You've been lost in the woods for hours now, stumbling around in the dark. You come around the bend and see two people roasting marshmallows over a roaring fire. They see you coming into the clearing and jester over to pull up a log. Welcome to Campfire Ashes, I'm Paul.
And I'm Jess. Join us as we tell each other our originally written spooky stories around the campfire and then dive into the lore and legends that inspire them. Is it something that goes bump in the night? Is it something menacing lurking past the tree line?
Or is it just weird and otherworldly? You'll find it here on Campfire Ashes. You can find us on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, or right here on the G-Skipe Network. You've been lost in the woods for hours now, stumbling around in the dark.
You'll find it here on Campfire Ashes. You can find us on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, or right here on the G-Skipe Network. Everybody, we're back with another episode of Horror Movie Night. You know, we've talked about some of the great classics lately.
We did Troll 2 Beloved Movie. We did Dark Man Beloved Movie. We did Goolies, another beloved movie. And of course, everybody loves Bruiser from 2000.
The movie that, and this shattered my brain a little bit. The movie that George Romero came back from a seven-year hiatus to make. He should have waited another two. You know, I know this movie fucking sucks.
See, I think this is going to be really interesting because I knew that Scott was going to hate it. I saw Kyle give it four out of five stars on Letterbox. And I'm like right in the center with a two and a half star rating. I'm like, this is fine, but I'm not going to watch it again.
But I don't know about you guys. I went into the super blind. I had to research what the anniversary even was. Because when this started, I thought this is like a late 80s, early 90s.
It really looks like 1994. Like, every day of 1994. The clothing, the... Lord!
Floor that this was 2000. And I would venture to get, you know, it was then released physically in 2001. So like, I know that we're, but the film itself, yes 2000. It does have those vibes.
I mean, it is, and I think that that's, I would say that that that's part of it. Now, I don't, you know, I think Romero, George Romero, is this very interesting sort of blue collar, quite literal filmmaker at times. That sometimes, and sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. You know, I think like with the Living Dead series, sometimes the timelessness of it all is the point of it.
Now, bruiser, I would, because of the content of bruiser, which we'll get into, the timelessness works and doesn't work. It's both, it's both, it can, it's a detriment at times. And then it also... You think this is timeless?
Like that is a crazy, crazy assertion. I don't, I don't think that it's successfully timeless. I think that its intention is to be, you're talking about, you know, we're talking about this, you know, I mean, just even with like the mask and the villain and the idea of like, approaching capitalism. I mean, there's, there's a lot more that I took away from it in a time place than I think maybe intended.
But bruisers are very, very interesting of peace, and I'm so glad we get to talk about it today. This is a kind of, just for listening. This is, oh yeah, did you do it? So I want to read one note that I wrote down, and then I think it's time for Kyle to really like dive in to the plot somewhere here.
But this, this note I feel like sums up why I thought that this was about a two and a half star movie, honestly. And I wrote, I feel like this movie is questionable, and it's opinion of women and housekeepers. But the white face mask makeup is really fantastic throughout this movie. And like, I think that that's kind of what kept me going is like, I love the look of him with this white featureless face prosthetic.
But like half the time the plot beats, I was just like, what is happening? And not in like a, I'm confused, but I'm just like, this, I, head shaking like this is so odd. Yeah. If this was a 75 minute movie home run, I feel like the fact that it's an hour and 40, it's like you're asking for a lot in that hour and 40 that you're not quite serving up.
Like I mentioned to Kyle that something that I do think is interesting is that the film right before the seven year hiatus was the dark half. And I see some weird parallels between that and this movie, like not in a direct line, but it obviously has that like dual personality thing that it's like your, your, your easy pushover side and your like violent side and then being kind of at war at each other. But yeah, this is, this is a really interesting one. So Kyle, I think the floor is yours to walk into this.
Time to explain yourself. Wow. I'm going to need a drink for that one. That is Whalers Muse because Henry, our main character looks to Rosie, our other character, which we'll get into.
His boss's wife. Boss's wife, kind of a little bit like a muse. So that's, that's what I ended up going on. And also she's, he's kind of like a muse for her because she's the artist that makes the face mask.
Correct. And I did, um, Mad Tree, psych, hoppathy because he goes psycho. Very good. Um, yeah.
So Bruiser 2000, we watched it on two. I think all of those watched it on two. Oh, yes. Oh, you don't have a physical release of this Kyle in your collection.
