Cutting Deep Into Horror | The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017): Guilt, Revenge, and Family Horror

0:03 I love a good family gathering. You know, that's always nice to be around family. Yeah, I'm glad you could join us, Rachel. We have all kinds of cool stuff planned. We're gonna open gifts, of course, because you know it's festive. Yeah, and uh, we're just we really believe in giving of ourselves whenever possible. Yeah. Yeah. And also, you know, one thing that is a gift is the gift of choice. It's always important to have the ability to choose things. So I know you met Aunt Margaret, Uncle Tom. Yeah, Tom, little Robbie, little Tina, little Sylvester. I don't he's he's a little funny, but he's so Which one dies? Which one dies? Is this?

0:50 That's a very heavy question. I don't understand how that could be complicated, like dies. How your hands are shaking and I'm you're not going to be able to hold the rifle. This is very disappointing. I think you've ruined Christmas. This podcast is about why horror scares us, what deep, dark, secret scary cinema shines a light on. The discussions are frank and involve conversations about abuse, trauma, and mental health. There are also spoilers, so keep that in mind too. Now sharpen your machetes and strap raisers, because this is cutting deep into horror.

1:43 Welcome back, my friends, to cutting deep into horror. I am, of course, your host, Enrique Kuto, here with my good buddy, my co host, my friend of the Fucked Up cinema, Rachel RODOLPHI Rachel, how are you? I'm doing quite all right? You say better than the family in this movie? Absolutely, I mean there's low and then there's this, and then there's this. Yes, so we November ended up being a crazy time. Originally we were going to cover this for Thanksgiving because you have a truly heinous sense of humor. This is your pick, yea. Often we do films I pick, but every now and then there's a Rachel pick, and this one is definitely a Rachel pick. We are covering twenty and seventeen's Killing of a Sacred Deer. The Killing of a Sacred Deer, And I want to mention if you are listening to this and haven't seen it yet, it is streaming on Max with your membership, So if you're a Max subscriber, you could pause and watch it right now.

2:50 Maybe make sure it's been a little bit since you've eaten and maybe you know, make sure you're in a relatively good mood. But it is available on Max, and of course you'd rent it anyway that you rent movies. We are going to be diving deep. That is why deep is in the title. We will be spoiling things. That is the way it is. We like the spoilers around here. Well, we're here to talk about more than just the the coding of the film. We're here below the surface. We want to go. We're cutting deep. So that's where the title came from. But yeah, so we're going to talk all about the killing of a sacred deer, and then we're going to be back just before Christmas with a little holiday themed or to share because last year, one of my favorite episodes we've ever done was when we cut deep into Silent Night Deadly. Oh.

3:41 That was so much fun. That was a really fun conversation and one of my favorite movies of all time. Having that conversation with you quickly made that movie even more special to me. Like now I'm like, that might be one of my favorite holiday movies. I don't know, it's one of my favorite movie movies. The more I dig into it the more I love it so absolutely. But today we're talking about the killer of Killing of a Sacred Deer from twenty seventeen, directed by Yorgos Latin Most, a director who has made a pretty big splash with his bizarre and fascinating films. My favorite of his is The Lobster from I think it was twenty twelve, but he also did Poor Things Recently and Kinds of Kindness. He also directed Dog Tooth, which I saw when it first came out, and I remembered thinking it was pretty pretty wild and good. He is Greek.

4:37 I don't know how you feel about that. You know, we have to forgive people for their. Flaws, Italians and Greeks. Yeah, and he also did My Best Friend, which I have not seen that one yet, but yeah, so's he's a great director. But the thing that shocked you when we were talking about it about Killing of a Sacred Deer and Yorgos was I had not seen any of his other films. No, I have not. You had no idea that this is the only thriller, the only movie I could you could even loosely call horror he's done. Yeah, I bet you thought that this was like his bread and butter. Oh, I absolutely, because the tension is so thick and so well crafted. And I think that because uh, I think the thing that I liked is the rules that he did break versus how he broke certain rules of just horror and thriller filmmaking. I found that very fascinating that that was the only thriller he'd made, because I thought like, oh, well, this is somebody who's been doing it so long they know absolutely when to just go off the rails or to finally grab you by the throat.

5:49 Yeah. And his his repertoire is considered black humor is considered to be kind of what he's a champion of. In my opinion, his films are what I would call their avant garde, but in a like aware way, yes, like as opposed to an avant garde film, a film that's very artistic and very impressionistic, not afraid to not to ignore a narrative. He's much more fully aware of how to tell a narrative, how important a narrative is, and then he likes to go beyond that in ways that I think are very accessible. Absolutely, that's my point is he can make a movie that is deeply absurd, but that I think most people could also appreciate. Yeah, and that's a hard hard line to walk. He didn't do it quite as much with Poor Things, which is probably my least favorite of his movies, but it's still a pretty good movie. It was just a little too long, especially for being so out there and impressionistic. At times, I found it it started to make the story feel threadbare, But I would not describe the killing of a sacred deer as threadbare in any way. No, what caused you to because you, like I said, you saw this first year, the one who's like, I really want to do that on the show.

7:01 Well, we saw a trailer for it in twenty seventeen before it came out, and just the tone of the trailer, I was like, Oh, that looks like something I could be into. Yeah, And then it was actually one of the movies that at the start of Quarantine in twenty twenty, when it could still be kind of fun because it had only been like, you know, four weeks. Yeah, I was trying to, like every single night because I was working door Dash a lot, and like every single night I would try to find a new movie that i'd been putting off and just treat myself to that movie. Yeah, well, you were in the realm, the line of work that many of our listeners are in, where during the pandemic you worked way more absolutely stead of less.

7:48 And there's a very you know, heavy split in our society over who got to work way more versus who had to work way less. Absolutely, And because we're a podcast, a lot of people who listen are people who have the kinds of jobs that were deemed essential. Food delivery, medical care, hotels, things like that. Mm hmm mit. So you one in the side one and the same, we're all we're all part of that. So yeah, So at the start of Quarantine, I finally sat down to watch it. And the first night I went to watch it, I was really tired, and I kept thinking like, man, I want to get into this, but I can tell like I have to pay attention.

8:29 So the next night I was like, as my treat to myself, I let myself get off work like a half an hour earlier so I could have that much much extra time to watch it. And when I was finally able to watch it and pay attention, I was like, man, everything, every single shot tells a story, and the tension is so expertly built because it starts out as just awkwardness. The movie starts out just everything is. Awkward, and that's his style. Sincerely, you're going to notice that because we're gonna you and I are gonna just we're going to watch a bunch of them soon. I'm excited for that. If the way he depicts people is relatively consistent in all of his work.

9:11 And and yeah, everybody seems to have a touch of the tism. Yeah, they're so direct in every way they speak, even when especially when it's topics that are generally high emotion or people just say those without flint chick. Yeah, in his work, that's very common with his stuff. So so yeah, that's that. I instantly like fell in love with it just just for the cinematography alone, but then the story and you know, all of it. And I kept telling you after I watched it, I was like, we've got to sit down and watch this together sometime, because you'd seen some of his other movies but not this one. And I was like, I think you would really get into this because there is so much to it.

9:55 And so finally, you know, it took a few years but then he had a couple of years, the list of movie we need to watch together. It only gets larger, that's the problem. Yes, that is true. So well, we're going to dive into the more specifics of killing of a Sacred Deer right after this quick break, and we are back talking about the killing of a sacred deer. And yeah, when I first saw the trailer, it looked good. It looked scary, it looked tense, but it also kind of just looked like an artsy home invasion movie the way that the marketing was And that's not what this film is at all, really, not even a little bit.

10:45 Actually, well, in a way, and we'll get into it, in a way, the home was invaded, Okay. I'll give you that. Yeah, I was kind of expecting more of like in the tradition of funny game, you know, kind of like this creepy kid is in their house and he's messing with them. Was the sense that I had gotten initially. But it's it's far more complex than that. I get why the trailers simplified it so much, because you cannot get across all the stuff, or even half the stuff that happens in this movie. In a trailer. I mean, most movies you can't get across everything, so you have to really pick. Like the two thoughts you have when you're making a movie trailer are what can I get across in a short amount of time in this film? And then of those things, what is the thing that appeals most to the target audience of said movie. Yes, so they leaned into like the tense horror audience, which I think is wise. And I'm actually curious how it did in the box office. Let's find out real quick. Fine, so it came out. It was a theatrical release. I don't think it was a Actually it was a wide release. Yeah, so it did ten million dollars at the box office.

11:57 The budget information has not been published, which if I'm speaking as an industry insider, would mean that it's a flop. Generally, they don't release budgetary info if they know that the box office isn't going to be very good. That's another weird thing about Yorgos Lentemos's movies. Most of them flop, but they he keeps making really expensive movies. Celebrity actors love to be within his movies. Four Things stars Mark Ruffalo and Emma Stone and like it's like, yeah, major actors love it. Kinds of Kindness has like basically every celebrity that exists right now, And I mean it's got Willem Dafoe and I want to look up the actual list of people in Kinds of Kindness. But like it's which I haven't seen, but I've heard it's good.

12:50 Well, I'm sure we'll be saying it. Well, it's on Hulu, so I do want to check it out. But like Margaret Qually, Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Hunter Schaeffer, Joe, Willem Dafoe. Yeah, it's like like the list goes on. Yeah, like if you were in a major TV series that was a hit in the last five years, you wanted to be in a Yorgos Lanthemos movie. So it wasn't a huge hit theatrically, I'm not surprised because it is a very cerebral, hard to market movie. Like basically all of Yorgos's movies are to some extent. I feel like with Poor Things, which may have been his biggest hit, basically they just kind of went it's this really wacky, quirky movie. Emma Stone is Naked, Emma Stone is naked just so you know it and not like once and she's never been naked before really in a movie. And then I think that got people to.

