The Big Picture - The 10 Best Horror Movies of the Year … So Far. Plus: The New Scary Movie Royalty, and ‘Obsession,’ With Curry Barker!

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

On today’s show, Sean is joined by Chris Ryan to discuss the current state of one of their favorite shared loves: horror movies. They talk through the current paths for directors to break into the genre (0:52), highlight which filmmakers they think are at the top of the game right now (13:52), and break down a myriad of recent releases, including ‘Obsession’, ‘Hokum’, and ‘Lee Cronin's The Mummy’ (32:45). Later, Curry Barker joins the show to discuss his new horror film, ‘Obsession’. He explains how he got his start as a filmmaker in Alabama, shares his personal perspective as a person who went through the YouTube pipeline, and breaks down what’s next for him as both a director and an actor (1:19:23). Host: Sean Fennessey Guest: Curry Barker and Chris Ryan Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh This episode is sponsored by State Farm®️. A State Farm agent can help you choose the coverage you need. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.®️ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennessey, and this is the Big Picture A Conversation Show about the horror. Today on the show, Chris Ryan joins me to talk about the huge wave of horror movies that have hit already in 2026. Later in this episode, I will be joined by Curry Barker, the writer-director of Session, a delightful new horror film about a boy cursed by his own infatuation with a girl. To say more would spoil too much about this incredibly fun and intense parable

about what is and does not love. Curry got his start like so many recent horror directors on YouTube, and he has been tabbed for some big things. Take around for that chat. But first, we're talking horror with CR. Right after this. Okay, bud, we do this like twice a year. How do you feel right now?

It's halfway to Halloween, man. This is where we have to start training. This is where we start getting into shape for the spooky season. What are you more into, jujitsu, taekwondo, Taibo? Extreme fasting and searching for demons. Just for fear of not wanting to vomit all over everything. There's been a lot of vomiting in films recently. For sure.

There's some intense vomiting in Lee Cronin's The Mummy. Yeah. Not yet discussed on this show. A lot of puking and obsession. Lots of, lots of vomitous behaviors. You ever been to a vomatorium? No. I've seen an ancient one in the city of Split in Croatia.

Oh. Where the, you know, the rich and powerful would gorge themselves and then stick a peacock feather down their throat. Is that a fact? Yeah. Yeah. And did you participate in that ancient ritual? It's gross. And Croatians, God love them.

They eat like heavy stuff. Like, it's like bready pastas, like really, really, like a lot of nooky, you know? You know, these episodes, they often lead to you and I pitching horror movies. I think the vomatorium shot and set in split Croatia, there's something there. A couple on their honeymoon. Yeah, that's really nice. Puking on each other. You make Croatia sound so exotic.

Croatia was amazing in 2014. Don't know what it's up to now. You know, I can't say. As it descended into fascism? I just don't know whether it's become, like, more well-trodden, like, with American tourists. When we were there, the funny thing was, like, you were starting to see this. I'm sure you've experienced this in your international travels with your lovely life. But, like, you realize that there are several couples having the exact same trip as you.

Right. And so it's like, ah, you also are going to the blue pool or whatever it is. You know, like... Well, they made a film about that. It's called Speak No Evil. Yes. And then things went terribly awry. Speaking of which.

Speaking of which. Let's talk about how horror is going, how things are feeling. We were talking last week, and I kicked an idea to you that it feels like for the young and exciting new voices in this space, there are two tracks that people can go down now. Right now it feels like you can either start making stuff and putting it on YouTube and start putting it on social media and hoping that you build a following and then hoping you can get the attention of the movie-making world. Or you can use a slightly more traditional, though not that traditional approach, of making independently financed horror features and eventually hoping to kind of build your way up to getting distribution on a platform like Shutter

and then using that experience on Shudder to then vault into the major studio horror. Does that sound right, roughly? I would imagine that's, I can't think of a third way right now. And, you know, you have your like small horror-focused labels like X, Y, Z or RLJ, or breaking glass. You'll see them at the front of a lot of horror movies. But the YouTube thing is pretty interesting because I wouldn't go as far as to say you skip the line,

but it does feel like some of these YouTube creators who become horror filmmakers go from nothing to O'Tore very quickly. 100%. And it's not, like, they kind of arrive. Like, if you want me, it's my vision rather than, hey, I finally got this big break, but I'm going to have to play the game with Blumhouse or whoever, you know, like whatever studio I'm working with.

There's something exciting about that. You know, I had the Philipo brothers on for talk to me, and then they had bring her back last year. I think Curry Barker's in his mid-20s. I mean, some of these folks are incredibly young that are getting an opportunity. And I think a big benefit to this genre is just that these films are just not that expensive to make.

I mentioned Lee Cronin's The Mummy. It's Crohn's the Mummy. It's Crone's third film. It's his biggest film. it still reportedly only cost like $22 to $25 million. And he gets a tremendous amount of scale out of that modest budget and the movie's made a bunch of money. And so it just seems like you can go to the front of the line, like to the top of the heap in a really short period of time.

I'm sure for somebody like Lee, it doesn't feel like a short period of time because he's been working hard for a long time. But Curry having this movie distributed by Focus that was bought out a TIF where he got a huge reception for the film in his mid-20s after five years on YouTube is extraordinary. It's just fascinating that it's been able to happen that quickly. And he was making sketch comedy

and also like we talked I think in 24 when we did this, we might have talked about milk and cereal. We definitely mentioned it, yeah. I think the YouTube short, but even though it's an hour, that popped for him. And it's 800 bucks. And there, if you watch Obsession, you'll see some familiar faces,

or one familiar face in milk and cereal. Cooper Tomlinson, who's a sort of, was his sketch comedy, partner and appears in a lot of his stuff and works with him a lot is in is an obsession. Yeah. I think there's something genuinely really exciting about it. And you know what it reminds me of? This is probably overstating things a little bit, but that wave of crime movie directors

coming out of Sundance in the 90s where it was like fast, cheap and out of control was the energy that a lot of those movies had. And some people went on to become Tarantino and some people went on to become not that. it does feel like we're in the middle of a little bit of a wave. Do you do much scouting? Do you send your guys out there to watch some young lefty? You know, only one of us has an army. That's what I'll say.

If only I had more people who were doing some advanced scouting for me. I do the kind of cheat of Googling Best Horror YouTube every once in a while. You know, what surprises me about it, I think, you know, this is a pretty common experience on YouTube. is you'll come across something and it will have like a million and a half views in two days. You know, it's a very, very, very passionate audience. And I think with Iron Lung and Shelby Oaks, like two YouTube creators

who ported over to features, you can see that in some ways, you know, having that kind of fandom and having that kind of highly connected and activated fandom is almost like having IP. So most people are like, like, hey, go make a mummy movie because enough people out there are like, mummies. I know what those

are. I'll go see the movie. But if you're like, hey, from the guy who you've been subscribed to for nine years, it's kind of $11 in their pocket already or $15 in their pocket already. I couldn't agree more. I more broadly think this is where all culture is going. I talked about it a little bit on plain English with Derek Thompson a couple weeks ago. And Marky Plyer's success with Iron Lung is proof positive of this. I mean, my sister introduced me to him 15 years ago. ago and was like, this is my favorite YouTuber. And she has been more or less along for the ride with him over that time. And so she is not, even if she's not as interested in his content as she was when she was a

teenager, she was just in on Iron Lung. She was just going to go see it. She felt like she had to because of the commitment that she had made. And that is also kind of the business that we're in. That's the business that most people, I think, that are just kind of making things for entertainment and enjoyment and insight are doing. And so it's this unusual situation where crowdfunding. never felt like it was a sustainable model for unknown people

because it was all about this kind of Shark Tank-esque proof of concept. Yeah. But if you have a little bit of a foothold on social media or a streaming platform, you can make your thing, get it out in the world, and a lot of people can go see it. There's an interesting thing also I wanted to mention about the aesthetic of YouTube horror that I've seen. No, Curry Barker's a little bit different because I feel like he is doing almost social commentary in a lot of his videos and especially an obsession but milk and cereal. But I was watching

one this morning called Avaloupe from a director name or a creator named Nick Crowley. And it's basically formatted like a rabbit hole exploration. Like a guy finds a website and keeps going deeper and deeper and deeper into like what was this website selling. It's like from the 90s. And the further you go, there's a really great twist later on in it. And you know, I think there's like a degree to which the comment section seems to be almost like treating it like it's a documentary.

But there is like this utilization of true crime podcasting of internet deep dives of you won't believe what happens next mechanics that I think a lot of YouTubers use

like to basically tantalize you to keep coming like to stay keep watching and it's slightly changing the genre a little bit. And I think the Philopoo brothers are a really good example of this and they come out of YouTube and one of my

favorite part of Bring Her Back is the opening where you're like you guys, what is this Russian Resurrection Angel video that you found? I wish the movie had that energy a little bit more. That's that kind of shit. It's the digital ephemera

that has been like quote unquote found and discovered that I think is like pretty breathtaking when it's done right. We're going to see an incredible test of this later this month with backrooms, which is Kane Parsons' adaptation of his own kind of expanded YouTube series short film, creepy pasta, and that he compelled, you know, Chew Itel Ejie for, and Renauda Rinez about to come and be involved in it.

And I think James Wan and Sean Levy and all these big names are all really interested in this 20-year-old kid. Yeah. And it feels like this amazing. transitional moment in the genre's history, but also the stuff is pretty good. I mean, I wasn't... Did you watch any of his YouTube stuff?

I've seen back rooms now, which I wish I had not now, because I'm, you know, now I feel like I really know the contours of the story, but also felt like to be a part of the experience of being excited about it and to do that thing where you're sort of like, along for the ride over time.

And if that thing opens to $35 million, like I think it's going to be important to say this wasn't just a good trailer. Like, it was also like a region of people, who are interested in it. Totally, which I think is quite interesting. He's another person who I think, like, he flirts with kind of, like,

this maybe more art school side of the YouTube, like, video art kind of side of it, like, at least some of the stuff I've seen. It's a really exciting space, you know? I, too, was pretty skeptical of, like, the idea of, like, we just need to raise $2 million to make our, like, slasher in the woods because it was either, like,

well, if it doesn't, that's money down the toilet. And if it does, what are the chances that I'm going to be a co-executive producer on your... Yeah, yeah, no, but I think, like, we talked about In A Violent Nature a couple years ago. And, like, how that was... There was something very standard and also something very form-breaking about that movie at the same time. So it's just... It's really about the novelty of the idea, the commitment of the artist, and getting, like, either 5,000 people or two really successful people to really get behind it.

And you can't really compare any... other movie genre to this. There's not really any other genre because some, you know, bigger movies need more scale and more funding. Smaller movies are harder to market and harder to draw young people into, just like a classical chamberpiece drama, which you can make at this scale, but it's just a harder enticement. So, yeah, it does feel like we're at this amazing moment this year and you've got all of these people, some of whom are at the intersection of comedy. And I find that really interesting this year too. Well, you know, it's interesting that you mention the basically the farm system of YouTube to the majors, because that was the same thing for comedy, you know, in and around the

Comedy Central boom. That's right. Workaholics, you know, like all these people who are making post-college humor sketch comedy shows in their apartments. I mean, that's, that's sunny in Philadelphia. Like, I mean, like, the whitest kids you know is Zach Greger. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that the, the infrastructure was there. Yeah, Mad TV and Key and Peel for Jordan Peel. You know, those are two people that are obviously the biggest crossover figures in that space right now. There's always been a very obvious relationship between comedy and horror because they both are kind of drawing on human behavior and high emotion, right? This like really convulsive, reactive experience that you have when something is really scary or really funny, the idea of gut-busting, kind of working as a double entendre.

Yeah, if people are just interested in maybe the best example of comedic horror or horror comedy that I've seen in a really long time, it's Widows Bay. It's the Apple show. I watched the first episode on your strong recommendation. It was good, yeah. I think Matthew Reese is amazing. Yeah, that's Hero Morai and Andrew DeYoung and Ty West also directed on it. So it's like, it's really, really good. It's one of my favorite shows of the year.

I enjoyed it. Eileen and I are going to stick with it. Um, on the movie tip, I'm curious who you think is really like at the top of the heap. Who are the, who are the 10 or 20 people that are at the, at the vanguard of this? I was, you know, looking at upcoming Blu-Rays and 4K, something I do from time to time.

And I noticed that, uh, John Carpenter's Vampires is getting a 4K steel book. As it should. Which is, of course, is deserved because it's a phenomenal movie. Yes. Some fine work from James Woods in the film. Um, But 10 years ago, the idea of, like, we need a $48 edition of John Carpenter's vampires.

