The Flop House - Return to Silent Hill, with Steven Kostanski

Episode Date: May 9, 2026

Max Fun Drive 2026 is over, and normally we'd be back to our "one full ep one mini" schedule, but we had too many good guests lined up, so you're getting another maxi this week AND next. That's why they call us Peaches. (Editor's note: there's no particularly good reason we're called The Peaches.) First up, our pal/amazing movie director/special effects wizard Steven Kostanski joins us to discuss a movie he kinda liked: RETURN TO SILENT HILL. Will the rest of us agree? Stay updated on all things Flop House, plus a little extra, with our NEWSLETTER, “Flop Secrets! Wikipedia page for Return to Silent Hill Recommended in this episode: Dan: Body Double (1984) Stu: Cure (1997) Elliott: House of the Devil (2009) Steve Kostanski: The Last Detail (1973) Thanks to everyone who participated in this year's MaxFunDrive! Still want to get in on the action? Follow this link to support this show (and get in on our limited-time keychain sale to benefit the Center for Constitutional Rights): https://maximumfun.org/joinflop

On this episode, we discuss, return to Silent Hill. Hey, guys, I think it's a perfect time to buy some property in Scary Town, USA. That's right, Silent Hill. Do you guys want to go in on a hype house in Silent Hill with me? We could record podcasts. Elliot could continue doing his only fans, all those things. I don't want to breathe in that much ash. Hey everyone, welcome to the flop house.

I'm Dan McCoy. Hey, I'm Stuart Wellington. Oh, I'm Elliot Kalin. And joining us, we have a very special guest today. Stuart, what you like to do the honors? He's a master of horror. He's a master of suspense. He's a master of special effects, the deadly art of illusion.

That's right. Joining us is friend of the podcast, filmmaker Steve Kastanski. Hey, Steve. Hey, guys. Thanks so much for having me on the pod to talk about what I'd argue is the best movie of 2026. Interesting. I'm eager to hear this argument. Yeah.

Oh, there's a lot of movie in here. There's lots to unpack in return to Silent Hill. In doing the summary for it, I found it challenging. Yeah. So as Dan usually says on this podcast, we talk about the best movies of 2026. And whether they deserve that title. So I'm rearing to look at Return to Silent Hill and see if it belongs to the 2026 canon.

Yeah, the flop house is named after a house that is built of great movies. And then at the very top, there's the best movie and we see if it has to flop off the roof onto the ground. Yes. Oh, okay. I thought it was, you know, a poker term. You know, this is the flop of the...

Anyway. That's why Dan's wearing sunglasses. That's why Dan's. I'm Jennifer Tilly. That's why he's wearing sunglasses and a snake-skin vest. And he keeps kind of looking at me and holding up a deck of cards and saying, want to try your hand? And I'm like, Dan, why you don't talk like that?

I understand. Dan, when did you get the Shams Boudreau walk in? Yeah, when did you get the four playing card suits tattooed on your knuckles? No, this is a podcast where we watch movies that were critically or commercially rejected by their various audiences, whether they be those critics or general audiences. And, oh boy, this is a picture. That's what I have to say about it.

It's a picture. I saw the first couple of Silent Hills. Stuart, I know that you did your research. Yeah, so I, this is a franchise I was not familiar with outside of, you know, being aware of the name and the idea that it's a, what, a survival horror video game, and they made movies based on it. But I saw my pal, Steve, talking about it.

about it on social media and I'm like, you know what, this is finally my chance to return for the first time to Silent Hill. So Steve, what's your history with Silent Hill? I mean, I should point out, this is the only time I've ever posted on social media about loving a movie. Coming out of the theater, I was just so blown away because it is, I won't get too deep into it, but it was really like exactly what I want in a bad movie. There's a lot of artful intent, very misguided and just lots of just so much shit going on lots to unpack but as far as my

history with it I mean I played the games as a teenager the first Silent Hill playing through that was one of the scariest experiences I've had with media ever terrifying game really effective and the second game is heralded as like

one of the best survival horror experiences ever made and so this movie is a direct adept of Silent Hill 2. And yeah, big swing and a miss, no spoiler there. But yeah,

as far as also my, like, direct involvement with Silent Hill, I did work on Silent Hill Revelations 3D in the Paul Jones effects. Oh, you were the pyramid head, right? You were the guy of the Pyramidhead costume. I had to make some hooks that I think

went into pyramid heads back, and I did steal, I have it here with me, one of his bolts off of his head. Oh, wow. It found its way into the garbage, which then found its way into my backpack. Found its way into the garbage. Interesting.

Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, so what did I, the stuff I did on that movie, it was like pretty early in my effects career working professionally. So like, I had fun low-level jobs, like making a bunch of bondage gear

for a bunch of suspended bodies. There's a sequence on a carousel where there's like bodies suspended. Sounds edgy. like kind of leather daddy outfits. And so I had to teach myself how to make leather corsets and things.

Oh, wow. I also made the inside of, it's Malcolm McDowell's in that movie, right? As a character, when he turns into a monster, I made the inside of his body that the main character reaches into to grab an amulet for some reason. Yep.

There's multiple amulets in that one. Actually, as kind of on Steve's urging, or maybe it was my own, urging. I feel like I was just reaching out to Steve to be like, should I watch all of them? And he's like, I don't know, man.

Go with God. So I watched the first two movies for the first time this week. And let's give a little bit of background here. The first Highland Hill movie came out in 2006. It was directed by Christoph Gons of

Crying Freeman and Brotherhood of the Wolf fame. And it was written by Roger Avery of Pulp Fiction fame. Which is great. I don't know why I find that of AI Heeltham fame. Oh, he's done an AI Heelton? Oh, yeah.

Cool. Cool dude. Okay. So, yeah, from my understanding, that one is based, like, loosely on the first game. Yes. It's kind of a rough interpretation of the first game. Now, I remember, Dan, I must have watched that first Silent Hill movie at your house at one point. Really? I have a very strong memory of it.

but all I remember is pyramid head and everything just being kind of gloomy. Yeah. But it must have been, but I thought it was for the Flop House, but maybe it was one of those times when you showed like just a couple horror movies at your house.

Yeah, like every Halloween I do like, usually like I do one that is a crowd pleaser that I actually like and I follow it up with, you know, a bad, at least in quotes movie. Sicko's only. And yeah, that probably was for that.

And I, you know, I have some fun. for that first Silent Hill movie, it does not make a whole heck of a lot of sense. It's a big bag of hard to follow. Unlike, return to Silent Hill, which is a crackerjack puzzle box of the film. Once you get to the end,

you're like, I've got to watch it again to pick up the clues. Well, yeah, as... One of the main characteristics of the Silent Hill series is difficulty to understand what the hell's going on. Well, in order to be able to write off this movie rental on my taxes, let me give a quick summary of the first movie. Sure. The first movie.

Okay. Yeah, so a mother takes her adopted daughter Sharon to her birth home, Silent Hill, and they get trapped in a like a foggy ash-covered world. There's like an evil cult operating there. It causes at certain points in the day, it becomes like nightmare version, and then it'll switch back and there's monsters running around. It's all because Sharon is like the good part of a girl who had been abused and became, an evil demon, I think.

And over the course of the movie, they help this evil girl get revenge on the cult. Mother gets trapped in the town. Father played by Sean Bean. That's right. The Bean Machine shows up with a very unbelievable American accent. It's great. He takes Sharon out of there.

I do have to say that at one point he is aided by actor Kim Coates who plays Officer Thomas Gucci, which is one of my LOL moments of the movie. And there is a very, There is one scene that stands out where Pyramid Head picks up a girl, rips off her, like, cult robes, and then rips off her skin in the same manner. And I thought that was pretty great.

But it felt very much accurate to the, like a survival, like a Japanese survival horror video game, and that there's an evil cult. A lot of it is wandering around. Things don't make sense. And, yeah, and there's a lot of, like, weird exposition. Yeah, and I admire these movies commitment in a certain way to just providing vibes. Like, it's just like, oh, here's a bunch of horror stuff that's happening.

Yeah. On the other hand, I do, like, I watch them and like, well, I can tell that even though plot-wise, this isn't being, you know, I've been told, I haven't played the games, this isn't really that there's not a lot of fidelity to the plots of these, but it is. the feeling of it, which is a lot of wandering around, which I would argue works better in a video game where you're controlling the wandering. Certainly, I think we'll find, spoiler for my thoughts on Return to Silent Hill, the feeling of sitting next to your friend

while they play Silent Hill and they will not let you have a turn at the controller is not the most satisfying one for a film. Ironically, the same feeling I had watching 1917, so make that what you will, you know. This is followed up six years later with Silent Hill Revelation 3D, which is written and directed by M.J. Bassett,

who is known more for TV work and the movie Solomon Cain, which I can't remember. Did we do that for the podcast? No, we didn't do that for Lodd. I watched it for Lurice. Which I'd argue is a pretty great movie. I'd like to point out,

because Steve mentioned it before, this being the one he worked on, Silent Hill Revelations 3D is the second movie. I'm so used to 3D being the third movie in a series that I get confused every time I see. see the title. How often is that? Well, frequently, recently.

In most of life, not that much. It's not like most days. You'd suddenly encounter the Silent Hill 3D title. This isn't an adaptation of any of the games. This is just a direct sequel to the events of the first movie. It's could be argued it's taking the plot of the third game, which is a more direct follow-up to the first game. Sollon Hill 2 is kind of a stand-alone thing. I think that's why people like it so much. It actually does away with most of the cult stuff that's featured in the first and the third game.

So I think that's why Revelations 3D came second because there's continuing characters from the first game and the first story. But yeah, just to make it extra confusing, it's like they jumped to three and then doubled back to two. Although, from my understanding, most of the monsters featured in the first movie, we're all taken from the second game.

Yeah, all the big iconography that everyone latched onto comes from Silent Hill 2. Like, pyramid head is specifically a Silent Hill 2 creature. And the creatures are all... Damn, describe pyramid head. Describe pyramid. He's got a pyramid for a head.

Perfect. He's also really... Name checks out. He's got a muskly body, though. Yeah, yeah. And like a little bit lean. Like, he's pretty toned. He's a hot dude. Drop his nutrition routine in there, please. And if you watch the behind the scenes of the first movie, his, like, apron is actually open in the back, so his ass is out the whole time. Which is a weird choice, but, yeah.