13:41 Come, okay, good, that would get that would get butts in the chair. I think it more so made people curious. I don't even think people were like, oh, yeah, go see I'm a stone in this movie. I think they were just like, she's naked a bunch of it and it's a weird. Okay, I'll go see it. Yeah. I mean I literally saw it because I was I saw it on a Wednesday night when I had nothing else to do. I was like, I'm gonna go to the movies. I'm gonna see I'm a so naked. I guess hell yeah. But anyway, so killing of a sacred the killing of a sacred deer. I think that the is actually really important in the title, so I keep correcting myself. Where do we start with this incredibly dense, absurdist family horror.

14:27 I don't know. I mean, obviously the opening is important because it starts on a heart surgery. Yeah, we get a very uncomfortably long view of a real beating heart or or some kind. I'm pretty sure it was a legitimate. I think it looked like yeah, because it's very uncomfortable to watch it, and we reveal that our main character, played by I just I just got his name back it, Colin Farrell, is a heart surgeon and cardiologist, and that is really important to the plot of the film in multiple ways. Yeah, and that opening alone, I mean, the first shot of the whole movie makes you squirm and they stay on it for you know, my human brain wants to say like two minutes, but in reality it's probably forty five seconds, which is a really.

15:17 Really long time to watch a heart just well. When you edit films, you realize that, like a shot being forty five seconds is an eternity. Yeah, you know, because when people say, because I hate that, when people go, you know, they are on the shot for like five minutes, I'm like, no. They're not five minutes a very long time. I know it is so long no one would finish it, but forty five seconds feels very long, especially when it's something you don't necessarily want to look at. Yeah, but it's all there is on the screen, and it really does set the tone in multiple ways for what you're about to see. Absolutely, So then we're introduced to Stephen, and this the tone of this movie. Uh, they do such a great job of setting the tone and setting up how different but the same it is going to be from every other, you know, horror thriller kind of movie that you've seen.

16:14 Because as Martin or not Martin, as Stephen and his anesthetiologist Matthew are walking down the hall, it's a very it's shot from way below them, and we're just we're not falling behind them, we're in front of them, watching them walk down the hall and they're just having this really weird, deadpan conversation about watches well. And what makes it even weirder, I think is the fact that they just completed open heart surgery. Because to us, open heart surgery is a big deal. It's the kind of thing that maybe affects you directly once or twice in your life, and not even from having it yourself, but just friends, close family member or friend may have it, or you may have it. But to them, it's it's Wednesday, yeah, you know, And that kind of sets the tone, but it also kind of sets the tone of like they have a friendship that's beyond work, but it is just Wednesday morning. You know, they finished the thing they had to do in the office about how his anesthesiologist has a very fancy watch, and Colin Ferrell has a watch he likes, but it's like nine years old and he's curious about his, and I love that. The deciding factor that, oh, your watch is much nicer than mine is that it's rated for two hundred meters of water of depth and his is only one hundred meters.

17:39 And he's really into that. Yeah, yeah, I don't think either of them is ever in the water ever. I love that, I really do. But it's you know, it's an objector it's a very objective number where it's like, well that. It's yeah, it's twice as much, you know, and I've been bored with mine for a while now. And it's also it's also interesting because that sets the tone of everything that is either mentioned on screen or shown on screen in some way is going to come back somewhere in the story. Because as soon as they get done talking about their watches, now we're at a diner and Stephen there is there eating something, and then this young man comes in, he's probably about fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old, comes in sits down in the booth with him. They start talking and Steven admits like, hey, I got you a gift and it's a new watch.

18:35 So it tied directly into this scene. And while we aren't spoon fed exactly what their relationship is, Steven's definitely trying to be a mentor figure for this kid. But it's not his son, it's not anyone he's related to. It's just they somehow do know each other. No, it's incredibly a fatherly interaction. First question was is that a son? Yeah, because that's he's played by Martin is played by Barry Keegan, I believe is how you say it, it's spelled Kyogan. But he's an Irish actor and he is, in my opinion, the least trustworthy face in cinema right now. Anytime he plays a character, you're like, uh, oh, he's going to be bad news for everybody. He's a great actor. Oh yeah, but he really does have a face that, like I simply would never trust ever. Although in Dunkirk actually I thought he was kind of I thought they actually made him pretty sympathetic. But no, so as they're sitting and talking at this diner, it's very paternal he's you know, he sits down, He's like, how are you. He's like, I'm good, you know how school?

19:46 Oh you got your haircut? And then he's like, do you mind if I eat real quick? First? I'm starving. He's like of course, and he's like, do you have money? Do you want me to you know, get your foot like very that's what made it was. It was the question about like do you have money to get food? Where I was like, well, this is a paternal exchange, very very much. And when they're meeting, their meeting by the riverside and he gives him his gift, there are a lot of things running through my head once you because when you said he wasn't his son, then I stopped asking questions about who he was because I realized then who he was is probably a major story point. Yes, so, because at first there's like all these questions like is he his secret lover? Like does he have like a young lover that he's hiding? But that but it turns out that most of the movie until the end is kind of what you see is what you get.

20:35 Yeah, until it's not yeah, yeah. Until it absolutely isn't. And we'll get into more of that right after this, and we're back talking all about the killing of a sacred deer. Now at this point, even played by Colin Ferrell, has just given a very expensive fancy watch to Martin, and we're starting to understand that they have some kind of a mentor mentee relationship. I do think that I couldn't have been the only person watching it was wondering if there was some kind of a secret sexual relationship.

21:19 I think I think for a hot minute I did too, just because of how how much Martin pester's Steven. Yeah, because it Yeah, I don't think it was initially, but then I did think, like, why is is he like paying him off well so that he won't you know, won't talk about it or you know, but we did get into it. I just assumed gifts. You because give gifts to to lovers, you give gifts to family members, And that's kind of That's kind of the thing is you know how like people pretty much present their paternalism to two types of people, their children or their love. Yeah, you know that those are the people you give that level of like did you eat? You look hungry? You know that's really kind of for husbands, wives, and children to an extent or the gray area in between. So that's why I was wondering.

22:15 And then if I'm right, then he's at the hospital and Martin comes by and to visit him. He does a little bit later, but immediately after that we're introduced to the family. Oh right, right, right of course, and the family very well cast. Nicole Kidman plays his wife, and she is so complex, very well performed in that role. And then their daughter Kimberly or Kim, played by Raffie Cassidy. I had not seen her in anything, that is right off the top of my head. But their son Bob, Yeah, I love kids named Bob because that makes me think of House by the Cemetery by Lucio Fulci. Bob is played by Sonny Souljik, who I remember from mid nineties the film direc To Buy Jonah Hill. He plays one of the main kids in mid nineties and he's really good in that too. He's a bit older in mid nineties.

23:09 I think they came out in twenty nineteen. But anyway, so we meet the family. We meet the family, and the first thing that at least struck me is the family all very clearly care for each other. It takes a second to figure that out, but it does because they talk. So it's so deadpan, it's so it's beyond formal. Yeah, it's beyond formal. There's uh, it's almost mechanical the way they interact something affect. It's like I can't I can't remember. No, but there's there's a name for an actual like specific person personality effect flat effect, where they have a flat effect. And so like everything that they say comes out as being almost disinterested.

23:58 Oh yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, because they've got a flat of and the whole family has this flat effect. But then you realize as they're talking at the dinner table that they are making jokes. It's just not coming off across as jokes. Where the dad is talking to Bob about how he should have cut his hair and he's like, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna make you cut your hair, and and at first you think he's scolding him, but no, like there is just a friendly, friendly. Little extenion like his hair is beautiful, yeah, and the hair like that, And then the daughter's like yeah, and she's like, we all have beautiful hair. You know that kind of thing, and I want to mention, So Bob is probably what nine or ten, Yeah, somewhere somewhere in there, and then and then uh, Kimberly is probably twelve thirteen.

24:45 So I mean, especially because a major plot point is that she's began menstruating. Yeah, so just had monarchy. Monarchy, Yeah, that's the that's the actual term for your first period. Monarchy. See, I prefer mensies because it's fun to say, but no, so, yeah, you're right, they're exchanging things. But you realize that while they're exchanging things. That's why I called it like beyond formal. Yeah, because formal is like, yes, I'm having a good day, Yeah, the weather is fine. It's way beyond formal because it's so flat. But they're talking about consequential things. Yes, Like she just says like I had my first period, should just come out, And you're like, well, that is important and valuable for the family to understand.

25:28 But why did you say it like that? But it's just presented as so yeah, mundane. Everything is mundane to an extent. It's just kind of happening in their day. And we kind of we kind of get tastes of that is, you know, because Stephen he's a cardiologist and a heart surgeon and his wife, Anna is an ophthalmologist. So to them, like medicine is so normalized, logic, logic is so normalized. Like there's such a logical lead driven family. Yes, and that theme does carry through the whole film, but we really, you know, we really see it right off the bat here at the dinner table, and then even later on when Steve and Anna are in their own room and they're kind of talking about what dress she's going to be wearing at a conference that's coming up, and at first, again it seems really just matter of fact, logic driven, where she says, you know, I'm thinking about getting this dress to wear, and he says that one was all right, but I really preferred the black dress.

26:35 I like the way the black dress looked on you. And then you realize, oh no, they're flirting like hardcore. And then she just says general anesthesia and he says yeah, and she lays down in her undies, just sprowled out on the bed, and you realized, oh no, this is for play for them. Yeah, and apparently his favorite sex game is to pretend that she's been an esthetized, which is creepy, weird and unusual, but also like if I'm going to put my human cap on about how weird we are as people. He spends time all day long around anesthetized people. I could see that being a kind of uncomfortable to admit fantasy because it's a power because a lot of deeper sexual fantasies are about power. Yeah, and being around an esthetized people all day you would think, like, you know, I won't do this, but what if I did? It becomes it becomes an even bigger taboo than you know, to somebody who's not around unesthetized people. But yeah, I thought that that gave me a lot of pause too, because that made me realize that that either she is like truly disturbed or they just have which I think is the case, They just have a very good, clear communication to where he was comfortable sharing such a weird kink with her. Yeah, because also worth mentioning they mentioned not only is she an optomologist, she has her own office.