Yeah, I need to have Daniel Baldwin and crystal clear bit rate. Yeah, it just seems ridiculous. But there is something, the past, the recent past, which felt fun to kind of excavate, has shifted from cult to canon. And now I think we're starting to look at this recent era of filmmakers and saying, like, okay, well, who's going to be the next carpenter, Craven, Toby Hooper, George Romero, you know, the people that we can really claim as like, generationally, the loudest and strongest voices. I just mentioned Craigor and Peel. You know. I think those are the two number one seeds in each conference. And, you know, Peel, I think that there was, there used to be an idea that you could start with horror because it was a way to get your movie made and then you could move into the things you really wanted to do. And now I think Craigor is the example of somebody who obviously, just really it loves this genre and has Resident Evil coming this year,

but a space horror movie called The Flood apparently shooting already, or it sounds like it's in progress. And when you see the Resident Evil trailer, while I wouldn't put it past him for that to only be like the first 10 minutes of the movie that we're seeing, that's hard horror. Like that is like, that is like follow this guy as he descends into hell, a.k.a. Raccoon City.

And that's, there's no. like, there's no pulling punches there. So I really, I love the fact that he is tripling down on like his credibility in the genre right now. I will say for both of those guys too, though, there is something slightly Spielbergian about their approach and the way that they write characters that I think has somehow made them seem both really, really grounded in the genre and also really elevated to the point where a performance in the film can win an Academy Award. Yes. Or you can win the original screenplay Oscar. these two guys are now Oscar-nominated Oscar-winning filmmakers. And we didn't, we don't, we didn't have that really for the previous generation, you know,

give or take, like De Palma doing Carrie. Like, there's some examples over the Exorcist with Friedkentz. Sure. Some, but those guys were not purely horror filmmakers. So the idea of somebody who's like, my steak is in the ground, this is my home genre. Whenever I'm making a movie, nine times out of ten, it's going to be one of these kinds of movies. And also, I'm critically acclaimed, and also it's one of the ten biggest movies of the year.

Yeah. This is a really rare error for the genre. Beyond those two guys, who else do you think is, belongs in the discussion? I think we have to talk about Mike Flanagan because he's probably been the most consistent and prolific horror director working,

but is an interesting case where it seems to have turned himself entirely over to the Stephen King universe or grand IP excavation. So his slate upcoming is Dark Tower, which I think is going to be a mini-serie. If I remember correctly, how they... I hope so.

It's hard to do as one movie as we learned. But more notably, he's currently shooting Exorcist. I saw Sasha Kaye on set for that. She looks like she's a police detective, and there are rumors that it's going to have a little bit more of a police procedural bent to it. He's doing a mini, limited series of Carrie. Not sure that Carrie needed a limited series treatment,

but we'll see. And he signed up to do... The Mist, which is an amazing Frank Darabont movie of an adaptation of a Stephen King novel from years ago, but I'll be very curious to see what he's going to do with that.

Then he got the ball rolling with Clayface, which it's worth noting that DC is like what we need is a hard horror title in our in our portfolio. Very exciting. Did you watch that trailer? Yeah. Yeah, you were into it. Yeah. Okay. What'd you think?

Yeah. I'm all in and I just wish more not just superhero stories, but all kinds of IP could be pivoting into that pretty dramatic. And not just horror, there are other ways of approaching those stories,

but that one in particular felt very natural. And I've said it before. One thing I love about that trailer is no one says Bruce Wayne in the trailer. No one, there's no image of Batman.

No. You know, like it's in that world. It's going to be in that world. Yeah, it's Gotham, right? It's got them. But I don't really, I appreciated that it didn't, it had, there was no jingling keys.

A few other people that we should probably talk about. Oz Perkins has another new film this year, the young people. Now, the success of his neon films has descended since the long legs explosion. But, and I found the last film to be a little bit, had some moments.

So there's monkey pause and then, what was the monkey? It was the, it was, first it was long legs, then it was the monkey, then it was Keeper. Yeah. And Keeper had a couple of images that I thought were incredible, but the movie didn't really hang together for me. But those three films were all kind of made in a tight succession

over a short period of time. The young people, which I saw just a little bit of a peek at at CinemaCon, looked really cool, and I'm hopeful that that's good really good. Do you know? I don't know. Okay. But that's from neon later this year. I think it's going to end up becoming like the Halloween movie this year.

There are not a lot of Halloween movies coming this year in October. I don't know if you noticed that. I didn't. Clayface is one of the big Halloween movies. Yeah. This would be the second year in a row where we were really over-indexed on April and May, in March. When is it

like, are you think that there's going to be like a violent nature because I know Violent Nature 2 is coming but like I wonder if Shutter is saving

like two or three big indie releases for that time. Presumably. I mean we didn't even talk about you know, Terrifier and Damien Leone and that whole era and the way that he kind of

used that crowd sourcing slash fandom to grow his stuff and I think Terrifier 4 is probably not at the end of this year but maybe. Finn Parker Smile. Those are two of the biggest horror movies

of the last 25 years. I'm a little bit more mixed on them. He is remaking possession, which feels like a big risk. Who is the, who's playing the female lead in that? It's not Jenna Ortega, isn't it? No, the male lead.

I believe it is Margaret Quali. Margarquale, yeah, and Callum Turner is the other lead. We'll see. Yeah. We'll see. I hope it works out. I'm trying to think of the best

why did you need to remit this horror movie that I've seen because you know like we I thought Speak No Evil

was fine the James Watson's English language doesn't improve on the original it doesn't improve and it

is also like gives away the entire movie and the trailers we talked about that a lot I know that

Noah Holly is talking about directing a remake of the Damian Runa movie oh terrified terrified

yes don't think we need to remake that movie right happens often Yeah, but I'm trying to think of the best version of it. It's not coming to me right now. I mean, there's like, that isn't good?

No, the one that's like, wow, you really did it. Nice job. I'm so glad you guys went back to this secret text. No, there's far more examples of remakes that we didn't need. You know, some people like the Platinum Dunes era of the 80s slasher remix, but some people are sitting across you. Yeah, yeah. I'm not as into those movies personally. We mentioned the Philopos. I mean, Scott Derrickson, still a very successful filmmaker. I think you got to talk about him just because of how commercially viable he is. And, yeah, the Gorge at least has some fans in Aubrey Plaza. And Blackphone, too, did very well. You know, it wasn't my favorite film, but, like, I thought it was inventive in places.

And I'd be curious to see if he continues to go down the horror road or whether or not he wants to go back into blockbuster filmmaking because he was, you know, did the Dr. Strange thing. I respect to him wanting to use horror as, like, a prism through which he can tell bigger stories like the Gorge and Dr. Strange. I just wish that those movies were just a little bit better. James Wan... I had him lower on this list. If this was actually a power ranking, you could argue he would be up there with Craigor and Peel just because of the...

He's the water diviner, you know, like... I mean, he's had more success than anybody. And the Atomic Monster merger or whatever or joint partnership with Blumhouse, I think changes Blumhouse. And Juan has obviously got his eye out for people like King Parsons. and probably could turn around

and make the most hotly anticipated horror movie of the year any time he wants. Yeah, I mean, he was the EP and, you know, I'm sure had plenty to say about The Conjuring Last Rights, which was like a $500 million movie last year. So in terms of just like pure industry, clout and power, he's incredible. But when he deigns to direct a horror movie,

they're usually really good. That's what I'm saying, yeah. So, yeah, I look, I don't know. I guess there's been a long-time rumor that he's making a creature from the Black Lagoon movie. I don't know if that's actually going to happen. I hope it does be interested to see. But yeah, he's got his name on a bunch of movies. There's a new insidious movie this year.

Other Mommy comes from an atomic monster in Blumhouse. The Revenge of Laurona. Like, there's a whole bunch of movies. I don't know. Did you ever hear anything about what happened to Soulmate, which was supposed to be the spinoff of Megan? But after Megan 2.0 flailed at the box office, they basically like shut it down. Were they shooting it? Like they were like...

I think it's done. Oh, wow. We saw a preview of it at CinemaCon in 2025. And it was supposed to come out in January of this year. So I saw like two minutes of footage. Was it like, how did it iterate on Megan? Well, it was very similar to the film Companion. Oh.

Where it was about a robot companion girl. But it had an even more, I would say, violent bent. And it seemed less comic. Okay. Than Companion was. But that movie is now... off the schedule. I'm waiting for the announcement

that it's just been sold to Netflix or something, but I'm quite curious. Huh. Yeah, I had a couple of other people here. Walkins, we mentioned James Watkins, who did some really decent, like, B-movies leading up to

the Speak No Evil remake, but Eden Lake and Black Coat's daughter. And then is directing Clayface, and it seems like they let him make a horror movie, so I'm excited about that. I think he's a really good, not Black Hood's daughter, the woman in black.

The woman's daughter was Oz. Oh, sorry, yeah. I think he's a really good crafts person. You've got Julia DuCarno here. She'd also mention Corley Farcia, the twin French

baddies. Queens. Yeah. Body horror, baddies. Yeah. I was not as high on Alpha. I don't know if you saw Julia DuCarno's new film, which is

not so much horror as it is it's kind of a body psychosis drama that is also a parable about AIDS which you know you don't see a lot of stories about AIDS in the 2020s and there was something interesting about trying to explore that but the movie was not nearly as successful and has like a very dour tone and didn't have like the mania that I think was so exciting about Raw and Titan

but I really look forward to seeing what she does next Brandon Cronenberg he's got a space horror movie that he's apparently working on dragons. No kidding. Which is about like alien alien DNA becoming like a drug of like a recreational drug for people and so people are out

hunting aliens in space to like keep snorting that stuff which is a good idea for a movie. Honestly just like horror movies are going to live forever. There's so much stuff out there. What if you smoke space dragons? That would be fucking good right? Why is it?

anybody done that yet? I do think it's notable that Brandon and Craigor are doing space horror. And my event horizon homies are sticking their head up above the parapet with no eyes. This conversation is not about

moral combat, but James Wan is a producer on the Mortal Kombat movies, and Paul W. Anderson directed the original Mortal Kombat film. And Mortal Kombat is kind of loosely related to horror. I bring a Paul that would be a very interesting because of event horizon.

Well, this is the funny thing. So, like, you know, when we were talking about Star Wars the other day, I was very conscious of the fact that we're obviously speaking from a certain, like, generational, like, spot. Like, we're like, okay, it's the first three, then the prequels, like, I had a harder time with than you did because you're a little bit younger, and I think that those were, like, a big deal. And now you're introducing all these movies to your child. But, like, I wonder whether we're going to feel a similar generational generational shift in what is quote unquote cool and what is being influenced or referenced in horror.

So when we were doing alien predator stuff when Badlands came out, if you go online, there's a lot of alien versus predator defenders. I mean, they may be in insane asylums, but they are out there. They have access to the internet. They're logged into a public library console. But it's funny how like different. So that actually explains the existence of CR heads. You just figured it out. Well done. We're in insane insolence.

They've logged on in an internet cafe. The only site they have access to is Reddit. They have an interpol red alert on them. No, I wonder what horror movies and what microgenres of horror, like, space horror, will become a little bit more in vogue as Curry Barker and Kane Parsons become, like, the kind of... Alphas of the genre. You know what I mean? What was the wave in the 2000s?

I mean, it's notable to me... It's Marcus Nisbelcourt. It's like... Yeah, well, I mean, one thing that I think is helpful here is... We'll talk about undertone shortly, but Ian Tuistin, who directed undertone, was hired to direct the reboot of the paranormal activity franchise. And that is an era of movies, not just found footage, but that kind of running gun, low-budget style that, you know, Jason Blum, I think, really kind of built his business on

that all the people who saw... those movies are all 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, thinking about their first horror features, and I'm sure they're feeling the influence of those movies, the same way that we felt the influence of Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street. Sure, those guys. Yes. Yeah.

What other names do you want to mention? I would just mention for people who are looking further down the rung. Like, there's a family of people in the Catskills, the Adams family, I guess, to not put too fine a point on it. who make a bunch of like indie like kind of almost

Duplast style like it's just us making it like me and my family members and our friends making these movies and there's a couple of really cool titles Hellbender and Where the Devil Rome so you can look around for those and did you watch the mother of flies yet

that's their new film? No is it good? Very disgusting. Disgusting? Yes, very effective. Okay. It's amazing how extreme this family mother daughter and father are willing to go in their movies.