What's scary? A guy with the pyramid hit chasing you with a big blade or a guy with a pyramid head chasing with a big blade and his butt is just out. That's actually a good point. Yeah. Yeah. He does not care. That guy doesn't play defense is what I'm saying. He's not worried about it. Imagine how much less impactful the 28 years later movies would be if Samson didn't have.

have his penis just swinging around through most of the movies. Good point. Yeah. Penises are scary. Penises and butts are scary. I'm just going to say it right here. I'm going out of limb. I'll say it.

You know, the human body is a frightening thing. Elliot, I think that you just aren't as well. You just unpack this with your therapist. I think, uh, oh, no, no. She said, she couldn't have any. Bodies are beautiful and, uh, et cetera. Silent Hill. Even pyramid man?

Even pyramid head's body, Dan? I mean, especially, I guess, for pyramid head. I guess the body. Yes. I guess the body. Not the head as much, yeah. This movie continues the tradition of accent work because this features a performance by John Snow, Kit Harrington, doing a questionable American accent. And there is a monster in it that I enjoyed the like spider mannequin monster that I thought was pretty cool.

Do you remember that, Steve? Did you work on that? Yeah, that was mostly CG. So that wasn't really in our department. I don't think we built anything practical for that. And I feel like in return to Silent Hill, there is a spider monster that's, sort of an approximation of that, just not just not mannequin-centric.

I will say return to Silent Hill to get it to the movie that we're talking about today. I'm all queued up, I'm all ready to go. It really, it really delivers on the promise of a different monster in every scene. And if you like one of those monsters, sorry, you're probably not going to see it again. That monster's scene is done.

Time for another monster. And so even as I was finding myself feeling like I was sinking in quicksand while watching the entire movie, I did like those constantly throwing new monsters at me, you know. And with those monsters, though, like, as much as I... I don't know, I haven't played the games, I get the feeling that it's not like...

They're built to not totally make sense. They have their own, like, dream logic or whatever. But... Yeah, they're all supposed to be manifestations of James's psyche in some way. Well, that's what I'm saying. I feel like the fact that these monsters have been so mixed and matched, from the games to these movies means that whatever thematic residents

maybe these monsters had for what was going on has been lost along the way because it's my understanding for instance that like I don't know they included like nurse monsters and one of them where it wasn't like the place where they would have been in the games where there was a hospital etc. So yeah like pyramid head being in the first movie

doesn't really make any sense because he's so tied to James Smith. But how are you not going to have Pyramidhead that first movie? He looks amazing. He's got that great butt. Come on. Yeah, yeah. I feel like the director, I feel like the director was like asked about that when making the first movie.

And he's like, I don't know. I feel like pyramid head is just like a force of anger or whatever. And the director of Silent Hill of the Silent 2 video games like, that's wrong. And then in the case of Silent Hill Revelations 3D, he kind of becomes the good guy at one point. Of course. That's the nature of slasher baddies is they eventually become the good guy. Yeah. To fight a worse monster.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, no matter who wins, we lose. Yeah, it's what happened to Godzilla. It happens to all the best, you know, eventually. Yeah. So, let's get into this. 20 years after the first Silent Hill, we returned to Silent Hill with Return to Silent Hill 20-year anniversary. They should have called it Silent Hill 20-year anniversary or 20-year reunion.

And it's the characters on the first Silent Hill have to come back to Silent Hill just for a social event. And everything goes wrong. Yeah, one last, yeah, it's right before they retire. American Silent Hill. Now, this was written and directed by Christoph Gans of the first film. And as Steve mentioned, it's from what I understand, an adaptation of the second video game. The movie opens. We meet artist James Sunderland, who's hot dogging around with a very believable wig driving his convertible.

And he almost runs into Mary Crane, who is waiting at a bus stop to take a bus away from her hometown of Silent Hill in the process. He accidentally messes up her luggage. He can't get her luggage together in time and she just has the bus leave. Even though she seems to own four shirts, they can't get the suitcase packed front of. And this is the least patient bus driver I've ever seen. He's waiting for, I think, 10 seconds before she waves him away and says, no, just go, just go. I mean, I would understand that with, say, New York City bus driver, but this bus, like,

this bus is stopping in the middle of nowhere. For one person. Stopping at a rest stop, too. You think that bus driver's going to be like, don't worry, I got to take a whiz anyway. I'd get out. I feel like that's a scenic view stop along the bus route.

People go and stretch their legs and take picks, but who am I think it's worth. It's worth flagging to when James is ripping around in his car, the song that's playing on the radio. I don't know if you guys caught any of those awesome lyrics. Okay.

But at one point, I copied the lyrics here, At one point it goes, well, once again, I'm running, running from my past. Reality comes crashing down while glass rains down as ash. So, I mean, could be a little more on the nose, but... But it all shows how the whole story is all just a reflection of his tortured psyche. Let me look at verse two. First two, it says, I'm being chased by a pyramid head. Oh, wait, that's actually me.

When I'm wearing my pyramid head, I'm afraid that I can't see. Oh, okay. And let's really get, it's really ominous. Don't forget we get to the chorus. It goes, Panama. Panama. Yeah, yeah. Insert SCAT here.

Yeah. That's what the lyric sheet said for Panama. It just said insert SCAT here. He'll know what to do. Yeah, yeah. DLR's got this one. Okay. So this still is a bit of a meat cute.

They seem to hit it off. They end up talking, and then they go back to visit her hometown of Silent Hill and from what we understand, they fall in love and stay there. Years later. I find it to be such a funny turn of events because she's like, oh, I was trying to get out of Silent Hill to get to the city.

And he's on his way somewhere, but it's clearly not Silent Hill. So the idea that he's like, well, you know what, I'll just bring you back to the place you were clearly running from and we'll just settle down and start a family there. It's like the kind of thing that you see in like, I guess like a 19th century novel when it was harder to get from one place to another.

But it's like you've got a car, dude. Just drive her to the city. I think you're going there anyway. Yeah, the next bus won't be through in a while. Yeah. It's a brigadoon bus. Every 100 years a bus comes through. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. So years later, we catch up with James. He seems to be living in a city. Mary is nowhere to be found. He is a drunk being thrown out of bars, and he stumbles home. Just like a letter. I want to say one thing.

Thrown out of bars is a weird POV shot, I should fly. Oh, weird? And also that he is thrown out of a bar for maybe the for no, he's like, politely trying to get up and knocks a table over and he goes, oops, that's on me. And they're like, get the fuck out of here.

And they try to beat him up and throw him out. And I'm like, he has been nothing but polite to everybody in the bar. Like, I don't understand why you're so eager to throw him out. I don't get it, you know. I mean, they asked him to leave because he was sleeping,

which you're not supposed to have to be sleeping there. No, that's true. But he seems very eager to follow their directive. He's trying to leave the bar, but I guess it's not fast enough. Yeah. I mean, the bouncer's not doing a very good job. So when he gets home,

he finds a letter from Mary, urging him, begging him to return to Silent Hill. That's the title of the movie. Oh. He has a conversation over the phone with the psychologist who seems to be treating him, and she does not think this is a good idea at all. She does not want him to follow that choice. Can we just talk about his, like, psychologist who is always framed through this fractured

glass table? I'm sure you guys thought every time we cut to her. that, oh, clearly this is setting up that she's like maybe a figment of his imagination or it's a very villainous way of framing someone. And they, I don't know what the reason was. Maybe they didn't have a location. They just had a table. That's right.

It was an odd choice. But even the way that she's directed, she's directed to be a negative character, a character who seems like she's an antagonist. Yeah. To be honest, when she came back. She's giving great advice. She gives them good advice. Don't go back to the place that traumatized you.

Don't do it. Go back to, like, as we talked before the podcast, I think you guys all say the trick to beating Silent Hill is not go there. I'd say the other way. No, no. This makes me imagine a different movie where she takes his advice. It's called Don't Return to Silent Hill. Yeah.

He just doesn't. He's still kind of a mess, but he's still kind of a mess, but he's a safe living mess who's not being chased by monsters that vomit blood out of their stomach or spider women, you know. But then she shows up later, and I was like, Wait, so now I think maybe she's not a real character. Like, it was very hard to know if she was actually supposed to be an actual human or like you're saying a figment of his imagination or what, you know, I don't know. Yeah.

So he packs up his, he packs up his now more beat-up convertible and drives to Silent Hill. He can't just drive into town. The road is closed, so he parks at the same overlook he originally met Mary. And he takes it on foot. The town is closed off. There seems to have been some kind of misconduct. mysterious illness. It's raining ash.

It's super foggy. And flooding, apparently. As in the hit Paul Schaefer's song, It's raining ash. Hallelujah, Silent Hills, raining ash. Yeah, Paul Schaefer wrote that song. Oh, did he? Yeah, yeah.

I didn't know that. Yeah, and he did all the vocals too, right? Yeah, they just pitched them up. It just pitched up, quite a bad. Yeah, it was like chipmikes. Yeah, exactly. While he, when he arrives, he meets a woman, mourner, something or other, named Angela,

who doesn't really give him much information. She does seem to not encourage him to go further into town, but he's like, I've got to go meet my baby. I mean, here's the thing about returning to Silent Hill. I know that he's gotten a letter from his, you know, his ex, and he's still hung up on her. So he has a motivation to go there. But then the fact that he continues to walk around Silent Hill

when it is abandoned and grave from Ash, I think, so there are a couple of red flags that he fails to follow. One is it's abandoned and ashes raining down from the sky. Didn't realize this became a relationship podcast so fast. Yeah, the other is that monsters begin chasing him. And he's convinced, again, this is, this, it buys into notion more that this is a dream, more than a reality, this movie, that even though monsters are chasing him and the town seems to have been abandoned years ago, he's like, got to find Mary.

She must be at the hospital. And it's like, this is not a functioning town. Like, she is dead or gone. You know, this is not happening. It's also probably worth pointing out that in the game, uh, when James gets this letter, Mary has been dead for three years.

And so that's like a good spooky hook of like, how am I getting a letter from my dead wife that like, I feel like it just builds way more mystery than just, oh, I guess she lived in this scary town. Well, and that's treated as a, that's treated as a reveal later.

Yeah. But it's very, his therapist is just like, Mary's dead. You know that, right, James? and it's like, hey, I'm still looking for her. It's like, oh, okay,

I guess that wasn't that important because he just got to toss off. I feel like at that point, he had experienced enough weird stuff that he's like, I got to figure this mystery out, Doc. See you later.

