Wake up babe, bandslain is back. That's right, your favorite extremely long music podcast has returned and this season we're talking grunge. As usual, there's goss, there's tea, there's an excessive amount of facts and info. And you know what, there's nine hours on a band that rhymes with Schmarl Schramm, plus much, much more.
Listen to new episodes of bandslain with me, Yossi Sallit, every Thursday. I'm Sean Fennessy and this is the big picture, a conversation show about the horror of going down 1-0 to the New York Knicks. Just kidding, we're talking about horror movies. Be real careful.
I don't know when this is going out. I'm joined by Chris Ryan. What's up man? Twice a year, we dig into what's going on in horror movies.
Are you feeling better this April than you were last April? I'm feeling, yes. I think I'm feeling more entertained because last April was, we were watching January. It was a more experimental spring in horror films.
This year feels a little bit more traditional. We'll be covering a lot of horror movies in this discussion we'll talk about late night with the devil. Many listeners have been asking for discussion about that film. Abigail just opened over the weekend, came in number two at the box office.
CR-VOD Classics, will we hit? We'll have a special guest coming in to break down the film imaginary. That should be interesting. And it's a huge honor for us because I think this person is something of an icon in the horror community.
Absolutely an expert, you know, our very own Goulardi come to explain the films. Elvira 2.0 is coming through. So that'll be really exciting. Horror movies right now.
You're feeling good about what you're seeing. There is a little bit of concern trolling about whether or not horror is still the saber that will guide us through the darkness of the box office disaster of the last 20 years. Do you buy into that? Do you think that horror movies are maybe not as powerful as they once were?
I think the state of the union is strong, but a little bit aimless. So in the years past, I think one of the reasons why this is a dependable twice a year project, and we could probably even get away with doing it one or two more times a year, is that horror has a really reliable, once a one or two times a quarter, big major theater release. And then a unbelievably steady stream of streaming independent stuff that you really, you can just look at Eric Piperburg's column in the New York Times, which is like a really good resource to find, it's like five hours movies to stream right now. Or you can just go to like the iTunes horror page and find really good stuff.
And there's festivals and there's like a whole independent community of media and discourse around like these low budget horror movies. So we have like this wealth of this micro film industry. And I think in years past, there's been just an obvious amount of like, oh, look at this trend creatively going on in an independent space. Well, everything else is sort of rising and falling.
Horror will always deliver at the box office. And obviously it's been a little bit weaker this year in the box office department. I was curious whether you felt like the undergirding of the genre isn't any kind of is wobbling at all. I don't think so.
I think last year we had talked to me, which was a big A24 breakout. We had Five Nights at Freddy's, which was one of the big surprise performers of the year, saw X kind of over performed expectations. Thanksgiving did pretty well. So in the back half of the year things did well.
But was the was the was the exercise revival at an area in the moment? Of people getting a little bit exasperated or bored by the eventized horror movie from the studio. I don't think that's the case. We've seen a few soft performers.
You know, Abigail was sort of a soft performer, Knight's win was sort of a soft performer. I think that there are some specific reasons for that. A lot of these movies were made either basically in the run up to the strikes. And the way that horror works is that they're very managed productions, there's a lot of reshoots.
As there are with a lot of big franchise movies, a lot of those movies didn't get to do their reshoots because there were strikes. So the movies maybe aren't hitting quite as well as they had. A lot of development and writing is obviously not happening during those strike periods too. So these movies are just maybe not as tight.
It doesn't mean that there aren't great independent films. Late Night with the Devil for example kind of operating outside of the conversation on Abigail. That's a totally different kind of a production. So I think that that is contributing to it a little bit.
I think sometimes it's a little bit of a crapshoot too. Last spring, I thought that there was a lot creatively to talk about with a genre, but it wasn't like crushing at the box office at that point either. So the smile last year, that was two years ago. And that was coming off of the 2022, which is incredibly successful.
It was the barbarian year and that was a very big fall and that was a terrifying two year where, you know, like I was a huge indecensation. So things felt a little bit softer last year, despite a couple of big highlights. And this year feels even softer than that. I think we'll be fine.
When we start listening, the movies that are coming still to the workload of at least intriguing, if not outright exciting movies. But you had this great question here in the outline, which is that is there a dependable brand and horror? So what made you think about that? I think just because we probably, in our adult lives, we're like raised by Blumhouse and also tantalized by the promise of Blumhouse, that there could be a way to make really small budgeted films that economically made it work for really interesting actors to participate, whether it was Ethan Hawker, Kevin Baker, or whatever.