We'd recommend it's on shutter right now. And another person who I think is up and coming that it's worth mentioning, Brandon Christensen had two movies that technically came out in 2025, although I consider BodyCam more of a 26 movie. And the other one was Night of the Reaper. He's really good. He's pretty prolific. Superhost came out in like 2021,

but I could see him graduating to an even bigger budget project soon. Yeah, BodyCamp. was interesting. It was only 75 minutes and it felt like it was stretched a little bit longer. It was basically like a really good episode of Tales from the Crypt or something. You know what? Yes. I wanted to say, Tales from the Crypt, which is also extremely formative, I assume for you, and definitely for me, is now available on Shutter, the first season of that show, which aired on HBO when we were growing up, which I watched religiously and lied to my parents and said I

wasn't watching it. It's basically our Twilight Zone. Yes, exactly. And it was the closest we got, and it was kind of a horror spin on Twilight Zone inspired by EC Comics and spooky stuff produced by Robert Smekis. And it's just a blast. The show is a really fun time. You can feel the... One thing I'll say about a lot of the YouTube creators is you can sometimes feel the uncertainty about, like, runtime

and about, like, how much story do I have here and where do I want to take it? I wouldn't necessarily say that about obsession, but I could see a 50-minute version of obsession. Yeah, if there's a flawed obsession And to me there are not many I really, really liked it. It is a touch long

And there is something really interesting About these young filmmakers Who are used to working in brief Expanding. Yeah. And you mentioned milk and cereal was an hour And a minute, yeah, it's like 101. And this movie is more of a movie movie, right?

It's like, I feel like it's like 100 minutes, 105 minutes. Yeah, but there is, we'll talk about obsession in a second But there is a very clear point where I'm like There needs to be like a third thing happening in this movie instead of just like this three-hander or four-hander that it basically is.

Other than that, I think that's pretty much it for my like power rankings. I mean, I want to see a Lee Janniak movie. She hasn't done something since the Fear Street trilogy and then she executive produced

Fear Street Prom Night. But I'm sure we're missing people. I mean, you know, maybe one of these days we should do a horror mailbag, you know, or maybe we could do that with Halloween and if people have recommendations

or people that they love. Sierra, that's a great idea. A horror mailbag in October? I love it. Especially if we don't get a lot of big releases in October. Yeah, you know, just gonna look at my October really quickly.

Just consult my board here. Well, Digger. Yeah, I mean, could have elements of horror. If it turns out to be bad, it will be horrifying. Other Mommy is a big one, obviously. And Clayface, and I think those are the only two wide release horror movies that are on the calendar for October,

which is quite strange. Resident Evil, of course, comes out in late September. Okay, let's talk about some movies. A bunch of stuff has come out. We've talked about some of it here on the show over the last few months, but not everything. Obsession is the headliner. I'm so interested to see if this movie takes off

because it seems like anybody who's gotten a chance to see it has really clicked with it. As I said, it's from Curry Barker written and directed at stars. Michael Johnston, Indy Navarette, Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless. A little cameo from Andy Richter Yeah, fun cameo. The story is as follows

After breaking the mysterious quote, One Wish Willow to win his crush his heart, a hopeless romantic finds himself getting exactly what he asked for, but soon discovers that some desires come at a dark and sinister price. What you think? Really, really effective.

How much spoiler-y stuff do you want to do here? Let's try to give some, but not too much. There's a lot in the trailer. Okay. If you haven't seen the trailer for this film, but it is... It goes to much deeper extremes in terms of its style than I expected. And I was impressed with its willingness to be very, very dark.

I think I was expecting a little bit more comedy in this movie. And it's not very funny. It creates like a real sense of discomfort. It has a little bit of that barbarian feeling of not just in terms of how the story wrongfuts you a little bit, but more specifically like, this is so nuts that I'm laughing very hard. Yeah. But I might have been the only person in the theater doing that. I think that there were a couple of chuckles.

I mean, first and foremost, I'll just say Indy Navarrette kind of like, I don't think she makes the movie, but she is clearly the person who jumps out. Not as a final girl, although kind of, she's just responsible for essentially the terror of the movie and the heart of the movie, which is rare in a horror movie that the sort of villain, quote unquote, is also the, the tragic hero. So her performance, you know, like we've had a couple of really great performances by actresses

over the last couple of years I was thinking about Naomi Scott in Smile 2. But she's incredibly physical. Like the face acting, the terror in her eyes as she is doing a lot of these scenes while she is also

all of her body is compliant. Her eyes are like, this is terrible. It's just like a really fantastic performance, I thought. She's really amazing. I think Barker does a couple of really smart things with the performance. First of all, in the first 20 minutes of the movie, she's kind of your classic manic pixie dream girl where she's like, young guy has a best friend who's a hot girl.

And they've got great chemistry, but she probably views him as in the friend zone. And, you know, she's like, she can hang and she can drink and she's a good time and they work together. And there's something very common, relatable cliche about the way that the movie sets up. and Navarrett's performance through that stuff just feels very in line with what you've come to expect. You know who she reminded me is Mia Sarah and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Great. And then as soon as the One Wish Willow snaps

and the movie goes into high gear, the way that Barker shoots her is fascinating. This is going to seem like a bit of a stretch, but I just watched this morning. Tony Zhu and Taylor Ramos, who do every frame of painting, put up a new, video analyzing

Yazzigero Osu's use of color in movies. Hang with me for a second here. And he... Tony in the video talks about how, as Ozu moved from black and white to color, it took him a little while to figure out how to choose the tone of the colors that he was using, and he shifts to using a different

cinematographer after a couple of color features, and the use of shadow becomes really, really important to him, even more so than when he's making black and white films. And in several of those films, those Oseu films, you can see the character's faces covered in shadow. So you can see maybe their eyes, but barely even that. And Barker does this over and over again with Navarette, who is a, you know, a very pretty young girl who has like a real, like a brightness to her. Yes. And when you, as soon as you cloud that, and the movie keeps clouding it, it keeps hiding her. And when it hides her, it makes her very, very

scary. There's a couple of moments in the movie where you feel like anything can happen, that she could do anything violent and intense and crazy because there's a couple of times where she does something either in the frame or out of the frame and we don't see it and we return to a home where she's done something. And there's something very gross about a lot of the things that she's doing. Like she has no control over her orifices

over her bodily function. She's trapped. Yeah, she is trapped inside of her own body and is not in control of her own movements. Yeah, and the actress is really, really game for doing all of this disgusting behavior in a way that you just don't often see a face. gear like that in a movie like this. And so I was really, really impressed by her and impressed by

the energy that the movie has because she's willing to put herself in those situations. And then the other thing is just like, it's just a smart movie about a certain kind of in-celly guy, you know, a certain kind of guy who's like, I deserve to have love with a hot girl and I'll do what I have to do to make it so. And then as soon as you do that, you realize like at what cost. I liked the fact that this movie was relatively free of, uh, explanation and or origin story and or original wound for any of the characters. So these are essentially like four 20-somethings working in a music store. It seems like maybe not, you know, like far, a little further away from like Portland, but like somewhere like they're, they're just like banging around

this town where the highlight of their week is going to a trivia night at a bar and going to karaoke afterwards when they're wasted. And they all have designs on getting out of town. But that's really it as far as their like character biographies. And I thought even in the places where I was, I think what that allows you to do is watch this movie and read it from a bunch of different angles. So you could see it as a rebuke of the incels kind of film. You could see it as a guy who makes an impulsive decision

and now has to deal with the consequences. And you could also see it as a little bit of a, there is a thread in there that if you, wanted to pull at it is like the creepy pasta deep dive like what is this trinket that he breaks and what are the rules of it and who made it and who else has experienced like disaster from from breaking from breaking the same thing the other thing that it does that is really smart that i think modernizes it as a monkey's paw story is everything in the world is very gen z laconic when he calls the helpline to figure out what is going on with the one

It's a great moment. The guy who picks up the phone and has the conversation with him is different than you would have found in a super intense James Wan movie. And to me, it felt like that was a shift. Like there was something kind of changing about the genre, watching someone tell one of these stories. And even, you know, I haven't even talked to Curry yet, but just knowing that he got inspired by watching an episode of The Simpsons where their monkeys paw was featured and not reading the 1902 short story is the way that the call. I was talking about where I was like, what is the next level of, what's the next wave of influence that's going to hit people? And it's not going to be, I was watching black and white Bella Lagosia movies or I was watching like, you know, Argento movies. It was, it's going to be,

I watched an episode of The Simpsons that referenced this thing. That moment that you're talking about where he calls the customer service line for the Willow Trinket is both the funniest and the scariest moment in the movie because it actually gives you a little bit of a peek into what happens to the Indian Averac character and it's terrifying but you're like, it's just enough

and I wonder whether or not the previous budgetary restrictions that Barker's worked under like the $800 milk and cereal kind of world where he's like, I can't now go to a call center in hell wherever this guy is working from. I can't do it.

like a road movie for this guy's trying to find the answers. Yes. And so you kind of come up with these creative solutions. To your point earlier about like the Sundance Crime Wave from the 90s when we were growing up. That's it, man. Man, this is real invention to do that stuff. It's laws of gravity. It's amongst friends.

It's reservoir dogs. It's like we got five locations. We got five actors. Yeah. Make the absolute most out of it. And it can help movies like this a lot. It really can because it pulls you down to make it feel more grounded, even though the premise is so fantastical and magical.

I think this movie is really cool. And I'm really, I don't know what I was expecting when I was seeing it. And expectations play such a big part for me personally with horror movies. And if I hear something's going to be hot, I tend to get disappointed. And if I hear something is not that great, I tend to overrate it a little bit in my mind. But this was one where it was just right. I felt like I heard just enough about it. I saw one trailer.

And I went in being blown away by a performance and really excited about where a director is going next. And Barker, you know, is taking on. Texas chains on massacre, like, this is pretty crazy. It's also like, I want to talk about that. But he's really good at durational horror. So, like, basically scenes will go on for a bit longer than you would expect them to. A lot of the script or the dialogue is people repeating phrases back and forth to one another with increasing levels of desperation or terror. And that's so, that's so YouTube social media.

That's so, like, TikTok, gag, like a lot of that stuff. If you look at, is it that's a bad idea? is the name of his kind of comedy viral video YouTube channel with Cooper. A lot of the gags are oriented around that kind of repeating style. But that repeating style is David Mamet. That repeating style is Preston Sturgis. It's a skill. It's a tool to use.

But it's like, what's wrong with you? What's wrong with you? What's wrong with you? But then you get into like the third minute of the conversation and you're like, this is now just becoming these two people chanting at each other as they're losing their minds. I actually like, I really enjoyed it. I have no idea what he is going to do. with leather face.

And it's interesting because one person we didn't mention as a real person to watch is J.T. Molner who did Strange Darling and then wrote The Long Walk. And he's also got a,

I don't know if it's competing or complimentary TV project on Texas Chainsaw with Glenn Powell. So I don't know if both things will come to fruition or if we're going to get two Texas Chainsaw IP things soon. But

Curry do doing it is interesting because there's a couple of set pieces in obsession, maybe like three you know, like action-y scenes. I associate leather face with a lot of running and a lot of chasing. Yes.

So it'll be a little bit of a different flavor from him. Before he does Texas Chance's on Oscar, though, he has another movie coming out next year from Focus called Anything But Ghosts. And the thing that distinguishes that movie,

which is about two paranormal investigators who find actual ghosts, is he's starring in it. And he's the star of all of his YouTube films, including milk and cereal. And he's not the star of obsession, which is interesting. And you noted this after you saw it.

It was one of the first things that popped in my head when I saw obsession. I think it would give the movie a different flavor. And I don't know if it would have been better or worse. It would have been just different. And Curry has like a kind of desperation and perhaps, forgive me for saying, like, there is a malevolence to his performances.

He can be a little unnerving. And I think it would be different. to watch him interacting with the woman rather than this guy who's like kind of like this basically like Garden State type dude who's just like, yeah, Michael Johnson, real beta named there. I'm wearing like a sweater and like, yeah, right. Yeah, I agree. The new movie, Anything But Ghosts, also features Aaron Paul and Bryce Dallas Howard.

So it'll be interesting. Okay, let's talk about Hocum because I feel like it's actually on the other end of the spectrum, which feels like it is completely informed and influenced by the classics. It's not as influenced by the sense of YouTube. change. And so when I was thinking about this episode specifically, and this, you know, the diaspora and the ways in which they part to Shudder and to YouTube, Damien McCarthy is like the classical shutter filmmaker. Irish director. A real formalist. Squeezing everything he can out of atmosphere. Yes. Like really, really, really dialed in on set design, production design, eerie feelings, back of the frame thing moving in the shadows kind of stuff. But very, very precise and patient and sometimes too patient with his scares.

I agree. I have liked his movies and not loved them. And that is also how I feel about Hocom. His two previous movies, caveat and oddity, are definitely worth checking out. oddity has one of the great scares of whatever year that was, 2024. Yeah. Always very accomplished. Also, visually, very precise, symmetrical, really has an incredible sense of the frame.