And I will say, you know, I know that like a lot of this can't be taken as literally as I'm taking it. It was like, why you keep walking around Silent Hill? Because it does.

Those aren't good walking around Silent Hill shoot. No, no. He's going to hurt his feet. He gets get blisters. It does operate on dream logic. But it is one of these things where if the movie

was working for me more in other ways, I wouldn't be thinking this way. Well, it reminds me a little bit of what we did Fear.com recently, how, like, that movie starts out in a sort of nightmare world where everyone lives in apartments full of broken glass and driven water. And so later on, when the characters are kind of losing their minds, it doesn't change very much. You know, it doesn't be a different. Whereas here, it's similar. Once he gets to Silent Hill, it is automatically such a nightmarish, like, apocalyptic

landscape that when things change at night, I'm like, well, they didn't change that much. You know, it's not that noticeable. Difference between daytime, Silent Hill, and nighttime. It's not huge. No. I mean, the one bar closes, I guess. Like, that's it, you know. It is a horrible night to have a curse, though.

So, actually, I do have a question for you, Steve. Now, in the Silent Hill games, is there combat? Does he get to fight these monsters? Yeah, I mean, like, run around them. I mean, it's very late 90s, early 2000s, survival horror combat, where it's very clunky. The goal is to avoid fighting the monsters, and when you are fighting them,

you're just beating them with a pipe, which in this, the most we get is, I think he throws a pipe at a monster, and then it scurries down a man. That's when Steve pointed to the screen, he's like, it's just like the game. I like that throwing a pipe part, but maybe that's just because in my current storyline

in Harley Quinn, she doesn't have batterangs, though she's become batquin, so she just writes batterang on pipes and throws them at people. That's pretty good. I mean, pipes are an underused weapon, for sure. For sure, except in Clue, in which case they are overused.

Yeah, too much. Yeah. So he explores the town of Silent Hill. It is, as we have described. He bumps into a weird vagrant who hollers at him and he kind of walks away from the guy. He finds a club that seems to still have a flickering neon sign and he goes in. And though the club is in ruins, it does trigger a flashback memory of his of visiting this same club with Mary when they lived in Silent Hill and meeting all her weird family friends.

Yeah, this weird like Rosemary's baby. kind of subplot that the movie has. Feels like Christoph Gans is doubling down on the cult angle of the first movie. Even though it doesn't really fit this narrative, it feels like he's like, no, no, I think the cult stuff was good. So I'm going to squeeze this. That's what people want. It was 100% not a surprise to me when I went to the Wikipedia page and I learned that the cult stuff was not in the game that this was based on. I'm like, it's completely unnecessary.

Yeah. Yeah. The game is like way simpler than what this. this movie is presenting. It's like overstuffed with stuff, which is strange because I feel like it could be a very simple, straightforward, like, horror experience of just guy wandering through a town looking for who he thought was dead wife and encountering monsters along the way. You know what?

I was wondering. I think you're, sorry to interrupt, but I was wondering while watching it. I'm like, why is this not doing it? Because I wouldn't mind. I've seen movies where it's people exploring and it's scary and like, why is this one not functioning properly? and I think part of it might be right, there's like too much stuff in it.

Like, it's not clear and simple enough. And if it was like he's trapped in this town and there's a monster after him and he's got to try to get away from it and there's, you don't need all this explanation. Maybe it's a tall guy in a trench coat and a little hat. Maybe, yeah.

Like the tyrant or nemesis. Yeah. But like the, but there's just so much, like all that backstory is no good. And the characters are so clearly evil like from moment one. Yeah. Even though it's a small town,

they're coded as like city sophisticates. You know, like they're all kind of artists who love the devil. A real hellfire club. And then there's like two, there's twins that speak in unison. Yeah. Club scene like, like Silver Twilight Lodge. There's a scene, not to get ahead. There's a scene later on where he sees across the street as this cult shows up and

ushers his wife away clearly unhappily. And he just watches it happen. And then he's kind of suspicious of his wife afterwards. And I'm like, dude, you needed to go over there and defend your wife. What are you doing? If my wife was, if I was running errands and I saw my wife across the street, First thing I'd do is I go, hey, and I'd cross the street and go talk to her. But if I saw that a crowd of people that I know she doesn't like to be around,

ushered her into, it seems like an abandoned building, I would not wait to see where they were going. I'd just be run across and be like, stop that, what's going on? Not to leap too far ahead in the plot, but later on after he... Because we're going slow. After he has seen his wife, like, in the cult ritual, like having her, like, skin be peeled. Yes, they can take her blood out, yeah. Yeah, like, afterwards, he's... She seems mad at her for lying to him.

Yeah, it's because it's a thing called post nut clarity, Dan. I mean, I could see it. If this was a better movie, I could see it being a metaphor for a guy whose wife has been abused or assaulted in some way, who blames his wife. And it can't quite believe that she wasn't responsible in some way because he's, because of his own problems. But it is not that good a movie. I mean, that felt very much to me. Yeah, but I feel like this is not a, this movie is not swimming in emotions that deep. So instead it just comes off as like, why are you mad at your wife?

for all these people taking her blood. Feel like the headline here, dude. Okay, so like the plot of the movie. It seems like the main headline would be, let's leave. Like, let's get that in town. Yeah. Now I understand what you're trying to. Yeah, I understand why you're trying to leave town when I met you, you know.

Yeah. So like the plot of the movie, we stop that digression and return to the main story line. Where James, once again, wandering around. Back in modern Silent Hill is wandering around the town. and he is attacked by this armless creature that spits acid out of its chest. He hits it with a pipe and then it climbed.

It's like acid blood. Oh, okay. It can be two things at once. He hits it with a pipe and then it crawls. It shimmies down a manhole. And then we get this alarm sound and the whole town changes to nightmare version of town, which again, though nightmarish is not that much worse

than basic Silent Hill. Yeah. Just more chain link fence. Yeah. I'll be honest, I don't think I noticed that there was a change. Yeah. He now gets attacked by a tidal wave of monster roaches, which he runs from. Luckily, these monster roaches seem deterred by things like chain link fences.

Yeah. And he runs from this tidal wave and eventually is able to take, he can hide in the Woodside apartment building, which is an apartment complex that he lived with with Mary. Just to draw some attention to those little bugs, they do a gimmick that I love to do, which is they cut to close-ups of the bugs and show their little goober faces. Yeah, that was nice.

It was just a nice little detail that I appreciated. It's always fun. It's always fun when creatures have weird little faces. Yeah, it made it even more. We had more of a tie to them for the next time we see the bugs checking. Oh, never again. Oh, okay. They don't show up again.

So he wanders this, like, ruined apartment building, having flashbacks to when he and Mary lived here. And then when he finds their apartment, he has this flashback where he kind of interrupts Mary hanging out with their weird coven of friends who seem to be talking about something suspicious. And he also finds this weird altar to Mary's father, who was the leader of this church.

And there's a lot of moths flying around. He decides to ask no questions about these things. I like the awkwardness. Men traditionally aren't known for asking a lot of questions. No, but I feel like these are the kinds of things. Except for Mark Marin, you know. Yeah, Mark Marin or Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan's just asking questions, guys.

Come on, yeah. But, like, it's interesting to me, the structure of that scene of he walks in, the cult is sitting around talking. They just get up and leave. Like, he comes in pleasant enough and says, like, hello. And they just up and go. And no explanation, no anything. Yeah, maybe later on when he sees them doing their cult stuff,

He doesn't interrupt it because he's like, I wonder if they're just talking shit about me. I'm going to sneak up and listen in and see if they're talking shit about me. Let me and find out what they're saying about me. And they're like ripping blood out of his wife's body. Maybe they don't like my artwork because he's an artist. He is an artist, yeah. And I mean, I bump on all this cult stuff,

but I do love the weird altar in the closet with the little metal gates and the like paper mashay head that opens up. Yeah, that's cool. Because it goes like kind of unacknowledged. Like they don't really. give any explanation. It's just a weird visual. And yeah, I kind of loved it. I mean, this movie functions best as a collection of weird visual. Like, it would be a better video installation than it is a story. So wandering around the apartment complex, he does find

a person who seems to live there, Eddie, who seems diseased and also happy that no one's around and potentially violent. And he seems to know who Mary is. And I think he suggests that she's at the Brookhaven Church or Brookhaven Hospital. Now, by this point, I was still trying to follow this movie according to regular storytelling rules. So I'm like, oh, now he's going to have to work with Eddie

or like Eddie's going to come back or no. I guess he's just a reference to something in the game probably, you know? Yeah, so this is a very confusing choice because the idea is that Silent Hill draws people, like people with guilty consciences to the town, people that are you know, like struggling with some internal torment

and Eddie is one of these characters. This movie would have made so much more sense if someone had said that sentence at any point. Because there's some choices made later on where certain characters are kind of meshed together into one character

that then basically renders Eddie pointless because there are other characters that show up that are just random people who end up in the town that James encounters and their people that are struggling with their own internal torment. But the way it is in this movie, Eddie's just a guy that's there and then he leaves and that's it.

And there's really, like if that scene was lifted from the movie, it would have made no difference. Not a friend of the director, me. Not only would that clarify things if someone just said that, but also that would be so much more interesting to me if we saw like, oh, there are a couple of different people he comes across and they're clearly like sort of like half interacting with him, but like dealing with their own trauma. I mean, it explains the morning lady that he comes across early on. Otherwise, I don't understand what she's doing at all.

Yes. Oh, you'll find out. Yeah, that's exactly what that Angela character is the same situation as Eddie in the game, where it's somebody that is just dealing with their own shit that's in Silent Hill that you encounter and makes way more sense than what we're given in this movie. Speaking of encountering other characters, Eddie and James find Laura, a little girl who carries around a dolly.

And not Salvador dolly. No, she's not caring about a film dolly. Yeah. She's not lugging around this huge dolly. I may be more like common reference. And you guys are going deep on this one. She doesn't have the Dalai Lama with her. And he's not like, what do I have to be the spiritual leader for millions?

What's going on? Where are you taking me? Well, you picked the spoon. I'm sorry or whatever it is. He ate the spoon. So it's like a Matrix-type thing too. I don't know.

