Shownotes
Happy Halloween, my Beautiful Screamerz!
To celebrate our favorite holiday, I'm tackling one of the most polarizing, controversial and underestimated films of the year: the Canadian experimental slasher film IN A VIOLENT NATURE. [Currently Streaming on Shudder]
Did you love it? Or did you hate it?
What happens when you strip a horror movie of all humanity?
Is it a fascinating examination of human psychology, horror voyeurism and audience ethics?
Or is it a boring slog with a few good kills and a whole lot of walking?
Joining me for this episode are my co-hosts from "Damn You Uncle Lewis", Trae Dean and Maya Murphy.
We'll explore how director Chris Nash toyed with the basic rules of filmmaking to craft a film designed deliberately to make viewers feel mentally detached and emotionally.
More importantly, we'll make you understand why he made the movie this way.
Whether you loved IN A VIOLENT NATURE or hated it, you'll see it in a brand new light after this episode of ScreamQueenz!
Excerpts of MICHAEL CAINE are from Michael Caine: On Acting In Film (1987) Directed by DAVID G. CROFT.
IN A VIOLENT NATURE was written and directed by CHRIS NASH and stars RY BARRETT, ANDREA PAVALOVIC, CAMERON LOVE, REESE PRESLEY, LIAM LEONE, CHARLOTTE CREAGHAN, LEA ROSE SEBASTIANIS, SAM ROULSTON, ALEXANDER OLIVER, TIMOTHY PAUL MCCARTHY, JT JACOBS and LAUREN MARIE TAYLOR
Find out more about TEETH : THE MUSICAL at TeethTheMusical.com
Check out the Original Cast Recording on Spotify
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
Transcripts
This program is a proud member of Univoz Unified Unique Voices. Learn more at univozpods.net.
Patrick:Hello, my name's Patrick and I'm a scream queen. I'm a scream queen and so are you. Hello again, my beautiful screamers, and welcome to another episode of ScreamQueenz
It's the podcast where horror gets gay. Happy Halloween everybody. This is season 15, episode 3 of ScreamQueenz.
Tonight, Into the Woods. It's time to go.
But this ain't no fairy tale, children, because we're talking about the controversial experimental Canadian slasher film In a Violent Nature.
And my very special guests for this ill advised trip into the forest are my two favorite shopkeeps from "Damn You,Uncle Lewis" , Trae Dean and Maya Murphy. But before we go one step further, please allow me to introduce myself.
Patrick Walsh, and ever since:So, hi everybody.
Welcome back and happy Halloween. Can you believe it? It's almost here. I hope you've got fabulous plans.
I've got some fabulous plans, but I'm gonna tell you about them after we talk about the movie because I don't want to bog things down too much because we got to get down to the nitty gritty, you know what I mean?
I know some of you out there are really angry at me right now. You're sitting out there going, "patrick, why did you pick this movie? I hated this movie." Uh huh. I know. I picked this movie because it is so divisive.
Normally I don't pick things that are recent because when things are out in the movie theater, just come out to video. Every podcast winds up talking about the exact same movies at the exact same time.
And that's boring for you and a real bummer for the podcasters who work so long putting together this unique show only to have everybody copy them. But that's not the point right now. The point is, I didn't pick in a Violent nature because I liked the movie.
Even now, after I've recorded the session, even after I've watched the movie three or four times, even after I've recorded the session with Maya and Trey, even after I've edited the session with Maya and Trey, I still don't know if I liked the movie. But I'm fascinated by the game that it's playing. I am fascinated by this film. And that's why I wanna talk about it now.
I know the naysayers are gonna say that. I know the people that don't like the movie, they said, "oh, it's boring. Nothing happens. Or It's like watching somebody playing a video game, but they won't let you play."
Yes, that's correct. That is correct. That's all there. I understand why people don't like it.
However, there's something else going on here that I haven't heard anybody else talk about. This film is breaking. It's.... Well, not even breaking.... It's playing games with basic filmmaking rules that when you break them, it plays with your head.
When you see somebody breaking these filmmaking rules, you have a subconscious reaction to it that automatically gets you angry and makes you feel uncomfortable. Because this is a movie that refuses to let you connect to it emotionally. It's going out of its way to make you mad.
Because it knows what kind of movie you want it to be. But it just keeps saying, nope, nope, get back. I'm telling my story my way. And that takes a whole lot of cojones.
And that's why I want to talk about this film. Before you go any further, I do recommend that you watch the film. It is available on Shudder.
And if I make a small suggestion for your viewing dis enjoyment, I recommend that you turn your subtitles off. If you're old and deaf like me and watch movies with the subtitles on, turn them off. Cause it's a crutch that they don't want you to have.
You're supposed to be straining, trying to hear every word of conversations happening just off camera. You're supposed to not know people's names. You're supposed to stay detached.
And if you have the subtitles on, well, you're gonna understand a lot more of the story. And that's not the game they wanna play. But either way, please watch the movie and come back and listen to Trae and Maya and I.
Cause we've got things to explore and I can't wait to talk about them all with you.
But before we do, let's play the trailer for In a Violent Nature, which doesn't have much dialogue, but it's got scary music, which the movie doesn't see. It's already playing games with your head. And the movie hasn't even started yet. Wha. What? The.
Movie Trailer:Animals don't get too hung up on reason. They just keep killing.
Patrick:So for the first time in many, many, many, many, many, many months, I'm sitting down with guests to record an actual episode of ScreamQueenz. Yay. It's very exciting, but it's also very anxiety causing. So what do I do?
I go and choose a movie that's so divisive that much like the cast of the movie, it just has torn horror audiences apart. Either you love it or you hate it. There is no middle ground. And we are talking about the Canadian experimental slasher flick in a violent nature.
When I picked the movie, I thought it was going to be easy. I thought I was safely dipping my toe back into the podcasting pool for this first time back. But no, no, no, kids.
I've thrown myself in the goddamn shark tank.
So for this particular episode, I needed guests who can not only handle challenging material, but who can also save my ass and be cool with whatever mental breakdowns or brain fog incidents that I'm gonna have over the next 90 or so minutes. And there are only two people that filled this bill.
So may I present to you my comfort zone people, my shark attack preventers, and also the best damn shop keeps this side of America own. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and my GNCs, wherever you may be, please welcome back to the show my co hosts from "Damn You, Uncle Lewis", Trae Dean and Maya Murphy!
The Friday the 13th the merchants break the podcast tr and Maya Murphy.
Maya:Hear ye, hear ye. We are now joined for the I hate Uncle Lou... No, wait!
Trae:No, Wrong. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. We're not in the shop.
Patrick:Not that show. Not the show. Not the show. We're still in Canada, though, but not America Town. Except.
Except you guys, if I'm here and Maya's here and Trae's here, who's watching the store??
Trae:Vida! She's in a work relief permit program, so she gets let out of the vault.
Maya:Let out of the vault to live in a painting in my house. I don't know if she's watching the shop. I think she's keeping an eye on me because you can't trust me.
Patrick:Maya, For those who don't know, what did that mean? What do you mean that Vida From Friday the 13th the series is living on your wall.
Maya:I got the most amazing wedding gift. I got married. I got married. Thank you, thank you. But I got an absolutely chilling portrait of Ms. Vita herself delivered to me by Patrick from my co hosts for my wedding. And it's terrifying. And I need to put her up next to my desk right now. She's with the rest of the art on the wall downstairs.
Patrick:We commissioned a painting from Matt Knife, frequent Guest of the show Matt Knife. And it came out fabulous. I figured you could just put it on the wall and scare away trick or treaters so you can keep all the candy to yourself.
Trae:And Vita's the doll from the podcast that we do. Damn you, Uncle Lewis. Podcast about Friday the 13th.
Patrick:Yeah, the first cursed object.
Maya:Guest star from the. The pilot episode. Absolutely terrifying. She talks, she flies, she hisses.
Trae:She's sassy.
Maya:She's got drag queen eyebrows. She's.
Patrick:Well, yes, I was gonna say she's. She's evil L'il Poundcake. Anyway, we're not here to talk about being a. We're not here to talk about "Damn You, Uncle Lewis".
We're here to talk about In A Violent Nature. Now, I picked you two for a reason, because I know that this movie has split the people. Like I said, it's very divisive.
People either love it or they hate it. And a lot of people can't.... I don't even.... I'm not even sure how I feel about it yet!
I just know how it makes me feel and that's what I want to get into here. And I picked Trae because I knew he loved it and also said, you know what? Maya has been very vocal that she doesn't like slasher movies.
And since this is a like, deconstructed, switched around slasher movie, I wanted to see what her take on it was. I'm going to give this to each of you. Normally we play a game here at ScreamQueenz headquarters and I make one of my guests do it.
But I think both of you are going to have to do it individually because I think everyone's going to have a very different take.
Trae Dean, you have a duty to give me A nice, tight 30 second plot summary of the movie in a violent nature. The clock starts now.
Trae:Okay.
A bunch of teenagers find a necklace abandoned in the woods, pick it up, not realizing that they have now released a killer who is now after the amulet as he's done so in the past. It's a typical slasher movie. Beat for beat, character for character. But the camera follows the killer pretty much the entire length of the movie.
Patrick:I'll accept that. Maya Murphy, what's the plot of In a Violent NAture if you've got anything different? If you don't have anything different, that's fine.
Maya:Yeah, I think the word plot is what I'm getting hung up on and making a Muppet face about. Because, yeah, the plot is classic slasher movie. He teenagers break the rules. He is risen. He kills the teenagers. Most of them all the.
All the characters you're used to seeing in a slasher, but the plot's not what's interesting here!
Patrick:Yes, and I'm just going to say, much like. Much like Othello is the story of a handkerchief. This is the story of a necklace. Period.
Trae:Yes, it is.
Patrick:It's what we open with. It's what we close it.
Everything in between doesn't matter.
Every single bit of action in the entire movie happens because of this necklace.
And if need be, I would stretch it to say it's the story of a boy and his necklace, because the movie starts when he loses it and it ends when he gets it back.
Maya:That's not what we open with, sir.
Patrick:No, I know, I know. Hold on, hold on. We'll get into that. We'll get into that.
Maya:I want to talk about that opening shot.
Patrick:Oh, I'm going to talk about it, too. But what are they talking about in the opening shot before we even see it? The necklace.
Maya:Well, that's... That's... But we don't see it!
Patrick:Okay, okay.
Maya:Technicality. I'm a pedant.
Trae:But the object of opening and ending focuses on is the necklace.
Maya:Yes, and there's... There's a lot of fun little bookends in the movie. We open it and we close it.
Patrick:It's not even just a standard slasher movie plot. It's a generic slasher movie plot. It's just another hulking behemoth silent man baby with a mother fixation. We've got dozens of them.
Trae:And this. Not only is it a generic plot, this is a part three. This is part three in a franchise.
Maya:I only got that it was part two. And I want to hear the other piece of evidence that I missed.
Trae:Okay.
Patrick:No, she's right. There's the original incident, which normally doesn't make a movie, to be fair. That'd be a prequel. That'd be a prequel.
Trae:Yeah.
Patrick:And then what happened 10 years ago, and then what's happening now. But personally, everything that I feel that happened in the initial incident, the first white pine slaughter, if you will.
If we were to follow 80s slasher rules, this would be a flashback. Like the thing everybody talks about. Like the first Valentine's Day dance in My Bloody Valentine.
It's the thing we're all supposed to be wary of when we go into these woods, rather than whole thing to itself.
Maya:TThe inciting incident, which... I think Patrick is correct. It would end up being a prequel.
Trae:Well, but the incident. Incident. He kills a bunch of people till they Take him down. And then he's risen a second time to do more slaughter.
So I don't know, the first incident since he kills a bunch of people and there's a fight to bring him down. That could be an original movie.
Patrick:It could be.
Maya:I would fight you on that being lore, but like, we're splitting hairs.
Trae:This is a horror sequel we're watching.
Patrick:Yeah, but whatever we're watching. It's generic. It's. Yes, the characters that we meet are generic.
And the way we're meeting them... this is harder to talk about that I thought. But that's okay. That's okay...
When the movie was coming out and I was seeing the trailers for it, I was hearing the advance buzz, I didn't get it.
I'm like, why are we getting these rave reviews? It looks like just another Friday the 13th. This guy looks like Jason. He walks like Jason. It's the woods. It feels like another Friday the 13th movie.
But when I got in there that morning, I said, oh, this movie's closer to Skinnamarink than it is to Friday the 13th. It's not quite entirely shot liminally, but a lot of it is.
Maya:It's deliberate when it's not.
Trae:Yes.
Maya:It lets you in to like hear dialogue and see the characters faces, it's very deliberate to just give you these little pieces and then we zoom back out. And when we're following the killer around, we're behind him the whole time. It's not about his reactions or any kind of intent.
It's just... he plods the entire movie. It's just. It's inevitable. We're following to the next inevitable step of the slasher plot.
