111 - Hereditary (w Yousef Danak)

Everyone, I'm Robbie Dornman, and this is Zero Finazis, the podcast for fans of everything. Welcome. Today, I'm joined by Yousef Danik to talk about the 2018 horror film or commentary. It's a hard film to watch, but when I respect the more I think about it, Yousef and I talk about how hard it is to watch if it succeeds as a horror film and the controversial ending.

For some time having gone by since we've recorded this discussion, I think I absolutely will watch it again, and that speaks to the power the film has. It was a great talk. Under the discussion. I'm here, once again, Yousef Danik, but we are not talking about food today.

Yousef how are you? What's cooking, Robbie? What's cooking is the patriarchy of a family. It's a movie.

We're talking about a movie. We're talking film today. We're talking about hereditary, the film from 2018, a horror movie. I'm 2018.

We might eventually talk about food in the distant future, but I wanted to change, you know? It's my show, so I can do whatever I want. That is, it is your right. Yeah.

Neither of us had seen this before, this. I, they didn't long on my list of movies I should see. I like horror. I write horror, so obviously I want to watch our films, good horror films.

And I was going to see Midsummer, but also I would be seeing it alone, because no one I know wants to go see Midsummer, which is the, the follow up from the same director. You don't like going to the movies alone? Not really. I will.

I love it. It's wonderful. I don't, it's not that I mind it. It's, I don't, I prefer to have, I like, because I like this.

I like the, hey, what did you think? What did you think about this? And this moment, and this et cetera, et cetera. I like having that conversation with someone, like immediately afterwards, right after you feel like, you know, gut reaction to this movie, and then how that changes over time, et cetera.

So. Yeah, that is nice, but I sometimes it's nice not to share your cherry coke with anyone, you know, or your popcorn or what have you. If they will sell you multiple cup, multiple popcorns and multiple cooks. I understand.

And I go to Alamo for most of the time from the movies and they just, it's like a full food menu. So it's not like you, it's, if you want to share food, it's very much like, hey, do you want to show this, this terrible food item that has 3000 calories in it? Oh, you do? Okay, cool, let's order it.

Hot dog nachos. Is that a thing? I don't think they, they have a nachos. I don't think it's a hot dog nachos.

It's like a fancy nachos. They have a fancy, a glint of fancy on it on their food. They have like, they have like boozy milkshakes and. Oh, that's fun.

Big cookies. Big cookie. I like myself a big cookie. I just don't like a cookie cake.

Let's not talk about, okay. We need to focus on this. Okay, you just haven't asked you a question. Yes.

You texted me. Yes. And you texted me, I don't know when you, when in the process this was, but you're like, it was a text, the three words on it. And it was this movie sucks.

And I was like, I don't watch it yet. And then like around, I finally, I did watch it. And I said, I watched it. And I said, I think I end up positive on it.

I think you're like, I think I'm in the same place. So what changed? What was why from your movie sucks too? I think I'm positive on it.

Well, okay. Well, it took me, what's the movie was what? Two hours, 10 hours, something? It's two hours that feels like it's, it includes normal, the normal passage of time, because it feels as it's running, it feels like it is infinite.

It is. And it's just too much, too much. But then the last half hour was good. So, I mean, that's nice and good.

I don't know. It was fine. It's just, it was fine or the, is that what you're saying? Well, the last half hour seemed to make up for the hour and a half of just this family that just, I mean, I get it.

They're going through some stuff, but these people are not real great at human interaction. Well, I mean, that's kind of the, that's kind of part of the point I think they're not really. Yes, absolutely. It was hard for me to figure out what the point was.

And then at the end, when it was like, oh, it's a satanical. I was like, okay, that's fine. I guess that makes as much sense as anything else. But as you're, yeah.

Finish your thought, finish your thought. Well, as you're going through and you're watching this movie and like a bird gets smashed into a window and then this weirdo child steals scissors, which that teacher, come on, you need to watch your scissors. Children are dangerous. Really, like that's a detail that you owned in on.

I think there was lots of teachers like, it takes like 30 seconds of the film is that scissors stuff. Like it's not a, I know, it's very important for teachers. I'm sorry. I'm not gonna watch.

Also like, I don't know that it's fine. So she cuts the head off the bird. And I'm just watching this and just like, okay, that's, and somebody's watching her do that. And there's not a conversation like, no one watches her.

No, so this lady's watching her. Maybe it's the old lady. Oh, right. Yeah, it's true.

Was it, oh, was it Joni? Yeah, it was Joni. Joni wants her to do it. That makes more sense.

