The Bechdel Cast - Halloween (1978)

Episode Date: October 18, 2018

Jamie and Caitlin invite special guest April Wolfe to discuss Halloween (1978), and they all survive the whole episode!(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @AWolfeful on Twitter! While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. What is wrong with me? A show about the ways that mental illness is shaped by not just biology. Swaps of different meds.

But by culture and society. By looking closely at the conditions that cause mental distress, I find out why so many of us are struggling to feel sane, what we can do about it, and why we should care. Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. MTV's official challenge podcast is back for another season. That's right.

The Challenge is about to embark on its monumental 40th season, y'all, and we are coming along for the ride. Woo-hoo! That would be me, Devin Simone. And then there's me, Davon Rogers. And we're here to take you behind the scenes of the Challenge 40, Battle of the Eras. Join us as we break down each episode, interview challengers, and take you behind the scenes

of this iconic season. Listen to MTV's official Challenge podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effin' vast, start changing it with the Bechdel cast. Hello and welcome to the Bechdel cast.

My name is Caitlin Durante. My name's Jamie Loftus. And we talk about the portrayal of women in movies. All the time, but also on this podcast. Yes. Which is what it's about. Uh the time, but also on this podcast. Yes. Which is what it's about. Uh-huh. I think this is our best intro.

It's so good. It's, ooh, it's spooky season. It's the scary month. It's Halloween. This was a requested episode, was it not? Yes, people. Actually, I don't know if people wanted this one or not, but there is a Halloween coming. Sorry, I didn't want this.

Well, you're getting it. It's a free product. You don't have to listen to it. We are mostly doing this because of the Halloween film that is opening tomorrow. Assuming you're listening to this on the day that this podcast episode comes out. With Jamie Lee Curtis herself. The Queen. She's Bach. assuming you're listening to this on the the day that this podcast episode comes out with jamie lee curtis herself the queen she's bach yes scream queen icon she was also in scream queens yeah wild uh anyways caitlin before we get into it do you have a plan for your halloween costume this year i have started doing a thing where i dress up as my own couple's costume.

Oh, yes. So for example, last year, I was both Marty McFly and his girlfriend, Jennifer in one outfit. So I think I'm going to do the same thing this year with materials that I already have. I have everything I need to do both a Wayne and Garth from Wayne's World. Yes. So I might do that. That's great. That's inspired. And yeah, I'm just gonna that's gonna be my new thing. Because a few years before that, you know how people will dress up like as ketchup and mustard. Well, I dressed up it's just ketchup one year. And I was like, I don't need no mustard. And then the following year, I dressed up as mustard. And I said, I don't need no ketchup. then the following year i dressed up as mustard and i said i don't need no ketchup so and now i'm just combining basically i'm going to be single forever is the theme of my costume i am going to be the baba duke i guess that's the beginning middle and i'm going to be

the baba duke i'm going to try really hard to be the perfect baba duke great well that okay so that conversation didn't pass the bechdel test, because we talked about Marty McFly, Garth Algar, Babadook is genderless icon. So yeah, I think that that's fair. So part of that conversation passed. Yes. So we use the Bechdel test as a way to initiate a larger conversation about the representation of women in film. The Bechdel test, of course, for us is a test that you apply to movies. It requires that the movie has two named female identifying characters who speak to each other about anything other than a man for at least a two line exchange.

For example, hey, Caitlin. Hey, Jamie. Did you know that the Babadook is a queer icon? I did know that. Excellent. And that passes. All right. So well, without much further ado, let's let's get into it. I'm so excited to have our guest with us today. She's absolutely wonderful. She is a film critic and the host of the Switchblade Sisters podcast. Please welcome April Wolf. Hi.

Hi. Welcome. Thanks for being here. Thank you for having me in this beautiful little studio. Of course. Is it spooky in here? Oh, it's so spooky. You guys should see what they did with the place.

Yeah, there's cobwebs everywhere. But I think that's just, you know, I like imagining that you guys record like in a dingy basement somewhere. We used to record in an old attic. Yeah. We recorded at Meltdown back in the day. So, you know, stinky attic and now not. Yeah.

That's our story. And what a story it is. Hey, speaking of stories, let's talk about the story of Halloween, the John Carpenter 1978 film. Very smooth. I love it. Thank you so much. That's nice. That's a good segue.

Oh, you know me. I'm a segue icon. Okay. Like the scooter, though. Yeah, I just own a bunch of segues. You're like Job. People are all about those bird scooters. I'm still rocking the segue.

You're like, honey, I just paid off my Segway. I'm going to be riding that. So April, tell us about your history, your relationship with the film Halloween. Oh, I just fucking love it. When did you first see it? When I was probably too young to even remember that I was seeing it. My family and I used to watch horror movies when we were very, very young and continued doing so. So I am a horror queen.

I really enjoy the genre. And I just remember it was very chilling. It was one that stuck with me in the same way that Nightmare on Elm Street did. Those two are kind of paired up in my mind, even though they're very, very different movies. Oh, yeah. I've confused them before because I wasn't sure if I had seen this movie or not. It's funny, but people also confuse Friday the 13th. I had to hear a very long conversation that I couldn't interrupt in the theater where people were talking about Jason Voorhees and Halloween. and I was like, oh, God. It's not Jason.

The test of your lifetime. It was. I was just like, am I going to be that person who's sitting by themselves in the theater? Actually, exactly. I didn't. Go there. Go, go, go. So, Jamie, what's your history?

I thought I had seen it. But this is, again, one of those movies that is so known in the culture that there were certain scenes that I was like, oh, I've seen that. Yeah. But I hadn't seen the whole movie. So I saw it, you know, this morning. I saw it this morning. Very good. It's a scary fucking movie. It's like.

Yeah. It holds up in terms of it was very scary. Yeah, I liked it. I like horror movies. I just get them confused. Sure. Yeah. I mean, what's to confuse?

There's just, like, a lot of murders. Yeah. Usually a man in a mask. A man in a mask. I mean, like. They're very different movies. It's always, like, yeah, an angry man with a mask. And also, like, a weirdly chill-sounding name every time. You're like, yeah, an angry man with a mask and also like a weirdly chill sounding name every time.

You're like, oh, Michael. Yeah. And also as a notorious collector of Michaels, this one hit close to home. Sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah. My history is I saw the original Halloween probably for the first time in college when I was just, you know, you're collecting Michaels, I'm collecting, having watched movies. You know, as a film student, you know, I'm just like, got to get this one, got to catch them all, you know.

But I didn't watch it again, although I did see Halloween H20, I think, in high school. It's not a bad movie. That's the first one I saw. And I haven't rewatched it since then. And then I saw Halloween Resurrection in the theaters with a couple friends of mine in high school. Really quick where does H2O come in? Well great question uh there is I did not realize quite how extensive the Halloween franchise was but we've got this first the original one in 1978 halloween 2 comes out in 81 okay then we've got halloween

3 season of the witch then we've got halloween 4 return of michael myers in 1988 halloween 5 from 1989 then we've got halloween the curse of michael myers from 1995 have you seen them all i will admit that i've not seen them all i Up to a point, I kind of was picking and choosing. And we haven't even hit Halloween H20. No, no, this is a long ways away. Is it just a remake of the first one but underwater was my question. Is it Titanic or is it not? Because I will see it if it's the Titanic version of Hell.