Yeah. Creating, like putting an image in front of you that you can't get out of your mind. That is a skill. Like, I really acknowledge it. I often feel like his stories are just a little bit samey and a little bit that there's like an ancient power that may or may not be spooking someone, but actually it's human fallacy. It's human fault. The finality of the characters is actually scarier than the whatever is waiting in the basement.

Worth noting that in Hocom, Adam Scott, is the star. He plays a dickhead author. I thought of like George R. Martin type stuff. Think of fantasy style writer, yeah. And it's a cool performance from him because he has not played an asshole and a really... He's a great asshole actor. Yeah, I mean, shout out to Eastbound and Down. The gold card versus black card.

Yeah, it's me, your dad. I'm your fucking dad This gets you Jonah's brother's tickets Yeah it was a refreshing turn from him I felt like perhaps What I didn't need from Hocom is the thing that Obsession Wonderfully lacks which is

Original wound trauma story of what this guy is trying to correct in his life Yes And then an additional framing device Which I thought was like cool in it like Oh I see like how like this thing from earlier in the movie has now wound up in this is him's writing the end of his trilogy that he's writing and it's like a fantasy

like it's basically a fantasy adventure sequence that opens and closes the film. Yeah, so it's about this writer who goes to this Irish hotel which is a very clearly a haunted hotel because it's a place of great importance to his family and he's spreading the ashes of his parents. So he is kind of haunted by his past and what happened when he was a young boy with his parents but also seems to have found himself entrenched in some sort of scary plot inside of this hotel.

The design of the hotel, as you said, the production design is really, really cool. He gets these really good performances out of an array of Irish actors, including Peter Coonan and David Wilmot. And, you know, it's one of those things where, like, I kept waiting. You mentioned the third missing piece in obsession, the sort of like the third act elevation. Yeah. This movie has, like, the right structure, but it never. feels like it goes to the next level. Yeah.

You know what I mean? That's a really good way of putting it. I mean, in some ways, I feel almost like tortured by this because in obsession, there was a part of me that wanted there to be more lore. And then Hocom is exactly that

where it's like, there's a lady in the basement. And I don't know why did Robert Shaw from Shaw's there. And everything is explained to you. And Hocom, the only ambiguity comes with, The idea that basically all of it could have been a Silas Ibin trip, but obviously not.

I think if it had leant, you know, you mentioned here that there is a psychedelic quality to it, that it is a folk horror riff in a way and that there's some wicker man going on in here. I think it probably, for me, it might have been more appealing. I don't know if general audiences would have found it as appealing. If we had kind of like upended our, created more doubt about what it transpired. I felt like it was a little too tidy by the conclusion of it. But I did really enjoy Adam Scott and I do want folks like Damian McCarthy

to get to make movies like come on movie theaters When I was watching it I was like this is a pretty good story Like I like the whodunit aspects of it as much as I liked the horror aspects of it And in fact I thought the whodonit was maybe even better realized than the horror stuff, you know?

I think I agree with you. This episode is brought to you by State Farm Shout out to the friends with the same niche taste as you You know, ones that will join you in watching a three-hour silent film about the cats of Europe, followed by a cheesy superhero blockbuster. State Farm brings that same supportive energy to insurance. Their 19,000 local agents are there to help you choose the coverage you need. So you can spend less time thinking about coverage and more time in front of the big screen.

Go online at statefarm.com. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. All right, Sierra, let me tell you about a few that I've seen in the last few months or so. I already mentioned Lee Cronin's The Mummy, which I wrote about it in the newsletter a couple weeks ago, which I think is... Lee Cronin's projections? And Lee Cronin's projections, yeah. He's taking it over, thankfully. It's been only three weeks, and I need some help.

And I think it was not a bad horror film, but not a good mummy movie. He did the previous Evil Dead? He did, which I really liked... Evil Dead Rise, which was that sort of all-in-one apartment. Yeah. kind of zombie-fied family movie. And it's the same energy. It's incredibly gross.

It feels very high-stakes, high-tension. He gets a lot out of a little. It felt a little bit like it was made in the 80s in terms of the way that it portrayed sort of like the Egyptian culture and its relationship to Western culture. I was kind of surprised. And I haven't really seen that too much in the criticism.

And that can be a little bit of a hackney criticism. I get it. But I was like, how many times can we just do like Egyptian family puts the zap on a Western family and then they go home and they got to deal with this curse. Yeah. All right. It's a girl who disappeared and then they're like, we found your daughter. She's a mummy and they're like, great, bring her back.

That's it. That's the movie. Okay. And they bring her back and guess what? She's a mummy. She's a mummy. Bad shit's going to happen. And in that way, it really is ultimately more of an exorcist movie because she is a demonically

possessed little girl who is saying disgusting things and creating a vomatorium in her grandmother's home. and a lot of nasty stuff happens. I wanted to like it more, the biggest sin is it's two hours and 17 minutes long, which is just completely unnecessary. It's just unforgivable. But Cronin is talented. You can tell, like, he's got a real knack

for super disgusting stuff happening in movies like that, which I enjoy. And he is not doing Evil Dead Rise. Evil Dead Rise is Sebastian Vanichek, who did the French Spider-Hore movie Infested, which is pretty sick. Not a fan of the experience. but I thought the movie was pretty good.

He has some juice is what I'll say. And what I saw at CinemaConon of Evil Dead Burn was exciting. The trailer is awesome. When does that come out? Like this summer? July 24th. That's the birthday movie. That's how we'll celebrate you and I sharing old fashions, watching demons kill people.

But let me tell you a little bit of Exit 8, which I think is yet another film from Neon. Neon released Hocum. They're releasing the Oz Perkins. movie later this year. Exit 8 is, I think, a pickup for them. It's a Japanese movie by Genki Kawamura, and it is an adaptation of a video game. And it is evidently an adaptation of a video game when you watch the movie. It's about a man who has just gotten off the subway and he's gotten some personal news. His wife is pregnant. And he receives this news and he starts walking through the subway and he finds that he's not able to escape.

And he also keeps experiencing these recurring images. He was walking past the same business, man, over and over again. This happened to me on mushrooms in 1995 in Philadelphia. Well, it is a feeling in the first act of the movie of just being lost somewhere. Somewhere anonymous, an anonymous public place that feels labyrinthine and you can't get out. We were just at the opening of the Geffen galleries at Lackma on Sunday. I don't know if you're aware of this new extension of LACMA, which is really a beautiful new museum space. I am aware, yeah.

But it is extremely large and confusing inside. Very easy to lose a five-year-old. It's a heads-up on that. It's a brutalist design, right? It is very brutalist design and is very kind of shadowed and darkened. And so the way that you're observing the art is maybe the more the way that it was created when in the 1500s of the 1800s. Really cool museum, but it kind of reminded me of the experience of watching X-A-8. Well, I'm sure having a young child also brings getting lost into a new light.

Yeah, museums are complicated. Don't touch that is something that comes up a lot. You know, you don't want to touch the... the fourth century sculpture. But this movie creates that similar vibe of just kind of being trapped somewhere that is cavernous and large and repeating.

And the movie is mostly successful. But it does have me thinking about the other strain of the future of these kinds of movies because, like, Craigor's making a video game horror movie. Yeah. This is a video game horror movie. It was interesting to see people's response

to the Resident Evil trailer. Did you get into that with Amanda? Did you just talk about that at all? I haven't spoken about it, no. Because I saw plenty of people responding to, you're not paying enough deference to the mythology and lore of Resident Evil, which is something I actually like am pretty a bit of a fan of like in the game. It's kind of an interesting like running storyline. But I thought Craggers may, maybe not responsive. the response, but statement about, like, the movie is supposed to, like, feel, like, how I feel when I play the video game, not, like, what the video game is.

Yes. And, you know, obviously, taking liberties with people's beloved video games is a complicated thing in the 21st century. But I wonder whether or not directors will start to indulge, and I think they already have in a lot of ways, indulge in that first person.

What is it feel like to play these iconic games rather than like, I'm very deferential towards how, like, the cut scenes in, God, I'm just forgetting the name of the zombie show that's on HBO. Last of Us. And, you know, I know Noah Holley's doing Far Cry, I think, you know, there's

a bunch of these coming out. It's a really, really good question. I think it's all about whether or not the filmmaker who's in charge of the movie has a vision or not, and a lot of the time, a vision can work in opposition to what fans of a game want from a movie. Resident Evil, there have already been eight movies.

To me, that should be open terrain. Sure. Reinvent it. Try something new. The Legend of Zelda, there have been zero movies. If the Legend of Zelda film that is coming out next year

doesn't feel like playing the Legend of Zelda in some way. Link isn't in this, by the way. That's going to be a huge disappointment to a lot of people and probably is a mistake. And I don't think they're going to make that mistake. But I think in the case of Mortal Kombat was interesting.

The first Mortal Kombat movie, one of my gripes with it, is I was like, this doesn't feel like playing Mortal Kombat at all. Mortal Kombat is not a movie with a fascinating external and internal world. It's a movie about a fighting tournament. It should be all fighting.

The first one is all about getting to the tournament. And it's like Scorpion's origin story. I'm like, that's not, no. Like, I want Scorpion and Sub-Zero to be ripping each other's heads off. And the new film is more what the game is. The trailer for the Street Fighter movie is the same thing. And the Street Fighter trailer, I'm like,

fucking yeah, 50 Cent is Belrog. That's what I'm talking about. Is Centennial in the... Street Fighter movie? He is. Yeah. He's playing Ken. Which is great.

I'm very excited about that. So much stunt casting in that movie, but I'm into it. Cody Rhodes is playing Gile. Yeah. So I think the same is true for horror stuff where if you're able to reinvent, I haven't played the game Exit 8, so I can't pretend to be an expert on what it's like to play it. But experiencing the movie feels like getting stuck in an RPG. Yeah.

Where you're like, oh, shit, I don't, I thought I was already here. Like, I already saw this. I already experienced this. I already inquired with this. wizened old man who's holding a staff that's supposed to tell me where to go. Even that experience of playing Zelda in the 1980s. That's the thing is it's like I remember playing a perfect dark. It wasn't that perfect dark is such like a cool story.

This is like basically like a espionage action first person shooter that you could play in N64. It was it was the fact that you would like black out and it would be like seven hours later. You know what I mean? Right. And you know, when I was in my early 20s and me and my boys, just stay up until like three in the morning. Who were among those boys? It was Greenwald.

Sean Howe. Sean had a triangular apartment on Flatbush Avenue before Barclays was there above a taco place and we would listen to Wu-Tang Clan and play Perfect Dark. It sounds like a wonderful night. Honestly, wish you could go there right now.

I mean 24. I'd like it I would recommend. I think you would enjoy it. I think it runs into a similar problem that so much modern horror does, which is like, let's explain the emotional arc of this character with trauma. But for the first 75 minutes, I felt like I was in somebody's extremely brutal nightmare. That got increasingly worse over time, blood dripping from the ceilings.

There's one moment where there's a giant wall of lockers, and he hears the sound of a screaming baby. And it turns out that there are many, many babies in those lockers. that that one got me. That one got me really good. Do you find that you're scared of different stuff now? Yeah.

It's... I don't mean child endangered and stuff. It's such a cliche with the kid stuff. Yeah. The kid stuff is bad. But you know what? In The Mummy, I wasn't like, oh my God, don't take that eight-year-old girl

because I was like, we're in a movie called The Mummy. So with Exit 8, it's different because you don't, it just seems like an ordinary man riding the subway on his way to work, and then terrible things start happening in him. So I think it's about the presentation. What about you? I don't know. I haven't been like fucked up scared in a while since like Speak No Evil.

But I found that Speak No Evil spoke to a kind of like middle age like malaise and anxiety about like money and travel and like friendship. And like the way that it exploited a lot of the stuff that I think is probably like the way our lives are now is, you know, a little bit more. on the nose than camp counselors. Yeah, I don't, I didn't, promiscuous camp counselors. I didn't think that weapons had many scares,

classical scares. I think it had about three real scares, and I really liked those scares. But its idea of people, of parents being way too preoccupied with their own bullshit and letting something like this happen in a community, which is really outsized.

