The Rewatchables - ‘The Conjuring’ With Bill Simmons, Sean Fennessey, and Chris Ryan

Episode Date: July 21, 2020

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Sean Fennessey, and Chris Ryan investigate a farmhouse with suspicious activity after rewatching the 2013 horror film ‘The Conjuring’ starring Ron Livingston, Lili Taylor, Vera Farmiga, and Patrick Wilson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer podcast network where you can find. When is the Connect launch on? July 22nd. July 22nd, Shea Serrano and Jason Concepcion taking two movies, finding a similarity between them, and then just pontificating. And that one launches, you can subscribe to it right now. If you like movie podcasts, you've heard both of those guys. On this one, we also launched the Ringer Fantasy Football Show this week.

One of the hosts, Craig Horleback. Craig, pop on for one second. Yeah, hey. Hey, congrats. You have your own feed. It's great. You did it. Thank you very much.

Yeah, you did it. Craig, you did it. You shared bad takes about movies for two years and now you got your own feed. That's all it takes, I guess. Wow. I was going to say, people know you hear from your terrible taste in movies, but you actually have good taste and fancy football. That's what you're known for, I thought.

From the producers of what makes Fletch funny comes, Who did stop or drop? Actually, did you guys see John Hamm Fletch? That's happening. Yeah, John, that's true. The Fletch remake with John Hamm. I'll believe it when I see it. There's been a lot of Fletch remakes.

Anyway, coming up next, Bat Shiba! I condemn you to hell! The Conjuring. That's next. What are you guys? We've been called demonologists, paranormal researchers. They've investigated the Amityville Har and the haunting in Connecticut.

On July 9th. Their most terrifying case. There's a lady in a dirty nightgown that I see in my dreams. Begins. Rated R. July 19th. Sean Fantasy is here and Chris Ryan is here. We've been doing the rewatchables here for over three years. And we've only done a few horror movies.

It's intentional because all three of us love horror movies. I really love horror movies. I've actually told people I've seen every horror movie probably since they've seen. 78. And people think I'm kidding, but I'm not sure I am. I don't know when it's going to happen for the rewatchables where we just go on a run and 30 podcasts we do. 20 of them will be horror movies. But the conjuring is a good one to dive into it because when I was growing up, a young pup in New England, Massachusetts, Amityville Horror came out a year after Halloween. and my dad decided not to let me see it,

but we were staying at the Cape in the summer of 1979, and he had seen it. And he told me there was this part how the babysitter got locked in the closet by the spirit and couldn't get out and was in this pitch black closet. And we're at the Cape and we're at the shed where we were getting balls. I went in to get like a basketball and he locked the shed behind me.

He was like, it's like amnivote horror. I was so scared, I almost lost control my bowels. It was the meanest thing he's ever done to me. And I was like, at some point I got to see this movie. And I finally saw it probably when I was like 11. And it's kind of the birth of the haunted house movie. I did research on this. There was some stuff in the 40s, 50s, 60s.

But the modern haunted house movie, Sean Fennacy, it kind of starts with Amnivow Horror, right? Yeah. I mean, I guess you're, like you said, there's movies like the innocence and there's stuff in the 60s that is a little bit more, I guess, elegant, but the mainstream horror haunted house movie. I mean, it probably does start there. I have a personal connection to it too because I grew up one town over from Amityville. I grew up on Huntington, Long Island, and Amityville is less than five minutes away by car. And so, you know, there's a high level of awareness. Oh, people are almost over the Amityville horror because it's just such a known thing on Long Island. And it's just such a known thing on Long Island. And, and so, you know, there's a high level of awareness. And so, you know, there's a high level of awareness. People are almost over the Amityville horror, because it's just it's just and so overexposed. But I didn't know that it was, you know, that this universe was all sort of this movie that we're talking about was all based on, you know,

this interconnectedness with the Warren family. I had my uncle Rick, my mom's brother, he had the Anmoveville horror book. And I remember thumbing through it before the movie came out. And it kind of was imprinted on my brain. It's the red cover. And it was just like, ah, what's this? Chris, would you call this a haunted house genre?

Or would you call this, there's something wrong with the house genre. Oh, I would definitely call it haunted, but I would say that the conjuring, especially the first one in the franchise, is so great because it almost acts as like an encyclopedia of horror movies. You know, both stylistically in terms of where it's drawing from

some of the movies that you guys have mentioned already, like Amityville, but also, you know, repulsion or the haunting and some of more classic, like 60s and 70s stuff. And then goes all the way up to, and through found footage,

which is what I think makes the end of this movie so effective is the fact that they're pulling from some of the stuff that horror movies had a revival off the back of, I guess in the 2000s or whenever paranormal activity was really popping off, and really, like, uses a lot of these more modern innovations. So when I was a kid in the late 70s, the Exorcist had been out for a few years, was the most terrifying horror movie ever made

and also the most successful. And that whole demon possession thing, they tried it a whole bunch of different ways. Damien Omen happened, all that stuff. 79, Amityville Horror comes out. 1980 to the Changeling, 1982 Poultergeist. And Poultergeist becomes a mammoth hit

and a really important movie and important in the whole Spielberg framework of the stuff he's trying to do back then. And probably one of the most defining 1982, one of the biggest pop culture movies, the genre kind of dies over the course of the later 80s, and horror moves to the Michael Myers. Slasher.

The slasher, this guy's going to kill everybody. That kind of dies by the mid-90s, and then we move into kind of the ironic teen-based horror movies where you get scream. That sets off this whole thing. Then we get into remakes. And for whatever reason, it doesn't really start coming back until 01. The others comes out in 01. O2, Juon, the drudge. Is that how you say it,

Sean? The grudge. Juan? How do you say the first person? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Then the skeleton key in 05. So now we're kind of dabbling back, but then paranormal activity comes out in 07. And that's off the heels of Blair Witch in 99. And now they're like, there's something wrong with the house found footage. Let's combine these two. And then that just has its own run. 2012 Sinister, I think, is when it flips again. Sinister 12, Conjuring 13 does it the best. And now you can tell from the Netflix algorithm, the algorithm is clearly spitting out.

There's something wrong with the house. Just make more of those. And there has to be more movies made in the last eight years just with that theme than I would say in all the years before, right, Sean? Probably, but you know, there's a really specific reason why. These movies only have one set. They're cheap to make. You never, the location scouting is you find a house in a small neighborhood somewhere.

You rent that house out for 60 days and you just make hell inside the house. It's a really smart thing to keep your budget down. Yeah, that's got to be less than, I would say, two, three million less. You could spend it on special effects. Chris, what's your favorite thing about this genre? I think it's the fact that the kind of people who are usually in horror movies and specifically haunted house movies rarely are really in are the subjects of movies otherwise. you know, and sometimes those characters aren't particularly well developed, but for the most part, like, you don't really get to see a ton of just like, yeah, it's just an ordinary family moving into a house or island. Hopefully everything will work out. And that, that, they would never be the subject of a movie. I think me and my wife watch horror movies, like, constantly. And one of the reasons why we're so drawn to them, aside from the fact that like the terror involved in it kind of like just wakes you up on a sensory level is the setups. We

always love the setups of these movies. Now, I think the conjuring is pretty interesting because it deviates from having one POV character or one POV group. Like, it's more told as like a magazine article or something like that the way it cuts between

different POV characters and it feels almost like nonfiction to its credit. But yeah, I think that the reason why I'm drawn to these things is because the people living in those houses more than the houses themselves. One of the reasons I love haunted house movies is Because even a bad haunted house movie is still totally watchable.

Yeah. You're always going to be identified with, I bought this house, there's something wrong with it. Like even the Ethan Hawk movie that just came out recently, which was not good. I still liked it. I enjoyed it because you always putting yourself in this situation of how far it would I have to be pushed before I got the fuck out of there. Eddie Murphy was doing this on his, I think his first comedy album, comedian, did a whole riff about Amityville horror and like what's wrong with white people. when white people have a haunted house, they're like,

we've got to figure this out. And then he does a whole impression of like if a black family moved into a medieval horror house, this ghost said, get out. And they'd be like, okay,

we'll see you guys later. And he gets out. It's really funny. But this has been a 40-year thing. And yet we all kind of identify with that. All right, I just sunk all my money into this house. I made this huge commitment.