So she's watching her. So she's like, oh yeah, that's cool. Yeah, you're this, you need to spawn a satan or you're a lesser satan or. Yeah, you're an arch demon.

Is it like Cirque du Soleil? They have like different touring groups. No, it's just, there's big devil, right? Head devil, head demon, head Satan himself.

Big Satan. Big Satan. And then there's lesser satans, you know, the different dukes of hell. The regional.

Yeah, the regional manager. So hell. I feel like, I feel like had I not got into teaching, that's probably what I would have ended up. I'm a regional manager of hell.

I'm a regional manager of hell. It's not a big account, but you know, we keep things moving. So yeah, so she's cutting this off and then she gets decapitated. Yes.

And then I'm like, as it's happening, I had to watch it a couple times. Actually, I'm gonna lie. I had to read the Wikipedia plot summary because I was like, what just happened? I don't want to watch it again.

The action was just real for a movie that was so meticulously filmed and acted. The action was just smearing and confusing at times. I mean, there's really only two action sequences. If you won't even call them that, I wouldn't even, there is that car, the car, the heroin car ride to a hospital, which gets interrupted when the little road gets are head knocked off by power pole.

Yeah. And then there's the last 20 minutes or so. Yeah. And then everything else.

A lot of, a lot of slow. A lot of slow burn. A lot of harrowing atmosphere. Yeah, which is fine.

I don't like slow, but I'm watching this and I'm just thinking, what? Why? Why is this happening? What is this?

And then it just very quickly as if they realized that they needed to wrap it up. They're like, okay, let me tell you, this is what's, it's saying, it's, and look, lady, oh man. There's, I'm gonna, I will disagree with you on that. There is plenty of detail early on in the film that pretty much clues you in that all this is bad well before the last 20 minutes.

It is not all sudden an info dump. It certainly ties all the loose ends together. It makes it make sense to me. I don't, this movie makes perfect sense to me.

It is, it is, it is, there's not any information in it that like there are certain things about like, you know, there are questions about, oh, why are their heads have to be chopped off? And why are, as everyone naked, et cetera, et cetera, at the very end? But that's, that's all just like, well, they're in some weird cult that is worshiping some demon. I, you know, I'm not gonna question.

Oh, why, of course a demon needs these three women to have their heads chopped off. Sure, whatever, that doesn't bother me. It's, it's more about the fact that it's not, I don't think it's, like there's a lot of complaints about my, I have some criticism of the film. I, but I don't think any, I think it is, this is his first feature link film that he, or he wrote and directed it.

He did a bunch of shorts before this, but this is his first feature link thing. And I think there are some things that I think are just, you know, the signs of a first film, of a first big thing, you know, of a little things that are, I think are, could be tied up here and there. But largely, I think this film does an excellent job of layering that information in all the while, kind of, I don't know, of obscuring that with, obscuring it for the audience by giving us mostly a very uncomfortable family drama for the first hour and a half. Not for in first hour and a half.

It picks up at a certain point. I think it's like after, you know, I think after the seance, I think it actually, it picks up and I, I'm not, I think up until this, like up in the, you get like slow for 30 minutes and then a girl gets her head knocked off and in another slow 30 minutes and then there's a seance and then things start happening and you're like, okay, I'm on, I understand, I think I knew at that point, I'm like, I know what's happening. And I'm okay, I want to see where this goes. But I'm, I, I, as I've, I, it's thoroughly uncomfortable to watch.

Unpleasant. Unpleasant to watch. It is one of those movies where I think I will, I like it now and I think as more time goes by and I think about it more, I like it more and more as I go so I can like think about the craft in it. And I think about the acting in it and the writing and I think that's all very tight and very good.

And I go, yeah. And it's wonderfully made, but it's almost like watching it. It's just not enjoyable. And I don't need everything to be like, it's fine.

Unpleasant things are fine, but it just was, it was just not, it just felt like homework. Well, it was. It was, I had to, I had to parse it out. I watched it over the course of a week.

Oh, I watched it in one sitting, I did not. I was just like, okay, a couple more, just a couple more minutes and we can watch the Voyager. We'll rip the band-aid off. You just sit down and do it all at once and then you don't have to.

I had to chunk the text. It was overwhelming. Okay, whatever works, but I watched it all at once and it is, I am fairly desensitized to misery. You know, I've experienced a lot of unpleasant films.

Yeah, sure. Especially as a younger man. I suppose it's purposely myself to thoroughly unpleasant things. Yeah, I mean, this wasn't like Tokyo Gorpolis, which I believe is my line.

Like I can't, that's a movie I just couldn't watch. I just realized I can't watch this movie. So it's not like that. No, it's just, it's purposely.