Trae:Exactly. And so it's important that we know the story beats. We have to be so familiar with them and the movie. It's almost like parts of it stop and take place in real time.
So like when he's happens, it makes you sit and wait because you know it's going to happen, but it's just going to make you wait. But it doesn't do it the entire movie for everything. Which for me makes a big difference of making how much I liked it.
Patrick:Well, that's the other thing I want to say too. Like, when I first saw it, my brain said Skinnamarink.
But when I watched it a second time a week ago, I said, you know, no, it goes in and out of that. It goes in and out of like keeping you detached. It'll. All of a sudden it's like a...
Maya:It's like a mirror image of Cabin in the Woods.
Patrick:It's.
Maya:It's a love letter to genre, but it's from a completely opposite side where Cabin in the woods is like self aware and campy. This is just. Let's re examine what's happening.
Patrick:Yes.
Trae:What's also going on is that this. You get idea that This story is ... you're watching a movie in the real time of a slasher film in terms of the plot beats happen, you know, 50 minutes in, 14 minutes in that they would in a regular slasher. But that's. That's a story. It's on autopilot. And the killer is often doing his own thing.
So he kind of wanders into the path of the ride so to speak and you hear the plot beat and then he walks off. So it's like there's a movie going on on the periphery and then you is following the killer.
You dip in to get plot beats and then you dip back out and they're doing action so that we. So that when you come along them, their stories have accelerated.
Patrick:Yeah, exactly. Right. I want to come back to all this stuff, but just as an introduction. What I want to say, like what I found extraordinary that first time through.
Like. Yes, I was thinking that. I'm sorry..
I mentioned the "Skinnamarink liminal thing."
Can anybody explain what talking about here for people who don't know?
Maya:I haven't seen skin merank. I can talk about liminality a little.
Patrick:Yeah, go.
Maya:It's. It's things that are like happening on the periphery of the thing. It's. It's in a like border, nether space that's not like necessarily real.
Patrick:Yeah, well, that's how Skinnamarink was. . You're in this house and you're seeing things happening to a little boy.
But for an hour and 45 minutes you don't see a face. You're getting sides of faces. It's like the wall. It's windows. It's. You're never seeing all the human face. But lots of static.
There's lots of static and distortion in the movie. And there's that thing where your brain... I forget that there's a scientific name for that...Your brain wants to find faces and things like it sees faces in the.
Maya:I just joined the subreddit for that! Paradoalia!
Patrick:Sure. I don't know what it's called but. But there is a scientific name for your brain is looking for faces where there are no faces.
So I was Seeing faces in the static. After a while I'm going. I don't know if they're there or not or if it's just my brain.
Maya:Yeah, I'm gonna pronounce it wrong, but yeah, it's. It's like we evolved to find patterns. It's how we could hunt or eat berries or whatever.
So your brain is still looking for patterns even when there's none.
Trae:Looking in clouds and seeing eyes. You know, looking and seeing objects in clouds.
Patrick:Exactly. But by the end of the movie, my brain was hungry for a face. I've never felt this feeling before. Please give me a face.
I just need to connect with something. And then when it finally gives you a face, it's not a face you want to see. That's a really fucked up thing to do, Movie. That's a really fucked up thing to do.
So I tapped into that really quickly. Okay. All this stuff doesn't matter. Like we're being...It's like we're hearing conversations from another room and it doesn't matter. These people don't matter. Their story doesn't matter.
What's happening, what's happening in front of us matters.
So it's almost like the minutia, the admin of being a slasher.
Trae:Oh, yeah.
Maya:Can I add to your point with, ironically, a line of dialogue from the movie?
When we do see our teenagers and they're telling stories around the campfire, they're doing typical slasher, oh, what's the legend that happened in this area? That's dangerous. The guy telling the story announces, I'm canceling story time, you fucks. And that's this movie.
Patrick:Yeah. So much of this movie is designed to keep you from feeling things like it actively.
It actively goes out of its way to keep you from connecting to the characters. It's 16 minutes and 40 seconds into this movie before we see a Face with eyes and a close up for us to connect to.
And it's around the campfire.
That's an incredibly long time not to see a face.
And there's also no music. There's not a lick of music except.... What's the word we're just talking about before the show? Diegetic!
Maya:Diegetic.
Patrick:Pre show stuff for the Patreon subscribers. Yeah, Diegetic music coming from the campers. And so we don't know how to feel about anything that we're seeing. It's not helping us at all.
And we're not getting anything from this killer as well. We're not getting the Jason rage. It Just seems just. I'm just lumbering along, Next one, gotta kill this one. Lumbering along, gotta kill this. Next.
And so we're just left with violence. We're taken away from any emotion from the story. We're just left with this violence and waiting for violence.
When I started watching it the third time through that I had the subtitles on. Did you guys have your subtitles on? No. Okay. Just wondering, because I forgot what it was like to watch it in the movie theater.
I have reactions to this Like I did the original Blair Witch Project and those found footage where your eyes feel like they're really big trying to take everything and your ears feel really big trying to take everything in.
Maya:It's like I'm looking for something that hasn't happened yet.
Patrick:Yeah. So in the movie theater, I had that extra uncertainty of not knowing what people were going to say.
Whereas when I had the subtitles, I said, you know what? This is a cheat. Getting to hear. Getting to hear every word of the plot is a cheat.
Because there were points of this where I said, I don't know what anybody said during that scene particularly. I remember the first scene with the ranger and the. The trapper. You were so far away. We don't hear much of that conversation.
But I knew what was going on because I had the subtitles on. But initially I was desperately trying to figure out who's talking and what's going on. What are they angry about? You know, does he know them?
You know? But yeah.
Maya:Straining to listen in my surround sound. And I'm going, the movie wanted me to strain. The movie knows I can't hear all of it.
Patrick:Yeah.
Trae:He'll let you hear the important parts. Like you hear the important parts. And you kind of have to connect your dots because it's such a basic story,that's not a problem.
Patrick:So I'm saying to my listeners out there, if you haven't seen the movie yet, take the crutch away. Turn your subtitles off.
Trae:Yes. But also because I noticed that there's a scene where he goes to fight the final girl, throws an ax at her and hits her on the ground.
And I was expecting a musical sting. And then it was just her panting. Then it jumped out at me. Oh, there's no music in this movie.
Because even like the fight scenes, when you strip away the music, it's just haggard breathing and panting and. Yeah.
Patrick:And the sounds of the forest. The music is the forest. Which I think is great. Which is great.
Maya:We do a lot of playing on I mean, the title, like, his nature is violent, but his existing as a slasher killer is part of nature.
Patrick:Exactly. Sorry. A lot of really horrific things with gorgeous natural backgrounds.
Trae:Movie looks beautiful.
Patrick:Stunning. Yeah, stunning stuff.
So Maya and I started fighting about the opening shot of this movie.
Maya, fight me about this.
I think we're on the same page, but fight me on this.
Maya:I think we are.
Patrick:Yeah.
Speaker A:The opening shot is of a window just looking at the soul.
Patrick:A window what? A window...what.???
Maya:To the soul?... It's a frame!
Patrick:It's a frame!
Maya:We're questioning our framing going in. And it's this long shot and you start to hear dialogue of the teenagers. Teenager is about to kick the story off and incite the event.
Troy (Movie):Yo, check this out.
Colt (in Movie):What is that, a necklace or something?
Troy (Movie):Looks like gold.
Ehren (in Movie):Hey, maybe it's here for a reason.
Troy (Movie):Oh, yeah? What reason?
Colt (in Movie):Cold. I don't know. This whole place freaks me out.
Ehren (in Movie):Well, we are in the middle of a graveyard after all.
Colt (in Movie):Oh, don't start with your crap, Aaron.
Ehren (in Movie):You guys never heard of the White Pine Slaughter?
Troy (Movie):The what?
Ehren (in Movie):The White Pine Slaughter. I thought that was the whole reason we were here.
Colt (in Movie):Ehren, we're not in the mood for your shit today. Fine, whatever. I'm leaving.
Maya:But it just lingering in the window. The movie is telling you that we're reframing the story.
And then finally we refocus and we see the necklace in the foreground and the teenagers steal it. But then the next shot, which is wider, you see it's a window for like a classic scary movie house.
Like the house from Evil Dead, but there's half of it and it's on its side. We are gonna turn horror upside down with this movie. And I was just like, ah, visual storytelling, people.
Patrick:I supposed to. I mean, you're not supposed to get on a subconscious level. But as a filmmaker, this is the stuf you live for.
Maya:Your brain gets it.
Trae:Yeah.
Maya:If you don't. Even if you don't like immediately go, oh, well, I see a visual metaphor. You might not notice, but your brain does.
Patrick:I didn't get this until the third time through because I said, okay, we're opening on the shot. But of this frame and the window. But the thing is, everything in the house was gray.
The walls are gray, the door is gray, Everything's gray. But this window is faded white. So it's popping. So i go ...This is more important. And then I realized, okay, this is Like it was a movie screen.
This is where the movie's supposed to be happening. We should Be seeing the people that we hear talking.
And we're hearing about this necklace, but we're not seeing any necklace. What is everybody talking about?
And to be perfectly honest, the first time I saw this in the movie theater, I was scanning the screen like crazy going, am I. Am I just not seeing the necklace? Have I got really old and blind? I don't see what anybody's talking about.
But then finally, the camera does this really slow but really slight pan to the right and then boom, there she is, the necklace. What we've all been talking about. What this whole movie is hinging on.
So in these first few seconds, the movie is telling you in this really fucked up kind of way, this is how things are going to roll for the next 90 minutes. Eve.rything's just going to be a little bit off, kids. Like, if you want the movie to be here, but it's going to be over here, just off camera.
And that's the whole movie. Yeah. And I find it fascinating. Like, I found so many points where I'm just going. I don't know how to feel about what I'm seeing.
Trae:So for me, I saw this a few months ago when it came out the theater, and I liked it. I liked it a lot. I kept thinking about it, but I also remember thinking, I don't think I'm going to want to rewatch it anytime soon.
So I watched it again and I actually loved it. There's only one part where it really lagged, but this movie actually moved really fast for me, in a sense.
Maya:I mean, it's a tight, like 90 minutes. And I think when it lags, it's doing it purposefully to make you uncomfortable.
Trae:But it's not that bad. And I love that it doesn't do it a lot because if he's moving slowly, we always know in the plot point what he's moving towards.
It's like mini little movies that take horror movie plots, but then they set them in real time almost. So there's always felt like, well, we're going towards something.
Maya:In one of the kills, we established that, like, he can't stand still. He. When he comes up to the cabin and he sticks a log in the pickup truck to lean on the horn, he can't stop and wait.
So he goes and walks in a circle around the teenager's cabin because he can't stand still. And he has to move at that slogging pace the entire movie.
Patrick:That's funny that you say that, because that's one of my favorite points of the movie because it makes me Laugh, because that's where it turns into a video game for me. Like, this is when you finish figuring out the trick.
I got to stick the log in the horn, but I have to walk around the house first or he's going to catch me.
Maya:Well, he does a lot of circling too. That's the. When we get to the storytelling around the campfire, the camera is just swirling around these teenagers at the fire.
And like, you start to get seasick. There's a reason that there's a rule for that. They call it breaking the 180.
If you do too many weird reverse angles, your audience loses where they are. And it's just like he's circling in like a predator. And then it's not until we invite, like the act of being seen being perceived.
When one of the teenagers goes, I want to take a selfie. Everyone get over here where the light is good, that you then see the killer lingering in the woods. You can see the light reflecting on his face.
Patrick:Ding dong Patrick from the future here. I want to take a moment just to take you all to film school for some film school 101 things.
Now, you keep hearing me talk in regards to this movie about how you connect with the eyes and the audience connects with the eyes. You're probably going, where are you getting that from? What are you talking about? Well, it's from basic film acting.
Most of film acting is mechanic, is mechanics. It's not so much about your performance.
It's about doing things physically right, doing things right for the camera so that things connect right, line up right, you know, hitting your mark and. And knowing how to do a close up. And that's what this.
When I'm watching a movie, I will know right away if the people doing it are amateurs or not if they don't know how to do this.
However, I'm watching this movie going, you know how to do this. You're just not following these laws. You're doing this on purpose.
"Patrick, what are you talking about?" Okay, if you don't believe me about how the film audience connects because of the eyes of the actor on camera, then listen to Michael Caine.
Michael Caine has a legendary film acting tutorial you can watch for free on YouTube called Michael Caine on Acting. These are excerpts from that. So if you don't believe me, listen to him.
Michael Caine:Once you're in front of that camera, nobody exists. Nobody except the other person in the scene. And what we do, we actors who are in the movie, we hang on to each other's eyes.
That's the Most important thing in film. Eyes. Eyes.
Patrick:And the most impactful way to make a deep connection as an actor with your audience on screen is through the close up. And what you do during the close up is extremely important. Or more importantly, what you don't do.
You look into your screen partner's eyes, you pick one of their eyes, you look directly into that eye and you do not move and you do not blink as you say your lines. And it feels like you're doing nothing. But that's where the magic happens.
