The Big Picture - The Horror Oscars and ‘The Exorcist: Believer’

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

Sean is joined by Chris Ryan to review the latest film in the ‘Exorcist’ universe, ‘The Exorcist: Believer’ (1:00). Then, they discuss the ways that horror franchise filmmaking has enveloped David Gordon Green’s career (23:00), before zooming out to take stock of the last five years in horror by awarding "horror Oscars" to one film per year (40:00). Host: Sean Fennessey Guest: Chris Ryan Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Learn more about the albums you love with Dissect, a music analysis podcast hosted by me, Cole Kushner, a lifelong musician. Each season of Dissect dives deep into one album, examining the music, lyrics, and meaning of one song per episode. We've covered albums by Kendrick Lamar, Tyler, the Creator, Frank Ocean, just to name a few, and our brand new season just launched All About Radiohead's 2007 masterpiece In Rainbows. Listen to Dissect on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, because a great art deserves more than a swipe. I'm Sean Fennessey, and this is The Big Picture,

a conversation show about horror. Chris Ryan is here. It's the most wonderful time of the year. It's the first week of October. The horror films are being released aggressively in theaters and on your streaming services. Chris and I are going to talk about a few of them here today. We're going to talk about the state of horror. We're even going to give out some horror Oscars from the last five years. Let's start, Chris, with the big, well, you know what? Let's start with October. How are you feeling about October? I just think Fangoria, Phenasy, and Creepshow Chris

are riding again. Yes, truly. A couple of ghouls hanging out in a podcast studio talking about their favorite thing. Exorcist Believer. This is the new Exorcist film. I think it's the sixth Exorcist film. I've been saying fourth erroneously, but of course.

Gosh, is it? Yeah, because there was the Paul Schrader, Rennie Harlan situation. Oh, right. The sort of prequels that were made kind of in tandem. So this is the sixth film produced by Blumhouse, produced in part by the team that brought you the most recent Halloween trilogy.

That includes David Gordon Green, who is the director who directed all three of those Halloween films, which you and I were wildly mixed on. Yeah. And some people feel that they operated in a kind of quality-wise in a descending order from the first

through the final film which came out last year. This film was written by Peter Sattler and Green with a story notably by Green, Danny McBride and

Scott Teams. Who did a lot of work on the Halloween films. This movie stars Leslie Odom Jr. Yeah. It stars Jennifer

Nettles, Norbert Leo Butz, your boy. That actually is my boy. I'm well aware. In an excellent performance, and out. And returning to the film, Ellen Burstyn. Chris McNeil from the original Exorcist film directed by the late, great William Friedkin. I was excited about this movie.

Oh, just worth mentioning that this is a direct sequel to the first Exorcist. Correct. It goes around all of those sequels. Yes. Much like Halloween did. Exorcist 2 and 3 not addressed here in this film. Those prequels

about Father Merrin's journeys through Germany not addressed in this film. This film was a pretty big disappointment for me. Yeah. I think it's an interesting movie for us to discuss

because one, you and I love The Exorcist. We talked about it on an episode of The Rewatchables. For my money, the scariest Hollywood movie ever made. And I think the timing for this could be the right time for an Exorcist movie. I'm not sure. I want to explore that with you a little bit. But what did you think? How did you feel about the movie? So I thought that there were some cool parts about it, especially in the opening act, both in the scene setting and in some of the stuff

that Green was doing with his cutting and his sound design. It creates like a kind of air of menace out of modern life. Jackhammers, car horns, windows closing, like this feeling like something is approaching this sleepy town in Georgiaorgia where it's set but uh the way that this movie kind of went wrong for me actually made me feel alive again because i haven't gotten upset at a movie in a really long time and i i saw this by myself and i kind of like walked out and i was i couldn't remember what part of the parking lot of century city that I parked in so I was just like walking around Westfield like mad at the exorcist but not not like what a piece of shit and a waste of time I was actually like what are these guys

want to do because I think you can't help but look at this as part of a huge project on their part whether or not they would be like, we just happened to get asked to do this and it just started rolling and now we are the preeminent repackagers of classic horror. But that is what they are. So now you have to look at this almost more as a fourth film and frankly, upwards of four of six films because this is planned as a trilogy. I think Exorcist Deceiver is already slated for 25, if I remember correctly. That is correct. So there has to be some sort of vision for all of this, but the vision really misses my target in a way that it still wounds me.

Yeah, we will get into that. I think at some point we will get into some spoiler conversation. For the sake of this conversation, this movie follows Odom's character and his daughter Angela in the aftermath of a prologue in which we learn that Angela's mother died while she and her husband were on a vacation to Haiti during the earthquake in 2010. Flash forward to the present day, Angela and her friend Catherine go into the woods in an attempt to kind of conjure the spirits to reconnect with the mother that she never knew. That very quickly leads to what is clearly a possession of both preteen girls.

And then so we're using a kind of somewhat similar framework to the original Exorcist film, which is a young girl is possessed by a demon and we must use Exorcist powers to remove the demon from this, to save this child. In this case, twice the fun, twice the demons, twice the possessions. I guess that's a good, I don't know, a good strategy for updating

this storyline, which is just kind of make it more. There's, you know, the film's obviously sort of climaxes with the titular exorcism. One of the things that they do in that titular exorcism is this is not just your classic

Christian Catholic possession story. Interfaith, baby. It is interfaith. And that feel, what did you make of the idea of wending in

all of these different faiths to, to, to confront this demon. So the most cynical read on this is like, Pazuzu goes woke. And that is not what I actually think is going on here because I'm deeply familiar with David Gordon Green

and Danny McBride's work. And it's hard for me to imagine that they were in a fender bender and both suffered hemorrhages and were like, what's going to save these girls from possession is if everybody hold hand holds hands and recognizes the importance and significance of multiple readings of faith uh in the room but i think where it flops is like i don't really know what what this movie is sort of trying to say

i mean the whole kind of i i don't want to go and say, here's how it fails the original Exorcist or doesn't let out the original Exorcist. There's actually potential here because what you get in the first movie is a single mother who's battling her own cynicism, maybe her own lack of spirituality, investigating this as this kind of like, this is unbelievable. How could this be happening? And then slowly comes to terms with what is going on with her daughter. In this one, it would be kind of cool if you had two families with competing ideas about what's going on. And for a while there in this movie, it flirts with that. Leslie Odom's like an atheist. It feels like that's what the movie was supposed to be. It feels like Leslie Odom's much more Chris McNeil-esque character was coming into conflict with Jennifer

Nettles and Norbert Leo Butz's parents who are very Catherine yeah and they're like deeply spiritual kind of evangelical Christian yes and they go to a you know a kind of a new church uh and then there's also brought into this are a kind of I wouldn't say weak need but like terrified Catholic priest who works with endowed and a healer like a like who's bringing in like more like acts of like the natural world and service. And also a Pentecostal adherent as well. That's right. So you have this like real melange of faiths that are coming into the story. The problem is there's a couple.

I have a couple of kind of critical issues with this. One, I thought using the earthquake in Haiti as like the entree into this was in pretty poor taste. One, it was just,

that's a real thing that happened and using that as like the springboard to your Exorcist legacy sequel, I just, I didn't really like

and I didn't really understand it. I didn't understand why a woman that pregnant would be traveling to Haiti on a vacation. That's just seemed like a really odd the you know leslie ellen's character's wife's is like eight and a half months pregnant and during the sequence in which you know she tragically dies and that the child is saved and then it's always tricky when you're going to use a real life tragedy as like a springboard for a horror movie origin. Yeah. And also just, you know, horror movies have done this a lot in the past, but using a country

like Haiti as the origin point of a kind of demonic possession just feels a little bit, I don't know if insensitive is the right word. I'm not trying to like woke my take on this either. I wasn't even sure actually watching that, like whether or not what happens in that situation winds up saving angela down the line because it's this protection from the blessings that she gets but if they were trying to make that correlation it needed to be more coherent and it wasn't and then the second thing is that you know the movie just feels hacked to bits it just feels like it's been reshot and

you can tell because the way that chris mcneil is framed in the movie is initially it seems like she's brought in as someone who will be meaningfully contribute to the exorcism. Someone who understands not just the Father Karras but the Father Merrin really. The person who was really... The character who understands this world

and knows what needs to happen at an exorcism and then is bizarrely sidelined in the way she sidelined I thought was a very effective sequence and truly shocking. But then she's just in a room by herself for 45 minutes of the movie. And it's like Ellen Burstyn is one of the living legends of American movies.

She's in her late 80s, can still act well, and she's just in a hospital bed. And I didn't really know this about her, but I read this really awesome interview that I must have missed the first time when it was published with her and Matt Zoller Seitz on Vulture, where she talks extensively

about her career at the actor's studio and her early days making movies, but also extensively about her exploration of spirituality and all of that stuff that happened after The Exorcist and how she's sort of been fascinated by cosmology and all these different things over the course of her life. So this was like kind of a meaningful part.

Not only is it one of the things that she's best known for in her life, but the part itself mirrors her own journey as like a person who's searching for answers. And so it reminded me a lot of some of the more contentious moments in the Halloween trilogy that these guys just did, where certain characters are put in positions or have things happen to them that you'd be like, I can't tell if you guys love or hate this material. And it's sort of the most interesting thing about them is like the act of almost near satirical tribute being paid to the source material and on the other side of it like desecration of it and willingness to torpedo it and i i think as somebody who's obviously like a huge halloween

fan you know there are a lot of parallels between what happens with the ellen buryn character and what happens with the Laurie Strode character in the second Halloween movie. There's also like a willingness to kind of just go for it that I appreciate, but I often feel like doesn't make sense to me. I would just love to know what these guys would do with an original horror story. There's obviously something that really attracts them to this material. I think it's really fascinating that the stuff that McBride is in, that these guys work on, whether it's Righteous Gemstones or Eastbound or Foot Fistway or whatever, Vice Principals, they have a very comic sensibility. You kind of get the feeling that they were raised on these 80s action comedies. They obviously know their way around that stuff, but then this is this other side of their work where they're doing these horror reboots or these horror legacy sequels. And I would just really like to see what they had to say if they had their own original story or detached from needing to use

tubular bells, needing to bring Ellen Burstyn back. There's other stuff that happens in it that echoes back to the first film. I just think that there's something more there. David Gordon Green, one of the strangest filmmakers we've got. Yeah, I did want to talk about the arc of his career a little bit in this conversation. Maybe let's just stick to the movie for a little bit before we do that. I wonder, I'm curious if you do think that this is the right time for a movie like The Exorcist. In a world in which younger people are fewer and fewer are practicing a faith in this country at least, the weight of, the psychological

weight that The Exorcist had on a very secular society is undeniable when it originally was released 50 years ago. Nowadays, and that movie was so transgressive, to this day, it is shocking, some of the things that appear in that movie. So when you think about that, one, how do you go about one-upping something like that?