I mean, I think that's, it is just a really uncomfortable watch because, and it's not even the horror stuff really. There is, like there's the horror in it to me, like the really truly uncomfortable and anxiety and using stuff is all the family stuff. It is them interacting with each other. Yeah, but then you kind of get that they would be awful to each other on a certain, to a certain extent because, you know, there are these horrible things happening, but then they just seem weirdly disconnected, just in general.

Well, I mean, I think that is the point is that this is like, they, I mean, it is, I mean, you cannot mention, you cannot talk about this movie without talking about the, about mental illness and about the effect it has on a family. And they affect like, it's that scene where, in the very early on where the, what's the mother's name? Annie, Annie goes to that's portrait. This is right after we see, we find out that her mother died.

They had a strained relationship and her mother herself had mental illness problems, which we learned in detail in this, in this sport group meeting where she is Annie is the new person. And so she's introducing herself to this like 12 people or something who are sitting around her. And she talks about, oh, my mother just passed away. And I had a strained relationship with her.

And she talks about how her father died, where he starved himself to death because he had mental illness. And she talks about her brother killing himself when he was 16 because he was mentally ill. And then she talks about her mother who also had a disassociative identity disorder and dementia by the end of her life and, you know, all these things. And you see the, the, the details of this in, in, in Annie, in Tony, Tony Kletz performance about her having to, trying to learn, like, learn to live having been raised by these people, by her mother who obviously was probably not a good mom.

And she herself sleep walks. And we learned that at one point, she almost set herself and her children on fire while sleep walking. Have you ever sleep? Have you ever done that sleep walk?

Oh no. Really? No, I've never sleep walked. Oh, it's terrifying.

I, yeah. And I tears and all those different things that happen. Yeah, I assume all that's terrible. I don't, I'm, I'm very happy that I don't have to deal with any of that.

I'm very lucky and that I don't have any of those illments, but I don't know. They're the fact that, yes. And, you know, we learned that fact. No, this is all just like casually like thrown in in different places like, yeah, I sleep walk and I woke up one time and I woke me up was me lighting a match because I was covered in paint thinner along with my children.

And so she clearly also mental illness. And she is, you see her take pills, and you see the little girl before she dies, you see, oh, she has a, she obviously has like ticks and obsessive compulsive disorder and maybe or something like she is compulsively making weird toys. Yeah. All the time.

And nobody carries the damn EpiPen. She carried EpiPen around. She's old enough to carry it, but somebody should have it in a backpack. And this guy, it's his older brother.

Well, okay, it's right there at the funeral. They're like, you know what, the EpiPen? I get it, tragedy, but like that should be automatic. I mean, that kid didn't just get an EpiPen.

I mean, I think it's, it's not, it wouldn't be an issue except it wasn't an issue. I mean, we say earlier in the movie, they'd forgotten the EpiPen too. No, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, they forgot it at the funeral.

I mean, they're not. Which is ridiculous. Well, they're not, that's the thing. You say they're not.

They're not. Detail oriented? Yeah, they're not. They're not detail oriented.

They're not capable of these people are not like normal. They're not, it's not a normal family. I think well, like they look like a normal family, right? You have a mom and a dad and they're both the moms and artists and the dad is a professor.

I don't know. I think I was, I don't know. We don't really know. He makes, he seemingly makes enough money for them to have a gigantic house because I assume.

Yeah, and he has, yeah, the miniature game is not a lucrative one. I would imagine, yeah. She's not making a bunch of money for making these miniatures. So I'm assuming that his income drives most of the family.

And he's, he can have a, he can have booze in his office, which is cool. No, thank you. I just, I don't know. I don't want to drink at work, obviously.

But I don't know. It just seems like a, I don't know. Power, power. I mean, he is, I think you're supposed to get those details just from, you know.

Yeah. So yeah, and then the brother forgets the EpiPen and just says, oh yeah, just go eat that random cake. He's, the brother is like, yeah. By the most responsible person in that house.

No, the dad, I think is, but he's also, I think also thrown into question because you've seen him also taking pills with him and you had a certain point in the movie and you're just like, oh, right. This guy we thought was the same one also probably has some sort of mental illness that he's trying to go with. He has to live with these people. He does have to live with those people, but I mean, that's, it's the movie, the name of the movie, hereditary.

It like, it hangs over everything, your family and what you inherit from your family. It doesn't, it doesn't go away. It's always there. It doesn't matter how much you try to exercise it.

There is no, there's no getting it out of you. I get it, but then now we're gonna add this layer of, oh yeah, okay, there's all these legitimate like mental illness concerns, hereditary things you pass on. Oh, and satanical. It's just like, there's a movie about dentists, but they're also werewolves.