And I tell you that so quick, quick aside. So I found this movie. I was volunteering at, and I was, I was 11 or 12 years old and I was doing this thing that required like some public service hours, right? I got arrested.
I'm just getting arrested with that. It was a public service. But like the idea was to get young adults or young, you know, people, you don't have to explain yourself. I work with high schoolers.
The amount of times that we're doing in a event at the church and we have to include this will count to public service hours for all high school seniors. Like it's just a thing, Kyle. You don't have to dance. I didn't know that at 11 or 12.
That felt young. Like, you know, this is so, I don't go to jail is what he thought it was. I was, I was working. You were doing it preemptively.
If you got arrested, you could tell the cop like, but I did public service hours. Okay. Let me go. I volunteered.
I'm a good person. What I do, I was working at his age, HIV, nonprofit organization that was like a food bank and services and all sorts of things. But it was also, um, you know, uh, you could, there was a library and like a film library and things that you could sort of partake in that were available to our clients. And I remember one of my favorite things was to like go through the movie library and it was a lot of screeners like, you know, flat, you know, cardboard, DVDs that were donated and stuff like that.
It was the best. And um, Bruiser was one of them along with, which I hope that we talked about at some point in time cut, which was a slasher with Molly. I don't know if it's actually worthwhile, but I was one of the ones that remember. Listen, I picked the loser.
Yeah. You can make pretty much anything worthwhile with your conversation. You can. I can't.
But Bruiser, I mean, I saw Bruiser and took, rented. So to speak, Bruiser, uh, you know, in probably 2004, you know, like 2003. So, and I haven't seen it since. And I think there is a Blu-ray release.
I want to say like, Arrow might have put it out a while ago, but I don't even think it's here in the States. It's really not. And flash forward, it was only released theatrically in France. It was directed DVD in the States.
Did you get the, uh, 15,000 bucks off because it's on a $5 million budget. So it's, it's, the other, the other thing that kind of baffled me, and this is on Tooby a little bit, but the genre for this movie on Tooby was listed as comedy horror mystery. And I don't like it. It's no such thing.
Any of those. Yeah. Yeah. I think that the only thing, I think it's a thriller, honestly.
Yeah. And so that's, that's a thriller based on a supernatural event occurring to a person, essentially. Yeah. Yeah.
That's it. So the horror of it is a little bit lighter than what we would normally gravitate towards, but I thought it was an interesting one to talk about. So, Bruiser 2000 Henry, uh, is a creative director or a, I thought more of like a product manager for a magazine and a lifestyle magazine called Bruiser and the boss of Caruser, the head of Bruiser, Peter Stormer, Peter Stormer, who is incredible is really, really solid. He is at his most Peter Stormer.
He's pushing the envelope so hard. It should be stated that whatever we have to say about the quality of the movie, Bruiser, there are very few actors or actresses in this film that are phoning it in. Like I think, but he is the, he is the top of the pile. Everybody, everybody, everybody that's in this movie was like, this is Romero's return and they went for it and I applaud them.
It doesn't make a good movie, but it it makes for a really interesting conversation. No doubt. No doubt. So, so I'm sorry, I should say that Henry, we meet him first thing in the morning.
He's listening to like a self-help shock radio show for somebody who kills themselves on air. It's quite intense. Um, and he starts to have this, uh, and we start to have, see him having these violent visions and fantasies. Uh, he has an indifferent wife and an annoying dog and his home and unfinished house, his, his home life is a little iffy at this moment, but he has this job that he goes to at Bruiser magazine.
He's got co-workers who he's in Kahoot's with. He's got some co-workers who are absolute shit and his boss, Milo, is incredibly abusive and misogynistic right out the gate. Uh, he, yes. I want to stop you for a second, though.
Yeah. Okay. Because this leads to a question that I had then thought I had answered and then actually came back to me, right? Because you mentioned the guy killing himself on the radio.
Yeah. But like five minutes after that, he also has a fantasy of grabbing a woman who pushed him and shoving her head under the train track. Yes. Yeah.
I'm assuming that the suicide on the radio is in his head, just like those moments, which leads me to the question that we're going to debate, I think, throughout this movie of did this event happen to him or is this all in his head and he's like unleashing a bunch of anger and the only, the only part of me that thought, oh, maybe this isn't all in his head is because near the end of the movie, Rosie says to the police officer that he painted his face and that only she would be able to identify him. But then I'm like, what if he's still just wearing the plastic blank mask that she gave him that she's about to give him in your, I want to be thinking about that because I do think that there's an interpretation of this movie where none of the supernatural stuff happened to him at all. So man, real quick, I want, I want to understand what you mean by supernatural stuff because I think you just mean the way that I watched the movie was that the the kill scenes, like where he like puts the ladies head under the train track or under the train wheels and where he, who else did he kill his first two? Well, his first two?