Whatever. So monsters start to show up. Laura and Eddie both run off. James is trying to find his way out through this maze of apartment buildings. And there is not a giant peach to be found for James to hide in or use as a conveyance. But he does find a creature,

in this case a mannequin that turns into a spider, like in James and the giant peach right? There's a spider in that. And he runs away from it. He runs away from that. And to pyramid head. Things are looking grim for him when our old pal pyramid head shows up and beats the crap out of this mannequin spider.

So I just want to pause on this moment for a second because this is a pretty important moment in the game. In human history. Where James hides in a closet and he watches pyramid head doing something to some weird mannequin monster. And it's very like sexual connotation. to it, but it's very ambiguous. And so it was interesting to me that in the movie, the choice was to just have Pyramidhead

punch the spider monster repeatedly in the gut until it died. I don't know how you guys have sex. Not that way. But I feel like that moment really encapsulates what this movie is doing wrong, where it's like any ambiguity, any suggestiveness just pulled out completely. And it's like, well, what if he just beats the monster?

Like, it's just finding a literal path that makes it more confusing. somehow. Yeah. I mean, that's both disappointing and interesting to hear. I have to admit, I couldn't get over the fact

that James is trying to hide in the closet, but he does not turn off his fucking flashlight the entire time. That's the first thing you would do if you were hiding, right, is to not literally have a beacon shining out to the room showing where you are,

but you won't do it. Now, have we passed the, like, armless white mummies with those shapely butts? Like, what are those monsters? Well, all the monsters seem to have shapely butts. Because this is Silent Dan Hills.

Dan's looking up, he's calling a real estate agent. Yeah, I want to look at maybe moving to Silent Hill. Yeah, I'm pretty tormented. You can probably go there. No, you don't want to go there. It's full of monsters. Yeah, but butt-wise. Are they a fake?

Yeah. I went to, he's like, I did a timeshare on Monster Island, and I was real disappointed in the butts that I found there. The monsters were not as advertised stupid thick, so not a fan. Okay, so. They must all been using, all those monsters are using because I got to filter on their Instagram because what I saw in person did not match up with the pictures. So Silent Hills that I'm looking at you now.

Yeah. So, also when my wife asks, can you tell her that's not the reason I want to move to Silent Hill? That is because it's like waterfront property or something. It's just the silence. I want to, the calm rural living,

the small town living, not because of the, you know, the butt thing. The Hill's referring to the butt. I think my wife knows who she married. Yeah. I think also everyone knows that.

Part of the conversation. Everyone knows that butts are not silent hills, depending on what you're eating, I guess. Oh, damn. Saving for our episode on Dream Catcher later. That's a good point. Later, we are recording an episode on Dream Catcher, which is much more about the sounds that a butt can make.

Yeah. So Pyramid Head creeps up on James. James, not a very good hider, as we've addressed. Pyramid Head's about to... He might as well be going, don't come in here. I'm hiding to the Pyramid's Pyramid Head. Yeah.

Pyramid Head's about to smash him. When the alarm goes off. Uh-oh. and when James kind of comes to, Silent Hill is returned to normal Silent Hill State as opposed to nightmare Silent Hill State Pyramids nowhere to be found. He bumps into Angela, the two of them try and sneak down the street that's filled with those harmless acid-spinning monsters.

James bumps into Little Laura again, and he has to chase her around. She leads him into a maze where he looks. uses her, but he finds another person, Maria, who looks exactly like Mary, but kind of like the cool, edgy version of Mary. And also just, like, standing there, it really, to me, felt like standing there waiting for the scene to start. Like, this movie's very effective at feeling like a PS2 cutscene from... And she's, like, leaning against the wall exactly like a video game NPC.

Yes. Similar to the way that Vigo Mortensen in... What's the Crimes of the Future is always squatting? down like he's like a video game merchant. Oh, yeah. Okay. So they have a conversation. You know, it's kind of boring.

And they decide to like team up together and go to Brookhaven Hospital together. And she's trying to get him to leave Silent Hill. She's like, well, we could go. We could just go. Pull quote for the poster, by the way. It's kind of boring. I mean, these interactions are, like that's the thing is a lot of these interactions do feel like video games cutscenes and I have been playing video games long enough

then my brain's like, tune it out, get me to the reaction. Just show me, I don't care. So while they're on their way to the hospital, we see some more cutscenes, including the one, the memory of this cult ritual where James sees Mary being like seemingly drugged and like manhandled by this cult and they drink her blood and stuff.

He confronts her in their apartment and he's like, yo, this is crazy. And she's like, that's just what I'm like, dude. I didn't have you signed up for. Even though I wanted to leave, was making an effort to leave, still fine with it, I guess.

Doesn't lead with, are you okay? No. He's not the most empathetic character and she's not the most consistent character in her viewpoints on things, yeah. Well, in many ways, her representation in this film is split into many forms.

So he, that's a little teaser. That's a, that's for the most obvious. thing in the movie that the movie holds up on as long as possible. So this is the idea, this is where they broke up and James left Silent Hill. At the hospital, James and Maria find a cassette recording that explains that Mary has been poisoned repeatedly by her father and the cult and that this poisoning has caused like permanent damage and injury to her and she has been hospitalized. This is when the alarm goes off again and we are once again taken to,

nightmare, Silent Hill. Halloween Town, yeah. They bump into a group of kind of dancing nurses, right, with knives, right? Like stop motion dancing nurses types. I mean, they're kind of like they kind of do like jitter. It's a little bit like a scary version of the backup dancers from the simply resistible and addicted to love videos, but they're nurses, yeah. But also if they like fall down, they shatter.

Yeah, when you fight them, they break apart into pieces, yeah. Yeah, it's a bit of a tweak from the previous iterations of the, these nurses where they're a little more organic. I did like that they made them these weird porcelain things. This is definitely in the game, right? Steve. Yeah, I find it weird, though.

All three of the movies have a nurse scene where it's like they feel like they have to have the nurses in the movie, so they just cram them all into one hallway. Whereas, you know, in the game, it's a little more subtle. There's like one or two floating around random hallways here and there. But the movies always treat it like, okay, it's got to be this scene where they have to run through like 50 nurses

and then there's no nurses ever again. It just feels like we got to put them somewhere so here's the scene with the nurses. And the nurses seem to function by like movie ninja rules where if there's one of them, terrifying. If there's a lot of them, you can just push them over and they're easy to defeat, yeah. Yeah, and they're like activated by sound or something.

There's always like some gimmick. They're like Trexas. Ideally, the nurses, it's funny because they were, They're supposed to be so inhuman and their movements are supposed to be inhuman. But because their movements are so stylized, all I could see was dancers. I could see the fact they're being played by dancers.

And so I'm like, it's really breaking the illusion. It's a flash mob. Now, all I think about is the people who have been cast in these roles, you know. But they're good. They're good. No, they do a good job. If anything, they are, it's that like, it really showed up that the other monsters are mostly CGI,

that these ones were played, like they felt like they were played by humans when they're not shattering. You know, they didn't shatter real people for the movie. They didn't use nitrous or something like that to freeze them and shatter them. That would be crazy. You know, no one take that job. Don't take that job. I don't know, dude.

It's tough to get a job in Hollywood. I feel like more than one movie has suggested that people would be willing to get shattered in order to be a movie. It's something I either thought of or dreamed of, and I can't remember, and I may have talked about in Flap House for I'm not, is the idea of a stuntman doing it. Or no, it's the star of a movie does all his own stunts. And they're like, we save this stunt for the last because you have to die while you're doing it. He's like, oh, I don't want to do that. No, it's fine. it's fine because we shot everything else.

But for this stuff, you have to actually die while you're doing it. And the actor being like, I guess, to finish the movie, I guess I have to, you know. That was a bit we did on our previous episode. That was a dependent flop house flashback. I couldn't remember if it was a bit we did

or something that came to me in a mystic haze. Yeah, yeah. Now we wake back up and we're in Silent Hill again. I'm sorry, we're not back in that flashback, guys. Oh, man, that'd be so much better. Alex, if you want, you can cut out me misremembering if that was the thing that we did. No, keep going to loop it.

So in the while trying to get away from the nurses, Maria gets stabbed seemingly fatally. The worst kind of stabbing. James sees Laura, the little girl again, and she lures him into a hospital room. More like Laura. And then locks the door behind him. Got her.

And he is confronted by this like hospital bed moth monster creature. Yeah, yeah, man. He stuffs her arm down his throat, and he awakens in the hospital in a conversation with his psychologist. Could I just take a moment to talk about that moment in that hospital room, the dark hospital room with the bed on the ceiling? The thing about this movie that keeps bringing me back to is that there are occasional moments of like really effective horror imagery.

And I think the shot of him looking with his flashlight and then looking up and seeing a bed on the ceiling is it kind of screeches towards them. Like that's a great shot. Yeah. That moment is really effective. surrounded by lots of stupid, but occasionally there's just like flashes of brilliance where I'm like, why wasn't, with the brain that thought up this shot, why couldn't everything around it be this effective?

Because I find this moment, like, as far as just like horror imagery, like really satisfying. And truly, well, that was funny. It's a certain amount of ADHD almost where they're like, there's so many good ideas, but they don't want to take all the time to like prep you for that or like they just want to throw more ideas at you. I looked it up, and that was actually shot on Take Your Daughter to Work Day. So that was actually Christoph Gans's child daughter came up with that idea,

and she just had school. She couldn't be there every day. So the great ideas were when she was there, yeah. That tracks, yeah. She's like, what if there's a bed on the ceiling, Papa? And he's like, brilliant. Put it in the movie. What?

Let's do it. We're taking all the suggestions. Actually, this movie, this does feel like a movie that was made via suggestion box. They were like crew members. If you've got a weird horror or a visual, just write it on a piece of paper, slip it in the box. We'll do all of them. We will not judge them on quality.

In the order of them being read. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's just the key and peel gremlins to sketch. Here we go, Von Votovie shooting today, and he'd shake the box and then pull out a card. Ah, nurse mob, okay, get me some nurses. Oh, could they be porcelain too? Yeah. Oh, wait, wait, another.

I need a suggestion for the audience. This paper just says porcelain. Yeah, we'll do it. We'll do them both today. Sure, yeah, yeah. So his psychologist, who I guess has made the trip to Silent Hill is at Brookhaven Hospital where he's recovered. Again, I don't recommend it. And she says, she's like, yo, dude, Mary's been dead for a while.