There is a movie called Ghost Ship, which I think is the closest thing we'll get to a scary Titanic. Then we've got Halloween H20 colon 20 years later in 1998. What? With Jamie Lee Curtis reprising her role as Laurie Strode. But underwater. But underwater this time. She's in scuba gear. Then in 2002, we've got Halloween Resurrection,

again featuring Jamie Lee Curtis as her Laurie Strode character. And finally, we've got the Halloween movie coming out in 2018 with, again, Jamie Lee Curtis. And then that is not even including the two reboots that rob zombie made i think we should forget about those yeah i've heard they're bad but i know that rob zombie fans just love them because it's his style and that's you know that's whatever you want but for me they're not part of the franchise and that's that's fine you know like like them but they're not part of this franchise i feel got. Got it. So the Halloween franchise, it is fairly extensive. But we're

gonna we're focusing on just the the first one for this episode, right? So my my background with the film isn't super, you know, I've just seen it a couple times now. As I've said before, horror is not my favorite genre not that i don't like it it's just that i i feel like you're like scaredy qualifying that for me like no no it's okay you can like it it's fine no i really my so slasher movies i tend not to like very much the horror movies that i like the most um usually more of a supernatural devil component to them, like Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist and The Omen. I like that kind of subgenre of horror a lot more. April, is Michael Myers in your tops in terms of horror movie villains?

I mean, I guess. There's a lot of horror movie villains. There's a lot of horror movie films. I think some people don't realize how deep the horror genre is because you really only see the top ones constantly. He's definitely a wonderful creation because he is such a blank slate.

There's always going to be that really beautiful sequence of a little boy in a clown costume holding a bloody knife, which is a great idea in a clown costume holding a bloody knife which is it's you know it's a great idea for a murderer you know yeah great idea i love that scene because it keep the camera keeps pulling out and it's just his two parents standing on either side of them not reacting at all they don't go into the house to see her hands are in her pockets like she's like again with a bloody knife you know like what we're on that scene for like maybe 10 seconds or more and it's a long shot not doing anything and

it's like are you gonna investigate why your six-year-old son is holding a they got that crane for a day you know you would buy that crane for a day like oh like hold the shot hold the shot as long as you can get that crane yeah i'm like okay kid continue to look baffled at what you've done that's great enjoyed that yeah uh shall i do the recap yeah yes so we open on a scene where this little boy stabs his sister to death oh and not just his sister his completely nude sister you know when you're just chilling in your room totally nude and your brother comes in and you're like hey get out of here and you don't make any effort you turn your tits towards him you're like hey come on like that was really funny that's my first favorite male gaze moment of the movie.

I was like, oh, yeah, when my child brother comes in and I just make no effort to conceal my tits at all. They're really good tits, though, too. I remember being like, oh, shit, I don't think I appreciated those when I was a kid. Just beautiful. If I had seen the movie when I was younger, they would have made me, like, feel bad because they're that good. Yeah, they're that good. Yeah, they're that good. I would have taken it personally. Okay, so then she dies. And the reveal is that, oh, the person who just slaughtered this young

nude woman was a six year old boy. And her parents don't care. And then we cut to I believe it's 15 years later there are a few medical personnel who go to this like psychiatric ward to move michael myers the man that this little murder kid grew up to be but he has already gotten out he attacks the nurse and he steals their car and escapes so that would put michael myers in his, early 20s? Yeah. Yeah, you know, he's yearning to be free. A young buck.

He wants to backpack across Europe. He's like, I can drink now. Let's get this guy in night school. We can turn this around. We should say that Donald Pleasance is one of the... Yes, he is the psychiatrist. And he's, like, one of my favorite actors of all time. He plays Dr. Loomis.

So Michael Myers is... He's out on the town. So he plays Dr. Loomis. So Michael Myers is he's out on the town. He's looking for a Zumba class. And it is Halloween now. So then we meet Laurie Strode, Jamie Lee Curtis's character. She is a teenager. Her dad is trying to sell the Myers house that we can assume has been abandoned for quite some time. And throughout the day, she starts seeing this creepy guy in a mask who appears to be stalking her. A few of her friends are around and they don't really believe her. Then we see Dr. Loomis notify the town sheriff, who is also Annie, one of Lori's friends. That's her dad.

And Dr. Loomis is all like, Michael escaped and he's on the loose. Then later that night, Lori is babysitting for a little boy. And her friend Annie is also babysitting for another neighborhood girl. There's a lot of different houses and babysitting situations. Some real, some real like questionable logic to get Annie out of her clothes. I really liked that scene. Yeah, I was like, wait, a butter? She's like, this is a mess!

Strips nude. And then there just happens to be, like, a men's white dress shirt around, where I'm just like, is that Lindsay's dad's shirt? She's like, I'm in too much of a hurry for pants. You know, she just can't. She's so horny she doesn't even put on pants to leave the house.

It's like, it's great. She gets stuck in a window like Winnie the Pooh at one point. It's just, it's crazy. Yeah, she's just like horny chaos, that character. She's my favorite. I really liked her. I was like, man, that's who i wish i was in high school so their other friend linda is hanging out with her boyfriend so then annie swings by

with her child uh that she's babysitting and she's like here laurie take this kid i have to go have sex no pants no she's not wearing pants. Yeah, no questions about that. Yeah, Laurie says nothing. Laurie's like, oh, that's my friend, and no pants Annie. She's kind of a mess, but we love her.

So Annie leaves. She leaves to go hang out with her boyfriend, but before she can get there, Michael Myers gets her, and he kills her and then we move to linda and bob's area where they're hanging out which i think is either in annie's house or the house that annie's supposed to be babysitting in it's at that house because they like stumble into that house and start humping each other with the door unlocked and then they get the call that no one is coming back after all oh right that they decide to stay right yeah and then they're just like

let's get drunk yeah like sleeping with people's like yeah bed another one of my favorite reacts in the whole you know when you know your boyfriend shows up at your door dressed as a ghost with a sheet with glasses on over top of it. And once again, you whip your tits out. And you're like, oh. You're like, oh my god. You like what you see? I love, oh god. Which we should say that actress is also in one of my favorite movies, Rock and Roll High School.

PJ Souls. Yeah, she's the lead in that movie. She is also in one of my favorite movies, Rock and Roll High School. Oh, PJ Souls. Yeah, she's the lead in that movie. She's also in a recent episode we did, Carrie. As one of the bully girls. Yes, she is. Wow. She's the sporty. She wore her hat to the audition and they were like, no, that's who your character is.

And she's like, oh, fuck, I want to play someone else. It's a very productive couple of years for this lady yeah yeah so uh linda and her boyfriend have sex and then they get murdered whenever michael myers comes in well sure they had sex after all exactly yeah we'll talk about that um and then so laurie goes to investigate because she's like hey my friends aren't where they said they're gonna be and she finds their dead bodies then michael myers pops in he's like hey and he cuts her arm he's literally like hey hey yeah she's like oh hey uh they scuffle she hurts her leg she she gets away runs back to the house that she's babysitting at.

She's screaming, somebody please help me. Where's Dr. Loomis in all this? We don't know. Then Michael Myers comes into the house. He's trying to get her. She's fighting back. She stabs him with a knitting needle. He collapses.

He seems dead, but he's not. But come on, Laurie. That's not going to kill someone, probably.'s not gonna kill someone probably right so then she like barricades herself in a closet he's breaking in she pokes him in the eye with a clothes hanger he drops his knife she stabs him he collapses again seeming dead but he's not because then he gets back up and then there's one final struggle and then dr loomis comes in, shoots him. Michael Myers falls out the window. And then they're like, oh, we got him. But then when they look outside, he's gone.

And that's the end of the movie. So let's take a quick break and then we'll come back to discuss. Yay. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks.

Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts i felt too seen um dragged uh i'mK, and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds.