And two, how do you make that feeling, that sensation, that is not just about a young girl in peril, but about a young girl in peril who is being controlled by someone at war with God, make that matter more to an audience or make it more coherent? I'm sure David Gordon Green and his writers thought about this a lot and there are times in this movie where there are authentically stomach-churning moments and there is there are a couple of genuinely great horror movie moments and that shows I think like that appreciation that you're talking about for the form but on the other hand by the time we got to the end of the movie which I felt ended way too abruptly in a very strange way. Um, I didn't really feel like I'd ever seen any, I was watching something that I'd never seen before.

And that's, that's what you want to avoid in these movies is just repeating what has come before. And part of it, I think is because we live in a very different world now. And the hope that almost literally repeating lines from a movie made 50 years ago, sure, it will satisfy the psychotic, hardcore fans who would never

criticize a movie like this, but that's about it. And I don't know. I'm kind of spinning my wheels here because I'm trying to figure out why this movie was made other than just to make more money. Yeah, I don't want to...

I'm trying to get away, break the habit of being like they should have done this or obviously they wanted to do that. But there is a kernel of an idea here where it's like a battle between good and evil in a faithless world right so if you consider the fact that like religion is increasingly disappearing from most people's everyday lives and less and less people are going to church and you do have these evangelical like mega churches but for the most part like i feel like anecdotally

or objectively you could you would just say that church is less of an important part of the everyday these evangelical like mega churches but for the most part like i feel like anecdotally or objectively you could you would just say that church is less of an important part of the everyday american life the idea of having something that can only be explained by belief in god and belief in the devil and belief in these these ideas is kind of fascinating and that i thought leslie odom jr is quite good very good in it. I agree. And if, in fact, for the most part, the performances are really cool. Like, I thought the choice to use, like, off-book theater veteran,

like, awesome character actors like Ann Dowd and Butts and even Nettles who's really good and writes just gemstones as a hologram, but really good, is, was really smart.

And these guys obviously know this world of, like, the South and religion's role in the South. So I'm not trying to be like from LA, let me tell you what God's place in the South is, but I didn't think there was enough of it. I agree. You know, and that's where you get into the overcrowding of modern movies, which is what I kept thinking about while I was watching this. What makes Exorcist so effective is space. It's just Chris and her daughter. There are the people at the party.

Sure, she's got friends. And then she meets these priests who help her. But they're not overburdened with needing to have B, C, D. This D character has a trauma from their early life. It was the Avengers team up of Exorcist movies. And I just thought a story about Leslie Odom and his daughter and the terrible choice he had to make

and that choice kind of coming back later in life would be that would have been enough. Even if it was just him and his neighbor and doubt. Yes. That would have been enough.

That is a classic supporting character archetype. But an evangelical priest a Pentecostal believer a healer a priest like we're talking five, six, eight people in a room with two kids

who are being possessed so i but furthermore that felt like to me while i was watching it the second idea that they had because why was chris mcneil not in the room with them right that something else happened that they felt wasn't working that they needed to reconstitute the idea maybe i'm wrong about that but but I don't think so. And that... Even the McNeil... I mean, like, so just to discuss it a little bit, Chris is introduced to us as living in Key West,

kind of having retired from public life, a little bit reclusive. And Leslie Odom goes and is like, this is... The same thing is happening to me. Here's this picture. It's got echoes of what happened to Reaganagan it's pretty much an exposition dump and like a a way to get leslie odom to see the possibility of what could be happening when she goes back with leslie odom

you're like all right here we go mount up and so to have her kind of then be removed from that in that way in in the specific way she is is pretty bold but a weird choice. And you're right. I wonder whether or not something happened where they felt like they couldn't continue in the line that they wanted. Something is not right there.

And you can feel it when you're watching the movie because you're right. It does feel like they're kicking into gear in the second act where it's all heading towards this thing and then something very dramatic happens to Chris McNeil and when that happens you're like okay I guess maybe not it's a very odd film I mean there's a lot

did you notice that there's something strange where when he goes and meets her in Key West she's using like a cane but then when they go to Georgia she's just like going up the stairs which it was just like almost two different versions of the character, essentially. Yeah.

Just would not be surprised if this was a complex production. Okay. That's what I'll say. So because of that, you've got this really valuable franchise, so to speak, this like legendary, you know,

movie property. Blumhouse and Peacock and Universal paid 400 million dollars to get the rights to make these movies they plan this trilogy like you said in 2025 we're getting another movie there's a very overt lead-in to what will be happening in the next film right at the end of this movie i would again say abrupt and a little weird but i get what they were going for there but the advanced movie is not good um the reviews are pretty bad and i think that the it felt like the worm was turning on green at the end of hot by the end of halloween ends a movie that you know i i was a pretty sincere defender of halloween kills and thought

that that was a movie that even if you didn't like it had a very clear sense of what it wanted to say about the contemporary time so that's the, is he has become this amazing Trojan horse director with these films. I just don't always like what's inside the horse. So the idea of taking a Halloween movie and pretty much making it into an exam... First of all, like a fucked up teenage love story and also an examination of how marginalized people

turn against the society that marginalizes them was pretty, I think, on paper, interesting. And at times during that movie, I was like,

this is kind of wild that he's doing this. Michael is not in this movie very much. But then you get to the end and you're like, why was Michael not in Halloween Ends?

And it doesn't feel as exciting. The other thing is that this movie, if this is a Trojan horse movie, all that I can see inside the horse is more people dressed up like horses. I don't know what is, what was it that he's trying to say? You could see him in a room being like,

we're going to do River's Edge in this Halloween movie. And it's like, oh, okay. Yes. And then you're like, wait a second, why don't you just do River's Edge? Why does it have to be a Halloween movie? Well, but that but that okay so then maybe that dovetails into the conversation about green because obviously i you know i like a lot of david gordon green's movies probably more than most um he got this his start with films like george washington and all the real girls he was

very quickly hailed out of sundance and independent film festivals as kind of the second coming of terrence malick as a very naturalistic filmmaker interested in the curiosities of young people wandering into the natural world and then coming out the other side a little bit more hard-bitten or you know being confronted by violence or anxiety or whatever might be happening in the world at that time those first few movies are very special and unique but also really carrying the weight of influence. There's a reason why he was compared to a lot of filmmakers from the sixties and seventies and those early,

early films. He makes a couple more movies in that vein. And then at a certain point after films like that are not necessarily as prized in the marketplace, I'll say he starts making the shift toward comedy and he starts working with more with Danny McBride, who of course he had had appeared in his films but he becomes more Danny McBride really becomes more of the voice sure and green becomes yeah they start rough house and everything yeah um and so they produce stuff together they make um movies like pineapple express and they

get involved in the Apatow universe they make movies he makes a movie like the sitter with Jonah Hill and he becomes this kind of for hire comedy director. And he's still directing Eastbound. I don't know if it was only Jodi on Vice Principals, but I think

David Gordon Green directed. I think so, too. And then directs a fair amount of Regis Gemstones over the last three seasons. But at a certain point,

while he is kind of maintaining this comedy sphere, he branches out into these horror movies. And I think you're right that they obviously have a passion and an appreciation and an understanding of what makes those movies good. Because in some of those movies, he's replicating what they did.

You know, some of the kills in the Halloween trilogy are great. And he obviously understands how to do some of those things. But they do just kind of feel like paychecks at this point. And I know he's trying to put something into the movies, but it does feel like we're circling the drain a little bit on what he can contribute. And to your question, I don't know if somebody is going to fund a $70 million original horror movie from David Gordon Green and Danny McBride. I think that's part of the issue.

90% of the horror movies that you and I talk about when we do these horror catch-ups are ones that come out of nowhere. And ones that were like $5 million or $10 million movies that freaked us the fuck out. And part of the reason

why they freaked us out is because there's a feeling when you're watching a great horror movie like you're getting this signal beamed in from somewhere else. And the franchise of vacation of it, which is obviously as old as horror itself.

And we've got tons of living dead movies and Jason movies and Freddie movies and scream movies and all this. But like, I truly don't give a shit about Michael Myers is mythology. It's, it's the experience of the film. It's the atmosphere. It's the kills. It's the experience of the film. It's the atmosphere.

It's the kills. It's the tension. But it's not really about, like, the shape and, like, all the different manifestations. It's one of the reasons why you and I love the third one, you know, is because it's just like, here's the vibe,

but it's not about Michael, you know? That should have made us kind of open to the third, this trilogy that Green did, because I think if in his heart of hearts, I wonder if he was like, I'd love to take Halloween as an idea and go in a bunch of different directions with it, but they just got Michael

holding it down the whole time. And there are parts of this movie of Believer, I don't know if it ever really leaves the gravitational pull of the original, but you can see some cool ideas in there. And it feels like he's like, but I know that I have to spend the last half hour in an exorcism. Maybe one of the reasons why I've gotten a little cynical about his run on these movies,

and I talked to him for Kills because I thought it was so interesting. And Kills is the second one. The second one, yeah. Which is pretty controversial. Yeah, I think I'm... They're not a ton of defenders of that movie. It's the mob justice one. Correct.

And it's got... Laurie is pretty much in the hospital for the entire movie. Correct. The thing is that he tried to make a few movies in the interregnum between the comedy run and the horror run. Our Brand is Crisis,

Stronger, Manglehorn. Star Performance leads, Idea movies about our contemporary times. Kind of Barry Levinson-ish. Very much. Studio Hollywood character pieces that didn't work. I like Stronger, actually.