Like it doesn't make any sense. It's that these two things need to be together. Have you ever seen Rosemary's baby? You sir?

I have. I enjoyed it. Okay, this movie takes a lot from Rosemary's baby. Yeah, I get it.

Here, this is not, this is not, oh, there is, you know, this movie is about, you know, the inheritance of mental illness and how it affects people, even if they're not directly mentally ill, that is certainly here. But there's also horror. There's also supernatural. And they, I don't think they, I don't think they, there's a conflict between the two.

I think the two work together just fine. Because for the first, I don't know, until we start seeing glasses just slide across tables, clearly under the influence of something supernatural, the question is always there is, is this just a product of mental illness? Is this, are these unreliable narrators? Or is any of this really happening?

And that question is always there until we start seeing, you know, things that are still not that. So like when I, when they're like, where did I do it? I started laughing. I was like, oh, come on, really?

This is what we're doing? Because it was just up to that point. It was kind of as slow and dull and like wrenching as it was. There were not glasses moving.

There was not like chalk manifesting itself on a chalkboard. And that was just, it was just silly. I just, I, it was just too jarring. It was like discovering that physics had suddenly changed.

I mean, I think that's the effect that they want, that they want it to be jarring. I just don't think that does it. Yeah, but it was, yeah, I just didn't work. I like, I don't know.

I would have liked it if there was more of that earlier on. I mean, I wouldn't stop it just to kind of establish it. You just mentioned that the birds from a fashion into a window in like 15 minutes into the movie yourself. I know, I guess this kid, I'm like, oh, she like fires started but like bird based measure.

She is making a toy in her classroom instead of doing a quiz. The teacher corrects her, tells her finished her quiz. And then immediately a bird smashes into a window. And then you see the creepy woman watching her from a distance.

I guess because she's like the, she's the embodiment of the lesser Satan. Which, okay, we got to talk about well, that the misogyny, this satanic cult. I mean, I think that's the payman. He wants to, he's a dude, he's a dude demon.

He wants a dude body. I just, I don't know if you don't love yourself. How in the hell are you going to love any of them? If I am a dude demon, I want to be a dude body.

I understand. It's fine. It's not like these demon worshipers are pure of heart and intent. They are like, oh, no, we'll make this family explode from the inside.

Who cares? If we can get the demon on earth. I just, what is this? What is it?

What do they do day to day? Like, do they just have like theirs? But then they're Satanists. Like, it seems like it would just take them a lot of time.

It's why. I don't know. I guess people do things. They have hobbies.

40 hour work week. You know, 40 hours for me, 40 hours for the company, 40 hours for sleep. Or whatever it is. Eight hours a day.

Eight hours of work. Eight hours of play. You know. Yeah, okay.

I guess. I mean, you have to, you know, but you have to make some time for yourself and make some time for your dark lord. Your dark lord. And I think that's the, you know, Jody herself.

She's like this chipper, you know, middle-aged lady, older lady, who is also a demon worshiper. And those, you know, ancient dark languages. Yeah. That's the thing.

You said before, like, there's the book that the grandmother had in her belongings about spiritualism and all that stuff. And, you know, like, there's hints here and there of this darkness that lurks. Like, a lot of stuff is hidden in those minis as well. Like her mitterers, there's a lot of really creepies.

Like, they talk about, oh, yeah. Cause they, and then a dialogue and the Annie is just like, oh, yeah, she really wanted to take care of my daughter. So I let her. And then there is in the miniature, there is a clear shot of the grandmother breastfeeding the daughter.

Like saying, no, I want to, I'm going to breastfeed the daughter. And you're like, wait. Oh, I miss that. See, that's why you watched it one bit instead of watching 10-minute chunks.

I think that maybe, okay, maybe I would have enjoyed the film a little better had I really tucked in with it. Dark room, movie theater, whatever. And the little girl also early in the film says, grandma always wanted me to be a boy. Oh, yeah, I just, you know, maybe my attention just wasn't there.

There's, there is a lot of detail in it. There, okay, I'll give you that. So I don't, when the transition from, this is just a family drama to, oh, spooky shit is happening. It doesn't feel that I, I think frankly, I think it's all, most of my, I would say most of my lending credence to it instead of thinking of it as just silly is basically just Tony Colette.

She sells, when she's had that for seance and she's like, what is happening? She's actually selling it. She's like, this is, she does not, she does not, she, Tony Colette doesn't go, oh, I'm in a horror movie. I'm just going to, I'm going to just pretend I'm going to, you know, over act or whatever.

I think she sells like, oh, this is scary insane shit. And it's actually happening. Or she thinks it's actually happening. You know what I mean?