What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies. On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something wrong with you, and it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, Jake Storielli here from John Boy Media. I want to tell you about my podcast,

Wake and Jake. It's your go-to spot for anything and everything sports. Baseball, football, basketball, hockey, golf, college, whatever's hot in the street, we're talking about it on Wake and Jake. So if you're a diehard fan or looking for the latest buzz, we've got you covered, no matter your favorite sport. We're breaking it down with the passion that'll make you feel like you're in the stands with us. Plus, we've got a bunch of guests.

Foolish Bailey, Jolly Olive, Chris Rose, and more. Mock drafts, rankings, whatever you want. It's the sports world. And come on and join our friends in the Wake and Jake family. You will not regret it. So, new episodes Monday and Wednesday. You can watch along on the Wake and Jake YouTube channel. Or listen to Wake and Jake on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. So this movie was co-written and produced by a woman, Debra Hill, I believe John Carpenter's then girlfriend, later his wife, and then even after that, his ex-wife. But it's my understanding that she wrote a lot of the dialogue for the women, while Carpenter wrote most of the dialogue for the men. And April, you, I think, know more about this.

Yeah, we are students. Yeah, I believe that she was very involved in the story structure. And if you watch the movie, very prominently, it says a Deborah Hill film, does not say a John Carpenter film, because she was the producer. So as the creative producer on this project, you know, she was shepherding it all the way through. And it's a weird thing to go into maybe like freshman year film classes or something where they're watching Halloween. And they talk about it as though it's an auteur's film and that's wonderful and I love John Carpenter with all of my heart he's one of my favorite cranky assholes but this is a collaborative film and so much of

his work was collaborative with Deborah Hill and with other people as well so it's a strange thing to think that a woman was the driving force behind this movie and helped him push it over the threshold. So I hope people remember it as a Debra Hill film. Yeah. But they don't. No. Because women. It does say that.

Yeah. It's really interesting to look at her New York Times obituary. She did die very young, I think. In 05. Yeah, in 05. And she was only like 50 54 54 so the headline of her obituary says you know essentially the woman who helped create halloween and it's real fucked up for me to think that like the story genesis actually might have been hers because if it says a deborah hill film she was probably the one who was behind that.

Right. Yeah. So, yeah, you know, she helped create it, you know, but that's such a it's such a diminutive way of talking about her role in this movie and then other John Carpenter. But I guess, you know, it's one of those things where headlines are just like so-and-so's wife does this, you know. Yeah, it's the his wife of his wife yeah it's oh that's really frustrating and disappointing i'm seeing she also was involved with the fog escape from new york and escape from la yeah some of my favorite films for sure well pour one out for deborah tonight that's so fucking frustrating. I love, one of my favorite things is that she, I hope that she came up with a conquistador storyline for The Fog.

You guys have never seen that. It's just like, I have. Ghost conquistadors. It's like, sure. Invading a radio station. So wonderful. I love it. Yeah, I feel like a woman being a driving force behind this project

does show at a lot of points because because i do have a lot of these horror movies of this era conflated i assumed that this movie was going to be less good to women that and the female characters in the story i guess were going to be less active than they, than they ended up being. Because I think that, I mean, a lot of horror movies that came out, like when I was in high school, first of all, they were remakes of a lot of these. And they were worse, where like female characters were even less active, and there was even more pressure for them to be, you know, scantily clad. And I mean, I guess, you know, Annie, there are some clear moments, but I don't know. I was generally impressed with it. It seems less lurid.

Something happened in the 90s and early aughts that turned me off of a lot of horror films. And it was really nice when I could find some that kind of bucked those trends. Some international movies that had come out around that time that were just a little bit different, or some indies. The movie May came out around that time, Lucky McKee's movie. That's one where a woman is very, very present and wonderful and so good. Angela Bettis and Anna Faris are in that one. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I feel like a lot of it kind of just turned into this like torture porn genre person and you know he owes a lot of his career

to Saw but you know he's got children now and he's like I would never direct one of those movies if I were the person that I am now you know like I'm not sure if I would I'm not comfortable with it I don't want to put that into the world you know so he's like a weird thing

that happened in that time period that's so interesting that he went on record as we'll link that uh to that interview too because that is i think kind of like cool of him to cop to as well interesting you know everyone outgrows some of their their old desires their old things that they wanted to make and yeah you feel like it's childish and you're you know you're kind of caught up like, this is the zeitgeist of what was going on in horror then. Sure. Kind of going off of that, that was the reason I wasn't,

I mean, part of the reason I'm not that into horror movies is because I wasn't allowed to watch any of them growing up. But the reason I wasn't allowed to watch them wasn't because of the fact that they were scary. It was because of the torture porn elements to it where I remember my mom was very turned off by the like sexualized elements of the movies that were coming out then I think that the Final Destination franchise also kind of fell into that category as it went on for me I like those movies

though yeah I mean Jeffrey Riddick like a gay black man created one of the most successful franchises in horror history and i am a very big fan of the first few final destinations like really big fan of them i saw three first and i have such at the roller coaster one oh god i think that's the first one i saw too i love three and our producer sophie really? Wow. What an iconic movie. I really loved it. The roller coaster one stuck with me for years. Like, that was so... The tanning bed.

Yes. The... Oh, they're electrocuted. Oh, my God. Horrible. I mean, we're not even talking about the lumber, the whatever, coming off of the back of the truck. Oh, yes.

Going through the windshield. Final Destination 2, I believe. Wow. Those movies are really good. Okay Final Destination 2, I believe. Wow. Those movies are really good. Okay, we got to talk about Halloween. Sorry. But all that to say, you know, Halloween's markedly different from where we were at in the early 2000s.

So Halloween is not the first slasher movie. There's some kind of debate as to what it is. But Halloween is credited as ushering in the popularity of the slasher subgenre because this was a huge box office hit it had a low budget of i think around 325 000 and it grossed 70 million in the box office you know super popular really helped usher in the slasher sub-genre. And it made Jamie Lee Curtis, that was like her first Scream Queen role. I don't think a lot of people understand when they try to copy these kinds of movies,

they don't understand what the key to success was in the first one. Oh, yeah. Like, I do think that, you know, when you're looking at Nightmare on Elm Street, I think that that's a really great, successful kind of slasher, you know, ripoff in some ways of these slightly earlier ones, because there is a very interesting and enigmatic killer, you know, and it's very creative. Yeah. And, you know, you look at this as a precursor to any other slasher and you're like, wow,

this is extremely creative. And now it's just been done so many times. Right, yeah. And also, I didn't know the origin story of Michael Myers, but just the fact that he was originally among them and he's not this abstract monster that you don't know where he came from. He literally came from the same suburb where he's now. I don't know.

That makes it scarier. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. where he's now i don't know that's that makes it scarier yeah just like for sure yeah so i want to talk about the brutalization of women in horror movies so what are you talking about i don't sorry i i made a mistake um i'll just go home um so horror as a genre as with all genres there are certain genre specific tropes that revolve around gender. And many of those tropes mean a misguided or damaging portrayal of women. But horror especially, I think, is worth talking about because unlike, say, action, adventure, fantasy, sci-fi movies where women are generally sidelined and not allowed to participate much in the story.

Horror movies, especially slashers and probably other subgenres, generally allow women to be much more active participants in the story. But this means that they are also often very heavily brutalized. So I want to kind of break down the people who get attacked in this movie by gender. So the first thing we see is the Myers teen girl at the very beginning being brutally stabbed. Yeah, look at my tits, little brother. She's proud of him. She is. She should be.

You eight-year-olds. The clown mask shot whoo yeah but i do have to say the clown mask shot actually does obscure some of the the tits so it's a weird thing like it's less lurid than it would be if it were just it also makes you think that he's much taller you're weird right yeah anyways right um so then her boyfriend leaves before the stabbing happens. So he escapes the brutality there. The nurse outside of the hospital that she and Dr. Loomis go to, she gets attacked, not killed. But Michael Myers does kind of like struggle with her.