And that they were just all in the black, like it was just all profit because once you got something into a theater, the horror audience, and either the freaks or the date nights, we're always gonna be there so that you could get your movie, whether it was a sensation like Black Phone, or even just like, hey, that did decent, but that's actually 25 million right in our pocket. And that's how we talk about 90s movies anyway, and the 90s model of the industry, where they would make a variety of different kinds of films for intelligently budgeted, so that if it made $65, $75 million at the box office, they're like, good job, everybody up hit. It didn't have to prop up the shareholders quarterly reports of an entire megacorporation. It was like a movie studio making movies for people who like movies.
Yeah, I think Smile is actually an interesting example of this where Smile 2, which is coming out later this fall, is one of the most important movies on Paramount's slate this year, and that was a movie that I think was originally greenlit to be a streaming movie, and then Jim Genopolis was still running Paramount at the time, and he decided to put it in theaters, and now there's been a changeover in the administration, but since then now Smile 2 becomes, and he's writing Paramount's only releasing a seven or eight movies. He has a priority, yeah. It's a huge deal. I don't know if that's got long-term damaging effects on the brand, the genre in so far as like, the big studio is making these movies.
I don't think they should be counting on them in that way, the extra system is the example of, they paid $400 million for the rights to make those films. I'm not sure if we'll see another extra system movie in that story that they were trying to tell. It doesn't seem like DeSever is going to happen based on the underperformance of Believer, and David Gordon Green is obviously off that movie now, but Atomic Monster and Blumhouse are now combined. So James Wan's company emerged with Jason Blum's Blumhouse, and these were really like the alpha and the omega of horror in the 2010s.
They were the two most successful, I think pretty much coolest, most interesting, franchise brands in this space. They're only just now coming together, like I was announced last year, but you can see, so I think we're gonna see some things in the next couple of years from them, that probably, there's a lot of smart people that work there. And I think the reason why I long for something like this, and it's not to say that there aren't things like it, like there's X, Y, Z and Gravitas, and there's places where I think sometimes when you see, at least them as like a partner in the film, you're like, okay, I'll at least watch through the trailer. I'll give it a try, yeah.
But I kind of, it's almost like the way it was with record labels, like maybe in the 2000s or the 90s, where I'm like, I just want someone to put a stamp on this, and I, as a fan of the genre, will be open to checking out almost anything if I could just get like a, who will be our sub hub? Yeah. Right. I don't know, it's a really good question.
And there was a minute there where I was like, maybe A24 should start like a horror sub-chingle to be like, these are really good for us. You know, like why don't we make A24 Midnight? I think the problem with that is that they already, they already market every movie as a horror movie. Yeah, right.
So it would be hard to differentiate, you know, civil war has basically cut together like a horror movie, even though that's not what it is. And so I think that that could be a challenge, but it's a good idea. I mean, I've seen obviously has that. They have a Midnight Brand where they make horror movies that inevitably get filtered into the shutter system.
And that works pretty well for them. And then that's something that I'll probably watch nine out of 10 IFC Midnight Movies, you know? Yeah. That brand doesn't matter to me.
They're fewer and farther between. So very, very challenging time for independent movies. Like it is just not a good moment at all. And so because of that, I think we're seeing fewer and fewer and you really got to get by it.
This can be your teeth. We've covered a few movies this year already. We did an entire episode where we explained Night Swim to Amanda was a lot of fun. And that's basically been the hit of the year so far.
Yeah. And still I think only like 35 million in America. But I think that was a little underrated, honestly, especially relative to what we've seen so far. You know, you and I talked about Immaculate, the Sydney Sweeney film, which did solid business for a very small movie.
You talked to our college students about first- I did. I did. We can talk a little bit about first- I only briefly talked about it with Amanda. Love Lies, Bleeding is kind of a horror movie, kind of a body horror movie.
So I think we have Qualifies. I want to get your take on Ghostbusters Frozen Empire and it's seen a four-five times now. How do you feel it fits in the wider story of Bustam Ghost? I just didn't know that Slimer could get cold like that.
Yeah. He's so ill right now. He's like young Tyree's Maxie. He's just hung in the lane.
I did see Frozen Empire. I actually haven't seen a Ghostbusters. I haven't seen either of these two. I have to use the other person, wait one, you okay?
I was like, I refuse. Yeah, these are not my Ghostbusters. Not all Ghostbusters. Frozen Empire is the most fine movie of all time.
Is it that weird that there are just some jobs for men? Is that okay? What else do you think only men should be allowed to do? I don't know.
Okay, you don't need to attempt a joke on that one. I do think that one of the big surprises, one of the big exclamation points on the year, it has been late night with The Devil, which is a movie that has a controversy attached to it, which we can talk about a little bit here, but the film itself is directed by Colin Cameron Cairns and kind of filmmakers and stars David S. Malchin, who is a, I would say a 21st century that guy, one of the signature characters of the 21st century in part because of his work in the films of Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve and James Gunn, and James Gunn, and he has popped up in small but very effective creepy parts in big, big movies over the last 20 years. He's a well-known horror aficionado.
