing hashtag not all Batman, all the Batman movies we haven't previously covered in the past. Tune in next week for Oz the Great and Powerful, everyone's favorite Sam Raimi movie. We have finally gotten to the movie that everyone always identifies with Sam Raimi. Feels like the peak of just his voice as an artist a movie that definitely exists and is beloved um it's very excited to talk about that david you've never seen it um i have never seen it get ready i didn't want to because nobody liked it well get ready for it to make a major impact on you yeah well super excited uh for oz the great and powerful

yeah it's the reaming i've never seen but here we go thank you for thank you for not uh making us watch that oh absolutely anytime that's that's actually dragging someone to hell is asking just want to gauge your interest in appearing on an oz the great and powerful episode anyway tune in next week i think we'll have a great guest for that. And as always, this movie just talking about this made me open up a new tab. So I just want to read for you a quick list of Mattel Gak products from 1992 to present. Gak, Gak in the Dark, Solar Gak, which changes color when exposed to sunlight, Dark, Solar Gak, which changes color when exposed to sunlight. Smell My Gak.

Okay. Well, let's see if we get there. Smell My Gak had flavors such as pickles, flowers, vanilla ice cream, hot dog, pepperoni pizza, baby powder. You could get a Gak Pack, a Gak Vac, Gak Salive, Gak Inflator, Gak Copier, Gak Oids, Gak Color Mixer, Gak Splat, Gak Super Stretch, Mood Gak, Gak Twisted, Galacted Gak. Then we go to Floam, Floam Sports and Floam and Flight, Floam Shape Shop, Floam Factory, Floam Kit, Go Floam, Floam Dome, Zoglog, Smud, Skland, Zand, Goose. Sorry, everyone on the call has a nosebleed right now. Gak splat ball. Slime smatter. Squeeze.

My dentures are coming out. Splish splat. Xyroflome. Xyroflome. How do you know when you've entered your Flome era? You've exited your Gak era. You've entered your Flome era. It was truly...

It was a vibe shift a great change true vibe