28:04 Because there's constantly reference to I'm having it remodeled, having it redone. And for those who have been fortunate enough to never visit an optomologist that is not an optometrist. An optometrist is when you go to like Myre or not Myra, like Walmart or Lens Crafters, and they look at your eye, they maybe blow a little air in your eye, and they give you your prescription. An optomologist deals with serious eye problems, infections or I almost went blind when I was a teenager. I had a severe viral infection in my right eye and I had just and my my doctor sent me to an optalmologist. And I always say, what's the difference between optometists and optomologists. An optomologist touches your eye constantly to examine it properly.

28:48 They can also do very basic surgery to your eye, usually the kind that doesn't require full anesthesia, the kind where you sit there with your head and stir and they peel your That happened to me. They put my head in a vice kind of thing, and then they numbed me with drops and they peeled the epithelial layer, which is the top layer of skin on your eye. They peeled it off because it had becomes scarred from all the treatment to fight the infection. Oh, so you got to grow a new one. Had to grow a new one, so they had to peel it and then tape my eyelid down so I wouldn't blink and rip off the new the new skin. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sixteen when that's happening.

29:29 And that was after eight months of fighting the infection. Eight months I had eye drops I had to take every two and a half hours, including during sleep, because the infection was so dangerous. I was at such high risk of losing vision entirely, so I had to wake up every two and a half hours while I was asleep to take these eye drops that burned unbelievably bad all night long. And that that was for about three and a half months of that intense level. Then they were able to switch me to ointment for your eyeball. Oh so you got to put it on directly. You put you literally put goop in your eye so that it is covered with this anti viral medication and the whole day your eye is a little blurrier. But people will be like, how do you stand that? I'm like, well, how did I stand? The first four months I never opened that eye in public because it was so light sensitive and inflamed. Yeah, yeah, this is one of my favorite stories to just drop on people because like, what the heck? And the best part and cruelest part is now, if you get that exact same infection, it's a one pill treatment. Oh yay, Yeah, they figure that out.

30:38 Hooray for the advances of modern medicine. They figured that out three years after my infection. Were you just like son up a bitch. The funniest part is the pill. I did a little research. It's not even expensive either, Like without insurance, it's like forty five dollars for a month's worth. It's like it's like it's like the easiest treatment ever. But I was seeing I was seeing a specialist. I was seeing the optomologists so much that they started waiving our copay out of like, we're so sorry because you're here three or four times a week. Well, because it was bad enough, and I'll get off this topic, but it was bad enough that I had to see them for emergency things like my eye would inflame worse and we would have to call and be like we don't know what to do, and they would be like come over right now on a Saturday at one pm and they look at it. Yeah, it got to the point where our copay was starting to add up to hundreds of dollars a month and we had good insurance, but you're not. Generally people don't see specialists three to four times a week. Yeah, it was brutal, but on the plus side, it all started at Christmas time. So when I started crying because we found out that my test results were the worst possible scenario, which was that you could lose your vision from a viral infection, Mom let me open one present early and it was Back to the Future on DVD.

31:58 Oh well, see, there you go. I don't know about them. All things have a silver lining, but we're gonna we'll get back to some less disturbing things at first, with killing of a Sacred Deer really quick after this. All right, so we meet the family. We see that they appear to be actually pretty close knit by and large, not normal. But well adjusted. Yeah that makes sense. Yeah, well it's almost to me the way that your ghost does his movies, especially this one in particular, is almost like everybody is pure in Yeah, like there's no ego or super ego. Yeah, they're there's pure. It's like you're getting their stream of consciousness entirely you're getting no filtration, no human addition to information, it's just being shared.

32:58 Yeah, it does that a lot, and I'm glad you. I'm glad you mentioned that. So we meet the family, and then the next day is when Martin comes by the hospital unannounced to see Stephen. And that was the point where I thought maybe they were like weird secret lovers, because Martin's literally just sitting in the waiting room of the operating room, just waiting for Stephen to get done. And Stephen comes out and kind of like takes him out of the hall, like I told you to call me first, like there's no need for you to just sit in the waiting room for hours on end. And that's when Matthew, the anesthician comes out. Anesthegiologist and adologist, and an aesthetician is a person who does hair I believe, I think so, anestegiologist. So he comes out and Martin starts showing off his watch, and he asks how Stephen and Martin know each other, and Steve even kind of lies and says that Martin goes to his daughter's school and his father was killed in a car accident, so he's been kind of taking a special interest in Martin, and you can see on Martin's face that he knows it's a lie, and he's a little confused why he would lie, But then he picks up on it and he just takes joy in the fact that he's being included in the deception that he just goes along with it, because that's kind of cool.

34:27 Well, and another thing worth mentioning is that kind of made me not think that Martin was entirely a secret or meant to be a secret, was when he tells him, like, you can't just show up here and do that. When he sees that Martin is kind of perturbed by that a little bit, he tries he's like, let me clarify, I have meetings and surgeries. If you come here without warning, you may sit around like it'd be so inconvenient exactly. And I don't think he's just saying that the play Kadom. I think he is, like, that's kind of the main reason that this is annoying is like, I can't do drop ins. I'm a surgeon. Yeah, Like I have appointments, surgeries and meetings and all of those are set in stone.

35:08 And I thought that that was very telling as well though that He's like, no, I'm just telling you it's not really it doesn't really make sense for you to stop by without letting me know first, because I'm just not sitting in my office all day exactly doing all these things. Because he's not trying to keep Martin a secret from anyone. He's just not necessarily willing to sit there and explain like exactly how they know each other, why they know each other, or anything about it, just like this is this is Martin, and I take an interest in him. Yeah, and to make that even more so, although I'm not trying to jump ahead a ton, but I mean, shortly thereafter he takes Martin to meet his family. So clearly, if he is a secret, it's the weirdest secret I've ever known. You know.

35:50 You know what do they say about hiding things in plain sight? I mean that, which is part of this. Yeah, No, you're not wrong, You're not wrong. So then we go to the conference, and what was interesting about the conference is that Anna is wearing the shirt that Steven loves, and how as he's giving his little talk, just how engaged she is, Yeah, watching him. My thought when I was first watching it, knowing that I know nothing about where we're going other than that this movie's going to be heavy in nuts, which does inform your judgment somewhat. I even mentioned to you, I was like, she is so into him, or she hates him with all of her heart, because you only look at somebody that intentful intentfully if you love him or hate him. Yeah, so yeah, she is like hanging on his every word as he is talking about advancements in cardiology to this group of white of mostly white people who are all very similar to them, which I think is an important element too, because it's kind of establishing that this is the universe, this is the world. It's not just that this family, you know, all rank from the same Asperger's Fountain.

37:02 You know, No, everybody's kind of weird like. That, everybody is this way in this world. It's very what you see is what you get world, because you know, doctors are walking up and saying, you know, would you like me to get you a drink in her saying he hasn't had a drink in three years. But there's no like, oh you're so stupid, or oh I'm so insanely proud. It's more of a matter of fact. Like he's made a change in his life for the better and no, thank you. Exactly, very very different from. The way humans interact socially, where we're a lot more careful. We don't want to come across as insulting, even if we have no reason to insult someone, you know, very you know, I mean, gosh, the the dichotomy of human interaction is so unbelievably complicated. It really really is. And the worst part is it's funny because people I'm very I'm good at navigating conversations, I'm good at having conversations with strangers and everything like that, and sometimes people will suggest that it's because I'm unaware of how difficult conversation or conversation can be, or how many you know, faux paus there are, and that I'm not worrying about them because I'm not thinking of them. It's a total opposite.

38:08 I have all of it listed out, I'm very aware of it. I just kind of am confident in navigating it. But like I wish that were why. I wish that was why I feel confident talking to a total stranger, you know, at a grocery store or whatever, just because they're there. But anyway, so yeah, yeah, I think that that conference says a lot about their marriage too. Also, his friends are very friendly with his wife, which they all. They all know her very well, and they all seem very invested in not only her career but also how the kids are doing, because they ask about how, you know, how Bob's doing, and they do, you know, they just kind of drop it again just because it's an interesting thing to be talked about. They're like, oh, yeah, and then Kim had her first period and all the doctors are like, oh, that's good, that's right around the time she should be. That's excellent, Like yeah, and again like and you know, you know my family, I do have one surgeon in my family, and I've met doctors just like hanging out, and it's so weird how health and medicine is just so normalized to them, because that is like the kind of conversation I could see doctors having is like, oh, yeah, my daughter had her first period.

39:24 Oh that's excellent, that's exactly the timeframe she should be having it, and it all went well, tell me about it, you know, in great detail. Well, especially surgeons, Yeah, surgeons deal with patients directly and conversationally and this is a broad statement, but relatively like they marginally less than a general practitioner. Would you know, a general practitioner needs to have a somewhat of an ongoing relationship with you about what your life is like, and when you come into a specialist or a surgeon, it's much more well, your lungs look like this, Well, sometimes I will just fix the lungs and you're like, oh okay. And then there's sleep doctors, which are all directly related to attil of the hunt.

40:10 Is that your personal opinion? I mean, if you want a second opinion, we could try and find you one. But well, it looks like you have a lot of appne as well. You're sleep. This will definitely lead to death, mental issues, heart attack, and stroke. So we'll see if we can do something about it. When we see you again in sixty five days and you're like, cool, I'll have no trouble going to sleep tonight. Wow, feel so much better, I feel so comforted. I feel so great. I remember I told my mother, I was like, I'm just nervous about all this because they told me how bad it was, and she was like, or because of how bad it is that she was like well, can't you call them and try to speed it up because of an emergency. I'm like, well, they described it to me as an emergency, and then we're like, anyway, whenever when we can get you in.

40:54 Oh no, they're well aware of how dangerous it is. They just don't give a. Shit, you know, to them, it's normal. It's every day, it's every single day. So but no, so I agree the the doctors talking to doctor's element is very strange. And and the wife we never anna, we never see her in context of practicing medicine, but we know that she practices medicine, So that's where're saying to we just never see her in a lab coat, you know, ever, right, but we know that she is a practicing doctor. So yeah, it's it's a really great see every there's no wasted motion in this two hour film. Everything you're seeing is valuable to you as the viewer to help you understand what's going to come.