He loves horror movies. And so this is his first big leading role. I love the premise and the framing of this movie, which opens as a kind of documentary portrait of a discovered tape from a late night show in, I believe it's 1979, that takes transpires on Halloween night. And the show is kind of a mix of Johnny Carson and DeCabit.
Yeah, he's basically doing a variety talk show. It looks a little bit more thoughtful or kind of like, kitchy, I guess, then Carson, which would be like Megasleb every night. And this is more like, the snake handler lady and then like, anything to kind of get. But it's basically like this guy is losing the ratings race.
He's suffered a personal tragedy and he is clinging onto this job and he basically has to do clickbait. He has to start doing viral stories on his program so that he can stay on the air. And on this Halloween night, he programs an episode that features some very familiar characters. If you watch 70s talk shows, there is a kind of Yuri Geller standing in a spoonbender, somebody, a mentalist who can use their mind to discover facts about people.
And then there's a kind of amazing Randy S. Kedger who is a magician himself and a hypnotist, but also someone who is a real, a doubter. Somebody who points out to the world that this is just trickery, that there's not actually a real science transpiring here. And then also a woman who studies possession.
Like paranoia. And a possessed child. And the film effectively takes place over one episode of the show. And there are some moments where we sort of go behind the scenes and cut to black and white and see what happens during the commercial breaks.
But for the most part, the film is made inside the production of an episode. Love the framework, love that's mountain, like exceptional performance, like a part that you would imagine doesn't come naturally to somebody who is so interior and has a kind of naturally occurring malevolence. Oh yeah, the idea of this guy coming out from behind a curtain, I'd be like, hey, everybody. It's like, it's very, while the genre seems consistent with his interests, it seems like a challenging part.
Yeah, and I thought he really nailed it, because he also has to be a person who is coping with this loss. And you can see it kind of emanating off of him during the performance of this show. A lot of people have really loved this movie. I like it.
Like I think it's a cool accomplishment for an indie. I thought it really took kind of a wrong turn in the third actor and a little bit, but I think you were more positive about it than I was. So much of like horror movies are the context in which you see them. And I watched this really late at night in a spooky, like an empty house.
You know, so I was just rent a home by yourself. No, I rented my late with the devil. No, I happen to be house sitting for Friends in Portland. And we just got it up on like the huge screen.
And it was like 12, 30 when we started it. So like really effective setting for the movie itself. I thought like conceptually, it was incredible. Like yes, some of the found footage conceits given the time were a little bit like bendy.
As far as I know about the way they shot it, where like they had cameras running, it was almost like filming a piece of theater where they had cameras running like all the time. And so every time he they were on stage quote unquote, they were being filmed from multiple angles and multiple different like quasi film stocks. I don't know like what they did to like make it look like here's 16 millimeter. And here's the cameras that they would be using for the talk show.
I loved it. The only thing is like in my mind when you think back on it, you're like, there's a little bit of a hat on a hat where I think this is kind of an affliction from a lot of contemporary horror movies. Something that is just like obviously gripping and scary. They feel the need to add in a dollop of either trauma and or conspiracy behind it.
And they do both in this movie. I can't stress this enough. Like when I watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it's just terrifying that this is happening to those people and that in almost like the lack of background on these characters is why it's so terrifying because it's like, what did they do to deserve this? Is not even in the equation.
And all contemporary horror for the most part has like forgotten that lesson. And they're like everybody who is confronted with an evil like this has to be overcoming some sort of either sin or trauma in their recent past or in their past. Like their mom died, their wife died. They've done something that they need to like overcome by doing battle with this ghost or devil or whatever it is.
I'm so glad you brought this up. This is a huge tripwire for me on a lot of these films. And there's a few more that we'll talk about today that we're you encounter the same crutch of leaning on this to kind of explicate, if not the logic of the world, the feeling that the movie wants you to have. I don't want the feeling explained to me.
I want the movie to hit me. If I was just like a talk show host who's cravingly ambitious will go, will stop it nothing to get ratings. So. And has a fucking exorcism on his late make show.
Like I don't feel like this is incredible. I don't care about it. And then there's like also another whole layer of like his involvement in like a growth. Like a basically Illuminati type of secret society kind of John Birch meets cult.
And to me, if they would have chosen one of those and I would have preferred the cult as a kind of, maybe it is maybe it isn't informing what's happening here rather than explicating it. I was like, I agree. It was just was, it was glazed over with too much stuff. And I just thought like experientially, never, not for a second was I like, bored at all and I was just like really locked in on it.
It's got a great mood. So why do you think this is? Do you think that this is something that filmmakers and young filmmakers have internalized, that they need to have this framework to get their movie made or to make it legible to an audience? Or is it a studio note where they say, we need to tell the audience that this person lost their wife or this person lost a child.
