The Flop House - Ep.#436 - Dear David, with Hallie Haglund

Episode Date: October 26, 2024

Bad news first: we discussed Dear David, a horror movie based on a Twitter thread posted by a guy who used to do comics for Buzzfeed, released by "Buzzfeed Studios" -- a sentence that gives us a headache just to type. The good news? We're joined by Star of the Show, Hallie Haglund, whose ever-delightful presence inspires us all into a lot of giggle fits and silly bits!We’re in season 2 of FlopTV! Pop in for individual episodes, or get a price break with a season pass! Peruse the full line-up and/or get tickets here! And hey, while you’re clicking on stuff, why not subscribe to our NEWSLETTER, “Flop Secrets?!”Wikipedia page for Dear DavidRecommended in this episode:Flesh Eater (1988)His Three Daughters (2023)The Girl on the Broomstick (1972)Scenes from a Marriage (1947)Head to factormeals.com/flop50 and use code flop50 to get 50% off your first box and 20% off your next month.

Hi, Floppers. Before we start this episode, I just wanted to remind you we are in the middle of FlopTV Season 2. That's right, the one-hour internet televised Flophouse TV show is here for you the first Saturday of every month through February. Just go to theflophouse.simpleTix.com and get your tickets or season pass for this all-new Flophouse TV stuff. For covering movies we've never covered before. We've got video segments. It's amazing. Just go to theflophouse.simple-ticks.com for Flop TV Season Two. This time, it's personal.

On this episode, we discuss Dear David. I've heard of a Dear John, but Dear David is ridiculous. I was thinking of a Dear John thing too, just because I know it's one of Halle's favorite shows. It is. It's so good. It's so good. Hey everyone, welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.

Oh, hey there, Dan. It's me, Stuart Wellington. Well howdy, folks. It's me, Elliot Kalin. I don't see you much around these parts. I'm Hallie Haggson. Perfect. No notes.

You did it. I love that you got so caught up in the character that you forgot the objective of the line. I lost myself in it. That's what happens. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it reminded me of when I would go into Halle's office and after a while she'd go go on get Poking me with a stick

Hey, this is a podcast where we guys what did you guys see that Reba McIntyre is a new show out And I did ads for it in the New York City subway It's like so-and-so's place, right? It's, guys, it's called Happy's Place. And I'm conflicted because I, of course, want more Revo McIntyre TV shows. But the problem is, is growing up, there was a local kids show where a, like a clown hobo character and his frog sidekick introduced cartoons basically. It was called Happy's Place. He was Happy the Hobo character and his frog sidekick introduced cartoons basically.

It was called Happy's Place. He was Happy the Hobo. And so I can't see these ads and not be like, this feels like stolen Valor Reba. I was... I mean, she does play a Hobo that introduced cartoons. That's not a Reba McIntyre song. I don't think...

So close to... Reba McIntyre, you know what they say, Jolene. Introducing the podcast premise within... Should have been a cowboy, am I right? Wasn't Don the main honky tonk angels? Oh god damn it. Mm-hmm, yep. Full of some prison blues.

Yeah. This is a Reba McIntyre podcast. Living in America. I mean, don't even, like, I love the show Reba.Intire podcast. Living in America. Right, Reba? I love the show Reba. I watch the shit out of it. But I still, to this day, I can't get over how self-aggrandizing the opening credit song is.

It's like, she's a single mom who works too hard. Wake up in the morning with a cup of ambition? No, you're messing up my bit, Elliott. Sorry. It's okay. She's a single mom who works too hard. I got Elliott to apologize by the way. I know, it didn't work when I tried to shut you down.

So she's a single mom who works too hard, she loves her kids and she'll never stop, you know, like giving hands on the heart of a fighter. I'm a survivor. But I'm like, have you watched the show? She's like kind of a jerk to everybody. I mean, she, you know, but fair is fair. What if she was a man, Stewart? Yeah. Actually, he got me. You know, but Man Stuart actually got me

What if she was he by McIntyre you would not have this What a strong dominating man Guys take me away and as again because it's Friday. I won't get out until Monday. So I deserve So Dan, what do we do on this podcast other than talk about specific grievances over the Reba McIntyre theme song? Can't see it at home, but there's almost a spit take This is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it Normally, it's just us three knuckleheads, but we're glad to have Hallie back for stars a show. Yeah, Hallie Wayne Spookiest and most adorable time of the year

Yeah, we are deep into shocktober and so we're watching horror movies and this time we yeah Well, this one's questionable. It's not like a long PSA about bullying. Maybe This was called Dear David. Guys, real quick, do you think we're going to get haunted by a ghost that makes us pee our pants for making fun of this movie? Oh no. I didn't think about that. We're all kind of approaching that age where we're going to be peeing our pants anyway. Yeah, I feel like at this point I'm like, okay, well this is different.

I haven't done this in a long time. Guys, I have two children. I pee when I go for a run. I mean, I push them out of my body. Yeah, yeah. You're still carrying around the damage of human reproduction. Exactly. Meanwhile, your husband, his penis hasn't changed noticeably as far as I can tell. His penis only leaks when it's diseased.

He pees his pants just for fun at this point. Yeah, just for the challenge. What going on? So, Dear David, this is from BuzzFeed Studios, and that's not a joke. This is a movie about a BuzzFeed writer based on a BuzzFeed writer's Twitter thread. Based on a true Twitter thread about a haunted apartment. Well, I liked Zola, and that was based on a Twitter thread. Based on a true Twitter thread about a haunted apartment. Well, I liked Zola and that was based on a Twitter thread. Is this the name? Yeah, but the thing is, Zola, I'm sure there was...

Does this movie also feature a montage of penises? I'm sure there was some level of embellishment in the film Zola, but that was grounded. I mean, the life of the movie Zola was nothing like that. It was grounded in our reality, whereas this movie has, you know, a kid appearing in dreams and doing monster things. It specifically says it's based on a true story, and I'm like, okay, I guess we got fucking evidence that ghosts exist.

Yeah, it's true. You're David. Did it. I mean, it's not even the first ghost movie to say it was based on a true story. To be honest, like, Amityville Horror has been pretending to be based on a true story for, you know, almost 20 years now. I'm still allowed to make fun of it, Ellie. You can't lie on Twitter. Like, everything on Twitter. It's all true.

It would get a community note if it was wrong. I have a real question. Yes. Yeah. Hallie Haglund, the Daily Show with Jon Stewart? Yes. Which part of this was actually, it was the Twitter thread while he was tweeting, but was a guy really tweeting, like, my house, my apartment is being haunted, here are the

things I'm doing? Which part of it was part of the story? I don't know. I did not care enough to research. Dan, you're usually like encyclopedia brown over here. No, I mean, I did limited research on this. I'm post-mini. I think that the...

I think it's based on a true story in that this guy tweeted that he was being haunted by a ghost kid in his apartment. And he said that some of these things... They should have called this movie Ghost Kid. ...happened. Like his cats would act weird and like a chair would move and stuff. Yeah, because cats are totally normal. And it became a popular thread and I think that that is all what is true. And they didn't change his name and I'm assuming in reality his boss isn't played by Justin Long. And they didn't change his comics to better comics.

Are those the actual comics? Can I be a bully for a second? Just for a second. Wait guys, we're entering the bully zone. This is the one place where it's okay to be a bully. This is a safe space to be a bully. Thank you, thank you. Finally a safe space for bullying. I'm not a fan of this guy's art style.

No. I'm not a fan of the style and the content which is like stripped down cartoons as memes or like, Twitter jokes style. Yeah, nothing appeared to be funny in these cartoons. And they seem to be sort of the... It's the bully zone. He can say whatever he wants. We are in the bully zone. There were lazy, repeated frames of just like, you know, like, he has this digital art and then he would just like double up on the... I don't know. I just didn't like it. Like I'm I'm willing to accept that, you know, not all art is for me

You know, I yeah because I'm a straight white middle-aged man Should cater to my default basic prototype of a human. Sure. No, we okay. We should get out of the bully zone because After us, yeah, we don't want to go skittish. I will say while we're still in the bully zone because we'll get a ghost kid after us. Yeah, we don't want a ghost kid after us. I will say while we're still in the bully zone, yeah, the comics are more about a recognizable feeling than they are a joke. And that maybe translates better when you are scrolling through a feed online

than when it is being shown full frame in a movie. Yeah. I found it very hard to read. There was a lot of reading involved in watching this movie. And this movie was almost a book. It went by very fast. I didn't read half of the comics. I couldn't. It was hard for me.

There was a lot of comments scrolling along the screen, a lot of tweets being put up on screen. What is this, a production of Dear Evan Hansen? I apologize for being mean about it. I think it's because I went. You're in the bully zone. Well, we got out of there We you know we actually just guys it was a trick. We left the bully zone a minute ago. Oh my god

I said so many torp was horrible thing. Torrible things. Yeah No, I went and I looked for comics by the actual guy to just confirm Are you stalking him Dan? I just was curious, are these the actual comics? And they were, it's the same stuff. I've seen these around before. Yeah. Look, if they can use the real Freddie Mercury audio tracks in Bohemian Rhapsody,

then they can use his real comics in the movie. The actor doesn't have to redraw the comics, Dan. It's okay to reuse them. I mean, especially because this is put out again by BuzzFeed studios Yes, they're like what do we what do we have? What do we have lying around? I think I think this guy wrote some tweets. Have they done anything else BuzzFeed? Yes. That's a good question. They have Yeah, I don't know what else. A callistical the movie and a bound reference to other stuff. They were doing an Amazon show weren't, about the Hulk Hogan thing,

but then it never got put on the air. I think the Brutalist is from BuzzFeed Studios. I'm not sure about... It wasn't Infinity Pool, a BuzzFeed Studios production. Yeah, yeah, Dan? I'm not sure about other movies. I know that... Tantene?

Was that a BuzzFeed movie? There's a TV show called... Teton. Teton? Sorry. Tonton. Tantene would be a different thing. I know that um, I mean was that a BuzzFeed movie? There's a TV show Yeah, is it TV show called worth it that Audrey watched for a while that's about foods that uh, that was a BuzzFeed studios thing Okay, just gross gross from what the I'm guessing the I could be wrong But the implication to me from just the title is whether or not this food that is probably unhealthy for you is worth it.

No, you're actually wrong. Expensive food? They, no, they go to, they have similar food, although sometimes they stretch the definition of what's the same kind of. A food? No, like they stretch what is the same food, but they eat food at different price points

And they're like, okay, like this is this is great cheap fried chicken This is like the fancy like consumer like what's worth it here? Like what's the best that we had? You know, it's it's like a zippy like I think it's like a 15 minute. It's it's fine Now obviously I'll make two points. Obviously we have a lot to, it's fine. Now obviously, I want to make two points. Obviously we have a lot to say about Dear David. We're just brimming with comments about it. But also, obviously if anyone from BuzzFeed Studios is listening, we would be happy to do work for you in exchange for money.

So don't take this as us feeling like we're superior. We're just trying to get the word out about your studios. Yeah, consider this. No press is bad press. All press is good press. This is promotion. You're working for exposure right now. Mm-hmm. So anyway.

Yes. Let's talk about the movie Dear David, shall we? So we start with a title that explains that in 2017, that's right everybody, we're going back in time, seven whole years. Gotta go back in time. All right. To 2017, a more innocent time when the president was a madman as opposed to living in a time

where the president is just an old man. And Adam Ellis is documenting. Gary Oldman? Gary Oldman cannot be president. He's not an American citizen, I don't think. It might be. He disappears into a character. Yeah.