Or his first two? Yeah. Yeah. Those two.
And I think there was one other one before he actually killed the housekeeper. Are you saying, are you using the word? And I'm not, this isn't me being a shit. This is like, I'm using supernatural the way someone might describe big as a supernatural movie that a unexplainable force of something caused something to happen.
So like, do you think that do you think this is real? That's what I was going to say is that and for me, I watched this whole movie thinking that and I was left with a question of is the face where he can actually articulate and speak his face like he's an American psycho type thing where he thinks his face looks like that and he just is walking around murdering people with that face. That's one that's one way to look at it. The second way is that he's wearing the mask and speaking through it, the one that Rosie made for him and people are like, he's just seeing it where he can articulate.
And the third is which I had not thought about, which is where his face actually is transforming vote. I think we need to vote like, so I think I know how Matt's gonna go. I'm ambivalent here. I'm not ambivalent.
I'm agnostic. I don't know the answer and Kyle, how did you? I also don't know the answer. Yeah.
Well, I know. I think I think that it is a I think that it is a combined thing where the mask is like we are seeing his POV, but he has not actually worn like a mask is not adhered to his face. He has changed himself. Something has clicked in his brain where he is.
Okay, so you think that it's it's he's either wearing a mask or wearing a mask at all, but he has a changed man. But if the mask is yeah, the question the question becomes if the articulating face is literally like his alter his like, you know, murderous alter ego, is he just walking on killing people with a mask on or is he walking around killing people with a bare face? And then the question is like Rosie would be like, I'm the only one that could know like, but it does leave credence to the fact that he's walking around with his bare face because he paints it skin colored later. Yeah.
Yeah. Or does or is it him painting it or is he becoming that person who he's pretending that you know, is he becoming that person that he's put the mask on for? I think it's what I'm saying, but I don't know if it's successful in approaching that if it's too ambiguous then we have a then we have a big question mark, which is why all three of us are thinking. Yeah.
Well, that's the thing. It's too. It's $15,000 in a French box office. Yeah.
It's too ambiguous. And honestly, I wish they would cut I wish that that line where Rosie says I'm the only one who can recognize him because his face is yeah. If that line wasn't there, like that line throws so many like there's such a wrench in like what could be a somewhat compelling thing. But I also feel like, I don't know, Romero, you got to tell us at a certain point like or at least hints at it because right now the only hint that his face hasn't magically turned into this thing is that he's way more convinced people are going to freak out when they see his face than anyone actually freaks out when they see his face.
Like that's the only reason why I started thinking like really sees his face. Yeah. At least not even specifically knows him besides Rosie who is just seeing him for who he is. Yeah.
You know, because they're in cahoots in some way, you know, they are the only people who are closest and who know what they're each going through. But nobody else even Tom I think it's him as Tom, the his Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy yeah yeah yeah Jimmy is also sort of like not convinced slash like unsure of who he is. But he's heated his warning. It's so funny and I hope this isn't stealing anyone's double feature.
But Scott, you had mentioned American Psycho. It's crazy that this came out the same year as American Psycho because it feels so much like a low budget response to an American Psycho. I agree. But I will say American Psycho is a very odd movie when you think about it in the context of being as coming on 2000 because like for me, 1985 or whatever when I suppose to be placed feels really fucking far away in 2000 right because 15 years when you are you know 18 years old.
We started at Red at Horror Club in 2025. Yeah exactly. Oh dude that hurts. That actually really really hurts.
Yeah. You know like so okay what I get that though is that you know thinking about American Psycho. So first of all American Psycho was a book first right and it took years. And a famous book at that.
It's not like a book from up its time and then it took years for it to become a script and get shot. And so it is weird to think about it in 2025 being like wow these came out the same year and one feels like it's authentic and the other one feels like it's kind of grasping at the coattails even though it can't possibly because of the fact that it's the same year. But I think that the concept is very similar because if you think about it American Psycho the book was 15 years old when the movie came out or however it was you know. I guess I'm thinking of it as American Psycho comes out and then a bunch of studios quickly try to push out their American Psycho.
Oh no I know that. I know what you're getting at. But no I'm reframing it though because I should be looking at through the lens of hey they're finally making a movie of American Psycho and this is like a Armageddon deep impact and Spugg's life type situation of like let's let's try to do our version of that same type of concept and release it as closely to American Psycho just in case that movie is a huge hit. We have this like ready to go.