I'm going to try to talk myself into this. Yeah, that Ouija board we found in the attic. Yeah. Did our dog die a little early into our movie? Maybe. Maybe. It was sort of weird that the dog bit it the first night at this house. Oh, my God. My kids, we have an attic at our house, obviously. And a couple times people have come up where, you know, the air conditioning went down or somebody had to go in the attic and the staircase thing came to. And my kids, I've just shown them too many horror movies. When that staircase to the attic comes down. down. They react like, what's up there? What could happen? Do you and your kids still get scared by these movies? I do. Yeah. I think part of it, like, we watched The Conjuring Friday night. My wife was out. It was me and my two kids. Went in the backhouse from doing this podcast right now and I'm good stares around. Turn all the lights off. Turned it really loud because I think it has to be loud. And they've seen that movie,

I would say, at least 10 times each. I went to go get a beer at one point. And 40 minutes in like, where are you going? Dad! It was like one of those. I'm like, what do you mean? I'm just going to get a beer right back. And then Ben follows me out to make sure I'm not like ditching them. And I don't know.

It's just something about it. What do you think? Is this the best haunted house movie ever made, start to finish? I think it's the culmination. I think what Chris was saying is right, which is that it's drawing on 40, 50 years. of haunted house history. And so it's the most,

it's the most competently made, which seems like a shot at it, but it's not. It's like, it's so steady. It's so clear where you're going. And I was thinking about whether or not, like I still get scared.

Before we started, I told Craig why I like horror movies, which is that I'm dead inside, and it takes a lot for me to feel something. And horror movies really make me feel something. They make me feel something intense internally that I don't know how to deal with. And for the same reason that Ben got freaked out

when you got a beer, I get freaked out when I'm sitting by myself on the couch watching a movie like this, even though, you know, I'm pushing 40 years old. And I don't know if this, I don't know if the term best necessarily applies, but this movie couldn't have happened without the 40 years of movies that came before it. And it feels like it's made by people that really get what makes these movies good. And that's the reason that I like it. Because it's not really innovative. It's not really, it doesn't really bring anything new to the idea of like who is haunted or why. it's just got great actors,

it's got incredible production design, it's got incredible sound, it's got good scares, and you walk away from the end of it, feeling like, I actually want to see more of this. I want to see more of this world, which is,

that's how you know that you've drawn people in. And they don't test the logic of the movie that much. The whole point with horror movies is often that they are a little bit illogical, both the human behavior, like where you're like, why are you going into the basement when you heard something weird?

like that is that is the the sort of core tension of a horror movie is people doing what they're not supposed to be doing like what you were saying bill but they they make it in such a way that you can kind of like understand like why these sort of like the sort of protection instincts of the characters come out i mean they don't spend a ton of time on ed and lorraine or uh or ron livingston and lilia taylor's characters in terms of like really flushing them out but you when you have those two core sort of relationships at the center of the movie, you understand it.

And all the stuff about Bathsheba and the cursed land and demons and how you can, you know, defeat demons, they kind of brush aside, you know? And I think that that's sort of what at the core of the conjuring is, there are still people who are like, but this might have been a hoax.

So there's ghost movies and there's demon movies when we talk haunted house, right? And yeah, I think it took a lot of movies to kind of discern the difference. of it. And the conjuring is very clear, like, this is about a demon. A demon is different than the ghost. Amityville horror, they, you know, in 1979, I don't think they had put a lot of thought into it. It was more like these kids were murdered by their brother in the house. The gateway to hell was downstairs. As always with these movies, the dog is the only one that really knows something's

going on. The dog is always always the one that knows. But it was like, I'm still not sure if that was a demon or a movie. And I'm not sure Amityville horror knew either. I guess it's a demon movie. But we also have Jody the ghost, the little girl in that movie who's playing with the little girl and all that stuff. So it's kind of like everything. Do you feel, Sean, that in the last

10 years, they almost have to make a demon versus ghost choice when they make these movies? Like, you have to be in one of the two lanes? Can you just greenie tease demons versus ghosts? Coming up. Demon or ghost? Sean Fentasy is going to join us next.

Shaph, that isn't going to tell us why demons might have the upper hand on ghosts. I don't... There should be a... There should be like a Batman versus Superman, Demon versus Ghost movie in the Conjuring Universe. You know, that's what we need to see. We need to expand this universe even bigger. I think that, you know, demon just seems more evil. Ghost can be friendly.

You hear ghosts and you think, oh, maybe Casper. You hear demon and you're like, wow, they burned a fucking witch in Salem. And that witch is going to come and haunt you forever. and it's going to tear your soul apart and drag you straight to hell. And so it's just more intense. Ghosts have unfinished business. Ghosts have unfinished business.

Do you believe in ghosts? Me? Yeah. No. I 1,000% do. I believe in, I definitely believe in like inexplicable evil. I don't believe that there is something in my closet, though.

What about demons? I don't think so, but I think it's a interesting, way to assign meaning to the unexplainable. I have a no comment on demons, because if they exist, I don't want them to be like the nobody believes in us demons.

That Simmons guy, I didn't think we existed. Let's show them to that. I think you're providing bulletin board material for Wallach the demon? I don't know. There might be a demon right now watching me. I do believe in ghosts. You think Belichick is a demon? And he's just like, I saw that Simmons doesn't believe in our existence.

Got to go get him tonight. I mean, we know that demons are vengeful. You know, Pizzou was vengeful. I think Bill, I think Bill has made a good choice. And Chris, I think you are absolutely screwed. Your whole house is going to be a nightmare tonight. We're really, we're missing a lot by not, like, animating our zooms and having, like, demons pop up behind me as I see that. What would be the tipping point for you to back out of buying the house or to immediately put the house on the market? Just from a demon perspective? Are we talking about, like a shaky foundation.

From there's something wrong with this house. Like for me, and we'll get to it later, but it's like, oh, I didn't realize this cellar was here, this boarded up cellar. Hmm.

And they go down there and open the boarded up cellar and weird shit immediately starts happening. I think I would be out at that point. I would build into like the escrow contract that I expect all of my house pets to live for the first two months of my living in the house. There's an inexplicable pet death.

out? Yeah, I'd say, I'd say that's my thing. But yeah, like, mystery seller is definitely up there. Well, you know, this is, this takes place in Rhode Island. Rhode Island is one of the few states, if not the only state, where you don't have to disclose anything that happened in the house when you buy it. Like, when you sell it. It doesn't matter. You could, you could be selling the house because your uncle came and killed everyone in the family but you. And you're like, I don't think I'm to sell this house now, does not have to be disclosed. If you buy a house in California, and it was like somebody died in the house, somebody killed themselves in the house, there was a murder in the house, it could be 30 years ago, they still have to tell you. Do you guys usually

check the demon filter on Redfin, you know, when you're just scanning real estate properties? I click demon and ghost. I like to, but I like to put them, I turn them on. I like to buy the dip. Yeah, yeah. So like when I'm looking for a place, I'm like, how haunted is it? My kids wanted us to find a house that had a benevolent ghost. Not like a bad ghost, but a ghost that maybe would slam a door, like some hijinks from the ghost. Like the bathroom door would close. Are you looking for like ghost grinder?

Like how do you find that ghost? I don't know. I don't know how you find that stuff. But I will say this. During the pandemic, the first two, three months, we're all trapped in the house. I kept sneaking up into Ben's room and closing his closing his, closing his bedroom door and then hiding in my closet. So he thought he had a ghost.

And we thought it was the funniest thing. We had him going for six weeks. And he was like freaked out. But then it became not funny because he didn't want to be in his room alone. After six weeks, it became not funny? I did it probably seven times over the course of six weeks. Bill, that's traumatizing. Well, that's what we do in our family.

It's a pandemic. Your dad did it to you and you're doing it to your son. And he will do it to his. I'm not positive, he knows. knows yet. My, he's fun to put, my daughter can't handle it. Like, I wouldn't tease her about any of that stuff because she, you know, horror movies hit people differently. Like, she's like a scaredy cat person. I am a push me to the brink of losing control of my blouse kind of horror film person, right? I've never been, I've never watched a horror movie that I was like,

this is too much. I can't take it. Have you, Sean? I mean, I've watched horror movies that are so brutal that you want to, you know, like the last house on the left or I spit on your grave or cannibal Holocaust, there's this like extremity version of horror that I think, there are things about it that I think are interesting, but that I don't think are fun to watch. In terms of pure fear, that's actually a really good question. Like, what's the most scared I've ever been in a movie? I will say, in recent years, one of the most intense fear moments I had in a movie theater was The Conjuring 2, which I think is genuinely excellent. And arguably, better than the first one. And the opening, the kind of like the haunted house set up there and the old man,

I was like, that fucked me up. Chris? Yeah. I think I'm not a super big torture porn guy. Me neither. So I don't love like the hostile movies. And even James Wan's earlier series, or at least the first one, saw, I respect Saw for being such a huge franchise and stuff and definitely saw the first one in the theater, but did not feel compelled to watch Carrie Elis saw his arm off again ever again. I think he does that right. There's foot. So yeah, usually with the body stuff,

I'm like a hard pass. But actually, like, I prefer this, like, like I like search the feeling of being scared like a high now, I think. And so much of horror, like your enjoyment of it. And it's been interesting to watch them during quarantine because different movies play on different anxieties and fear. But like my scariest movie watching experiences have always been pretty like the oddball one. Like the time me and my roommates in Boston watched Texas chainsaw on like a VHS tape at like two in the morning.