And if you took a very little approach to understanding the movie, you might be like, this is unrealistic. But this does happen where people, you know, grown people, especially people I find that are in my position where you waited a long time to have kids and you got really used to your own freedom. Sure. And then you're in your late 30s and you're like, yeah, let's have kids. But I only know how to be myself at 38 instead of myself at 28 when you're confronted by new responsibility and you have to change your life. But when you get really ingrained in your behaviors, that

terrible things can happen if you don't keep your eye on the ball. Yeah. I thought that was such a novel idea, but it didn't haunt me the way that watching The Exorcist at 14 haunted me, where I was like, is this really happening? Is the devil real? Because the movie made you feel like that. Yeah, I mean, it's the question of like, what's scarier or what's the scary thing about the first Texas chainsaw masker? Is it leather face? It is. Or is it being with your friends somewhere where you're not supposed to be where you've never been before and watching the friendships dissolve and break down and get destroyed in that moment. And like, I think it's the, it's, when you have two things working, that's when the movie

works. It's like, that's why, like, in some ways, the weapons gimmick with Alden Aaron Wright getting stabbed by Austin Abrams's needle is like the scariest thing that happens in the movie. Totally. Because, you know, it's like, it's a very real, real piece of horror. I'm excited for Resident Evil, though. I am, I'm pretty pumped. I am as well.

What are we going to do? How are we going to celebrate? When does that come out? September 18th. I don't know. I mean, like, we'll probably pot about backrooms, right? I sure hope so. Yeah. And then we'll, I mean, I definitely want to pod about, about Resident Evil. Should we do any Resident Evil, like, like Twitch stream stuff? Should we play? No, I've been promising.

I have two on my PS4. I, like, downloaded it. You still have your PS4? Yeah. I mean, I... You want to get a 4K camera in your, in your house? do I want to get a 4KK in my house? We'll shoot an episode, me and you playing? Just shooting the breeze. Jack, what kind of numbers?

We should do this in the movie theater. No, we should do it in somebody's fucking living room. You want to do it in your living room? No, like the Queen should play Cuban Links. Okay, here's what we'll do. We'll have Bill buy a house. Yeah. Bill will buy us a house.

You're going to smoke a menthol cigarette. Yep, I'll smoke. I'll work some heaters. We'll take it back. We'll take it back to 2002. Yeah. And we'll do it the way that we used to do it. We're going to get a case of PBR.

No, we'll do Edward 40 hands first. And then we'll play Resident Evil for six hours and we'll listen to the entire Wutan clan discography and we'll smoke a fat blunt right in the middle of it after the completion of the first game. No, we'll play roulette where one of the blunts are dusted. Let me tell you about a couple more movies. Have you considered centering women in horror?

Have you thought about this? Yeah. And the body rejected it? I advocated for several female directors and you blanked me. not true. You said take them straight to the vomatorium. I saw two movies this week, both of which I really

liked and I really want to strongly recommend to people. One is called Marayama, which is directed by Toa Stappard, which is about a young Maori woman who travels to Victorian England in 1860 to go look for her sister. And

she's gotten a letter from a kindly man who knows her sister and says you have to come and visit her and she travels. And because it's 1859, it takes 90 days to get there from New Zealand. And she shows up and shit is not so sweet. Is this guy not so kindly? No. Well, the guy who wrote or the letter's not there. And there's another fellow who owns the house. And it turns out the guy who wrote of the letter worked for the guy who owns the house. And this this fellow who owns the house, no, bueno. He's up to no good. And he is really interested in this young woman's culture.

The actress's name is Ariana Osborne, and he speaks Maori, and he understands the history and some of the cultural traditions, but also has a very nefarious, it's very clear in the first 20 minutes where, like, this is not, this isn't going to be okay.

But Osborne's performance is amazing. The movie has extraordinary style for such a small budget. It's a real chamber piece that takes place primarily in this house, lots of shadow, most sequences taking place at night, but beautifully lit.

That's sort of like darkened blue light that you get in nighttime scenarios. I think this is XYZ, the company that you mentioned earlier, who is putting this out. And I had not heard of Toa Stappard and was really, really impressed by this movie. Awesome. I'll check it out. The other one is sort of horror, sort of just like pure revenge exploitation thriller with a little bit of a social bent. It's called Is God It Is. It's based on the Obie winning play by a woman named Alicia.

Harris. Have you seen the trailer for this movie? I haven't. Okay. It comes out today May 15 in movie theaters. It's from Amazon, which is so fascinating that they put their money behind it. They're putting it in theaters. I don't know how many theaters. It stars two young actresses, Carrie Young and Mallory Johnson, as twin sisters from the

Deep South who as young kids along with their mother were burned alive by their father. All three of them survived, but they are left with brutal scars. And these two sisters have this kind of psychic connection where they are finishing each other's sentences and are always referring to each other as twin and the dialogue that Harris writes and the tone and the pacing, like the speed

that she writes the dialogue reminds me a lot similarly of some of those 90s movies that we're talking about. We're sort of like fast-talking characters who are really in sync with each other, actors who clearly had a lot of time to figure out their tone. And then the twin sisters are summoned to see their mother who they call God. and she tells them on her deathbed, you must find your father who did this to you and track him down.

And their father's played by Sterling K. Brown. Oh, shit. The mother's played by Viveka A. Fox. And it becomes a kind of kill-bill revenge road movie where they go find different pieces of the puzzle. Dude, it's fucking good. Extremely violent. Very much, like, from a, it's a very singular voice.

Like, even though the movie is inspired by a lot of 70s stuff and 90s stuff that you and I both really like, clearly only this writer could have written this movie this way. And for a first-time feature, I was pretty darn impressed. Yeah. I can't wait to check that out. And it has like some violence and some gore that I think is very much in keeping with a lot of the movies that we're talking about here.

And also this idea of like, what is beauty? You know, like what is desire? Especially when, you know, one of the actress's faces, I think it's Mallory Johnson's face is really, really severely scarred for the entire film. So I encourage people to check that one out. Okay. So you watched undertone I watched undertone

I watched Daly which is another one you got here Let's talk about Daly and undertone Okay Two sides of the same Of the same coin One movie that is extremely violent Shows everything Makes you sit in the agony and the pain

That's Dolly which comes from Rod Blackhurst And then undertone Which shows nothing gives you nothing Is largely without incident But does have atmosphere Yeah and also I would say undertone comes from the sensibility that we were discussing earlier

with some of the YouTube deep dive, wait, there's more podcasting style of horror where this one we can talk about whichever one you want first. Well, I mean, they're both interesting to me and they both don't totally work, but they both have things to recommend about them.

Let's talk about undertone. I saw undertone, I think, the right way. And it was the same way that I saw Skin and Merink years ago. Knowing nothing at home on a laptop. Okay. And a blink got past to me because it had been making the rounds at the horror festivals

and a film like that scene with AirPods in, in a darkened room, which is exactly how I watched Skinnamarink some years ago. And I was like, this is pretty effective. You know, it's kind of dumb.

Like, I wish more happened. But that sense of dread that the movie is trying to stoke, I think actually works better independent, like, like, I think there's lots of different ways to watch this stuff.

I don't. I think that only in a movie theater with a bunch of other people. In fact, sometimes those situations can be ruined if people aren't taking the movie in the right spirit. But even undertone of people, if there were a lot of people in the room

like screaming and throwing their popcorn everywhere, like when something was scary, I actually don't know that it was that exact kind. There's a different kind of scare that the movie is in pursuit of. Yeah. That is intimate and odd. And whereas Dolly is like a little bit more of a ripper.

Like there's just... It reminded me a little bit more of an inviolate nature in some ways. You know, it's like got a really, really great central, malevolent villainous figure and Fabian Teresa is a really good like horror actress.

She is very good. Southbound a bunch of years ago, I think. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, she's very good. I just felt like both movies you know, are like 80 minutes and feel like two hours. And that's, you know, that's an issue.

Yeah. I just watched another movie last night that had an interesting premise and a really good Jessica Roth performance called Afection that goes to some really wild places where a woman wakes up in the middle of the road.

And she's clearly been in some sort of accident. And she can't remember who she is. And she can't remember why she's there. And she's picked up on the side of the road by a man who says that he's her husband and that they have a daughter. And they go back to the house and something is not right.

And she can't really... It reminds me a little bit of seconds, the John Frankenheimer movie with Rock Hudson. And she's trying to figure out why she doesn't feel like she's in the right place. And she feels very angry. And she's having kind of like these physical convulsions that she can't control. And the first 40 minutes of the movie are excellent.

And you really, really want to know where it's going. And then at the 50-minute mark, it tells you where it's going. It tells you what it is. Tells you what the story is. And you're like, oh, that's it. I don't love that. And then you've got to watch the movie for another 45 minutes. So it's one of those things where when you take a chance on a smaller movie like this,

you've got to try to get your head around it. The last one that, you know, I think Faces of Death is kind of fascinating. Yeah, faces of death. I mean, that's probably the best horror movie I've seen this year. So tell me what you thought of it. I just thought it was an exploration of our own fascination with this stuff. In some ways, it's very much a meta-commentary on, like, guys like you and me chasing a feeling that we have to go to more and more extreme measures to get. But I will say, I don't ever go to snuff.

Like, that's not something that I'm interested in. I want produced, you know. Yeah, you want production value in. story. Yeah. Yeah. If I'm going to see a vomatorium, I want it to be beautifully rendered. But the idea of somebody out there moderating that content that we get in some ways and

such a good idea. Urban legends and whether or not things are spoofs or viral or deep fakes or whatever. And I just thought, I mean, I'm such a huge fan of that director. So it's like, I thought it was awesome. And in some ways, not unlike the way that Kragher has talked about. Resident Evil is this is supposed to make you feel like I felt playing the game. I felt like this was almost the filmmakers talking about how they felt coming across faces of death as kids or his teens or whatever. Yeah, I think that's right on and I really responded to that too.

Goldhaber's, he's got some juice. I hope he gets a chance to do something bigger after this. I almost wonder whether or not with the marketing in this movie, they should have pushed the like the movie nobody wants you to see. you know, like they're scared to show you this, you know, kind of like, you know, it got a limited release. It was weird here. A lot of theaters were only playing at 10 p.m. And I don't, you know, like I don't know. I know. It felt like it could have just played as a straight up traditional slasher despite the, you know, media commentary that is a component of the movie. I think you would enjoy it just as Barbie Ferrer trying to survive in this deranged environment. But I really liked it.

And I think also once it hits Shudder, a lot of people are going to watch it. We already talked about 20 years later The Bone Temple, which I think is probably my favorite of these movies. Yeah, I guess 28 years later, Bone Temple would be,

it might be my favorite movie of the year so far. So it kind of, I guess I consider it horror. It's terrifying. Yeah. I had a ball with primate. Yeah.

I had a ball with Duba, with Send Help. But I wanted to tell you quickly about Duba, do you know about this? I have heard about this. Is this kind of Skinnamarinky? Very.

Yeah. It's like just CCTV. It's like security cam footage, right? Correct. Right. It's about a young woman who takes what appears to be a normal babysitting job.

And she learns that the girl who's in her care has a lot of emotional struggles and also that she can't leave the house. And another movie that is like 75 minutes feels a little bit long, but when it's scary, it's fucking scary. And then it gets really silly at times too.

So it's kind of trying to strike this tonal balance that we're talking about throughout this episode of like there's a comedy component there's a discomfort there's a little bit of we didn't mention kind of life after too many cooks and the christmas yule log movies those caspar kelly movies those movies too i feel like are kind of a soft influence on what's been happening in the last five years casper kelly had a movie at sundance this year called buddy that i haven't seen yet that i'm looking forward to um but dubeduba was kind of interesting um you had a few others here that you might want to talk to. Yeah, I just thought I would mention cold storage.

It's like a kind of a, almost like an 80s feeling sci-fi, mildly horror, but more gross-out creature features, Joe Kiry's and that. That's, uh, it was really fun. I enjoyed that movie. It reminded me a little of the remake of the blob. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I'll, you know, we talked about body cam. Um, and, you know, just because we mentioned Marcus Nispell and Platinum Dunes, like, I thought do not enter was like what is that? I haven't seen that. It's about a group of like social media like stunt adventurers like people who try to

break into you know abandoned buildings taking on a abandoned casino in Atlantic City where there was like Bugsy Malone hit a bunch of money so they're like looking for treasure and it's haunted and it has mole people running around it wow so mold people. Yeah but

they're really getting a lot of mileage right now out of influencers and YouTube vloggers going into places that they shouldn't. Yeah. Like horror movies in general. Do you want to start getting into that? Like, going to be invited to spaces? I don't,

I don't think I should do that, no. Because one thing that I'm enjoying doing on this show is like, I went to this thing and I want to tell you about it. Oh, like an event? Yeah. Yeah. But do you want to go to an abandoned casino and do battle with mold people? I think you may for a good episode.

What do you think? Me and Amanda together. I'm trying to imagine Amanda being like, we went to this casino. It was amazing. The cronies were great. Could be good. The social content would be good, right, Jack?