You trying to save her. This is all delusion, yada, yada, yada, yada. And he's like, no, thanks, boring. And so he goes down into the basement of the hospital, which is now a kind of like a nightmare gallery filled with paintings that he is made of Mary. Maria approaches and is like begging him to stop his quest. This is when he then kind of summons Pyramidhead who kills Maria.

He's like, I don't need you anymore. And in this moment we also see kind of through pyramid head's helmet that inside it's James's face. Is he pyramid head? Maybe. The visuals would certainly seem to be saying that. This causes a flashback where he's in his He's in his what you'm going to call it, his studio making paintings and then he falls.

Yeah, making some sick-ass art. His floor tilts and he slides down and lands in a lake only to awaken on the shores of the lake in Silent Hill right by the Lakeview Hotel that is now on fire. and the Lakeview Hotel had been mentioned previously. It's a place that he and Mary liked to go, and it also had the best view in all of Silent Hill. Everything in this movie has horror town names.

And it's always kind of sense. Silent Hill, the Woodside apartment, Brookhaven Hospital, Lakeview Hotel. Merr-Mur-Lake, yeah. They all sound like places you would find in a horror movie, yeah. So he bumps into Little Laura again. At some point, I don't know if he was here, but at some point we find out that the doll she's carrying is actually like a little like dead baby thing.

Yeah. The weird monster baby. I'm not mad at it. No, whoever slipped that in the suggestion box should have gotten a bonus. It's a pretty... A big monster? You ever see one?

creep me out. That's what you're tiny group of people who remember, pick me up. The Larry Cohen and Masters of War. That's great. Okay, so this is where Laura drops some serious truth bomb, spills the tea,

if you will, and that's where she explains. You know, yo, yo, dude, don't you remember? Laura, Angela, Maria, Mary. We're all married, dude. A little bit of Laura is... Then we see... We see it at her tombstone. And her tombstone, which is not a pizza,

don't make any fucking pizza jokes. He's standing at her tombstone pizza. And instead of pepperonies, there's like a million names on there that are, you know, Laura, Mary, Angela, Maria, Crane. Laura, Mary. Same. insane choice. It's an interesting choice.

And he's like, you know... It's very funny to me that I as an audience member, very early on was like, oh, they're all different versions of Mary, right? But he, who knew Mary's full name, having been married to her, did not put two and two together. Well, he's forgotten some things as we'll also... I guess that's expectation that the audience is going to accept that he's just, like, repressed all of this so much.

Like, just a crazy... But thankfully, his psyche was smart enough. to ask the dream, like, tombstone maker, I guess, to, like, carve all the different names in there. So later on, he could remember. I would have bought this more if they had shown him getting hit really hard in the head right before he went to Silent Hill. Yeah, yeah, that, like, yeah, he walked into a coconut tree.

Yeah. So he then runs into Angela who is being attacked by this, like, bed monster. And just like Angela from who's the boss, the bed has, like, hands that are groping her. and drags her and him. Does that happen? Who's the boss? Yeah. Elliot, have you been bonked on the head?

You don't remember her? It's a very special episode. I don't remember the body horror elements of who's the boss. Well, they get dragged down into this weird hell pit where now. Angela, you're being dragged into a hell pit. Yeah, I remember it now. I remember that episode of us. Angela's like body morphed with either a bed or a book.

I can't quite tell. It's like a big mattress monster. Yeah, well, it's an interpretation of a creature from the second game that's called the abstract daddy, which is... Abstract daddy sounds like a band that would have opened for Oingo Boingo in like 1987. I like to think myself as kind of an abstract daddy.

But, like, yeah, this creature is supposed to be a representation of... Now, baby, before we get busy, I just want to let you know, my penis is a little out of the ordinary. I'm kind of an abstract daddy. It's a little... Yeah, yeah.

I've been working on my abstract dad I mean, I'm surprised that they went to the lengths to build this set and have this creature. Like, it clearly built a practical creature for just for this moment, just to have... Which I'm not mad at. I think it's weird. It doesn't make sense. It's a weird image. It's a weird image.

It's a weird image. The room, the, like, the pistons going in and out of meat holes, like, you can interpret that all you want. But it very much seems to be a representation of Mary's abuse and his, like... And so, and he manages to overcome this monster encounter by apologizing to her, which is like, I don't know, dude. Which I don't know. I love that. I love instead of fighting monsters, he just looks them in the eyes and goes, I'm sorry.

I just, you're not going to get that in any other movie, just in those. Yeah, I mean, I'm not mad at it. I think it's, okay. I think it's, sorry, I have to say it's funny that you're talking about how you like the apologizing when, like, your most Canadian accent comes out. I'm sorry. It's like, as a Canadian, I love. I was actually thinking about that earlier because I was going to bring up the apologizing

and I was like, sorry is when it really comes out in my accent. And I was like, are they going to flag that? So I'm glad you. Dan certainly is. The only thing you would have liked more is he was like, there's only one way to settle this on the ice.

And they just strap on their skates and they get out there. Well, you know, I mean, I know it's not true. It's not true per se. Silent ill heated rivalry. Yeah, yeah. Our American stereotype is, of course, how nice Canadians are.

So that seems like a thing that would appeal. What are you talking about? Probably Tim Hortons. Now you're pandering. Now you're pandering, Stephen. Yeah, I got to go get my timies down in. Out for a rip for some Timmy's. So this encounter's over.

He is left with a pile of ashes in place of Angela. He climbs to the roof. Not a great deal. Not a great trade. Remember, he is walking around a hotel that is on fire. So he makes his way to the roof It's a regular Bart and Fink situation He finds Mary's body on a gurney

And this triggers a final flashback Where we learn that he Sometime after the breakup He returned to Silent Hill This time with the most believable fake beard I've ever seen in a movie This beard is so hilarious and unnecessary I love if this whole thing is part of his imagination

I love that he imagines himself with a crazy beast. Like, always men assume that their beard looks cooler than it does. And he's like, no, this looks like dog shit. Except for Dan's beard, which is great. Yeah. But I'm saying that Dan's beard looks great in our eyes. In his mind, it's got to look crazy. Oh, yeah.

In his mind, it's got lightning bolts in it. Yeah, it just produces food whenever he wants. It's a beard from Greek myth. Yeah. Ringlets. So in this flashback, Mary has been hospitalized due to the repeated cult poisonings. She's like apparently consumptive or something. So we're asked to believe that like the cult poisonings were real.

That was not part of his psychic trauma coming through. She really was in a cult that poisoned her and then was taking her blood. Okay. Yeah. And it has trapped her in this kind of like living hell where she won't die but she also can't live. and she's in constant pain. So she begs him to end her life, which he does.

Sounds like 2026, guys. Topical, topical, topical. So he euthanizes her. And that flashback... She's like, I can't die. And he smothers her with a pillow. It's like, oh, I guess you can. I guess I'm wrong.

Yeah. And then we are back on the rooftop. The gurney floats up and morphs into... She is now this. like floating moth monster that we had seen previously. As the hotel kind of crumbles around them, she lifts him up into the air where he, once again, apologizes. What does that sound like, Steve?

Oh, I'm so sorry. Yay. And that, of course, morphs this moth monster back into a merry corpse, wrapped up in a shroud. Again, not a great trade-off. Like, you want a moth monster or you want a dead body? Come on. He stuffs her into the passenger seat of his convertible,

and he drives it off the pier into the lake, and they sink like a stone. This is where we get a sick POV shot. Oh, yeah. Where he's underwater, he looks at her. He looks at himself in the rearview mirror, and it's just like, hell yeah. And that's when, in a flash, he is back on the highway.

It is the beginning of the movie again. He almost runs her over and smashes her stuff. You got to watch the whole thing again, guys. He hit reset on the PS2, and he's starting over. Yeah. He is doing a new game plus on this thing. Yeah.

With all the retained experience, which will make the adventure even more exciting. And yet he can now make other choices, get a different ending maybe, which is literally what he's trying to do. Exactly what he does, yeah. He's trying to do a different ending, where they, of course, missed the bus,

but they still hit it off, and he offers what he should have offered in the first place. Yo, let's not go to Simon. That's what we were suggesting from the beginning. Yeah. See, we were right all along. let me do the most obvious thing in this situation rather than the dumbest thing in this situation. But it took having to go through all that to teach a lesson.

Some guys, some guys, they'd rather apologize to a moth monster in a burly hospital than go to therapy. Am I right? I mean, he's not a very good therapy attendee. When this, like, hard reset happened, when I saw this the second time in the theater, when I dragged all my effects friends to go see it, my friend Scott, like, across the aisle, audibly just went, no! like just loudly to the theater because it made so little sense to him.

And yeah, maybe smart. And then shortly before your special friends hoisted you on their shoulders to carry you out of the theater as thanks for bringing up. Oh, they were so mad. It was probably tough

because the theater was packed wall to wall with human beings. No, there was one other guy that wandered in like 20 minutes into the movie. And so the whole time we're like, does he even understand, I mean, it's hard enough to understand it starting at the beginning, but missing the opening.

But that guy seemed into it. So he probably didn't understand why everyone was freaking out at the end. They were like, no, it makes sense to me, yeah. Maybe he's like me and he's seeing it multiple times because he loved it so much. Yeah, yeah. It was Christoph Gans.

Yeah. Well, that's the perfect segue. The idea that Steve saw this multiple times to go into our judgments on this film, our final judgments, bad movie, a bad, bad movie or a movie we kind of liked. I saw Steve's posts about this on social media and I messaged him being like, should I see this movie?

Because, you know, at the time I, you know, I'm in the business of watching movies. I had a pass to see, you know, as many movies as I like. And business is booming. Maybe I'm a little less, you know, when I have one of those passes, maybe I'm a little less discerning about what I see. And I had liked the first Silent Hill movie. I watched the second one

recently. I also enjoyed that. Not quite as much, but I like both of them. You know, like, I like the vibe. I don't care if I follow the movie. That said,

I'm glad I didn't follow Steve's advice to go see the movie. If I'm in this kind of thing. He wasn't unqualified. He was like, well, you know, it depends on how you, But, yeah, watching this movie at home, I was largely bored. Bored enough that I think that my brain slipped off it a little bit.