We were like, let, should we start Texas chainsaw after a night out? And then we like sat there until 3.30 and we're just like, well, I'm not going to sleep for a week. That's like the most scared I've ever been in my life. What's your scariest, Bill? Well, I think there's different genres, right? I don't feel like the saw hostile genre is necessarily horror. I think it's almost more like the torture porn thing that Chris was talking about. And then you have like, is what lies beneath a horror movie or is it like a thriller?

Supernatural thriller. Yeah. We argued about this during the Silence of the Lambs podcast. Is that a horror movie or a thriller? Like, I don't necessarily feel that's a true horror movie, even though it has some of the scariest scenes I can ever remember seeing in a movie. But I don't feel like that's a horror movie. So it's almost like slasher, killer, serial, serial types, haunted house types. Like, those to me are pure horror. Like this movie, we're going to talk about a little bit, but was so scary, they made it an R

rating and the producers appealed. And they were like, no, I mean, we're not violating. There's not gore. There's not sex. Like, why is this an R? And the ratings, people are like, it's too scary. It has to be an R. It can, this can not. of PG-13, you did too good of a job making a scary movie. Like, to me, that's a true horror movie. I usually apply a pretty broad definition to it. Like, I did a gimmick on the site a couple of years ago called the horror Oscars where I picked what I thought was the best horror movie of every year since, I think it was since the early 70s. And I did put Silence of the, I did have Silence of the Lambs win in 1991. And I do think that it's like, I think there's a

difference between a horror movie and a scary movie, you know, and what you're describing Bill, I think of as scary movies. And I think of silence of the line. I think of horror in a slightly broader definition, which is like, is it horrifying? Is what's happening in the movie kind of like antisocial, like bent, disturbing in a way? And is it outside of the, you know, the decency of modern society? That's like how I think of horror. As opposed to, is there a ghost? Am I scared of an actual, you know, demonic possession or something like, that. But I think like that's a personal choice in a lot of ways, you know, like how you are, how you define horror. Yeah. Well, you know, it's, it's, we have two different ways to enjoy a

horror movie, right? The home experience, which has gotten so much better over the last 10, 11 years, because the TV's got better, stares around, all that stuff. But seeing a scary movie in the movie theater, if it's the right movie theater, could still be right. I remember we saw drag me to hell in a movie theater and it was a packed house on a Friday night. And that was fucking scary. I have that like in my top 10 and the theater was scared and that's a different kind of scary. We talked about this when we did the

Blair Witch podcast. I saw that in Cambridge first night it came out but nobody knew if it was real or not and it was like just this dead silence at the end of the movie where it's like was that real? What the fuck just happened? I think as people get more and more used to seeing stuff at home

and also like how annoying sometimes it is to be in a movie theater and somebody, the guy three seats down from you was on his fucking phone during one of the scariest parts and the phone glars showing and stuff like that, it's actually probably more intimate to be at home.

But I think for, you asked me what my scariest movie ever was. I think different ones have scared me in different ways. I think the most scared I've probably been in the theater was The Shining. Because I was basically not much older

than the little kid. Ultimately, I'm seeing this with my dad. A dad's trying to kill his little kid. And just how it kind of led to it and how unsettling that movie is. I tend to have problems more with the unsettling horror movies that leave you kind of just feeling weird after. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah.

You mentioned Drag Me to Hell, which is like I also had one of my best ever moviegoing experiences of seeing that movie. I saw at the Court Street Theater in Brooklyn, packed house. same thing like you're describing. And it's a slightly different version, I think, of what the Shining does, and even to some extent what the conjuring does, which is that's like a so scary you laugh at the end of the scare moment, you know, where you're like, I can't believe how they got me, how they fucked with me. The Conjuring movies, though, and especially the Shining, you don't, there's no laugh. There's no like, oh, I see what they did or they really messed with me there. There is something a little bit more unnerving in that experience, which I love that too. I love both

of those. One of the biggest thing that's happened in the last, you know, eight, eight years or so is as the streaming services have really built up their libraries, too, is the phenomenon of coming across horror movies that you had never heard of before. Now, that had happened before. Like, I would say the scariest, the most scared I have ever been at like a single scare is in Exorcist 3. Oh, yeah. I saw that in the theater too. That has that great one-minute thing. Yeah. And I had not, I don't even know if I had, I'm sure I'd seen Exorcist by then, but I hadn't seen two. I don't know why I was watching Exorcist 3. And I remember just being like, I need to turn every light in this house on and like chill the hell out. That can happen now. Like you can just kind of be like moving around on Netflix or Shutter or iTunes and just like kind of perusing.

And then you hit on something that you've never heard of. And I think that that is actually a whole other level of getting terrified because if you're not going into it being like, well, Patrick Wilson's going to live, right? Or this is a big movie and I saw the trailer and I kind of know some of the beats. If you just go into a horror movie pretty cold, that's like the best feeling because that's like I actually did that with Texas. And I was like,

this movie should be fucking illegal. Like, why are we, like, how is this like available to people to watch? Right. Well, I still have Halloween as my best ever. For influential,

um, how genuinely, scary some parts of it is, how it still holds up 42 years later. It's at least the Bill Russell of horror movies, like just an undeniable resume. But I think when you talk about movies from the last 15 years and the advancements we've had with certain ways to make something scary, you know, like Drag Me to Hell is a great example. That was just... There's some great... We, we, they had a lot of tricks at that point that they could use and, you know, things popping up and CGI and all kinds of of stuff and it was just a relentless movie. I don't really know why it kind of died off.

Like, it's amazing to me there haven't been five sequels of that movie. Yeah, I think it did fairly well. I mean, it's from Sam Ramey who made the Evil Dead movies, who's, you know, one of the greats who understands horror better than anybody. But, you know, I think it was purposefully modest and standalone and it worked really well. You know, moments are tricky, Chris. I think a lot of people say that that Exorcist 3 moment might be the scariest a single moment in movie history. I've heard people say that in the past. There have been a few in this century. I don't know if you guys ever saw audition, but it's a, you know, a Japanese horror movie. And, you know, the movie itself is very unnerving. But there's a moment when something happens in a

living room. There's a bag in a living room. And something happens with the bag. And when that moment happened, I was like, this is the most fucked thing I've ever seen in my life. And that's, that's really what I live for is those, like, I never could have conceived that this is where this was going. And this kind of like ripped my guts out for one minute. But, you know, I think it's so funny. I feel like it's the conjuring is really the opposite of a lot of this stuff. Like it's actually, it's actually not original, but it doesn't, it doesn't suffer for that. You know, it really, it's paying homage. And another interesting thing about the conjuring, and I, you know, I think it might speak to its popularity and the franchise itself. I mean, part of the reason why I think it's popular is it's

very good. Another reason is because no one else is really doing what this movie is doing and what this movie is doing is clearly something people want. But for the most part, when you watch these movies, even the extended universe to some extent, these are movies without sin. And that is pretty different than the horror movies that I grew up on, which was like people being punished for being horny or for being mean or being bullies, like a lot, or the villain or the entity that was doing all the punishment was actually traumatized at some point in their lives. And that's why Jason or Michael, find out about Freddy and the third nightmare movie and like what like his whole backstory and you're just like Jesus Christ, this is so dark. But like all the movies that I grew up on were like, if you

have sex at summer camp, you will get your fucking head cut off. And this is not that. Conjuring is like two really wholesome couples trying to make it with their families confronted with an unimaginable evil who come together to defeat that evil at least momentarily. So Bill, let me ask you this. since you've seen this movie a lot and your family loves these movies, do you think of this movie as a religious film, as a Christian movie?

So I don't. I think of it as purely there's something wrong with the house. And the nun is super religious. In fact, probably a little too much. And that's where I'm kind of a little bit out. I think Damien Oman has, I still think the original

Damien Oman is one of the greats. But that kind of dives into the religious stuff too. I like the idea of a little kid just being born and being the Antichrist. Like great, just great premise. You could explain that in a room in five minutes. But yeah, I don't feel like this is a religious. Do you feel like it's religious? Well, it's unusual for, especially in the 21st century for two characters like Ed and Lorraine Warren

to just be so openly faithful as characters. And that to be a big part of their past. power and the reason that they're doing what they're doing, you know, this kind of ghost busting that they're doing. But it is set in the early 70s, though, and maybe that makes more sense back then. It is, it is. And I think that's part of it too, is like they almost, it doesn't get, not that there's anything wrong with it being Christian either way. It's just, it's unusual for that to be the case. And I think it being a period piece kind of alleviates some of the question marks around that. And it being based on a true story alleviates some of the question marks around that.