Yeah. It would be amazing. Anything coming out this year that you want to tell me about? Get the pump prime. Does anything we haven't mentioned yet? I sadly am going to miss the first screening that was made available to me of Leviticus, which was a queer conversion therapy

horror movie that played at Sundance that apparently is quite good and they showed the trailer to that at CinemaCon. It might even be available widely that trailer. I'm really looking forward to that.

Aussie film. So yeah, back rooms, Evil Dead Burn, Resident Evil, other Mommy, Clayface, the young people.

We've talked about all these. Teenage Sex and Death of Camp Myasma. Great trailer. Jane Schaumbrun's new movie. Yeah, really like the trailer. And that is playing at Cannes.

And I'm very excited to see it at Can. I think it's in certain regard. It might even, I don't think it's in competition, made the bank competition. But I'm very pumped about that. You know, I don't know if whale fall is horror. Is that Austin? Austin Abrams

is in that? He is. That's if a guy gets swallowed by a whale? That's it. That's it. We saw five minutes of it in Vegas. Absolutely riveting. Is he in the whale the whole five minutes or is he thinking about other stuff? And like... Here's what happens. Spoiler alert for one minutes long sequence of whale fall.

There's a guy who's deep sea scuba diving and he's spots a giant squid. The squid swims by him and he's terrified. He's like, holy shit, I do not want to be zapped by that squid. And then right behind the squid is a giant whale. He eats him. And the whale eats the squid. Oh, and the guy?

Or just the squid? Well, the guy in the moment where the squid is sucked up, there's that kind of like wave that pulls toward the whale and he's being drawn into it. And it's this incredible moment of survival where he's in. engine closer and closer to the gullet of the whale and then it they cut it off and I was like show me this movie immediately um it's based on a novel by a guy who just won the Pulitzer prize yesterday but not for whale fall he won it for something on daniel kraus okay um just sharing that news with you uh do you think i should buy um a giant house in hancock park with all my austin abram stock money

yeah that's where we're gonna play resident evil he's gonna come over and play it with us right next Sony, if you're listening, buy us a house, invite Austin Abrams to the house. We're going to play at Resident Evil with him. I will have Rizzer come over and play the W on an old CDR. Yes, Chris has several copies of Ghostface's fish scale on CD. And he wants,

he's burned several for you. And will you be offering weed? No. You would never. I don't have to. I mean, it's legal in California. You can pick it up anywhere you want. You could have some in the space.

Have some next to home state, you know? Wow. I don't know. You want to cater it with HomeState? Oh, yeah. That'd be good. That'd be nice. Yeah.

How do you feel about HomeState being the number one choice for toddler birthday parties for parents to eat? I'm good with it. I guess what would the alternative be like hot wings? Like, you know. That sounds bad. Yeah. Okay.

Cool. Any other thoughts about horror? You feeling good about the genre? Yeah, I am. I am. I'm feeling really good. I think it's like a pretty exciting time. And I think that the opening conversation that we had really speaks

to like some interesting places that could go. CR, thanks as always. Let's go now out of my conversation with Curry Barker. Very happy to have Curry Barker here for the first time. You're such a young man, you make me feel very old. Are people telling you that on this tour? Yeah, kind of.

Okay. Yeah. How does that make you feel? Like, I am excited that I used to, I mean, even when I was like 21, I was like, oh, I'm getting older. I got to, you know, there's always that clock ticking, right? You just want to accomplish thing, like, as fast as, like, like, Timothy Shalame, like, like, I remember being jealous of that kid when he was a little younger and just being like,

oh, he's acting, he's already getting Oscars. You have that same pursuit of greatness that he talked about. That's inside you? I hope so. Tell me a little bit of where you come from. There's not a lot of filmmakers that come out of Alabama. I'm curious, like, what was, like, growing up for you? I mean, I grew up in a small town where if you want to.

to act in film, you pretty much have to make it yourself. That's the only really opportunity that you have. And then there's local plays. I did a lot of local theater and stuff like that, but like I kind of learned pretty early on that if I wanted to act in film, I had to create it. And it was actually just means to an end because I've been one to be an actor since I was like four years old. That's what my mom tells me. What spurred that? Do you remember? Did you see something? Did you watch a movie or go to a performance? Harry Potter probably. Really?

Yeah. Like, I was so obsessed with Harry Potter growing up. And it's kind of like being transported to another world that couldn't possibly exist. And wanting so bad to, I became such a big pretender. I was such a big pretender as a kid. Sword fights, you know, with my brother outside in the woods. We had huge imaginations. And we would just let them, action figures were a big thing, right?

Like Lego sets, building those and playing. And it felt really real when you're a kid. You know, you really play the scenes out. Yeah. Did you, how did you get a camera in your hand? Was it phones? Was it a video camera? Like, what happened?

First camera was like this little red, like, I guess it was called a DSLR. Yeah, sure. Where it's got like the electric lens that comes out. How did you get that in your hands? Okay. Yeah. And did he say you should, try to make something?

Yes. My dad was so encouraging. Like, there was a really, as a matter of fact, I give a lot of credit to my parents because I feel like if in a world where they were discouraging, I might have listened to them. Yeah. You know, I might have been like, all right, I guess they're right. Like, this is silly. But they were always being like, do it again, do it again.

And like, wow, this is so good. And like, even if it sucked, like, they really were encouraging. You know. How old were you when they put the DSLR on your hands? It's probably like 10. And so was the idea that since you wanted to be an actor and that you knew you'd have to make things for yourself, was it sort of like,

this will vault you out of Alabama? Like, was there any kind of mentality around that? Or was it just expressing yourself in a way that you felt happy about? I mean, in a small town, there's always that, we got to get out of this town mentality that a lot of people, Like you like people will DM me and say you did it you you got out of here it like it's some sort of jail or something. Yeah yeah yeah yeah um but no I mean I loved Mobile but uh yeah I was I I I aspired to be um what I had seen on the big screen and what I wanted to but I never it wasn't until later that I realized I've been directing for a while you know like I you learn about what is a director what do they even do what does that mean like like? Like, are they in charge of, like, the camera angles? You know what I mean?

These are the questions you have as a little kid. But you don't, but I didn't realize that, like, I was doing that. And, like, being in charge of this production and kind of telling people what to do. Do you remember the first time you saw a movie where you could kind of feel the director making choices or that there had been, like, something different about one movie from other movies? That's a good question. Yeah, I'm sure. like that bug of like this is good versus this is bad

had to start hitting me at some age right right because I think your opinion is the most important thing as a director what do you mean by that well like it's not about I have this strong vision for something me me me it I like it's more about like I know what I like and I know what I think is really good I know what I want this movie to be and then that kind of opens you up to other people, by the way, right?

Like anyone could have an idea. The sound guy could have an idea. It's not about that idea came from the sound guy, so no. It's about, is it a good idea or is it a bad idea? Some ideas are good and some ideas are bad, but what is a good idea and learning what your taste is? When you were making things at a young age, were you making it with friends?

Were you doing it by yourself? Friends, yeah, yeah. And did you have that mentality back then, too? Like, were you guys collaborating? Or did you feel like I'm in charge of this thing? I mean, I felt like I was running it, but only because I was the one who, like, cared the most.

Like, I was the one that was going to edit it. I was the one that was coming up with, like, most of the ideas. So it was almost like, it felt like mine in that way, but, like, it was still a collaboration. Sure. Yeah. How much of this was about trying to actually materialize an acting career and how much of it became what I actually want to do is be a filmmaker? I'm curious about that as you stand right now too.

Yeah, yeah. Like, I mean, it's a good question. If it means anything, I moved out here into a college that was a filmmaking school, but I was in the acting program. So I was really focused on the acting. but I'd already done a couple films and like little short films that I really enjoyed. And I was already so into editing. So it was something that I knew I enjoyed quite a bit. But it was, yeah, it was kind of all means to an end.

Like, I moved out here to be an actor. And then, but then I kept making films. And I don't know, man. It took off. Like, as in like in my head, like, my passion for it took off. You know. So at the top of this episode, my colleague Chris and I talked about this undeniable YouTube transitional moment, especially for horror. But like something has been happening for the last five or six years.

You are a signal example of that happening. Can you just talk to me a little bit about when you first started posting to YouTube? Like what your intention was when you first started doing it? Was it a strategy that you had? Yeah, it's interesting to be like a face of this thing, right? I When I first started I was actually in

Alabama still So we had a channel called Popcorn Culture It was me Cameron Noah Riley My little brother Riley And just We would make these funny videos And it got to the point where like In drama class in high school

We would like Our teacher would like show the The videos for the class sometimes Like as part of the class, which was really, yeah, interesting. So, I mean, the YouTube thing was kind of going, I never, like, wanted to be a YouTuber, uh, because I just was so obsessed with film. Um, but I wanted, I, I already knew the platform and the potential of like spreading the awareness. And then when I moved out here, I met Cooper. And then we started, uh, that's a bad idea.

Which fun fact is popcorn culture. Like, we totally just like, just changed the name and subscribers from that and change the name. Yeah. Happens in podcasting too for the record. Oh wow. I'm sure.

Yeah. But so we took, we made that's a bad idea and we just, it wasn't like, oh, eventually we're going to trick everybody and we're going

to make movies, you know? It wasn't. It was just, let's do a funny channel where we just do sketches and eventually we'll do like

a web series that has a little bit more story to it. it. And every now and then we'll make a horror short film or we'll make a short film that's a drama or something that will be able that will have the platform to throw on. There was no, I mean, I was still auditioning. I had an agent and I was like out here and I was trying so hard to break in. And we were doing film festivals and stuff. So I was still like, I had, it felt very separate for me. It was the YouTube world.

where I started to get friends that were like in this world too, right? And then there was like the world where I have my little agent and I'm trying to do these auditions. And so it did feel like separate worlds. And they like design it that way. Well, did you, so I'm interested in how you design the actual work for YouTube because are you thinking about kind of what is successful, what tends to work historically, the length of pieces,

the tone that you're pursuing versus, hey, here's like kind of a reel for what a film might be if I were ever to pursue it. Because I look back at some of the that's a bad idea stuff, which is really just good YouTube sketch comedy. And you can see a little bit of obsession in it, but it's like a pretty far leap to, especially some of the most intense moments of the film. So I'm curious how you thought about making the YouTube videos. I mean, I'm not like a YouTube strategist. As a matter of fact, some people kind of treat me like I am. They'll be like, oh, what's your expertise? And I'm like, I don't know.

I'm not the guy. Like, I, I, um. You just made, like, successful stuff that people like to watch. So then they immediately think that you are that, right? Yeah, but I didn't like check out the algorithm. Like Cooper got into that a little bit more. And of course, like, there's a point in the YouTube world, which really started off as TikTok, by the way.

Like, we really took off on TikTok. And in that world, you're chasing the views. You're like, oh, my God, this one got half a million views. that's so crazy. Then it becomes, this one got a million. And like, you get that rush

and you're just chasing the next, like, can we get 10 million views? Can we get, and, you know, you hit those milestones. So you, in that journey, you figure out timing.

You figure out the tricks of, like, how to get someone's attention in the first three seconds because you learn that, like, the first three seconds are the most important. And if they swipe away, you've lost them, right?

So you learn a little bit of that, but we always were like, no, screw that. I was actually so disappointed to even ever do vertical because I was like, I'll never do vertical. I'm always going to do horizontal. And the goal for us was always to make key and peel quality sketches that felt like they could be part of a movie

or felt like they could be part of a TV show. So they had that high quality production value. We never wanted to shoot it on our phones. Like we had rules for ourselves. Very early on, we were like we're doing something higher quality. Why? Like in an effort to eventually be doing something like in a feature film format? I guess so.

I guess so. Okay. But like, yeah, but more we wanted people to be like, oh, this is not internet content on the internet. You know? I guess so, yeah, I guess you're onto something there. Well, it's interesting because it is, though. Like I watch the YouTube videos, which are very well made and very well edited. But they are YouTube sketch comedy videos.

And they're definitely in a tradition. of Key and Peel and S&L and the long history of sketch comedy on television, but they do have like a certain kind of editing vibe. Totally. And I don't want to say that obsession transcends it, but it evolves it a lot. So like maybe you can tell me a little bit about milk and cereal. And like, because you mentioned that you were thinking about trying a horror film on those same channels. And there is some, there's obviously some creative, connective tissue between that film

and the sketch comic videos, but like it is also different. Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's true There's a certain editing that you Kind of do when you're doing those Like, you get You get these instincts of like, okay, we've lost, like, which is really helpful in film because you're constantly thinking

Like, you've lost me. You have to think like that all the time And so But when I made milk and cereal That's actually a funny story of how that came about I was going through this world of Trying to get my acting real together and so I had made a bunch of little scenes

from what they, from what I was trying to trick people that I've, look at me, I've been in all these different movies, but they weren't movies. There were little scenes I had written that looked like they could possibly be a part of an entire film. So I had like a cowboy scene, at like me being a bully at school, high school scene. And like at the bottom it said like the name of it,

like it was a movie. Right, right. Like with a new logo. Like I made a new logo for each film. And I wrote this one where I play a serial killer and I'm like sitting on the chair and I'm like talking to her and it's really disturbing. It's basically this scene in the movie. But for some reason I called it milk and cereal and I spelled cereal like that. And it just, that's all it was.