And that is why they are haunted by this feeling. And maybe the haunting isn't even real. It's just something in their mind. Like why is this happening?
It's probably a little bit of both. I think that as we as a society have just gotten way more comfortable talking about the things that have shaped us as people anyway and like everybody in the world has got some kind of like trauma or experience that like kind of meld molded them into what they are and continues to influence like what they do on a daily basis. Like I think there's probably an impulse to reflect that on the screen. I personally like don't really ever find myself leaving those kinds of movies feeling like I'm somehow better in touch with myself from the people in my lives like experiences.
So to me it's like kind of a crutch. And I think sometimes there is a little bit of shame with people making harm movies where they're just like, I don't want to just make a movie about a hardcore punk rock band who get attacked by neo-Nazis or kids driving around Texas who get attacked by like inbred lunatics. Like you know what it is? Here's the difference.
The green room and Texas Chainsaw Massacre are like in this way. Those are movies about the trauma that has happened. They're not movies that are recalling a trauma that we never see. Show me the trauma.
The thing. I mean that really is the difference. I want to say, you know, talk to me as an interesting example of this because on the one hand talk to me is deeply almost like obviously allegorical story about addiction. But the trauma is happening in the movie in addition to what's happened in the past.
It was trying to have it both ways. When it's focused on, holy shit, this kid is possessed by a demon in the slamming his head against a piece of furniture. I was like, this movie is exactly what I want from a horror movie. The minute it starts reaching into the therapist, I college eyes, version of these stories, I lose a little bit of interest.
I'm happy here you say that. I wonder if we can kind of move past this. These things do move in waves. In post-screen, we were in a kind of meta moment where we were acknowledging in real time what kind of a movie we were in and why we were scared of it.
Found footage was another moment where we were sort of like, we're in a surveillance state as a country, post 9-11. We're thinking about what would happen if we were being observed all the time. And if we were, you'd see in paranormal activity, there was a ghost in your house. The trauma is obviously, I think, you know, I think it is a reflection of our times.
I think people are more encouraged to talk about their feelings. We talked about this in the rewatchables, the way you parent a kid now. I'm like, Alice, please, Tony, how are you feeling today? No one ever asked me that before when I was a kid.
I'm turning out fine. And I'm OK, watching people get their heads bashed in every day in a movie theater. I'm fine. Don't write in the newspaper.
But I wonder what the next phase will be. I'm not sure what it will be. It will be something different. Abigail is something different.
Abigail is not, it is a little bit about trauma. And there is some some rending of emotional garments by the time we get to the end of the film. I talked about this a little bit with Amanda last week on the show. This is Matt Benellie, open and Tyler Gillette's new film, The Two-thirds of Radio Silence, who have directed the last screen movies.
It depended more on filmmakers who we like, who participated in the HS series, and we're really, really talented. This movie was announced a while ago, I think maybe over a year ago, as they're not doing the next screen, they're actually doing this. And then somewhere along the way, it became clear that this was some kind of a vampire movie. I think even early on, when it was announced, I think it was like they're making a monster movie for Universal.
And so that inevitably leads you to be like, what of the dark universe are they dabbling with? Like, is it gonna be a wolf or a vampire or a Frankenstein or something like that? Just because Universal still at least has, I think probably a lot of the rights to that stuff. Finally enough, I thought that this was, I thought that this was like a little bit of a throwback to write a movie, I like it more than I have Yale.
I agree with you, you tweeted out last week where you were just like, I think you were talking to Bill, I was just like, I can't believe that the premise of this movie is in the trailer. Like it gave it away. They designed a really cool idea for a movie, which is that they were making a movie that for the first 45 to 50 minutes is a pure abduction crime thriller. With a very appealing cast, you know, you've got Melissa Pereira, Dan Stevens, Katherine Newton, Kevin Durand, like people who are Jean-Carlo Esposito.
It's one of, Inga's clouds last year. It's a final role of the film's dedicated to Angus Cloud who you may have seen in Euphoria, who's a great screen presence. Alicia Weir, this young girl who's abducted, who's like a real fine, I thought she was really, really fun in this movie. And then at the 50 minute mark, and I'm not spoiling this by saying, because it's in the trailer in the marketing materials, it turns out that she's a vampire.
The movie is a soft remake of Dracula's daughter, which is a 30s Universal Horror movie. And it seems like they actually backpedaled a little bit because the Dracula aspect of this is kind of not discussed. You could see a world in which there's more Dracula. Oh, here comes.
This is gonna be Dracula. You know, like, and it's his daughter. And instead it becomes more like Kaiser Sose's daughter. Yes, exactly.