And then you can make $19,000 in France. I would be this movie is not even big in France. I would be really curious to know more. I did my preliminary research for doing this background but it is a movie that interests me more and more on the tales of watching it you know coming off of talking about it here and wondering if there is sort of any championing of this film and I know that it's not like the highest quality film it's not like we just discovered the American Psycho that should be the American Psycho.
No this isn't even like when we discovered Out of the Dark. Out of the Dark yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
No truly it's it's I know that it's not that but at the same time you know American Psycho is that reflection on the past while Bruiser is in the shit trying to reflect upon you know a capitalistic sort of like go getter like spend your money invest your money get fucked over and what are you going to do about it when you lose everything in the year 2000 like it's like you know so I know that it is I you I think that our listeners can understand where where are very exciting. Sorry I just don't be attracted from he's still just getting on the train to go to work. Yeah we have it. No.
This is what I was this was eventually this was going to come up at some point in time like I wanted to talk about this particularly I think the American Psycho connection is important and I think that it's something to look at. Honestly like I was I wanted to talk about it some point but yes we get to his place of work we find out that Milo is an absolute piece of shit. Milo's wife also rosy also works there and she's not super stoked about the work environment but her and Henry have a have an interesting connection and I think Henry at some point in time almost almost breaks it to rosy that like this could be more than a friendship because it seems like everybody is not in the right in their right place as far as their relationship is going. We find this out when we go to a company picnic at Milo's big fun fancy pool party and where he gets an absolutely exquisite hand job from Henry's wife Janine while rosy is showing Henry all her masks her artwork and Henry is just like I don't you know he's he's this I was describing it to a coworker of mine where I was like Henry is is if you were to pitch this to somebody you would say that Henry is a beta male in this alpha male environment but when in actuality he's he's not a beta male he's he's just a guy that is well he has in an impressive environment where people are not respecting each other and that's not an alpha beta situation that is just like you are in the wrong industry brother.
Well has this really great and telling line near the end of the movie when he reveals himself to rosy and kind of like basically confesses to the crimes he's committed in the crime he plans to commit next but like he walks around this mansion of a house at her in Milo live in and says something along the lines of I'm the guy living in the unfinished house trying to build something that looks like this like and it's kind of that like I think that he's I hate the terms beta and alpha but for the sake of argument that he's a beta that desperately wants to be an alpha he wants to be part of that scene and it's just not it's not who he is like he wants to be looked at and respected the way that Milo is and it doesn't help that his boss is an absolute douchebag and has like no fear of publicly shaming him about things so like. But I do think that's where like the mask comes into play because it is it is this idea that it's not who he wants to be but in order to get out of it he has to make these kind of oppressive and violent maneuvers but then it also seeps into his blood like it seeps into his skin it seeps into his blood like it seeps into his being that he's now decided to make these decisions that are not super healthy decisions. No it could also be but it's also important to stress that like rosy gives him this blank face mask and tells him to like draw anything that represents who he is and he can't come up with anything you can't do it so he's in such this drive to be someone that he inherently isn't he's in too deep yeah that it like it breaks his brain to a certain point yeah 100 when he's given when he's given and proposed the question of who are you he can't figure it out because all three of us can give that task we would draw something you know Scott would draw something related to music you would draw something related to film I would draw a microphone or podcast like there's something that's so it was one thing there's something so embedded in who we are that it's what we define ourselves by and he is trying to define himself by his success at work which is like the big it there's a message to this movie it's kind of the message that every anti-capitalist says which is like don't be married to your fucking job because your job sure is fucking married to you you know I mean like you know I gotta go in on those Saturdays and that overtime but that's not gonna matter when it comes time to lay off and you're just the most recent hire in the office and you're gone yeah now I want to say one thing that that and I don't disagree with anything you just said Matt but I find it interesting that a lot of this conversation about I mean we're coming at it from you know sis hat white male perspective and that's fine because that's really what the movie is is like this white guy who is mediocre and he is like put in a position where so there are two things I want to say he's put in a position where he sees no other way but violence right and that's kind of like a tale as well as time thing that happens a lot in movies but one thing I want to say is like when Matt you were like you know if we were given rosy were to do a face mask of us and each of us and you know say you know paint it with who you are and and you specifically chose things that we do we produce and I find it