Could be him. That's true. Like a Dave type situation? A Dear David type situation? Anyway, it says that in 2017, Adam Ellis documented strange happenings on Twitter and it became a viral sensation. I, of course, am an old man, so I was not aware of this viral sensation until I saw the movie.

But do you think they were playing on naming the sequel to this movie Meet Dave and they're like, fuck, that movie already exists Yeah, probably yeah, what if we called it David Duchovny? No, that's a person The sequel was gonna be meet Dave You don't really meet him much Well, we're not introduced to him. I can be up Yeah, no, I'm with Stewart on this one. Maybe it's just because he's wearing glasses now.

Anyway, the year, but then we don't go to 2017. We go to 1996, New York City, and a guy who runs a store of some kind, he's super excited about the internet. He feels like there's so much potential there for the future because tens of millions of people are using the internet. And their son David loves computers. He's always in the basement. Was it even, I don't even think it was a million people.

I think he was like 900,000 people are on the internet. Oh, I thought he said like 39 million people, I can't remember. Maybe I only. There's only one way to solve it. We gotta watch Dear David again. One of the strangest things in a strange, I mean this is a thin movie,

but it has some very strange stuff in it, that in this year of our Lord, they think that they have to promote the idea that the internet is huge. Like, this feels like a leftover from like fear.com or something where they're flashing back and they're like, there's gonna be so many people online and our kid is obsessed with it. I think they're trying to establish the idea that David and his family are like early adopters

of the internet. But it also again does not seem like you need to do that. It seems totally unnecessary. But you also learn that David's mom is not happy about the stuff that she is being exposed to online. She doesn't like that David is sitting in the basement with no lights on, bathed only in the glow of the screen. That's right, he saw the giant monitor glow. And he's like a kind of a pale creepy kid,

classic kind of horror movie creepy kid. And David posts like a picture that he drew, I guess, which almost instantly online trolls start insulting him and then say, why don't you kill yourself? That's the end of this chilling scene because I hate to break it. They're really mean about that picture. Cause like, I mean,

It's the best picture in the movie to be honest. And the other thing is it's like, it's better that your art caused a reaction, you know? It's better than if they just scrolled past it in care. I mean, David should have just typed back, hey, you're talking about it, aren't you? Yeah. This is what Andy Warhol went through.

Also, I feel like- Is that what Andy Warhol went through? Ghost Andy Warhol. I feel like this gets really muddy later in the movie where then like David is made out to be some sort of demon creature that possesses people. He's a vengeful, he becomes a vengeful spirit, you know, as so happens. He's like one of those Sardachos. Yeah, but we're left, we're also left with the assumption, oh, he must have been driven

to suicide from trolling. And that's why, but that's not what happens in the movie. Well, yeah, that's what I'm saying. He doesn't become a vengeful spirit. He appears to have been something beforehand, but we'll get to it. Yeah, anyway, that's the end of that. Now it's 2017.

And I like the lesson they're doing here is it's not that the internet was a nice place and it was ruined by trolls. They were always there. Like they were the first ones, you know. Now it's 2017 again, and there's this guy, Adam. He is addicted to his phone. He's commuting from Queens to Manhattan to the BuzzFeed offices He cannot get his face off of this phone

The only time he stops is when he's underground on the subway because this is 2017 It hasn't been wired for Wi-Fi in the subway yet. I was just in New York City They solved that problem everyone's glued to their phones while they're in the tunnel, too It's really a better way to live right guys Well, I mean complaining cuz his busking didn't earn him much money. When Eli was saying show time and flipping around. There used to be an era when you walked into a subway train, you started, show time, show time, press play on a boombox,

and then almost kicked people in the face. They would notice, and now they don't even notice anymore. Have you ever seen somebody get kicked? I've never seen someone get kicked. I've seen video of it, but I've never actually seen it in person, no. I've seen it almost happen in. I've seen video of it, but I've never actually seen it in person No, I've seen I feel like that's fake news then I will I want to say like You know if you have to take the subway long distances I say God bless having phones and it's not wired for Wi-Fi as much as I would like there's still plenty of

Dead spots. Yeah. All right. Yeah, it's just there's a thing called a book I read books on my phone. I have the Libby app. Okay, fair. Yeah, and that's mostly what I do on my phone these days. Okay, that's a fair point. You know what? As long as you're reading books on your phone, Dan, I'm okay with it. But if you're looking... What about like short form erotica?

It's a book. I mean, you compile enough into a book. What about the inside out video game? There's an inside Out video game? Yeah, you shoot memories at other memories to eliminate them. Just like in the movie. Yeah. Just like in the Martin DuPont song, Inside Out.

Okay, anyway, so this guy's addicted to his phone, but he works at Buzzfeed. It's okay, he's a cartoonist. Just like my shirt. Inside Out, just like my clothes. So he's a cartoonist and there are all these trolls being like, Inside out. Just like my clothes. So he's a cartoonist and there are all these trolls being like, your art sucks. And his coworkers are like, don't respond to them.

Don't engage with trolls. Don't do it. I feel like the majority of people are like, oh man, so real. Or like, I love this. But then there'll be like one person will say something and it'll really stick in his craw. Ain't that the way? Ain't that the way, people, though? Yeah, I agree. You think it would be easy to just ignore that.

But then you see like a, let's call him Man Decoy, who has a lot of trouble not engaging with people online, who create even the smallest of criticisms. Again, this is a totally hypothetical person. So. Dan's going to choke you until you pee your pants tonight. Now that I'm medicated, I have better emotional regulation, executive function.

It's all going up for old man Decoy. That's what man Decoy is doing better. Adam's boss, Justin Long, in a role that we have to assume was shot over the course of a day, maybe a day and a half in one location. But I will say also the most fun thing in the movie in my opinion. By far the movie comes to life during the four minutes or so scattered through the film that he's on screen. Yeah. Yeah. Is he supposed to be Jonah Peretti? Is that a BuzzFeed person? Yeah. Are they related to Chelsea Beretti? Yes, they're brother and sister.

And their dad is a big mogul who bought them each an internet site. Famous people had a rich dad? I think I'm right. Well, yeah, I think, now I gotta look it up. I'm afraid I'm gonna find something else. I don't know who he's supposed to be. They never gave him a name.

Alex is worried about spreading this information. Well, if we're gonna be in the bully zone, we might as well get worried about spreading misinformation. Well, if we're going to be in the bully zone, we might as well get our facts straight. No, the thing is we're not in the bully zone, but we haven't yet gotten to the AstroTurf zone where we can just kind of say made up stuff, you know, the fake news zone. Right now we're in the wooly bully zone.

Uh-oh. I got to tell Hattie about it. All of this thing I saw. No, I'm right, I'm right. I'm right. Okay. So, Wooly Bully, Dan, that song's literally about just seeing a really wooly bull, right? Let's see. Well, the lyrics, I think-

Like a Highland Cow? Wooly Bully, Wooly Bully, Wooly Bully. Those are the only lyrics I ever thought about. No, I've got a thing you saw. It had two big somethings and a wooly jaw. And then they dance. Okay. Well, now I got to check this out.

You got to do some research on this one. That'll give me time to talk about it. I'm going to go ahead and do some research on this one. I'm going to go ahead and do some research on this one. I'm going to go ahead and do some research on this one. I'm going to go ahead and do some research on this one. I'm going to go ahead and do some research on this one. I'm going to go ahead and do some research on this one. No, a thing you saw, it had two big somethings and a really jaw, and then they dance. Well, now I gotta check this out. You gotta do some research on this one. That'll give me time to talk about the movie. So Justin Long is like, Adam, your reach is not enough.

And your humor needs to be more about the painful aspects of life. It needs to be more painfully truthful. And Adam's like, ugh, I'm gonna lose my job if I don't do that in this cutthroat world of online cartooning at Buzzfeed, if I don't get my reach. And he complains to his boyfriend whose name is Kyle, Kevin, Kyle. And all Adam ever talks about in this movie is either his job or ghosts.

And Kyle meanwhile is like, hey, can I meet your parents? Hey, my mom is having surgery and Adam is- My mom is having a hysterectomy. And he goes, hey, I wanna meet your mom. And Adam goes, my mom is too crazy. Guys, this is, I'm sorry, this is very important. I think I need to do a dramatic reading of the lyrics. Of the lyrics to Woolly Bully.

Not the whole thing, but I'll go up through the first- Yeah, let's not be crazy. I'll go up through the first chorus, here we go. Uno, dos, one, two, tres, quattro. I, wooly bully, watch it now, watch it. Here he comes, here he comes. Watch it now, he getcha. Maddie told Hattie about a thing she saw.

Had two big horns and a wooly jaw wooly-bully wooly-bully yeah drive wooly-bully wooly-bully wooly-bully. You could write a hit song about anything back there. Do you think that they wrote the lyrics for that verse? And they must have tried really to find the right melody. A perfect melody for this. Yeah, it's actually a poem set to music. Yeah. I was trying to explain Oldies music to my son, and I was like, yeah, you don't have a lot of songs now where someone with a deep voice is just going,

bo-do-bo-do-bo, in the background, and then goes, yeah. Different points. He's like, did they used to do that? He goes, people loved it. They loved it so much. Yeah, yeah. Let me introduce you He's like did they used to do that? He goes they people loved it. They loved it Yeah, let me introduce you to the works of Cypress Hill Yeah, when I was talking about oldies with him that's Didn't you I was he's like and he's like that's impossible daddy. You can't be insane in both the brain and the membrane

It happened. That's not based on a true story not just based on a true story. Speaking of based on a true story, dear David. So anyway, these two teens, we cut away to two teens. They are trolling people online. It is so cartoonish. The dialogue is so after school special. Hey man, I don't think we should do that. Come on, don't you want to be funny? And they-

And I like when he's like, oh, I'm sick of this. I'm going to go watch Riverdale. Yeah, they do say that. They literally say that. They got to place it in time, you know? They might as well have been being like, we're in the bully zone. We can bully here.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog, dude. Like, we can be bullies here. But they're contacting- But this is important. Yeah, this is important because this is where we learn the ghost rules.

This is where I meet Dear David. Dear David is a profile that reaches out. He will answer two questions, but not three. And then they are mean to him, and he warns them that... He goes, how am I going to die? Or whatever. He goes, you're going to die wetting yourself in bed. And he's like, ugh, whatever. That night, Adam is out at drinks with his friends.

It comes out that he forgot that his boyfriend is going out of town to help his mom through her hysterectomy operation. I mean, that's shitty partner behavior, honestly. Yes, Adam is a bad boyfriend, the whole movie. He does not deserve to win that. And Kyle seems to be such a nice guy, you know, so thoughtful. He deserves better than Adam, that is for sure. The thing is, some guys will invent crazy ghost stories

just to get out of going to therapy, you know? Exactly, yeah. Well, literally invent crazy ghost stories. Well, you know, later on, David puts a grinder back on his phone to like break them up, and I was like, wouldn't be wild if he made this whole thing up just as an excuse, like, no, a ghost put Grindr on there. I swear I'm not back on Grindr, it was a ghost.