Michael Caine:Now you see actors and they're acting and they change. And it's an infinitesimal thing in the eyes as they change eyes as they're talking. Can you see my eyes changing?
Just unchanging eyes, and I'm blinking Now, that is two of the worst things to do. First of all, you never change eyes. And what you do is you pick an eye. Now, which eye do you pick?
I look at with this eye because the camera is there. I look at this eye, at your eye there, which brings my face. You can see if I look with this eye at that eye look what you get.
You see the difference, but it's the same look. And if I keep blinking, it weakens me.
But if I'm talking to you and I don't blink and I just keep going and I don't blink and I keep on going and I don't blink, you start to listen to what I'm saying and it makes me a very strong person, as opposed to someone who is sitting there going, which is someone who's completely flustered.
Patrick:So that's basically it in a nutshell. There's a whole other hour long tutorial for you to watch if you're more interested. I'll put the link down in the show notes.
But I basically wanted to give you a lowdown on how I was approaching this movie and why it was getting to me so much, because I haven't heard anyone approach it from the actors filmmaker standpoint of this basic 101 rule.
And I also wanted to give you Michael Caine's voice on this as well, because I wanted you to hear that this is a professional opinion.
This isn't just me making stuff up. This is universal, fundamental building block film knowledge.
It's one of the reasons I wanted Maya on too, because I know she would recognize it as well. And I know you're out there thinking, but Patrick, how would I know that as a non actor, non filmmaker, I would never understand that.
But the thing is that you do. There's a reason why these are the rules. It's because subconsciously you're responding to that whether you know the rules or not.
And like any rules, they're meant to be broken.
For instance, like this whole thing with switching eyes, which when he's saying switching eyes, he means going back and forth between your partner's eyes, looking left and right, left and right. But there's times where this can be broken. Sarah Michelle Geller is great at doing this.
Usually when confronting angel in season one with all the drama stuff, when they're falling in love and she doesn't know if she could trust him or not. She does the eyeball thing very well because she is a woman who is distrusting. She's unsettled, she's uneasy. She doesn't.
She's looking for answers where there are no answers. So, yeah, you can do that thing with the eyes, and it fits. It should weaken her. And other times to break that rule is in movies like this.
I think that's all I got. Let's get back to the show. Thank you, Michael Caine. Ding dong.
Maya:Play.
Patrick:The clip is fabulous. It's the one I sent you that.
Trae:Yeah.
Patrick:What I liked about, too.
Like, even when we get to this campfire scene, we're getting let in a little bit to the campers because these are the ones we have to kind of care about. We even still don't. Because as my set, like as Michael Kane says, you need to hold your. Hold your place and hold your eyes and don't move your eyes.
Don't switch your eyes and don't blink, or it weakens you. But with the camera circling and being constantly broken, because it's like you're being. It's the. The gaze is being broken.
Like you're going around the circle and somebody else's body is just passing through the frame. It's blocking the face of the person you're looking at. So.
And people are talking at a campfire, so their eyes are constantly going back and forth, so nobody's ever steady. So you're never really getting that connection.
So even though your brain is telling you, hey, these teenagers, they're the main characters in the movie. I need to connect with them. They're really important. The movie keeps telling you, no, they're not. No, they're not.
Look, they can't even hold my attention. Look how weak they are. Let what they're saying go in one ear and out the other. Then we'll get back to the important things.
Don't worry about these dumb kids. They'll be dead soon.
Trae:And the camera isn't moving in a smooth, like, counterclockwise direction. Like it'll cut. Then all of a sudden it's focusing on someone else, but it's always moving in a circle.
But it cuts to like it's moving one direction, then it's moving another direction, then it's focusing on different characters. So people are talking and you get a sense of who they are, but you don't. You're not focusing on any one person.
Maya:So like 70 years ago, everywhere a hundred miles in every direction was leased out by this logging company. And everything was way more remote back then. They would set up shops in the camp and sell shit like razors and soap to the loggers.
But they would jack up the prices like motherfucker. Johnny's dad was the guy that ran these stores and they hated him for it. And they used to take out their anger on Johnny.
It all came to a head one day when one of the drunk loggers tripped and broke his ankle on one of Johnny's toy cars. He was out of work for months. They would blame Johnny for it, so they decided to teach him a lesson.
They told Johnny they found a bag of toys and that he should meet them at the old fire tower. So Johnny snuck out camp at night, and eager and keen and naive as he was, he climbed up the top of the tower. But there were no toys.
Just one of the men in a creepy old firefighter's mask waiting to scare him. And he did. Johnny fell from the tower. His neck snapped as soon as it hit the ground, and the man freaked out.
So they put one of the firefighter masks on him to make it look like he was playing up there by himself and tripped and fell. So are you saying that was the.
Patrick:Same fire tower from earlier?
Maya:Could be. Hard to say. But when Johnny's dad found the body a day later, he knew those guys had something to do with it.
So he confronted them in the mess hall and a fight broke out. And when the dust settled, Johnny's dad was dead. And the guy that killed him claimed self defense.
And the company, not wanting any issues, made sure that no charges were laid. Well, I mean, my dead father and son isn't really much of a slaughter. Well, that happened a week later. So what happened next?
A couple of the execs from the company showed up to the camp and every single person was dead. Huge fucking lumberjacks torn to pieces.
After a healthy donation from the company, they paid off, the widows closed up shop and the Police ruled it as a poisoning from tainted meat. And they said a bunch of animals got in and tore up the bodies. One of the policemen said he saw a guy watching in the woods with a mask.
They still don't know who did it, but some say it was the man in the mask. Some say it was Johnny's spirit trying to get revenge. Some say it was perf.
Patrick:Except the guy, Aaron, who's telling the story, has a Robey accent.
Maya:I had that moment of, where are you from? I don't understand.
Trae:It sounded like he was. Like he had a congestion almost.
Maya:Yeah, it was Australian. It was South African. It was, where are we?
Patrick:Okay, it's the Robey. It's the global Robey accent. It always comes back there.
One of the things that struck me is like, we don't get a lot of chase scenes in it.
We have one early on with our number one motherfucker, the guy who's trapping animals out in the woods, putting out fox traps and then not picking them up.So we get to see the decayed corpses.
And it's awful watching this guy get chased.
Maya:Oh, yeah.
Patrick:And there's no music and he's just plotting and there's no urgency to the chase. Was so strange. [Sound clip from Movie] And I went, this is how it would be in real life.
Trae:Exactly. This is what this is.
Patrick:It would sound like nothing, and it.
Trae:Would take a while.
Patrick:If you heard it from another hill, you'd be like, oh, okay, whatever.
Maya:You don't have editing to make it snappy. If it's right. It's like it's from the perspective of the killer. But also it's not because we're always behind him. It's not a point of view shot.
We're just watching, like, it's this weird horror voyeurism.
Trae:And this is actually the shot where I realized the second time watching it is a long shot where you can see the killer and you see the guy running. Run, run, run, run. There's a good 30 seconds of running and he runs into a forest. I remember thinking, oh, we're gonna do this in real time.
So now we gotta watch the killer go into the forest for another 10 seconds. And no, then it cuts immediately to the guy. So I was like, oh, it's gonna sit and make you wait. But there still is editing.
There are choices being made that I just. I really appreciated it. So it doesn't move as slow as I was, as people were saying, because there's still urgency to stop.
Patrick:Well, once he Hits that trap, we cut forward. It's like, yeah, now we know he's not going anywhere.
Okay, our killer is John.
Trae:Yes.
Patrick:We even have to give him a J name because we're that unoriginal.
Maya:Here's Johnny.
Patrick:Yeah, here's Johnny. And smiled in that special way. Johnny, she said, you know I love you.
Trae:Who's Johnny?
Patrick:Maya Murphy's giving me face. What's the big deal with him and his necklace? What's the deal with his necklace?
Maya:It was given to him by his parents to know that he would always be their special boy.
Johnny's Dad (In Movie}:This was your mother's, John. I want you to have it that way. It will always be with you. No matter what happens, you'll always be our little boy, John.
Maya:He wears a plaid shirt just like his dad does. But in the fireside chat, we learned the local legend of. He was a kid of one of the people working in the logging company and he left.
Patrick:They were Loogers. According to Ehren, they're about to Canadian Loogers.
Maya:He left his toys out and one of the guys working on the site stepped on one of his toy cars and broke his ankle. So they wanted to play a prank on him as a child to get back to him. So they said, oh, we have more toys for you at the top of the watchtower.
But when he gets there, it's just an adult ass Luger in a firefighting mask. And he is scared and falls to his death. So then Johnny's father, the next day tries to.
Trae:Vindicate.
Maya:Yeah, I'm fuzzy on the details. This movie is so fuzzy. They're all dead the next day. Yeah, they're all dead.
Everyone who works there as widows gets paid off and it's swept under the rug by an evil corporation. Doesn't go well for anybody.
Patrick:No. And presumably that's what happened 10 years ago too. And all these other loggers when all the rangers died.
Maya:Because there's the tragedy of the child dying. His dad tries to do something.
Patrick:I think that dad dies as well.
Maya:Yeah, everyone dies. It's really bad because people decided to bully a child. It gives us an excuse to get the spooky firefighting mask and all the.
Patrick:Firefighting tools, which are great too. I like that he's using drag hooks. Does this make him a drag queen? He dragging people.
I find it's really interesting when the movie lets you in and when it doesn't because there are some. I. What the movie started to make me feel was clinical. I felt like an alien or a scientist watching. Watching this. I Just felt so detached from it.
I felt. Yeah. Like, oh, that's very terrible.
Trae:Well, I think part of it was that these characters were not likable. Like, they were aggressively fucking assholes. Except for the final girl. Like there's. They were.
Patrick:What? She. I mean, I didn't like her. I mean, I didn't like any of them.
Maya:I mean, to be fair, I didn't like her either.
Trae:You're right.
Patrick:We don't think of. We don't get into anybody very much at all. But what you see, you don't like. But even. Even the one who's not so bad, the yoga girl, is not so bad.
Trae:Yoga girl. I didn't like her. She played games. Yeah. Yeah, she played games. I don't like her.
Maya:She lets the stoner lesbian die because she's like, oh, if you want to make a move, come get me. I'm tired of this high school shit. She's mean.
Trae:Yeah. And then the. The yoga. The other one she's flirting and she makes fun of Ehren about the "Fill her up".
Brodie (in Movie):Wait, are you going to meet up with those gas station girls?
Ehren (in Movie):It's not gonn four hours along the way. Are you kidding?
Brodie (in Movie):No, but it's a yes or no question.
Ehren (in Movie):How desperate do you think I am?
Brodie (in Movie):I think you're you.
Ehren (in Movie):I'm gonna go take a shit. Is that all right with you?
Brodie (in Movie):Right. Okay. But when you get there, make sure you show them your really cool cassette player because they'll think you're from the future.
Colt (in Movie):What's going on out here?
Brodie (in Movie):Um, Erin's going to meet those gas station girls.
Colt (in Movie):No fucking way.
Brodie (in Movie):Yeah.
Colt (in Movie):What? You're gonna go ask something. You fill up, right?
Ehren (in Movie):Jesus Christ. I'm gonna go take a. Yeah, yeah, sure, Right.
Colt (in Movie):No, I'm just a little gas station girl. Ehren. Cane you please fill me up?
Brodie (in Movie):Me too, Aaron. I'm just a little gas station girl. And I need to fill up really bad, but I don't know how.
Colt (in Movie):Hey, fill me up, Aaron.
Brodie (in Movie):Fill me up.
Trae:And I just was like, I don't like any. Which I realized I wasn't supposed to like them. So when they died horribly, I was just like, okay, whatever.
Like there's a distance where they're intentionally. They're not. They're not wanting us to get emotionally close to these characters.
Maya:I don't root for any of them.
Patrick:No, no, no, no. But, like, I just find it interesting, I would think, like, looking at the third time through, I'm going. It's weird.
Like this first kill with the number one Motherfucker. This would be one that you think would be emotional. It's the first one.
Trae:Right.
Patrick:And we don't see anything.
Trae:We don't see. Oh, okay. The editing for that was amazing.
Maya:Yeah.
Patrick:To be fair. I also. But it set a tone for me. I'm like, okay, you're right. Because I thought, like, this guy's an asshole. We've never.
We haven't seen him be nice to anybody. He clearly hurts animals. The audience hates him. We're gonna see him taken apart because it's gonna set the tone for the rest of the movie.
And we don't see a fucking thing.
Trae:No, exactly. It was. It was. It was blue balls almost. Yeah.
Patrick:Except. Except later on. Like later on when he. Because he kills the guy and then goes back for that necklace that he thinks is his, but it turns out it's not.
And then. But he walks past the kill site again. It's off to the side. It doesn't matter. He doesn't matter.
Like, we're seeing somebody who's been ripped to shreds. Like, we're seeing body parts that are not connected anymore, but the camera never goes over there. It doesn't matter.