41:36 Later exactly exactly. And that's why you know, I did my thing where I like wrote down the basic outline and everything while while we were watching it. But in some uh, in some movies, like my notes are pretty detailed because I'm trying to really capture, like what was going on on screen with this. I was just like trying to give myself the beats because it is so much more about the atmosphere and what's happening on screen than it is the action. If that makes sense. No, it does, it does. It's a very it's a it's a it's very purposely paced to get you the information the way that it wants to get you the information. It's it's expertly directed exactly. And we'll get into more of that right after this and we're back. So what happens next for us to dissect?

42:38 I break something apparently broke the microphone. You knocked off Dave's mike plate. It's just it's just on a magnet. You ruined the floor of the show. We got to start over now. Sorry everyone, Sorry, see you next week anyway. So after the conference and we kind of get a little bit more of a peek into their social life. Now, Stephen's walking along the river again with Martin and they're just kind of talking about what's going on in their lives, and Martin talks about, you know, friendships. He doesn't have a lot of friends, but that's okay. He thinks it's important to have good friends and not necessarily a lot of friends, and. Stephen and again because paternalism is so important at this juncture, he reassures him. He's like, that really is true in life, which is so valuable as a young person to have an adult say your opinion is not stupid or.

43:32 Rare exactly, and you know what, it's good that you've shared it. Yeah, yeah, because I mean as a as a person who has had it, you know, had a very interesting life with my father, I've learned a lot about how helpful father figures can be when you don't have a very stable actual father, or or when they're absent, whatever it may be. So I I mean, like when I see scenes like that, my first thought is like, man, you know when it's happened and you don't really think about it, but those are like such very helpful moments for emotional development of a young man especially. I mean, I only know what it's like to grow up as a young man. It probably is great for young women too.

44:15 I have no. Idea can tell you, but you cannot speak to that. Personal and you and you have parents who still love each other because you're a show off and a braggart. Sorry, so sorry about it. Sorry, it's all right. Why do I hang out with you? And you and Dave, my my co host on Do You Even? Movie? You both have parents who like still love each other and together? And what is why? What is wrong with me that I picked you guys to be around? I don't know, I don't It sounds like something you need to ask yourself. Apparently in the mirror while I'm putting on lipstick really angrily. Anyway, Anyway, well, and I thought it was really I thought that was very poignant too, because again, and and it helps that I've seen this movie twice now, so I kind of I already knew going into it. The second time, I was like, I need to pay even more attention because I feel like there's even more payoff in the movie than what I got the first time.

45:06 And like I said, everything that's mentioned, everything that you see on screen ties back into something later. And what's really interesting is, you know, Martin has this opinion that it's important to have good friends, but not necessarily a lot of friends, and Stephen reassures him like that's that's good, that's good that you feel that way, and that you've discovered that about yourself. And toward the end of the film, Stephen and his son Bob are talking and Bob mentions how he has a lot of friends at school. It's these two boys and this one girl, and Stephen totally fathers in the same way and says, it's good to have lots of friends. It's good that you've learned this about yourself. That's a good thing. And so I thought it was just very interesting because it was kind of showing like he is trying to be a father to these two kids, even toward the end of the film when he's realized, like Martin probably doesn't need to be on the reciprocating end of his lover affection. Yeah, and you see him kind of switch that, turn that switch and switch it back to Okay, well, I need to give that love and affection to my actual child then, because I can't keep wasting it on whatever it is that's going on over there.

46:25 Yeah. Yeah, no, And when we get into the actual heavy, harsh, brutal conundrum of the film, I have a lot a lot of thoughts about when we get to there. So, so now that he's he had a conversation, there's also one thing that I'm still kind of dealing with, by the way, which is that when he gave him the watch, he mentioned to Martin he got him a metal band for the watch, and Martin doesn't like the metal band, he'd much prefer a leather and he mentions, well, I my thought behind it was durability. You know that they're the most durable, and they are more expensive as well. You know, He's trying to like say like, I did make that choice thoughtfully, and he just kind of like right over it and he's like, I'll exchange it, you know, which I don't know if that really meant something, but I part of me is like, there's something like yeah, which may have been that he was not interested in durability of what their relationship was. That's what my first instinct about that exchange was, because when he sees him again, he mentions that he changed it, which is the other thing too. When he tells him that, he's like yeah, and then he's like, can I see it, Like I would like to see the band, So he's still keeping that interest in him active. But I don't know. Part of me was like, maybe maybe that was a reference to him being not interested in durability.

47:43 And knowing how deep this film is, I could see that. Such a nerd. What a nerd? Push your glasses up, nerd? Perfect? So so yeah, so anyway, So so Stephen finally invites Martin to dinner with the family. When Martin arrives, he's brought flowers for Anna, and he mentions that Stephen mentioned she likes something some kind of flower, but he brought orchids because he thought they would look more beautiful with her eyes or something like that. Right, so, already he's showing that he knows a little bit more about the family than if he was a total complete stranger. Yes, and we don't get any warning. It's just all of a sudden, Martin is now meeting his whole family.

48:25 Yeah, which they don't seem upset all confused. No, he's just like, this is a young man. I'm friends with Martin and I but I love that because it really turns me on my head from everything I'd seen before, where it really felt like he was a secret, it really felt like there was something below board going on, and now all of a sudden, it's like, please hang out with my family, spend time alone with my children, eat dinner with us, Would you like to stay the night, you know, like yeah, which, honestly, in hindsight, after what happens in the rest of the film, kind of breaks my heart because after that, if I remember correctly, he sitting in the bedroom with the two kids, yeah, and he asks if he can light a cigarette, and the little boys like, you know, no, you'll get in trouble.

49:08 And then the sister is like, just open the window and do it by the window. So he's smoking the cigarette and he's given this hilarious talk about like I can't now, I'm addicted, you know. He just like says it so and it's so funny. The sixteen year old kid was like, I smoked a cigarette once at a party and no, I'm addicted. I can't go back. It was the worst mistake of my life, but I can't go back. I'm addicted. Yeah, it's so good. And then so then the the daughter Kim basically they decide to go on a walk, and he gives this weird exchange about like I don't want to walk that I don't like being around dogs because I imagine if it got in a fight with another dog, I'd have to separate the fight and how awful that would be. And all I'm thinking is like, wow, I mean, I know people like you you annoy me, but that's so much extra worry, Like you had to create a whole other dog that does and exist in order for this to be a problem for you. But so they go for a little walk and it's a very telling walk without them actually saying much at all.

50:10 He wants her to sing for him. She won't in front of her brother because she's self conscious. But then when they're on the walk, she's singing for him, holding a cigarette because he's influencing her massively already, So she's holding a cigarette, singing a song for him. They're walking around the beautiful, their beautiful, high scale neighborhood, and worth mentioning takes place in Cincinnati, Ohio. We're in Dayton, Ohio, the Paris of Ohio, so that's about forty five minutes from us, Like we're very familiar, and it was indeed entirely shot in and around Cincinnati. They used an actual hospital. I forget the name of it off the top of my head, because I've never, thank goodness, knock on wood, never been hospitalized in Cincinnati, and they shot in the Hyde Park area for nearly everything else. And we'll talk about what happens when they get back from their walk after this, and we're back talking all about the killing of a sacred deer. So what I was mentioning before was after their walk, you know, they have dinner, yeah, and unless I'm going moving too fast, after dinner, they're all like sitting around talking and that's when Steven offers to let Martin stay the night. He's like, you're welcome to stay the night here. And the way he offers it breaks my heart because he's like, we could very

51:42 easily put a mattress in Bob's room and you could sleep there, and then in the morning you two could hang out. Like he's like, he's so clearly trying to involve him in his family in like a very earnest and honest way of like you could say, the night in my son's room and you two could hang out and you know, have fun, Thank you guys, breakfast in the morning. I know he's a little young, but you know, you guys have fun. You know you're all getting along, you know, And and that just like breaks my heart where because of where things are going because regardless of in my opinion, regardless of all the darkness that's about to be revealed, I think that overall Stephen was not a bad man. No, So that's my opinion. I mean, if you agree, that's fine, but like that's that's my thought.

52:28 But we'll get into that more once we find out why I'm defending him. So back to you, Palomino. So that night, Stephen and Anna are talking about Martin because she is a little bit curious. Yeah, why I've never heard of him until now? And yeah, things like that did you me? And which again to my point about like how I don't think overall he's a bad guy. He is, yes, he is withholding elements in line without a doubt, But he's truthful about how long he's known Martin. He's truthful about how often they see each other. And the thing that really stood out to me as to why where his moral compass is a little better than it could be. When Martin started presenting into his life all the time, his natural instinct was to introduce him to his family, make him less of a secret exactly, rather than double down on the secret or say like leave me alone, you want me to around too much of it or whatever. And I think that's so incredibly telling though, because it just really one of the choices in this movie that blows my mind is his choice to introduce him to his family. Yeah, and which granted was a actually I mean it really would have good way, it would not have helped if he had never met the family, but but yeah, yeah, but like the fact that he was like, you know, meet my family, hang out with my kids, to me is like, is the opposite. That's him going like, I want to be a part of Martin's life. I've made that choice, and if it's going to be more active than like a couple of lunches a year, I can't like keep not answering my wife to what I'm doing

54:00 exact after work or whatever I need to, Like. I don't want this to be a lie. Yeah. Plus, his family is generally involved in damn you or everything other than literal surgery. You know, yes, but that's just my thought on that. So he again he is kind of misleading her on the exact circumstances of how they met, but again he is being honest most of the way through. But then he gets a phone call and it's it's like really late, yeah, and it's Martin on the phone saying, you know, well, I had a great time tonight and I just wanted, you know, to kind of extend the gesture to you. So I'd like for you to come to have dinner with me and my mom tomorrow night.