But, you know, if you look back at horror movies, certainly there are priests. and there are conversations about God and the devil, but there are very few movies. I mean, this movie ends with that, you know, that end cap, that little epilogue that's like, you know, God is real and so is the devil. Yeah. Whichever way you choose defines your life and defines how the world will be.

And that's a pretty strong statement of faith. So it's just kind of interesting to see the movie through that lens. I hadn't really thought about it too much until I started going around reading about how people responded to it when it first came out. That same thing goes for the evil in this movie. too, right? Sean, like, it's like, Bathsheba does not have, like,

there's not a lot of ambiguity about her story. She's just like, she's just, like, satanic witch. Yeah. Right, right. So it's like, you don't have to, like, spend a lot of time being like, oh, well, I had a tough childhood, you know? I mean, like, you know, like, maybe he just doesn't like babysitters. I don't know.

I had this in what stage the best, but I'll just do it now. When he kind of lays out what's really going on with the demon, and he's like, there's three, There's three stages. Which brings us to the three stages of demonic activity. Infestation, oppression, and possession. The infestation, that's the whispering, the footsteps, the feeling of another presence, which ultimately grows into oppression.

The second stage. Now, this is where the victim, and it's usually the one who's the most psychologically vulnerable, is targeted specifically by an external force. It breaks the victim down, crushes their will. And once in a weakened state, leads them to the first. third and final stage, possession. Feels like we're in the oppression stage. We get to possession, it's over.

We got to, you know, he's breaking it down like he's Tony Romo in the fourth quarter of like an AFC title game or something. But infestation, oppression, possession, once somebody starts dropping that in a movie casually, I get scared. Like, I get scared by stuff like that more than anything. We're just like, oh, fuck, man. You don't want to get out of the oppression stage. Yeah, you want to stay.

There's no last stage. Hopefully just staying in an infestation before you can offload it. So this movie, the producer, Tony de Rosa Grun, tried to get it made for 14 years. There was a six studio bidding war at some point in 2009 range, went in a turnaround again, then finally it ended up happening. And now we have The Conjuring. The Conjuring 2 came out in 2016. Conjuring The Devil Made Me Do It is coming out.

It looks like the fall. It just got moved. It just got moved. To 21? To next June. Okay. There you go. Three films about the Annabelle doll have been made.

I've seen all of them. Annabelle creation. And then Annabelle comes home. And then the Nunn in 2018. That also happened. And then apparently the Cricket Man, which is also in this universe. So we are now looking at eight movies in the Conjuring Universe in the span of nine years. and Dragman to Hell just drop the ball.

You may... Bad job by Dragman to Hell. Your mileage might vary with any of the sequels and the offshoots of this franchise, but the way that they set it up is so ingenious to just have that house with the room of horrors and just be like any one of these artifacts

could literally just be its own movie. And you don't actually... You can watch all of them and try to piece together some of the mythology, but it's not really that heavy-handed. Like, you can kind of make your way through the nun and not know about conjuring to or whatever. And it's just, it's just really, really, really smart. Like, I haven't seen someone, usually when people try and start like a series

of films, they're like, here's like this canon that we always have to adhere to and like, here are all the building blocks that have to go in the exact right place. They can make the samurai movie, you know, or the wedding dress movie or the monkey clapping the symbols movie if they want to. And like, I will, I'll go watch them. it has the great the conjuring has that great premise of here's this locked room there's some bad stuff in that room but we're going to lock it it's fine but if you end up in this room it's fuck it's gonna be fucking terrible for you it's gonna be just the worst don't go in this room and yet every movie some someone ends up in that room somehow i think that's what why annabel comes home works really well is because they

spend a lot of time in that room. And it's, it's really entertaining. I will say, though, this movie gets away with doing a lot of the things and this universe gets away with doing a lot of the things that we kind of blame other expanded universes on. You know, we say like, oh, superhero movies are so cynical because they're always trying to connect the dots from one movie to the other. You know, this is really the most successful original movie franchise of the last 20 years. And it uses all the same strategies, you know, like the infinity stones in the Marvel movies are basically the same thing as that locked room. You know, it's like, how can we use one stone to do one movie and use another stone to do another? And these movies do the same thing, but they don't feel, it doesn't

feel as crass somehow. And the movies all have, like Chris said, they're all their own little tiny experience and you don't need to understand how they all fit together to enjoy them. I wonder if five or ten years from now will still feel that way. They've had a good seven-year run. I think that if they want to keep this franchise going, and we're going to probably talk about this in the categories, they're going to need to, like, change gears in terms of some of the tonal things that they do. I mean, let's be honest.

Like, if you've watched all these movies, you have watched probably a cumulative hour of people trying to get indoors. That is, like, literally, like, the scariest thing that happens in these movies is a guy being like, this door's locked! Open the door! Open this door!

And then, like, they always kick it open, and the kid is fine or the kid is hang like you know up in the air or whatever but like that is like they need to probably like mix up the the scares a little bit Chris when Sean finally buys a house you and I have to figure out how to sneak in there and pull some shit with the house freak them out okay uh the reason I haven't bought a house is because they've all been haunted every house I've seen has been fucking like what's that rancid meat smell yeah weird is that the rancid spell of a demon? $20 million budget for this movie

had the highest opening weekend ever for a horror movie, 41.9. It made $319 million on a $20 million budget. Can I just talk about this very quickly? Yeah. I think this movie's made really well and we really like it,

which is why we're talking about it. But I think it got very lucky because it landed in a month in 2013 where these were the big movies that were released. Despicable Me Too, The Lone Ranger, the Way Way Back, Grownups 2, Pacific Rim, Turbo, RIPD, and the Wolverine. That is a bunch of stuff that is made for kids. And there were not a lot of movies for adults. The only other movie that was made really for adults that was released that month was Fruitvale Station, which only opened on a much smaller number of theaters.

And so this movie, like, it got very lucky by being able to lean into an adult audience, a date night audience that was like, what are we going to do tonight in this idle night in July or this hot afternoon in July? And so I think the reason why we're talking about the eight Conjuring Universe movies is because it kind of landed softly into this perfect moment in July. And so release dates really matter. I still have RIPD stock, by the way. It's tough. I have a follow up point on that, but we're going to take a quick break. Hey, if you've been dealing with acne, redness, dark spots, or wrinkles, finding treatment that works can be complicated. You need skincare that actually performs, but getting started can be overwhelming.

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So, Sean, you mentioned how the conjuring came out and the timing was perfect, all that stuff. I'm always amazed and now I guess it'll never happen anymore with the stream universe but I'm always amazed when like a month passes without a new horror movie. It's really my entire life the three most reliable things

that were always going to work were a good horror movie, a good comedy, and a good action movie. And if you could put out any of those three and if it had been a while since the last one, even a couple months, it was just going to work.

And I remember when Taken came out in 2008. And, you know, Taken wasn't exactly an Academy Award winner, but there just hadn't been a movie like that in a while. And it's like, oh, that'll work. You just saw the ad, you're like, oh, yeah, I'm ready for that. I haven't had one of those in a while. Don't you feel like horror is the ultimate example of that? Or it's like, eh, it's been a couple months for me in a horror movie.

I'm just ready for one. I don't understand why they don't just come out every three weeks. I think they do though I mean I think that the story of quarantine is horror in a lot of ways because the biggest movies at drive-ins of the last three months are the wretched and relic

those are the two movies I think both IFC movies I think both movies that you liked right Bill I thought relic was excellent relics great and the Invisible Man too which went straight to VOD after only a few weeks in theaters

and those are arguably with the exception to maybe trolls world tour and the Spike Lee movie and maybe Judd's movie, those are some of the biggest most watched movies that we've had. And I feel like because of the streaming thing that you're talking about, they're easy to make, they're cheap, they're incredibly satisfying. They're all usually somewhere between 85 and 100 minutes. And they just never expire.

You know, they just don't, you never get sick of the premises. I'll watch like the hundredth. I watched a movie called Sea Fever earlier this year that is just another version of like the thing. it's the thing on a boat. And I was like, this is fine, this is good. For 89 minutes, I dug it. And I didn't feel bad about the $5.99 I spent.

I really liked C-Fever, and it didn't even need to be probably 60% as good as it was. Because I will watch the basement for a horror movie for me is so low. Like, as long as there's just like some neural synapse firing of I am scared for a second, I will watch the worst group of teenagers go on a snowboarding trip and then get stuck with like a werewolf

like I don't care. And I think that's what you're kind of getting at, Bill. It's like there's a lot that you, obviously we've talked about some of the greatest movies ever made. We talked about like our favorite films. But there is a very basic like contract you enter into with just like, I just want to be entertained for about two hours

and get out of the sun or go on a date. And like horror and like you're saying, comedy and action for us, for the three of us, I think, probably provide the most reliable experience at a movie than than almost any other genre. I would say out of all of those horror is the one where somebody recommends one to me that I trust. Like, Chris emailed me about that snowboarding.