I say, oh, this is how this movie is going to be. It's all clinical. It's all about what's right in front of me and just what's going on now and how I'm feeling right now.
And once it's done, it's done and I'm moving on to the next thing. That is how it is.
Trae:Well, I think. And also, I think the director was kind of edging the Gorehounds about. Oh, you're. You know. And he.
Right when he's about to kill the guy, it cuts to the aftermath and you see the same hand as bloody. Because he knows the really explicit kill is going to be coming on shortly. But, yeah, it's like he's edging you as the audience member.
Patrick:What I've seen a lot online. Like, people love the scene that you expect them to love. Everybody loves the yoga girl kill.
Trae:Yeah.
Patrick:Everybody loves the. The log splitter kill.
Trae:Yeah.
Patrick:Me, I love everything on the dock with the two girls. I loved all of that because this was so quiet.
Maya:There's no ripples, and he just surfaces and that's. And then she comes up and it's like real drowning.
Patrick:Well, that whole scene.
Maya:She tries to breathe and then she just goes right back under.
Patrick:Yeah. That whole scene I love. Because he's on the other side of the lake and the two girls show up in the dock.
And in a normal slasher movie this would be all an extreme tight close up so we can get all the boob-alating.
Brodie (in Movie):We finally have some time away from everyone here together.
Aurora (In Movie):What are you doing?
Brodie (in Movie):Aurora, you need to live a little. You said that you wanted to do yoga. This doesn't look like yoga to me. It looks a lot like swimming, doesn't it? And we would do.
Maya:We would do the screaming coming in and out of the water. Bubble, bubble, bubble. And we don't do any of that.
Patrick:Even before that. Even before they like they're talking about going skinny dipping and like we're so far away.
Like in another slasher, we're talking about two girls hooking up and going skinny dipping and doing yoga. All this is sexy, sexy, sexy. We're on the other fucking side of the lake.
Aurora (In Movie):I dress for yoga. I'm not getting this wet.
Brodie (in Movie):Take it off. Then there's snowing around for miles.
Aurora (In Movie):Did you really think this was going to work?
Brodie (in Movie):What?
Aurora (In Movie):This whole thing that you're doing.
Brodie (in Movie):don't know. Worth a try, isn't it? Oh,
Aurora (In Movie):Oh,was it?
Brodie (in Movie):Really? Really?
Aurora (In Movie):Yeah, really.
Brodie (in Movie):Come on, you know we had something back there.
Aurora (In Movie):I didn't say we didn't.
Brodie (in Movie):So what's all this then?
Aurora (In Movie):If you want to make a move, make a move.
Just don't waste my time with this high school bullshit.
Brodie (in Movie):Well that's good news because I hated high school.
Patrick:And that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter to him, so it doesn't matter to us. Which I think is great. I love all this.
And you want to talk about bi erasure?
Aurora (In Movie):Take it easy there tiger. You blew your chance this time. Sorry.
Brodie (in Movie):What's going on here then?
Aurora (In Movie):Am I missing something? I'm still going to go to the lookout to stretch myself out a little bit.
Why don't you confine me when you're done your swim and maybe you can stretch me out a little more.
Brodie (in Movie):You're full of surprises, aren't you?
Aurora (In Movie):Don't wear yourself out in there.
Patrick:That bi gets erased.
Maya:Yes, yes, yes, we know.
Trae:Well, as attention to the whole shot though is that we see Johnny walk into the water towards them. But he's at least a quarter of a mile away. So they're talking, talking, talking.
It's like there's this ticking time bomb in the background of tension of like...what's going to happen.
Also, do you want to hear something about this scene? The whole scene was improvised. That kill was improvised. It wasn't supposed to happen that way.
Originally it was supposed to be, it was an underwater shot where you're going to see him underwater. He was going to hook her foot, drag her down and drown her. But then the water with the weather was so bad that day, they had to improvise.
They had to scrap it and improvise what we saw. Which is like the Jaws thing of instead of being explicit, you don't see anything
Patrick:Ding dong Patrick from the future here, I want to pause for a moment and just want to talk about how, you know, in past episodes I've talked about how when I pull audio from the movie to use as clips when I'm editing the episode back when I'm hearing the clips back in my headphones, I pick up things I didn't notice watching the film or things hit me differently because I don't have a visual for it. And this scene in particular comes to mind because the sound design here is brilliant. And I'm going to tell you why it's brilliant.
It's because for most of this movie, there's no music. All you're getting are the sounds of the forest.
But now that I'm listening to the movie through headphones, I'm realizing we're getting different sounds of the forest through different scenes. Naturally, we're in different parts of the forest. You're going to hear different things.
But in here, for the scene by the dock on the lake, you're just getting birds, aquatic birds, and the chirping and squawking of various birds. Why I think this is an absolutely creepy, horrible, brilliant choice. Is that our girl in the water? Our little stoner girl who's about to die?
She gets two screams out of her. They're very quick, they're very sharp and they sound like birds.
[Plays audio clip of birds sounds and drowning]
So if you were, you know, just up the mountain a bit and you heard them, they wouldn't trigger a damn thing. You would have no idea what just went on. It's just another sound of the forest so far. It's so far away. She doesn't matter. None of this matters.
It's just happening on the other side of the lake.
Maya:I really think it's like calling out the audience for wanting to be closer. Yes, that. That kind of voyeurism, it's calling you out going, you want to see the sexy stuff. You want to see the gnarly murder, Sucks to be you.
Patrick:"You want to see your face as she's struggling underwater. You want to see the light go out of her eyes. We're not going to give you that."
Trae:So I'm going to say, but yeah, this movie edges you. It's like an edge because it's just, nope, not going to give you what you want when you want it.
Patrick:It will give it to you sometimes to make you think you're going to get it every time, but it doesn't give you every time. Which is fun too.
But I just want to say one more thing. What this scene reminded me of... Trae? I don't know if you've seen the movie Stranger by the Lake. No, there's a French thriller movie, Stranger by the Lake. It's, it's. It's set in like the 80s and it's this lake that's a gay cruising spot.
So it's lots of nude sunbathers and things like that. And this guy is. Is obsessed with another nudist at that frequency place.
And he's watching this guy, he's obsessed with frolic with his boyfriend in the water. And at one point they're just frolicking and one guy goes into the water and never comes back up. So he just watched this guy kill his boyfriend.
But it's. It's from like a half a mile away. And it's such a long shot. You're going, where's the actor? Why isn't the actor coming out? Where did the actor go?
Trae:There's nowhere for him to like slip out because it's so far. It's such a long shot.
Patrick:And this is similar here. What I think is great too is that like she gets sucked under the water and you see nothing. There's no struggling, nothing.
They're so fucking deep that the water is just placid.
Trae:It's like 15 seconds. And just when you think she's dead, she comes up once more and then back down again.
Maya:I feel like most of the kills were like this, though. I'm like holding my breath.
And as an actor with a pretty good understanding of what you can do in post production, like the log splitter kill,
I'm going, no, that actor is still breathing. That character is alive. He's breathing. He's breathing. His head is squished now.
I was nervous for the characters and I was nervous for the actors the entire. It was just. I was so icky. I loved it so much.
Trae:And even. Okay, the one that the yoga kill, the standout Kill the movie.
Aurora (In Movie):I was wondering when you were finally gonna show. You sure took your time, though.
Patrick:Ding Dong Patrick from the future here, for those of you who haven't seen the movie, what's happening here is that Johnny has snuck up on Aurora, AKA the yoga girl, the other half of the lesbian.. almost lesbian fling. He steps on a twig. She turns around and sees him and screams.
But when she runs, she realizes she's on the edge of a cliff that goes down into the lake. There's nowhere for her to go.
He sneaks up behind her and takes one of those drag hooks he picked up at the ranger station and rams it through her abdomen from behind. Now, hold on. There's plenty more to this kill, but for now, we're just gonna stop there.
This is one of the scenes that people have problems with because it's like, why didn't she just stand there? Why didn't she go anywhere? And I don't really understand why people don't get that there's a cliff. I heard people say it's a steep hill.
No, honey, it's a cliff. I want to see people go down, jump down this cliff. If you think it's a cliff, then you jump.
Anyway, like I said earlier, this kill isn't over at this point.
But Trey's about to make a point about the other thing that people complain about this scene is that now that she's been disemboweled, she turns around and looks at him with this blank stare on her face. And people don't like that. Trey, take it away.
Trae:The thing that people complain about that made perfect sense to me was that she doesn't scream or do anything. I'm like, no. She's in shock and she doesn't think. It made so much sense to me that once he starts attacking her, she doesn't do anything.
She's like a rabbit.
Maya:What's she gonna do, expand her lungs into the hole where her guts used to be?
Patrick:Like, she has no diaphragm anymore.
Trae:That made it more impactful than if she was screaming, screaming, screaming. Just her standing there, accepting it.
Maya:She has no diaphragm. She can't scream.
Patrick:And here for me, is one of the best grisly moments of sound design in the movie. Because as she's turning around with this hook, look through her abdomen with her intestines falling out.
You start to hear the black flies start to swarm. It's so grisly.
Maya:I love that we made it through the movie without any ridiculous screaming or the running with flailing arms and bouncing tits in the woods.
Patrick:She got her one scream out, I got one scream out, and that was it. Yeah. Yeah, that's. That scene is shocking. It is shocking. It Is it's kind of out of character for him because, like, is this a joke on yoga?
Like, look how flexible you are now, bitch. Ding dong Patrick from the future. Again, so happy that I have to describe this disgusting thing to you.
But for those who haven't seen the movie, what happens now is she's facing him. He pulls that hook that's sticking out of her abdomen, rams it through her skull, spins her around, and then basically pulls herself into herself.
He basically pulls her head into that hole in the abdomen, tying her into a knot. Or if you would say in yoga, navel gazing. Would John know that? Would Little John, Little Slow John know.
Maya:yoga magic, horror movie powers?
Patrick:I know, I know.
Trae:It's such a ridiculous death that it's almost like doesn't fit the movie that it's in because the movie is so grounded. And then this is just such an absurd death.
Maya:I don't know. We slice off half a guy's head and drag him around by the hole in his trachea.
Patrick:Holy. Gather half in his head like a trick or treat bucket.
Maya:And when we break into the ranger station, we come like the. The square frames come up all throughout the movie.
Like when he's first walking through, there's a wildlife camera and it's big and it's square like an Instagram camera. Then we break into the ranger station, but the way we see it broken into is the shadows of light coming through.
And then he throws the half head through the window and it lands with the eyes facing you.
Trae:Good. You know, two minute long shot. It's in darkness and you see he's dragging the guy behind him, but you don't see much.
And then he walks closer to station and triggers the motion detecting light that turns on. And then you see, oh, he's got the guy's body in one hand and then the head in the other. And then it just follows him for another like 30 seconds.
And yeah, it was, it was just the way the director gives information to you, to me, was just such. Was so clever.
Maya:Yeah. Slow drip.
Patrick:Yes. Yeah, I did like the ranger danger calendar that they had. That's what got him mad.
What I thought was fun too is that he's carrying this guy's body around. The first kid who we skipped completely, which is a completely gnarly kill.
Fucking Aaron getting that top half of his jaw sewn off because he was going to go party with them gas station girls.
Brodie (in Movie):Are you going to meet up with those gas station girls?
Trae:Gas station girls!
Patrick:Gas station girls forever. That's Me. That's my screen name today. "I'm a gas station girl. I've been waiting for him all night." The gas station girls survived.
Thank you very much. The biggest sluts of the movie aren't even on camera.
He's lugging that body around and he's using it to break things.
But again, there's no rage to it. It's just a convenient tool. I wanted to go back to the.
The yoga kill because the thing that really struck me about it the second time through is like, this is one of the times the movie lets you win. Just before he kills her, you get a. You get a close up of her face.
Maya:Yeah. The fear is real.
Patrick:We get. No, no, no, no. Before what?
Patrick:Before she turns around and sees them. Oh.
Speaker A:And she's waiting for the stoner bi.
Patrick:She turns around, like," oh, my gosh, I took you long enough to come up." One of those kind of things. You get a full contact.... It's not full. She's off to the side because you're seeing him behind her.
But it's the closest you get to a contact. One of the few times the movie lets you in and then it does THAT to you.
Trae:Yep. And it just savages her.
Patrick:The detached savages you inside out. Because all of a sudden you feel something for that character. Because she let you in for one second. Because I think that's why I feel for her.
I'm like, she let us in the way the others don't.
Trae:Or the movie lets you get close enough to see her and then it just decimates her.
Maya:I just. I wanted to say, because we were talking about the first kill, the gender roles in the classic slasher pack are all flipped.
So the slut who goes off to get laid first, who dies, is a man, baby. And then our stoner is a lady.
Patrick:Yeah.
Maya:We hit all these classic tropes and they were just. We're flipping everything over and I just really like all of those.
Patrick:Yes. Yeah.
Maya:That's.
Patrick:Nice catch.