Meanwhile, Dr. Loomis is not attacked. So, so far it's two women and no men. I like that that woman never shows up in the movie again because she's like, no, fuck this. You guys deal with it. Like, I am out. She's like, I'm getting transferred. This is fucking not okay. Good for her.

Where's that spin off? Nurse Betty is who she became. I would watch that TV show. I would watch that sitcom. yeah i'd watch that sitcom isn't there a movie called nurse betty did i make that up yeah with um yeah she has amnesia she sees like a murder and then has amnesia about it literally this movie yeah okay okay yeah nurse betty okay next thing we see is a dead man's body by a red truck. He's already dead. There's no woman present. So we don't see a man attacked, but we do see his dead body. Next thing is Annie getting strangled in the car and

then her neck is slashed by Michael Myers. Annie's boyfriend, Paul, however, is not present. So he is not attacked. Too bad. Maybe he had pants. He could have lent her. Then we see Linda get attacked and strangled. And then her boyfriend, Bob, also gets strangled and then stabbed. So finally, we see a man. We crucify a teen boy as well. And then at the very end, Laurie is repeatedly attacked by Michael Myers. but there's no sort of male counterpart there for him to be attacked. So it's essentially five women we see attacked in the movie and only one man we see being brutalized.

April, this is not an unusual ratio, is it? Or is it? No, no. I mean, there's usually, I mean, you might say it's like, if there are seven people, there's usually four women and three men. You know, there's always at least one more woman who's, who's separate. And she's usually like the slut, you know, and it's great. She's like, the most charismatic character. And everyone's like, Oh, she's definitely dying. Paris Hilton in House of Wax. Oh, my God. Yeah. Is the one I go to for that.

Yeah, let's. I guess I have seen a lot of these movies. Yeah, I did like the skanky ones of the early and mid aughts. Those are most of the ones I saw. House of Wax was like 05. Oh, right. Yeah. Well, to that point of the women who are attacked and killed,

certainly in this movie and in many, if not most, slasher movies, all those women are sexualized in some way where the Myers girl at the beginning is seen making out with a boy and then presumably they have sex and then she is stabbed. Annie is on her way to have sex with Paul.

We see her undressed because of the butter she apparently spills all over her clothes ruining him. She gets so mad about the whole butter situation. I'm like okay seems like there's a lot of metaphors in this movie. What's the butter? She's like I spilled lube all over

myself. Takes off shirt. Oh no. And then Linda has sex with bob and then gets strangled to death so yeah because and we've hinted at this before or we've talked about this before i think on the friday the 13th episode and it's worth going into a lot more on this episode because Laurie Strode is you know the virgin type she ends up being the final girl where while she is attacked by the killer she survives well I think there's a lot of indicators attached to Laurie's character that from my read of it went even beyond her being the virgin where and it's kind of all the classic indicators,

but you know, at the beginning we find out that she's very into her studies and she like gives a fuck that she forgot her chem book and everyone else was like, whatever, we're, you know, butter. And,

uh, she, instead of hanging out with boys, she's doing a very maternal activity. She's taking care of children. Uh, she is, she's good. She's taking care of children. She is... She's knitting, you guys. She actually brings her knitting

materials with her. The two weapons she uses are a knitting needle and a clothes hanger. So she's using... I think we were talking about this recently, like just domestic kind of feminine weapons to attack this man, which I thought was kind of like cool and an interesting

choice she is kind of she's resourceful but it also does mean that yeah we were talking about on the raiders of the lost ark episode where maureen ravenwood right the one weapon she uses is a frying pan to like hit a guy over the head with which is another domestic item it's an observation of something i think i mean there's different ways to look at it where you know it could be used to her advantage of like yes she's resourceful she's using what's around um and she's not i guess taking the mask like the masculine whatever phallic item to turn it on a man and you know she's using the feminine objects that are around her i don't i don't know i i can i can see that both ways.

And then she's dressed differently than every other woman in the movie, too. Yeah, big baggy sweaters. Really cool penny loafers, though. I really like it. I'm really into her style. Annie's my favorite. I liked the look.

I thought it was a good look. They bought her a wardrobe at JCPenney, is some trivia that i read oh that does not surprise me and i also am a penny kid so all of my clothes from like ages i think five till 18 were bought at jc penny yeah i think that we got my clothes at marshall's and they had bought it from jc penny so it was like last season JCPenney. Sure, sure, sure. But, you know, it trickles down.

So kind of looking at this from a screenwriting perspective, I do have a master's degree in screenwriting from Boston University. I hate to bring it up. There is a very specific reason that slasher movies like this have a lot of women in them as the main characters, because filmmakers of horror movies are going to use whatever tools they can to heighten and amplify the horror. And they think that it's scarier when a woman gets attacked because women are perceived as being weaker by society. So brutalizing women has a greater like emotional impact on the audience. Well, I also I mean, I also think that it's just in the world more likely that men are attacking women for reasons that are deep seated when we don't fully understand. Yeah, then then the reverse. Well, there's also the I mean, this is a biblical story construction. I think people forget that horror movies are actually drawn from very deep, long histories.

And so even if you look at Night of the Hunter, for instance, that is, you know, a really kind of beautiful fairy tale of an early horror film. And it is also one where women who feel sexual are the ones who are murdered. And it's also a comment on what that is and the killer and talking about God talking to him and telling him to do these things. And in the same way, you can see a little bit about Michael Meyer perhaps having someone kind of talking to him and telling him that this is a moral thing and that morally these people are bad. And so it is to me, it's always been very, very biblical. And I was raised Roman Catholic and we love horror movies. It is about us. It is about us. It's like our story where we're like, oh, yeah, that's so fucked up. Let's watch this you know yeah and um you know you can see that um that trajectory from

the earliest of horror films about morality and women and um sexuality and who gets punished and who isn't sure so you know watching something like this where women are brutalized in some ways it's you know reinforcing what i was taught as a child, you know, about that morality. And then also, it is circumventing it, because there is one woman who survives, you know, and there is, you know, it's never like all good or all bad, you know. Sure. A few different interpretations. I did some research afterwards, just to make sure that I was, that my reading of it was sort of tracking, because, you know, the morality play elements of it seem to read very clearly, where it also

didn't resonate with me on first viewing that there's an implication, at least, that the reason, because I was like, why does Michael Myers kill his sister? Like, what? I didn't figure that out the first time, and then went back and watched that scene again to be like did i miss something i think the implication and then i sort of checked this against other stuff uh is that he's upset that she is in you know like engaging in sexual whatever instead of taking care of him instead of paying attention to him and so it's his anger at her sexuality versus taking care of him that motivates that killing which helps me out a lot with not justifying but what is motivating the other like it makes him so mad when teenage women are sexual because they're not babysitting him right but then i i was i think he's an incel i think he's absolutely an incel if only he just they're not babysitting him. Right. But then I was...

I think he's an incel. I think he's absolutely an incel. If only he just had that terrifying internet community to go to at that time. And then, but then John Carpenter, and it's again, it's like, I wish I knew what Deborah Hill thought about this, because Carpenter later went on the record as saying he doesn't think Halloween is a morality play at all. And he says people who say that completely missed the point. And then says, quote, the one, okay, and his read, I'm like, did you see your own movie? But he says, quote, the one girl who is the most sexually uptight just keeps stabbing this guy with a

long knife. She's the most sexually frustrated. She's the one that who is the most sexually uptight just keeps stabbing this guy with a long knife. She's the most sexually frustrated. She's the one that's killed him. Not because she's a virgin, but because of all that sexually repressed energy starts coming out. She uses all those phallic symbols on the guy. So that is a different idea. I don't buy that. I read that too. Yeah.