It was just a scene that I had written for my acting reel. And then I kept thinking like, whoa, what an interesting concept, a guy that's using YouTube to get famous. for being a serial killer. Like, whoa, and how messed up that could be. So I just started writing it and went down. And what if it's a prank show and what if the whole movie is a prank? And it just became like, oh, my God,

how has this not been done? So I just started writing that. And then Cooper was out of town. I was like, as soon as you get back, we're shooting this movie. We're going to get some friends together and we're going to shoot this. But yeah, I mean, that kind of allowed it

to be that YouTube choppy type of editing because it's kind of, of is that style, you know? It makes sense. Yeah, it makes sense for the plot. It's so interesting, though, that you then, did you get the, like, come and do general meetings with us? What is milk and cereal?

Like, did that open up doors in the way that you, did you even think it would? The chair did. Like, I hadn't released Milk and Serial yet, but the chair was the short film that I did that, like, really put me on the map as, like, oh, this is a director. Mm-hmm. And that's how I found my manager, Aaron, like Aaron had been watching our internet stuff for a while and then was already interested. And I was like, and then I sent him the chair and I was like, what about this? And then he was like, oh, shit, you know?

And so that's when I started getting, once I had a real manager when I, that's one of my life kind of changed. Like I started getting generals with, and I was just like, oh my God, I'm meeting. with platinum dune or like whatever right like i'm meeting with uh these companies and then you kind of and this was like this is kind of my whole journey right like that was when i started getting that manager was was the start of something because he is the one that found um james harris or james harris i guess reached out to my manager aaron and was like hey i have this like program where i take like um new up-and-coming filmmakers and give them, you know, a very, very small budget to do something.

And I'd love to do a feature version of the chair. And I was like, oh, my gosh, like this is amazing. But can we do, I have this idea. It's called Obsession. Can we do that instead? Let me pitch it to you. So I pitched him obsession. And he liked it enough to let me go.

And he's like, all right, go write it. We'll see. And so I just start working on the script and just working and working. and really like, I remember the drive back then. It's like, oh, you know, like, this is my one chance. So, like, that all happened because I got the manager and it's just like it. What's so funny that you frame it that way too because it indicates that it's not always just about how creative you are, even the work that you've done up until that point.

It's about often meeting a person who can put you in a room. Probably. That allows you to break down a door, right? Yeah, probably. I mean, I know for sure that that was the moment for me. that I started to feel like I was in the industry when you're meeting people in the industry. And my friends kind of knew it around me too.

And then Cooper got a manager. And then Cooper also started going on generals. And you're like, whoa, we're kind of like, is this happening? Is this really breaking in? That's so exciting. Yeah. So would you think of yourself,

or did you and Cooper think of yourselves as like hardcore horror fans or scholars or like was it your favorite genre? It was mine. It was. Tell me about like you're interested in it in your history with it. I watched, even as a little kid, I watched goosebumps.

It's like all I was allowed to watch, right? Because my mom was super, like, she's the most chill mom ever. But for some reason, she was really strict about horror. But I think it was mostly because she was nervous that I was going to get scared and have to sleep in her room or something. Which it did happen. Like, I'd get nervous, scared. Do you think that stoked your interest in it, though, that she was keeping it from you? Yeah.

Like, it's like kind of that forbidden fruit. Yeah. And it was like that for a word. while and I would, I remember like sneaking downstairs one night and the adults were watching the ring and I like snuck behind the couch and watched a little bit of it and I was terrified. I was like regretting it because then I couldn't tell my mom that I snuck down. So I was scared, you know. You couldn't tell you were scared that you saw the ring. Right, because I wasn't supposed to be seeing the ring. Which is also weirdly kind of the plot of the movie, interestingly. Oh yeah, exactly.

Yeah, exactly. You shouldn't watch it. But the first movie, like, she allowed me to watch. It was, like, a certain Halloween. I think I was, like, 10 or 11. And I was like, Mom, come on, it's Halloween. Can I pick out one horror movie to watch? And I picked out Texas Chainsaw the 2003. Okay. And that was like...

Nisible version? Is he the one who did that one? It was, I don't know. I know it was... It's Platinum Dunes, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. the, it's the one where, like, have you seen them all? I don't know. You know, the one where this girl just gets popped in the head in the first like 10 minutes. Which, by the way, not okay for a 10-year-old.

Like, I was- Pretty intense. It was intense. Yeah. This is what makes you fall in love with this stuff, though. I have the same experience with horror. I'm obsessed with horror movies, and it's because I saw them very young and they get in your bloodstream. Yeah, right, right. Because now you're like, I need to feel that again.

That disturbance that I felt at 10? That's exactly. How do I go back to that? Yes, that feeling, which is so rare to experience. Totally, yeah. But the science of it apparently is that there's something called being like safe, scared, which is where like you're scared, but you're in the safety of your own home. And there's an adrenaline that you get from it, but you know that you're never going to be in actual danger.

Yeah. So it's like. I mean, I totally buy into that. I found with obsession that you did do this. And I'm like a pretty tough critic about horror movies. And there's a lot of really impressive formal stuff. A lot of it is in the way that you, clearly how you directed indie and how you filmed her. And I think I want to hear a little bit about coming up with the story and then that character and then getting that performance out of her because the movie really lives and dies on that, I think.

Yeah, yeah, totally. And I knew that from the start. Well, it's funny because the chair was kind of an inspiration to this movie in a way. I did this thing. I don't know if you've seen the chair. I have. Well, the girl, I don't even, Julie, I think her name is. I don't even know her name or the character's name.

But the girl in that does this thing where she like snaps into different emotions and stuff like that. And I already kind of had this idea for a while in my name. notes of like an obsession movie about a boy and a girl that were just both obsessed with each other and it didn't really go anywhere because there's no conflict like their story is rooted in some sort of conflict it's like oh they live happily after after um so but but like I was intrigued by this idea of like what if there was a movie where the scary girl from the chair that was the whole thing like what if there was a movie where I could really lean into that um And so once I got the wish fulfillment of it, I was like, oh my God, a girl who's like trapped in her, she's trapped in her own body.

And that's the movie. Like that's awesome. And I can really play with that. So I was trying to play to my strong suits of like what I had just done with the chair. What was your question? No, just then how you're able to get a performance like that out of that character. Yeah, yeah, yeah. you know, if you overplay that, it's a little bit, it could seem silly.

Yeah, exactly. How do you create this idea of like a person who is simultaneously tortured and torturing? Right. And you mentioned in the chair like that snap of emotions, like the way that her character elevates very quickly to a very unsafe place where you feel like something really terrible could happen to bear that she doesn't even really understand is happening. It was a very unique sensation watching the movie. I felt like it was a real invention on your part. Thanks, man.

Yeah, I'm, like, really critical. And I think that I, like, I know I was kind of saying this earlier, but, like, I think the most important thing you can do as a filmmaker is have an opinion. And when you watch a movie, you should be very critical, but not for the sake of, like, that was a bad movie. You needed to be able to dissect it. Like, why was this bad? What didn't work for you?

what could you have done better, constantly thinking about. And so, you know, when I see those moments in horror movies that make me like roll my eyes or make me like, like, oh, that was cheesy or whatever, I just try not to do that stuff, right? Like, so I have to do so than done. I know, totally, totally. But like, and exactly, that's, I strive to do it. You can only try to do what you set out to do. but for me, like, the thing that kind of makes me roll my eyes is like the demon aspect of,

or like there's like not having a motive for like, like, why? Like, why are you doing it? You know? So if she, you know, this movie could have easily just been like, she becomes possessed and she goes on a killing spree because everyone's a threat to take away my bear, right? And that would just be like, okay, but why? Like, really? So instead I wanted to lean into.

she will do anything to keep bear and if nothing goes wrong she won't do anything right like she's she there's a world where this worked out for bear and he just had a super clingy girlfriend right but it didn't work out that way

well so I'm wondering if you think about the movie in this way because there's an easy way to read it too that it is not just like a judgment of bear but a judgment of an entire male mentality around what you think happiness is what you think a healthy relationship is people's inability to communicate what they really want,

which is a real challenge for I think a lot of guys. Was it important for you for the movie to have that kind of social weight? Or is that just the natural byproduct of a cool idea you had about a girl who's becoming possessed? I mean, it's all things I get excited about

after I've had the idea. Like seeing the potential of how deep and like how many questions you can make someone ask after you have this idea, you're like, oh my God, and then you could lean into this and you could lean into that. But it's not like I, it wasn't important to me from the get. What was important to me is to be relatable in some sort of aspect of like the movies I look up to, like, for example, in midsummer, so relatable when, when you see Danny, I think her name

is and them in the boyfriend, like, fighting and you're like, oh my God, this feels so like real, You know? That to me was like I wanted that to feel real and I wanted but yeah I mean mostly for for Indy Neveretti

it was kind of always saying to like okay so there's magic in this world fine whatever but the magic is that it is just that it worked so let's forget

that it's magic and right now I just want you to play crazy jealous girlfriend I don't want you to play possess demon so with that comes a lot of

like whininess and like desperation and like that's what I we were always striving for instead of like this I'm a robot I'm gonna kill you I'm a demon I'm angry all the time I know but that's such a it's such a great insight because I'm sorry to explain to you what you're probably thinking but it's okay you know one of the reasons why I think a lot of men are afraid to get into relationships is because they fear having that dynamic where all right even if you've like convinced a person to be with you who you want to be with if things don't go right then you get this like shrewish, difficult series of emotional conversations that you don't want to have to deal with, but then also the idea that her character is so vulnerable and trapped and stuck

because of this guy's own insecurities is this fascinating push-pull in the dynamic. The other thing, too, is, you know, I read that you saw the Simpsons episode and that you had the kind of Monkey's Paw idea for the movie in part inspired by that, which is so interesting to me as somebody who's a little older than you because, like, the Monkey's Paul is a 115-year-old short story. Yeah. There have been a lot of movies that have explored aspects

of that story before. Yeah. I couldn't think of any, really, that had it in this relationship dynamic. Yeah, I mean, even if there was, they never tapped into,

like, the potential of, like, how messed up and how far you could go with, like, forcing someone to love you. That's such a, like,

that concept was untapped, really. Yeah. I know people say, like, this is, this feels like, something that's been done before, but like, not really.

I was trying to think of a movie. I mean, the idea, I think, of someone sitting in their car and wishing someone would love them is, as you said, incredibly relatable. That's something that a lot of people experience, especially, you know, when you're, like, in high school or college. Right. But the dark downside is really impressive. Also, I'm curious what it was like to just have more money and, you know, working with a bigger

crew. And even though it was still an indie, I felt like you really leveled. up stylistically in ways that I really appreciated. Yeah. I mean, like, it hasn't been people don't really know or realize how cheap this movie actually was. Like, under a million is like an understatement, really. You know, I feel like we had nothing. But at the same time, well, it was so amazing. Like, it was so amazing. Let me start by saying, holy shit, did I have more tools than I've ever had like that? And it was life-changing for me.