One of the things you mentioned earlier that you're getting drips and drabs of the plot.
There's a certain part where we come screeching back into the plot after these kills, when they're just saying, "oh, my gosh, there's something wrong. Erin should have been gone this long. There's something wrong with the girls. We should go to the ranger station."
Kris (in Movie):Don't you even care?
Patrick:You're freaking out over nothing. Okay.
Troy (Movie):We all know Aaron went to see.
Patrick:Those Gas station girls. Brody and Aurora all. We just all fucking know what to make.
Trae:Something's not right, Troy, and you know it.
Patrick:Let's just go to the cops and.
Trae:File a police report or something.
Patrick:And we're getting Troy. The guy who stole the necklace in the first place is our alpha male villain. If the movie was expanded, we would be designed to hate this guy.
It would be subject a whole lot. So we're just getting dribs and drabs, but. So he's like. He throws the car keys in the woods for no reason.
Troy (Movie):We're not going anywhere.
Patrick:Fine. Give me the keys. I'll go.
Troy (Movie):Yeah, you want these? Go get em.
Colt (in Movie):What's your problem?
Kris (in Movie):Seriously, did you just do that?
Troy (Movie):What? What?
Patrick:This reminded me of all these things which are coming in where there's a scene in motion, like, with them, like, in high anxiety, that he's just stumbling into. Like this scene.
And later on at the ranger station with the rangers, like, where'd you get that necklace?
Ranger (in Movie):Where did you get that necklace?
Ranger (in Movie):Claire's Boutique!
But it reminds me, there's an episode of Buffy called the Zeppo. Yes, thank you, Trey. Thank you, Trey. It's a Xander centric episode.
He's got his own plot going on, and all the others are shut. They're like, no, no, Xander. This mission is too dangerous. We can't bring you in because you don't have any special powers like we do.
I'm a witch, and he's a werewolf and she's a Buffy. You can' Help us.
And so every now and then, like, he's got this huge thing going on with zombies coming to blow up the school, and he'll be showing up trying to get their attention, and you're getting, like, really deep dialogue that you get in any other episode, but just because you're getting 10 seconds of it in a completely different scenario, like, this is the stupidest fucking show I've ever watched.
But by changing the perspective and giving us this little bit of distance between these characters that whose plight we normally are enthralled with, it just made it sound absurd. And that's what's happening here, too.
Like, normally we'd be all invested in the teens' plots, but now it just sounds stupid because we're only getting, like, little dribs and drabs. What are you talking about? You're also stupid, whiny. Shut up.
Trae:Not realizing he's, you know, they pushed aside. He's having his own little battle. And so he comes back and they're just all just covered in blood, everything.
And he's like, oh, like, what have you been doing, Xander?
Patrick:Saving the world on my end, thank YOU
Trae:We're talking about favorite kills. My favorite kills are Troy and the other guy. It felt like a comic book where just the direction was this overhead shot.
Maya:I love the overhead shot.
Trae:And then you see the characters run out. You hear him. And then you see Johnny throw an ax. And you just hear.
Maya:And you hear the impact.
Trae:And it's quiet except for one guy screaming. And then it slowly walks overhead as you see him walk past the guy's body with an ax in it. And it was just a great reveal.
Maya:And then smashing the other guy's head open with a rock was one of those, like, nervous for the actor moments. For me, we're not cutting away because normally you can do so much. And like. Well, now it's a close up shot and we've swapped it out with a dummy.
All of that made me so nervous. Nervous.
Troy (Movie):Help me. Please help.
Trae:And that they. Yeah, I don't know how they. Well, I know they did it, but.
Patrick:It looks good since...
Since we're here. I forgot to bring this up before. And this movie was written and directed by Chris Nash.
Chris Nash is normally a special effects director.
Trae:He knows what he's doing.
Patrick:No, and he. He's working with a Canadian group who did Psycho Goreman and the Void, so. Oh, they're doing cutting edge stuff.
Maya:All the edges are so impressive.
Patrick:So this makes total sense that this is their next step. Like, he's. He's working with them. This movie got more theater play than either of those movies ever did.
Maya:Both of those movies are showing off, though. Like, look, the practical effects. Look at the giant tentacle monster. Oh, my daughter. She's beautiful. And she's like a skinned bear now.
And then Psycho Goreman. Like we have all the like Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. And to just come in with that skill level and do it subtly.
Trae:Yeah.
Maya:And no one looks like an empty latex head. Everyone still had bones in this movie. There was physics and weight and I loved that.
Trae:Well, the thing is, it wasn't just a special effects showcase. The direction was really rock solid on this. Like I just visually and just story wise, there's a lot of thought going on into this.
Patrick:Very deliberate. he had a vision and it stuck to it.
And it wasn't an easy thing to stick to because it would have been an easy thing to just get waylaid into the plots of these stupid teenagers.
One of my favorite moments is here.
And this is one of the things I talking about letting you in this scene here where Troy throws the car keys into the forest.
Troy (Movie):We're not going anywhere.
Colt (in Movie):Fine. Give me the keys.
Kris (in Movie):I'll go.
Troy (Movie):Yeah. You want these? Go get em.
Patrick:John. Our killer finds the keys. What's on the car keys? What's on the key ring?
Trae:R car?
Maya:Like the toy he had when he was a kid that the logger slipped and hurt his ankle on.
Patrick:This is the one time we see his face. when he's playing with the toy is when he's happy. His head. He has a moment of happiness.
Maya:Sorry I cut you off. You finally see his face, but you still can't see his eyes. His eyes are totally clouded over.
Even when the movie finally lets you in, it doesn't because he can't make eye contact with you or anything. Could we talk about the fireman mask?
Patrick:Sorry, I just want to finish this thought. And I thought this was such a great moment because this is normally what you'd get at the end of the horror movie.
This is the last shock before the heroine chops his head off. Oh, my God. His hideous face. Oh, God. This is what's been hiding us the whole time.
And we're seeing it now when he's happy and not angry and we don't see it again the whole movie. And I think that's such a neat subversion of what you are supposed to get. Maya, please go.
Maya:I just wanted to say we spend all this time looking for that eye contact. And the mask he wears for 90% of the movie is this antique fireman's mask, which is as accurate as I can tell.
I went looking up other antique firemen masks, and it's got these great big bug eyes on the front with little metal cages over them. So it's always like. It's like this distorted face the entire time. It's still a face.
You still have this idea of being observed from looking at that mask. But he finally takes off the mask with the giant eyes, and then his eyes still can't connect with you.
Patrick:Yep. I like that. Even, like, even though he's got this mask on, this is when the movie lets us see it from the other side sometimes now, too.
Now all of a sudden, we're allowed to see him from the front when he's got this mask on. So he still doesn't still like any land in the second half of the movie.
I want to talk about our ranger.
Maya:Yeah.
Trae:Oh, that's the one character I liked.
Patrick:I want to talk about our Ahab. Oh, I Didn't like him at all.
Trae:Oh, you didn't like him?
Maya:I liked him.
Trae:Do tell.
Patrick:Well, I don't know. It's just like. Because he comes in as his hero, I'm going, I don't know who you are.
Maya:He's coming from the third act. Who's done this before. It's the info dump.
Patrick:Except. Except he was in the first act. He was the ranger that was picking on number one motherfucker.
Patrick:I know, but at least we had something.
But it doesn't matter.
But he's coming in like we know who the he is. Which in another movie we would, because he'd be...
He's the Donald Pleasance.
He's the Ahab of the movie.
He is the guy who's been hunting this guy forever.
Colt (in Movie):Listen to us.
Ranger (in Movie):Where did you get that necklace?
Colt (in Movie):In the old fire tower.
Ranger (in Movie):What you just did, okay? That's his mother's necklace. It's the only thing holding his soul at rest.
Kris (in Movie):Then we'll just give it back.
Patrick:You can't just give it back. He's awake now.
I've been waiting for this night for 10 years, since you killed my father. And I put you in the ground once, and I'm gonna do it again.
You remember me? I remember you.
I remember what you did 10 years ago.
Put you in the ground before, and I'll do it again.
Patrick:It's just because we've been siding with John. I'm just like, no, you're not. Shut up. I don't know who you are. I don't know why.
And all of you people are stupid. I hate all of you. And I love the fact, well, they.
Maya:Made a stupid mistake. And that's why he dies.
Trae:Well, actually, you know what? This is for Patrick. This is a one. This. This. This one bitch movie. Troy is this. This one bitch that.
If he hadn't done that, of course he's not the final girl, but he's not.
Patrick:Yeah, this one bitch always survives. Everybody dies except this one bitch.
But okay, but no, it actually is all Troy's fault, so. Which is why I think it's great he's got that...That wonderful rock smooshing.
the Ranger, going back to the Ranger. The Ranger's death with the log splitter is when I go, what am I watching? Why do I like these movies? Why do I do this? Like, if Tipper Gore.
If it was still the Tipper Gore era, this movie would have gotten flagged. We Would have a whole new like, oh...
Trae:Oh, yeah.
Patrick:We can't let our children watch this. This is sick. And it is sick. Why is it sick?
Trae:It's a cruel death. It's so long. But he paralyzes them first. Which I've never seen in a horror movie.
Patrick:Exactly. Like the whole point. If you're going to kill your hero character, we want to see that final fight.
We want to see that fuck up.
We just want to get that "ah no" Moment.
And we don't get it because it's so prolonged. He's crippled, he's helpless, he's paralyzed.
He can't even react to anything that's going on to him. And it goes on for so long.
Trae:He cuts his hand off first and.
Maya:Then the camera never moves.
Patrick:The camera just settles into place and just lets you watch this thing for what feels like 25 minutes. And I'm sure it's only like four or five, but it feels endless.
* Ding dong Patrick from the future here. I just want to correct myself.
The engine on that log splitter is running for 5 minutes and 46 seconds. It's essentially one stationary shot for 5 minutes and 46 seconds. And there's nothing you can do to stop this inevitable violence that's coming.
All you can do is wait and watch. And it's just excruciating.*
Maya:The focus pulls back to the handle on the machine.
Trae:Yes.
Maya:That's the only other thing you're allowed to think about is you're watching the gore. And then you see the choice to move him and redo more damage.
He's going to bleed out. He would die anyway.
But you get to see the deliberate choice to do further gnarly harm.
Trae:Yeah. And then all you see is his eyes moving. That just was heartbreaking with the characters stone still and just the eyes darting.
It's like almost the only thing moving on screen is his eyes.
Patrick:Well, that's because one of the other points they let you win was right after he got paralyzed to let you see that those eyes were still moving.
Trae:Oh, God, that was horrible.
Patrick:To let you know there's still somebody in there.
Maya:Yep.
Patrick:But the fact that he's in there and he can't react, I'm like...
And it just goes on and on and on. This is one of those where I had to switch to clinical. I'm like, yes, this is how. This is how people react.
This is what happens. I tried to turn into a film critic at that point because I could not handle what was going on.
Trae:Yeah.
Patrick:Because this is sick. What we're watching right now is sick in the best possible way.
Trae:There's a book out called Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay. Have you all heard of that? Paul Tremblay is a really popular horror writer right now.
A lot of good books, but Horror Horror Movie is about long story. But part of the book is a script of the experimental horror movie. And then there's a scene where a guy's running from the killer.
He's in his own house and he stops, he's looking at a door, waiting for the killer to show up. And the screenwriter says, I want this shot to take 15, 20 minutes long.
And he goes into a big thing about how long will the audience wait on something before they leave.
And then if you sit waiting and waiting and then the script starts to detail what's going through an audience's mind at the five minute mark when you're still watching the character. And so it just goes into this whole thing. And that's what this movie is like.
Yeah, it's just make like how long can you sit there and watch something before you know, before you get angry? Then you loop, run to anxiety, then to anxiousness.
And watching him like I fast forwarded the second time because it was just so, like it was so hard to watch.
Patrick:I just skipped it the third time through. I can't see this again. Yeah, it is really hard to watch. And it's not because it's loving the gore. It's not that kind of a shot.
It's the detachment from it that makes it so awful. Like the same detachment that made. Well, I mean, it did make the late kill awful as well.
And it's all right because this beautiful young woman, her life meant nothing.
Trae:Well, it feels like you're watching a security cam because the whole movie is perfectly framed. And this is just like a camera been set on the side, almost like. Is that an angle?
Maya:Yeah, like the wildlife cameras we set up in the beginning of the movie.
Patrick:We know nothing about him. We know nothing about him. Why are we watching this? We don't have any feelings.
We haven't known him long enough to have feelings for him, to justify this kind of a death. And yet we're going to sit through it and make you squirm because really this is what you're here for, isn't it?
Trae:Yep.
Patrick:I'm a dirty Voyeur.
Trae:And then right after that, the movie takes a huge turn and then for the first time ever, doesn't follow the killer. Killer.
Maya:At a certain point, we change perspective. So the dumb boyfriend and the final girl show up with a plan. They have.