Also, this happens a lot where critics of horror movies will be like the phallus is the knife and the thing and i i don't really get i mean i get why this happens but equating stabbing someone to death with a knife and equating that to i think it's a giant clit personally like you're just killing someone with a gigantic clitoris why are we equating penis vagina heteronormative penetrative sex why does that get i know why but why does it get equated with stabbing someone and murdering someone to death oh boy i mean i mean that maybe is too much yeah yeah that's uh you know's just like, don't sexualize my knife. My knife is my knife.

Right, it's for murder, not sex. Don't gender my knife. Guns are pretty clear. Those are pretty obviously penises. Yeah. I think. When they come, they kill. It's not good.

It's bad. We got to take a quick break, but we'll come back for more. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere,

a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I felt too seen.

Dragged. I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies.

On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place We'll see you next time. us. buzz. We've got you covered no matter your favorite sport. We're breaking it down with the passion that'll make you feel like you're in the stands

with us. Plus, we've got a bunch of guests. Foolish Bailey, Jolly Olive, Chris Rose, and more. Mock drafts, rankings, whatever you want. It's the sports world, and come on and join our friends in the Wake and Jake family. You will not regret it. So,

new episodes Monday and Wednesday. You can watch along on the Wake and Jake family. You will not regret it. So, new episodes Monday and Wednesday. You can watch along on the Wake and Jake YouTube channel or listen to Wake and Jake on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Can we talk a little bit about the final girl trope? Because... Oh, Jesus.

Okay, no, I mean... No. This is... We've only talked about the final girl trope because okay no i mean because you're this is this is we've only talked about the final girl trope once okay last year all right when we did friday the 13th yeah so we'll talk about what it is and then we're i'm very interested in what your read of it is because i'm sure there's a whole secret history we don't know about yeah Yeah. So it has become such an easily recognizable trope that other horror movies have been referencing it for a couple decades now. Like in Scream, it gets talked about a lot. It gets alluded to in Cabin in the Woods. There's even a movie called The Final Girls that came out in 2015, which I did see in theaters.

Brag. Brag. There's also another movie called just final girl as well that came out like a year after that the the trope is that the kind of virginal studious good girl who is among the cast of peers who are are much more sexual than she is she's the one who gets away she escapes and or defeats the killer basically she's the last survivor left alive after the killer has murdered everybody else gotta live long enough to fuck baby can't die a virgin right so that's the thinking behind that right there are Right? There are. Yep. I've read feminist arguments for and against this trope and slasher movies in general.

But yeah, I'm curious to hear your take on it, April. It's something that I've had to talk about so much that I'm like, what have I not said before? Because if you're a woman who is in horror, who likes horror, that's kind of the first thing that people want to talk about um anna biller got herself into some trouble recently director of a movie called the love witch because she said that she thinks that the the final girl's bullshit and it's uh it's one of those things where are women who are talking about the final girl and embracing the final girl are they participating in their own, you know, patriarchal destruction? Or are they actually doing something that is feminist? And I don't think that there's any one answer to that.

The way that I think about it is something that women have not had that many movies that we get to see ourselves in, right? And so one of the reasons why I was always gravitating towards horror was because you actually saw a female character, at least one generally, who was very well developed. And so it's like, okay, great. And she, you know, often very strong, that kind of thing. And in the same way that gay people and people of color have had to kind of reinterpret movies for their own use and their own instruction and their own kind of like peace of mind. The Babadook. There you go. I mean, that's the thing is like we find what we want in movies. And I think that it's completely okay to look at a movie like, you know, Halloween and say, I idolize Jamie Lee Curtis's character in this, Laurie Strode, because, you know, she survived. And she's a great character.

She's got some texture. And she's interesting. And to say that that's something that you can exalt. And I'm also okay with Anna Biller saying that it's bullshit. You know, I think that you look for things that you want to be in film, even if they're not quite there. Some, obviously, are better than others. I do think that Halloween has some interesting characters who I love. I love sluts in movies. I love them so much.

They're so fun. I really loved Annie. But that's another thing where in horror movies, you only get to see sluts in horror movies, kind of fully self-actualized. This is who I am. Of course, they get murdered, and I try not to think about that. But I love their characters so much, and I love spending time with them. And so you just kind of have to look past some other things and to enjoy what you want from it.

Yeah, I definitely agree that it's a matter of examining each individual movie and looking at how it decides to portray the female characters, how it kind of comes about the final girl scenario thing. It's not, I don't think the idea of the final girl is inherently good or bad. I think it's just a matter of, okay, how does this movie handle it? Yeah. And how do you interpret it as it plays out on screen in each individual movie? There's a, I mean, and I'm like tempted to give Debra Hill most of the credit for the parts of these movies that, of this movie specifically, that might kind of bug me or I might roll my eyes at in other horror movies that I didn't in this particular one. But one of the reasons this movie was like, still kind of scary to me was it's like great use of voyeuristic shots, because there's so I mean, like, that's where a lot of the horror comes from. Before people die for minutes, you're seeing you're in the Predators mask, yeah, or you're right behind him. And you're you're watching, you know, you're watching Annie inexplicably strip nude in someone

else's kitchen and put on a dad shirt or just stuff like that that plays so well especially when i was younger and still living in the suburbs of like the feeling of being watched by a masked man uh when you're just trying to do do your fucking thing which i don't know like i definitely had some peeping toms when I was a kid. Yeah. Like they were gross and my stepdad had to chase them away from the window. Like it was just weird.

That's the kind of thing that's like extremely, you know, resonant for a lot of suburban girls. We had like a closed shade rule after like 6 p.m. All shades would be closed once like me and my cousins hit puberty it was

just like bye yeah towels over the just in case you know like well yeah because you can see the shadows that was an issue in my neighborhood where we were closing the shades but you could still see the silhouettes and the shadows and that was also not good oh so the peepers would would stay peeping in silhouette they would be old-timey peeping. And so you had to go the next. So it does resonate. Yeah, it does. And you know, it's an interesting thing that they have

scenes of Annie just doing laundry. Like, that's just the scene. But you just know that he's out there somewhere and he could be watching her. When he approves, you're like, oh, she's dead. But then she's not. approves, you're like, oh, she's dead. But then she's not. Then Lindsay, the kid who, for a large portion of her time on screen, is catatonic watching the thing, which I thought was really funny.

That was something, because we're recording an episode on Scream tomorrow, and something that showed up in this movie and then in Scream as well is they're watching horror. something that showed up in this movie and then in Scream as well is like, they're watching horror. Like this is, this horror movie takes place in a world where horror movies already exist, which to me, it was seemed like why they kept cutting back to the thing and,

you know, kind of referencing stuff like that, which I think does something to like strengthen the characters within the world. Cause it's like, you know, it's, it's so frustrating when you see a character go into the place they shouldn't be going into and it's like

have you ever seen a horror movie before so a movie going out of its way to be like no they've seen a horror movie before i appreciate that yeah yeah i do find that fascinating and there's definitely a lot more we can say about that when we talk about scream but. But one of the things I wanted to point out about Laurie Strode as the, you know, final girl, as the remaining survivor of this movie is that we see her fight back. She, as we talked about, uses a few different weapons. She is putting up a fight.

She's running away. She's screaming for help. People are, like, bystandering the fuck out of that situation and ignoring her. There's a moment she gets Tommy's attention by throwing the plant up at his window and she's like, get the fuck down. Which is also a questionable decision.