I think it's one of Jake Gyllenhaal's best performances, but that's not a movie that connected with audiences. And so, it felt like he just very clearly had to make a pivot to kind of maintain the ability to make movies in Hollywood, which is obviously what matters to him. I don't know where you go from here if you're David Gordon Green.

I don't know if you set out to make independent horror. I would imagine not if you've made five consecutive horror movies. You might want to do something different. I'd be curious to see what the new iteration of his career looks like because he's been a shapeshifter his whole career. There's also another piece of this which is that the sort of

independence with which these guys work is really interesting. It somewhat mirrors Blumhouse. I think that they're like, we have got our widgets. We're down here in South Carolina. I'm sure they shoot in Georgia, but they're like, we do our own thing and we have our crew, we have our way

of doing things. And I think Green seems like he works pretty intuitively and maybe is like, well, we'll shoot a couple of different things. I remember reading about, I think Halloween ends, a bunch of different endings and a bunch of different versions

that they were kind of working with. And then they're like, well, we'll just figure it out. And I think that there's something kind of neat about that. Obviously, it worked on Apocalypse Now and shit like that. But sometimes with these stories,

the cleanest versions of them, the most minimal versions of them, the ones that we respond to when it's the first Halloween film, the first Exorcist film is because they just get all that shit out of the way. They rip away all the cobwebs. It's like, what's scary? What is the thing that makes you scared?

It's the fact that you care about Chris McNeil and you can kind of put yourself in her position, in her mind, in her POV. And you watch her go through this thing from this point of cynicism to belief to terror. And that's what you want in horror movies. You don't necessarily need 14 different characters crowding the frame because we're just shouting out different keywords from the last five years of spiritual discourse. Yeah, part of the reason it feels like all those people are there is because this was planned as a trilogy. And that isn't how the exorcist was

planned but it's not the fellowship of the rings like i don't really have norbert leo butts like around i i assume so and in fact i feel like how his character feels at the end of this movie will resonate in the new film i could be wrong about that but the thing is is that you don't care about the mythology of michael myers but blumhouse perhaps rightly believes that audiences have to make this viable. I almost feel like it's not that I don't care about, I think he's like an incredible creation. I just, I think that the harder you work to give him like story

actually goes against the idea of like an unkillable evil force that just keeps escaping. Right, right. Well, it's just the more you show something too, goes against the idea of like an unkillable evil force that just keeps escaping. Right. Right. Well, it's just the more you show something too, the more demythologized they become.

So that's part of it. I think this is the same thing to me though where it's sort of like this movie was never going to end in a satisfactory way. I knew the minute

it was announced that Deceiver would be coming 18 months later. Right. So invariably it will be a cliffhanger and the film will probably end with an exorcism of some kind.

And that level of predictability, even from a filmmaker who's trying to move the chess pieces around a little bit more interestingly like Green, I just, I don't know, maybe I should have seen it coming. I think I had higher hopes for this and that's part of the reason

why I'm so disappointed. What do you think is harder? The idea of taking on this material because The Exorcist and Halloween are two of the most worshipped masterpieces in genre filmmaking or it's a director taking on John Carpenter or

William Friedkin who have these inimitable incredibly signature styles and then Green is not necessarily I couldn't tell you what Green really does. What his visual palette is. Or what he is trying to do, really.

I think that there are things in the Halloween movies that are very much homages to Carpenter. There's a couple of things in this movie that are homages to Freakin'. He does a little bit of stuff where I'm like, you're turning the heat up a little bit there? You're really doing something here. Once we get out of the prologue,

there's a 30 minute stretch where the movie is starting to unwind. It is pretty unnerving. Yeah. And it's just, you're waiting for something really bad to happen. And sometimes people will let that play out. Like idyllic life. Isn't this great.

But Ooh, evil is coming. He's like, evil's here already. And these people can't figure out what it is. It's like, there's something strange. Like this guy, there's an incredible scene where Leslie Odom Jr. is his photographer. He's obviously become like a family portraitist to make money. He's got his own studio. He's taking pictures of a normal nuclear family.

But the way the green shoots them and edits it and has the sound done is it seems like it's a family of demons and the child itself seems off. that was the moment where i was like oh shit like this guy's got it yeah i also thought it was like an amazing concept and this is a little bit in the chris character in the exorcist 2 but about how single parents are sort of like are haunted or tormented by their children you know that they're you know, as the son of a single parent, like my mom often felt like destroyed by her kids. And that was such a great note of the movie. And switching from a mother to a father, I thought was very wise.

But again, as you said, as the movie expands, those themes fall away and it becomes unwieldy. And you don't think about those things more clearly when you're looking at something that is much more contemplative before it becomes this kind of team-up movie. Yeah, we don't have to belabor it. It kind of reminded me a little bit of when you get to the final battle of a Marvel movie

and all the logic about who's got what powers is kind of falling away and it's just like two people fighting in the sky. And then there's just like lights and colors and things are happening. That's kind of what happens in this exorcism. In the first exorcist, it's like these guys, it's about belief. And it's like these guys it's about belief and it's

about these guys commitment to saying the rights and standing it in in there and taking the hit no matter what pazuzu throws at it it's like pazuzu is um vic fangio you know and he's just bringing so much outside heat and they're just brock purdy they're just staring it, you know, and he's just bringing so much outside heat and they're just Brock Purdy. They're just staring it down, you know? Yes, that's exactly what it's like. Thank you for that. Um, this isn't the only horror movie that's out this month, this year. Um, there are some good ones. There are some not so good ones. Um, the one that I recommended to you to watch for this conversation is called when evil lurks, which played at TIFF. Adam Naiman mentioned it on the show a few weeks back.

It is in theaters this weekend, and it is on Shudder on October 27th. It's an Argentinian film from Damien Rugna, who made a movie called Terrified about three or four years ago. Very simple premise. Small town, rural town, learns that a demon is about to be born inside a resident of this town. And if that demon is born, and in this case, in a very disgusting fashion, then this town and maybe even the world

could be eventually dominated by this evil. And so what you have is this kind of like game of telephone throughout the town where people are talking about what may or may what you have is this kind of like game of telephone throughout the town where people are talking about what may or may not be happening in this kind of coded language. And you've got anywhere from three to nine characters at any given time are kind of talking

and running from house to house or not quite realizing that someone has been infected by this demon or whatever it is that consumes them. Not a perfect movie, but this is clearly to me this year's Speak No Evil. This sort of like the foreign language film

that lays in this sense of unease very early on and you just are waiting and waiting and waiting for awful things to happen. And frankly, there are like three or four things

in this movie that are among the most awful things I've seen this year in a way that I enjoy. Yeah, me too. In an exciting way. What did you think of When Evil Lurks? So essentially the flip of The Exorcist and The Exorcist, the original and

in the new one, you spend a lot of the time waiting for people to believe that what's happening is happening. In this movie, it is taken as a given that this is a possibility. And I thought that was really awesome. One of my favorite things about horror movies is when it takes you to places that you've never been before and watch different kinds of people deal with the evil that you're kind of familiar with from cinema and so this is essentially a portrait

of I don't know it's almost feudal the way that the Argentinian society works in this like far off like rural part of the country where you've got essentially like very rich landowners who have people living on their land working it and there's like obviously a caste system there's obviously like resentment for some of the people who are working on the land

there's like a kind of god complex in the land barren and then the two main characters are these brothers who have obviously had like rough and tumble lives but the thing that's kind of wild about the movie is like pretty much from go it's like oh yeah the devil is about to be born so it's not like you well this guy's just sick we got to get the doctor it's like no we have to get like a spiritual cleaner to come here and take care of this dude you know because otherwise satan is unleashed the transporting of the pregnant man with the demon is i've never seen that before i've never seen that i've never seen that no there's there's several things like you said that you're just like well that goes into the that goes into the memory box yes the brain bank of horror yeah you you fucked me with this

one guys i'll never not see this. I think that there's some of... It was a little bit lost in translation for me where I wonder whether or not the nuances of the language were exactly getting across in the subtitles, just to be completely candid. But you're right. The idea that basically that every time somebody thinks that they're getting to some kind of safe harbor, that that harbor has already been infected by this evil is really cool.

And they use it to incredibly creepy, incredibly like creepy results. This is also one of the few recent horror movies that has an image on a poster that I saw before I saw the movie. And I was like, what is that about? What could be happening in that scene? And then the scene is much worse than I was expecting it was going to be. And not at all what I thought it was going to be. I don't want to say too much more. I think people should check out When Evil Lurks.

Change my relationship to goats. I'll say that. Yes, yes. Me as well. So this morning at 11 a.m., I went to my local cinema and I sat down for what turned out to be a private screening of Saw X. Was that because no one else was there or because they locked you in and Jigsaw was like, if you can get out of this theater, I'll let you live? Who can say? Maybe in my agreement with Jigsaw, I decided not to reveal the truth. But I did sit alone and watch socks what's your relationship to the saw films pretty uh i'm i'm to use an amandaism i'm happy for him for them uh you're happy for jigsaw yeah but i i saw the first one and the chris rock one spiral spiral the book of saw but have not watched any of the others and even on the first one i was like i'm good i think like i got

i got it got it yeah um i've seen probably seven of them at this shout out to austin gale uh at the ringer yes i did want to cite austin's incredible work in which he watched all 10 saw films truly old school blogging uh very great I thought that might have been an HR violation at this point. Yes, no, it was his idea. No one assigned it to him. He was looking for an in and he watched every film and he ranked every trap. 73 traps appear in all 10 Saw films and ranked them sort of by his ability to endure or escape them. And that, of course, is part of the premise of every saw movie is that jigsaw comes along where some descendant or inspired killer from the jigsaw lineage and ensnare people in these traps

who have transgressed in some way in his view and because they have broken this moral code they must decide to either like carve off a piece of their flesh or be annihilated by a nail gun or what have you um saw x is so interesting and I'm going to tell you about it very briefly. Take your time. Tobin Bell is back in the fold. Tobin Bell, one of the great character actors in recent times, certainly most famous for playing Jigsaw. Tobin Bell is the guy in The Firm. He is.