54:41 And and we we got a hint right before that that his mother something's a little off because he mentions like, you have a beautiful home. I love your neighborhood and walked in it was so peaceful, and they're like, you know, where do you live? And he's like, I live in a in a house on this on the north side, a nice neighborhood house. Well, and when they offered him to stay that he refuses because he doesn't like to leave his mother alone for very long m which I just wanted to bring that up because that plays into him inviting Stephen to have dinner at his mother's house exactly. Yeah, And you do get the idea that Martin has this level of care for his mother because his dad is out of the picture. So that definitely plays into it too, that he's kind of tried to step up and be the man of the house because his dad isn't around anymore, so he takes it very seriously that he's taking care of his mom.

55:35 Well, there are all I mean, if you want to talk about talking about psychology, the psychology of a single mother and a son can vary from relatively great to deeply deeply dysfunctional due to the vacuum of no man in the house. M there are definitely I've known people. I'm very fortunate my mother and I have always had I would say, a very appropriate and healthy relationship, even when we've disagreed or whatever we do. Well, I never felt like so the vibe I get from Martin and his mother is what I'm trying to get at. Is I get the vibe not that she is demanding he be the man of the house, but that she is manipulating him by acting helpless, by acting desperate for comfort and protection. And that is generally, in what I've read and stuff, that's generally how those kinds of relationships happen.

56:39 It isn't the mother going like I just need no, it's them just going like I, oh, the car is so dirty, and like I don't even where do we keep the hose? And all of a sudden it's like you're making your child be the man of the house when they're not done being a child, and you're making them take a caregiver role over you, which is even worse. Yeah, because it's it's parentifying the child. I like that word. If it is a word, it is now. I don't know. Maybe I read it somewhere. It might it probably is a word. I just I just love what I'm like. That's a great word. If it is a word, I like it regardless. But no, so, yeah, he invites them to. Dinner, invites him to dinner. So Stephen kind of agrees.

57:22 It's not even reluctantly. He's just like, Okay, y'all come to dinner, but please don't call my home at like one in the morning. Yeah, like you know, you can't call me the slate. Yeah, it's it's we're trying to go to sleep, you know. So it's not bad, it's just in his. Response to any boundaries he puts up is to ignore them. Yeah. Absolutely, Because at one point he says, like, I'd like to do that, like we'll do it soon, and he says tomorrow night, and he just tells him the time that it's happening. Yeah, that's not cool, bro, because he just keeps pushing yeah, and he. Says like I already told my mother she'll you know, dinner will be ready by seven, seven thirty ish. Yeah, And he's even late out that his plans for the days, like, well, I get out of school at three and then I've got this to do it four and then I get home at five and I've got to take a shower. So if you show up at seven, dinner, we'll be ready. So the next day, Steven's getting in his car and as he's driving away in the garage, he thinks he sees Martin.

58:18 Yeah. So he's you know, even tries to confront Martin about it when they are at dinner, like why did you why did you come by the hospital without calling? And Martin says, oh, that wasn't me. That couldn't have been me. I was, you know, doing the thing I told you I was going to be doing it for. But we clearly saw Martin. Yes, So we are starting to get the tone that, yes, Martin is bad news. And it gets even more clear when Steven's having dinner with Martin and his mom and they're trying to get Stephen to stay even later, and they're like, oh, well, you can watch this movie like it's going to be on TV.

59:01 And it's Martin's favorite movie of all time. You should say the. Big press is that Martin keeps say it's my favorite movie of all time. And I want to mention also Martin's mother portrayed by Alicia Silverstone. Really cool to see her popping back up. This was right at the beginning of her coming back on the scene and really establishing herself as a great mom character actor. Yeah, that's her age range now. I mean people my age remember seeing her in Clueless and The Crush and all these great nineties and early two thousands movies. Really cool to see her in this, and she is playing somebody who is just a little funny, yeah, just off, a little off. And what's interesting is she's one of the few people who does not have that flat effect in the movie.

59:43 She's I would not she is by no means very like flamboyant, but by comparison, she feels very flamboyant with everyone else. Well, and honestly, I think that her big thing is that she is just quiet, yeah, in comparison to everybody else who just constantly says exactly what they're thinking in that moment. She's much more reserved. Almost nobody's reserved in this movie. Well, she's very reserved until after they start the movie, and then Martin says, it's getting late, so I need to go to bed, So. The gates his entire argument that he wants you to watch the movie. And also when he had said he needed to, you know, it's getting late, his mother says like, well, you could call, you could tell them you're going to be later. You could watch it and if you get tired, you could go home and we could finish it the next time you come over. Like she's like hitting him so hard. Yeah, all of these like please do it, And then him going up to bed leaves them aloneardly on the couch together watching this movie. And what happens next honestly won't probably surprise you, but we'll get to that right after this. So now our man Stephen is on the couch with Alicia Silverstone, who, by the way, I double checked during the break her credit Martin's mother,

1:01:14 so I was correct in saying Martin's mom, goddamn right, you were. So they're sitting on the couch together, and it's a little awkward, a little bit, just a little bit, and then she looks down and she mentions how much she loves Stephen's hands because they're so white and. Perfect and beautiful, clean. And clean, and she even says like, I love doctor's hands because they're so clean, and you're like, okay, this is weird. Well, she even references like I noticed your hands when my husband and I. Were we're inspital the time, in the hospital, so we start. That's the thing what I really like about this film is as awkward as this is, and as much as this moment is kind of moving things forward on what's going on that night, it is also revealing to us a lot of their backstory or how they know each other, which ties into how the father died, because she does mention that they saw each other a lot, which.

1:02:17 Means now we're revealing that he was an ongoing patient of Stephen, not somebody he saw because they were an emergency. No, it's it's someone they saw numerous times. And she even mentions that she's lost weight since then, and that her hair used to be a certain color and now it's different, and she's asking what does he think about all these changes, and he's like, well, you look good, I guess, and that color does suit you. So he's trying to be nice. It's desperately trying to be nice. My gosh. So then she picks up his hand and just starts deep throating his thumb as one does.

1:02:57 I mean, you know, she kisses it one time before she literally puts his thumb down her damn throat. And he's trying so hard to handle this with grace before he finally just rips his hand away from saying I have to go. I I mean, you know, the fact that he didn't say at school, what is wrong with you? Is? Is impressive. It very is. It very much is. And it's interesting because we start to see how this character deals with stress and stressful situations, and we realize more and more and more that he does. As much as he tries to protect his family from his emotions, they're also the only ones he is ever comfortable with revealing his emotions as well.

1:03:45 Well. And I think comfort but also appropriateness. Yeah, you know, I think that we don't see he doesn't have a lot of friends. No, he has the doctor friend. He has some colleagues, and then he has his family and he's extremely close with his. Family, extremely so he you know, it gets away. He gets out of there, and the next day Martin shows up and he comes to the hospital to tell Stephen that he's not feeling right and he feels he's got heart disease. So he's not even like mentioning last night at all. He doesn't bring it up. That was not seen in any way as inappropriate to just leave none of that. And this is where we finally get the truth about what happens to Martin. Martin's dad. You know, he mentioned that his dad ate healthy and that he was always exercising, never never smoked, and that's when he admits to Stephen, He's like, I've been smoking and I don't do all these other things, and I can feel my heart, you know, it just doesn't feel right. And and Stephen says, well, you're per perfectly healthy, you're fine, and that's when Martin says, well, that's what you told my dad, and he still died on the operating room and nobody should have died from that. So now we've got a much much clearer picture of what happened, but

1:05:20 it still doesn't quite add up, because again, a healthy person should just wake up from a heart surgery, you know, relatively easily. So to kind of placate him, they run tests on Martin and everything's fine, and they're sitting there talking and Stephen makes him promise to quit smoking, but says, you know, otherwise, you've got a clean bill of health. You know, you're probably just under some stress or something. And that's when Martin invites him back to dinner, like again, like nothing happened. That night, Yeah, for that night, not even next week.

1:06:03 Yeah, just like, how about you come over tonight. My mom's ready and waiting. Yeah, clearly, he says, like I can't. He's like, my mother will be upset, you know. It's like, uh, sure she will be Jesus. So Stephen does decline. He's like, nah, I've I've got to go, you know, I've got something something else to do. And that's when we do see Stephen with his friend Matthew, the anesthesiologist, and we do see them, you know, talking, and they're all kind of you know again, it's they're talking about like medical stuff, but they're still having fun. They're having a good time, and they're over you know, grilling out and Matthew kind of drops that he saw Martin at the hospital, and Stephen, you know, is taken aback, but he's like, you know, that can't be because he's promised me that he won't come by unless he's called me first. And Matthew's like, okay, but I'm just letting you know what I saw, Like I did see him at the hospital the other day. And that's when I feel like that was one of those scenes that was a little revealing because we see that, we see that Stephen wants to believe in Martin. Yeah, and there's enough there, enough history there, and enough guilt that he really doesn't want to believe that Martin could do wrong.

1:07:31 I could see that for sure, which I. Think that that is one of the things, one of the redeeming characters or redeeming qualities of this character a way that kind of makes us feel bad for him a little bit through everything that goes on, is he wasn't acting purely out of guilt. A lot of it was just him trying in his own way to step up and do the right thing now that something terrible has happened. He was trying to be you know, accountable for his actions in his own way, which was just to step up and be this father figure to this kid.

1:08:18 So after that visit, when and again this this movie like it kind of each scene is its own thing, and there's not a lot of lead up between different scenes. So now we're back home and Kim gets home late, and at first she's kind of a little bit dodgy with her with her mom and her dad, because I'm pretty certain that's was that scene just with her dad or was it with her mom and her dad, Because she finally admits that she was late because choir practice went late, but Martin brought her home on her mother, Okay, So she she does admit to him like, okay, Martin brought me home on a motorcycle, but all of us having been teenagers, but me in particular having been a teenage girl, Like, she wasn't late because choir practice went late.