Yeah, everyone does a great, it's spectacularly acted and put together and the music is real good and the sounds are, sound design is nice. And yeah, and it's not like, well, you know, like it doesn't have that like silly, it's not, it doesn't have like the tropiness. No jumps here. Like horror movies, which is nice.

Very nice. So yeah, I absolutely despise, I think that's the thing, like I have gotten away from seeing most horror movies is because I'm tired of, I hate jumps, I hate jumpscares. They're so lazy. They're just like, hey, we're going to surprise you with a big loud noise.

The cat's screaming, I know, and like, that's not real horror, I mean, that's not real fear. That's not real terror, that's nothing. It's just a noise, it just comes out of nowhere. And this film is not that.

I feel like a jumpscare can work and can be fine, but it should be very sparingly used and whatever else. So this didn't have that, which is nice. And you know, the horror was creeping and slow building and all that. I think maybe, you know, you just take something in and it's just not the time for you, maybe.

Oh, I mean, it's, I don't wanna, I think this is a lot of my revelations after the fact. Yeah, exactly. When I was watching it, I was like. If only we had seen it in a movie theater together and been able to talk afterwards.

I know. Watching this, and you're just like, I'm just like feeling unease as I'm watching this entire entire thing. And I know for a fact that I get more out of it the next time I watched it. I know I would see more, I would understand more and I knowing how it ends obviously let you key in on probably details that are earlier on that I didn't notice the first time.

I read this online, I didn't notice this, that the powerful, that the girl knocks her head off on has that the ritual symbol on it, has that occult symbol on it. Oh, wow. I'm sorry, that sounded like I was being sarcastic. That is legitimately interesting.

So like that somehow all this was preordained or constructed in some way somehow. Yeah. So like, okay, so did the little girl know like when she's cutting the head off the bird, like that this was gonna happen and that she was like waiting for it or like how conscious of things was she? I don't, I don't know.

I mean, I think that's part of it. I think if I watched it again, I probably noticed a little bit more. I, my guess is from what I remember is that having this other being in her is probably causes her bizarre behavior at times. And she has tried to just cope with it just like you cope with any mental illness.

And she can't help the way she acts sometimes. And, you know, I don't think she's necessarily conscious that there's a demon inside of her. But I think that it probably controls her behavior at times, you know, or it could, or it could sway her to, you know, do something if it needs her to, is my guess. I mean, I think that's what I'm saying.

I like if I watch this again, I probably noticed there's a details a little bit more and I don't want to. I don't wanna watch this again. Yeah, talking about it, I'm like, oh, I think maybe I should watch it. But then I'm thinking about sitting down and watching it again.

I don't think so. I don't think I'll be doing that. I mean, I also, like I do, I have history of watching unpleasant movies and then watching my last time. So I'm so desensitized to them that it doesn't affect me anymore.

You know, I used to watch seven over and over and over again. Oh. And seven is thoroughly an unpleasant movie. Yeah, I'd seem bit to that.

I think I saw bits of it on like basic cable. You should watch seven edited. You should watch seven, the radar normal version of seven. It's a good movie.

Kevin Spacey plays himself. The crazy social sociopath. Ooh. Oh, man.

I know. That's how I, that's like, there's, oh, the whole Kevin Spacey horrible stuff. There's, do you remember that Saturday Live where he hosted it? No.

He hosted it Saturday Live at the 90s at some point. And his opening monologue. That makes sense, I guess. Yeah, it makes sense.

His opening monologue gag was him just doing a normal kind of very bland monologue. And then underneath were subtitles written from someone who had worked with him all week as part of the staff and was telling horror stories about Kevin Spacey being a sociopath. Oh. It's like a funny joke.

Yeah, it's a funny joke because, oh, it's not. He's acting so pleasant on this monologue, but he's actually a terrible person. And then in the last bit, the last joke in the subtitles written by some person is, remember, Kevin Spacey always plays sociopaths because he is a sociopath. Oh, and you're like, oh, that's particularly stinging nowadays.

It's kind of like this movie in the way that as it's happening, you're feeling one thing, but then once you're done, you're like, oh, and you feel something else, and you understand it in another way. Except, you know, of course, a movie is not real. And the movie is not real, real people are heard. Yeah, I think there are problems with the commentary.

Like, I think in retrospect, I think it's really well made. And for first film, particularly, it's really well done. It's beautiful. It's very pretty.

I think the problems are, it's too long. It doesn't mean to be. You could cut a couple minutes here and there. I think trim it, trim the fat down a little bit, and it would make it pace a little bit more.