Who shoots Gary Busey, right? Yes. Okay. Spoilers for The Firm. Released 31 years ago. So very reliable heavy in movies in the 80s and 90s. And playing in some ways the ultimate heaviest. Jigsaw, you know, famously in the Saw lineage,

you don't know this because you checked out after the first one, but, you know, Jigsaw had cancer. And so he is kind of enacting some of these games in part because he's kind of like I don't have anything to live for. This film, the events of this film take place between Saw 1 and Saw 2.

Oh, okay. So I don't know if you would call that a prequel. Is it a mid-quel? I think it's a legacy sequel like in the same vein as these guys just wiping away seven movies

and going back to Exorcist 1 or going back to Halloween 1. This movie doesn't insist that what happens in the movie doesn't insist that what happens in the future doesn't matter it's just like here's a little sneak peek

of what did it's just here's something that went down that you didn't know about which is kind of interesting because like they could probably now make

like another 10 movies that happen inside that window it's like hey I made a salad no pressure though you guys have it if you want so in the immediate

aftermath of the events in case you want something green yeah immediate aftermath of the events of Saw 1 he attempts to get a radical procedure to eliminate the

cancer. Jake Sato's. Jake Sato's. Okay. He finds something on the internet. There's a woman who's offering this radical new medical technology and he goes in and Where is this? He has to travel to Mexico to get this procedure done.

Kind of a Kobe, Germany situation. Jason Street style. Yeah, a little bit. That's right, Jason Street. He went to Mexico for shark fin. I do. I do.

This is sort of like that. Unfortunately, this company that claims it has this new technology and is presented by this very striking Nordic woman

and her team of Mexican doctors, they, you know, perform some sort of quote-unquote surgery on him and tell him he's been healed. And then, of course, he goes to a real doctor in America and learns very quickly,

like, he's still sick. So what did they do to him? They've scammed him. They've taken all of his money. Okay. They have bilked him out of $250,000. And, you know,

you just don't want to bilk Saw. You just don't want to fuck with Jigsaw in that way. You know, because Jigsaw will figure out how to get back at you. Okay. And then that's the rest of them. Then it's a Saw movie. Going after the Nordic doctor and her Mexican assistant. Her cohort.

Okay. And we're back in a room. People are chained up. And then all the crazy traps come out to play. Here's the thing. This movie wants you to, and maybe even effectively gets you to, have empathy for Jigsaw. Yeah. Which I think is an achievement.

In 2023, when I bleed emotionally for Tobin Bell, I think they did something. Is it a good movie? I don't really think so. But it's not bad. I mean, it's a take. It's a thing. It's a new thing. They did something. Yeah. Is it a good movie? I don't really think so but it's not bad. I mean it's a take. It's a thing. It's a new thing. They did something new

in these movies. Traps are pretty good. There's one in particular that I'm sure people have seen on the poster in which someone's eyes are connected to tubes. Yeah.

And the a man needs to turn a dial in order to have each of his fingers individually broken, like ripped up and broken. And if he does not turn the dial five times to have all five fingers broken, his eyes will be sucked out through the tube. Yeah. Now that's entertainment. Like I really, can you, come on, this is a short life. Like let's find things new and exciting like that. We really

are upping the ante on body horror. I have to say, after watching the Thanksgiving trailer, I feel like I'm going to need to get over some of my phobias. A lot of them have to do with skin getting ripped off. Are you afraid of pilgrims? I have to say, Thanksgiving looks incredible. I'm so excited. I'm very pro-Eli Roth horror movies. It's hard looks incredible. I'm so excited. Yeah, I'm very pro Eli Roth.

It's hard to know where, what I'm more excited for, Thanksgiving, Beekeeper, or Silent Night. I'm so glad you brought this up because I did send you and Bill the trailer to the Beekeeper, but I almost sent you the Silent Night trailer just to say we are so back

because John Woo is back in America making an extremely violent lone man vengeance movie, which is just thrilling stuff. Are you in on Kinnaman? I feel like we've been really up and down on Joel Kinnaman. I am broadly in on him.

Okay. I think, especially after being in Stockholm and seeing how prevalent he was in advertising over there. Oh, interesting. Because he's like basically the Swedish George Clooney.

I don't know if that's entirely true. The face of the amusement park in Stockholm. He's got his thumb up and there's a fucking Muppet next to him and it's like a roller coaster. So I'm down with that. Okay. I feel like Alexander Skarsgård has kind of has kind of like

muscled him down on the left block and is treating him like fucking nurkish. Right. Like like Wenby.

Yeah. Yeah. But he's good in For All Mankind. He's a really reliable B-movie star. Okay.

I think. So Silent Night is the new John Woo film about a man seeking vengeance for the death of family members

on Christmas. The Beekeeper is a film in which Jason Statham plays a vengeance-seeking beekeeper, which is remarkable. Who goes after scammers.

Yes. That trailer is set to the strains of Nine Inch Nails' Head Like a Hole, which I thought was fantastic. And it's by David Ayer.

It's directed by David Ayer. David Ayer. Speaking of Joel Kinnaman, who he would cast him in the original Suicide Squad film. And then what was the third one?

Thanksgiving. Oh, Thanksgiving. Eli Roth's new Thanksgiving-themed horror film. Starring Addison Rae and Patrick Dempsey. Yes, which I'm sure

will be a true platform for acting. I'm sure that some of the performances will be magnificent. Nevertheless, I'm very excited for this. platform for acting. I'm sure that some of the performances will be magnificent. Nevertheless, very excited for this. Really, really incredible trailer, though. Excellent trailer.

Which makes sense because it was made out of a trailer. Yeah, that doesn't bother me. I know some people are like, you had a perfect trailer. Why did you ruin it by making a movie? But I don't agree. It would be weird if the trailer was bad. I also would like to see Edgar Wright's Don't, the other trailer from that Grindhouse situation.

Don't. Don't. You want to talk about the new VHS? Yeah, man. Can we? So the new VHS, this has become

an annual tradition. Shudder is just cranking these out. This is the sixth VHS movie. Yeah. And this one is about 1985. It's using 1985

as the framework for the film. Each of these films captures a different year and so in doing so, maybe in the wraparound segment or film each of these films captures a different year and so in doing so maybe in the wraparound segment

or in some of the films you'll see moments in time from the Reagan era or what technologies were hot at the time or how people consume TV

or what have you interesting list of filmmakers this time around this is an anthology series so they always rotate in some voices some familiar

some not so familiar two very well-known horror directors making short films for this series. Probably most notably Scott Derrickson. Pretty crazy.

He's a big horror director. I mean, he is not just the director of Doctor Strange, but also The Black Phone and Sinister. And, you know, he's been making horror movies for 20 years.

One of our more successful current working horror directors. I would say certainly in the top five. Yeah. And The Black Phone was a real, like, return to form for him,. Arguably one of our more successful current working horror directors. I would say certainly in the top five. Yeah. And The Black Phone was a real return to form for him, at least in terms of that space.

I was a little mixed on that movie. His entry here is quite interesting. And the segment is set also in Colorado, in Aurora, I believe. Yes. And is probably the one that people are going to be talking about the most. Although I personally was also quite into No Wake,

the Mike P. Nelson segments. It's bifurcated. It takes place. There's two of them. Yes, it sort of opens the film after the wraparound begins, and then there's the fourth segment that he works in. Mike P. Nelson, among the real heads, among the real losers like us, a rising star, I think, in the world of horror

and somebody who I think people are really excited about. I quite like the first entry in his duo. The camping trip. The lake. Yeah, the lakeside. Again, in the realm of things I had not quite seen before. That was new. It was awesome. It was really great. And then Gigi

Saul Guerrero, Natasha Kermani, and David Bruckner, who's a filmmaker that you've talked about quite a bit. So Bruckner does basically the thread throughout the film, which is usually, there are some VHSs that it works and some where you're just like, this is just kind of like vintage nonsense that they're throwing in there. But Bruckner's is this weird science experiment gone wrong that's taking place. So these are found footage movies. They are usually themed, you know, they're of late been themed around years. There's one that's like viral.

That's supposed to be more of like an internet culture one. And then there's the first two. It kind of started to, it emerged out of like a, I almost want to say mumble horror movement that was happening where independent filmmakers like Mark Duplass and people like that were like noticing that like they could make really inexpensive horror films that would almost inevitably sell and be like a stepping stone I think to other stuff it's given a platform to a bunch of directors that I really really have a lot of time for over the years and given people big breaks, like Flying Lotus directed stuff.

I mean, Benson and Moorhead have directed on this. Nacho Villagondo, like Vigalando directed on this. So there's a lot of really cool directors who've come out of the VHS ones. This one I thought used the found footage conceit and

stuck to the technological limitations but also possibilities of all this stuff being shot on beta or VHS back in 1985. I thought it was really cool. They also, to echo back to our Exorcist conversation, use a real historical natural disaster as a horror moment moment so that's something to keep an eye out for in one of these but i thought it was mexican earthquake this one really

really was i found quite effective and really cool as with all of these it was hit or miss for me um some things i really liked and other things i didn't care about as much i was not crazy about natasha kirmani's um i one? Yeah, that felt much more like a film idea for a 1990s set VHS movie. But nevertheless, like I said, that opening segment

in Mike P. Nelson's and then aspects of Derrickson's, particularly the dream aspects of Derrickson's short are among the best horror stuff I've seen this year. And Derrickson's particularly the dream aspects of Derrickson's short are among the best horror stuff I've seen this year and Derrickson's

it stars Freddy Rodriguez and James Ransom so it's also odd to see big time kind of actors very unusual for these movies

as usual I'm just I'm delighted that they keep making these it's wonderful it's nice to have a format you know next week on this show

Amanda and I are going to talk about this interesting thing that's happening with short films right now where Wes Anderson just made... I didn't say you guys were going to dream your own murders. No.

Although Amanda probably is doing that for me on a frequent basis. But, you know, Wes Anderson has this quartet of shorts. Pedro Almodovar has this new short film with Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal. Doesn't Yorgos have a short?