What's that name of that movie? Which is in the woods. Chris just text me that four weeks ago. He was like, hey, which is in the woods? Pretty good. My family and I, we're watching it like three hours later. It was like, there's a horror movie that's pretty good. I'm in.

That sounds great. Thank you for the recommendation. Whereas I told Chris to watch Inside Moves, and I still feel like he hasn't watched it. So we know who trusts who in this situation. All right, so we're into the categories. I'm going to zip through this. Most rewatchable scene.

The opening scene with the two girls is pretty... It just sets the tone. You did what? She wanted to live with us by inhabiting the doll. We said yes. But then... Things got worse. When we came home, she was sitting in the hallway.

But we had left her in the spare room. I think a deep, I don't know if you guys feel this way, but I think setting the tone with the opening scene in a horror movie is like weirdly overimportant. Even Amyneville horror just starts out with the guys like, you know, Jaws has the, they take that girl down and you go, the swimmer. You're like, you know, they're not going to kill her, right? Boom, she's gone.

You could really set the premise in the right way, and I think it does in that scene. I just, this is how I wrote this stuff down. Next one. Two girls freak out because someone is in the room, the two sisters. What's going on? By the door.

It was behind it. Honey, there's nothing in here. There's nobody in here. Yeah. These movies, there's always that moment where, Somebody's like, wait a second, that's not right. It's going on in there. And then they realize, oh shit.

Shit's going down. And then the movie's never the same after that. But I think nailing that scene is really important. They nailed it. Next one, I have Satan Lady on the dresser. When they see the lady on the top of the dresser for the bas-shiba. She's just on the dresser. I'm out at that point.

I'm just in the car driving to whatever the next time. is. I'm nowhere near that house. You're also, you're one dog down, and you've already had flocks of birds flying into the house. But you're like, I'm going to go on my long-haul trucking run. Two bad sides. Next one.

Look what you made me do. Good. Personal favorite of my kids. Then, in my opinion, the best stretch. Where's Rory? I don't know. They moved the dresser. Hey, what's that hole in the wall?

That's where Rory hides when she's afraid. Oh, really? Goes in and it's a fucking, you know, inside the wall. There's this whole universe, basically. Vera falls in the basement, Vera Farminga. Little girl starts getting pulled around by all hell breaks loose for 10 minutes. I personally think that's the most rewatchable stretch. Then you have Lorraine's kid goes into that secret room.

And then finally, the mom. Lily Taylor gets legitimate possessed and we have the exorcism. What do you guys have for most rewatchable scene or stretch? I think it's the Nancy's hair raising scene because that, and I don't, I'm not even dorking out, that is the sickest fucking shot in the whole movie is when it's like Lily Taylor and Ron Livingston are standing in one room and their fucking daughter comes flying across the room and hits that window. Yeah.

And they both scramble and like it goes into the other room. Like that feels like it's happening. Scary a scene for me in the whole movie I don't think you mentioned is the clapping game. You know, Lily Taylor plays the clapping game with her daughter. And then you see the hands emerge from the, the armoire and clap. And you realize it's the ghost of Rory. That really, that when I saw the movie, the movie is like, is very interesting. Because Chris, you described it as like a magazine article, which I think is so smart.

because it opens with that great scene that you were talking about, Bill, right at the top of the two girls. And then we cut to the Warren's teaching a class. And then we get like a title card, you know, like a prologue that explains who they are. And then we meet the family. And then when we meet the family,

they're pulling up to this house and you get this big like Copacabana's like Goodfellas style, single shot where the camera's following them all through the house. And you're like, wow, this is like actually a really well-made movie. It's like they've kind of gone up a level in terms of horror.

But it's not scary really for me. until the clapping. And clapping, I was like, oh, this is fucked up. This is, they really know what they're doing here.

So that, that is my favorite moment of the movie. Chris, how many birds would have to attack your new house before you realize

something wrong? Like, over 20? No, I mean, what's the over under? The bird over under is two. Okay. It's because it's like, one is weird.

Two is a fucking trend. Yeah. What are we talking about? For me, it's three. Okay, what's age the best? I have a lot of stuff here.

Patrick Wilson, Vera Farminga. I think are perfectly cast. They're not too famous, but they're really good actors. We have a history with them. They look different because they have their 70s kind of outfits on. I think their parts in the wrong hands could go badly. Like in the nun, the two key parts. I just didn't think the priest and Vera Farimiga's daughter or sister were that good.

In this movie, they're actually really good and even a little bit overqualified for those parts. and everything they do in that movie compared to Ron Livingston, who will get into it in what stage the worst, the way they're reacting to the room and the spirits. And like when Patrick Wilson actually gets scared near the end, you're like, oh shit, now's the, he's scared, now I'm scared, because that guy has seen everything and even he's alarmed. I think they're both really good.

And they're both actors that I think the three of us have liked for a long time, with the exception of her and the departed when she fucks up the accent. But everything else, sorry, they've just always solid and everything they do and just really likable and good and it was good to see them in there.

Anything to add on that? I love Vera Farminga. She's a weirdo. Her energy is really strange. And so she's perfectly cast for this movie. You need somebody who's like a little bit off. You know,

who's a little bit like, cookey cat lady talking to the spirits and she just, she has a look. Like, I was reading reviews of the movie, and someone said that she's just a little too strange for mainstream movie stardom. And they meant it as a compliment.

You know, that's when you know you're with somebody who's good. And, like, it's cool that she found this part. I like Patrick Wilson, too. He's doing, like, a very classical, like, leading man thing, though, where he has to just over-explain everything in the movie. Like you pointed out, the infestation and oppression and then possession. So I dig him. I think he's good, but Vera Farmer make it to me is she makes the movie.

perfect tier of Star for the lead roles because, and I'm obviously I'm like reading into this but you can feel that these two performers are not like pulling James Wan aside and being like you know, can I have like a scene where my

character does something like offbeat or like gets into their own personal shit? It's just like stand there, say this place is haunted and then like need at a prayer bracelet and we'll be good. Like this movie will work. If you want to make this into the acting Olympics, we're going to run into

problems. She was perfectly cast. Because she's like, you can tell she was the type of girl in college who had the weird room with like, you know, like incense and just like there's something creepy about her, but it was kind of attractive at the same time. Yeah. Beated curtain energy. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, definitely. Morewood's age the best. 173, setting in there, makes the movie just timeless forever, right? It's a little like almost famous. How almost famous can never get old because it's set in a time. It's just trapped in that time.

They do a good job at that. I think the doll is really good. There's a story behind the doll where in real life it was a raggedy end doll, and they decided it wasn't scary enough. So they put some time, energy, and an effort into making Annabelle seem creepier. They didn't waste the effort. That's a fucking terrifying doll. It's great.

job. I don't know where you would rank it against Chuckie and Childs play and a couple of the other great dolls, but it's way up there. It's certainly a number one seed in the tournament. I like what movies do this. There's one case so malevolent.

They kept it locked away. Dot, dot, dot, dot. Until now. Where it's like, oh, shit. You mean nobody know about this until now? That sounds scary this was, but they do the nice job with the card letting us know. I mentioned the infestation oppression possession threesome.

You never wanted to get that third tier. Then this movie hits five horror movie rules. My kids and I, when we always watch horror movies, we always joke about the rules when a rule's been violated or a rule pops up. One of them, if you find a house, if you have, if you bought a house and there's a secret crawl space in it that has a noose lying around, get the fuck out. You're out. That's it. That's all I need. Secret crawl space plus news. I'm out. Horror movie rule number two. The dog always fucking knows. Listen to the dog.

If the dog, you're like, hey, we're moving to the house. Sadie, why won't Sadie come in the house? And Sadie's like, I'm not fucking going in there and has that look at her face. It's a red flag. And then if Sadie dies within six weeks, six weeks is like the second night. Or second night, whatever. It's also not explored at all what the hell happened to the dog. Like what?

They're not like, oh, did like a, you know, did some sort of mountain lion show up and kill? Like, how did it die? Wouldn't you be like this is the biggest crisis of our family in the year 1971 or whenever it's happening? They just moved on really quick. So I think people cared about dogs way less back then. Even in an Mnivore. No, that's good. That's a good point, Bill.

No, in the 70s, it's pre-ped on. Yeah. That's right. Dogs are like having a gerbil. You guys are pet, pet monsters. Chris is on the record about this. I think he has a terrible hottest take about what an evil pet person he is.

I just had to run a cat's in the 80s and 90s, and we kept it moving. Like, I get it that cats have their own Instagram followings now, but like I think that Bill is right. There is a little bit of like a different relationship. Yeah, dogs were dogs. So you let the dog outside. The dog just ran around.