And while still having, I think there is importance to the lingering and the kind of slow burn of parts of it, but I think there are other parts where you're like, I don't think this needed to be this long. I don't think every shot of Annie in our car needs to be, we don't need to hold every shot for 30 seconds. I think some of these shots. There was a lot of driving in this movie.

There was a lot of driving as well. I think you don't, obviously, a lot of the time. Some of that driving did not need to be there. You can just show them at the place.

How did they get there? How did they, they, we see her in a car? And then she's in a car at a different place. I need to know how she got there.

I think we could get that out of it. And I think some of it is the editing. I think my biggest problem with this is some of the editing in this. Yeah.

And it's mostly not necessarily like, I mean, obviously editing and it's too long, but also editing in that I think, you're talking about it being silly. I think it does comedy cuts at times instead of doing a hard cut. And they're very close to each other. So I think like, you know, horror and comedy are really close together.

Oh, yeah. And I think some of the cuts in this movie, like in two or three different places are comedy cuts. And it distracts from what I think the film is trying to do. Do you have like an example in mind?

I have a couple. I have two at least. Yeah. And probably the others if I think about it.

So the first one is what I think is, it's an amazing moment and then an amazing sequence. And one that is truly horrifying. And then it leads directly into this weird cut. And it's when the girl gets, when poor Charlie gets her head knocked off, because we have this, we have the hair we've seen with the sun trying to carry, carries her out of this party.

She's like gasping, throws her in the car. They're rushing to hospital. And the kids in the backseat, and he's driving, he's like, half stoned, his eyes are watery and like, he's like, I gotta get to the hospital. He's driving like crazy.

And so she sticks her head out the window. There's something in the road animal or something. He swerves her head, she hits it at the post. Her head's getting knocked off or whatever.

And then this and that is, I think my favorite shot in this entire movie is just him in behind the wheel. He slams on the brakes, behind the wheel and he's just staring ahead. And that is one of those lingering shots where I think it's perfect because he's just, he's like half crying and he's staring ahead and he says, and he like half said like, you okay? And no, obviously no answer.

Yes, she's instantly dead. And he doesn't look, he glances into the rear view of her second and then looks back. Never actually turns his head, never looks into the backseat. And he drives home, just parks outside the car, goes inside and lays down a bed, doesn't sleep, just lays there all night.

And then we never, you don't even see any find the body. We hear any find the body. Yeah. And you go, you're staring, I'm going to the store and you're chuk chuk chuk chuk chuk and she opens the front door and then goes to the car with this car door and then suddenly wailing.

Just awful wailing as she realizes what's in the car. Yes. And it's terrible. Yes, it's awful.

And yeah, and it should be, you know, imagine, imagine, you find your daughter headless in the backseat of your car. Already, like, blotting over from the night, you know? Yeah, no, it's inconceivable. And it's very tastefully done until.

Oh, well, I actually love the cut to the head. Did you? Yes, I actually love it. I was just like, I think I would have just stopped watching at that point.

I think it's, I think I'm getting old, Robbie. Well, I mean, there is certainly, I agree with you. I think there's a part of that in this movie or much, and I'm like, if I was 20, I would be eating this up with a spoon. I would just devour this and be like, mmm, it's pain.

Mmm, give it to me. Nom, nom, nom, nom. I've talked to a lot of people about horror movies and how they just don't really, and I've heard other people talk about it as well. This is not like a hot take.

But like, as you get older, you're just like, oh, no, I actually, I know what horror is, and I'm more acquainted with that. And just, you know, as you roll around on the planet, bad things happen. And so you just have less of an appetite for it. It's weird.

I mean, also, I think people start to, I don't know. It's like, oh, that smooth jazz is kind of nice. Sometimes I don't need a fight with my music. Yeah, something just easy and like just, just washes over you and you don't do anything.

And it's nice that you just, you lay there and drink a white call. I had a guy, I had a manager, owner, whatever the record store I used to work at years ago. I was like, so what's the deal? Cause he always plays smooth jazz.

He was like, I was like, so what's the deal with smooth jazz? And he was like, well, it was, it was the 70s and Vietnam was over and we were just tired. And I was like, okay, makes sense. I kind of understood it from that moment.

But I love, I like the head, the decapitated head. I'm covered in flies. I think and you linger on that. And I like that.

Cause I don't think that's silly. That's not, I don't think that's a comedy guy. No, no, that was not silly. It's awful.

And the head's just lying there by the side of the road. It's been there. And you see cars driving by. And there's none the wiser.

They're just like, oh, it's some road debris. They don't even notice. And then you cut, so cut to the head to Annie on her bedroom floor, face down on the floor. Just head, like her forehead on the floor.