Yorgos just previewed his short, his new short film with Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal. Doesn't Yorgos have a short? Yorgos just previewed his short, his silent short film with Emma Stone at New York Film Festival. Godfrey Reggio, the Kynokatsky director, he's got a new short film this year. I think Soderbergh produced that, right? Soderbergh did produce it. So there's this wave of high-end filmmakers who are, I think, all kind of competing

for one of the more interesting best short film Oscars in some time? A couple of theories about this. Okay. One, it's just cool. That's more of a take than a theory. Two, none of these guys want to direct TV, but they want to work more. Yes. That's how motivated me.

Yeah. It's Wes. I just think it's like one of those things where 10 years ago, it was like, why, you know, just go to TV where you can tell long form stories and Netflix leaves you alone. And now I think there are different kinds of projects that people want to do with. And also I think it's a kind of neat use of streamers

because to Netflix, they're probably like, this amounts to another Wes Anderson film if you put them together. In fact, it might be even a more significant runtime than another Wes Anderson film. And we can get four different titles and we're happy to help him see his vision through. And I hope we get more of this. I agree.

I hope we get more weird, like, I want to make a 50-minute thing. I want to make a 40-minute thing. It kind of reminds me a little bit of the way that netflix has evolved black mirror over the years um and allowing them to make like it's kind of the opposite though it's kind of an inversion of that because i feel like in some cases black mirror has been like make a movie yeah you know there have been more full-length but because it's part of a season if it's just 81 minutes it's fine you know what i mean like it doesn't feel like it's thin because you have other episodes.

Yeah, I like that a lot. I'm really interested in that too, and there's been so much discussion since the kind of conclusion of the WGA strike about what it will mean.

You and Andy have been talking about it for, you know, how there'll be a scale back in TV, and is this an opportunity for movies? I think maybe Lucas and Matt

talked about this on The Town as well. Well, does this mean more movies will have an opportunity? And there's some, you know, a lack of clarity about how everything is going to shake out. But this could be a new form.

I mean, empowering and funding projects like this for slightly more seasoned filmmakers is a cool opportunity. Yeah, I'm looking for the silver linings in a lot of this stuff. I know that Creator did not do well financially, but I've read with interest a couple of articles about

the making of that film and Gareth Edwards making it out for $80 million, or about $80 million, or whatever it wound up being. 86, I believe is the number. And really focusing on making sure that he didn't have to do a lot of VFX

because the VFX is where these budgets really balloon. And I would like to think that coming out of everything that we've just gone through this summer and going into next year, that maybe people start to get a little bit more creative with this stuff, with the budgeting of it and how they're making it so that it's not just this cookie cutter like we're going to go to the volume we're going to go to Atlanta we're going to have 94 people in it

we're going to do and everything we can do we can fix it in post like maybe being a little bit more like meaningful or knowing what they're going to do going into it intentional I agree I hope the takeaway from the creator

not being a massive box office success is let's not make any more $86 million movies. It looked fucking incredible. That was the problem. Yes, and I think what you'd like to see in theory is a filmmaker empowered to make their own visual palette. Now, even just in going back and listening to and reading some of the interviews

with Edwards through those films, this kind of relates to a lot of the way a lot of mainstream horror movies look nowadays too. I don't want to spend too much time on the Nun 2, but the Nun 2, I think,

has a similar problem to a lot of studio horror that is not dissimilar from The Exorcist Believer, whereas there's this kind of like post-James Wan cloudiness where the way he photographs movies, it always works, but when people are trying to do his style, is that there's this kind of like post James Wan like cloudiness where in his the way he photographs movies

it always works but when people are trying to do his style it never works for me where you can kind of feel the CGI on it you can feel the set dressing in a way that is like

allowing for the like the like non-physical expansion of the image that they're trying to create whereas with everything that Edwards was doing,

he's so purposeful and so understands the tech. Those are real places. Yes. And he also knows, you know, he talked a lot about how he used a prosumer camera. He used like a $3,500 camera to shoot this movie, which is just so crazy. But it's because he understands that stuff so well,

because he worked in visual effects, because he understands technology. Not all filmmakers are quite like that. And sometimes people get hired after making one $1 million movie, and then they're entrusted with these big projects. But it'd be great if Marvel was just like, you know, at this one time, we're going to half the budget.

It's going to be 70% practical. You figure it out. We won't have our hand on your shoulder telling you to put more purple CGI in it in the last 20 minutes. I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon, but I can hope. Maybe they'll do it with X-Men. You think they'll take a's going to happen anytime soon, but I can hope. I can hope. Yeah, maybe they'll do

it with X-Men. You think they'll take a giant gamble on that? No, but Blade is the one they should be taking it on. I know. That's the thing is there is an opportunity.

There's a whole wing of horror that I think Mal and I did a pod about that they could just be doing Marvel horror as a sideline. They kind of did that with the werewolf one.

Yes. But again, that was, and again, similar, interesting format. It's like a 50-minute thing. They let Michael Giacchino, a composer, direct it, but then they just dumped it on Disney+. And people were like,

this is really cool. They were like, it's cool. So I don't know. I'm not sure. I like that they would do that, but I don't understand why that can't be part of the big story, but everything else has to be

that isn't very interesting, like Secret Invasion. Nevertheless, that's another pod. Any movies that have come out this year in the horror realm that you have liked that maybe we didn't get a chance to talk about when we talked in the spring? Yeah, so I think there's been a few

that we've both seen. And there was one I wanted to toss out that was just, I thought, really well done. I believe it's on Shudder. It's called Bad Things. It's directed by Stuart Thorndyke. And it is essentially, basically a queer take on The Shining. It's directed by Stuart Thorndyke and it is essentially basically a queer take on The Shining.

It's about a group of friends who go to a sort of preserved in amber motel. Looks like it hasn't really changed since the 80s. And it belongs to the family of one of the

women in this group of friends. She has inherited this place and she's trying to decide what to do with it. And they kind of go to have like a boozy weekend and maybe do a little bit of cleaning up around, but like really more to like go swimming and cook and drink. And a lot of the same kind of eeriness that takes place in The Shining starts to set in in this place. I thought it was really interesting at times quite frightening it's got a really good or really compelling

central performance from gail rankin that i thought was just fantastic really jumped out at me um harry neff's also in it and molly ringwald and it's a it's a very cool psychological thriller horror film. My shutter shout out is for Influencer, which came out over the summer, which is directed by Curtis David Harder and is more or less a satire of this wave over the last five to seven years of, you know, mostly young women who promote beauty products, lifestyle through

their Instagram pages, through TikTok, and a very crafty follower of influencers who lure them into a trap and then essentially subsume them and take over their lives. This movie has a couple of really fascinating things going for it. I thought I thought particularly Cassandra nods performance in the movie is really, really interesting. Um, and not the kind of horror villain we've seen before. And you know, it's a tricky time for shutter.

They're still giving us VHS movies, but you know, AMC has been going through some stuff in the last, you know, a couple of years. It's not quite sure what the place is for these kind of mid tier or, you know, third tier streamers.

But this is why I will never not be a subscriber is like just one of these movies a month. And I'm good like for life. In addition to getting to watch like Lucio Fulci movies, if I want to, um, John Carpenter documentaries. Exactly.

Um, so I really liked influencer. Anything else you want to shout out? Cobweb was cool. Yeah. Uh, I thought it was, was uh one of the examples i think a little bit of the james wan thing that you're talking about where there is it does have like a sort of flattened visual palette but i actually think that works for the world that it gets created in the film so

essentially stars lizzie caplan as an overprotective mother from hell maybe but not you know unclear and

it's a really good like a little bit of haunted house a little bit of monster movie a little bit of like Stephen King bullied kids

thing going on but very much worth your time if you're looking for something similar two to three moments Anthony Starr is awesome where you're like,

yeah, how do you feel about his non-The Boys work this year? Between this, Covenant. I mean, he's among my, his Covenant character

is very important to me. I feel like you conjured that character and Guy Ritchie was listening. I genuinely do. Who is that guy? He's just like a British private security guy

who then needs to come rescue Jake Gyllenhaal. What is Anthony Starr up to next? What has he got on the... I mean, he's probably doing boys for the next five years. Yeah. Not seeing any other films,

unfortunately, for him. Such a shame. A couple more movies to come that we haven't seen yet. New Pet Sematary movie on Paramount Plus today. Can you fire that up? I will.

I will. This is a huge Paramount Plus day for me though because the new William Friedkin movie is on Paramount Plus. The Kane Mutiny Court Martial starring Kiefer Sutherland

back in a military courtroom. That's where he belongs. 30 years later. Thank God. Yeah. Jake Lacey's in that, right? Jake Lacey, yeah. Dark Harvest, coming in a week

to VOD. This is the new David Slade movie. Speaking of Black Mirror, a director... I got incredibly hyped for this and then you were like, this has been on the shelf for like three and a half years. It's not ideal that it's day and date. That's not a good sign. Candidly. Nor is it a good sign that Pet Cemetery Bloodlines is day and date. Not really sure what to make of that.

Speaking of day and date, I guess the other big horror movie for the rest of the year is on October 27th, Five Nights at Freddy's. Another Blumhouse production is also going to movie theaters and to Peacock. And this is a kind of like

what if Chuck E. Cheese was a haunted hellhole? Good idea. Sure. Josh Hutcherson, I think is the star of this film. Is Hutcherson also in beekeeper? Uh,

no, I think who is, let's hold on. No, you're right. It is Hutcherson. It's fucking Hutcherson season. Wow.

Hutch is back. Did I ever tell you that I was looking at a house in Los Filos and the only other person looking at the house was Hutcherson. And I was like, I don't think I can afford this house. Uh, we did not put a bid in on it. Um, did you throw up your Hunger Games hand signal to him?

I was going to make a joke using the line I stand as tribute that's what it was I couldn't think of it are you going to see the new Hunger Games movie? that's Rachel Ziegler right?