It might have got a hit by a car. Whatever. You just get another dog. That's how people felt in the 70s. I'm telling you. Amityville horror at the end of the movie, they're like, hey, should we go back and get the dog? And Margot Kidder's like, no, fuck that.

Let's get out. And then James Brown's like, I got to go get our dog. He's crazy. Let the dog go. Get another dog. Get another chocolate lab. You'll be fine. I have three dogs, by the way.

I'm allowed to say this. That's why these guys are haunted. This family is haunted because they fucking didn't respect their dog's death. They deserved all this stuff. You don't have a dog. This movie does have a sin. I grew up with dogs I never had a dog before

I know about dogs I was alive in the 80s we didn't just like let dogs get hit by cars and then go get ice cream that is how the world works John just let the Long Island out

I grew up with dogs I didn't tell me I don't know about dogs I do three dogs I've known many dogs many people are saying I'm an exemplary dog owner many people

another horror movie rule I mentioned the boarded up cellar where you're pulling off some plywood and all of a sudden there's this secret creepy seller universe down there. Doesn't Ron Livingston say, oh, cool, like more square footage? Yeah, he's like, I'm great. We put the TV down here.

What's I? Get rid of the spider webs. Yeah, all of a sudden, now you're Bob Vila, but you didn't look into your fucking, like, who owned the house before you? Another horror movie rule. I don't think you should ever buy your house in a bank auction because that means something bad happen. But if you do, if it's the only way you can get a fair price.

You got to make sure what happened to the last people before the bank auction. Can we talk about this for a second? You have to find out what happened. This is my point. This was in what's aged the worst for me. But I just think it's not like Ed and Lorraine had to go to like the Hall of Records or like the Indiana Jones warehouse to figure out what happened to this house. It's like the next day they're like, so it turns out a witch named Bathsheba,

murdered her newborns child and hung herself by this tree but before she did that curse the entire land for eternity and Ron Living's just like I don't know the guy down at Wells Fargo said it was steel so what do I know

it's just like just do the they didn't have Lexis Nexus all they did was like go down to like the town hall for a second also do they not have like a single neighbor within spitting distance at that place who would be like boy you guys bought this house holy shit watch

out for your dog. I remember when my parents got divorced, my mom moved to Connecticut and I'd ride my little scooter around the neighborhood. I had like a little moped. And there was this one house that had burned down and the people and it died. And for years, it was just like boarded up. And I would drive the moped by it. And I would actually get scared just as I was going by the house. I'm like, oh my God, that house. And then somebody bought it. They fixed it up, made it super nice. And then like a year later, people were living there.

And I thought that was like, I was like, do they know? Did it? And it was, they had to have known, right? The neighbors would have mentioned something to them. And if they didn't, that's kind of evil not to mention it, right? Like, hey, man, you know what happened in this house, don't you? Like 10 years ago, dot, that, that. I'd want to know, it's my point.

Yeah. What do you, what's the move there, though? Is it just to like keep that place closed forever, burn it to the ground? Can no one live in these homes again? I guess it depends on the person. I would be afraid to live in that house, but I believe in ghosts. People are going to think I'm insane after this. Last horror movie rule.

When weird shit happens at the exact same time every night in the middle of the night, by like the 11th time, something's going on. It's like, oh, it's 307. Oh, the grandfather clock fell over. Oh, today it's 307. Well, the microwave just started microwaveing something. Like something's going on.

Also, my wife is covered in bruises, inexplicably. Yeah, that's a problem. Where'd you get these bruises? Eh, low on blood. Might blow on, what you say? Low on iron. Yeah. Yeah.

You know. Chris, you ever just wake up in the middle of the night with a lot of bruises on your body? No? No. You can tell us. It's just the three of us. When I finally saw Amneville Horror, if I woke up in the middle of the night just because I had to pee or get a drink or

something and it was like 258 and I knew it was 17 minutes away until 315, the evil little bit of a horror time. I would just lie in bed in complete fear until it got to 316. Growing up with horror movies, Chris. Chris is like, wow, I knew Bill was weird, but this is no, I like it though. I mean, like, I think that this is what builds a real horror fan. Like, I mean, like, I'm not judging you. I like fell in love with horror movies because my babysitter when I was like a little kid used to play again. game where he would chase me around the house with a knife and pretend to be a killer. Like that was, like, that's where I'm coming from. So this is all, I get it. I get everything you're

saying. We got to cancel that babysitter, Chris. How do we want to put that person's name on the record? Well, I was going to say, a lot of people don't know. No, no. A lot of people don't know. Ted Bundy was Chris's babysitter for like two years. The question is whether or not like your interest in this stuff, like I almost am going like, I'm zagging. I wish there was like an Airbnb, like a horror Airbnb. Like you can rent this cabin in the woods. There might be something weird happening here. That's great. That sounds like that should be our next venture now that we've brought the ringer to Spotify. Great idea. You want to start a haunted house Airbnb company? Yes. Great. Great idea. This is my CR's by guy.

You can buy them probably at a low price, right? Yeah. Like those places are boarded. it up. They've got Bathsheba's all over the place, you know. Airbnb Bathsheba. Any other what stage is the best for you guys? The cinematic nostalgia. Like all the slow zooms, the fonts on the titles, all the stuff that kind of draws from like everything from the Exorcist and the Omen and Poultergeist that, you know, like just like little nods to other movies here and there. Like the static TV is the Poultergeist homage. It's just great.

Sean? I mean, I'm sure we're going to talk about her, but Lily Taylor's just, just, just perfectly cast, perfectly cast. I mean, we can wait for the categories, but. Yeah, let's wait for the categories. She's locked in. We're going to take a quick break to talk about Blue Moon. Fellas, don't you think some once in a blue moon moment should happen more than once in a blue moon? Like getting together with friends you don't see all the time.

A nice dinner, happy hour, relaxing night in. Maybe a rewatchable's podcast about a horror movie. Blue Moon on a mission to celebrate and inspire more of those moments. Just like those looking for the special in the everyday Blue Moon, takes a twist on the traditional Belgian wit. Where do you stand on the Belgian, Chris? You're high up there on the Belgians. It's up there, man.

I like to keep him cold, keep them in the fridge, keep them stocked just in case, you know. I need to chill out after watching a brutal horror movie. Did you know that Blue Moon was created during the 1995 baseball season at the San LaVerey? I recently found this out. What a story. Corse Field, Denver, Colorado. Did you know Blue Moon was named Blue Moon because someone was tasting it and said a beer this good only comes around once in a Blue Moon? Great title.

I didn't know that. That's great, great synergy. If there's Blue Moon in the fridge and you offer somebody a beer and they're like, sure, I love a beer and you say, I have Blue Moon and then you list two other beers, it's like a 99% chance they're going to offer the Blue Moon, right, Sean? Absolutely. I'm a Blue Moon guy. That's how I feel, too. the next time you're out with friends or just enjoying it at end, reach for a blue moon. It's the beer you can enjoy every day. You can have blue moon delivered by going to

get dot blue moon beer.com and finding delivery options near you. Blue moon, reach for the moon, celebrate responsibly. Blue moon brewing company, Golden Colorado. A.L. What's age the worst? I just wanted more from Ron Livingston. I don't know whether he was like, I'm scaling it back because it's 1973, but we just watched them in swingers, and I love them in swingers, and he's so great in swingers. And in this movie, he's just kind of a, helpless loser. It's like, you're the dad of the house. It's you and six women. Like, step up, dude. Why are you so helpless? Do anything. Fight out on Ron Livingston. Just seems like are you out on the character or are you out on his performance? Like, if it was John C. Riley

doing the exact same thing. I'll save my answer for the recasting couch. Okay. I don't know whether they told him to play like this or he just played it incorrectly, but I just, like, all right, how about this? Give me one sentence to explain the dad in this movie. Like, give me your favorite, here's a trait of this guy in this movie. I don't even know what I would have. What are the traits?

Cool shirts. I have two questions about him. One, is he wearing a wig? Is that a wig? Because his hair is super weird. It's really weird. It's like a comb over or something. And two, I completely agree with everything he said, Bill.

I think he's playing this so weird. He's like underplaying every moment. his wife is possessed by a demon? And he's like, wait, no, don't go over there. Honey, are you okay? It's like, Ron, wake up, man. Your family is possessed. Yeah, that's why I think that guy was going to say

the John C. Riley thing, but we can save it. But I just think that, like, if his whole deal is like, I'm a long-haul trucker who's gone for weeks at a time and I'm only like intermittently involved with this family, they need to play that up. Really, the only bit we really get about that is, when he's like, oh, I got to get a job so that I can pay the insurance on this truck. And then there's one time where he's, like, coming back from a job just in time to get her out of the basement.