They have one of his animal traps and they have some gasoline they got from the back of the ranger's truck. And the dumb, stupid, abusive boyfriend, who, like Patrick said we would set up as a villain in any other movie, tries to jump scare John.
Patrick:No, no, no, no, no.
Trae:It's not the boyfriend. It's not the boyfriend. It's the friend she brought with her.
Maya:Oh.
Trae:So I think she's sleeping with him and the boyfriend's upset about it. I thought. That's all.
Maya:No, yeah, yeah, I thought. Yeah. I thought it was a jealous. It doesn't. Again, it doesn matter.
Patrick:Doesn't matter.
Maya:I didn't get to know any of them. There's one of the. The last guy. The last guy from a group of teenagers tries to get the drop on Johnny and immediately just gets axed to the face.
Trae:The face in mid sentence.
Colt (in Movie):Come on, you ugly son of a. Hey, you ugly son of a---
Trae:I laughed so hard to the theater when it happened.
Patrick:I did, too, because. What? They've said it beforehand, like, we're not really quite breaking the point of view.
We're breaking the point of view because we're seeing him from the front. Because the two of them are scrambled off in the woods.
Kris (in Movie):I think we can see us.
Trae:Shh. Be quiet, be quiet.
Patrick:We're on Johnny's face and we can see Johnny hearing their entire plan.
Patrick:He sees us. Shh. You got to keep quiet. No, no, no.
Speaker A:Wait, wait. Where are you going?
Patrick:I've got to distract him. You go to the fire tower and set up the trap. I'll lead him there. It's the only way to stop him. I'll be back. I promise. Spoiler alert.
He will not be back.
Trae:I watch this with Bill, who's like, wait, can he hear them? Like, yeah, he can hear. Those motherfuckers.
Patrick:I laugh so hard because this is driving me crazy in horror movies. I'm like, would you people shut up? Stop talking. Stop talking. Why are you having these long conversations? He's going to hear.
And literally the guy's like 10ft away. Like, I can. I'm. I'm the one who's slow and you. Okay, so you're gonna get to jump on me. I haven't moved.
Speaker A:After he's clearly dead, Johnny keeps wailing on him on the ground, but all of a sudden we get an over the shoulder shot from the final girl and we can see Johnny still smashing his head in. And in any other movie would be a closeup and we'd see every gnarly bit of his face, and we can't. He's out of focus now.
And she puts down the murder tools.
Trae:She sits there for a good 15 seconds as watching. And she's just watching her boyfriend get like 30 hacks. And it just sits with her watching him.
Patrick:And that.
Speaker A:Which is of observing, because this.
Trae:Well, that makes sense for the rest of the movie because she sits there and watches this guy just get opened up in front of her. And like, after that, I'm like, oh, yeah, she's crazy because she's just sitting there watching it. It's not like she sees and run.
She just watches it. And then after it's done, she's just still watching.
Speaker A:It's like the curse has been passed on to her, sort of. It's changed her so much. And she puts down the gasoline in the trap, and then she just flees until the sun comes up.
And then finally she's taken down by an ankle injury.
Patrick:Pardon. Beg pardon. She puts down the gasoline, the trap, and the necklace.
Trae:Necklace.
Speaker A:And the necklace.
Patrick:You can't leave that part off because this is the movie about the necklace.
Speaker A:You are correct. Correct. I am sorry. She hangs it on the. The front of the gasoline so it's very visible. It sparkles in the moonlight.
Patrick:Because she. Earlier, she'd asked the ranger earlier, well, why don't we just give the necklace back to him?
Speaker A:You can't just give him back. He's awake now. Yeah.
Trae:Which is wrong.
Patrick:But why not? But why not?
Speaker A:Couldn't you just try?
Patrick:She tries to wind up, and she just leaves it. Walk, walks away. And I thought that was kind of. I didn't take it at any of that. I'm just like. At this point, she's probably shocked and numb and.
And she. And she's also hatching a plan. She's watching him hatching a plan. She's like, he's really involved in what he's doing.
So I'm just gonna quietly take this off and hang this and make my way. I thought. I didn't take it as that she's. A curse has been passed on, but, you know, again, oh, no. It's all up to the.
Speaker A:I don't think she has Johnny's curse, but I think she's irrevocably changed.
Trae:Oh, yeah, definitely. That's because this is the one minute where the movie becomes.
This is the one part, though, where the movie is cinematic when she's running away because it's cut after cut of her screaming, screaming, screaming. And it felt like a movie where she just starts going kind of crazy and it stops.
Speaker A:Then it goes back you out because she screams. And then it's an ankle injury, which is how we got here in the first place, was an anchor injury to that. Luger.
Patrick:Yeah, Luger.
Speaker A:And then we have that unease of not knowing if she. If it was the correct bargain because it's. It's that, like, you don't get the payoffs this movie. It's the edging. It's. Is he coming back?
Well, we made it into a truck. Okay, but is he coming back? Is she gonna bleed out? We don't know. We don't get to know.
Patrick:We need.
We need to take some special focus on the whole end of this movie because people get the people who really hate the movie really hate the end of this movie. And it's taken me a couple of times to wrap my head around and I still don't think I'm entirely there.
Because like you were saying, Maya, there's this long, quote unquote, chasing through the night. Well, she's running through the forest, but we're not sure if she's being chased or not.
Speaker A:The camera's chasing her.
Patrick:We never see that she's being chased.
Speaker A:The viewers are chasing her.
Patrick:The animals of the forest seem really pissed off that she's there. They're very, very noisy in a way that they have been the rest of the movie. And she gets picked up by a trucker, this lady trucker.
And there's this long monologue from the trucker and the movie.
Trae:10, 15 minute long scene. Because the first time I saw it, I was waiting for the final goal. Confrontation.
Because seeing that, that part of a horror movie from the killer's point of view, I thought was gonna be so amazing. And they don't do it. And they just leave you like. Wait a minute, wait a minute.
Patrick:Exactly. Maya gave us the finger.
Trae:Yeah. And it's a lot. It's like a 10, 15 minute long segment with her and this. This woman just talking.
It's like the woman almost gives like the thesis statement for the movie.
Speaker A:Yeah. She. She tells a long story about how. Well, her brother is also a. Not a park ranger, but a wildlife control. Whatever. Yeah.
And a long story about how he had a harrowing experience in the woods. A bear. Something wrong with a bear.
His office got a call from a hunter, came upon a couple of deer carcass out in the woods out near Port Lock. Bobby took the call, drove his ATV about an hour or so deep into the Bush.
It's where this guy told him, said he looked like something out of a horror movie or something. Blood all over the ground, black bear tracks all dug in the mud.
In the middle of it all was fawn and a 10 point buck torn to shreds doing what it does. Bobby has seen feeding grounds before. This one did not sit right with him. They didn't look eaten at all.
It's like the bear just up and left after he killed him. And that's when Bobby knows something ain't right with this bear.
And the backup didn't show until the bear like drowned her brother from. For two or three minutes. And then he woke up, got some cpr. He's right his rain. And it's all about the inevitable violence that occurs out in nature.
Occurs in the woods.
Trae:Well, she specifically says that, you know, the bear left her, left the brother alone. And she goes. Doesn't make sense. She goes. But then nature doesn't really care about making about reason.
Speaker A:Bobby says that there's something in the field called hen house disease. Hen house syndrome, something like that. It's when coyotes and wolves and such just keep killing everything around him.
They don't go back for food or anything. They just keep killing. No reason at all. Bobby says animals don't get too.
Trae:He specifically says that. And that's what the whole movie's in a violent nature.
Patrick:I didn't recognize her initially, but I said even if you don't like this end scene as a horror movie fanatic, you have to give her some respect because it's the return of Lauren Marie Taylor. Vicki from Friday the 13th Part 2. She's horror movie legend.
Trae:I got her autograph.
Patrick:That's fantastic.
Trae:Autograph. And she was awesome. Girls night out.
Patrick:Did you get her a pair of brown panties too? Trey?
Trae:No, no, no, no. Next time.
Patrick:No. She's one of the most beloved characters in the entire series. So it's nice to see her again. And I didn't recognize her.
I think that's also cool that they didn't. It wasn't your usual horror movie camera like look.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Trae:And she's got a nice beefy role.
Patrick:We get this long monologue and then no resolution. Like, is he coming after her?
Trae:Well. And the movie ends with him stopping again to staunch the girls bleeding.
And she's looking out into the woods and it just focuses on her face and just stops.
Speaker A:She's panicking. We don't like. We. We see her absolute in her bones. Fear that he is still pursuing her. I gotta do Something and try to get that leg to slow down the bleeding. Yeah. Okay. Take me to the hospital. Let's go to the hospital. Okay?
Patrick:Please, please, please, please.
Speaker A:Just take me to, like, a hospital. Please, please, please, honey, please. I know you're scared.
Patrick:And you.
Speaker A:You went through something out there, and I don't pretend to know what it was, but I have got to stop the bleeding in your leg.
Patrick:Okay? So let's go. Let's go.
Speaker A:Let's go. Get in the car and we'll go to the hospital. Please. Easily.
Look at me. I'm going to wrap this around your leg. It's probably going to hurt a little bit, but I'll be as gentle as I can be.
When I'm done with this, we'll get back on the road and we'll get to the hospital. But I got to do this first. You okay with that, sweetie? All right. And then the viewers get this little slice of resolution and no one else does.
Trae:Oh, yeah, the final. Yeah, the final shot.
Patrick:But even then, I realized the final shot is. Can be interpreted a number of different.
Speaker A:Ways because maybe he picked it up to keep walking.
Trae:Because the final shot is we see the gasoline. Can't think. She dropped. But now the necklace is gone.
Patrick:Yeah. So Johnny got his necklace back. Did that mean he'd go back home? Or did. And he's okay now.
He's now back under the ground with his pipe, his little air pipe. Or is he coming after? We don't know. And we'll never know.
And it doesn't matter because the important part of the story is that Johnny got his necklace back.
Speaker A:Yep.
Patrick:This is about the whole movie about.
Trae:A drag queen looking for his necklace that was taken.
Patrick:Well, you know, you never come between a boy and his jewelry, Trey. Never.
Trae:Or his mama's heirloom jewelry.
Speaker A:Yeah, he's Mommy. Mommy and Daddy's special boy.
Patrick:My second watch through, I was really focusing on how this. This whole end scene is not a fuck you, but just refusing to give you the emotional release that you want. You don't get the final chase.
You don't get the final battle. You don't get the final unmasking. You don't get the denouement. You don't get the jump scare. You don't get.
You don't even get the emotional where you're finally with the sheriff, like, oh, my God, they're all dead. They're all dead. And somebody finally hugs you and says, it's going to be okay, little girl. It's going to be okay. You don't get any of that.
Trae:And then they say about their brother who had a horrible experience that just kind of ended anticlimactically because sometimes there's no reason.
Speaker A:Well, he's right as rain now, Trey.
Trae:Yeah, right as rain. Right as rain.
Patrick:She's not even getting any. She's getting sympathy but not empathy from the driver. Because I noticed this last time through, she goes black. Our final girl goes blank.
Whatever the fuck her name is. I don't know. It doesn't matter. She goes blank when she gets in the car.
Trae:Catatonic, pretty much.
Patrick:No, not catatonic. She just shuts down. She's not. She's like, oh, no, it's an animal. No, I'm fine.
Speaker A:Sweetie. Hey, honey, can you look at me? You gotta answer me when I talk you okay? Just so I know you're with me.
Patrick:Sorry. All right.
Speaker A:Just tired. You were limping up the road back there.
Patrick:Just fell.
Speaker A:Can you tell me what happened to you back there? Just in case I have to answer some questions at the hospital? Was an animal? Jesus.
Patrick:Jesus.
Speaker A:What kind of. You're gonna be okay. No reaction for you. I. I have in my notes with three question marks. Are there any reaction shots in this movie?
Patrick:We're not. We're not getting. We're not getting that emotional retelling what's happening.
So we get that all that emotion so that the woman who's driving the car doesn't know what the going on. So she's just talking to keep this girl awake, to keep her from not dying, from bleeding to death. She's gonna keep her talking.
Said, I know she's not dead. So I'm telling you stupid story about my brother because I don't know what else to do. It's just refusing to give you this emotional release.
And then even the end, it's not even going to tell you whether she's going to be dead or not because it doesn't matter because he got his necklace back. And who the is she anyway?
Trae:Yep.
Patrick:We know nothing about her. Nothing about her.
Trae:The movie switches to her at that one moment. Shows are going crazy. And then it just. Like the last thing we see is her. Well, that's last is her face.
And also she looks so much like Amy Irving and Carrie.
Patrick:I just.
Trae:The minute I saw her, I was like, she doesn't look like your traditional final girl girl.
Patrick:She's a brunette because she's a little brown too. So. Which you don't normally see in your Final girl too. Like, normally it would be yoga girl. In your final girl.
Speaker A:Yeah. Pretty skinny white girl.
Patrick:Yeah.