I volunteer as tribute volunteer as tribute well whatever you know what I mean Chris stands in solidarity as tribute I stand in well whatever you know what I mean Chris stands in solidarity as tribute yeah I stand in the way back

and offer not to participate in the Hunger Games as tribute I would go in the Hunger Games you would go in yeah for me you would stand in my stead

what would be your style I'm going for Bobby what oh thank you what would be your style what would my Hunger Games style be Wolfie Berserker I just try to take him down

okay not like Scorpion from Mortal Kombat. I would be like hiding, yeah. I wouldn't be hiding. You're going to see the new Rachel Zegler Hunger Games? That was like my I remember fondly going to see the Hunger Games once every 18 months

back in the Francis Lawrence, Jennifer Lawrence days. I don't know that I really needed to know more about... What's the name of that land? What do they call it? What was the country turned into? I think it's called Barbie Land.

Right? Is that it? I can't remember. Is that not it, Bob? I think it's called Panem. Panem. Oh, Panem. Yeah.

Remember when they got Philip Seymour Hoffman to come in and just cook for 18 minutes in those movies? He was a fucking mockingjay. That was awesome. Yeah. Remember when they got Philip Seymour Hoffman to come in and just cook for 18 minutes in those movies? He was a fucking mockingjay. That was awesome. Yeah.

That was great. The rest of those movies, I don't really care. I will see the new one. I don't, you know, what else am I doing? Is it going to be like two hours and 53 minutes?

Yes. You think they're going to make a tight 90? It's not ideal. No, the problem is that they need to make it so that it could be, if it's the last one,

they can make it to be the last one, but it can also be the first of the next five. And therein lies the problem. I know. That's really not ideal. Okay.

Let's let's do the horror Oscars. Yeah. So in 2018 I wrote this very elaborate over committed long column feature.

I reread it. I didn't reread it because I hate myself but I did think it was a good idea. Quite snappy. I thought it was a really nice job.

Thanks. What if I was just like a shit? I would trust you to be honest with me. I certainly don't feel like it was good but anyway

the point was just very kind of Bill Simmons inspired style column which is just like let's go through every year and pick out

what was the best horror movie and so went over a 40 year period this being five years ago I thought it would be inspired style column, which is just like, let's go through every year and pick out what was the best horror movie. And so, went over a 40-year period, this being five years ago, I thought it'd be an interesting time to kind of look back

at the last five years and say, if I were going to continue this column, what movies would win best picture for those respective years? Now, a little bit complicated

because, of course, we had the COVID pandemic. And so, movie releases in 20 and 21, not exactly what you'd want per se, but did that negatively affect horror? Not necessarily. In fact, maybe it gave us a couple of things

we wouldn't have gotten otherwise. So I thought we would start with 2019. 2019, interesting year for horror. You've got a couple of emerging big dogs in Midsommar and Us from Jordan Peele and Ari Aster. Interesting, like second films,

like their sort of second efforts in horror. And they feel very much that way. I think I prefer Midsommar to Us, but there's something extraordinary

about their third films, and I think their second films will now be looked back on as like slightly more like attempting to expand but maybe not as masterpieces. Okay. There was a

a legacy sequel that year as well in Doctor Sleep. Uh-huh. A movie that I liked and then when I revisited the director's cut loved.

And I guess worth mentioning that during this whole period that we're going to be covering in the Oscars, Mike Flanagan, if you had asked us in 2018, who's next, who's going to be the guy that we're going to be talking about? We would have said he's the new Wes Craven.

Yeah, and now has since made a series of, I think, obviously successful Netflix series, often based on like classic literature where he gothic horrors them up and he has developed a very, very, very specific style that I think worked best in Midnight Mass. But it's worth noting that like that guy's made like 60 hours of horror since then, but just no movies. Yes, which is depressing to me because he had made a handful of independent or smaller films prior to Doctor Sleep. Yeah, Jared's Game and Hush and stuff. Some fun and interesting stuff over that time. Oculus, I feel like Ouija 2.

Oh yeah, Ouija 2 was fucking awesome. He made some really good movies and he went on to television and kind of got swallowed up and was with Netflix and and now was with amazon i believe yeah um he just made his last netflix series right fall house house which is like about the sacklers um a very interesting filmmaker dr sleep i thought slightly misunderstood but also has some flaws nevertheless um then a couple of others that i think are worth discussion one is one cut of the dead, which was actually recently remade in France by Michael Havishnias, the director of The Artist, as a film which I think is entitled Final Cut. But this is a kind of, almost like a zombie mockumentary about the making of a movie in which there's a zombie outbreak.

Shinichiro Ueda is the director of this movie. A real classic like Shutter Find from that year. Very, very good film. I think originally made in 17 but not released in America until 2019.

And then Tigers Are Not Afraid similarly also distributed by Shutter here in the States and now it's Issa Lopez, right? Yep. Who is, was the showrunner for the forthcoming season.

She's the writer and director and showrunner. Of True Detective. True Detective Night Country is like her thing. Her project. Yeah. Barry Jenkins executive produced it. Yes. So if people are excited about that new season of True Detective,

this might be a way to kind of get a taste of what it is that she's capable of. I love Tigers Are Not Afraid. Are you excited for True Detective? Yeah. Yeah. I'm in. I'm a fan. Actually, Joanna Robinson asked me the other day, do you like True Detective? Yeah. Yeah. I'm in. I'm a fan. Actually Joanna

Robinson asked me the other day do you like True Detective and I stopped because it has been a long time since we saw True Detective.

Yeah. It was the rehearsal season so that was 2019 18. Yeah. I mean that's me and Concepcion

did that as like the recaps of that. It's four or five years ago. Yeah. Where's Greenwald at? I don't think

Greenwald's seen a like a frame of it since season two. He's going to watchwald at? I don't think Greenwald's seen like a frame of it since season two. He's going to watch Night Country? I think he liked season three, actually. Okay. I think he thought it had stuff he liked.

And he's up for Night Country. He's pretty fired up about it. I'd like to revisit the Colin Farrell season. It's a journey. Yeah. And that's Vince Vaughn as well, right? And Rachel McAdams.

Kelly Riley? Kelly Riley and Taylor Kitsch. And who's the bald mayor in that season? Oh, shit. I can't remember. That wonderful character actor whose name escapes me. Oh, it's Richie Koster, isn't it? Richie Koster.

Yeah. I thought that was a good season. He's the guy in Black Hat. To you. Out of these films... Oh, you forgot to mention Crawl. Oh, and Crawl, of course. Our beloved Crawl,

which we touched on in our garbage fish conversation. So, some big-time filmmakers there. I would go Midsommar. I think so, too. Probably the most lasting. Probably the one that infected the culture the most.

That was something that I considered, too. It was sort of of like what is the film that represents this time what is the biggest achievement um saw this with you we did yep we saw it at a very fancy was it an alamo i thought we saw it in like a screening room and staggered out into the daylight we did see it during the day but it was at a movie theater but they served us food oh that was weird upon reflection not a kind of not the kind of movie you know when the man falls from the cliff and smashes his face into the rock not ideal okay i i'm with you midsommar is the right pick 2020 one of the last movies released in theaters before the lockdown. The Invisible Man. Pretty big hit. Lee Whannell's modernization of

The Invisible Man story starring Elizabeth Moss. I thought it was great. In retrospect, pretty awesome. Yeah. Thinking about all those things you're talking about

with how do you fit your ideas inside of modern horror IP the way that David Gordon Green is trying to. A very contemporary movie. A very smart post-Me Too. It felt really, really fresh. Yes.

Great touch of performance. Yes. Terrific effects work. Terrific non-visualization of the Invisible Man. You know, the way that that character was moving through the movie felt new. I really like that movie. Another movie with man in it's titled the

empty man which was released in 2020 but neither you nor i saw it until 2021 when many other people saw it when it was released on vod that was david priors completely mishandled and cast aside in the face of a fox disney merger um kind of supernatural cult examination kind kind of the JFK of cult supernatural films in some ways. Or, I mean, like, Seven, if it was written by the Kevin Spacey character. And, you know, David Pryor, of course, was a close chronicler of the films of David Fincher.

He directed many behind-the-scenes featurettes about the makings of his movies. We both love that movie. Naaman loves that movie. We've talked about it a bunch. David Cronenberg's Possessor is from 2020. I think the superior in the Infinity Pool Possessor game. I think Possessor is quite amazing.

St. Maude, Rose Glass' movie. One of the very last movies I saw in a movie theater before the lockdown. La Llorona. Which is not the curse of La Llor movie theater before the lockdown. La Llorona. Which is not the curse of La Llorona. Not the curse of La Llorona. La Llorona is a Guatemalan film directed by Jairo Bustamente that is incredibly unnerving and effective.

Host? Rob Savage's Zoom movie? Truly breathtaking in the moment. I know this is crazy, but probably one of the things I remember most about being home, being trapped, and then having a horror movie that essentially reflected being home and being trapped. It was pretty wild. And then Dave Franco's The Rental.

More of a slasher thriller. Yes, kind of more in the vibe of honestly kind of wouldn't have minded seeing Dave Franco's take on Halloween. Interesting. Yeah.

I know what you mean. And you almost want to see David Gordon Green try to make a movie like The Rental. Sure. Yeah. It would seem like

he would have a lot of fun with it. Not a bad slate. No. So I would say no clear heavyweight. Personally, Empty Man's the movie

that has stayed with me the longest. Okay. And has the most to sort of explore empty man it's not in some ways empty man is three films in one i would make the argument that host is the movie i will remember uh i think it's the movie of the 2020 movie yeah i agree so i mean it is it is still terrifying I don't like host as much as the empty man or the invisible man I like the invisible man as what I want

out of studio horror I like the empty man as like that incredible feeling of discovery like wow this guy really just did a thing he wanted to do

and he was had command of the medium but host is representative in a way that I think is useful for these kinds of awards so it's not just the best.

It's what does it mean for the time. Just like every year we have these arguments and it's like you look back and you're like well I understand why Chariots of Fire won.