Just screaming into the ground about crying and wailing about how she can't do this. I can't do this. Just like screaming incoherent senses. And the dad, like her husband, trying to hold her.

Like, what can you do? What could he possibly say to her to make her feel better? There's nothing. Nothing he could say that would help her.

He's just there and trying. And then, and that lingers and we just get a pan, like a trucking shot or something or a pan shot of the camera like going from left to right of her. Just that for like 30 seconds. And then this is the first example of like a comedy cut where she's wailing and wailing.

So we have an almost the entire, this entire time we hear her wailing. Just pure sorrow. And then it cuts to the funeral of the little girl or the burial. And she's still wailing, you know?

And that's kind of a comedy cut. You know, whenever you have, there's a lot of comedies you do this where they have, you know, you have a character just wanting a same emotion for a long time. And then it's just different locations. And you're like, and the last location is the joke.

The punch line location is always some weird place or some very normal place. Like they're on a bus and they're still screaming. Like, they find something horrible, they scream. You see them like, they're all still screaming.

It carries on. And then suddenly they're like, you know, a bus full of normal people. And they're just like, and you're like, oh, I got it, I'm good joke. And that's one of it, it's a little odd.

It starts bad though, as the later one, which is a very particular, because there's people, you read reviews of this, they're either 10 out of 10 or one out of 10. Like everyone that hits a lover hate kind of movie. And they, all their critics love it, obviously. Of course, critics love the movie.

And all the audience members are like, oh, it's great. Oh, what is this? This is a joke. And I think it's the one that it bothered me.

And I was on board with a movie by this point. I was the last 20 minutes. I was like, I'm on board with this. I like this a lot.

And then I'm like, oh no, that wasn't what you wanted. I even, like in that moment, I was like, oh no, that's not what you wanted. And it's the moment where, and again, it's also preceded, but I think that's something truly horrifying and really effectively where the boy, now it's just the boy and Annie, Peter and Annie. There's only two characters of the family left.

Everyone else has died. And she's chasing him through the house. And suddenly there's other cultists in the house and he hides in the attic. Oh yeah, I know what you're talking about.

He hides in the attic. Yes. And he finds the body of the grandmother with her head. And he's like, obviously you're like, what?

And like he's well, it's falling apart. Everything he thinks is true is gone. His mother's trying to do something to him. And he's always suspected of his mother.

I don't think he's ever really trusted her mother. There's multiple times that we know that she's trying to hurt him. So he obviously doesn't trust her. Now his worst fear is coming to life.

It's great, great, that's great. And then he's running from her hide the attic. So he's the grandmother's body. She sees all those weird, spiritual shit going on.

And then suddenly she's above him. And she is taking a wire and sawing her own head off. Yeah, that was, the rhythm to it was odd. I mean, I don't, I like it.

I like that imagery. I like and heard, and the fact that it's not that dory. It's like, you see the blood coming out? And but it's mostly the noise that is awful.

It's mostly like the noise and suddenly your head gets off. And then then, and I, that's all fun. I don't mind any of that. It's then there's suddenly a lot of these cultists are there and some of them are naked, whatever.

Oh, yeah. I mean, I, it was weirdly distract because I'm just like thinking about like these like old hippies. Like they, they, they, they cease to be like threatening for, for about a half a second. And I was just like, ugh.

And I just got like a waft of like patchouli. And it was gross. And just put on some robes, guys. I mean, I think that's, I think it is, I don't mind the nakedness.

I think it's mostly just too. It is like distracting. I mean, I think it's distracting. I mean, I think it's supposed to be like, Hey, these people are, this is not normal behavior.

Whatever they're doing, it's not to help you. If they were to help, if they were here to help you, they would not be naked. They're others. They are bad.

Although you do see them in the miniature before they are there. Before that last bit happens, they have two miniature shots right next to each other. One is actually, well, it's actually one miniature shot and one real shot. And then the movie does this multiple times where it juxtaposes a real shot of the house and then her, a miniature version of the scene.

Yeah, that's how it starts out. And then you see in the miniature version, there are little tiny, little tiny people around the house surrounding it, basically. So that kind of, again, the miniatures, I think if I watched it more closely, I would, you probably, I would probably notice the miniatures are always worshiping terrible things about to happen. But all of this, I'm on board with all this.

I'm like, okay, we are creepy naked cultists. The Annie is now floating or chopping her own head off. She is no longer herself. And then then he jumps out the window and it's a comedy.

It's a slapstick cut of him. I'm like, this is jumping out. It reminds me of, there's multiple, I mean, lots of it. Like the, well, I can't remember it.