And Stewart was telling me some things in his recap. I'm like, oh, that happened? Interesting. Oh, damn. Crazy if true. So I'm going to give it a bad bad, even though the first two are movies I kind of liked. I think this is a weird one because I think the more I talk about it, the more it's kind of grown on me, like, this is a movie that I don't think it's good,

and I think it does not, it doesn't understand the, like, the right lessons for making a good movie, but I imagine that it has enough similarities to the video game that it might feel like a somewhat faithful adaptation, I don't know, but it certainly felt like an adaptation of this kind of a survival horror video game. I'm a fan of survival horror games. I think the last one that I really liked was a game called Outlast 2, which was I only bring it up because it was a game where you don't fight at all. You only have a flashlight that you can turn on and off.

So like any monster encounter, I was always like, well, I can't like beat it. So the whole thing is like if I die. Yeah, we're going to team up. Hey, what's the whole, what's the healthcare plan around here in Monstervania? But I feel like I was always more of a resident evil guy. Steve, if you were going to live in Raccoon City or Silent Hill, where are you going to live? I mean, you didn't name your son after a resident of Raccoon City. I mean, yeah, he is named after Leon Kennedy everybody's favorite Resident Evil cop.

Certainly my favorite. If I had to live in one or the other, I would live in Resident Evil because at least it makes sense, like in terms of What you're fighting. Silent Hill, it's just your internal torments manifesting as monsters. You need to go anywhere for that. Yeah, I do enough that. Yeah. I feel like that's my waking life, so I don't need to go to a town.

See, in my waking life, I talk to a series of people in kind of like, there's not really a story so much, but I just kind of talk to people about philosophy or whatever, and it's all rotoscoped. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I'm going to say, I'm going to say weirdly, I'm going to say this is a movie I kind of liked. I don't, I can't recommend it. I'm going to jump in here.

I'm going to jump in here and reassert sanity on this episode. This is a bad, bad movie. I think if you want to see like a super cut on YouTube of like all the monsters and return to Silent Hill, go ahead and do that. But I think it is an unsatisfying experience. And I did find myself more bored watching this movie than I think I have been in a long time with any movie that I've seen, let alone. Flop House movies especially, but like it's just very, it really did feel like I was sitting there watching my friend play a video game.

and he was not talking to me and he was not letting me play and I couldn't leave because my mom had to run errands. That sounds like a town hill game right there. My mom, I knew my mom wasn't coming back for another hour and a half.

This is when I would start being like, can I walk the seven miles to my house from my friend's house? So I would say bad bad movie. I really didn't like it. But now Steve, be the deciding vote. Okay, well, first I want to ask, though,

because this movie to me, you brought up watching Fear.com. This movie to me feels like a mid-2000s dark castle movie if you were presented with the choice of return to Silent Hill

or Fear.com Dan and Elliot which would you ultimately land on? I think I'd probably To live in or to watch? If you had to watch one again just to watch

I would do my best to break out of the trunk of that car and just run away. I don't care if my hands are tied I don't care if there's a hood on my hand. I'm just running into... That was a sequence in I saw the devil, right?

I mean, I admitted in the Fear.com episode that it was my third time watching Fear.com. So I have to out myself as that kind of sicko. Because that movie, I think, moves at least in a way that this one I found when there weren't monsters on screen. There's something so funny, though, that the emotional climax of this movie features the worst beard you've ever seen.

That's true. But I think I would also watch Fear.com only because there's, like, scenes in it. There's like scenes and dialogue. As opposed to here, it feels very much like you're just following this dude. and he's just every now and then he bumps into a monster. There's something about that, though, that it like reminds me so much of playing one of these videos. Just play a game, though. I just find it fascinating.

I'm not like, I don't know, it's hardest. I mean, the only thing I can imagine, it's like if you, if I love the game Tetris, but if I was like, yeah, let me watch the Tetris movie. It's just two hours of blocks falling from the sky. You know, I don't, I'd be like, I'll just watch the game. I don't care if it reminds me. Yeah, but by the end of those two hours, those blocks are falling fast as fast. Oh, that's true.

They're falling so fast. The music bumps up. Yeah, it's like a Safty Brothers movie at that point. I mean, Tetris is the Safti Brothers movie of video games. Yeah, because you're like, uh-huh, uh-huh. Because one bad mistake screws you up so much. And all you can do after that point is make more bad mistakes. Yeah.

Or maybe Dr. Mario, because the soundtrack's better, but yeah. The soundtrack of Tetris is great. Even so it's just basically the two songs. Yeah. I'm going to argue the soundtrack of Dr. Mario is better than the soundtrack of Tetris. We can have this argument. They're great soundtracks. Listeners, way in.

Listeners right in. Are you a serial or fever or return to Silent Hill? Are you a Dr. Mario or a Tetris? These are the... Are you a Carrie or Miranda? Personality. Steve, I don't think... Did you give your final judgment?

I think that we know you're the world's number one fan. It's pretty obvious that this is a movie I kind of like. But like I said in my social media post that most people seem to ignore this part, I said it is a terrible movie. It's a bad movie. But I just find it. fascinating. To me, it's

someone with real artistic intent making this film. This is not a cynical movie. This is a movie where Christoph Gans is trying to adapt Silent Hill 2 and he's succumbing to maybe his worst instincts, one of which is

committing to the cult angle. And he's over-complicating a very simple story. Like in the game, essentially the plot is just, you get a letter from your dead wife who died of a terminal illness, three years prior telling you to come back to Silent Hill, a town that you had vacationed at, you know,

when she was still alive and you were together. It was a very, like, kind of simple setup, a lot of, like, ambiguous elements that were very effective. It's a very effective horror story, and I'd argue Silent Hill, too, the game is one of the best bits of horror media out there. So for me, this movie being such a swing and a miss is just a really interesting thing to dissect and watch.

I'm not saying that I like enjoy it and think that it like you're going to have a good time watching it. But as a weird oddity that I want to like put in a glass case and be like, look at this weird thing that exists. I really appreciate it. And for me, it's funny that you guys say that you're bored by it because I felt like this felt like a speed run to me of a game where every scene something was happening, whether it was clunky dialogue or a weird monster or just weird transitions between. scenes or like with the therapist looking through the glass table like stuff like there's just choices that i every scene as a choice i'm trying to unpack and for me as a filmmaker i think i find that uh endlessly fascinating and entertaining i've definitely felt this sort of like fascination that you're uh talking about with movies that i would never like try and sell to another person but to me

they're like such an interesting object and i think part of it must have to do with familiarity because like yes it makes sense to me that steward and you, Steve, are like the ones who have, if not played Silent Hill, in Stewart's case, played similar types of games with, you know, like regularly at least, or with some degree of familiarity, whereas I'm making an assumption about Elliot, but I don't think he has, and I know I haven't. I've never played them. Well, it's like, yeah, the video game connection certainly helps,

but also I have a real nostalgia for the early 2000s style of horror movie, Like this movie, you can shoot out all you want, but it effectively is... Oh, I will, sir. It is a throwback to 2006 filmmaking. Like, it feels like Gons made the first Silent Hill and then immediately made this movie. And then just held out to a crowd. Yeah, like, even just its cinematography is so of that era. There's very, like, rich colors.

It has actual shadows in it, which is a thing that a lot of horror movies don't have. because of the current style of color grading. Like, the blacks are black and the whites are very white. And I find that just on a cinematography level, that makes for interesting visuals. So, I don't know, there's just like a lot of things in there that are interesting to me, even if the movie is an absolute mess and a disaster.

And that's the stuff that I also like, because I have a similar fondness. Just to me, I feel like the perfect way to watch this. movie would be on mute at a party. Yes. Yeah, it's great background noise. It's a really good background one. I think in some ways, I think I might enjoy watching it more a second time because I know

what I'm in for as opposed to the first time where I'm like, what, what's going to like, there's nothing. I mean, there's stuff happening, but there's nothing really happening. And it really started to bother me that maybe just because I saw the same thing in the Super Mario Galaxy movie, where in action scenes, the character just doesn't react vocally. in any way whatsoever. Like he'll come across something and he won't even go like, what?

Or like, ugh, he just kind of, it's all in the, it was like, this isn't a silent movie. He can make sounds, you know, and things like that. Like, there was like one moment early on where I think James goes like, this is crazy. And then he doesn't acknowledge anything

for the rest of the movie. He's like, I said it already. I said this was crazy. I don't have something to add. I will say that too. Yeah, yeah. That's what it felt like. They're like, well, we got that out of the way.

So now he can act like everything's normal, which another insane choice on a pile of that's a lot of funny choices made in this one. All right, so yeah, movie of the year. 216, just give out the Oscars now, you know.

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They were named number one by wirecutter, and you can save on the gift that moms love by visitingoraFrames.com. For limited time, listeners can get $25 off their best-selling Carver Matt frame with the code flop. That's A-U-R-A-Frames promo code flop. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout terms and conditions. Apply. Now what do we do on the podcast, Dan? Let's answer some letters from listeners.

Listeners like you, this first one is from David last name withheld. My brother? Not Elliot's brother. I'm sorry, Elliot. I don't know why I apologize. I think there's a wave of relief every time I confirm. Is my brother okay? I don't understand.

I'll just assume it's David Duchovney. Yeah, yeah. He's got a red shoe diary. He wants to read. You don't like David Duchy. Have you seen David Duchy? lately he's kind of morphin into a Walter Mathau as he old.

Really? I mean, that's not a bad. It's not bad. It's not bad. It's not bad. I mean, if you're gonna... But I could see that. I could see his face in Walter Mouth.

He's like, when he was young, he was like handsome Walter Mathow. Yeah. But although I love... Which is the same as Walter Mather. Still in like Charlie Varek years. He's like killing it with the ladies. Walter Mather.

Because Walter Malth has got charisma, Dan. He's got Riz. He does. He does. He's the Rizley Bear. Come on. Here we go. As many have said before, your podcast has gotten me through the...

He's risen and evil. Go on. Thank you for permitting. As many have said before, your podcast has gotten me through the horrors of the last 10 years. I have the unfortunate luck to live in downtown Washington, D.C. They've had a front row seat to pretty much everything. Our big, wet president has done to my hometown.

Enjoy your new reflecting pool that looks like a swimming pool. Enjoy it. I was actually listening to... listening to your episode on Primal while the January 6th insurrection was happening outside my apartment. Yikes. Your friendship has been an island of stability

at a chaotic time. So thank you. You know what? I'm going to say something. I'm not to interrupt the letter. I am heartened by the lack of flop house listeners that I believe were caught in the net of arrests after January 6th.