Yes, exactly. Okay, we'll go with Host. 2021. M. Night Shyamalan's Old. A movie that I don't think was marketed enough as a horror movie. It is certainly

Twilight Zone-esque and has a science fiction aspect to it. But there are a couple of moments in this movie. And did you ever get a chance to see this? I saw this as my first film back in movie theaters in the summer of 2021 in a small movie theater in Maine. Shout out to the days when we were trying to do, I'm wearing my mask,

but I'm also eating popcorn and goobers at the same time. Yeah, yeah. I don't think we were made for these pandemic times. Some pound reflection. We didn't really know how to handle all that. I think among many people, the consensus seems to be that old does not resolve satisfyingly, but that there is a stretch for about an hour

where the movie is really good. That's at least how I feel. There's the Fear Street trilogy, which is three movies that I'm counting as one that Netflix released, the R.L. Stine adaptations of the sort of like young, old, adult novel series.

Had you seen Coming Home in the Dark? No, I haven't. Okay. So this is, actually, I believe on Netflix right now, it's a New Zealand movie

directed by James Ashcroft. And it is very upsetting. It might even be in that kind of when evil lurks, speak no evil zone in terms of some of the imagery. I don't want to spoil too much about it. It won't be picked, but I saw it out of Sundance in that classic thing where it was like it's 1218 AM. I think I'm going to try a new horror movie where it was like, it's 12, 18 a.m. I think I'm going to try a new horror movie that just went up on the streamer.

Very upsetting. Malignant, which you and I watched also at 10 a.m. on a Friday to talk about it on a podcast. I think maybe misunderstood the right way to experience that movie. Yeah, I would say that generally speaking, what we do to prep for these pods does not always put us in the best position to succeed.

We're just trying to, we're there for the people. Yeah. But I wonder whether or not we could go back in time and if you and I were just doing like a horror podcast twice a week and that was the only thing we did, but we were like, hold each other accountable and only see these movies after 8 p.m., you know? Let me ask you a side question here as a professional podcaster.

Would you rather go deep into the text of one thing at length or would you rather bop around and hang out? Oh, master of

none or, you know, uh, well, I obviously do bop around and hang out. I think that it would be my work-life balance

might be better if I was like, I just do, I'm just doing the horror movies. But I think I would I'm just doing the horror movies. But I think I would get tired of it after a while. I would get tired of that

as being like a professional identity. I don't know why I'm answering you so soberly, but like, what do you think? I appreciate your candor. I just don't know what I would pick as like my, this is my niche.

Well, even for the purposes of the watch, if you were just like, in this episode, we will just talk about one episode of the gold. Forget about how many people are listening, who's engaging with you. Would you rather-

We kind of used to do that. That's what, but that's what I'm saying. I mean, I feel a similar kind of confusion where it's like, do we just do 90 minutes on The Exorcist and maybe we talk about the sequels or whatever, but just focus on the new movie? Right.

And instead we watched like 40 movies for this. That's what I mean. I have watched a lot of horror movies this year and most of them new movie. Right. And instead we watched like 40 movies for this. That's what I mean. I have watched a lot of horror movies this year and most of them are bad. Yeah. But sometimes you come across Coming Home in the Dark and you can earnestly recommend it.

Would you be willing to go to like Fangoria cons and be like... I'm not just... I don't mean just for horror. I mean for everything. I mean just saying like each episode is just our conversation about the creator. I mean I think that you can each episode is just our conversation about the creator. I mean I think that

you can have like a really interesting conversation about anything but I do think that being like it's this 90 minutes is about this movie which you may or may not

have seen ultimately like winds up turning people off. So it's probably wise that we're like you're in the news this week. I think I was more just Kevin McCarthy

can you believe it? So what do you think of all that? Did the did the did the did the eight the Republicans make a good choice yeah uh I don't know whether the country is better or worse I'll say that I don't know that's a really strong take yeah I mean do you think it's cool if Jim Jordan is the is the speaker of the house do I think it's cool yeah I wouldn't say that would

you think it was cooler if Kevin McCarthy was the speaker of that wouldn. Do I think it's cool? Yeah. I wouldn't say that. Would you think it was cooler if Kevin McCarthy was the speaker of the house? I wouldn't say that either. Yeah. So, that's what I'm saying. You haven't asked the most important question.

Should Trump be the speaker of the house? That's the question. He should not. Okay. There's a couple of other 2021 horror movies. Oh, sorry.

Go ahead. No, no. Finish your nominations here. Well, to 10, the Palme d'Or winning French film that is Cronenbergian body horror certainly and then uh the film i watched the night my daughter was born the night house uh from david

bruckner the aforementioned i saw this at the sundance where you may or may not have gotten covid you did that's right i remember you liked it you saw midnight screening did you not yeah um you and you you were into it i i'm getting a little long in the tooth for midnight screenings but i was quite into it okay one of the best uses of pop song in the last couple of years is the use of uh calvary cross in this one yes um that led to me playing calvary cross many times for my daughter after she was born which upon reflection it was a really weird choice um i wonder if she'll be in to shoot the lights out. Is her middle name Pazuzu? Do you want to add anything else? Does your daughter ever have any Pazuzu moments?

I mean, you've met her. Yeah, but she's really great. I just don't know like at night, do you ever like go in and like she's staring at you in the dark and starts like reading Dickens? No, nothing quite like that. But I mean, I have said this before, but I always say like when she's misbehaving, I always say, you know, Alice is a demon. But I mean, I have said this before, but I always say like when she's misbehaving, I always say, you know, Alice is a demon. And then she does a thing now where she, if she's sitting beside my wife, she leans back and she puts her hand around her ear

so that mom can whisper something in her ear. And what mom whispers in her ear is, tell dad he's the demon. And then she leans forward and she says, I'm not a demon. Dad is a demon. This is the kind and she says I'm not a demon dad is a demon just this is the kind of household

that I'm bringing her up in she will know about Pazuzu maybe on Halloween I come in dressed as a priest yeah the power of Christ compels Alice um

did you want to add more to 2021? um there were just a couple of like honorable mentions I wouldn't actually I mean obviously Black Phone was like a crazy runaway hit this year

so it's worth mentioning Censor is a really fucked up movie from this year yeah that was a British film about someone who

watches the video nasties of that era and I wouldn't want to I don't think we are all going to the World's Fair is the Oscar winner I think that's 22 technically

oh okay yeah I think that's 22 technically. Oh, okay. Yeah, I think that's technically 22. It's worth mentioning. And Dashcam, which is incredibly divisive. Yeah, I didn't love it. Yeah. I didn't love it. I actually liked it quite a bit.

Really? Yeah. I don't think making your lead extremely annoying is a good strategy. Right. Just my take. Right. Of this 2021 list, what do you think is the winner this is probably my least favorite crop i am leaning malignant me too

and i think also it's important to like look outside of like my specific personal taste in horror and i acknowledge that like malignant was a hit. The Letterboxd crowd loved it. And also people just get the shit scared out of them by it. And it does throw back to an era of horror that I have a real soft spot for, which is that late 90s kind of vibe. I'm with you. I think it's Malignant.

I think when I revisited it, I certainly understood it a lot better. I do like Nighthouse quite a bit. And David Bruckner is my dude. It'll always have a place in my heart, but I don't think it's the winner here. 2022, a bountiful year. Oh, so Black Foam was 22.

It was. It premiered in, I think at Fantastic Fest or one of those festivals in 21, but it came out in the spring of 22. Boy, this is the fucking heavyweight. This is Thunderdome right here. Yeah, and that's part of the reason why I've been so disappointed by this year is because last

year really raised the stakes for us. Now, I didn't even include a film on this list that you could make the case as horror, but I would say it's not. But I'll just say, nope, which was my favorite movie of last year, and absolutely has horror elements to it, but feels much more like a science fiction

Steven Spielberg movie to me with a couple of gore moments as opposed to a pure horror film. People may disagree. Peele is doing something that is very singular. I think he is kind of like evolving out of horror master into something else. But, you know, maybe that won't be true.

Maybe he'll be making a pure Wes Craven movie that's coming next. Next Christmas, I believe, is the next Jordan Peele release time as well, which is notable. but you know maybe that won't be true maybe he'll be making a Pure West Craven movie that's coming next next Christmas I believe is the next Jordan Peele release time as well which is notable but 2022

Black Phone big hit for Scott Derrickson real self-conscious kind of dazed and confused of horror Barbarian obviously one of our favorite movies

in recent years and one of the most fun movie going experiences that you could have the double hit of X and Pearl from Ty West.

Looks like Maxine not coming out this year. Really? It's too bad. How come? I guess 2024. I don't know. Oh, 2024.

Okay. Yeah, 2024. Which is the third film in Ty West's trilogy of Mia Goth murdering people psycho movies. Yeah, and this one's set

in 80s porn. Correct. Yeah. Watcher. Micah Monroe Unsettler. Yeah. About a young couple that moves to, is it Bulgaria? Budapest. Correct. Yeah. Watcher, Micah Monroe, Unsettler, about a young couple that moves to,

is it Bulgaria? Budapest. Budapest. We're all going to the World's Fair, which you mentioned. Jane Sean Bruns, kind of a world

seen through the eyes of a teenage girl on the internet and what comes her way and what she gets up to. And is in maybe like a good, put it posted on that because it represents like this experimental horror

wave that we're kind of still going through that sort of starts, not doesn't necessarily start with, but this is like a huge pop pop out moment. I agree. I feel like it's a tent pole of something that is happening in the space right now. And Jane Schoenbrun has a new film, I think called,

I saw the glow of the TV that A24 is producing that's coming out next year. Speak No Evil, which has been mythologized on this show. One of the more unsettling entries in horror in recent years. And then the Scream reboot from Radio Silence, which is a fun movie. So this is a

banner lineup. I think it's between Barbarian and X pearl I would probably say barbarian personally but I understand that our bias or is that sure but I also think barbarian did a bunch of stuff that I felt like I had not it's not that I'd never seen it before but I'd never maybe seen it in that way and I thought barbarian announced like a major new talent and and it was a kind of like a huge huge fucking experience for me i agree i'm incredibly excited for weapons um the new zach crager movie which was described in the trades as a magnolia style horror movie which just you know just wrapped the telephone cord around my neck and drag me into the movie theater.