But they should have just really played up to his absenteeism then. Or you go like John Hawks, make it seem like, this guy's got a tiny bit of a dark side himself. I wonder if they're going to get into it this movie. Like, he seems a little seated. John Hawks is a great shout. Yeah. Casting what ifs. Couldn't find any. This movie was originally called the Warren Files, though.

and then they flipped it. I think they made a good choice. I would have gotten expecting a movie about Earl Warren. Yeah. Can we... But what is being conjured

because I don't think that the title is accurate. I thought conjuring like you conjure, you bring out something so you're conjuring an evil spirit. Yeah.

Yeah, but the spirit showed up on its own. Well, maybe they maybe don't bust open the boarded up cellar and let the spirit out. I learned a lesson in this movie. It was that. Maybe the plywood isn't there for a reason. Like, oh, cool.

A basement for the kids. Now, that's Bathsheba's place. Don't fuck with that, man. Then they should have called it like the plywood affair, you know? Don't bust the plywood. The Warren Files, is that a better title for this movie? Warren Sapp's new podcast with Adam Lefco? or a eight-part narrative podcast series about Warren G. That's my, it's my private Patreon Warren Beatty podcast, actually.

It's about every movie that Warren Beatty made. Or T.J. Warren's new Players Tribune podcast, the Warren Files? Yeah. Best that guy, a.k. the Joey Pants Award. I'm going with Brad. I don't even know who the fuck that guy is. But anytime I see him now, I'm like, Brad! I got two of the kids, Joey King, plays Christine, and she wanted to.

up kind of going on. No, she's Joe King. Yeah, but like, back then she wasn't. I mean, McKenzie Foy, the same thing where she goes on to play young Jessica Chastine and Interstellar and stuff like that. So you're going with every kid in the movie. Is that guy? I mean, named two children.

There are five. Okay. Vincent Hanna, give me all you going. You're going with Brad, but you can't name another movie Brad has bidded. You mean John Brotherton? If I saw him in a movie, I'd think it's Brad. I'd get excited. Sean, who won the Vincent,

Hannah, give me all you got award for overacting. Lily Taylor won it, but in a good way. That's what I had too. Lily Taylor, but thumbs up. Yes, it's an honorable victory for overacting because she's possessed, so she has to overact. If you underplay possession, you failed. Chris, agree?

I would agree with that. I had an outside candidate was Joey King, just because she gets the most freaked out by the ghosts or by the demon, but I think Lily Taylor wins it, but in a good way. The biggest that giveaway of the movie is at the beginning when Lily Taylor is playing against type and she just seems really warm and normal and okay. And you're like, oh, she's fucked. There's no way that it's not going to be her who gets completely tortured by Bathsheba. I've never trusted Lily Taylor in a movie ever. I always feel like her character's going to get unhinged. What are you talking about? No, no, I'm just saying like I always, I've just

never prepared for her to be normal in a movie. I always feel like the wheels are going to come off at some way. I mean, like, based on, like, say anything, I'm trying to think of, like, her other iconic roles. Yeah, exactly. Based on say anything. Just for life, I'm like, you're getting weird in this. I know you are, Louis Toe. I know who you are.

Yeah. Yeah. She shot Andy Warhol, Chris, you know? She's done some tough stuff. That's true. The Brandy Booth Award for Best Performance by a Pet. Sadie. Sadie the dog.

I got to say, only five out of ten chewies for me for this one. I want a little more. I want a little more fear. Just comparing her to the, to the, to the, unbelievable performance by the dog in Amyville Horror, who's pawing at the gates of hell until his paws are bloody. That dog has some great scenes in that movie. That was a 10 out of 10. This is like a 5 out of 10 for me.

Dion Waiters Award was tough. I got to say, I was at a loss. I couldn't even really figure out who won this one. Who did you guys have? Bathsheba. So I was going to say that. But is that weird that Bathsheba was... It's got to be it, right?

Yeah, I mean, the other candidates would be Brad and Drew, right? Yeah, I like Bashiba. Okay, recasting couch. Ron Livingston, this is turning into a self-parryrd at this point, but here's my choice for the Ron Livingston role. John Hammie! I'm going with Hammy! I think this would have been a great John Ham roll. It could have been, had the big bushy sideburns, maybe looked like he had a few too many Marlboro Reds and a couple drinks.

maybe looked like he'd been around the block a couple times. I think he would have done a little more with the part. Only if when Ed and Lorraine showed up, John Hamm was like, this is the not fucking around crew. Guys who look like Ham are not long haul truckers, though. I mean, he's a little pruddy to be a trucker, don't you think? Big sideburns.

Maybe like an ugly Fu Manchu thing, ugly him up a little bit, no? What about, I think anybody who's, who is on Deadwood could have played, could have played the Ron Livingston part. Titus Welliver. You know, we could have just gone with any, yeah. Bosh.

Oliphant would have been on the far reaches of attractiveness for the, for the, for the, for the for the for the living some part. I had one more that I thought would be really good, but he's a little obscure, but you guys will both know who it is. Chris Bauer. Oh, yeah. A.k.a. Frank Sabaka because then I get there, he, Chris Bauer has that little side to where he's also machine an eight millimeter and he's been in some dark roles where you're like,

is this guy on the up and up? Like, I just need more mystery with the dad other than the blank slate that was in Ron Livingston. You just hit the rewatchables bingo card of mentioning machine from 8mm on a podcast. Congratulations. You laugh, and you'll be laughing when Chris and I are doing 8 millimeter

in about four weeks. Kill them all machine. The original category was like, would this be better with Danny Trajo? Are you going to start doing, would this be better if machine had been in this movie? Chris, we could get five minutes alone out of Dina Velvett. You know we could.

Half-ass internet research. Eight generations of families lived and died in the house before the parents moved in. Deaths included two documented suicides, a poisoning. The rape and murder are 11-year-old girl. Jesus. Two drownings and the passing of four men who froze to death. That's the history of that house. How many dogs?

Don't have the dogs. Because, again, nobody cared about dogs until like 1989. It's terrible. The production team built a 50-foot tall tree for the film. Fake tree. I mentioned some of the other ones. When the real-life parents visited the set location in North Carolina, they felt a cool wind whipped through the set.

They also noticed the intense sudden draft did not move or shake any trees. I'm calling bullshit on this. I think at some point the parents are like, they got to stay on brand. Be like, oh, man, did you see that doll move? No, didn't see that. moved. At the end of the movie, Lorraine, Fear Farminga, gets off the phone, tells Ed that the priest wants to discuss a case on Long Island. You know what case that was, Sean. Amityville.

So I wonder, could there be a Conjuring Amnivale Horror movie? Because the Warrens were involved with the Amnville Horror. Could you play that card? It's like a reverse. Well, it's in the beginning of Conjuring 2, right? They're, they taught. It's like five minutes. That's, yeah. Yeah. I wonder if there's a rights issue. Maybe. Yeah.

Do they even say Amityville in Conjuring 2? Does that, is that name used? They say Long Island. It's mentioned. I can't remember. And then I think three, they're moving into the 80s. So I don't think that they're going to go back to it. The real Bashiba, suspected of witchcraft and of killing an infant child.

but her name was legally cleared after being found not guilty. She died of natural causes in 1885, not by hang. That's for real? She's buried in Harrisville, Rhode Island. Bathsheba.

I think we know where the first Arabian Bathsheba is going to be. We forgot one moment, Bill, which is when Virafarmiga and Patrick Wilson show up but the house in the backyard, and then the, she sees the feet hanging down, Bathsheba hanging from the tree. That, that moment too. I forgot about that. That's an awesome one. So Norma Sutcliffe and Gerald Halfrich bought the house. Live there peacefully for 25 years.

Conjuring comes out. House becomes a tourist attraction. They claim that vandalism happened, threats of violence, satanic cult stuff was placed at the house, and they decided to sue everybody. Not sure how that was resolved. But tough break for them. 25 peaceful years of the Conjuring House, then the movie comes out. Apex Mountain. Here's the case for Patrick Wilson, who's been in some good movies. 2013, does this end the kind of borderline iconic episode of girls?

Yes. which was when that show just the ceiling came off on that show for just how weird it was going to get. But both of those things happened same year. I'm going to go yes for Patrick Wilson. And if the answer is no, tell me a better Patrick Wilson year. I love little children. I think that's like his best work. But that's not the question.

Remember that movie Kate Winslet? Most career chits. Did he get chits from The Conjuring? Yeah, he's in every one of them now. He gets to be in all the sequels from here to eternity. I mean, he was, I feel like in a weird way, he has not reaps the benefits of being in these franchises. Because he's an insidious, too. I mean, he didn't, like, he has not become, like, a huge, huge star because of this, right?

Chris, are you still cranking out the watch? You should have him on the watch. To talk about what? Just bring them on. To talk about girls? Patrick Wilson, him in horror movies. The whole thing. Yeah, bring him in.