1:09:18 She's late because she was hanging out with Martin. Yeah, and she's trying to make it okay. And her dad isn't necessarily upset that she was hanging out with Martin. He's just more upset that she wasn't wearing a helmet when they were riding a bike and she's like, no, I was wearing a helmet, like Martin gave me his. And this is when we really start to see how much of an effect that Martin is having on her. But we also really just do start to realize, like, okay, Martin is way off the deep end, because that's when Stephen says, well, you should have been polite, you should have invited Martin inside, and she says, oh, I did, but he says it's getting late, so he's got to get home to his mom and so okay, well I'm gonna go up to bed, and then we see outside that Martin's just sitting in their driveway watching all of the lights in the house turn off.

1:10:08 Yeah, and it doesn't get better from that, kids, but we'll find out more about that right after this. So so things are getting ready to escalate quite a bit. Quite a bit. So I always, especially on the second viewing, I found it very interesting that, you know, we see this, we see Martin outside in the darkness, watching all the lights in the house turn off, and that is the point in the movie where it goes dark, and like it gets very dark, very fast and gets very very intense.

1:11:03 You know that first lead up. The first act, you know, was kind of light and we're just kind of meeting the characters and we're kind of figuring out what's going on, and then from here on out it's totally different. So the next day, you know, Stephen and Anna are in the kitchen talking and then she kind of just mentions like, oh, Bob's still up in bed, and he says, oh, well, he's only got ten minutes to get ready for school and get out the door. He needs to get up out of bed now. And this is where we start to see Steven's temper because he's, you know, in his mind it's just his kids being lazy, so he needs to kind of rattle him a little bit. So he's you know, already up there, not quite yelling, but definitely raising his voice for who this character is saying, you only have ten minutes. You have to get out of bed.

1:11:51 You know, my mother and I aren't going to drive you to school today. Well, and I think that, if I may, I think that part of it is that he's like, what do you mean he's still in bed and the mother is like, well, he likes to sit in bed for a little while before he wakes up, like she's making an excuse. And I think that that's what gets his temper to start to build up, is he's like, I'm not being listened to. Yeah, like I'm being explained to why, but like the kid shouldn't be in bed ten minutes before the bus is coming. Yeah, we should be all ready now. So now he's a little keyed up because you know, he's getting told that it's fine when he knows it's not. And and he probably knows that he'll end up having to drive the kid or whatever, or he's worried he will or whatever, you know, but this is a normal morning for now, for now, Because then he goes upstairs and sees Bob, and Bob is sitting up in bed, just sitting there, and he says, you got to get out of bed, and he says, I can't get up, and he's like, right now, you have ten minutes to brush your teeth, eat your breakfast, and get out that door.

1:12:54 And he's like, I can't get up. And then finally, after the third time he tells him, he realizes, wait, what do you mean you can't get up? And boom, he is paralyzed from the waist down. Can't can't feel his legs, can't move his legs. Yes, so obviously they immediately rush him to the hospital, to the neurology department, and they're immediately running all the tests because not only you know, are parents concerned, but again, you and I were talking about it, like, it's got to be even more scary being a medical family, Yeah, because the unknown. Being afraid of the unknown is one thing, but then being afraid of the known is a totally different thing. So if you're a doctor, you're going through all the weird cases you've heard about recently, all the odd things that you know could be going on, all the you know, all of the different diagnoses that kids can't get until later in life because it doesn't start expressing like another parent is just gonna be my kid is sick and I'm just worried, and a doctor's going to be sitting there thinking my kid is sick and here's XYZ what it could be.

1:14:04 But on the other side of that, if you're a doctor and I feel like this somewhat explains Steven's actions until things escalate, you also know how many times people come into the hospital and it's nothing. Yeah, like it's literally a fluke, you know, it was literally what you ate or or something like that. So his attitude is like, we're going to run these tests, we're gonna make sure everything's okay, but but he's going to go home. Ye, like he's going to be fine. So it's it's kind of like a cynical positivity almost, you know that He's like, I see tons of people every single day who literally nothing is wrong with them, mm hmm, but they came in here scared or worried. So I'm not going to be scared or worried. I'm going to be a doctor about it. Yes, And I felt like that was a really interesting dichotomy too, because I know, we keep teasing like things are about to change massively, and in my opinion, his motivation is about to change massively as well. But right now he's still pretty much the character we've gotten to know.

1:15:04 So again the character that we that we've gotten to know. After they run all these tests, everything comes back good, like there's there's nothing abnormal, there's nothing going on, and you know, the doctors are kind of settling on maybe, you know, maybe it's stress, but it's probably something psychosmatic. And Anna the mother. She's a bit more like, well, that could make sense, but I would like him to stay in the hospital one more day, just to be sure, just to be sure that he's here somewhere where he can get immediate care if he needs it. And Steven's more like, well, no, if the test came back good, then why should he be here. Send him home. So he sends his family home. You know, his son's able to walk. He's fine now.

1:15:54 And the way they depict this sceni're about to describe, because he decides to stay at work. Yeah, and he's like, just go rest, you know, let our kid rest and whatever. And they show this incredible bird's eye view of the lobby of the hospital, and as the mother and Bob get down to the bottom of the escalator, they take a couple of steps and he just collapses again. And it made me gasp because it was so effective and I was so worried already. Really incredible moment. In the film, and it helps amp up the tension astronomically, yeah, because you start to realize that this is what the stakes are at this point.

1:16:36 Well, and during all of the testing, during all of those moments they the music is not only tense and threatening, but it's louder than the dialogue purposefully hm, because what they're saying doesn't matter. As an audience, we're telling you this is bad. This is really really bad. Nobody in the scene knows, but you know this is bad. And I really love that element too, when I realized that the music was kind of shrieking fear at me while they're talking about basic things like saying, can you put your heels together? Do you feel that? Do you whatever? But they're like, I'm like, uh, this is bad news, man, I'm scared.

1:17:20 Yeah, it was. It was great. And then to tie it together to kind of juxtapose it a little bit, We've still got that jarring, screeching music going on, but now it's Kim and Martin going on a joy ride on the motorcycle around the town and she's clearly crying. She's clearly worried for her brother. Yeah, but the person that she goes to for comfort is Martin. Well, and a lot of that makes sense because, like I said thematically, her beginning puberty. Lots of familial strife starts at puberty.

1:18:03 H No, absolutely, whether boy or girl, No, because that's when you're you're you're breaking out and you're learning who you are, and you're learning who you are outside of your family, which is an important, an important lesson. Yeah, that's a kind way to put I mean, you're also being pumped full of hormones, chemicals that literally make you act a certain way, even if you're not really thinking that way. They push you and shift you and change your perspective, you know, And and for it to be so new to her and for her to suddenly be like, I like this, boy, my parents are kind of annoying right now. It's very normal teenage girl stuff. Yeah, it's just very normal for a teenage girl.

1:18:52 When Kim gets back her mom, is this this weird scene. Her mom is out in the dead of night, is out watering the garden, but she's like literally standing in the middle of the bushes. Which yeah, I found that really off putting. She's standing in the middle of the garden watering around herself basically. And smoking a cigarette, which we start to see that smoking cigarettes, it may not necessarily be a symbol, but it's definitely a theme that runs that as people are influenced by Martin more and more, they eventually start smoking cigarette. Yeah, I was. I think I agree with you more. My initial thought was that it was a sign of loss of control. Yeah, but the young girl, Kim was not out of control. She was just influence. So I think you're right. I think it's Martin's influence. As it's as the grasp is being handled to all these people, inevitably, basically everybody except Bob ends up smoking a cigarette.

1:19:51 Yeah, pretty much. So she's out there smoking a cigarette awkwardly and they have a very awkward conversation about you know, Bob, and of course he's going to get better. But Kim asks like, have you been feeling stressed? Have you been feeling fatigued? Which is a very odd question, but she keeps asking her family like, have you been feeling fatigued? And that we don't start realizing until a little bit later what that means. But that's also Kim being influenced by Martin. I didn't even think about that, because. She's she's the one that even starts talking about everyone else getting sick in in ways in subtle hints, yeah, before it even is revealed, like that could.

1:20:38 Be a possibilityy, I not. I didn't catch that at all. Yeah, you're totally right. And her mom obviously like, no, no, this is just you know, this is whatever. I'm just worried about about your brother. And the next day that's when Stephen and Anne Anna are discussing Bob and what's going on with him, and Martin is in the room with him and they and he's. He was there when they arrived, he was visiting with. Yeah, he was. He was there with Bob, which again is sweet, but also with the clues that we've been getting very off putting.

1:21:21 Boundaries, no respect for boundaries, family member, you should not be the first one here seeing him. And he mentions that Bob hasn't gone to the bathroom yet, and he offered to do it, but very disappointed that Bob wouldn't wasn't comfortable with it. Well, and then he peed the bed. And then he peed the bed, and he wants to drive home that because Bob wasn't comfortable with him helping him pee. He peed the bed. So, yeah, the boundaries are just not there. They're about to get way way more not there, and we're going to talk about that right now after this.

1:22:12 All right, So we're in the hospital with Bob. We've just had another of many awkward interactions with Martin. M So Martin in the room, he mentions to Stephen that it doesn't matter when, but he's going to be waiting up in the cafeteria upstairs. He'd like to meet with him, and Steven's like, really trying to brush him off, now, brush him off gently, especially since he just showed up in his son's hospital room. Yeah, that's not cool, bro. So he's like, no, I've got a lot of meetings. I'm really I really don't have the time, and Steven and sis or Martin insists like, no, it's not going to take much time, and I have something for you. I'd really like to meet with you. So they go to meet in this cafeteria and Martin gives him his gift, and before Stephen even opens that, he tells him it's a Swiss army. I ruined it. That the surprise for you, which just tells you the level of the tism that this character has. Ye But then he reveals that he's got something much more important to talk about, and he doesn't he doesn't try to introduce it slowly, he doesn't do the because he knows he's under pressure, and because Stephen keeps driving home like I don't have the time.