A crime boss. And I said it's the over the weekend. If I was sitting in a movie theater, and I didn't know that this movie was a vampire movie, and 50 minutes in, this 12 year old girl, bared her fangs and started biting people, I would have been like, we are so fucking back. Like, this is such a cool way.
But the truth is, is that I don't know if any movie can do this anymore. I don't know if you can have a Blair Witch. We talked about it, we did a 99 movie draft. I don't know if you can get people into a movie theater without telling them what kind of a movie or movie is.
It's funny. So we're doing, I think this will go up tomorrow. So we're doing rewatchables today about the Paltraider movie, Hardcore. The original poster for Hardcore is a black box with white text that said, is that my daughter?
And that's like insane, right? If Abigail's poster was a picture of Dracula. A black box with white text that said they kidnapped the wrong girl. Wouldn't you see it?
I would, I would. I don't know nearly as much about marketing or screenwriting as people work on these movies, but I would love to try to get back to a moment where you could at least experiment or something like that and see if it works. Like even if it just had like an alien-style trailer of we've kidnapped her and then something is happening, but when you, to give away the vampire part is, put that on that side. I thought that this was like an enjoyable, but kind of like, forgettable movie.
I thought it was kind of like a mishmash of genres and kind of like a cast where I was like, I don't believe any of these people are criminals. You know, so it's, it was fine. It was totally, it does a couple things in the third act that feel more like ready or not. I think the movie maybe should have just started a whole time.
Like a lot of like explosive gore that is a trademark of the Radio Silence guys. And they really kind of pulled their punches in the shower. All in one house like, yes, interestingly, I thought, I mean, I don't know when they shot Abigail, but one thing that I've noticed from the list of movies that we're kind of gonna have to go through here is how many of them feel like residual end of COVID protocol shoots. So a lot of movies in one location or outdoors, a lot of movies with very small contained casts that are almost quarantines together.
And that might be something that I feel subconsciously affecting my level of enjoyment of these movies. Although there are some that I quite like, and also I am looking forward to getting over. Now, obviously there's budgetary concerns where you can't just have like Kevin serial killer marauding, you know, people. Although I guess I'm not sure I'm on, it's gonna test this idea.
That's a post-COVID movie. Can't have like a huge crowd scene and stuff like that. But a lot of these movies and even to some extent, Abigail feels like, let's just get five good actors in a house. I think that's very perceptive.
And I'm sure that that's one of the reasons why that movie was made was because they could, in this environment, in the 2022 environment, they could get a movie like that made. You know, it's a broken bat single. Like it's a fun movie. It underperforming.
I don't think memes very much because I think it's a confusing movie to sell and clearly the studio had some trouble selling them to the audience that it needed to find. But I'm curious to see what those guys do next because I do think that they're talented. Okay, let's bring it a guest to talk about a measure. That is how you know that I just absolutely wanna take over.
I don't care. I don't care. It's just a, I don't care about show good. Okay, you just wanna talk with my friends.
And you just throw down the gauntlets, okay? You can put this in the episode. If you guys are already in, I think you guys should just start by the way. Don't get down.
Well, this surprise is gone now and we were telling people. He's going to Europe. And so I wanna talk about creepy teddy bears. Early morning with the devil, Amanda Dobbis, AKA Elvira Jr.
is here. One of our world's foremost core experts. You have been grinding tape. This is your NFL draft.
We've watched 300 horror films in the last three days leading with the film imaginary. Sure, which I did not know had been released six weeks ago, but hopefully it's now available on VOD. So Saturday night, prime time, 7pm. Not good to bed.
That's not good to bed. That's not good to bed for me. Let me tell you something. Saturday night, that is like big billing.
You and the Basity Rollers, S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y, imaginary. Knox goes to sleep, Zach heads into the kitchen to make a beautiful meal. I sit down on the couch. Let's be honest, I lied out on the couch.
Full couch, rent imaginary for $19.99. What? $19.99 is the price. That is the going rate to rent imaginary.
You got to write that experience. That would be the price. I am committed to the craft of watching horror movies for giggles. So I have seen imaginary books.
Chris has not seen it. Why not? It looked really stupid. And what's the way this is?
Can you tell me what you think imaginary is about? It's not a Five Nights at Freddy's off shoot, right? It's not. It is not quite gateway horror for 10-year-olds, but it's not an adult horror movie either.
It's in that 15-year-old zone, I was saying. The trailer was just flashing, Megan vibes. I got to be completely honest. I hated the trailer for the John Krasinski movie so much that I don't think I'll ever be participating in any imaginary friend content for the rest of my life.
OK, so let's start here. Chris Ryan, did you have an imaginary friend? No, I talked to my baseball cards, though. Sit down.
Sit down. I would look at her back and Gary Guyetti and Kirby Puckett, and I would be like, you guys are my friends. I would imagine locker room drama with those guys. I just got sweaty palms here and you say that.