But whatever. She's like, let's get into the house where there's children. She's just not thinking. She's in panic mode. There's like a let's get into the house where there's children. Yeah. But she's just not thinking. She's not thinking. Right. I mean, she's in panic mode. There's like a fight or flight situation going on.

And then it is, I did find myself frustrated at times. And maybe this is unfair of me because I have not been in a situation where I've been chased by a murderous, crazy person with a knife. You got to try it. Oh, yeah. You can pay to get that done so people love experiences it's experienced stuff but i was like she stabs the guy with a knitting needle and then she just like collapses on the couch for a while the knife is right there she drops it and it's just like no like kill him some more like make sure he's dead uh and then fine so

i was like frustrated but also I was like, if I was in her shoes, I would probably not be thinking clearly either. Yeah, it's not easy to kill a person. As it turns out, movies kind of make it seem as though it is easy to kill someone, even if someone's trying to hurt you, having to hurt someone else in that way is extremely difficult. For sure. I thought of that as well, but then I was like,

oh, it's probably like a character thing. Like they wouldn't want the leading lady to kill someone too hard or go quote-unquote overboard with like 40 stab wounds. Right. Although that would have ended it right there. Which I think might be. Or no, it wouldn't have, right? Because magic.

Well, yeah, because he keeps coming back for all the sequels. Yeah, because apparently if you're mentally ill, you also are... You are invincible. You are in with powers, yes. Which is just a whole other thing. Right. If only. That'd be tight.

Well, I think that is why the thing happens at the end where Dr. Loomis is the one who kind of swoops in and i would argue saves laurie by shooting michael myers and yeah so i i would have rather that not have had to happen where a man kind of comes in and saves the woman uh i think it could have easily been that laurie who would have been perfectly justified and she just needed another minute she just needed a minute she had it uh but yeah dr loomis comes in shoots him and then he falls out the window michael myers disappears and you know he's waiting for production to start on the sequel whatever but um yeah he zaps over to like a meeting yeah he's like sorry i got a development meeting um we do have to say that like this is kind of before you were getting like a lot of horror movies that add sequels

like in in that period so it was a very brave thing of them to do narratively to be like let's set up a sequel because like was this going to be a sure hit you know they didn't know right so having that kind of unresolved thing in the end of this film is also, I have to say, very fucking weird. Cool. Yeah. All right. I also wanted to talk about the whiteness of horror movies. Because maybe until very recently, and even now, most slasher films have a cast that is all or predominantly white as jada pickett smith's character in scream 2 which i recently rewatched as she says the horror genre is historical for excluding the african

american element and she says about the slasher movie she's about to see in theaters is a dumbass white movie about some dumbass white girls getting their white asses cut the fuck up. So that does pretty well sum up what a lot of slasher movies are. If there are people of color in the cast of a slasher movie, they are often the first to die. And they almost never survive until the end. And I was kind of, I was trying to do some reading up about this and was sort of like trying to make sense of why this is and what are the implications of this. And I think it's part of it is that stories about rich, attractive white women are very sensationalized in the media, either in horror movies or in the news. I mean, like think of JonBenet ramsey and how we're still

talking about that yeah when it's like her brother does it sorry i mean i have seen everything everything produced and then when you think about like the most famous serial killers they are the ones who generally targeted young white women. We don't necessarily... Sorry to keep poking holes. Right. So sorry. Barbiturist is the exception to every rule. The golden standard. But real-life stories about women of color being killed

are largely ignored by the media. They don't get nearly as much press coverage. And I don't know if slasher movies excluding people of color from their stories is active commentary on that. I don't think so. I think white people just don't think about it. Yeah. I mean, we're talking about slashers proliferating in the 1980s when we also had John, God, sorry, what's his name? 16 Candles? John Hughes. John Hughes. John Hughes.

So you've got John Hughes on this kind of like family-friendly type of thing, and he's doing the same thing, and slashers are doing the same thing. The 1980s was the time of like flipped-up collar assholes. Yeah, yeah. As heroes. As heroes, like, you know, running wild. They're the center of the story. They're the center of everything.

Even though that was, you know, the 1980s, if you look at the economics of that time, that's representative of a very, very small, small number of people. Reagan era movies are so fucking weird. They're so fucking weird. Fucking Reagan, dude. Yeah. Although I love Land of Confusion video, the Genesis video. It's so good. Yeah, I would also guess that it was just literally lack of thought.

The closest I could get was they're representing upper middle suburbia, which probably wasn't as accessible to non-white people in this time. But there's never, I mean, there's no excuse to, I feel like this is probably across all genres at this time yeah but it there's never i mean there's no excuse to i feel like this is probably across all genres at this time um april have you found that that has changed significantly over time or has has there been any progress whatsoever it's weird you're seeing a lot of films that are um a lot of directors uh people of color specifically, who are kind of in development on features right now. People who've had shorts, horror shorts or sci-fi shorts

that are screening at festivals right now. And you see that and you're saying, oh, that's the next generation. When Tales from the Hood came out, Rusty Cundiff's anthology horror, that was one of the few that kind of really spoke to that. And then you've got also Leprechaun in the Hood and then its follow-up also embraced African-American actors and gave people their own slasher. And I have to say Leprechaun in the Hood is one of my favorite movies. Oh, I haven't seen it. It is so wonderful.

And there's actually some really interesting performances in it. Those are really amazing movies, but they're also quite rare. There's a woman who runs a website, Ashley, called Graveshift Sisters, Graveyard Shift Sisters. That's what it is. And that's specifically developed to talk about women of color in horror. And so people are interested in that. Graveyard Shift Sisters has some really interesting essays and kind of digs in to find not just the women of color in features, but in the shorts that, you know, from those directors who might go on to make these features. So it's very fun to see that.

Everyone check that out. That's so cool. We'll tweet out that link. That's awesome. When, I mean, this is sort of, Kazza, because we're covering a lot of movies this month that came out in the 70s. We just did Carrie. Not only is it an all-white cast but in terms of the women that we see there's no range of body types at all no uh which just you know almost goes without saying but there it is there it is yeah yes um also as per usual an extremely hetero movie not not a glimpse of queerness baba duke isn't anywhere to be seen.

Where's the Babadook in Halloween? That's my big note. Where he just shows up, he's like, hey! Hey! And then Michael Myers is like, that's my line. Queerness in horror movies is also its own thing because you do have some really wonderful kind of lesbian vampire films that have been made,

but then you also have, you know, like Buffalo Bill and Silence of the Lambs, which is a construction that trans people have had problems with. Oh, yeah. You know, for, but also some people have embraced him because of, or her, I don't, I don't remember, like, what we would refer gender wise. Well, that's because I think the movie misrepresents the trans experience so much that it's hard to interpret what exactly they were going for. Yeah, yeah. And so yeah, there's, you know, like these lines between, again, are we rewriting it to embrace this person, because we don't see this person and to kind of envelop them

in our love and be like, Oh, I have empathy for you. I have sympathy for you, because I understand it was so difficult or something. So, you know, Buffalo Bill is a really, you know, weird example to put into that. But, you know, there is a really great article that my friend jordan crutiola uh wrote for vulture that is like 50 of the best queer horror films and i would highly suggest that people check that out interesting and then uh you were you hit on this point very briefly about michael myers and sort of the way that horror movies deal with mental illness is there could you expand on that a little bit I'm really interested in that side of it and it's um the exploitation of mental illness in horror movies is something I've

thought about for a very long time I am a person who I would say is like mentally well now, you know, but I've obviously, you know, being a woman, I've had my bouts with my own mental illness. So it's something that I even wrote an article about this where I interviewed a few schizophrenic men about schizophrenia portrayed in horror films to talk about how they get that experience wrong or right. And it's something where we're just trying to exploit what we think it is, you know, there aren't many people who actually know what mental illness is. And I think that that's something that we're more careful about now. But damn, we didn't fuck it up for so many years, so long, you know, and it's a it's a I'm trying to even think about ones that get it right. But there's always something that you can pick apart about it, know well in this movie it's um i mean i am not a

therapist or psychiatrist so i can't really properly diagnose michael myers we're armed you're diagnosing michael yes but he has some sort of some sort of psychosis is what he seems to have dissociative to some degree yeah i i don't want to even pin it to a specific mental illness. Right. Yeah. His doctor is like, nope, just pure evil. And you're like, huh. You know when your doctor doesn't diagnose you as straight up evil.