interesting and there's no I'm not saying this is a negative thing at all I find it interesting from a culture perspective that what we do is how we default to defining ourselves and it has nothing to do with how we love people in our lives or how we treat others how we are stewards for animals or the earth yeah it's literally like oh Kyle makes a movie Scott makes music Matt podcasts and and I think that is not as dehumanizing by any stretch of the same you know by any stretch of the perspective as being like oh I'm an analyst oh I do this for a business whatever like I'm not so I just find it interesting that's all my perspective of that was also though that like I was naming things that I think not even that I think that we actively do even though it doesn't necessarily fill our pockets with past words no no I get that I totally get that I just found it interesting from like a sociological perspective because it kind of doesn't answer the question of like we're feeding our souls with our art right but at the same time like who are we and that's kind of the whole I think that like in a really forest for the trees perspective that's what this movie is about is like what defines you as a human and I think that it's clunky because Romero is coming from a much older perspective even in 2000 but the thing I really want to point out beyond that is because like all this is about kind of like toxic masculinity right like the whole subject to this movie is toxic masculinity because Milo is fucking every woman he can and he says something to be effective like sex is the best thing in the world it's the only thing that matters more or less and he's like but and you know you can fuck on a bed but have you ever fucked on a forty thousand dollar table and I'm like that's just like so cravingsly capitalistic and and hedonistic and but but also fascinatingly when the police ask him if Rosie could have been the one that killed he says no but it's because it's it's misogynistic in a different way because he says no woman could kill but the other thing I want to say is that I find it interesting that like you know Romero really was ahead of his time in so many aspects of his like liberalism and I mean that from a moralistic perspective so nobody in the listenership please don't want that for this but I find it so interesting that even for someone as as progressive in his mindset as he is was he still has the scene which happens in so many of these movies where a woman tries to talk about killing man out of killing and is like you don't have to do this like why do women have to do that emotional labor to save a man from killing other people um these are all just rhetorical questions I find it very interesting this movie is almost not worth this conversation because it is very cheesy so I know but I also disagree it's totally worth this conversation well like it's not quite but it's not talking about watching this if it wasn't Romero that's what I'm trying to say yeah well Scott listen you're saying a lot of things that check a lot of boxes here for something right because we're talking about a movie that's about a mediocre white man that wants to seem powerful toxic masculinity and of course Michael Graves is in this movie so my god dude what I so first of the way they started was that when they get to the like the costume ball which is literally a Halloween show yeah it's an Halloween but they get there and I'm like oh scream from famous monsters is playing I fucking I could fuck with this and then I see Michael Graves and I see Jerry only and I see the whole band I'm like wow and then I'm like then they play another song I'm like I don't recognize this song and they play a song I recognize a song and I'm like okay I gotta go through the credits and see they were like four misfits songs one of which was is it actually called bruiser they wrote a song for this movie yeah dude yeah it's just fifteen thousand dollars from Fran covered that song it was very helpful and it was really rare because the misfits never write songs about obscure movies so like I mean they really go in a song when they wrote bruiser. They wrote movies right like they don't you know bruiser really stands out as as you know like if you want to like if you need a reason beyond Michael Graves as a person being a proud white piece of shit for for reason to hate him like he definitely sold out misfits because they're we're not allowed to call them villain misfits when it was this aeration by the way misfits only there's no that um it's just like he's definitely sold them out because you know whoever put this movie hours like hey misfits do you want to do a song do you want to get paid to write a song for this and he was like fuck yeah write the check I don't care I don't need to see the movie so you also make this movie named literally anything else because like why is the first of all why is the the bad magazine called yeah we never got to make that movie and it's unhelpful yeah and also he doesn't beat people to death he's very like he's very weapons and magazines about yeah you know magazine is based on yeah yes but it's not like I love it's like I got to make some I guess it's the cover girls there's that scene at the party where the girl is completely naked and someone someone's interviewing her and they say like so who made this and she goes my parents funny it's like in the whole movie like in the whole mini out of pocket lines in this movie and like there's there's one part at the masquerade where a guy who's dressed up like a linebacker goes up to like sexually assault one of the go-go dancers and she kicks him in the fucking face and she goes and in the most deadpan dry voice over like it's definitely a yard she just goes um uh extra point or something like that is that what did she say no she's like feel goal or something oh wait wait wait I wrote it down she says she says extra point yeah yeah she just like says it's the weirdest and also like um they were