And nowhere did I see that someone was listening to Flop House while taking part in the insurrection on January 6th? And that makes me feel really good about our audience. So thank you audience. doing like a house cat Rourau while on the step floor. That would be the worst. Wait, someone's getting arrested with the police and goes, wait, what?

Come on. Like, that would be bad. Wasn't the guy carrying the podium away? Wasn't he doing the house cat sound? Doing the house cat. What is that dance? We've got to figure it out. No, I mean, I think our frequently expressed personal views have probably weeded out.

I sure hope so. I sure hope so. Anyway, anyway, the letter says earlier this week, I was able to catch. last year's sci-fi horror flick Ash on streaming. And while I thought it was a little creaky in places, the atmosphere and creature effects were terrific. Like all movie sickos, I found myself thinking of the letterbox review

I would write about this movie, eventually settling on RIP Stewart Gordon, you would have loved Ash, parentheses, flagging lotus, 2025. My question to you is, what other movies have you seen and immediately thought, man, I wish this legendary filmmaker were alive to see this. some others that popped into my head

Buster Keaton would have died laughing at Police Story 3 Supercop I bet Soviet new humanist master Mikhail Klappsov would have loved Sean Baker's Anora excited to hear your thoughts and keep on keep it on

David last name with hell That's the way you got to say it Whenever anyone writes to keep on You do you got to say that way Mosy on that dusty trail Get along doggies that's the end of the letter. Now it's your turn.

I have to admit, this is not anything I've ever thought after seeing a movie, but maybe you guys have had this experience. I'll try to think of some. I thought it was a...

It's a cool idea. A cool idea, which is mostly why I wanted to read it because I certainly don't have a great answer for it. I always want to just say, I feel like every dead filmmaker just needs to watch Avengers Endgame,

you know, the pinnacle of filmmaking. I mean, I mean, Go on. Oh, sorry. No, no, no. I was just going to say, I would love to sit in a theater with Kubrick watching Return

to Silent Hill. I feel like that would be... I actually feel like he would probably get a lot out of it in some ways. That's what I mean is I think he would be like into it in a lot of ways and appreciate some of the artistry behind it. So that's my answer. Yeah. I mean, that's a great answer because I think the things that I'm running up against are,

it's just like, okay, well, what current artist do I think we're influence? by previous artists, you know, and then that's not as interesting. Like, is it going to be interesting to be like sitting in a Wes Anderson movie with Hal Ashby next to you? I don't know. Not particularly,

but I bet you, like, I could see watching everything everywhere all at once with Frank Tashlin, and I could see Frank Tashlin really enjoying that movie for how kind of like elastic and plastic it is, you know, and not the kind of movie he would have made,

but similarly living in a kind of almost animated, universe, you know. Yeah. Or the new Super Mario Brothers movie with David Lynch. That would be great. What is happening? Whoa, Star Fox is in this? Nobody told me that.

Who is that plumber? See, Dan, we're going in two different directions. In yours, David Lynch is not aware of it. Whereas in mind, he's a terrible Nintendo Power fan. Yeah, exactly. Both are good. You know? I feel like they didn't scratch.

They barely scratched the surface of Rosabelle's potential. That's the name of that other princess, right? Rosalina. Rosalina. There's another princess? There's like three, right? There's like Daisy and Princess Peach

and Rosalina. Rosalina. You know what? I saw this movie and I can't even remember what the names of the characters in it. These are characters I primarily know from Mario Kart, not from doing the various

adventures. David Lynch is watching the movie and he goes, as soon as Yoshi shows up, you can tell that's Donald Glover doing Yoshi's voice. And then he walks, and then the problem is that... He lobbied for the roll. And the problem is that when you get up to leave, he's going to know, what are you doing?

We're watching this again. Sit back down. Yeah. Okay. Would have been better shot on TV cameras, though. Yeah. You think this was shot like on a film camera, David?

Yeah. Yeah. Lynch is imagining that these are little creatures running around. I got to see if Toad is available for my next project. There's a psychosexual quality to him that I think could come in

handy. This next letter is from Nika Lasting Withheld, who writes I've been a fan of y'all since listening to your D&D episode on TAS, which I found hilarious. Not to immediately discredit this, but I have almost no sense of humor. For a long time, I used to watch... This is an interesting person, and I want to hear more.

Yeah, they love us, but have no sense of humor. For a long time, I used to watch stand-up or comedies and fake laugh with everyone else because I look like a psychopath if I don't. now that I'm in my 30s, I've accepted that most comedies I've watched weren't actually funny to me. Examples are like Mrs. Doddfire, Tommy Boy, Zoolander,

Monty Python, Dumbra, Airplane, Friday, honestly most popular comedies. I mean, personally, there's like two in there that I would think are works of genius and a bunch of ones. I'm like, yeah, that's fine. Yeah, it's fine, exactly.

But guess which two listeners? I love the idea of somebody sitting stone face being like, well, the deal with airline food is that it's hard to prepare hot fresh beers for people on a plane. That is the deal. They cannot make it out of the black box. The black box is too heavy.

I sometimes hear a good joke. The peanuts have to be in a small bag because you have to have enough of them for everybody on the flight and it has to be hard to open the bag because you don't want them spilling out during takeoff or landing. Yeah, yeah.

Andy Kibler actually had a bit about that once. Right. Diabetic. Diabetic. He goes, sugarless chocolate. Who's that for? What's that about? And he goes, diabetics.

That's who that's for. The idea of any joke where they could have done like two minutes of research to answer the question. Yeah. Yeah. Continuing to the letter. I sometimes hear a good joke and think it's clever, but it still doesn't make me laugh out loud. Somebody's got a book to read, and that book is called joke farming by Elliot Kalen. Can you all recommend a comedy, maybe one that doesn't rely on physical humor, that is certain to bring a chuckle?

Thanks, babes. Nika, last name withheld. Well, I like being called Babe. Who wouldn't like that? Yeah, I mean, here's the thing. Like, it's hard, like, comedy. You know, I'm breaking some real new ground here. It's subjective.

Oh. Oh, yeah. It's hard to say, oh, yeah. It's hard to say based on sort of the wide variety of different comedies that you said you didn't laugh at anything other than, like, I don't know. Like, these are my favorite comedies, and they may not work for you. Like, any of the early Marks Brothers movies are some of my favorite comedies.

I love the jerk. I don't know. Like, these are movies that will always get a laugh out of me, even if I've seen them before. If you don't get at least, like, one chuckle out of top secret, I think there's something wild going on. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but they didn't like airplanes. So it seems like that. Yeah, but those movies are totally different.

There's nothing alike in any way. There's no underwater like tavern brawl in airplane. Yeah, there's no backwards Swedish scene. Thank you. Or someone with a giant eye looking through a magnifying glass. Yep, yeah. I am going to recommend a television show rather than a movie. I know that's not the same thing.

But it has, does not have... It's a studio 60 again. Yeah. But I was a big fan of, I'm a big fan of the Philomena Kunk stuff. Yeah. So the show Kunk on Earth, which is a parody of those documentary shows

that are like, where did we come from? What is human history? And it's just a joke delivery machine. It's just joke after joke after joke. And in that, if you don't like Mide Python, you might not like it because it's a similar sort of like British smart dumb comedy. You know, like you need a university degree

to write the stupidest joke in the world. But I think it's really funny. It's funny. I feel like the letter writer because I tried to watch that thinking like this is going to be for me and like I can see that she's very funny I can see in theory the material is funny

I just sat there being like this is not working for me because she's pretending to be very dumb in front of smart people and like there is a part of me that does not like that kind of fuckery in comedy like I'm just like I'm just going to mess with these people

like I don't know unless those people are evil like we did on the daily show where it's like, oh, well, now I understand, now I understand why I'm on your side, you know. I don't know. She's not trying to get anybody, though. Like, she's not trying to get, like, get them to say something that will indict them in some way. She's just being dumb in front of people and kind of confusing them a little bit.

I just don't like that. I don't know. I think it's a very funny show. But anyone else who want to toss their suggestions in the old comedy hat? I'm trying to think of something, like, that's out of left field that might shake it up. a bit. I guess... It's all corner gas from this guy. Yeah, nothing but corner gas and trailer park

boys. I mean, I guess I could recommend Nirvana the band The Show and then Nirvana the band the show, the movie. This is a bit of like Canadian, weird comedy. It does play into Dan's thing of not liking people getting fucked around with

a little bit. Well, I think that that's very minimal in that movie, but what, I mean, like, I already went, but... You worked on what the show? Yeah, I did. There was like a Halloween episode of the show where there was a werewolf transformation that I did. So I was on set

for a few days and got to experience that insanity firsthand. There's a lot of running around parks in Toronto while this werewolf guy interacted with people and then PAs would come up after with like release forms to get them to like sign their likeness away. Magic of the movies, baby.

It was a real peek behind the curtain on how that kind of insanity plays out. Steve, this is side question, but it, you know, it really, like, kind of interests me, like, to me, from the outside, like, wherewolf transformation, like, that seems like, oh, man, like, if I was a special effects person, like, oh, that'd be fun to, like, take my crack at that. Like, are there any, like, specific things, like, that you're like, oh, yeah, that's, like, what I want to do or my way.

I mean, I really like any kind of Tokusatsu adjacent stuff, which is. pretty obvious at this point. Like anything that is. Okay. Well, like Japanese, like genre, cinema or their style of special effects where it's like, it's not really about realism as it is about theatricality. And I, you know, like Power Rangers style monsters where it's like, this guy's got a big key for a head and this guy's made out of tires.

And they all kind of like, they all do that one motion where they kind of rev up with their shoulders and arms when they're about to do something. typically the movement from like the head down is limited to just like your elbows so you have to just go like this a bunch that makes sense but yeah I don't typically get asked

to do that kind of stuff which is why my movies feature it so much because I just want to make weird monsters but werewolf stuff does interest me the thing people don't talk about though is that everybody loves werewolves everybody wants werewolf transformations they don't talk about how it's actually like

one of the hardest things and most expensive things to execute. And it's kind of an obvious reason, but there's just so much hairwork involved. Yeah, and so many stages, right? It's kind of an obvious reason. People don't look like wolves. But like you have to,

somebody has to punch hair or lay the hair for all this. This was one of the reasons why Rick Baker left the industry was because on Wolfman, and they didn't want to pay for the hair for the werewolf in it, like the wolf man in it. And so he said, well, if you don't have the wolf, then it's just man, you know? Like, it's just a guy.