I'm simultaneously so connected to you and so freaked out by you. It's an amazing feeling. But so I would have Kent her back at the car, go up to Kirby Puckett and be like, we need you today. OK, I don't think I had imaginary friends, but I do remember having a very active imagination with action figures in the same way of Christmas trading.
But those are like you were pretending that Kirby Puckett was Kirby Puckett, right? The card was standing in for the real person. And I had a game that I would play where you put the nine baseball cards out and you would roll the dice and be like, oh, it's in the double. You put silo with a baseball card.
Great. But that is all at least. Those were connected to. So you weren't like inventing a person.
No, did you? I don't think so. I think I was much more like, I was pretending that I was like the eighth Bondiab Child. That's a Santa Musa friend, this sort of thing.
I mean, that's lonely. That's why I asked Chris because only children, you know, you got to really populate this base because there's no one else to hang out with. But I don't remember like creating someone whole class. I mean, I'm watching it happen with Alice right now, where she's really, really into John Smith from Pocahontas, which is just the most confusing thing that's ever happened in our house.
That is like, when are you going to tell her? You know, and like what are you, what? When do you show her the new world? It's a different smell.
Yeah, I mean, I've just imagined the number of nonfiction texts you'll have to read and understand why it's saviour dumb. Every morning now when I get her, I pick her up and I'm like, Dad, I cannot find John Smith in my dreams. We have to go look for him in the other room. And I'm like, sweetheart.
And that's beautiful, but also really, really alarming. It's interesting. She has an active imagination. Watching this movie, you know, the little girl in a match is named Alice.
Yeah, which was another reason that I wanted to see it. Because the trailer, like had Megan vibes. I thought like the creepy, teddy bear going down. But in my mind, I put the teddy bear in a room.
Yes. But which it's just moving of its own volition or other volitions, which we can talk about. But I thought it looked silly. I thought the kid, like being possessed looked funny.
And I thought it was extra funny that the kid was named Alice. And then I just thought it was like a good bit for this to be the one that I was interested in. So what did you think until Chris, what happens? OK, so hold on.
I got to pull up the Wikipedia so I can use these people's names. See, this is we never have to do this. When we're counting the movie, it's my opinion. You remember that Jessica, played by DeWanda Wise, is moving into her childhood home with her new family, her husband, and her two step daughters.
Classic. One's a teenager and one is Alice. And what is her husband's occupation? He's in a band.
He's in a band. He is like a his. The husband really inspired me just to hold like where do they find these people? And apparently he was on Walking Dead.
But it's just like sometimes you have to look further than the CW. Tom, is he injured? You know him? No.
British actor. He's basically in the shitty Arctic monkeys. Oh, OK. The shitty monkeys.
So they're moving back to her childhood home in Louisiana. Before that, she has the movie starts with a nightmare of hers. And a giant spider is chasing her through what I guess is her childhood home. And I was like, I did not.
I was not told that there were any spiders in this. And it wasn't like a scary spider. I got a film for you later on the podcast. It wasn't that scary, but I was like very big.
And I was just kind of like, I don't want to watch a creature movie. That's not what I'm here for. I'm here for little kids like screaming at imaginary haunted dolls. Well, and so.
It wasn't really a creature movie, ultimately. No, so she wakes up from the dream. And then they're like, oh, no, it's probably good. I didn't move to the house anyway.
So they move to the house anyway. And then Alice gets to exploring and is allowed to go down into the basement on supervise. 6, 7. Yeah, OK.
Yeah, it's that's why I guess it's a little girl. So she's 6. Like, no, if we're a boy, I'd be like, well, he's 15. Knox's version of imagination right now is being like, don't touch a cactus for two weeks and then touching a fucking cactus and being like, ouch.
So she goes into the basement. There's like a layer of doors that somehow a six-year-old opens by herself. She finds like a teddy bear in prison behind like three layers of bricks in the basement. And then she's like, this is my new best friend, the teddy bear.
It's totally ripped off from Piedljuice, the drawing of the door. They paint it in this movie. But in Piedljuice and they draw with a chalk and that opens a portal to the other side. She does the same piece of every action.
I was remembering the text of like, Piedljuice's a buzz with Piedljuice. I've gotten many messages from the kind listeners saying, you guys were meeting. Many men have come up to me and say, sir, sir. Piedljuice was just a little bit more on the box office.
Does that track for you guys? All right. So the bear gets released from Piedljuice, the space in my prison. And it's revealed at some point that the girls, their mom has some problems.
It's been a period of transition. Alice has been through a lot. Yeah, there's some trauma. She's in a facility.
She's not well- The mom is, not Alice. Yeah, not Alice. Yeah, but to the history of mental health struggles in their family. And Jessica is trying to be like a good new step mom and be patient and a teen is being real bitch to her.