So it's basically equating mental illness with evil. I mean, I think it's a pretty direct line in this one. Which doesn't set a good precedent. No. I just remembered Black Swan, I think, is one that actually does get a kind of mental illness correct in some ways. I need to rewatch that. I think it's an interesting depiction that even most ballerinas who suffered with issues were just like, oh, no, no, he gets it. This is right. This is like, it feels, you know, like you're just depressed. I really he gets it this is right this is like oh it feels you know

like you're just depressed and you're yeah i really love that movie it's so good i really really love that movie but yeah uh horror movies mishandle a lot of things a lot of the time often specifically the portrayal of mental illness, the representation of the trans experience, and then it ends up perpetuating the stigma against mental illness in society. It creates more trans panic, things like that. I mean, I think that even with genre movies, it's useful because it's easier to spot this stuff

because they're like campiness and being over the top. It's magnified. Right. Like I think this stuff is present in all movies. Like any drama that came out. I'm sure that these same elements are present, but because everything's turned up to an 11, it's that much more clear that when you look at it,

what is it, 40 years later now, you're like, oh, this couldn't be more obvious when at the time that, don't i don't know yeah just like the values of the society are turned up to an 11 and so i don't know i mean it's helpful to look at movies like this now and to some degree because you don't have to dig that deep to find to find out what what is what's going on but there's also i mean i'm actually i'm like looking at my phone trying to find this but uh there's some listeners of my podcast who are making a trans vampire zombie movie, I think. Oh, cool.

And they were doing a GoFundMe and I can't find what it is. If I can, I'll. Oh, we would love to. Yeah, we would love to. Yeah, but you share it. That's one of the things that I'm really excited about for horror in the future is, you know, I go to these film fests and I see like Quirrelly Fargeat's revenge movie. And it is a rape revenge movie that is done in a way that I've never seen before. And it is just like chills of, you know,

this woman destroying these people and, but there's also emotion to it. You know, there's like inner interiority and there's character and there's, you know, and I, and I'm excited about, you know, Julie Ducarnel's Raw, which is one of the best coming-of-age sexuality movies that I've seen. It is a perfect movie. I will go on record as a perfect movie. 30 years

from now, you will ask me, April, was this really a perfect movie? And I will say, it is still a perfect movie. I guarantee you. It's one of Aristotle's picks, too. We keep getting recommendations. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Does anyone have any other final thoughts

about Halloween as it pertains to the treatment of women? Just speaking to the movie in general, still scary and weirdly, as I think sort of genre films tend to be, an education on the values of that time

in a pretty tight hour and a half, which I always appreciate. Yeah. I'm just like, oh, great. I love this. It's like under 100 minutes. And we are out of here. It's great.

Yeah. And I just want to say, like, in keeping with something that we had brought up earlier, where there are more women who are, you know, killed in these movies, I do think that one of the reasons why is because women just make they actually make better characters and I like they are different and there's there's something about like getting to know someone before they're murdered because it makes you cringe you're like oh my god oh my god no so there's something about like and I'm thinking about the screenplays that I've written like the horror screenplays and I do have more women in mind who get killed but it's just because I have more women characters because I actually enjoy writing them more.

And I think that they reveal their emotions and their selves so quickly on screen in a way that men, it takes like much longer to get them to come out. And so you- Women should be years long. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like the economy of having women characters is also, I think, something that speaks to horror.

Like people understand that they do make good characters. So for sure. Yeah, I think one of the reasons that I'm not super fond of the slasher subgenre is the very prominent brutalization of women. But it is a subgenre where there's mostly women present in the story and participating. And yes, some of them get brutally killed and it's hard to watch but we see a lot of and granted it is mostly young white women who by western beauty standards are attractive but it has produced some interesting characters um i think there's a reason that the laurie strode character keeps showing up in these movies and people are really excited about this also shouts out jamie

lee curtis she just is she's great yeah she's great big fan of hers i mean it's like she's got pretty good genes janet lee true and uh um curtis uh tony curtis thank you yeah couldn't come by it Who? And Curtis. Tony Curtis? Tony Curtis. Thank you. Couldn't come by it more honestly. Loved Freaky Friday. Yes. Is that your review of Halloween? Loved Freaky Friday. Loved Freaky Friday.

If it paved the way for Freaky Friday to happen in 2003, I have to support it. I can't in good conscience not. But yeah, I still have mixed feelings about this genre. This movie, I think, is scary. It's well crafted. It's well shot. It's well acted. There's more nuance to it than a lot of slasher movies that showed up in its wake.

But I'm rarely going to watch a slasher movie and feel empowered unless there was and maybe there is an example of this where the killer is a woman who kills a bunch of men yeah it's called the witch who came from the sea oh and it's uh it's great I've got the blu-ray if you need to borrow it okay I think it's worth buying the blu-ray. It's also very hard to find. And it is a woman who cuts off dicks. And it's beautiful. It's a beautiful film. It's so gorgeous and trippy and wonderful. When did it come out? 1970s.

Oh, cool. Wow, so it's like same era. Yeah. That's amazing. So there are slasher films that are easily read as feminist films. There are. This one I that are easily read as feminist films. There are. This one I would say is a very feminist film. Yeah.

Yeah. There's some gray areas. Yeah. Mistakes were made. Yeah. Mistakes were made. Oh, one last thing for anyone who's keeping track of what my name, Caitlin Durante, anagrams to relevant to this movie. Caitlin Durante anagrams to relevant to this movie Caitlin Durante anagrams to

Lori can't die TN as in Lori can't die die misspelled it's just di without the e and then TN obviously stands for tonight so Lori can't die tonight wow wish we had that yeah you you have such an anagramable name thank you so much yeah thanks mom and dad for uh i'm sure that's why they did it yeah they're like uh we could name her like you know joey um shall we uh does this film pass the vector test three two one yes uh-huh a. Especially at the beginning. Yes, for sure. A lot.

While the women are still alive. While the women are still alive, they're talking about a lot of different stuff. They're talking about a dance they're going to go to. They're talking about how Lori doesn't have anything to do that night. And why it's like, oh, duh. You are a virgin. Therefore, you are not busy. Love that line of logic um virgins are just they're just waiting uh they're hanging out uh they're talking about weed they talk about weed and all

sorts of stuff yeah so uh yeah that's great and again shout out to deborah hill because uh you know and chances are if it was just uh you can always tell and we talked about this in the carry episode too you can always tell when a group of men are trying to write what they think teenage girls sound like because it's insane yeah just like uncanny valley full-on polar express like what are what is happening it's just insane uh so but but the dialogue between the women here you know's like not, they're not talking about heavy hitting stuff, but they're, you know, they're teenagers. Typical teenage girl talk. Attract for me. Yeah.