It happened a lot since a few times. Oh, probably. I mean, IT crowd. I don't know if you've watched, ever watched IT crowd.

I have. Okay. Early the first season when the original boss character just jumps, just walks out the window. Give it suicide.

Yes. It's really a comedy, comedy bit. Yeah. And he just, because he just, it's very casual.

And the way that the kid just jumps out the window, it's very much like him, it's like, look, look, jump. It is not like, oh, no, what do I do? And I guess I have to jump out the window. It's very much like, oh, joke, joke, jump.

It's like, oh, what do I do? Oh, ha ha, jump out the window. And then the cut of him falling is very much, it's just like, thump. And I don't feel the brutal nature of him falling and dying at that point.

I feel like it's just, it's like a slapstick character. I'm just like, thump, thump, thump. And it doesn't have a brutal, it needs to be more brutal. I think a lot of this stuff is going for like a more realistic version of how, you know, if you jumped out of a window and you fell and you laid on the ground, how that would be, but it needed to be brutal.

It needed like a awful noise at the bottom or something. Art, no noise, just quiet, would have been fine. We're not even showing, just show him on the ground. And running and all that on the ground.

Yeah, he jumps and he's on the ground. I think that'd be fine. I think that's again, another like comedy cut. And it makes, I think it detracts from the impact of what those last 20 beds are supposed to have, you know, it's supposed to be suddenly, there's a very jarring change in pace where suddenly everything's happening all at once.

And then, you know, they're in the little tree house, you know, and they give him the, give him the, they have the three different women of the family, all decapitated, all bowing down to the king, King Paimon. And then all the cultists and your life. And then in some way it just ends. And that beautiful Judy Collins song at the end.

I didn't notice. Which I quite liked. That may be my favorite part of the movie. Just hearing a song.

It's just hearing a nice song. And I mean, I think that's my, those are my real, like, I think I'm not gonna say that, oh, the movie's uncomfortable to watch and I might not ever watch it again. I don't know. I wanna call that a criticism because it's a horror movie.

It's supposed to be horrifying. Yeah. And I think that's, you know, there are types of horror movies that, oh, I can watch them over and over and over again. They're like popcorn movies.

It's no different than the Avengers or whatever. Whatever your preferred form of like, easy listening is your smooth jazz, so to speak. It is, it's just like, oh yeah, it's a horror movie. Even though I'll watch it over and over and over again.

And this movie is, no, this is a horror movie that I don't wanna, it's so terrible that I don't really wanna watch it very often. And I'm not gonna criticize it for that. I think that's what it's going for. But yeah, the silly, the comedy stuff, the comedy cuts, I think, I don't think that was intentional at all.

I think it was mistakes. And I think there's a little bit of, you can cut 10 minutes out of this thing. You get under two hours. I think that would make it so much more watchable, which I don't know, again, I don't even know if that even was considered at any point if anyone would enjoy watching this movie or if it's just like, no, I wanna make it as long and terrible as possible.

And I get, I have no problem with slow movies or plotting or any of that, that's fine. I'm okay with it. Obviously, it works a little better when you know what you're getting into and you set the conditions properly. I'm not saying you need to dim the lights and put on candles and put the phone off the hook or whatever.

But I feel like my attention, I did not give this the proper attention in order to receive it and get, I'm not gonna say enjoy, but I just say receive. So I mean, that's a bit on me. And I like the idea of like locking in with a movie or a record or whatever. I just, for whatever reason, I didn't.

And I definitely suffered as a result. So my opinion of it suffered as a result of my lack of attention. I like, I'm gonna talk about some, just random things I like, use a, I like the set, I like the house. It is beautiful because it feels like a house.

Yeah, it doesn't feel like a house. It doesn't feel like a set. It feels just like a place people live. It doesn't feel like, if you watch other horror movies, recent horror movies, you look at where there's the setting and it's always like this giant spooky house or whatever that people will also theoretically live in.

If I lived in a house, I want it to look nice. I want it to be lit. I want to see things where I go. I live in this house.

I clean it. It's not realistic. This is like, hey, this feels like a house. If every setting feels like a real place.

It doesn't, and that doesn't make me less scared. That makes me more scared because there is a greater disparity between the horror and the normal stuff, the normalcy. Okay. I like that a lot.

I like that there's no jumpscares already mentioned. I like the fact that this film has mental illness as a topic, as a theme, it does it casually toss it aside. Like, there is a long legacy in horror movies, and I mean thrillers too. Whenever there's like some kind of some villain that's like chasing the army characters or haunting them or something.

Yeah. And their motivation is, oh, they're crazy. Yeah. They don't have, it's not, oh, I was wronged once.