So they're like, OK, she's got this new bear. That's good for Alice to have a friend. And then Alice starts talking about Chauncey. And the bear is her friend, Chauncey.
And Chauncey says this. And Chauncey says that. And they're like, OK, well, it seems fine that Alice has an imaginary friend. She's been through a lot.
And then Chauncey makes her a scavenger hunt. And she's got to do bad things. Like steal her step mom's artwork. Oh yeah, her mom is like a children's book illustrator.
And she turns her nightmares into commercial books. She writes books about a friendly spider. Yeah. OK.
Because she has spider trauma. Spider trauma. Spider trauma. And so then Alice, the little girl, has to collect all the things on the scavenger hunt.
And no one else can know about the scavenger hunt because it's secret between her and Chauncey. And so then at some point, the scavenger hunt wants to hurt herself. And then Jessica's like, oh no, this is a problem. So we've got to call Alice a therapist.
Because it's previously discussed. Oh, she's got one. Yeah, she's got one. She's been through a lot.
And that's Jessica Wang. Who's the therapist? OK. And I thought this was actually one fun scene.
This scene is excellent. This scene is so good. So the therapist comes in and sets up and does all the child therapy stuff. So it's the therapist and Alice.
And the therapist is like, Alice, I hear you have a new friend. Would you like him to join us? And so Alice goes and gets Chauncey and sets him up on the couch. And the couch seated behind.
Yeah. And the two chairs where they were having a discussion. OK. And the therapist starts asking Alice about her friendship with Chauncey.
And Alice is answering. But then also, Chauncey starts taking over Alice's voice and answering. So Chauncey is like possessing Alice and being like, no, Alice, no friends but me. And then thank you.
And then Alice is being like, Chauncey, I want to have friends. And then she turns around. She's like yelling at this stuff bear with demon eyes. And he's like, no, Alice, no friends.
And then she's being so the part of the trailer. Like the seven-year-old. And I'm like, I'm more. And then the bear makes her yell like way while being friends.
And they're screaming at each other. And the therapist is like pre-rattable. To say the least. So it's like a seven-year-old being demonized by a stuffed bear.
And you're gonna get yourself. What happens to this is the best. Yeah. And this is the best.
So then she leaves the room. Alice runs away and says, the therapist comes out and talks to Jessica. And they're going through it. And she's explaining what happened.
And it was troubling. And Jessica's like, yeah, well, she has been pretty attached to that bear. And the therapist goes, Jessica, there is no bear. And so the stuff bear that we and Jessica and the baby have been seeing.
Yeah. That's good. It's good. That was really good.
The interview has been filmed. And she shows on her phone that the little girl Alice is talking to an empty couch. She got his no bear there. And it is the one reveal.
It's really good. It's really, really good. And it's also for like three minutes. I've been like, this is not an imaginary friend.
There's a bear right there. That's not, she's, you know, it's a different form of child psychology. But then it actually was an imaginary friend. So that was really good.
Then it just like fucking goes and says. It really goes off the rails. It's really, really bad. There's like a.
A nosy neighbor. There's an old lady who's a nosy neighbor. Is there a single person in this movie that I would have heard of? No, Betty Buckley is the nosy neighbor.
She's a very well known actress. She's been in a lot of, in my trauma movies and 70s. She's the nosy neighbor. Right.
Who it turns out is also. Jess Harris, psychologist and Jessica. And hold the bees that are, and her, her use in the plot is to show up and be like, oh, no, um, Chauncey is actually your old imaginary best friend. And Jessica had suppressed this.
Yeah, sure. And so. So Jessica's father also has mental health struggles. And he is also in like a home of some kind.
And they've moved into the house because he. And we'll be all right. He's on the road. Of course.
Yeah. He's on the road. And Jessica's got to watch the girls, a teenage girl and a 60-year-old who's got a magnet. Yeah.
It's like we need this time together. It's important. Said no, parent, ever. Or step here.
Yeah. But so yeah. So then Chauncey is actually her old imaginary friend. She's been like luring her back and using Alice to lure her back to the Beetlejuice door, which turns out to be a portal to imaginary world.
And then it just really goes. And I couldn't tell you all of the mythology. And what point in the movie did dinner get served? Before the good scene.
Did you guys eat while watching the film? Oh, no. I didn't watch it. I was in the kitchen.
I was alone. And then I was like, OK, bye. I'm going to go watch imaginary by myself upstairs. It was wonderful if you made the John and Benny's bod some sauteed kale.
Thank you, Zach, for all that you do. Yeah. It's very nice. It really does.
The third act takes place entirely in the imaginary world, which actually does look like a shitty Beetlejuice rendering. And it's you open one. There's a series of doors. You open one door.