the cops oh we've completely blown past the fact that Tom Atkins is the detective that's like coming out also fantastic like not like I expected any less but he walks out it is like calls every woman a dame throughout the rest yes yes she was not watched by another dame you know like crazy but it's almost like his character it's like his character from Night of the Crapes just like then moved into this movie like yes it's the exact same role um yeah no man we have gotten this is no I think I think that this is actually this conversation has covered a lot of key moments and I'm gonna work myself backwards okay so I will show you where misfits are playing Henry kills Milo with a team with a laser beam above the party everybody he shoots a dick off first he shoots a dick off first he shoots a dick off first and he's like this is really happening yes shoots a dick off with a laser then shoots him in the skull and then everybody's pretty stoked because they don't quite know that it's an actual death they just think that Milo is swinging over this party while misfits play uh for a four song set at some point in time Tom Atkins has been trailing Rosie Milo's wife thinking that she might be uh is a suspect is a person of interest in this and you know Milo is looking like a fan of the opera the shout out fan of the pot bra on dt point now um he's looking like fan of the opera Rosie is also dressed in a white mask and a full cloak he's just like Zoro you plug for your Zoro it's also my own it's the what's the main guy's name uh Henry Henry Henry yeah yeah Henry Henry's dressed like Zoro uh Rosie dresses I saw it as pot bra too don't worry Kyle but they all you know at some point in time everybody in the party claims to him I did it and it's this it's this beautiful thing but there's a lovely like sort of masquerade uh Halloween party the full type of thing at the end of this movie which you listeners know I love um before that yes we have Tom Atkins is our cop who is trailing um there is a uh there's an accountant Henry's accountant named uh Jim he's like his name was Jimmy uh Jimmy uh Jimmy's soul three thousand uh thirty thousand dollars and fuck Henry's wife uh he and let Henry's wife steal more money right yeah yeah he was in cahoots with Henry's wife Janine they're just you know sucking Henry dry and Henry doesn't know any better uh and finally he gets his comeuppance um you know uh Janine before that which is sort of the inciting incident after Henry gets his white mask uh once Henry and Rosie both tangentially find or parallel find out that they are having adulterous relationships Milo and Janine having an adulterous relationship on the forty thousand dollar conference table forty thousand dollar conference table um Rosie snaps a picture tching milo chases her down Henry when the white mask throws Janine out of a window hanging her from an extension cord and that is sort of the inciting incident like oh Henry's on a tear he's got this newfound power he's going to right all the wrongs but is he going to do it uh and then yeah we end up at the masquerade masquerade night in the clurb uh and that's that's sort of our climactic moment and there's this there's this really fun sort of aside that like Henry gets away he you know grows out his hair and he's just taking a even a more he's taking a you know a nail boy job at an office and uh he's you know he's already been through it and he knows what these high-end you know uh business workers are like and all these really aggressive bosses he's gonna show him who's boss at some point in time but not yet he's gonna hold onto his cards uh he turns around at the end of the movie he's got the white mask on and this crazy version of take on me by a hot place as the credits roll and i cannot believe we've talked this i was hoping that this would be the case i was praying uh god listen to my prayer uh we hear George Romero please hear my prayer let us talk for this talk please hear my prayer i think bruiser is i think bruiser is a really interesting watch in 2025 i do and i'm i was not sure that that was the case when i picked it for this but i was you know i was just sort of going on a whim again yes romero was my entry point so even picking this movie like i had my recollection of it is is super vague i remember this mask i remember the poster i don't remember much else and watching it through a 2025 lens with what's going on now i think even though it's on the nose and maybe a little clunky it's i think it's it's certainly worth the watch even though again yes it's more of a thriller it's more of a crime thriller with some some uh psychological thriller i think is a fair term for it it's not super super horror centric even though miss its Romero and its crazy white masks and blood are involved but that's uh that's bruiser your summer travels deserve an upgrade with select Chevrolet Buick GMC and Cadillac vehicles you can stream game and more all the go whether you're headed to a music festival or a cottage getaway you can access hundreds of apps on google play right from your center display explore on star tech today at on star dot ca and discover how to take your summer to the next level on star better never stops one day you're negotiating with suppliers the next you're installing a shelf in the back room running a business means moving in many directions all the time tds new small business banking accounts are built for how your business moves it's how we're making banking more human are you a fan of young adult novels have you ever wondered the stories behind the people who wrote your favorite young adult then join author eric j brown and elissa lube of netflix is the circle every other tuesday on yay okay available on all podcasting apps all right well kyle if you were having people over to watch bruiser what would you also have those people watch i mean i i really really could not stop thinking about american psycho i couldn't i think we've discussed a lot yeah i wrote it