I better lay the groundwork. I better start pretending I'm being haunted just in case Kyle finds my phone and sees that Grindr is still on it. Also the idea that David, the 1996 kid ghost is like, I'm gonna get him, I'm gonna put Grindr on his phone. Also the idea that, I'm going to get him. I'm going to put Grindr on his phone. Also the idea that I'm sorry, if Kyle saw him on Grindr, that means Kyle was on Grindr.

He says that a friend of his saw him. Which means that Kyle was looking at Grindr. But he was away from home helping his mom through a hysterectomy. He just needed to like lose himself physically for a moment. He needed to leave his body by expressing his body with a stranger. We don't know what agreement they have.

Yeah, I don't know what their relationship rules are. He needed to celebrate his ability to still conceive, to still spill his seed. Exactly, yeah. Because his mom lost her seed catcher. He needs to, her seed catcher. This is why you're not a doctor, Hallie. I've got bad news, it's about your seed catcher.

What? Don't have... Hallie's a urologist. Don't worry. We've done tests. You should still be able to spill your seed. What? Hallie, Hallie Hagland, biblical urologist. Well, anyway, guys, get ready. It's about to start laughing.

Stop laughing and start screaming. Because we have our first real scare scene where that bully that was bullying Dear David online, he's lying in bed, suddenly a ghostly hand just kind of shoves itself in his mouth and is choking him and he wets himself and he dies. It's not even that ghostly a hand. This is the thing, this is the first scare of the thing. It's just like literally a hand comes out from outside the...

To be honest, when I first saw it, I thought it was his own hand. I thought that hand was scary. I said, that's what I did. Yeah, it is the scariest thing in the movie. But you're scared of hands, Hallie, that's the thing. Crippling fear. Whenever people accidentally call you Hallie Handlin, you go... Give me your way from me.

There are five worms on the end of my arm. Oh no, I found myself in the glove department. Oh god, how do I escape? Well, Hallie, I made some hamburger helper for dinner. Ah! So that night, Adam, he's lonely, he's depressed, he engages with some trolls. Ah, a mouse! But the kind that uses for a computer.

Because your hand uses it. Use your hands. Yeah. So anyway, that night, Adam engages with some trolls. He calls a torrent of memes saying, die in a fire, which gets Dear David's attention. Which again, is this supposed to be red herring, the idea that maybe David died in a fire? That's not what happened. And Dear David goes, why are you so mean? That's how he always starts and Adam ignores that. Good question. And goes to bed. The next day,

Yeah. He sees a chair rocking on its own in his room. And then, I do like that he sets up his his own bedroom like it's a hotel room that just has a single chair pointed at the bed. Yeah, just in a single chair point He sees a new well that's where the cucking Sleep after the cuckoo with the song I wrote just for you He sees a news story about a teen found dead in his bed the next night He is obsessed with reading replies up to his work again. It's all he cares about. What's his reach? What do people think? He has an ominous walk home and then while sleeping again,

the rocking chair starts rocking and he briefly glimpses a ghost boy in the chair. Hallie, did you see it? No, I was eating a salad. I missed the first. The least scary thing to eat. So you felt protected. You felt like you were doing something good for your bowels. Yeah.

Exactly. So at work he hears a buzzing and he seems to have been... A buzz feeding? He's being fed a buzz and he seems to have been transported to the old store from the beginning where the mom's... Bodega. I think we can say it was a bodega. It was a bodega. I guess it's a bodega. It looks we can say it was a bodega. It was a bodega.

I guess it's a bodega. It looks more like a drugstore to me. It looks like a bodega to me. All right. Well, we can agree to disagree. Let's call it a bodega. I mean, you're right. When I said store, a bodega is not a store. So that was a good correction. That was good. Yeah. Specificity. Yeah. Elliot.

I prefer spes-a-spin-city. Sorry, Michael J Fox what? She cut her hair and then America fell out of a love with her It's amazing you not since Samson has someone's hair been such the key to their power Yeah, that's why they call Carrie Russell America Samson So at work she was the face's Samson. So at work... She was the face of Samsonite for a while. Yeah, yeah he was.

So she's been transported to the bodega where the mom is like, have you seen Dear David? Have you seen David? Ask him two questions, but don't ask him three questions. Then suddenly he's in Dear David's dark basement. He gets attacked and then realizes he's back at his desk. What a chilling hallucination he's had. What a daydream. I get that there's like, they decided to include some rules.

Don't be a bully and don't ask him more than two questions. But like, it's pretty fucking lame, right? Like, compared to like The Ring or like Candyman. I was wondering. Gremlins. You know, I, look. It follows. It follows. It follows.

I'll make an admission that if the film is less than compelling, sometimes I miss things. I was like, did I miss some reason why you can only ask two questions and no more? No, there's no reason. No, just because you were told, just because they were told that was the rule. Yeah, that's the thing.

I mean, at least the thing about the bullying, like, makes sense. There's a reason behind it. It kind of makes sense, but once you learn David's backstory, it really doesn't make sense. Baby David was super into Japanese gift-giving ceremonies. I feel like we don't actually know David's backstory. We got a lot of versions of David's backstory.

Oh, so you're saying it's like a last year at Marion VAD type thing where like you figure out what's real and what's not real. It's a real Rashomon. We've got some unreliable narrators in this. That's for sure. I feel like we've got some unreliable filmmakers in this one. Oh, yeah, you earned that smile. You're in that devilish look right there. Yeah. So that night, there's a bunch of stuff. He has his coworker, Evelyn, comes over to keep him company.

Doesn't matter. They find a camera on the floor that, I was not sure if that was something he owned or if it was like a ghostly appearing camera. Well, what's for sure is the cats didn't want him to pick it up. I do remember that. And the cats don't want him to pick up the camera. This leads to nothing.

Yeah. It never comes back, right? No, it back right never comes back unrelated Adam researches David online and considers tweeting about his apartment being haunted But he's like I'm not gonna do that and he ignores his boyfriend's messages but then he has a montage of like happier memories of being with his boyfriend and At this point. I'm not quite sure why he's ignoring his boyfriend's messages except that he's a bad boyfriend I mean the message was really gross. He was just talking about how his mom couldn't take a shit because she was afraid she'd burst her stitches.

Yeah, but then all you have to write back is like, oh, that sucks, you know, or something like that. LOL. Poor mom. I mean, LOL, boof emoji, sick emoji. DIAF. GIF of Stephanie from Full House going, how rude, you know? Yeah, it seemed like he was just in like a flow state of like looking up ghost stuff. DIAF. GIF of Stephanie from Full House going, how rude, you know?

Yeah, it seemed like he was just in like a flow state of like looking up ghost stuff. He's like, not now, Keith. I'm busy. Kyle. Kyle, yeah. So, later that night, does the rocking chair start moving again? You better believe it. And the ghost boy is like, Adam, I'm just a follower.

And Adam wakes up scared. And then there's some Scrabble tiles that have been arranged. Is the implication that David is speaking to him that way too? It's like, David, figure out what your fucking thing is as a ghost. Like, are you in a camera? Are you a rocking chair kid? Do you use Scrabble tiles? Like, what's your deal?

But he did, he put DIAF. So it's back to the bullying thing. Yes, it's back to the bully, because it was all D-I-A-F memes earlier, and he's back to that. But it's, even that David kind of loses interest in that. This was my first interaction with this acronym. I'd never heard of it before. So apparently it stands for die in a fire.

I'd never heard of it before. Maybe they made it up for the movie. I mean, maybe they made it up for the movie. Is it a real thing? Or did they just make it up for the movie? Hallie, go to made up a movie. Is it a real thing? I don't know. Or did they just make it up? Hallie, go to Know Your Meme. I have to be like, don't I give fucks? Wait, is that?

No, that doesn't work. No, that's not. No, di in, oh, D-I-A. Dianu? It would have been enough? Oh, no, it's a real thing. It's a real thing, guys. Don't it add.

So, we're the ones who are out of touch. Yeah. Dan, it's a real thing, guys. It's a real thing. Don't it. So we're the ones who are out of touch. Yeah. Dan, it's a fright. Sure is. It sure is, yeah. It's so good and I'll be fine. I wish that's what it said for you. So Adam's like, I got gotta get away from this ghost.

So he moves all the way one floor up to the apartment, above his own apartment. This is a stupid thing to do. Y'all, this is New York City, guys. Come on. That doesn't happen. No, it doesn't, but also the idea is like, I gotta get away from this ghost.

Luckily, ghosts can't use stairs, I think. So ghosts are notoriously leaden and bounce to the floor one thing I know it's like ghosts can't pass through walls or ceilings. No, he's safe. So he goes there He's like I'm really stressed out with this ghost and this potential breakup that's going on I think I'm gonna do the most stressful thing possible and move Yeah, that's maybe that was his middle ground. It's like well, it'd be too stressful to really move But if I can just move some boxes upstairs Well, that's that I wish the movie then showed that he had an overlapping month so he could just take his time moving stuff

He didn't have to do it all in one day. I mean, that's the way to do it. Yeah, it's worth the money It's worth eating that extra month's rent just to not have the stress of it. Come on I'm just that rent just eat it just eat that just shove it in your mouth Come on. You can't just eat that rent. Just eat it. Just eat that, just shove it in your mouth. Yum, yum, yum, yum. Eat it up.

So he does what is there. The ghost of course follows him. And he starts tweeting about this ghost and his boss loves it. And he writes a Buzzfeed article and his readers are like, "'You should perform an exorcism.'" So he and his coworker kind of do a pretty half-assed

exorcism and he tells his coworker, "'I've been avoiding calls from Kyle "'because I don't know how to respond when he says I love you He keeps saying I love you and I just don't know what the proper response is to that It it you know, I guess it is a half-assed exorcism on the other hand and I forgive me because I'm not Catholic They do manage to get get one of those things that you know has smoke that comes out of it Yeah, yeah, so they So they went to that trouble. They do get the censor

and like a holy water dispenser too, right? Yeah, they went to a church supply store. What do you get that? Christco, yeah. So you gotta go to the Vatican for that? I don't know. They cut out the scene where he flies to the Vatican to ask the Holy Father.

I haven't seen a Catholic version, but I see like down the street from my apartment, there's like Judaica stores. Sure, you got to buy them somewhere. So I'm assuming there's a Catholic version of that. 100%. Of course, they don't make it themselves. You got to buy them somewhere.

They don't make those, you know, offeratory plates and stuff. Yeah, you need that shit. Offeratory? Yeah, for your offerings. I just never heard the word offeratory before. Tithes. You got to tithe. Yeah, when you tithe.

You got to tithe. You got to tithe this. So, now imagining instead of the Got Milk campaign, it's the Catholic Church and they're having got tithes and it's just different silly little scenarios where somebody has to tithe. All the kids today are talking about Tide Pods. Why aren't they talking Tithe Bowls? It's a hot new craze that's sweeping the internet, tithing a tenth of your wages to the church. Kids are loving it.

It's called the tithe challenge. Unfortunately, kids don't have that much of the way of wages, so it's not that effective. Yeah, it's mostly gum that they're giving to the church right now. But a tenth of all their gum. So at night time, there's a spooky glowing mist under the door as Dear David tries a different way to get at Adam. And the cats are like... That's a classic Dracula tactic.

Yeah, and the cats are like, I don't like this. Also the fact that David's already in the apartment. So I don't know why this is the mist under the door as if he's trying to get in. I thought he was in the internet. What the f... Where is this ghost? You'll find out. Where does he live? You'll find out.