1:23:32 I don't have the time to talk to you. He doesn't do the regular villain monologue, except for he introduces this whole concept of what's going to happen by saying, we both knew this day of retribution would come. Yeah, And he says it just dead. Dead serious, and no hint of malice either. It's just a matter of fact that this is justice. And he explains that because Stephen killed a member of his family, the only way that it is that he can make it right with the universe, even with the universe, just make it right. And that's what I like about this movie is there is no God willingness, There is no universe willingness. This is all Martin has decided. And now things are happening because Martin has decided. The only way for this to be right is now Stephen has to kill a member of his own family. And in order for that to happen, all the members of the family are going to get sick. And it started with Bob.

1:24:42 And the way they're going to get sick is they're going to be paralyzed from the waist down. Then they're going to refuse food. Then they're going to bleed from the eyes, and then in a matter of hours after that, they're going to die. Yes, And in order to stop that from happening to every member of the family, Stephen has to pick one member of the family to kill and then this will all be over. And finally he makes a good rational decision decision, and Martin is escorted out. Of the hospital by security guards. And yeah, that was the first boat. Whereas like, finally somebody did something I would do, which I call the security guards on. This please, where have they been this whole time?

1:25:23 Well, and he's very direct about, like, you just need to make that decision if you wait too long, you know, because that's why he mentioned like once the eyes start bleeding, it's a matter of hours. He mentions that specifically to help exactly quotes to help to help. In his mind, he's helping because he's giving him a pointer, like you don't you don't necessarily want every single member member of the family to die, but it is an eye for an eye. Yeah, and I know you said you were gonna talk a bit about that. But so he's escorted out and then immediately we find out that Bob is refusing to eat, which is an issue because his mom in his favorite cinnamon donuts and he's not he doesn't want to touch them, and he's just saying like he's not interested in food right now. But again we start to see Steven's his anger come out his ire because he starts yelling that Bob has five minutes and he's going to eat every single one of those donuts because there's no rational reason that he shouldn't be hungry and there's no reason that he can't eat the donuts that he already likes.

1:26:31 Yeah, and he says, like, the reason you're so weak is that you don't eat enough. Yeah, you're not eating enough. So that's clearly the reason why you're not walking is because you're weak. So we're starting to see that Stephen obviously doesn't believe a word that Martin said, and he's trying to prove it to himself by proving that this is something else going on with Bob. Yes, And I think that this is where I got really fascinated with the movie because now you're talking about excuse me, with with that scene in particular, and with his later lacking of patience with his six son, and to an extent, his daughter, which we'll you know, we'll get there soon sooner than you think. This is very The sins of the father will be visited upon the children.

1:27:24 But but in the fully like biblical context, which would be that the father is the shepherd. Therefore he is the father of his wife as well. If you look at like what that meant all the way back then, the the head of the household was literally the father of everybody. Basically that was just the way it was. And that's and and that's what they and that's why we refer throughout most Abrahamic religions it's referred to as the father is the big g because the father is is the shepherd, is the leader, is the whatever. So it's straight up, the sins of the father will be visited upon the children. So the reason I find this fascinating is not because it's it's literally biblical, but because the reason he's angry is the reason lots of people get angry when their children are ill, because back in their minds somewhere they're wondering, was it my fault? I take care of you every day? How did I not know you were anemic? Did I not give you the right food when you were a baby? Did I was it when the doctor said that, you know that formula was good enough? Was I? Should I have talked to more people? You know? What? Did I do? And that's something that people struggle with all the time when their loved ones are sick, but especially when they're completely under your care. And I think that's what that symbolic of of that that inherent guilt that you failed your children.

1:28:52 And that's what really pulled me in on that last half of Maybe Go Whoe is that is that that seed has now been planted in his head and now he is fully worried that it is literally his fault, not because of minor mistakes, but because of literal actions, and that this is a consequence directed at him. And I think that's when he starts to become a very different person, because that level of guilt and shame is sky high. Yeah, that's my thought. No, I absolutely agree, And I think that the next scene really plays into that because I think there is a little bit of a theme the sins of the father, you know, being visited upon the next generation, but also how generational curses work just in general, because the next scene, Kim and Martin are alone at the house. He's just hanging out with her unsupervised, and you know, she's sitting there.

1:30:03 He's you know, sitting on her lap, and they're they're kind of cuddling, and she's sitting there, you know, caressing him, and he's reading something in French, I think, and making what could be passed by robots as jokes. Well said. Well said, uh so they're sitting there and she's very clearly in her pubescent way, trying to seduce him. Yeah, and then she gets up and she undresses down to just her underwear, and she lays down on the bed and lays flat on her back and stretches her arms out and stretches her legs out, and she looks exactly like her mom laying there on the bed.

1:30:50 Not to be persnickety, she didn't do her arms up. She had one arm up and one arm down. Okay, maybe I'm maybe I'm mistaken. I agree that that about the comparison. I just didn't I didn't think it was quite so literally the same, But I mean I absolutely agree. So you can kind of see, like her example of what being sexy is is what she's seen her parents do, so she's trying to emulate that. And there there is a lot of her and or bob Uh and to some extent Stephen them them all trying to imitate what they see the adults doing. And so she's she's doing that, and so that kind of plays into you know, whatever, whatever she saw her parents doing, that's what she's going to assume is acceptable. And that's how she starts reacting even more volatile as the movie goes on, because she sees her parents being even more volatile as as things go on.

1:32:03 It's a really good point. And when she lays there clearly making that, you know, offer to him his responses, I need to go home. And I have a theory about that, and we'll get to that right after this. So here's my my very basic theory. So Martin is leveling retribution across this family, right right. The daughter is in love with him in her you know, insane Romeo and Juliet kind of way, you know, being young and pubescent.

1:32:50 As fuck, so pubescent as fuck correct. And he appears interested. I don't think he's totally disentrat in that, but I think in that moment, at first I thought it was guilt, that he was feeling guilt over what was going to happen to them, therefore he didn't want to get closer to her or whatever. I don't think that's it at all. Yeah, I think that he I think he refused that because he's not here for himself. He's not here for pleasure. He's not here for to meet the woman of his dreams, to have babies or any of that shit. He's here for retribution. Yeah, I think you're right, period. And I think hanging out with her was kind of was never planned, was never and I don't think it was even really a part of you know, I think it just kind of happened. Yeah, and he just kind of leaned into it for a minute.

1:33:49 I think he was almost just being a person for a minute. But I think that that's why he walked away. He was like, now, I'm not here for that, That's like not my mission at all. So Audio, No, I have to agree with that definitely, because Kim catch and feelings for him seems to be part of the great master plan of getting retribution, not its own goal in and of itself, which I think is what you're saying. So yeah, that definitely makes sense, and when it comes down to it, everything that we learn about Martin, his only goal is leveling the playing field the way he sees fit. That's the only thing he's there for. Yeah, throughout the whole throughout the whole movie, and every move up to that point is just him, you know, moving a piece on the chessboard. Yeah, basically, yeah, I would.

1:34:48 I would have to agree. So after that, that's when Anna and Stephen and all the doctors who have been working on Bob are having a meeting and they are are all conclusively of the opinion that this is psychosomatic. And the mom is completely on board. Now, yeah, she definitely, she definitely believes, and she believes that the sooner they get him home and kind of get things as close to normal as they can, and the sooner they get him psychiatric treatment, the better because this is all in his mind, and the more they keep him in the hospital, the more freaked out and convinced he's going to be that this is something serious and medical. And now Stephen's the one who's saying, no, he needs to stay in the hospital because whether he will admit it or not, if this, if he can conclusively say this is X, Y, and Z. Then he knows it's not Martin, and therefore Martin is lying, and therefore no one else is going to be sick, and therefore everything's going to be fine.

1:35:52 There's another side to that though, in my opinion, hmm, I think he also he also is considering the idea that Martin may be influencing his son, because the next sequence he takes him in the wheelchair by himself. Yeah, and he says, let's go for a walk, and he just picks him up and tries dragging his feet across the floor. He lets him drop a few times, trying to get him to catch himself or or do something. And he says like, if you're pretending, if you admit it right now, you will get in no trouble whatsoever. You won't. We won't even be mad at you. We just want you to be back to normal. And he's like, I'm not faking it, and then he it's it's it's a whole bizarre scene. I don't think we can't do it justice to tell all of that. No, No, but it gets really weird, really fast, deeply weird.

1:36:33 Yeah. Yeah, it gets very very dark and strange, which is just the motto of the film. But but I really think that that scene because you got to remember that the last thing he saw was Martin alone with him HM, and he knows Martin's been around the kids quite a bit. So part of me, you know, thinks that he was thinking, like, maybe you're being told to act this way because there's no medical you know, there's no all the tests say you're fines, So maybe you're maybe whether it's that he convinced you it was a good idea, or threatened you, or said he'd kill you or kill your mom, or kill. Me, or said, however, he convinced you. I think that that is why, is what he had to rule out by doing that.

1:37:15 Yeah, and that was. When that's why he was like, you know, I want to And I think that's also why he was like I want to keep him in the hospital, because he was like, this is either he's either being forced to do this or he is horribly sick, and I don't know what it is. Yeah, and either way, it's better for him to be in the hospital than to be at home. Well, and until very soon in the story, he the hospital is a safe haven to him. Yeah, it's a place where people get better. It's a place where you know, all that stuff. So yeah, that's that's kind of my thought is that he wanted to rule out that fear. I agree, But and also. Because you know, if he'd been faking it, it would have not just been a relief that he's okay, it would have been a relief that this is not the sins of the father being literally laid onto his it's being figuratively laid on because somebody he wronged is doing this.

1:38:04 But it's not. He's not ill, you know, yeah, miraculously sick and dying, which is a whole other it's like hard to comprehend. Yes, yeah, yeah, So Bob assures him, I'm not acting, this isn't I'm not lying, and they have that whole weird moment, which is kind of a bonding moment, yeah, in a in a strange way. And then we're at choir practice with Kim, and this is what makes it a Christmas movie is they're they're they're practicing the Carol of the bells. They are, no, they really are. They're they're in choir practice doing Carol on the bells. And then she just straight up passes out and falls over and so now they have two children in the hospital who can't walk, and they're running all the tests that they possibly can on Kim as well, because now it does not seem well if it is psychosomatic, now we have to figure out how to treat both of them.