down like i didn't have a lot of other uh you know things that i would i don't think i'd want to watch it i just think i i the package of it all is so interesting to me the same time period that the film's made in the same you know so american psycho would be is my double feature i got two options got so how do you go first um i'm gonna go with hellraiser hellworld because also a kyle pick and the parties feel similar um i'm gonna go with a movie that i'm sure i picked as a double feature a million times uh but it you know involves a guy getting pushed around no one respects him he starts wearing a mask yep he kills a couple people fan of the paradise baby yeah see so matt each of your words about sanitis is not a pod for a adjacent film here we go as soon as as i said that to kyle knowing that i was about the big thing the other one that i had written down which i would have a good time and you too be miserable was fade to black oh that's what i actually thought that was gonna be your second yes that makes a little sense yeah yeah guy pushed around making a comeback whatever kyle yeah we're on the street there's some film festivals that you may want to talk about yeah yeah so uh sail and horror fest is coming up at the end of april beginning of may it starts april 30th and it goes until may fourth and sail in massachusetts uh i i'm the associate producer of a film called so fades the light which is a coming of age road movie thriller uh about a young woman who has escaped a cult 15 years ago it's a right wing gun cult uh and she's escaped but she is on the road alone seeking closure so she travels back to the compound but at the same time the reverend or the leader of that cult is also getting out of prison and is also out on on the prowl and uh clearly seeking maybe not closure but something else uh and it's got this it's got an excellent soundtrack it's really exciting it it it will be out to the summer i don't know the details at the time of this recording but i do know that if you were in new england that i mean sail and horror fest is amazing actually lorence is going to be there this year um there's going to be some amazing short films amazing features uh and so fades the light plays on saturday may third saturday may third at two 30 through sail and horror fest i don't know if it's just like a full badge uh ticket or if you can eventually do like single screening tickets but um but yeah it's fantastic uh so sail and horror fest so fades the light is playing i will be there all weekend i hope you come check it out uh the filmmakers uh get super rad the star and producer kylie lots who was also in ouchy i believe will be there and uh and we'd love to see you yes i would love to one day make it to sail him film festival uh it would be a lot of fun i think it'd be a fun horror movie night road trip if we could ever figure that out you know sail it's your one stop shop for all of our stuff you can get some cool merch but we have even more cool exclusive merch if you go to hm and podcast dot dasherly set correct dot com that's the URL yeah now they're looking uh also if you want to support the show see our beautiful faces here beautiful bonus conversations or early episodes go to patreon dot com backslash hmn podcast we love to hear from you if you want to join our uh our newsletter hit us up as well at our email hmn podcast at gmail.com now kyle this is the last question i have for you today yeah what are you like really in due right now what are you been watching listening to reading etc so i i this is this is an older movie this is 2002 but i think a couple weeks ago i talked about watching rollercoaster just as like a sort of like a teen life thing uh white i revisited white oleander i don't know if anybody had seen this or read the book no it's i know is the band or i guess it's oleander yeah no then the white oleander uh machele fiefer and alson loman rene's el wiger and robin right pen early ron ri penner and robin right pen at the moment at the time or in it's it's about uh machele fiefer is the mother uh she's an artist in california she is the mother of alson loman's character uh who is a young teen a young adult and at some point in time machele fiefer's character kills a man and and and goes to prison and that puts alson loman's life and forgive me for not knowing the character's names but she had bounces around from sort of like house to house like foster foster house while also her mother from prison and also just deep-seeded internal whatever is manipulating uh both actively and passively manipulating how alson loman goes about living this life now without physically without her mom but also like with her mom who is has instilled this sort of um difficult independence in her too early and it's it's a familial drama um it's it's based on a book written by janet fitch um it it's a really really lovely film i think about um familial stuff that i think a lot of people in our generation are coming coming across in their lives like this is this is clickbaity but oftentimes i see this article pop up about people going no contact with their parents and why that's happening so much now and and um i don't think that it's not true i think that's an active realization but i don't think that it is necessarily the way that people are treated is not necessarily new i think that there is a a a lens in which we see how we are raised and how we are treated and how society happens that is difficult to uh address i think white oleander is a great uh sort of like slice of life instance of that the performances are great the attempt you know this this beautiful attempt at connection with a young woman i think it's really great you know white oleander it's it's california you know blonde white lily white family like it's it's it's it's very Caucasian but i think that it's also uh a really telling story uh and i thought it was a really solid performances uh you know my wife carly had read the book she loved the book um