Where does he live? I really needed an answer. What's this ghost's home base? Yeah. That's the kind of note you get from executives. Unhoused ghost. I worked on a TV show once where some characters were licking a toad that they found in the forest to get high.

And one of the executive notes was, wait, so they just reach into a bush and pull out that toad? So does this toad just live in that bush? We're going to have to, we're going to need some more information about this. It's like, yeah, the audience is really going to bump on that. You need to have a fucking Breaking Bad cold open of this fucking frog leaving its house, kissing its wife on the cheek, being like, going back to work, I hope nobody licks my ass.

Another lick, another dollar. Cane toads come from Australia, not anyway. And so the ghost David shows up and Adam's like, what do you want from me? And David's like, that's two questions. And then hits him with a typewriter. He wakes up. He's constantly having bad dreams and waking up.

Adam listens to a recording of the haunting. He hears a noise downstairs, wanders around in the dark. It turns out it's Kyle. He's constantly having bad dreams when waking up. Adam listens to a recording of the haunting. He hears a noise downstairs, wanders around in the dark. It turns out it's Kyle, he's back. Kyle's back, his mom's hysterectomy is done. He can be there again. They have a very tense conversation about Adam's bad communication skills. And Kyle this one-

And his ass fucking moved while he was out of town and didn't tell him. That's bonkers. Yes, you didn't tell me that you moved apartments. And this is when Kyle's like, and my friend found your picture on Grindr. And Adam's like, I took it off of Grindr. I haven't been on there in a long time.

Well also he's like. I feel like that initial suggestion that this whole thing is just him trying to explain why he's back on Grindr and not get busted for it. Also prior to all that stuff, like he's just like, and by the way, you've been haunted by a ghost. And I find out via Twitter. I have to find out online.

While I was away, you moved, got haunted, and went back on Grindr, and you didn't tell me any of this? He's like, oh, oh, oh. You guys, Kyle fucking sucks, okay? Kyle is the worst part of this movie. Wow. Oh, really? So tell me, because he's certainly a boring character.

So annoying. He's just like all, like, I don't, I get why. What's the main guy? Adam. I get why Adam's not into it. Al is like, get off my dick. I know, seriously. And then what's the thing with like,

I think that until you sort your shit out, I should move out, and then he hands him his key, and it's like, he moved apartments. That key is to nowhere, don't worry about it. That's a move key. Symbolic. That's true, that's a good one. Maybe it was the key to his heart, I don't know.

Yeah, is that a key to your fucking dresser? Here's the key to our sex handcuffs, just take them for now, I won't be using them. But you'll need them on the grinder. I mean, that's a big deal, like. The key to the city that you got, I don't want anymore. For defeating the penguin, yeah. Yeah.

I mean, if he was given that key by Eric Adams, it's basically worthless. Yeah, throw him in the trash. So do you think he's going to be the first- Turkey, in a horror. Is he going to be the first mayor of New York to ever just disappear and no one knows what happened to him?

Uh, he's done. Because he would not be the first mayor of New York to flee the country when the law starts looking at him. He would be the third mayor of New York at least to do that. Wow. Storied history. Yeah. Hey, for more about mayors who had to flee the country because of the law, listen to the 99% invisible breakdown, The Power Broker.

We talk about it there. Anyway. Synergy. Yeah. Law growth. So Kyle dumps Adam and Adam. We talk about it there. Anyway. Synergy. Yeah. Log roll. So Kyle dumps Adam, and Adam is still tweeting about the haunting.

He's losing touch with his friends. His whole life is just about this haunting. Just tweeting about it. This is when he goes home. He does the thing that all of us would do if we know a ghost is in our apartment watching every move. He gets ready to start masturbating. But his laptop camera turns on,

and he's like, oh, what? That's probably why he's so stressed out. He just needs to crank one out, right guys? Yeah, I haven't been able to do it since I've been haunted. It is hard to do it when you know that there's a ghost kid watching you all the time. Yeah. So is that your nightmare? Really takes the flame out of things, right?

You know what I mean? I don't know if that's a butt lay on words on or... I don't know. Real boner kill. And also, yeah, Hallie, when she said that she did a... Some kid with a flat head sees you, like, I'm not in love. She did a hand motion where her finger was pointing up and then drooped. And I didn't know what that was. I guess that's a softening erection.

Yeah, as a boner being killed by a ghost. So, Dan, is this your ultimate nightmare that you are jacking it to some internet porn and then the ghost turns your Camera on I guess so that you're live streaming on the cam site. He's using to masturbate to I Don't know do I get a cut? I mean that's part of his I'm like yo yo yo like Did he already have an account is yeah, is he making coins and shit for whatever thing whatever? Yeah, I guess David was to set up an account and shit for whatever they whatever. Yeah, I guess David must have set up an account.

Set up a cam account for him. He's always setting up accounts for him. Yeah, he's constantly setting up accounts. He's sending stuff through his... He's less a ghost and more of an identity thief at this point. Anyway, then his phone starts playing back things that he said that are, you know, conversations he said, but his follower count is blowing up because of this haunting. That night...

And probably because of the camera situation. Sure, yeah, he's not afraid to bear all online. This is when David ups things a little bit. He literally drags Adam out of bed and drags him through the vermin-filled bodega and then into, I say glaring and howling, and then down the steps into David's basement. And that's when we see, Adam witnesses a scene

where David's dad catches him looking at inappropriate online content and he gets mad at him. So David starts strangling his father. And David's mom, in order to stop him, hits him in the head so hard that the top of his head just breaks off. Yeah. Which is hilarious.

This is a very funny thing to have happen. Yeah. And then he somehow manages to survive in a coma for 20 years with a huge chunk of his head missing. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'm not a head scientist. Weren't there like microchips and shit in his head, or am I thinking of something else?

Maybe that's later. Maybe you fell asleep while watching this movie and started dreaming something better. Possibly, but it is a... So this is, I guess, and this is... I assume at the timeibly, but it is a, so this is I guess, and this is, I assume at the time, this is David's origin story, you know? Which means that the why don't you kill yourself,

that doesn't mean anything, the dying of fire, that doesn't mean anything. No, he was just learning, he was learning the ways of being an internet jerk, I guess. Yes. And he was being radicalized by the internet. Yes, he wasn't victimized, he was radicalized. That's the real horror story here, guys.

Yeah, it's an American horror story. Yeah, and- Ryan Murphy, listen to us. And- Why don't you make a show about this? I think he's made 10 million shows about this already. He's made so many shows all about this, yeah. This is what Feud, Betty and Joan,

was all about, being radicalized on the internet. Not bad, I gotta say, not bad. Put two stars. You put two big stars in a show. It was okay. Any show that puts fake words in the mouth of Olivia Havlin to the point where she has to take them to court, I'm not in favor of. Rest in peace, Olivia Havlin, the true queen of Hollywood, one of the last links to the

classic era. I don't want anyone to take it and get her mad. I mean, I'm not saying it was tasteful. I will never, I will never tar, tar Ryan Murphy with the tasteful brush. Not like my nudes. Stuart's nudes are very tasteful, extremely tasteful. I would say he shouldn't just tape them up on the walls of subway stations, but you know, if you're going to tape up self-nudes on it, he'll say... He wants to get the word out, you know, how are you going to do it?

Yeah, I'm trying to do some street-level marketing for your body. Yes All right, okay, that's fair. Joy? So Adam wakes up in the rain He takes a shower and when he comes to the shower the phrase DIAF is written on the mirror in steam. Oh At work Adam's just getting weird and distant. He's just getting paranoid He can't relate to people. And his boss is like... Again, at this point, like, we know that David isn't like a sympathetic anti-bully person.

He's bad. He's a bad thing. Yeah. So like the whole like him harping on the DIAF thing is really weird. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't really... No, you're mean. You're killing people. Yeah, good point. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't really... You're mean. You're killing people.

Yeah, good point. Yeah. It certainly seems that David is the real villain in this movie about an evil ghost. And Adam's boss is like, let's take this haunting project even bigger. And Adam begs Kyle to help him find out who uses the Dear David handle. He's like, can't you hack it or have one of your hacker friends do it? And Adam then brings in a sort of... Okay, here's where there's two characters that should have been one character.

He brings in this sort of millennial psychic who just wanders around his apartment and is like, oh, there's bad energy in here. The apartment's not haunted, you're haunted. And you got to find out the truth about David. He starts doing some online research. He decides to use the internet to research the ghosts that's been haunting him for weeks that he didn't think to research on the internet Even though his internet job is all about using the internet He does some online research until a note is slipped under his front door

Which leads him to a meeting in a coffee shop with an internet ghost psychic detectives Internet sleuth and this is where they like this sleuth and that and that millennial kind of like Medium this should have been the same character. They should have not been in it at all. Yeah, they're ridiculous They were like how do we just it seems like we painted ourselves into a corner and we need some information provided But we haven't written a character who could provide that information ourselves into a corner by adapting this ghost tweet thread By thinking I think that is not a story and doesn't have a story on it. I do like when the medium is in his apartment and is like, I'm getting really bad energy from your computer.

I'm like, no shit. This movie, as Dan mentioned very early, it's a thin movie. There's not a lot going on in this movie. This is maybe the least amount of movie I remember us having in a movie at the Flabbist for a while. But it's also, there's no structure to anything. Things just kind of happen and wander along. And so even the scares, there are times when I'm like, I mean, Night Swim was kind of similar in some ways.

It was like a series of the same scare over and over again. And you're like, are you going to like heighten this? Or when we see, or when an actor like Justin Long comes up, we're like, oh, thank God, this is an actual actor. It feels like a movie for a moment. I can briefly cling to this life boy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he is a real life boy, isn't he?

I didn't... I combined a couple of different things, like a life raft and a buoy. Life saver, that's what I was looking for. Life saver. Yeah. So That's what I was looking for. Life saver. Yeah. So here's how you could use one.

How would you guys celebrate life boy to this year? Yeah, life boy and his message of life for all of us. Speaking of lifesavers, I just want to take a moment to mention, there's a joke in the Marx Brothers movie Horse Feathers where a woman falls out of a canoe and she says throw me a lifesaver and throw me the lifesaver and Groucho takes out a packet of lifesavers and starts throwing them into water. My kids find this so funny but they also are always like wait they had lifesavers then and that always that really gets to them. I mean that was the biggest surprise that's what I thought when you told me that joke

yeah it's a shock for modern audiences to be like they had this candy in the 30s. Yeah, but that's why, you know, the classics. Did it taste the same or did it taste like sawdust? I'm sure it tasted like sawdust and petroleum jelly. And it tasted like a bunch of twigs and herbs made out of cocaine. That's true. Back then it probably tasted better. It'd be like real pork fat, you know, boiled in cocaine. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Mm hmm. So anyway, it's all butter. It'd be like real pork fat, you know, boiled in cocaine. Yeah, sure.

Mmm. So anyway, it's all butter. Just slathered with butter. Yeah. Don't make them like that anymore. No, none of this. Lard. Lard. Oh, yeah, lard. Instead of corn syrup, it's just the sugar and the cocaine would just get mixed together, you know? Yeah, I mean it earned the name Life Saver at that point. It saved a lot of lives during the Depression. People didn't have that much to live for. You could get by on the calories of one lifesaver a month.