I want to see if I've already got a request out to Beth Sheba and if she says no I'll go Patrick Wilson. The funniest, the funniest Patrick Wilson role ever is in 2018 he played a character in the movie Aquaman who is known as the Ocean Master. Also directed by James Wan who directed The Conjuring. And it's not like, it's not a good look. And that's how you know that Patrick Wilson didn't, he didn't, I agree with Chris, he didn't reap the benefits of being in this huge franchise.

It just means he's in more franchise movies. He's in more conjuring movies. He's in the nun. He's in more insidious movies. I don't know. He didn't like level up. So you like the potential of little children? Yeah, Little Children, 06.

He's opposite Kate Winslet. The movie gets some Oscar love, get some attention. I don't know. Conjuring and girls leads to young adult with Charlize, which I thought was really good. And he's really good in that movie. Lily Taylor, it's hard to not. say, say anything, was there Apex just for me personally? But it definitely wasn't her Apex. And I would say

being the lead in a $318 million horror movie would have to be her Apex Mountain. Definitely it was a, you know, Lily Taylor Renaissance because of this, I think, brought her back into consciousness. Haunted House movies. Whoa. You think it is Apex Mountain for haunted house movies? Sinister. Then this. And now it's like, okay, now we know what the next seven years are going to look like. Thoramovies, we're just going to be getting more of these work. That late 70s run though, I don't know. You know, you got like, the Exorcist isn't a haunted house movie, but it kicks off that wave of movies that you talked about at the beginning of the show.

Possession. Yeah, those movies feel iconic to me. I don't know. That's a tough one. That's a good call, Bill, but I would almost give it to Insidious, because I think Insidious paves the way for this. And then I don't necessarily think there's been, like, there's been a lot of them, but Has there been a haunted house movie as big as the conjuring since the conjuring, other than the conjuring universe?

Not really. Stuff that's been close, but not. Rhode Island? Well, some guys get their bodies dumped in Rhode Island in the beginning of the departed. I'm trying to think there's been some Patriot stuff in Rhode Island at the Foxy Lady, some good Patriot Scandals. Is the question Rhode Island in movies, or is it in the history of Rhode Island? Rhode Island. There was a nice URI.R.

Rhode Island. There was a U.R.I March Madness run with Tom Garrick. That's right. Petino at Providence was pretty great. Yeah, Petito Providence is good. Marvin Barnes had a nice run in the 70s there. I don't know.

I don't know what the Apix Mountain of Providence was. Do you have any picking Nets because I think we hit everything? I do. I have one. Which is just that nobody dies. And I just feel like with the level of... Sadie dies. What is wrong with you guys?

You're fucking monsters. For the level of demonic possession that we are dealing with here, I feel like one of Brad or Drew should probably bite it. Yeah, they'd five kids. They could get rid of, well, they could have lost one of the five kids too.

Because then this kid... Brad should have bit it. Brad was like right there. They bit his face. He's just like randomly around. Like he's not a full believer, all that stuff. and they let it go.

And I think if I had it, like one thing I'd like to ask for for my conjuring movies is a little bit of a higher body count. I mean, Brad did get disfigured. He's fine. He did. He did.

I have one knit. I'm not necessarily saying that this doesn't make sense, but I was hoping you guys could help me understand it a little bit. So near the end of the movie, when the Warrens tell the family to go to a motel

to wait to get word for whether the exorcism is cleared by the Vatican. So the family leaves, and then the warrants go back to their house. And at that time, Bathsheba is possessing Annabelle to potentially kill their daughter in their house. And so that's a distraction that Bathsheba sets to preoccupy the warrants who get home just in time conveniently. And then that's when Bathsheba decides to possess Lily Taylor's character.

But earlier in the movie, they pointed out that it doesn't matter if you leave the house or not, that once the house is possessed, those things can follow you all over the place. So what was the point of going to the motel? Why did that happen? That's a great one. That's a great point. Also, how did Bathsheba move out of the house to the Warren's house

if she had to needed a vessel to go from point A to point B? Yeah. What's up? The Conjuring is built on a faulty premise. Also, and that whole motel scene is just another brick from Livingston's character. I know this is the most traumatic

thing that any family's ever experienced, but I'm just going to make a quick run to Publix. Best quotes, we mentioned a couple of them. I like when Vera says, you have a lot of spirits in here, but there's one I'm most worried about because it's so hateful. Rarely do you hear the word hateful used correctly where it's like, that spirit's fucking hateful. That's like, oh, shit, really? It's bad. could this be remade as a 10-episode Netflix show? Sure. Sounds great. This specific film?

Ben Simmons is nodding and said no. No. Ben Simmons is in the house now. Multiple movies. Yeah. I'm just saying they could do it. I mean, they basically did do it with Haunted Hill two years ago,

so we know that they can do Haunted House TV, 10-episode TV things. Any unanswerable questions for you? What's Bash Sheba doing right now? I have to call the human main society on both of you for your performance on this podcast. What's Bathsheba's take on the bubble? She's in Dwayne Howard's room. Who won the movie for you guys? Lully Taylor. Really? Yeah, I think she's like the heart and soul of it. Other than James Wan, I think it was Lily Taylor. I have James

Juan. I'm going via Farminga. She finally found her lane. Split decision. Wow. Split. All right. Ben Simmons is coming in. Hot Mike. Coming up next. Wow. Ben, explain what you love about the conjuring universe as a 12-and-half-year-old. It's so terrifying. I couldn't sleep last night. I'd just stay awake until 307 and make sure Bashiba didn't get me. Do you stay up till 307 sometimes?

Yes. Is that why you wake up in the middle of the night? Yes, because I'm so scared. Do you think we did a good job with you showing you horror movies by the time you were like six years old? No. You think that was a magic? If you could do it all over again. you would rather have not seen all the horror movies your dad has shown you.

That's questionable because serial killer horror movies are different. They don't give me nightmares. House horror movies do. Why do we love haunted house movies so much? They're just scarier and better than a normal serial killer movie. Normal serial killer movies are kind of boring. Like take Halloween as example. The same movie happens like eight times.

But with house horror movies, a new thing happens. Like The Conjuring One was Bashy. Conjuring 2 was Bill Wilkins and Valic. And then the new conjuring, we don't know what it's going to be about yet. Well, and then we have three Annabel movies. Yeah. Annabelle's not my favorite. Yeah, but you've still seen all of them.

Yeah, I've seen all of them. And you like Cursel Lorona. Yeah, that's scary. I don't like urban legends because I think they're true. Ben, do you think they should have cared more about the dog in this movie? Yes. Sadie should make longer. Yeah, that was a big complaint that we were.

we had was just like they just ignore the fact that the dog goes out in the second night. Yeah. I was kind of upset about that. Sadie was the best character in the whole movie, best actor. Very disappointed she died. Hell yeah, Ben. That's exactly right. Thank you for saying so about Sadie. Ben, let me, can I just, I don't want to upset you, but you know, haunted house movies are scarier, you say, but haunted houses are not real and serial killers are real. So why do those movies not scare you? It's kind of because you never

know with serial killers that they can kill you, but you never know with the ghost that they can kill you too. They can possess you. They can use you as a vessel, which is terrifying. Are you more of a ghost guy or a demon guy? Demon. For scary. Yeah.

Demons. I think we arrived there too. We were like demons are scarier because ghosts could be nice. Yeah. Demons are so scary. Like the Bashiba character, terrifying. I don't even let him mention her name. Wait, Ben, before you go, can I tell you something? Yes.

Remember when your bedroom door kept closing for like four weeks? Yeah. I was doing that. You're such a dick. I'm never talking to you again. I'm sorry. I love it. Oh, shit.

That was great. He really thought that was happening. Yeah. So maybe the lesson should be don't let your little kid watch horror movies. Even he's saying maybe this is a bad idea. I probably shouldn't have seen this. It was worth it just for the bit.

Yeah. An incredible parenting audit on you today. Thank you. So we'll probably do a few more horror movies because I like talking about these. We've never, somehow never done Halloween. We've done The Shining. We've done silence of lambs.

We did Jaws, which is in, but there's some more out there. Seven has been sitting there. And I think it was the 25th anniversary coming up into what's in the box. What's in the box? Speaking of serial killer movies. Yeah. All right. You can hear Sean on the big picture.

Chris Ryan still cranking out the watch. And don't forget about the Connect with Shea Serrano and Jason launching on Wednesday. Wednesday. Yeah. And then in the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. if you want to hear producer Craig flexes muscles with a fantasy football season that may or may not be happening. Who knows? We'll find out. Thanks for listening to be watchables. We will see you next time around.

And remember, if there's a secret seller in your house that's boarded up, don't fucking go down there. Send the dog down first. Yes, send Sadie the dog down first. See you next time.