Trae:Because the first time I saw it, I was frustrated because I felt like I left the blue balls because I wanted to see that final confrontation the second time. Now that I know, okay, this is what they wanted to give us, not what I wanted to see. I enjoy it. Like, I respect this movie as well.
Patrick:It's got guts. I mean, it takes a lot of balls to do this, to be able to sustain. You guys all think it's a quick watch. It feels like a two hour movie to me.
And I don't mind that there's so much lumbering and there's no music to help things, speed things along. And that whole end scene just comes to a crashing hall for me because that's normally when I had to pee. Because it feels like the movie's over.
My bladder goes, okay, we could pee now. And then she comes on. It's like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. In the car, I'm like, oh my God.
I had to miss the end of the movie when I saw it in the theater. Oh, no.
Trae:Well, since I was watching this last night, my husband Bill came in.
Patrick:My bladder. Fuck you, Chris. Nat. Fuck you for my bladder. I love the movie, but fuck you if it's my bladder.
Trae:But so I was watching this and Bill came in and I was going to finish it. It was like 30 minutes left. And that was just at the ranger part because he's like, we got 30 minutes left. I'll finish this with you.
Just at the ranger part, I was like, you missed the whole movie, Bill. You missed all the action.
Speaker A:Well, I love what it makes you sit with.
And when we were talking about planning to record this, Trey and I were talking about the, like, kind of choose your own adventure slasher video game Until Dawn.
Patrick:Yes.
Speaker A:Which not. Not as upsettingly, but still, like, puts you in the position of you're the voyeur. You have to choose who dies.
Like, all the audio in that game is designed to, like, put you in the bushes watching the, like the. The killer grip the knife. You can hear the leather move because you're clearly next to him. You're not in with the cool kids.
And it just, it works you through some of those similar. Why do you want to see that? What do you care about this person dying? Why do they get a death that looks like that?
Patrick:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:It makes you sit with it.
Trae:Well, it shows you your choices and lets you know the ripple effect of your choices also.
Speaker A:Yeah. Because you did this. Then this thing happened.
Trae:Well, just I love the fact that thinking is reminding me of the movie Final Girl, where they get sucked into a slasher film, but they find that every 90 minutes it repeats itself. So it's like the slasher movie is a ride, but you've gotten off the ride.
You're wandering around for the killer, and he every so often will, like, get it, get it, get in, like, you know, the perimeter of the ride and you hear the story happening. But the next time you see him, events have happened that you haven't heard about in the. Their storyline has moved forward.
I just thought that was just so interesting and just like, just so well shot that I want to see just what this director does because he has a lot of really good ideas and he knows what he's doing.
Patrick:Yeah. This could have gone wrong in a lot of different ways. And I 100% get why people don't like it, but it does what it.
Trae:Says on the tin, which is like, what were you expecting? Like, this wasn't trying to make it interesting. This was like, oh, no, we're gonna take the hard route of doing this.
Speaker A:No, that's. I think the people who are upset are upset. They didn't get another Friday the 13th. They want another buy the book slasher.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
Patrick:No, there's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker A:Well, they did get one.
Trae:They got a Buy the book slash. They got the. By the book slasher. But from the. But exactly.
Patrick:But we both did the same thing by a different direction.
Speaker A:The German shepherd had tilt.
Trae:Just Friday the 13th, from the point of view of Jason, it would be almost exactly like this movie.
Patrick:Yeah.
Trae:Up to a certain point, from what.
Patrick:I said, there's no character development. They want to be with the teens. They want to get the boob elation on the dock. And there's nothing wrong with that either.
They want to get all the stupid stuff that doesn't matter because all these people are going to die anyway. They want to get all the stupid infighting writing and who's dating who and jokes and dead fucks and whatever.
It won't matter because everyone's gonna be dead by the last real anyway. But I get that we don't. We're not treated to any of that. And I get why it's boring without that. And I.
Because if I didn't know about the Michael Caine thing, I might not have clued into this movie as much like this. It's playing games with me that this. This. This filmmaker knows. I'm not letting you in.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Patrick:No, you can't come in. You could watch from there. You can't come any closer. Closer. You.
Every time you want to emotionally connect, I'm going to smack you back out of the movie. Maya Murphy, something you brought up during this particular recording and you brought up other recordings.
You talk about the voyeurism of horror, and you get off on when it gets called out. What do you mean by that?
Speaker A:So I have to say I have been influenced. I actually got to attend a panel on the voyeurism in the audio design of the video game. Trey and I mentioned Until Dawn.
And it's because when you play a video game, you're, like, implicated. You're making decisions in it, right? I think we're implicated in a different way by watching this. Because when you're.
When you're watching a regular slasher, I feel like they kind of, you know, they played a camera and it's for your consumption, but you don't have to think about it. And when people get frustrated, why are we just following the killer around? This is. This is double. Why are you frustrated? What did you want?
It's about the act of watching something naughty. It's. It acknowledges that you're there to make you think about it.
Trae:Well, there's subtext to everything. Where horror movies are just, I'm going to give you what you want. And here it's.
The director is going to give you what he wants, and you're kind of at his mercy. A little bit more than a slasher film, which is there just to make you happy.
Patrick:It just rugged my head recently because we. I have a frequent guest of the show, Ben Fitzgerald. Fi. Pastor Fabulous. Hi, Pastor Fabulous. We love you.
And during our last recording, we were talking about that movie Lamb, the. The Nordic film Lamb. And Pastor Ben completely took me off guard when he asked me this question.
Trae:And Patrick, this is something when.
Patrick:When you asked me to do movies, right?
Trae:You have.
Patrick:You have a tendency to give movies where I feel like we're.
Trae:We're being asked to be almost voyeurs, right?
Patrick:Like we're watching people living their lives, and it's so uncomfortable because you feel like you shouldn't be doing it, right?
Trae:Because they're sad and there's weirdness and.
Patrick:There'S, you know, so you just want to get out. Like he was.
He was kind of flustered about it, and I was kind of taken aback, and I wish I addressed it at the time because I thought, isn't that horror in general? These are always things we shouldn't be Watching. We shouldn't be watching people's last moments and then laughing at them and cheering for them.
This is a terrible thing to do.
Speaker A:We get to root for the final girl and that feels just and good. We get to watch the sluts get punished because, yeah, you shouldn't be a. Cuz. I don't know. Jesus or whatever.
Patrick:Cuz let's bad sluts are for stabbing.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah. And there's a set path where it feels like it's okay to watch it.
And this takes us literally off that path and puts us on the other guy's path going, okay. What do you actually get out of watching someone's final moments? And I was talking to someone.
I was talking to an actor friend about why we found the kill so icky. And I'm really days later because this is a pickup magic, a theater. I'm still upset about the log splitter and how long that kill took.
Because there's. Of course you can do the gory version where you'd edit it to be snappy. But just sitting there and watch a paralyzed person know they're dying.
And the focus pulls back to watch Johnny pull the handle to make sure we're activating the next log split. And then just. It slowly comes to the like rumbling of the machine. It's moving slowly. It's moving slowly.
It's the opposite of any of his hatchet kills or his pull hook. It's just. It's coming and you can't even move. Why are you watching that? What's wrong with you?
Patrick:Well, I. I've always thought that what Maya says is true, but I always think there is something very voyeuristic about horror.
Like these are things we shouldn't be watching. And we. This movie, I felt, called me on it. Yeah, because one of the things I said to you to would to you two in the chat after it came out.
I said it was a really weird experience because when you've taken away the humanity of everything, you don't really. Because you're not connected to him. You're not connected to the victims. You're not connected to the story. You don't care about anybody.
What's left except this violence. That's all there is.
Trae:Why are you here?
Patrick:Why don't you pay money for this weirdo? Does your mother know? Does your mother know you're here? Maybe you should see some.
I could hear every teacher I had in high in grammar school who was concerned about my monster comic books and said something home. My parents. I heard them all in my head, they all came back.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah. Your parents know you're reading that? You ready for that?
Patrick:I think there's something deeply disturbed about your child. Yes. Please continue, Trey. I'm sorry.
Trae:In a way, I'm almost kind of surprised it took this long to do a slasher film from the point of view, from the slasher, because it's almost such an obvious thing. But then you see how. What a bad movie would make. But also, how many genre movies follow the villain around? Like, in general, they don't.
Speaker A:Well, I'd like to poke a hole in that. I don't think it's from Johnny's perspective.
Trae:No, no, not his perspective, but the camera's following the villain. But how many other genres do you have where you follow, like, how many westerns do you follow the villain around the entire time? How many?
You know, I think they also realize that if you were to follow the villain around these kind of movies, you would not have a good time. It would not be a good movie. You need the hero, you know, you need the levity to watch, to kind of counterbalance it.
And this movie removes all counterbalance. So all you're doing is watching the villain of this show.
Any other genre, I think it would be also kind of depressing after a while because this wasn't just following the killer. This was giving you the experience of the killer, which is very dispassionate because this wasn't just follow the killer around.
This was like directorial choices. We're not going to let you get closer to them because you're following the killer.
You're not allowed to get to know these people because the killer doesn't get to know these people.
Patrick:And I get. There's so much like, people complain. There's so much scenes of him lumbering around, which I get.
There were points where I felt like I was playing Red Dead Redemption again, where you're just riding that horse for like 5,000 hours, going from city to city, city.
Speaker A:That person perspective was very video gamey for me also.
Trae:Oh, yeah. The only time I really felt it was unnecessary is I think after the yoga kill, there's a long switch.
But the second time around, it didn't like I knew what I was in for. But I always felt like, oh, we see what he's going towards. He's chasing someone or he's going to this building. It wasn't like we're just.
And then when it was him just falling, it was quick cut. It was cuts. It was like cuts of every 10 seconds.
So it had length, but it still had enough momentum to it that I felt like, okay, we're moving forward. So it never bothered me too much.
Patrick:And also, that lumbering. You were getting some gorgeous nature shots. I mean, if you care about this. There was one point.
He's lumbering through that field of flowers and the sky's painting pink. Yeah. Like, this is a gorgeous shot.
Speaker A:This is an incredible shot of the sun is coming up. We have our Aristotelian unities. We take place. We get dawn of the third day.
Patrick:Yeah. A shot that should not be in a movie like this. And I think it's an interesting.
Right now, just before we started recording, I think, Trey, it was you that posted that there is a sequel to In a Violent Nature that's been greenlit.
Trae:Yes.
Patrick:How do we feel about that?
Trae:I'm excited. I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker A:I. I have no thoughts about the quality of the sequel. I am happy when people who do brave and interesting work get more funding.
So I am for it in principle. I hope it comes out good. I. I think they'd have to meta another structure to bring me something that continues to be this film.
Like, I think they'd have to go inside a house and do Cenobites or something.
Patrick:That's what I was thinking, too. I was. I'm right there with you, Trey. I say, oh, that's great. Good. Independent filmmaker getting money. Yay. Good. We like that. Great.
And a talented independent filmmaker who had an idea. I'm not sure what's left of this story that we could do in this format. Because the thing with sequels is they have to expand the story.
And in order for this movie to work, we can't have a story.
Trae:I guess this could go in two different ways.
One of them is he has a bigger budget and he's learned from the stakes to kind of do the same thing, but sort of better, more finessed, which wouldn't be interesting, but it could still be.
Or like Maya said, just take the premise, I guess you have the same character, but go a whole different way and still kind of try to exploit comment on the genre the way he did in the first one.
Patrick:Maybe.
Trae:I don't know.
Patrick:Yeah. I'm not sure what else there is to explore, though.
And with this particular story, because it is a generic story and adding more to it, is just going to make it like these other sequels. It's just gonna get.
Speaker A:No, I think you have to pivot and then you do a haunted house where his mom is the.
Patrick:Well, that's what I was going to say.
I would prefer to see him do this in another subgenre, like you said, doing it to a ghost story or doing it to a Cenobite type thing or something like that, because I really don't know what else can be mined from this without it turning into a parody of itself. So. Okay. I think we might have done the movie.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think so.
Patrick:Yeah. I don't know if any of this made sense to any of you. Without. If you haven't seen the movie, it's not going to make sense at all.
Trae:I mean, it's.
Patrick:You really do. I mean, I think it's worth a watch because just to see. See what people are doing out there. I.
I screened it for people who don't know no better the other night, and both of them were fascinated by it. Like, I didn't really understand it, but at the same point, I was fascinated by, like, that's what you need to be. Because I didn't get it either.
Yeah. If you're inquisitive like me, you're gonna go back and watch it again and be like, why did I feel that way? Why don't I understand? Why do I.
Why am I having this weird reaction here and not here? And I. I get off on that. But you can do that in a clinical movie like that, then you can't do in other films, I think.
Trae:Well, the more about slashes, the more you're going to enjoy this because it just has so many little slasher plot points. If you're not used to it, you don't quite get it. But I just loved it.
It just felt like a slasher film, except for the first time, we're following the villain, which never really done before.