For sure. Shall we rate the movie on our nipple scale? Let's do it. We've got a nipple scale. It's zero to five nipples where we rate based on its portrayal of women. This is a tricky one for me because i'm still not necessarily putting it up against other horror films or just all films in general because that's also a yeah i don't know i think you kind of have to compare it to other films of this specific genre okay because yeah

if we're putting it up against all movies where most movies don't it's not brutally murder you know four different women it's not fair to campy genres to do it against every single yeah yeah so yeah just putting it up against other slashers uh but keeping in mind that it is a movie that exists within the whole you know umbrella of american film i guess i'm gonna land on like a two and a half which might seem low it might seem high i don't know but that's where that's what i feel uh because we we do see the laurie Strode character is through some resourcefulness. She is able to escape from a certain death. She does have to have a man kind of come in and save her at the end.

But overall, the development of the characters is, I would say, again, compared to other movies of this genre, I would say it's pretty strong. Although her close friend Annie is very mean to her a lot of the time. That seems realistic for some reason. Because like sisterly. Different times, like when they're talking about their plans for that night, Annie's like, oh, good. I've got three choices. Watch the kids sleep, listen to Linda screw around, or talk to you, Lori. And it's like, oh, good. I've got three choices. Watch the kids sleep, listen to Linda screw around, or talk to you, Lori.

And it's like, oh, is talking to your good friend Lori as unappealing as the other two options you listed? That's not nice. I mean, to be fair, Lori, she literally cops you. She's like, I'm never doing anything. So, like, not your first choice for a hang. The one who's like, yeah, no no i'm not up to anything at any time you're like but then where are these friends you're not my first call because childhood there's only so many options yeah you're just the suburbs you know i was that boring friend to many where

it's like well she's you know she's a she's a good last pick because she'll be around yeah and they're right oh you guys want to come over and watch a movie my mom's got the hot glue gun out like that's me that was me so yeah i mean i think that because this movie i would say handles you know the the nuance of of being a a teen young woman in a slasher movie better than other movies of its genre, but also still requires that a bunch of women get killed because they wanted to have sex. So yeah, I'm going to land right in the middle on a two and a half. I'll give two to Laurie Strode. And I will give my half nip to the lack of understanding and the misrepresentation of mental illness in horror

movies fun nip yeah i'm i'm a two for this one um not because i didn't enjoy the movie and i see a lot of value in it and this is again it's like i would love to watch this movie in a group and you know all that stuff but i would kind of argue that we actually don't know these women very well. I like them all, and I love Annie's character especially. I like Linda's character. I like that they are openly sexual. Obviously they're punished for it. That goes without saying for a lot of these movies.

But I can't name a second thing about them really other than maybe they have a boyfriend. So I don't know that we actually know that linda says totally a lot so that's her thing two things yeah 17 years of life has a boyfriend says totally loves beer loves drinking and driving given the amount of time because it is like impressive and cool how much screen time women take up in this movie. But given the amount of time, especially long scenes we have with these women, I do wish that there was a little bit more that we knew about them.

Because it's not like they're not there enough. And then sort of all the stuff we hit already that is also a criticism of the time in history of the heteronormativity, of the all-whiteness, of sort of what is almost expected in a movie of this time and the mental illness stigma. I like the idea behind Michael Myers a lot, where it's like this is a villain who hates women and that's I'm not saying that's good but I am saying that there's a lot of heroes in movies who hate women um so in terms of like someone who's openly hateful of women at least it's pretty well

understood that he is bad and not good so thumbs's the bad guy. So thumbs up for that. Yeah, two for me and give one to Laurie Strode. I'm going to give one to Annie because she's just, I want to be her friend. Yeah, she's fun. She's so cool. I don't think she would have hung out with me, honestly. She would have. I don't think she would have hung out with me.

Guarantee it. And what about you, April? I'm going to go three just because of the kind of depth I have of knowledge of other slashers and the more lured way in which these murders are generally filmed. There's no, for instance, a knife kind of lingering on a woman's naked belly or something like that. There are different things that happen in slashers. And I would say this is actually quite tame. You know, this is almost like the Hitchcock version of it where you never see the stab kind of thing. And that's just very different. I mean, I remember there were movie scripts that I was reading when I was in development horror films, where it was just like

a man rapes a woman as he pulls out her spine you know and we're looking at this and and those terms were like i would say like that's you know like the real gross part right and then this is just it's it's not as bad filmically you know it's a the cinematography is is much more tasteful and the representation of that is much more tasteful if you can be tasteful about flaying a woman i don't know but it's it's it's almost like not over the top and and that's something that i appreciate and i and i think that you know what you're talking about with the fear coming from the possibility of these murders is is much more kind of tangible and interesting to me so uh yeah, three nips for me. Who would you like to give them to?

I got to say, just like give them to my three girls, right? One for Linda, one for Annie, and one for Lori. Friends forever. Friends forever until... In the next dimension, maybe. Yeah. Well, April, thank you so much for being here and educating us too, because we truly haven't explored this genre very much on this show. So thank you so much. Yeah. Thanks for having me, guys. Where can we where can we find you on the webs? Well, you can look for me, my maximum fun show called Switchblade Sisters and on Who Shot Ya? pod.

And then, you know, I write I write everywhere. It's true. Yeah i write everywhere it's true yeah everywhere it's true yes read april's stuff yes we'll we'll link to a lot of everything we discussed in the show today as well and you can follow us at bechtel cast on twitter instagram facebook you can subscribe to our patreon aka matreon which is five dollars a month and it gets you two bonus episodes every single month. Really good month this month. Ooh, we've got Babadook. The Babadook. Who was noticeably absent from the film Halloween.

It's my new favorite criticism. It's the new Alfred Molina. Didn't see the Babadook in this. I think Alfred Molina would have. Actually, he was Michael Myers. We don't know. We don't know. We don't know. In the early part, I know.

Jamie knows. Because he texted me. So early role for him, you know, he's still scrapping around. People don't want to see his face yet because it's just the world's not ready. Right, right, right, right. So anyways, people, you know, Indiana Jones is his first credited role, but it's just really the first time you see his face. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Indiana Jones is his first credited role, but it's just really the first time you see his face. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So yeah, you can go to patreon.com backslash Bechtelcast to become a matron. Quick plug about our East Coast tour. We are going to be in a few cities starting November 3rd. We're going to be in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On November 4th, we're going to be in Washington, D.C. And on November 5th, we're going to be in New York City as a part of the New York Comedy Festival. More details about the movies we're covering, guests, venues, and how to get tickets, go to Bechtelcast.com. Go to our Live Appearances tab, and we'll have information there.

You can also check our Twitter and Facebook. We'll be posting the links. So if you live in or near any of those cities, we hope to see you there. Also, go to tpublic.com slash the Bechdel cast. Some special Halloween designs will be loose by the time this works. Yay. Hey, you want a Feminist Icon Beetlejuice shirt? It's there.

Whether you like it or not it's available for a limited time only yeah uh and we have our of course our classic feminist icon queer icon and other designs there um all right how does the music go again i already fucking forget oh i was like that's absolutely wrong bye That's absolutely wrong. Bye. Bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated.

Crooks everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. What is wrong with me? A show about the ways that mental illness is shaped by not just biology. Swaps of different meds. But by culture and society. By looking closely at the conditions that cause mental distress, I find out why so many of us are struggling to feel sane,

what we can do about it, and why we should care. Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. MTV's official challenge podcast is back for another season. That's right. The challenge is about to embark on its monumental 40th season, y'all, and we are coming along for the ride.

Woohoo! That would be me, Devin Simone. And then there's me, Davon Rogers. And we're here to take you behind the scenes of the Challenge 40 Battle of the Eras. Join us as we break down each episode, interview challengers,

and take you behind the scenes of this iconic season. Listen to MTV's official Challenge podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.