Like, so, yeah, it's dangerous. Based on his ponytail, respects hair. Yeah, I mean, he could have just snipped that off and used it, I guess. I mean, he literally made Harry and the Hedarsons, right? Yeah, this is true. So, yeah, I mean, for Nirvana at the band, the show, doing that, werewolf was fun and it was like a bit of a bucket list item.

But it's always the scenario of you don't have enough time, money, resources to do it. And I find that's always the trap with werewolves because I get, I'm always quoting on doing werewolf builds for stuff. And when I give people the number, they're like, oh, that's crazy. And it's like, well,

you just walk through what it takes to build a big hairy dude. Like, yeah, it's expensive. You can see from the outside, it's complex. If you want to do it practically, it's complex. Yeah, you just blew a bunch of wigs on somebody. Yeah, yeah, just throw them on.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Getting back to comedy is the first half of Banshees of Inassuron is pretty funny. It's true. Well, you know, I was going to go like a little more left fields. If they don't like just like straight up comedy comedies, I mean, the Cohen brothers did like things that are comedy comedies, but it comes at it from like a different angle of comedy than just like, I don't know, It's a funny character

focused on, or it's like a laugh a minute, just throw a bunch of jokes in, that might be a root that is more different if you're looking for laughs? I don't know. I'm always looking for laughs. Thanks for all the advice, guys.

Okay, well, apparently Stuart was the secret letter writer. We didn't know this whole time. And I highly recommend my book, joke farming from the University of Chicago Press, how to write comedy other nonsense, even if you don't want to write comedy. Which features Hinterlands Bar, probably.

Interlands Bar is mentioned in it. And that's a movie, you're saying. That's a movie that you would recommend. It's like the movie on the timber. Yeah. Okay. But I've heard they've optioned the rights. Yeah, yeah.

Like many how-to-write books. It's been optioned by Brett Ratner. Uh-oh. Oh, yeah, I was not happy about that. Yeah. But at the same way that a Ridley Scott, you know, how he optioned the elements of style a while back. Oh, yeah. He didn't really.

I'm just joking, but he options a bunch of stuff. Oh, that would have been too bad. I think he would have crushed it. Remember at one point he was going to make a monopoly movie? Whatever happened? Oh, yeah. I was excited for that. Yeah.

It's a bummer. It didn't happen. Yeah. Now is the time on the show where we make recommendations. Return to Silent Hell's Day in the Sun. Well, you know, I'm looking through movies that I watched recently. I'm saddened that I didn't save Strange Brew for when we had. You've gotten too excited over in his workshop.

Yeah, exactly. Great movie. I'm going to recommend a movie that I think Stuart actually recommended fairly recently. Maybe I'm wrong. It was on a criterion channel collection recently. I rewatched Body Double, which when I was younger, I was like sort of, I guess, maybe ashamed to count among my most favorite DiPolma movies. Because it's one of the least respectable one is the one that goes like all out sleazy. It's awesome.

But that's what you want with De Palma, you know, in a certain way. You don't go to De Palma for dignified sense of a... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're not saying De Palma's Gossford Park. And also, on rewatch... I mean, I do want to see that now. On rewatch, I also, like, I feel like this time around realized, like, how much of a goof the movie is, like, how much silly fun he's having. Like, you can take it on surface level as, like, you know, a guy gets entangled in a web of sex and intrigue and violence.

Or you can also realize that it's just, like, kind of ramping up all of the stuff that you find in Jello and Hitchcock to ridiculous levels. And it has, like, one of the dorkiest leads of all movies. Yes, yeah. He is such a dorky weirdo, like such a dorky perv creature. And this is, Dan and I were texting about this, that part of the issue I had when I, when I first saw that movie is I was like, yeah, if I was in this situation,

I would not get caught in a web of deceit. Like a Hitchcock movie is about a regular person who gets caught up because their inner obsessions get latched. But like, this is, he's right from the start. He's a weird guy. He's doing weird things. I'm not going to follow my neighbor to the mall and take her panties out of the garbage

and look at him like, no, I'm not going to do that. But that's the key, I think that you're not, I mean, like, the fact that he does that is the key that you're like, oh, you're not supposed to take this guy. as like, you know, your normal sympathetic. Yeah. There's, I was texting because like,

I found it very funny that literally in the middle of the movie there's a cop character who comes in, it's like, hey, you creepy weirdo, what do you been doing for the whole first half of the movie? You did it all wrong. And shout out to front of the flop house, Barbara Crampton. Yes, in a small role. Very brief, but she's in there.

I am going to recommend a movie that may have been mentioned a couple times on the podcast. I recently went to a screening of a couple of short Kiyoshi Kurosawa movies at the IFC Center. I saw his most recent one, chime, and I saw The Serpent's Path, but I'm actually going to recommend one of his more popular films,

Cure, which to me, I feel like it's very applicable to the movie we watch today. And I, watching it, I only watch it recently, and it's crazy to see how its fingerprints are all over, you know, it came out in what, like, 98, 99, and, like, so much horror has been influenced by this guy's movie. Everything from movies like The Ring to something more out, like, weird like Alan Moore's Providence comic book,

just the idea of this, like, spreading madness. And the filmmaking techniques are really interesting. And it's just a really weird, awesome. vibey horror movie and it's great. Cure. I am, I was thinking, I haven't seen a lot of movies recently because I've been watching all these flop house movies. I haven't seen a lot of good movies.

Tell me about it. Watching Return Silent Hill, I'm like, what is a better movie where someone is wandering around in a spooky place? And so it reminded me of a movie that I haven't seen in years, but I really loved when I saw it used to go and that's House of the Devil, the Thai West movie, where so much of that movie is just the main

character wandering around in a house by herself, but the tension is so thick. and the atmosphere is so great. And it really cast a spell of being in a spooky house on me. So I'm going to recommend The House of the Devil. Steve, do you have a recommendation for us? Yes, I do. You guys know me.

I love movies about weird freaks going on wacky adventures. That's why I'm going to recommend 1973's The Last Detail. Was that? Oh, yeah. Was there enough baiting that switch for you? I got whiplash. Hold on a second. But, yeah, I don't know.

I don't know. I'm trying to make an effort to watch more 70s and 80s and 60s cinema and in an effort to watch, you know, real good movies to offset stuff like Return to Silent Hill. And this movie, it just really stuck with me. I really love how low stakes it is, like almost like defiantly low stakes because it's just like two Navy officers go escorting another sailor to prison. get in all sorts of weird side quests along the way, directed by Hal Ashby. And yeah, I don't know. I just, it stuck in my brain. And for a movie to do that nowadays is like a real achievement. I mean, when we ingress so much media all the time,

I find stuff just kind of like goes in one ear and out the other. And this movie, I just keep thinking about it. I watched it a few weeks ago and I'm still ruminating on it, just how effective it is. So, yeah, highly recommend the last detail. Well, we're winding down, but before we go, we should ask you, Steve, if there's anything you'd like to plug. I know Deathstalker's now on Shudder just recently. Yep, Death Stalker just hit Shutter.

It was a month back. So, yeah, that's my latest film. I'd highly recommend checking out Steve's Patreon. Yeah, check out my Patreon, Kastansky's Crypt, where it's just me noodling on stuff in my workshop. I'm starting a new line of masks called Slop Cops that are just like weird freak cops that come out of a

swamp and fight bad guys. Partially inspired by me marathoning the Swamp Thing cartoon. There's only five episodes, but great, great cartoon. So yeah, anyways, check that out if you want to see what I'm sculpting and working on right now. The last thing I want to say,

though, just a random tidbit about Silent Hill. I don't know if you guys knew this, but the elementary school in those games that's featured is modeled after the elementary school from kindergarten cop, for some reason. Interesting. So yeah, think on that. Why don't you?

Okay, you just freaked our beans. I will. I'll think about it as I fall asleep. If you can fall asleep after you. I mean, that's a good point. I think I feel like we've talked so much about Silent Hill and the video games. I think I'm probably going to you, now that I've reached about

1,500 subscribers or followers on my Twitch. I think I'm finally going to play through Silent Hill to, I'll do it next month or something. If people want to watch me get freaked out on camera. If you want to see it on camera being freaking, go for it. And that's a, this mention of followers is a good chance to say, we just came off the Max Fund Drive. Thank you to everyone who supports the show.

Thank you to everyone who has supported the show consistently over the year. who, you know, folks who maybe don't get talked as much about as we're driving towards new members, but thank you to all of you for the support. And on a more personal support level, thank you to Alex Smith, our producer. He goes by the name Howell Doughty on the Internet. You can listen to his original music. You can check out his podcast, Big Howl and Possum. You can watch his Twitch streams after you're done watching Stewart's Bean get freaked or whatever.

I mean, he's the one who's going to help me get my bean freaked. Okay. As a good friend does? Yeah. Wind beneath my wings. Freak beneath your bean. Anyway, what am I doing? I'm signing off.

For the Flop House, I've been Dan McCoy. Hey, Dan McCoy, it's me, Stuart over here. Stuart Wellington. I'm Ellie Kaelin, not doing a voice, and we've been joined by. I'm Steve Kastansky. Stay scared, everybody. Stay scared. Oh, he's got his sketchphrase.

What a good sign-off. His sign-off is so much better than any of ours. I stole it from George Romero. On this episode, we discuss return to Silent Hill. Return to Silent Hill. You know, in some ways, I never left. That's sick. That's sick, dude.

Also pretty great. That rules. Okay. Are we talking to Christoph Gons right now or whatever? Return to Brotherhood of the Wolf. Wait, did he direct Brotherhood of the Wolf? Yeah, right? Yeah, man.

And Crying Freeman as well. And Crying Freeman as well? Yeah, some bangers in there. I had to show a scene from Brotherhood of the Wolf to the people I'm working with to, because there was a saying, I was talking about there was a monster that has like a bone tail. And I'm like, oh, it could be kind of like that bone kind of nunchy. Chuck sword thing that the guy has at the end. And I showed them that scene and watching it, I was like,

this movie looks so much sillier than I remember. Yeah. Oh, that bone sword, though. It looks great. And the best transition in movie history going up Monica Balucci's body and then her boobs turned into mountain peaks. It's great. It's incredible.

Oh, man, we're wasting all this stuff. Okay, we got to get into the actual. If only we were recording it. Yeah. Are we recording? Everybody was going to be recording for a while now. Yeah. So disgusted.

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