Yeah, what a good time. Yeah, I was made of pemmican. Pemmican has been a big subject in the house lately because my younger son is like, I want to try some pemmican. That's what I should have for my snack at school. Who sells pemmican these days? I think you might have to put some work into making that. I don't know that you can just hop on down to Trader Joe's. What is Pumkin? Is that the shit where you're like keeping your armpit while you march and then it like

softens up? I don't know about that. But it's like a mix of like jerked meat and like berries and you know, and nuts and things like that. Like it's a... And you can sue it? It's like a trail mix type of thing, but it's all like grossly mushed together. Like a power bar or something.

Yes, it's like a 19th century power bar or 18th century even. So... ?Hemican recipe? Dried meat, tallow and sometimes dried berries. Tallow. Being raw doesn't require refrigeration. I really don't get enough tallow in my current diet. Got to eat some candles.

And it's tallow-een, you know, it's the time of the year. So he's doing this online research and the ghost sleuth, online sleuth is like, hey look, you should search online for a mad woman named Loopy Linda. This sounds like the kind of shit Loopy Linda is always pulling online. And he finds videos of this woman Loopy Linda who's a mental patient. And these videos, pretty well edited, right? Considering it is a security camera feed from the padded room of a mental hospital, the fact that it has multiple angles and close-ups that are edited together.

It's pretty impressive. It's very impressive. And she's being told that she murdered her husband and put her son in a coma, and she goes, no, I fought the devil. I fought the devil. And then Adam sees a story that was briefly mentioned earlier on the movie as the sort of thing Buzzfeed should be on top of, about a David who woke from a coma after 21 years. Could it be the same David?

Wait, I have a question though. Yes. So are we to believe that what we saw in the dream before where David was the one who actually killed the dad is true or are we to believe that the mom actually killed them both? I think it is giving the movie too much credit to think it's being ambiguous. I think that what happened, what we're being told is

David was trying to kill the dad, she attacked David and then she was blamed for both crimes. And she has now believes that David is possessed or a demon or something like that, or who knows. There's rare places that I'm gonna compliment this movie, but I did kind of, I gave it a little credit, I'm like, oh, that coma detail, I really didn't think that that was gonna be tied in.

That was kind of fun that it was the same guy. I am gonna be, I'm gonna do the opposite. All parts of the Buffalo this movie. I'm gonna say as soon as he mentioned it, I was like like, well this is gonna be part of the plot at some point. Oh, okay. But look, we can, we can, we can. I thought it was successfully played off as a joke because Justin Long, like it was introduced with Justin Long being like, you could make all these like, lists off of this coma guy, like 21 restaurants you go to after you get out of a coma in New York.

Anyway. That's true. Number one, Sobara. Number two, Times Square Applebee. I was going to say the exact same thing. Get those fucking Dalaritas, baby. Number three, Guy Fieri's American Cafe. We have to go back in time for that one. If you've been in a coma that long, one sip of a fucking dollarita would blow your mind. I mean, any food would blow your mind with that flame.

Especially if a lot of your head is not there anymore, then very much so, yeah. Yeah. So Adam goes to the hospital. He is told by a, at first, very helpful receptionist that David died a few days earlier. And then the guy's like, who are you again? And he goes, oh, I'm being haunted by his ghost.

He steals that guy's security badge, sneaks into the records for David Johnson, which leads him to the address of David's doctor. Also the morgue thing, that the body has disappeared from the morgue. Oh, that's right, I forgot about that. The body's disappeared. And he goes to the doctor's house, just walks right in. The door's open, just walks in. I don't even think he rings the doorbell or knocks. I forgot about that. The body is dissipated. He goes to the doctor's house, just walks right in.

The door is open, just walks in. I don't even think he rings the doorbell or knocks. I can't remember. And... I think the door is open. That's why he's so specific. And he finds the doctor, Dr. Landers, hanging, dead. At the top of the stairs in a pretty nice foyer.

It's got stained glass. It's stained glass. Yeah. The wild thing is... That looked like a dipmas park sort of situation. I was saying the exact same actually. That looked like a Ditmus Park sort of situation. I was saying the exact same thing. That looked like a Ditmus Park house. Where else in New York can you have a house like that?

And there's a thing, this is a moment, so he sees his body. What a dream to live in Ditmus Park. And it's just a hop, skip, and a jump from Hinterland's Bar. It's lovely. So he sees the body hanging, and then her eyes open up and he goes running out and I'm like, wow, this is based on a true story. This happened.

And you know what? And he doesn't, her eyes open and he doesn't say, oh, let me help you. Let me call 911. You're not dead yet. He just runs. What an asshole. He's like, oh, you got this. Okay, you're fine. Oh, you're fine. Okay, I'll see you. Since we were getting specific about New York stuff, I do want to say that the very look at it about Dittmes Park. Yeah Yeah, most people are not familiar with yeah. Yeah Movie that's where they shoot a lot of movies when he was going to work and it's like living in a suburb in the heart of New York

It's amazing. You can have a full free-standing three-story house. It's dead. I think I we live near it I've seen it. I'm saying for the listeners. The listeners who live in places like Alaska, Texas, Kuala Lumpur, Australia, Brazil, they don't know Ditmus Park. Hey, if you're trying, like if you're catching up on movies and you're watching Shiva Baby,

cause you're like, I'm going through a real Rachel Sennett phase, Shiva Baby shot in Ditmus Park. Great, great stuff. Anyway, the point is, it's just gonna get less and less interesting what I'm about to say the longer we go. No, I just, at the beginning of the movie, I wanted to say- You're delaying now.

Now you're the one who's delaying now. I wanted to say- He's trying to build up anticipation again. I wanted to say because it was demanded of me that I was watching the beginning when he was going to work and Audrey saw the very beginning and she kept being like this geography makes sense Yeah, he went out that exit and that's the exit you would come out of in the subway. So Damning with more faint faint praise dear David

Danning it with faint praise that's damning is in Dan McCoy But I said you say this, the movie may not be based on a true story, but it's based on a true commute, and you can't take that away from it. Exactly. They did the work. They did the work of figuring out how you would get

from basically Queens to Manhattan, right? So, okay. So if you're coming to the city, you can use it as a guidebook. So Adam, he's like, I'm gonna do this. He caffeinates himself, watches a movie on TV, trying to stay awake, falls asleep instantly. When he wakes up, David is on the TV

and he tries to get Adam to cut his own wrists. He's like using his ghost powers to control Adam's arms. And when Adam wakes up, his arm is all cut up. At work, Evelyn is pissed at Adam for sending her insulting DMs. Have we mentioned Evelyn yet? Yeah, yeah, that's the coworker who like helped him with the exorcist and stuff like that.

And Kyle calls and he's like, it was easy to find out who has that Dear David handle. Nobody does, it doesn't exist, you've got to let it go. And then he's at work and his coworker's like, hey, can you see, tell me what you think about this article. And the article is 10 reasons to kill yourself at work. Pictures of Adam killing himself.

And he's so mad. He's like, this is fucked up. And he has a big blow up. He starts shouting at everyone in the office. You used AI to create these images of me. This is 2017. So it's like, did he pose for these pictures? At no point was he like,

how'd you get those pictures of me doing that? He just is like, this is crazy. Also, like, dog, you're being haunted. Just assume everything fucked up you see is ghost related. They have Photoshop. Especially because when he sees the article, it really says, top 10 reasons to be yourself at work.

Yeah, which like, what would those reasons be? That would be... I mean, I feel like the subplot of this movie is this other character who is holding on so tightly to their job Even though they should be fired and this is more evidence that she does not know what you know What are those top ten reasons Dan? What are some reasons you should be yourself at work?

Never tried to be anyone else than yourself at work. What other reasons? Yeah Yeah, it's only been it's only been to my benefit. Yeah number one keeps expectations Number two don't get called on to do work. They don't trust you. Number three. What? These are lies now. These are getting into lies territory.

Number three, fading into the background means... Okay, no, Dan is a great worker. You should hire him. So Justin Long, he comes out and he's like, hey everybody, everything's fine. You should go home, take it easy. To be honest, he handles the situation pretty well, I think. I think he's a really good boss in this moment.

He deescalates, he does not get things worse. He sends the troubled employee out, checks that everyone else is okay. He's been set up as kind of a shallow guy, but he does a good job bossing here. So good on you. I feel like this was Jonah Peretti's editorial influence. Oh, perhaps.

This is where the boss is bad at his job. Make him good at his job. Yeah, yeah, so we'll put this in the cheers column instead of the jeers column. Yeah, because everyone knows your name. And at home, Kyle is mad. He's like, Adam, why did you send me these abusive emails? And Adam is like, David's taken over my feed.

He starts posting anti-David cartoons where he's attacking David, and he's drawn David with part of his head missing, and people do not like it. The comments are not good on this one, which I understand. Stop bullying this headless ghost. I want to mention Justin Long being like, well, your work was supposed to become more relatable, and I don't think the audience can really relate

to the feeling of being haunted by a semi-headed ghost. And he throws David's rocking chair down the stairs and he's like, I'm in control now. He's not in control. David goes in and starts erasing Adam's work as he's doing it. No, his art, that's how he expresses his soul. And Adam asked the third question,

which I think is just why- Scott McCloud would be shitting himself if he saw this part. That's true. But I'm trying to make, understand and reinvent comics. Stop, no. I reread Understanding Comics again recently. Great book. Just a fantastic book. I wasn't a huge fan of his somewhat recent follow-up, Sculptor.

Did you read that one? Sculptor, I liked the art a lot. I liked the storytelling. I didn't love the story, you know. But he's still a master craftsman, but it just wasn't the story for me. But Zot, great series. Can't deny it. So if Scott McLeod's listening, we're not...

You're mainly in the cheers category. Oh, still with Stuart. Only partly in the jeers for that one. Only partly in the cheers for that one. Only partly for Sculptor. Okay. And Adam ends up... Oh, so this is when he asks David a third question, which triggers David's new ability to turn Adam into a living video game that he can control with a controller.

I forgot about this! And it's like, he controls Adam and makes him light himself on fire, but it's like he's both a video game character and also himself, but it's not like a computer animated video camera. It's live action footage of him moving like he's a video game character. I could have, like, if this was where the movie was gonna go, I could have used more of this earlier in the film. Yes.

This is pretty late in the movie to get this silly. Yes, I agree. Adam ends up backing you. What do you think of the video game sequence, Halle? Were you this... You really related to it, right? ...video game experience? As a gamer, yeah. Yeah.

No. I was confused about why there was like two of them now. Yes, that you're seeing both the like dear David version of it and the real version of it. It was very confusing. Yeah. Yeah. It was kind of, it was like, who is seeing this video game version?

But he's also, but there are also two Adams. Yes. There was like a, and then so that confused me. Yeah. And you're just trying to enforce ethics in the gaming and journalism industry, right? Yeah. Exactly. That's what you're just trying to enforce ethics in the gaming and journalism industry, right? Adam he ends up back in David's basement and people from Adam's life are like you suck. You're not good enough You know, you'll never be good enough. And then there's an evil version of I just read tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow So I do know about games. I don't appreciate the jokes as if because I'm a woman

I don't know about games. No, the I mean the joke is more that you're just not you don't appreciate the jokes as if because I'm a woman, I don't know about games. No, I mean, the joke is more that you're just not, you don't play them though. I've been for a video game. I know, but that's not, okay, sorry, I apologize. I brought a fresh perspective as someone who didn't know anything about games. Wow, which one, the new Mortal Kombat or?