and it was really cool to revisit that again in the lens of like what i was saying a couple weeks ago these teen dramas that just have a lot going on um yeah white oleander is is worth the watch if you kind of like a deeper heavier family thing from 2002 like let's not forget that it is 2002 and it has that like when i say lens and i'm looking something through i'm talking about like a now physical lens it just has these like this soft edges of everything is glowing even when a shelf i first in prison her hair is this beautiful blonde like glowing um it's it's good movie that's what i watch yeah this is probably so silly but um i re-watched malignant and oh it's just so fun yeah that's one that i'm excited to hit the ten years on that'll be a fun fucking episode i mean i remember liking it when i saw it when it was i mean that was what six years ago seven years ago i want to say um and i i i i understood what it was doing you know like i understood that it was really trying to be jello and um hit a lot of these kind of earmarks of that sub-genre um and re-watching it now after all these recent years of us watching jello for the show and you know having conversations about it and getting a better understanding of like what i'm seeing it is just it's just kind of a pitch perfect little slice you know like it's such a great love letter and i mean that's james one movie isn't it yeah like he's one of his better movies wow you really want up to yourself there um but yeah i mean i i know that a lot of his movies give you a stinker for us because they're we're not the target audience you know like we're not teenagers but um that movie just hits and it's just so fun and so silly and very over the top so it feels kind of like a good little addition to the conversation about brucer i mean honestly comparatively to other james one movies it's in the same realm as like what that silence was you know i mean like perfect it's perfect fodder for us i like when james one leans in to his like b-movie loves way more than when he leans into his gore-fest stuff and like there's a happy medium there too for sure but like dead silence and malignant top tier top tier in the james one verse for me um i'm gonna talk about a book that i haven't quite finished yet i'm about halfway through it but i'm really enjoying it which is nice because i've had like kind of a i had like a couple book run where i was like underwhelmed by what i was reading so like to have a book that i'm like excited to sit down and knock out a couple chapters when i get a chance is is exciting again um this was a guest early early on on why okay i'm 99 sure that it's their debut novel by quin dia con frittado and the book that she put out is called the lilies so the way that this was pitch to us was a ya novel about an all-girls school with supernatural secrets and it was like okay so it's kind of we so the first like four chapters we see the perspective of the five characters that we're gonna be following and every single one of them is acting very weird about a missing student on campus named charlotte who hasn't been seen since founders day and three of the five are in a secret society called the lilies while the other two are former roommates of this girl so there is an incident that happens at the school they're on lockdown and they wander into this closet and the closet essentially acts as a time machine that forces them to relive founders day it's forcing each one of them to live their worst moment of their life and all of their worst moments all happened on founders day and tied to this missing girl so like i'm just kind of very much intrigued in it and like they talk about this concept of i'm only in the first time that they're doing the memory but they they stress like you have to live through the memory like if you don't if you try to change anything about the memory the loop starts over and is going to continually force you to relive the memory but that there's the smell of decay and rot every time that you try to deny what's happening and if you deny it enough times you'll just be like eternally trapped in reliving the worst moment of your life return so you just have to like push forward and face it um so i'm like this is such a cool little thing that i actually think some of the listeners of our podcast would enjoy so so uh i'm liking it i i maybe i'll report back on a future episode after i finish it uh to say more but yeah it's been i started it yesterday and i'm 150 pages into it so to say that it's a page turner is a bit of an understatement yeah but yeah no just want to celebrate that one real quick and talking about celebration i mean i don't know if this movie that we talk about next week is as beloved as bruiser but i think we're gonna keep rolling with the anniversary films so stay tuned for more you're so cool bruiser damn that's good safer ontario means more police and prosecutors making sure my card doesn't get stolen it means building new jails to keep criminals behind bars and it means there's no need to wear me when i play at the park we're making every corner of ontario safer to make all of ontario safer that's how we protect ontario for all of us learn how at ontario.ca.ca.
safer ontario paid for by the government of ontario you've been lost in the woods for hours now stumbling around in the dark you come around the bend and see two people roasting marshmallows over a roaring fire they see you coming into the clearing and jester over to pull it along welcome to campfire ashes i'm paul and i'm jess join us as we tell each other our originally written spooky stories around the campfire and then dive into the lore and legends that inspire them is it something that goes bump in the night is it something menacing lurking past the tree line or is it just weird and otherworldly you'll find it here on campfire ashes you can find us on spotify apple music amazon music or right here on the geese cake network you're listening to the geese cake network