And it's your worst nightmare ever. You open another door. And it's your childhood bedroom. But in your childhood bedroom, all of your stuffed animals are actually demons and they're obsessed.
And she's there and she's healthy and she loves you. But then she's actually a demon trying to trap you in the imaginary world. And then the cycle, the neighbor, slash like petty buckling. Yeah, paranormal, expert, or whatever.
It's like, no, we must stay here. And she's like working on behalf of the imaginary spirit. Who also? She wants to study it.
She thinks that she's like a scientist. She's interested in the world. We haven't mentioned that also throughout, there's just some sort of like, Gremlin man who like pops up behind people in certain shots. And he's supposed to be like, so manifestation of the imaginary.
I think he's the demon that is inside of Chauncey. I think that's what he is. That's what he is. Yeah, but he's never scared.
Oh, absolutely not. Okay. Yeah, it's not very good. And I did, I like started online shopping during the imaginary world stuff, but well, I just, I didn't buy anything good.
It's their sort of anything. Anything good or anything? I don't think I bought anything that time. I'm really...
How many teacups? No, listen, I'm waiting for that and she's cake from you. I might get you a cheesecake. I will never buy you a teacup.
There will never be a teacup. It's like transitional weather. Are you having a hard time dressing right now? I just changed 14 times a day.
Yeah, but that's where I am. It's very confusing. This isn't a crisp green, long sleeve polo. Over a tight eye shirt with like neon green access.
It's not a basketballs very good t-shirt. Yeah. Wow. You really brought it today.
Yeah. It's a three-five day. I got to feel good. Oh, yeah.
Amanda closing thoughts on imaginary. Would you recommend it to Chris? No, but he could watch that one scene. I'll try and watch that one scene when it goes on YouTube.
It was really good because the little girl, her name is Piper James, I believe. Piper Braun. Piper Braun. Okay.
Well, I got her first name right? Piper with why? Yeah. It was good job Piper Braun.
If we were going to recommend any movie from today for Amanda, either because it was good or because it would just be hilarious to watch her just get on tilt because she was so scared. What would you recommend? I mean, infested would fuck with her. Oh, is it all bugs?
Yeah. But you know I'm not afraid of bugs. These are, these ones are tough. I mean, I don't like like a lot of bugs.
Do you guys ever have to read that short story with like the 10,000? I think they were ants that ate everyone. No. Or maybe it was Bobby?
Sounds like an imaginary story. No, no, no. We read it in eighth grade. You read it a story about ants eating things?
Yeah, it really stayed with me because it was like the volume of the ants. I think they were ants. I don't think it was spiders. But if anyone anywhere knows what I'm talking about.
So bugs and numbers, not a huge fan. Obviously we had a bee problem in my house. You were the beekeeper. Yeah.
It kept me and my husband. But you know, I am the ideal with the bugs in the home. I've already told you that the first omen I think would be an intriguing experience to watch you watch it. That is one of the hardest trolls I've ever seen in my life.
You're saying that? Yeah. I think you should check it out. It's about how men want to control women's bodies.
I'm in Satan. Yeah. It's intriguing film. We're going to talk about it right now actually.
I mean, thank you so much. You're welcome. We'll be back on the podcast later this week. Yes, I will.
Shounders. Oh shit. Yeah. Give me a good one.
Okay. So next movie, I thought it was such an amazing recreation of 1970s horror vibes while not feeling dated or even particularly like pious about it, not no pun intended. The fact that a demon puts his claw through someone's birth canal and it's a 20th century fox movie, I think it's just some really amazing things about our country right now. I shed a tear.
So moved by that moment. We've never been more divided. Perhaps we are never more together. That's right.
We need more of his demon claws emerging from women's bodily orifices. That's where that will really bring us together. Should that be on Biden's campaign poster? I mean, it's from the first film.
I feel like we would all agree. I think we would all agree. No, no, no, no. It's a crazy economy.
Let me take Jack. This demon. He just wanted a fair shot at the American dream. This demon reminds me.
What's so bad about that? That's his corn pop. Has a demon come along that has struggled. Okay.
It's a very exciting announcement of a filmmaker. Yeah. There's a new movie coming to Shutter on Friday called Infested. This is a French film.
It's a premiere of festivals last fall. I got it heads up about it a couple of months ago. Sebastian Vanicek is a filmmaker. Keep an eye on that name.
I think he's the director of the next evil dead movie. Really? I was saying he had some Joan Collecera juice to him. Whenever you make, again, this is a movie set in an apartment block, has a contained cast and a really good ensemble.
I do not like books. I thought that this was a little bit closer to an action movie that was scary. It is. It's a tactical block of spiders.
Yeah. Very similar framework, very similar concept with people living in these homes. Young people fighting to build an identity outside of themselves. I think it's an opening scene though.