No. Yeah, yeah, she was coming up with, she was assigned to the Babalities for the new Mortal Kombat. That's pretty cute. Different ways to have the characters turn into babies. Friendships. That'd be cool.

Yeah. Okay, sorry, back to the game. And then they're like, Hallie, you're on friendships. And you're like, okay, well what if he like, reaches into his, reaches down his throat, pulls his intestines out, and it's like there's poop spraying out.

And they're like, no, no, again, we want friendships, not fatalities. I don't get any of this because I don't play this video. That's fine, that's fine. So anyway, there's an evil Adam who's like, you're always going to be alone. Evelyn and Kyle, they show up to check on Adam because they haven't heard from him.

And they see his apartment is on fire and they shout for him. And he hears them shouting, which gives him the strength to believe in himself. But now he has to fight grown up David, the ghost monster. And again, this is a little late for this monster, David, to be showing up. And Adam, luckily, he manages to take this ghost of a comatose child who's missing part of his head and beat him to death.

So Adam does win this fight. Yeah. But he does it through also, I guess, claiming his own self-esteem. Like, during this scene, there's a lot about, I'm not gonna let the internet tell me how to feel about myself. People do love me. Yeah. Yeah. He's realizing that he can be the troll in his life.

He doesn't need other people to troll him. I mean, it's always been kind of messagey, but it gets real messagey at the end here. Yes, very much so. Anyway, Adam is about to escape the burning apartment when a blast knocks him out and Evelyn and Kyle pull him to safety and Adam tells Kyle he loves him,

which feels like a little too little too late. Like if he's got to drag you out of a burning building for you to say you love him, then this is not the man for you, Kyle. Kyle should consider himself lucky he got anything. People know that stuff has been happening because, for instance, his co-workers, the bad messages she supposedly got, got changed to good messages. But that confused me because I'm like, well, he doesn't remember sending any messages.

So why did that happen? I mean, Dan, when I'm on it, when I've had a couple in me, I'm sending all kinds of crazy shit to people in my contacts. That's true. Look, he's been haunted for days. He's got all this built up sperm in him from not being able to masturbate for a while. So he's liable to tweet, to text any positive thing to somebody. Yeah. Ellie, you're saying how much that hurts for a guy.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of people don're saying how much that hurts for a guy. Yeah, I mean, a lot of people don't understand how much that hurts for a guy. It needs to be that much like toxic gas that needs to be vented periodically. I just like the idea that when you get really horny, what you do is you send out really nice messages to people like that are just like, you've been killing it at work.

Maybe I just, maybe my sexuality just triggers something different in me than you. Maybe you have a more grim kind of dark sexuality. But I get off on Phrasing People. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dance Dark Passenger takes over. Well, it's very mysterious. It's a very mysterious sexuality, Elliott.

It's mysterious. It is mysterious. And should remain that way. And Kyle manages to save David's cats also. And everyone apologizes to each other. But as Adam is being taken away in an ambulance, there's kind of flashes of David's face in the reflection in the window, which I don't know if it was implying that he's still haunted or David lives in him now.

He is still haunted. That David lived in him. That the real Adam died and now David inhabits him. And this is a true story. It is a true story. So in real life that guy is now an evil ghost, is what you said. And it ends then, it goes to a woman who's on a Twitch stream. And she's like, this Adam stuff is all fake. It's so dumb.

And these snarky commenters are telling her to like, to say three questions. She goes, okay, I will. Dear David, you suck. Why are you so dumb? Why are you such so crappy? And then- Ohly so fugly That's right, and then the screen glitters and then she doesn't even see his fucking picture How she doesn't know ugly and then she said no it undercuts her message

Yeah, her second question was for real remember just the number four Yeah, that's right. Yeah, and and she and their screen But it's like burns The number four. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And there's green glitches. It's not even sick burns. And then she suddenly, her body is taken over and she smashes her own face into the table in front of her until it's a real pulpy mess. This was a little bit too harsh for me. And this feels so much like a scene that was tacked on at the end because they felt they needed more gore.

And I was like, too far, guys. Too far. I'm going to say something nice about whoever wrote this, which is that they've never. God damn. What? Are you in love with this person or something? No, I'm just saying... Oh, God. I'm going to say that they have never entered the bully zone in their life because whenever they try and write someone being a bully online,

it is so absurd. They are like... It reminds me of a... So my sons have really gotten into the idea of roasting each other and they'll have kind of roast battles in the back of the car. And the roasts are mild. These are mild roasts. They'll...

My older son, he'll be like, you know, when... Your mom is so dumb, you know, he'll do those kinds of stuff, but they never quite work. And then my younger son will just turn to him and go, you're the stupidest person in the world. And it's so intense. It's just like so... he just says it so seriously.

And I'm always like cringing, like, ooh, rough. I wish. No, I... Harsh but fair, right? I like to imagine Gabriel being like, you're talking about our mother. That would be really funny. We have the same mom.

But yeah, so that's, and that's dear David, the ghost lives on and it's just going after random streamers. Maybe smash their face against the end. Maybe they added the scene at the end because they were trying to clarify for people who had confusion like some of us did as to whether or not David lived on through Adam, they were demonstrating David lives on.

That he lived on. Yeah. Yeah. That he's not easy to kill a ghost. So this, I think the ending of the movie kind of remind me of something. I think this is going to lead us directly into final judgment. So, Dan, do you want to set up final judgments for everyone? Oh, so it's not going to lead us into, I I'm gonna lead and then this will be the beginning. Okay

Let's offline about this later. Dan. I don't need to work this out on camera Final judgments. This is a section where we decide if this is a good movie a bad movie or a what? Right A little better than we usually have. The Shocktober ones. Was it totally scarifying, totally snorifying, or frighteningly funny, or the special Shocktober category said everyone hates but me? So, what I was saying is that the ending of this movie,

specifically the sequence where this woman who's a streamer ends up smashing her face into her keyboard, brought to mind a movie that I think does a much better job of capturing the like alienating feel of living most of your life online. There's a movie called Cam, which is fucking great. It was directed by the same guy who directed How to Blow Up a Pipeline a few years ago. Did you say it's called Ham? Cam.

Like camera. Cam. Cam. Cam, say it's called Ham? Cam. Cam. Like your favorite character from Modern Family. And it's about a young cam girl who's very ambitious and successful. A young ham girl? You're getting so little sleep lately. I'm asking for it at this point.

A young ham girl. This is bad. There's something about Stuart when he wears glasses that makes me want to go after him even more. Now I get it. I get it now. I accept it. So it's about a cam girl. So she's a cam girl.

She's very, she's successful. And then she discovers somebody is, seems to be impersonating, not only like using her account but like is her on the internet. And she's trying to figure out why this doppelganger of hers exists in the digital space. It's great. And it just, like thinking about like the ending of this movie mimics some stuff from Cam.

And it just really highlighted the fact that this movie does not know what it's doing. It's like they throw in a few scares here and there, but like it feels even to the title is wrong-headed like You're calling it dear David does not indicate. It's scary or about a ghost yeah calling to mind a Twitter thread which if you're already Interested in the Twitter threat like you don't need the name like called scary ghost thing

There's no there's also a there's also like a YA Rom-com movie called Dear David that exists already. And the title works much better for that. That's actually what I watched. Oh, no. So I'm going to say this is snorifying. Snorifying. Yeah, I also say it's snorifying. This is our friend Kevin Marr who has the show Kevin Geeks Out

does a thing called The Kindest Cut, which is just taking a movie and only including the stuff that you want to see in that movie, like the funny stuff. Often, it's enough to give you an idea of the plot. This is a movie that would really benefit from a Kindest Cut because there is some wacky stuff in here that's really funny and weird and wrong-headed and if you cut this movie down to like seven minutes I would be amused by it but otherwise it has so much nothing going

on that I have to say snorifying what do you guys think in LA on the other coast yeah I am also gonna call it snorifying because for all the reasons you guys said already, like this just not very much happens and it feels very weird that it feels like it's being very like, um, uh, uh, well, I'm like blanking on the word very like it's sticking very closely. The details of erotic. Yeah, very erotic.

It's it's sticking closely. I assumed to what happened in the Twitter thread because otherwise you would have invented some more interesting things to have happen. Right. I don't know why it's showing such fidelity, it seems, to it, but it's such a... The haunting is so low-level. Is that the word that escaped you all at? It was not. Fidelity?

It was not. Hard for you to recall that word? Hailey, it was one time. One time. But it feels like there's just not a lot going on in this movie. It feels like this. I feel like after when I watched Night Swim, I was like, this movie doesn't really have the scares I'm looking for. And then I watched this and I was like, Night Swim, I'm sorry. You know, you were doing what you needed to do.

But Dear David is, it's like kind of barely a movie. Which is too bad because I like watching movies. Hallie, what do you think? Yeah, I liked the, the premise of this movie. I can't tell if you guys, it didn't seem messagey to me that there would be a horror movie about someone who's like a vigilante against internet bullies. I thought that was intriguing and like a good idea.

And then just, they just didn't do anything with it. It made me feel like any time I write something, I'm trying way too hard, cause this didn't. Well that was the thing that was baffling to me about. And it's a movie and nothing I read. About this movie, I'm like, this was a movie that they were like, yeah, let's go ahead and make it.

That's the part that confuses me about this movie. I wouldn't be surprised. Well, I wouldn't be surprised if you never know what's going on behind the scenes if they were like, we have a release date set for this movie, so go make it. And they don't really have time to do much with it. Like there's always, I will say, I'll give our proviso that we use sometimes

where it's like, you don't know what's going on behind the scenes with movies. The creative people who make movies are often undercut or handcuffed or held back or hurt by production difficulties, scheduling difficulties, the people they answer to money-wise. So you never know. I don't want to go for... I don't want to be a real troll bully and be like, everyone who made this movie sucks. They're really bad.

Yeah. We just said BuzzFeed... I think we made fun of BuzzFeed Studios. That was it. Exactly. And we made fun of those cartoons. But that's... Hey, we just said Buzzfeed, I think we made fun of Buzzfeed Studios. That was it. Exactly. And we made fun of those cartoons. But that's, hey, that's pretty mild bullying, honestly. That's true. But you never know.

We're all heroes. Are you guys trying to be so nice just because of this movie in particular, or is this your new thing? I think we're just kind of nicer in general now. Oh, okay. But it is baffling to me that this movie was made. Or that someone didn't see the script and say, like, can we add some more ghost stuff in this? Like, can we make this scarier or like funnier or like more exciting?

But you never know. Like, are they worried that like people are going to show up who are like, oh, I was a fan of the Twitter thread and there's changes and I don't like it. Like, do you think that's going to happen? I mean, I wonder if, or it may be also just the fact, I wonder if BuzzFeed was like, stick with what we own, don't change anything about it. I don't know. Well, given the fact that none of us have researched

the Twitter thread, we actually don't know if there is a lot of fidelity to the Twitter thread. But I bet it did sell. I bet it sold because of Zola Stewart. I feel like they probably were like, maybe it sold even around the same time. And they were like, that did so well, let's buy this one. Kelly, do you think we could sell a movie based on our chore from years ago?

Oh my god BuzzFeed Studios. I forget what I said about Dear David it's great why don't you buy ours for it. Wow. To quote intellectual property theft there. To quote Mr. T Tiger it's great. Okay you say it. I know he says they're great still. This season on the Adventure Zone, Abnibles.