And I mean, even just the aspect of having a schedule, Monday through Friday, 12-hour days every day of the week, and then for 20 days, and just showing up and doing your job and everyone knows that we're making a movie, I've never had that before. So I've got nothing to complain about as far as for me being life-changing, right? But there were some challenges because it's almost like there's some things. Like every time I make a movie, I realize that you can do things, but you just have to do them the illegal way or you have to do them the wrong way. Like there's so many, like even just for this last movie I shot, even just, even, just shooting a scene in the car going down the road. Now we have police escorts. We're on this big trailer. If it was me back in the day, I would just be in the car shooting, right? So there's these hula hoops you have to jump through with more money. So sometimes more money hurts you

in aspects that I'm learning. Yeah, maybe when you come back in the future, we can talk about how things have changed from when you were making movies for less than a million dollars because it seems like that's not going to be the case much longer. Oh, that'll be great. A follow up of like, yeah, yeah. Whether it's better or not. Right, right. I'm sure making more money will be better, but also the constraints of working inside of systems. Like this is, you know, this was a true indie

and then it got acquired out of a festival. What was that an experience like? I mean, dude, we didn't know where this movie was going to end up. We really, like, we're on set, we're making this thing, and there's no guarantee of anything. And you're trying, as the, as the, director as like the person that everyone looks at. You're trying to convince everyone this is going to be huge and this is like indie this is going to be big for you like just listen to me right or Michael like

whatever like you got to you know and people did like everyone showed up because of of that kind of mentality and Taylor Clemens my DP really helped rally his team right the camera team and like this we're on to something here right but there was no guarantee I mean we kind of thought once I was in the editing bay for a while I was like this movie sucks I was like this which I do with every one of my films I think they suck and then I go through phases where I

but even just getting into TIF was a huge deal for us like we went to dinner we celebrated we're in the Toronto International Film Film Film this is huge and the news just kept getting better we're at the we're in the midnight madness section we've got the Friday slot

I think it was. You know, we're on the biggest screen or whatever, and it just became like, this is, not only is this at TIF, but like they're advocating for this movie. Yeah. It's like they're almost advertising it. Yeah.

And it was like, what? You know, same slot that the substance had, which, like, won a bunch of Oscars. So it just became no way. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. And then that night, you know, finally made it to the night

had my stylist for the first time I'm getting like a very expensive watch that is not mine that I'm wearing you know yeah and like felt surreal and you watch it but like everybody's been building up that the Midnight Madness audience is the best audience in the world

and so when you told that it's like well great so then they're just a bunch of Like, then what does that mean for me? They would have liked anything. Yeah, right, right. So, yes, I knew that, like, it performed well in the theater, the reactions were great. But like I just said, I was kind of like, I had no idea of, like, I had no frame of reference of, like, was that a good thing? Or was that just, like, whatever?

And so it did feel good to watch the screening, but still, nothing. Then the next morning, I wake up and I have like miscalls for my agent, my manager, text messages. I'm like, what's going on? And I finally get on the phone with somebody and they're like bidding war neon A24 focus. I'm like, no. Like, I mean, my life was changing before my eyes. It was one of those things you read about and you're like, like the Filippa brothers and you're like, I can't believe this is happening, you know? and it just

it was and then you go to like the this just happened I know like this like four or five ago yeah yeah yeah yeah just happened and I've shot a movie since then right I was gonna ask you about that next actually before I ask you about that you're starring in the next movie

yeah and I was wondering if there was a moment when you were thinking about starring an obsession or if that ever came up because we were talking Chris Chris and I were talking about your acting style and the presence that you have, and if obsession might have been, how would have been different? Yeah, totally.

If you thought about doing that. They would have let me. It was a conversation where James Harris, who was the producer, he said if I wanted to play bear, I could. But at the time, I had done milk and cereal warnings in the chair.

Two movies that I was in, and one movie that I wasn't. and I felt like my best work was the chair and I was kind of like, man, it felt really good to like relax and not be, not try to like put on so many hats and this felt like a really big opportunity

for me as a director for the first. And I wrote it. Like, this was my baby. Like, I wanted what was best for the project more than anybody. And so it's not like I felt like I couldn't do it. As a matter of fact, I may even admit that when I wrote Bear,

I kind of wrote him in my voice of like I could totally play this character. but I didn't want to like at the end of the day I was like no this is my opportunity to show the world that I'm a director I think it was a smart choice thank you yeah I think you got a good performance out of Michael obviously he's great he's so good

but it kind of shifts the dynamic of what kind of was it even just to expect from you from somebody like me too where I'm not sure if there's ever been a horror or tour who cast himself in films have you thought about that that's why I think I was thinking about my heroes, like the people I look up to

and it's like all of my favorite directors and filmmakers I look up to they don't star in their movies. Like Jordan Peel could be in one of those movies. Totally so good.

But so then when you're making this new movie, how do you think about what you've learned from making the first one but then still being able to give a good performance and make the movie make sense?

Well, the thing is like obsession was like the Curry Barker movie. Right? Like it was my thing and it was my baby. Anything but ghost is a film idea

that me and Cooper had for a long time that's a buddy comedy where we were always supposed to star in it. So it was one of those things where it was like, no, no, no, this is the movie where we put on those, we are Cooper and Curry, like the people on YouTube,

like we are those two and we were ghost hunters and everything goes horribly wrong. So it was like, I have to. I have to play this character. And there was a time where when things started getting really real, I didn't tell anybody this because I knew that the moment

I put it out there, it might become bigger and bigger. I was scared, right? But there was a time where I was like, maybe Will Poulter could play my part or someone that's like awesome could play me and then Cooper can still play Cooper's part and whatever, but maybe we bring in someone like Will Poulter that's funny. But no, I was like, screw that, I'm going to do this. And it's one of my favorite things

I ever did. He's not, he's very different than like, uh, the internet that I play. I mean, milk and cereal got to see me play a more kind of serious role than on YouTube. I play like really silly,

right? This was like kind of in between. Okay. Kind of an awkward guy, but also kind of an asshole in the way of like, there's just a, uh, there's like,

it's like he doesn't compute that he's being so selfish. And it was so fun to play that because there's an innocence to his selfishness that was really fun to, like, play with. Like, he says these words that are so rude, but he says them in a way that he's like, like, right? Like, everyone doesn't understand that. Dude, you realize what you just said and how, like, messed up that is? So it was really fun to play that. And I didn't want to give that away. And I think, I don't think it hurt the movie at all to, but it was a chance.

challenge. I'm not going to say it wasn't a challenge. Yeah. Crazy challenge. You think you'll keep acting in your films? Yeah. Yeah. Um, but not, not forcefully. Never forcefully. Like, I'm not going to force myself into Texas chainsaw off, or write myself apart. And in a, right, like, but, but, but then again, me and Cooper wrote that movie together as kind of, um, it just, it feels different when you're like, no, I'm going to play, you know. Right. And the voice of your partnership. Yeah, exactly. I have to ask you about Texas chainsaw.

When you came in, you seemed a little concerned about how you've been communicating. It's a big burden to be taking on something like this. We were talking about how you've... This is three consecutive originals that you've made, and now this is something... Horror has this long tradition of remakes, reboots, reimagining. Yeah, totally, yeah.

What can you tell me about it? I mean, I haven't... Here's the thing. I guess the reason... I'm kind of saying I'm going to start keeping my mouth shut because I haven't even started writing this thing. Like I haven't even, I've got a bunch of ideas in my phone, really excited about it.

Here's how I know I'm excited is because anytime I have a bunch of ideas all the time. Like that's just what a filmmaker does. They have a bunch of ideas. But you know when an idea has kind of taken over. Like, oh, I might have an idea this haunted this or might have an idea about a killer this, right? But then when you have that one idea that's like, oh my God, you keep going back to that note section and adding things, that's what's happening me right now with Texas chainsaw.

So like, I know that I'm so excited about this. It's such a challenging text to reboot, though. Like, I've watched everyone, like you said. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm interested in them, but very few non-toby-Huber movies click for me. in this strain. Like they're really, I love two as well.

And two is actually weirdly, very in your tone of like blending horror and comedy in a very like outsized way that is a lot of fun. But this is a hard world. It is. It's not just that it's so iconic,

but that it is doing something so singular. So I don't know. That doesn't psych you out at all, huh? Well, I mean, it is now because people, because of the world of, of, of, um,

reading the, comments and like putting yourself out there and then people kind of people will just get personal with you. They'll be like, you have a punchable face. Like what that doesn't even have anything to do with the movie? Yeah. Like, you've been online for a while though. I know, but I'm not, I'm not used to like most of the time it's it's either look, you don't, you like my stuff or you don't like my stuff. And it's kind of like whatever. But, but now I'm touching something that's very dear to someone and I'm kind of like the target. Yeah. Like, there's a target on me.

And you're going to have to put a flag jacket on and try to find a way to ignore it. Because I don't think you can really consume all that when you're doing something like this. I feel excited about it. Yeah. Yeah. And to me, I watch those movies and see, there's really only one or two of the – See, I can't – I can't – I'm like, I've been scarred now. But, like, there's – there's a lot of material out there, but only a little bit that's like –

being explored. And then the rest of it's not really canon. I mean, even the name Wyatt, like the name Sawyer is not even like consistent. Like the 2003, they changed it to like, I think, Wyatt's or something, the Wyatt family or something. I mean, I'm going to use Sawyer. That's going to be, that's easy, right? But like, but it's just there's not really a consistent canon with Texas Chainsaw. It's kind of like an open book.

It's very true. We did an episode of this show. I think I want to say back in 2022 when there was a Netflix remake or reimagining of the movie. And we were kind of like trying to piece together if there's any coherent lore. And one of the things that Chris and I were saying in this episode was one of the great things about obsession is

you could have spent a lot of time on lore, exploring the character's trauma, gone back, and kind of like psychologize all this stuff. And you dispensed with all of that. And it makes the movie so much stronger to not get hung up. on that. So I'll just encourage you, just please keep doing that. Well, I think the key is like to live in a world where that lore feels like it exists.

That's the key. But doesn't have to be explained by a person. The key is to have, like, the one wish really should feel like there's so much story behind it, but never go into it. Yes. And that way you feel like a world that's lived in, instead of living in a world that just is very empty. And like, the characters don't feel lived in. And so it's about not over explaining, oh, like this friend group clearly has been together for a while. One has an opinion about this person, this person, but never being like, I've got an opinion about you. Totally. Don't lose that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think about that all the time when watching a movie and I hear a character dig into five consecutive lines of dialogue that explains the entire premise in the movie. Do you see me just roll my eyes? I know what makes me roll my eyes and I try. I find it's that it's filmmakers or studios or whoever is working on the film that is like the audience isn't smart enough. And the audience is smart enough. That's the thing. And that's what YouTube taught me.

Like the comments, like the chair, all these things. Like I would always throw in these little things and be like, nobody's going to notice. And they always notice. And it kind of unlocks your brain of like, people aren't just smart. They're really smart. And that allowed me to always treat my audience. And you know what? It also allows me to like not care.

Like, oh, well, what if half of the people don't get it? I don't care. You know what I mean? I almost don't care if half the people don't get it because the person next to them that does get it will might explain it to them. And then it just becomes better, right? It's a very healthy mindset you have.

Thank you. Curry, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they've seen. Also, people often say when they start making movies, it's harder for them to watch movies. Have you found that? Yeah, yeah. I mean, well, I try really hard to allow myself to sit back and watch it for a story, but I'm always just studying the cinematography, the acting, the coverage, even the music. So, of course, it's harder to accept it as a story and not as like a technical piece of what becomes art, right? So have you seen anything recently that has taken you away and not gotten used, focused on fixated?

on those things? Yes. I watched, well, I mean, weapons was kind of a long time ago, but I loved that movie. It's amazing. Yeah, and Aunt Gladys is great and just unsettling and kind of like

everything I'm fighting for. Like Aunt Glad, I was like, dang, that's awesome. You know what I mean? I was kind of like, yeah, and me and Zach are friends, I wouldn't say. I mean, we've only ever talked on the phone. We've never met in person, but he's awesome.

Like, Resident Evil looks nuts. I know, we're really excited. We were talking about it in this episode, too. And you guys have something in common, right? Obviously, like, your backgrounds, the kind of tone where, like, you'd think that these movies would be a little bit funnier based on your backgrounds, and yet there's something really funny about how severe they are that only, like, the real ones really understand. I really, I mean, I really love Zach's movies and have had him on a couple times.

But yeah, work in that tradition. That's a good one to go in. Yeah, I mean, there's this fine line between the comedy I do online and the comedy that I allow myself to put in these types of movies. And the difference is, like, when I'm doing comedy online, it's a three-minute video. So, like, the stakes and the danger for these characters don't matter because maybe they are going to jail,

but, like, you're not going to see that because the video's over. Right, right? But like when you're making a movie, the consequences should feel real and the danger should feel real. And the moment that you do something that feels like that's not true anymore, you've lost me at least as an audience member, right? So be as funny as you want and have as much as many jokes as you want, but never at the expense of like losing the consequences or the danger of the world. right? Or like if it's two ghost hunters that are conning people, don't be so silly that like you'd have to be dumb not to see that. You know what I mean? Then you're like, oh, that's so silly. Like they would have known that that wasn't real. You know what I mean? It's a great insight. Keep

credibility in mind at all times when you're watching something. Currie, congrats. Thanks for doing the show. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. Thanks to Curry. Thanks to CR. Thanks to Jack Sanders for his production work on this episode. Thanks to Lucas Kavanaugh for his support. Next week, we'll be drafting again. CR will be there. What year are we doing? 76.

1976. We'll see you then.