Patrick:Yeah. And I'm. And I'm guessing that, you know, Jason's day workday. His workday is mostly just stomping around the woods.
He's watching, he's waiting, and he's just sitting in closets. I'm like, oh, God. It's. It's not all thrills and chills. It's not the glamorous life the movies make it look like. And we don't.
This guy doesn't even eat sleeper poop, so we don't even. We have to deal with that kind of bleach, though.
Speaker A:From the moment he gets out of the ground, he's still bleeding from a wound in his shoulder. We work really hard to establish all these weird texture things with him. Like all the shots of his hands across the movie. He's rotting.
Trae:A glint of metal on his skull.
Speaker A:There's metal in the back of his head. Which I was like, is that. Did they try to fix him when he fell out of the tower?
Patrick:Oh, yeah, they might have. They might have been for the funeral.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Patrick:And then there's also this thing. Okay, this is. This is an author horror movie thing that they don't even address that I've heard people complain about.
I'm like, it's funny that you complain about this here, but not Friday the 13th. Like, if he's a boy, why is he this lumbering 8 foot tall?
Speaker A:I had that question because.
Patrick:Because. Shut up. That's why.
Speaker A:Because it's a evil.
Patrick:Because Jason can do it. So can Johnny.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Patrick:Training. Do you have any cool things going on? Do you have any words of wisdom? Do you have any movies that you might want to recommend?
Trae:No, I miss these Terrifier three this week.
Patrick:Okay.
Trae:That's it.
Patrick:Yeah. That's not my cup of tea, but good for you. I love your bunny. I know. Maya, Art the clown is your friend.
Speaker A:Not too bad.
Patrick:I love him the movie. I know.
Speaker A:He's the nicest guy.
Trae:The movie is if. If Bugs Bunny decided to kill someone. It's a comic book character. Just. I have fun with it.
Patrick:My Murphy. Do you have anything going on they want to tell people about? Do you have any recommendations of something to do or see or watch or smell or eat? Good.
Speaker A:Smell some fresh focaccia with rosemary in it. That's always really enjoyable for me.
Patrick:I like focaccia because it sounds good. It's like, hey, focaccia, focaccia face.
Trae:I got something.
Patrick:Well, I would say everyone out there, if you enjoyed what you heard today, I think everyone out there should join Patreon so you can listen to Dammy Wonka Lewis. Seeing the three of us yakin every month about Friday the 13th, the television.
Speaker A:Series, that would be an excellent idea. You can hear me and Trey argue about Star Trek while Patrick gets lost.
Trae:And also just Robyn. Better.
Patrick:Yeah. Yeah. Because like, it's it. I mean, everybody remembers this is cheesy show. But we'll confirm the past few episodes have been great television.
Trae:Very good. Better than you think.
Patrick:Remember it being. Yeah, And I think that's it. All right, thank you guys very much for joining me. Until. Until I see you at the very curious curious shop.
Stay safe, stay healthy, and stay fabulous.
Trae:Bye.
Speaker A:Bye.
Patrick:All right. That was absolutely fabulous. Thank you.
Thank you again to Trey Dean and Maya Murphy for coming and hanging out with Me for my first venture back into full time podcasting. You know, it was scary, but we did it.
Trae:Yay.
Patrick:And hey, if you liked what you heard, if you liked the three of us hanging out and shooting the shit and being kooky, crazy and super queer, then you might want to check out Dammy Wonka Lewis, which is of course, our Patreon exclusive Friday the 13th, the TV series retrospective podcast where we talk about that crazy, crazy series from the 80s and all the wonderful, wonderful, wonderful wackiness that goes on over there. But in order to do that, you have to become a patron. But Patrick, how do I do that? It's real simple.
You go over to patreon.com scream queens and you pick a membership level and you join.
And not only do you get access to demiwinklewis, you also get access to it came from the 70s, which is where I talk about made for TV monstrosities from the decade where we thought saccharin was a vitamin. And what I've been using Patreon for. What? I have ideas that I want to workshop. I try them out over there.
So you get some exclusive peeks into what's going to go on in Scream Queen's future. Even though there's not much of a future, even though it's the last season, there's still. There's still a future left. Things can change.
Things can happen. I test things out over there first. So, hey, come over there and join us patreon.com scream queens all right, final thoughts on Antiviolent nature.
First of all, I have to make a correction. I realized listening back that we misidentified who, the gay character. No, I know. It's not a big deal because the plot doesn't matter.
Patrick, that you just said for an hour and 40 minutes. I know the plot doesn't matter, but this is Scream Queens, the podcast where horror gets gay. I don't want to go Ms. Gay and people, that's not nice.
We thought it was Brody, the. The pot smoking girl in a camo who got drowned. No, no, no. It's the yoga girl. It's Aurora.
Aurora is the campsite lesbian and Brody is the straight girl who's playing oh, cutesy, will I or won't I games with her. So. So we just had it all backwards. And I figured it out listening to the audio.
When you go back at the beginning in that first bit of audio, when you're.
When you're looking at that square frame and you hear the boys talking about the necklace, one of them Says something along the lines, we gotta go, we gotta get back to the site right now or Aurora's gonna sleep with all of our girlfriends. So it's Aurora who's the gay character, not the other way around.
And it just goes to show what Maya was saying, how they did a lot of inversion with expectations for what these characters are.
In a normal movie you would think the dark haired girl who's not wearing makeup and is wearing camouflage and smokes and hangs out with the boys, that's your lesbian. Nope, it's the pretty petite blonde one. I'm not saying that lesbians can't be pretty petite blondes. I'm just saying movies don't like them to be.
Well, not movies like, you know what I mean, you know, the stereotypes is what I'm babbling anyway. The movie itself I don't really have much to say about. But what I've been find, what I found is interesting.
I pay attention to the various horror groups and conversations that go back there, particularly when people are talking about a movie that I'm planning on discussing. So I've had my eye on in a violent nature chats for a while.
And what I find really fascinating, the people who are the most loud about this, the people who are saying, it's so boring, nothing happens, it's so stupid.
They'll complain about things in the plot like why, why, why is the necklace just hanging there in the middle of on a tree in the middle of nowhere for anybody to take? Why is it in the grave with him? It's so stupid. I said, well, these are the same people who when I complain, yeah, I didn't really like smile.
I thought it was overlong. And I thought all the spoils, I thought all the scares were spoiled in the trailer and I didn't have an emotional connection to anybody.
These are the exact same people who say things like, well, it's just a stupid slasher, man. Just get in there and enjoy the mindless carnage. Well, here you are folks, here's the mindless carnage.
You don't have to worry about the plot, our characters are boring. Things like that. Here's just all the stupid stuff that you want and the things we have to do to get there.
My personal favorite argument is this doesn't make any sense. They say that Johnny was a little boy when he died and now he's this eight foot Hulk walking around in the forest killing people.
It doesn't make any sense. And I just point at Jason Voorhees and go, really? You had no problem with that though, because that doesn't make any sense either.
And this movie's telling you it doesn't matter that it doesn't make any sense because none of that matters. It's all just about whether or not he can his necklace back. That's the only thing that matters. Just focus on that. But you can't do that.
Why is it okay for your stupid movie, but not my stupid movie? You don't want to get bogged down with characters and plots and stupid stuff here. We took it all away for you. Why are you not happy?
Because some people are never happy. In conclusion, it is my belief that in a violent nature is a pure horror horror movie. What do I mean by that?
Well, the Oxford English Dictionary defines horror as an intense feeling of fear, shock or disgust. And that's exactly what in a violent nature gives you. Fear, shock and disgust over and over. And as a matter of fact, that's all it gives you.
If you try to find other things in this film, it will smack you in the face and say, no, get back in your place. Hold on, I'm going to show you something horrific. Because there's no actual scares. It's not a scary movie. There's no suspense.
You always know exactly what's going to happen. There's no surprise, there's no jump scares, there's no emperor, there's no empathy, there's no sympathy.
There's no comedy, there's no romance, there's no drama. There's nothing to distract you from what you said you came for. You said you wanted horror. I gave you nothing but horror. Are you not entertained?
Or as Trey Dean more succinctly put it, this movie does what it says on the tin full and it's very expensive. So I'm not going to do that. So no houses for me this year. But fortunately there is a horror musical that has opened up off Broadway.
I saw it back in March actually when it was testing out at Playwrights Horizon.
But it was such a huge success there, it kept getting extended and extended and extended that now it is officially getting an open ended off Broadway run. And that is Teeth the musical. You might have heard me talking about it on the various social medias. I'm sorry, raving about it.
Because it's fucking fabulous. And yes, it is based on that movie.
The movie about, about the little Christian girl that finds that she's got teeth in her vagina and you might go, oh, that sounds really hilarious. But you know what? No, it's actually not. They made a really Great musical out of it. Like, it's still funny, but it's not a spoof.
It takes the subject matter very seriously. It's updated for modern times. So it's dealing with evangelicalism and purity culture and incels and all this other modern stuff.
And it really attacks the patriarchy in a way that the original movie didn't. And it's really fucking exciting. And the music is amazing and it's scary and it's gory.
And like I said in my videos, it's the end of the world as we know it. The veg pocalypse, and it's gonna be rain and dicks at the New World stages.
So I wish I could play some of the cast recording for you, but, you know, you can't do that on podcasts and things like that. But I am including a link down there in the show notes, a link to the original cast recording on Spotify.
And for those of you who care about this sort of thing, the lyrics are by Michael R. Jackson, who won all the Tonys for Strange Loop a couple years back. So you know what this story needed?
It needed a little touch of fat, black and gay. And for those of you who just were taken aback, that's what a Strange Loop was all about. Strange Loop made Broadway fat, black and gay.
And that's exactly what this story needed. And so there's a lot of. It's a lot gayer before than it was before. And also, it's raining dicks. I'm babbling. Get your tickets.
Go support horror theater when it happens. Especially Great horror theater. I'm going there the night before Halloween. I got tickets for the Splash Zone. Yes. Yes, there is a splash zone.
The first two rows are the splash zone. What we're getting splashed with? Who can say? Who can say? Because they didn't have that at Playwrights Horizons. That's new.
But anyway, Teeth the Musical. And you're like, oh, I'm gonna be in town. You know what? Lots of people coming to New York City for the holidays, for Thanksgiving or for Christmas.
If you're here, make sure that you see Teeth the Musical. I'm sure it's still gonna be running. Cause it was a huge hit. It sells yelling like crazy. Get your ass there.
What says Merry Christmas more than another virgin birth? A God. The birth of a new God. And one that's really angry and really fucking hungry. Anyway, that's enough about that. What else am I doing?
I'm going, there's a museum thing that's happening. It's Some kind of tech museum. They're doing some sort of Halloween thing. I don't really understand it. A friend of mine got my tickets.
I had the feeling it's going to be like there was that electronic Van Gogh thing that toured the country a while back. I think it might be that. But horror there, that's my Halloween. I know it's boring, but so is my life. You know, what am I going to say?
Let me take that back. My life is not boring right now. It's just quiet and it's kind of nice. It might be boring to you, but it's nice to me. I'm babbling.
You know what I think that means it's time to wrap this episode up for another week. Next time, we are finally going to be covering the fantastic punk rock horror comedy Uncle Peck, which is a movie I guarantee you're going to love.
It's available on Tubi and on prime at the moment. So play along at home and check the movie out. And if that wasn't enough, and believe me, it's not enough, who my guest stars?
It's John Hernandez, AKA Stan the Mechanic and Derek Hagen from I Had a Bloody Good Time at House Harker. I recorded this episode all the way back in March or April or something obscene like that. So I've been sitting on it for a long time.
So it is time to let this puppy free. And I hope you enjoyed enjoy it because that's what's coming up next month on Scream Queens.
If this is your first time listening to Scream Queens, I hope you had a fabulous time. And if you did, please tell a friend about it. And if you didn't have a good time, tell an enemy.
And if you really, really had a good time and you want to say thank you, but you don't want the commitment of a Patreon subscription. Well, guess what? You can make a one time donation and all you have to do is go to Bit Ly joinsq Club. That's Join Scream Queens Club.
Join SQL Club and there'll be a tab on the left hand side that says one time donation. You can hit that and you can leave as much or as little as you want us to see.
Thank you and welcome back and I'm glad you're feeling better, all that kind of thing. And hey, give me a follow on social media.
I'm on Facebook at Scream Queens, I'm on instagram @ scream queenspodcast and I am really happy to be back and doing shows with you once again. I'm looking forward to a fabulous final season.
So until next time, my beautiful, beautiful screamers continue to make the world a more fabulously creepy plays? And how do you do that? Well, it's been a long time since we've said this out loud. I hope you haven't forgotten.
We do this by following the Scream Queen's golden rule. Say it with me, kids. Fight or flight. Survive the night. Make it to the final reel. Stay safe, stay healthy, and most of all, stay fabulous.
Happy Halloween, baby. Yes. All of the music for tonight's show, unless otherwise specified, has been written by Sam Haynes.
You can find all of his music@www.bandcamp.com.ew.