Get ready for a brand new crime-fighting trio, here to protect the anthropomorphic muscular animal citizens of River City. Featuring Justin McElroy as Axelisle, the firefighting Axelato. Clint McElroy as Roger Moore, the debonair cow of mystery. Griffin McElroy as Navy Seal, the raw seal that has never served in the armed forces. And Travis McElroy as every other swole critter in River City. This swear-free, Saturday morning cartoon-inspired story airs every Thursday on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Emily Fleming. And I'm Jordan Morris. We're real comedy writers. And real friends. And real fucking cheapskates. We say, why subscribe to expensive streaming services when you can stream tons of insane movies online for free As long as you're fine with 25 randomly inserted super loud car insurance commercials on our new podcast free with ads

We review streaming movies from the darkest corner of the Internet's Bargain bin from the good to the weird to the holy shit Look at John Claude Van Damme's big old butt Free with ads a free podcast about free movies that's worth the price of admission every Tuesday on MaximumFun.org or your favorite pod spot Hey, you know what we've got a sponsor this week and that sponsor is named factor and you know, I love what they're putting down here in the ad copy because I'm a guy with a lot of sweaters and factor reminds us that sweater weather is here and it pairs perfectly with savory fall foods when

you're having a sweater you're having a sweater when you're having a sweater on your body down on a sweater you're a. When you're chowing down on a sweater because you're a moth. You want to have some savory fall foods and factors, fresh, never frozen meals, pair perfectly with your busy fall schedule. And you know what? For whatever reason, and I know the reason, I just have a bunch of Halloween-loving freak friends, and also we've got flop TV going on. October is always filled with stuff. Yeah Dan swamped guys. Stuffed like a

cornucopia on a Thanksgiving table. So if you don't have a lot of time. Oh but that's in November. You know you can have a cornucopia anytime. Yeah it doesn't just have to be in November. When it comes to meals, everyone wants the same thing. Options, that's why Factor offers 35 wholesome meals every week, so you'll always find something you love that suits your lifestyle from easy breakfasts and smoothies. That's a lot of meals for one week, that's five meals a day.

You should not be eating that many meals. Perhaps it's for a family, you know? I mean, I think it's the options of meals. Perhaps it's for a family, you know? I mean, I think it's the options of meals. Perhaps it's none of your business, Elliott. That's true, you know what? I shouldn't be meal-shaking. You shouldn't argue with the sponsor. Policing other people's food habits.

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Yeah, protein. I do. Shrimp. I like that also. Shrimp's great. And blackened salmon delivered right to your door. Sounds good. Ready in just two minutes, you'll savor every last bite. I've had some of these factor meals. I, unlike

Elliot, love to cook, but also like Elliot, sometimes maybe I don't want to cook. Just because you love something doesn't mean you want to do it all the time. And factor meals is a great option. These meals were delicious. I enjoyed them. So if you want to enjoy them too, you can go to factormeals.com slash flop 50 and use code flop 50 to get 50% off your first box and 20% off your next month. That is code flop 50 at factormeals.com slash flop 50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month.

Is factor brought to you by the same people who made Fear Factor? Because I wouldn't need that. No. No, no, I don't. No, this is nothing to be afraid of. I think I've told the story before about how I didn't get to eat too many of our Factor meals because my wife kept taking them to work for lunch.

I'd be like, I'll have this today. Oh, it's gone. Oh, I took that for lunch. She liked them. So Elliot had to eat sawdust. Yeah, look, I had to sweat my own pemmican. And get all the lifesavers, yeah. I have a little plug to do now that we're in the plug section.

If you are listening to this, you still have a little bit of time to go support Jiggle Studio, a studio gym space opening here in Brooklyn, New York that my wife and I are opening with some friends. This is our first time branching out from just doing bars. Instead, we're doing a workout space that's going to be classes like yoga, pilates. There's going to be burlesque class, dance classes, and then Charlene's patented hangover helper class. It's a ton of fun.

She's patented. If I say it on a podcast, it's patented, right? Yeah, yeah. Just take that class, put it in an envelope, mail it to yourself. Thank you. That's what I'm doing right now. If you get a chance, head over to Kickstarter and look up Open Jiggle Studios and you can learn

all about it. There's plenty of cool merch you can sign up in advance for classes if you live in the area. And yeah, you can help our dream come true. The Kickstarter is going really well so far and we were pleased with all the great support. So thanks and open our gym please, Jiggle Studio. I also want to make sure people remember that as Dan mentioned, we are still doing flop TV season two. It's going on right now for six months from September through February, the first Saturday of each month, we are live streaming a one hour kind of TV version of the

flop house. And then that video gets archived and you can watch it whenever you want if you have a ticket to it. It's the first Saturday in every month. The next episode we're doing will be November 2nd when we're talking Caddyshack 2. Because this season is all about sequels.

We had a lot of fun with Robocop 2, had a lot of fun with Break-In 2. We are ready to be hurt, to not feel good after watching Caddyshack 2. But the theme song says, I'm all right. I mean, the theme after watching Caddyshack 2. But the theme song says, I'm all right. I mean, the theme song to Caddyshack, the Caddyshack 2 theme song is, I won't be all right. Yeah.

We went too far this time. Nobody asked for another. Wow. Making it was kind of a crime. Who knows, maybe we'll think it's great. So that's November 2nd, 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern time. Wow. Making it was kind of a crime. Who knows? Maybe we'll think it's great. So that's November 2nd, 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern time. We'll be broadcasting live.

But if you can't make it, that's okay. Your ticket gets you access to the video. If you go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com, you can buy tickets or season passes. What does the season pass get you? It'll get you five shows for the price of six. And it means you have access to all these videos. You can watch them at your leisure through the end of February,

when the videos will be going back into the Flophouse vault. You said five shows for the price of six. Did I? Yeah. I'm sorry, six shows for the price of five. I didn't want anyone to not do it because they thought they were overpaying. What a terrible deal. Thanks, that would be a bad deal.

Sorry. Season Pass gets you six shows for the price of five shows. It's like an extra. So go to theflophouse.simpleTix.com to watch FlopTV Season 2. We've been having so much fun with it. Audiences have been loving it. We've been getting good audiences. We want you to join them and have that fun.

And while you're going to theflophouse.simpletext.com, also make a note to yourself to go to your local comic book store, where the first issue of my run of Harley Quinn from DC Comics should be out on comic store shelves now unless it's sold out already. That's Harley Quinn number 44, writing by me, Pencils and Inks by Mindy Lee. The art looks amazing and I'm very proud of how it's coming out. The first issue comes out October 23rd, which happened already when this

episode comes out. So, should be on comic stores, shelves, now. Issue 44 of Harley Quinn written by me. But first, go to the Flophouse dot simple takes dot com and get tickets for Flop TV season two. And now, back to theflophouse.simple takes.com and get tickets for flop TV season two. And now, back to the rest of the show. Yeah. Yeah. Shut up. Shut up. It's time for letters. It's time for you to shut up and our listeners to say something. And then we say stuff back. Oh, it's sort of a back and forth. Then you can talk again.

I just Dan turned into such a troll all of a sudden. He's really Deer-Daviding me. I just got a, yeah, I just got a Twitter message from Deer-David. He says he's following you now. I got inhabited by a ghost. This first letter is from Ben. Who writes?

Gentle Ben. The rat? Yeah. You went to two different animals. Interesting. A lot of animals? Gentle Ben. The rat? Yeah. You went to two different animals. Interesting. A lot of animals were named Ben. And these two. Ben G. Oddly, the Ben in Ben and Me, though, wasn't the mouse.

That was Benjamin Franklin, of course. That is ironic. Of course. Yeah. Of course. There's a cartoon and everything. There's a book and a cartoon. Of course, there's the tale of Despero, which is a mouse, but not named Ben.

Yeah. Well, if we're going to open it up, there's Mrs. Frisbee. You might be thinking, yeah, Rats of Nim. Fievel. Fievel goes west. You might think Rats of Nim is actually Rats of Ben, but it's not. No, it's not. It's a different word. Fievel, not Ben. No. Mickey, but it's not. No, it's not. It's a different word. Fievel, not Ben.

No. Mickey, way different than Ben. Very different. Two syllable. Different letters, different sounds. Yeah. Anyway, so Ben. Brown Jenkins could be a Ben.

We don't know what his first name is. So you bring up Ben 10, that is a Ben, not a mouse. Again, that's a boy. The funny thing is the original Ben was neither a mouse, it wasn't a mouse, it was a rat or a bear. What do you mean the original Ben? What? You can always just, in the beginning of recorded history?

The way this all started out, we somehow migrated to mouse, we were like listening to mice. I just think it's funny that, anyway. I'll keep this short and sweet. Good, because we didn't. Nope. My other favorite movie series is on cinema at the cinema. One of the reoccurring gags is that it's obvious

that Tim Heidecker's character rarely watches the movies they review. I'm curious if there was ever a time in your podcast history where you believed one of your castmates hadn't actually watched or finished the movie y'all were discussing. I mean, Stewart frequently doesn't finish the movies. Well, did the credits count? There was that time where Dan fell asleep during the movie.

That was awesome. Yes, that was great. When was that? I don't remember, but he was snoring and I was like, should we wake him up? No, this is funnier. I think there were more than one occasion. and I was like, should we wake him up? No, this is funnier. This is my second saw of law. I think there were more than one occasion, there was a Transformers movie and the Robocop remake,

if I recall correctly. Those Transformers are so long, dude. And for every like two seconds of Anthony Hopkins getting blown up by a Decepticon, or TJ Miller getting killed like off screen. Yeah. I mean... You've got to sit through a character explaining the laws of about statutory rape so that it's okay It doesn't get arrested for having an underage girlfriend something that it's weird to have in a blockbuster science-fiction. Yeah

That it was a weird part of that. Yeah. Yeah, it's not a joke. That's an actual part of that I said that happens which one was that point when those when one of those two little robots were like, yeah we can't read? And I'm like... That's right. I can't read. Well, at least one of those times I think I was sick. So that mitigates it a little bit.

Sure, sure, of course. You know, it's less fun to do the show this way than back when we could watch the movie all at the same time together. Like that's the most fun way to obviously watch a bad movie. But I guess the one advantage is that should I fall asleep, I then feel an obligation to go back and actually watch the movie rather than if we're all watching it together, we're just like,

we're not going to go back and let Dan watch the rest of this movie. We're just going to barrel ahead and Dan will be surprised to learn what happened after he shuffled off to Dreamland. I don't know why I'm talking about myself and the third person so much. I don't think I have other suspicions though about you guys. No? Not related to the podcast.

Yeah. No. Okay. All right, well moving on then. This letter is from Jared who writes, Dear Peaches. What did Halle do? Halle whispered Kushner as if she was afraid

saying his name out loud, he would appear in the room. Summon him. Okay, well we got two questions here. They're both short and sweet. Dear Peaches, do you think Slimer has a smell? I always assumed ectoplasm was odorless, but surely all those hot dogs have some effect. You gotta smell like hot dogs, right? If he's lucky. If he's lucky, he smells like hot dogs.

And his original name was Onionhead. So do you think he smells like onions because of that? Or do you think it was just... What? That was the name of the puppet, was Onionhead. like onions because of that? Or do you think it was just? What? That was the name of the puppet, was Onionhead. It wasn't named Slimer until like what, the animated show? Dan's pulling out all his first date information. Well, I'm looking at Elliot for help and he's giving me none.