X-Pearl, I think among the heads, maybe has just like a little bit more cred. The thing I hadn't thought about with Barbarian, it really feels like a John Landis movie, which I know is not, like John Landis is kind of considered an unfortunate figure in recent times now because of everything that happened on Twilight Zone, the movie,

and maybe even some of his posture towards certain things and his son and all this other bullshit that comes along with that but that fine blend of like real understanding of horror mechanics and

horror filmmaking with a real genuine sense of humor that really plays in a movie like that is so rare almost none of the movies we've talked about so far are able to achieve that at

least not in a genuinely like wow that was funny I laughed kind of a way and that's part of what makes that so good i'll be curious to see if crager continues with that yeah so i mean i think all of these movies have things i mean you and i are over the moon about speak no evil and a lot maybe and i would also i i basically you could make an argument for every one of all these movies are good yeah barbarian was the one that I felt like I'd never seen that before. Even though it had elements of stuff that I had seen before,

I had never seen it executed in that way. X especially is kind of a play on Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Black Phone has like a very obvious like Stephen King overtones. Scream is still somewhat beholden to the Scream franchise. No doubt. You know, We're beholden to the Scream franchise. You know, We're All Going to the World's Fair is much more experimental than, I wasn't like scared by it, but it was very eerie. I think it's a good push forward though for the genre. Yeah.

And then Watcher is like Knife in the Water or something like that where you're just watching this woman slowly lose her grip on reality. Yeah. I'm with you on Barbarian. I think the choice is Barbar choice is barbarian it's also barbarian is a signature big picture movie so that feels good to me 2023 um i'll run through the candidates talk to me the horror hit of the year really um a 24 movie that came out over the summer that you and i have not yet had a chance to really talk about in person Sick which was streaming on Peacock

earlier this year which I think you and I both liked quite a bit John Himes sort of a certainly a COVID movie that has action elements

to it that really worked well Evil Dead Rise another movie we saw together the most recent updating of the Evil Dead franchise

When Evil Lurks we just mentioned on the show I think you gotta talk about Megan when you talk about horror movies this year we need to talk about Megan I don't think you and I did talk about the show. I think you got to talk about Megan when you talk about horror movies this year. We need to talk about Megan.

I don't think you and I did talk about Megan, actually. No, I think you did this with Amanda. We did. A film that has a sequel coming very soon. And then Skinnamorink, also mythologized here on the pod. What would the Skinnamorink kids pick for the 2023 horror movie of the year?

The first quarter of the first Jets game. Did Dwayne Brown miss his blocking assignment? Or did Aaron Rodgers not get the protection right? Oh, man. Fuck. You just walked right into the fucking wood chipper on that one. So they're one and three. Yeah.

When you go down the schedule. Bob just fucking long i'm sorry that really got me that was good did you watch skinnamarink no i did not okay the way that you described it just did not sound all that interesting to me i got enough skinnamarink from chris yeah yeah that's true there's plenty more where that came from, I guess. It has been a horrific Jets season. It's going to be okay, though. I think it's going to be okay.

I think they're going to go 9-8. Okay. Will that get you in the playoffs? I don't know. This AFC East is pretty... I think the Dolphins... Why am I doing straightforward NFL talk? Yeah, get into it. Should we bring Damian Woody in here? It's not my vibe

but Megan is obviously the horror hit of the year I think you could say it's like more of a sci-fi dystopian kind of thing

it's a little closer to the Terminator I think I'm really surprised that like I think Evil Dead Rise might have been my favorite of these

oh wow more so than Talk To Me as far as like being a horror so than Talk To Me. As far as being a horror experience. Okay. Talk To Me, I really liked. I had a not great movie theater experience and got way too fucking caught up in the rules of interdimensional communication

and why these kids were like, we just have a hand that communicates that they're dead. Don't worry about it. Because of the dissertation you've been working on about... I just think in our day and age, that would have gone a little bit more viral. It would have been like, oh, we've got this hand. FYI.

You're probably right about that. I thought it was very good and very scary and well done and was a nice mix of Scream with Hereditary. That's funny because when we came out of Eagle Dead Rise, I think I was like, that kind of ripped and I thought you were a little bit more like,

eh. Was I? I thought so. Maybe I'm just revising my opinion. Well, I welcome that on the show, of course. I think it's kind of just stayed with me where I'm like, man, that fucking knew what it was doing.

Wow. Do you think that there's a way? What do you think it is? Do you think it's Skinnamarink? Well, it's tricky because Skinnamarink is probably representative of the moment. It's not the scariest.

It's not the best pure horror movie. We did give it to host for similar reasons. There's something going on right now in the genre where there's some form breaking. There's some major experimental influence coming into the genre. Talk to Me, I think,

is also representative of something that's happening which is that youtube kids are in you know infiltrating hollywood and those brothers the filipo brothers who made that movie if if this kind of movie making is going to survive it's going to be coming from people who have been making this kind of stuff on social media in all likelihood um it's not going to be guys learning at the feet of tom savini about how creature effects work it's going to be people figuring out on their own with their iphone 15 like how to make how to do like shoot this stabbing myself effects yeah and so i think both of those things there's a strong case for both of those things um and megan is kind of there's a strong case for Megan as like the highest achievement

of like Hollywood marketing. You know, it's like they built like a whole system around getting people to care about Megan, which seems very unlikely, but they did

and they nailed it. And like, I thought the movie was fine. It basically was exactly what I was expecting, which isn't a bad thing on January 12th. No, it's like I think

a lot of people went to go see Megan. Yes. Yes. And she did. Yep. So I'm torn. Is it too soon? Should we wait till the end of the year? I think it's like I think a lot of people went to go see Megan Day. Yes. Yes. And she did. Yep. So I'm torn. Is it too soon?

Should we wait till the end of the year? I think we should because I also kind of want to go back and watch Sick again. And that was like a really good dumpuary movie. Yeah. That I think really played against like whatever else was on it. I was like, this is actually pretty awesome. Sick I loved and I watched wearing AirPods in bed while my wife slept um which is incredibly chill crazy person behavior but we do we can to get by um we also need to see thanksgiving

yeah maybe thanksgiving which is a very self-conscious throwback to the holiday themed it's like it's like a heavy hitter so it's been a long time since he's made a horror movie. Let's do this again maybe after Thanksgiving. Okay. But let's do it on... Let's do it in the Skin and Meringue house. Okay. Let's go to that house.

We'll shoot it in the dark. I'll bring the Legos. Bobby! Are you recording? There are no windows. Bobby, have you seen any of the movies that were mentioned

on this pod today? I've seen a handful of them But as you know I'm not as well versed In the horror genre Did you like talk to me I didn't see it That's not very A24 bro of you Am I supposed to be an A24 bro

Is that my presence on this podcast I think that's my presence honestly You're not an A24 bro Ceremonially I think I am What am I Taylor Sheridan dog. Like dog like I'm his lap dog? That's one way to read it.

Or more like his D-A-W-G. Oh, yeah, my homie. You're down. You're down with Taylor Sheridan. I think Horizon's going to cause a schism in the church, though. I can't wait. I honestly can't wait. That's the fucking hardest trailer ever,

and it's a drone shot of a canyon and Kevin Costner looking D-Age shooting a rifle at nobody and I'm like I'll fucking donate plasma

for this movie let's go I will hike Machu Picchu to sit at the top of it and watch the film that's a thing that should be done by the way

there should be like endurance challenges to get to see things that's what Hollywood should pivot to if you want to see this movie, climb a mountain.

Yeah, that's like what Villeneuve was saying about big, tight cinema. It's like, I can't be arsed to go see fucking Talk to Me. Can I tell you one more thing about my viewing experience?

When I saw Saw X this morning, there was actually one other person sitting in like the eighth row and I could see their flash go off every time there was a kill scene because they were

taking pictures of it. I mean, what's going on how crazy is that how crazy is that what are people doing i i mean i know it's an empty theater i get it i know you feel like you can get away with murder but what are you even taking pictures of is that for fucking instagram i guess tiktok i don't know i'm not sure there's a private collection of saw kills do you use instagram a lot do you look at it uh I post to it yeah but do you like do you spend time

like just like going through Instagram not really I don't even really look at the stories of my friends a lot of the time honestly because I just forget that's cool

I'm not like taunting you I love you you're great I'm sure your stories are great they're all about you just the 60 year anniversary of me and my dog going to see Host.

Here's me, Sean, and Taylor Sheridan together holding shotguns. I have a close friends feature where I've sold Patreon access. I've sold Patreon access

to all of the secret tapes that I've deleted from you guys over the years that you wanted me to cut out of the podcast. I really fucking cucked out on that Speaker of the House thing. I got to loosen up.

There's at least two jokes that were made on this pod that will be fully cut by Bob. Okay. And we'll say like, only cut the one part, but then he'll cut the whole thing. I know how he rolls

when it comes to this stuff. Bob, thanks for protecting us on this show yeah you're the producer of this podcast we did not award 2023 we're gonna wait we're gonna we're gonna sit on our hands and wait we're gonna watch the leader in the clubhouse fan duel like well i gotta revisit evil dead rise now because of what you said i was just now i think you know what it is is that evil dead rise obviously like a legacy sequel to these several Evil Dead films in comparison to Exorcist Believer I was like maybe that's

just what I need Evil Dead Rise is much better than Exorcist Believer yeah I just need this woman terrorizing her family I'm not sure if it tells me anything about horror this year that's kind of my issue with it I guess Skinnamorink does Talk to Me might as well though okay because that's a social media movie way more entertaining

than Skin and Brain. I know you did. Okay. Alright, well, we'll put a pin in it and we'll come back and we'll talk about it in November. Bob, thanks for your help here.

As I mentioned, we'll be talking about some short films next week and also some long films. Maybe Dix, Colin the Musical, Foe. You seen Reptile yet?

No, I was going to fire that up tonight. I'd like to know your opinion of that film. Some things in it are cr core yeah and there's like musical sequences no okay um it's a very grim crime thriller so what isn't cr core about that that's what i'm saying there are some things about it that are cr core but not maybe not all things but we shall see uh and amanda will be back next week. We'll see you then.