You think that the man who's in charge of a Ghostbusters property would like know something about it. I'm not an encyclopedia Ghostbusters, Ed. Like what is it? Yeah, well anyway. I know onscreen canon. I don't know behind the scenes nicknames, you know. But I do assume that Slimer smells like John Belushi since Slimer is somewhat based on the idea of John Belushi.

Oh, so you do know some trivia about Slimer. The idea of John, based on the idea of John Belushi. Based on the vibe. Okay, well we can move on to the second question, which will hopefully prove less contentious. No, well I will go on the record saying, yes, I do think ghosts smell, but continue. Also, why do old comics show someone wearing a barrel to signify they're broke?

Wouldn't a barrel cost more than clothes? Sorry if these questions are too emotional for the show. Well, the first one actually. Yeah, I think one actually. I'm worried about this next one. I mean I assume that these are barrels you know from a time when barrels were used more frequently and these are discarded barrels. That's what I was gonna say. There was a time when it was a lot easier to get your hands on a on a waste barrel. These aren't Crate and Barrel, Crate and Barrel. No, no. Yeah, those would be expensive. This is yeah I mean back when, yeah, people were still shipping.

Back when barrel rights were like, spread out across the ground, like you couldn't throw a stone without hitting a barrel right. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then, and they'd be mad you were wearing one, because that's a barrel wrong. That's not how you're supposed to use that barrel.

But I think, yeah, it is from a time when things were shipped in wood more often than they are now. Yeah, the suspenders you used to suspend that barrel over yourself. Those, that was, you have to pay for those. That's the problem. But what do you use like leather straps? Leather, I think. It looks like leather. Yeah, I mean that's strong enough probably to hold up a barrel. If you use like something that's too delicate, it's just going to snap and the barrel will fall down and everyone will see you.

Yeah. Yeah, Yeah. If it's elastic though you get to go like whoo whoo. That's true. The barrel zooms up and down on you. Or like yeah get Streganona to give you some of her fucking spaghetti. Make the straps out of? Spaghetti straps Elliot? I forgot spaghetti strap dresses started with actual spaghetti that That's true. Yeah Back when streganone a chic was all the rage in Paris. Yeah. Okay. Well, this has been a surprisingly angry letter I don't know why we're so mad at each other. It's David who's done this to us. Let's move on to

To recommendations movies that we watched recently that we might recommend. I'm gonna, for the spooky season, I'm gonna recommend a horror movie. I'm gonna- Buckle your freak belts. I'm going to, I'm gonna specify that in this case, I'm recommending what I think was a good bad horror movie. This is not, you know,

I'm not saying this is a quality film necessarily, but it was fun to watch. I watched Flesh Eater from 1988, a movie that was written and directed and kind of stars, the guy who was the original cemetery ghoul in Night of the Living Dead, the one that appears after he says, "'They're coming to get you, Barbara.'"

And so he was like, "'Hey, I can make a zombie movie too. And he also is in this zombie movie as I guess the same ghoul. Oh, cool. In the movie in a lot of ways. Not cool, ghoul. Oh, okay, that makes sense. The movie in a lot of ways feels like just a remake

of Night of the Living Dead, but like sleazier, like more unmotivated. Night of the Living Dead, but as sleazy as Return of the Living Dead or around that level? There's more unmotivated nude scenes in this, like there's more like weirds, like you know, there's like child death and this, this feels like a real low budget programmer.

But it's also really silly. If you're looking for a movie that will have you sort of scratch your head and saying what at the screen every few minutes, dial up FleshEater. You might enjoy it. How do you watch this one? I saw it on Tubi. Tubi, it's a Tubi treasure. How did you watch this one? I saw it on Tubi.

Tubi, it's a Tubi treasure. To keep with the spooky theme, I'm going to recommend a terrifying little tale called His Three Daughters. Ooh. Oh no. It's about three daughters reconnecting while their father passes away in the next room.

Oh, it's not spooky at all. It's very sad. But it does star Carrie Coon, oh, Natasha Lyonne, oh, and Elizabeth Olsen. They're great. All three of them are great. And it is, feels like a very New York story. I love a kind of a single location movie

where you really get a feel of the apartment that they're in and watching their, like learning about their relationship as it unfolds through dialogue. It feels very much like a play put on screen, but in a good way. I thought it was really charming and sad and great. And I liked watching those three actresses. His three daughters.

I thought we were going to continue with the Halloween spooky movies theme, but I'll return to it even though it seems like we're not doing that this time. That's right, I'm giving Stuart unnecessary criticism. There's no reason for it. Because I'm wearing fucking glasses. He loves it. Look at his face. It's the glasses. He loves it. I have an Elliot be mean to me kink. Not a Dan be mean to me. No, no, no.

So, do you like being dominated by a guy who's smaller than you? That's the thing. Mm-hmm. So, I watched a movie recently. Is it a movie from the Czech Republic, or at the time Czechoslovakia? Yes, of course it is.

But it's kind of like a fun Halloweeny type movie. It's called The Girl on the Broomstick. It's from 1972. And it's kind of like a fun Halloweeny type movie. It's called The Girl on the Broomstick. It's from 1972. And it's kind of like a Czechoslovak version of the kinds of supernatural fantasy comedies that Disney would put out in the like 60s and early 70s. And this girl, Saxana, she's at a school for witches. And she has to, and she-

First Dan Povlokov. She's at a school for witches, she goes to the regular human world, and has to figure out how to cast the spell that will make it so that she doesn't have to return to the witch world before she wants to. And there's a lot of goofy stuff that happens and a lot of silly things with magic going awry. And it's kind of like a short, fun, kind of like silly movie, very colorful and very light, but still has some of that check edge to it, you know? So I really enjoyed it a lot. It was just a fun movie to watch that has a Halloweeny feel,

but it's not scary. And that if my kids would read subtitles, I would show it to them, but I think that they probably will not. So that's The Girl on the Broomstick. You should just get Bong Joon-ho to come over and explain to your kids why they should watch movies with subtitles.

Oh yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah, call up Bong. I'll just call up Dialabong and get Bong Joon-ho to come over. Hallie? Maybe text. Yeah. Oh yeah, I don't know you guys, I don't know. Oh no, we sent her into a spiral.

I don't know you guys. I don't know. Oh, oh no. We sent her into a spiral. I guess Movie I've been thinking about a lot recently is the original scenes from a marriage. Have you guys watched that? I've actually never seen the Ingmar Bergman. Yeah, I've never actually seen I've been meaning to for a long time It's very long, but it's really good. It's a community series, right originally was it I think so But I don't know it was like eight hours or something, so that makes more sense. But it's- And you watched it all the way through.

You didn't know how long it was, so you're like, I'll go to bed when this is over. Oh no. Suddenly the sun is up, your kids are like, Mommy, we need to go to school. No. Still watching! No, but one of the big themes that they revisit is this, the husband being disappointed with

how he's turned out. He always thought he'd be great and then he doesn't wind up being great and his wife is sick of hearing him complain about it. So you're saying I would find myself represented in this movie. I'm saying I've been thinking about it a lot. Oh. So. Hallie, maybe you should plug your newsletter.

Oh, sure. Check out my newsletter that hurts my feelings on Substack. I really, this household always rushes to read Hallie's newsletter whenever it comes out. It is the same thing here. When it shows up in my email inbox, I read it right away. I never let it sit. And it's always really good. Hilarious and also brutally honest.

Brutally. Really got to start being careful about the... My audience in Eagle Rock is growing, so I got to... I've had a few texts that say, I feel famous when they read my newsletter. So yeah, got to find some new content to hurt my feelings. So give it to me guys. Give it to me. You've got to start driving to nearby cities and have your feelings hurt elsewhere.

Exactly. I feel like you're going to go through the thing that a lot of memoir writers do where they write a memoir that's about their life and people love it and then the next book is about like, well, I traveled the country trying barbecue at all the national parks. We have to come up with some reason to be doing things. Yeah. I'm going to be a real canouse guard figure. That's how you pronounce that, right?

Not to be confused with Mouse Guard, the comic book about mice. They're a real canouse guard figure. That's what I did. That's how you pronounce that, right? Yeah. Not to be confused with Mouse Guard, the comic book about mice. About them. None of them are named Ben. Yeah, yeah. My struggle by the Mouse Guard. Well, that's another Shocktober for the books.

As always, we're really happy. The movies. The movies, too. We're always happy that Hallie. Hallie turned and smiled at me like, eh? You see what I'm doing? As always, we're really happy. The movies. The movies too. We're always happy that Halle joined us. Halle turned and smiled at me like, Ed, you see what I did? The energy always is great with Halle here. Thanks for having me, guys.

I always love to be here. Yay. What do I say at the end here? I say thank you to Maximum Fun. Thanks to our network, Maximum Fun. Why not try some of the other Maximum Fun shows? There's a lot of great ones. Why not thank our producer, Alex Smith, who makes this sound good.

I will thank him. Yeah, Dan, you should. And remember, Dan, to tell people that they should check him out online as How Will Doddy, the name under which he makes his music. He has a new album out now, which is called I Need Some Help, right? Okay, Dan, you should tell them about that. You might mention that a- It's great.

Another thing you should probably mention is that if people like this show, why not give us a review on wherever you listen to podcasts? That'd be a great thing. A positive review would really help us spread the word about the show. Or you know what?

Like, hey, tell one person in real life meat space that you think might enjoy this thing, hey, I love this podcast, maybe you'd like it as well. If everyone did that, you know, I mean, only a small fraction of people would actually listen to that advice, but that's still a lot, so thank you if you do that. If only 1% of all the people in the world

listen to this show, that's still hundreds of millions of people, right? Or like tens of millions of people in the world listen to this show that's still Hundreds of millions of people right or like tens of millions astounding. Yeah, a lot of pressure. I'd have to Have to be better. I have to be a little funnier. Yeah, we'd all have to step up our game Yeah, you know what don't tell anybody about this show No No, do I rely on it anyway? Uh, this has been great for the Flophouse. I've been Dan McCoy. Yeah, do I rely on it. Anyway, this has been great. For the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy. I've been Stuart Wellington. I've been Elliot Kalin saying,

see you at the next episode of FlopTV. And I've been Hallie Haglund. Okay. Bye. Ooh. It's a ghost at the end. Wait, you guys don't remember 1, 2, 3, 4, roll it up a little more? 5, 6, 7, 8. Sorry, boys.

It's coffee break. No. What are we rolling up? It's about rolling up your shirt. Your shirt. Why are you rolling up? What? I understand. Yeah, it was like a... Yeah. How Why are you rolling up your shirt? What? I don't understand. Yeah, it was like, yeah.

How far are you rolling this shirt? Just right until the point, and then it's coffee break. Oh, I see. Maybe this is a Colorado thing. No, I don't think so. Wait, this is a thing that people did to tease boys? To tease the boys, yeah. Girls do it to tease boys.

Oh, interesting. You know, all the things are the same still. My five-year-old is now going, hey, Mom, want me to count to 100? One, two, skip a few, 99, 100. And it's like, I can't believe these things are so timeless. How do they pass on? Then she gets a dab and then like,

rotor heelys out of the room. And you're like, oh, fuck. Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artist-owned shows, supported directly by you.