1:39:08 So Steven's getting a little at the end of his rope, and that's when he goes to try and set things straight with Martin by banging on his door and screaming and saying I'll fuck your mom and I'll fuck you too, just the way you wanted, which what a threat. But it makes sense. I mean, they like, like, it feels like what he wants is to crawl inside him and be him. You know, it does. It does. It's crazy because you know, this guy is like, you know, you have to get revenge. But also I'm trying to literally make you my father. Like it's it's which is strange. It's kind of like those are two odd things. Pick one. Well, you know, so he's you know, he's obviously getting very upset, and that night he finally admits to his wife what actually happened, and they're there in a dark kitchen and she kind of squeezes it out of him. She's like, you know, the whole car crash thing doesn't quite add up.

1:40:20 And Martin's coming around and visiting a lot, what is truly going on? And he finally admits that his father had a heart arrhythmia and he died on the operating table. But Stephen had actually had a few drinks before well. She asks him that, she says, were you drinking? Were you drinking? And he finally admits, yes, I had been drinking. But but it's never the surgeon's fault, he literally says. He literally says, but it's never the surgeon's fault. It's always the anethg. And he's like, surgeons don't kill people in surgery. Anesthesiologists kill people in surgeries.

1:41:06 And we'll get to that. So now we finally have the full picture that kind of the thing. The big lie wasn't necessarily that Martin Martin's dad had been a patient of his, wasn't necessarily that Martin's dad had died on the operating table. It was that Stephen had been drinking again. Yeah, And that was the thing that to me, that was the big thing. That he was trying to save face and all the other lies are a domino effect of him lying to not admit to his wife that he'd been drinking again.

1:41:54 Right, And I think you're right. Part of me thought maybe it could have all he could have also, that could have also been before he'd stopped drinking, but that that was his actual rock bottom and nobody knew about it. Possible. That's possible as well because the timeline is kind of hinky. He says that that Martin had been visiting him for quite a while, but in the last six months a lot. Yeah, so that's where it gets kind of kind of hinky as well. But we'll dive into that even more. Right after this, we are back and now that the daughter is not able to walk, and we're starting to learn that Stephen has made some terrible mistakes in his life.

1:42:40 That's where I start to really feel bad for him, though, because it's not like he's a person living a sinful, callous, killing life for the heck of it. He clearly has an immense amount of sadness over his mistakes. And one thing that really rang true though, just now as we were talking, that just kind of hit me, you know, what he never does through all of this struggle, that at least as far as I recall, never drinks. No. No, he never goes back to it. And you'd think he would, especially when he makes the you know, the final moments of the film, you'd think he would drink. But as far as I remember, he never does no, which is bizarre, not bizarre, but fascinating, interesting, curious.

1:43:33 So now we get that he has been trying to atone for a sin. He's been trying to make things right with the young man, he's been trying to help him. So there's a lot of guilt here, an immense amount of guilt. But I also feel bad for him because like he could have just like shrugged it off. And again, that's what I have insurance for. Yeah, and he didn't. He actually took an interest in this family. Not saying that it's fine what he did. I'm just yeah, like shit happens when you party naked, you know, shit happens in life. He reacted in a way that I think shows an immense amount of humanity, But it would be better if he could admit that it was his fault, and that's something he does not do. No, And I think that's his greatest flaw in the character and that's probably the worst thing about him, honestly, is that he can't just admit, like, I fucked up and the sky died and that's why I put so much effort into helping his family. Doesn't ever say that. And that's really the thing I the one truly, the one thing I truly don't like about his character.

1:44:40 Yeah, well me too, because I kind of felt the first time I had gotten done watching it, I kept asking myself, like, how could any of this have been different? And my whole thought was, well, the only way this could have been at all different is if there were no movie. And the only way for this to have not happened is if immediately he would have admitted I was drinking and I fucked up and I killed that person. It never would have escalated to this at that point, especially because then there wouldn't have been all those teeny tiny lies that he laid on top of it just to hide the truth of yes, I had been drinking, right, yeah, right.

1:45:28 So it's the next day and we've got the two kids in the hospital, Steven's obviously working, you know which, obviously being at the hospital working as a surgeon. It's not the worst thing because then if something does happen, at. Least like he can be there exactly. But Anna's the one who's sitting there with the kids, kind of taking care of them in the room. And Kim gets a call on her phone, and while we never hear the voice, we know exactly who it is because she perks up immediately and she's immediately, Oh, yeah, I'm I'm in the room with my family, and yeah, I can't right now, but how are you? And what's going on with you? And where are you? How come I can't see you? Okay? Oh can't you? No, I can't go down there, I can't walk. Why don't you come up here? Oh? Okay? And then her tone changes and she says, you really think so? You really think I could? Huh? And she just swings to the side of the bed and just stands up and walks over the window to look out the window like nothing had even happened, and Bob says, hey, I want to walk too, and he just falls right out of the bed, And as soon as Martin hangs up the phone, and we realize that he's not out there anymore, because we see several shots where like you can kind of see him out the window, and then once you realize that you can't see him anymore, he's the moost. Kim falls down, so they get her back to the bed, and they get Bob up to the bed. But now it's really looking like Martin does control this. Martin's the one pulling

1:47:02 the strings. And that's when Anna goes to talk to Martin in his mother's home. Right, most awkward spaghetti eating scene. I've heard people reference this cinema on social media before. So he's eating a big plate of spaghetti first thing in the morning in his underwear while he's talking to her, and it's as memorable as you can think. But he shares this this story about how he was always told he ate spaghetti just like his father, and then one day he realized that everybody eats spaghetti that way, and it was almost worse than the day he found out his father had died. And the more I think about that story, the more interesting it is.

1:47:46 Yeah, because at. First it feels bizarre, but he's really just talking about what grief is actually like. Yeah, you know, because it those weird little things do almost hurt more than the loss itself. Yeah, we lost another piece of his father, because now he's realized that that's not that he's not like him. He thought he doesn't actually have that in common with him. It's it's pretty rough, but freakin' Anna is starting to show some new colors because she basically is like, why why punish me? Yeah, she doesn't even say the kids. Well she does, she does say like why punish it? Why punish me? Why punish my family? But a lot of it is like focused on her though. Well, and if I may, sure, but I think from her standpoint, the why punish me is because they're her kids too, so she's part of this punishment too, So why punish her? Why bring her and her kids into it?

1:48:45 Yeah? Until we find out what she says later. Yeah, that does make that a little more complex. Yeah, I just want to float out there. That does make it a little more complex. So so Martin kind of explains, again, I can't stop this. This is just what's happening, like and you have to encourage Stephen to make a decision soon because otherwise both of your kids are gonna die. And that's when Anna goes and she talks. She wants to get more information. She is again she is also a doctor, and and this family is very logical, so she's trying to get a better understanding. So she goes to meet Matthew, the anesthessteesiologist at the diner, and she's asking if he's got any more information on Martin's dad's case, on you know, what exactly happened. And at first Matthew's kind of dodgy and he's kind of like, I can't really tell you, and like, besides, like that is a huge violation. I can't even if I could remember anything about it, I can't tell you anything about it. And she she kind of you know, jokes with him a little bit, and then you know, says like, oh, well, I could you know, I could give you something for it.

1:50:00 Well, he asks what would I get? What would I get for it? And she says, well, you could get what you didn't get the other night, which at first we're like, that's a weird thing to say. It's still weird. It is still what happens even still yeah. It is still weird. And so he finally he kind of finally relents. He's like, ah, well, I guess I do kind of I guess I do kind of remember. So when when could I get that, and she's like, oh, well right now, and then they're just in his car and she's jacking them off as. You go away with words a true poet, and you were not aware of it, And that whole sequence is very strange. I mean, he's telling her the information during the sex act and then they complete the sex act.

1:50:47 And I can't tell if if it's that they've had an ongoing affair or if they're like wife swappers, because it doesn't it seems familiar enough that I don't think this is the first, right, But they don't seem that cagey about it. It's it's just a thing that they do. It's really hard to kind of make heads or tails of that, of course, and it never comes up again in any way, shape or form. So maybe your ghosts has just giving us a little a little uh good luck with that of figuring that one out. Here you go, Uh so, Matthew, does you know kind of remember he remembers like, oh, yeah, your husband had a couple of drinks. But you know, like it is still kind of weird that this guy died. But then he says, but it's not my fault, because it's never the anesthesiologist. It's always the surgeon. So no one is willing to take responsibility for this guy's death, right, which I again, I think that if someone would have taken responsibility when it happened, then we would never even had this movie to begin with.

1:51:55 Very possible. Yeah, so. That is just you know, I found it kind of funny that he blamed the surgeon, Like that's that's the way it goes, is you got to pass the buck to the next guy. So they've finally decided that it's it is best for the kids to come home. Yes, And there's a whole it's it's a lot. There's a whole thing where he's like mad at the dock the staff of the hospital and he's insulting to them, and then they bring the kids home. It's a lot. It is. We don't want to make this like four hour long time podcast though. So that's when Stephen and Anna are sitting there kind of discussing, discussing the kids recovery and and it's late that night. She's obviously like made dinner and like just reheated it for him and everything, and he thinks that it would be a great idea to take the kids to like the beach house soon or the lake house whatever they called it, and he mentions how much like, you know, what would be really good, mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes would be great, and she kind of gets upset with them because because she realizes that this situation is dire now and he's just trying to go about as if this is normal.

1:53:09 Well, in my opinion, he was doing that in his mind for her sake. Yes, he was trying to involve some normality in their conversation, because the first thing he does at that dinner scene is tell her how good the food she made is. He's trying to say, like, thank you for you did a good job with this thing, since we're living through hell of our children dying. Yeah, you know. But of course for her she's like, yeah, but it's literally your fault and I know it now and it gets I know, kids, it gets worse every time. But we'll talk about that right after this. So things have escalated, but they're about to escalate even more so.

1:53:58 Anna finally accused Steve of actually like being culpable, that this is his fault, that his actions are directly responsible, and he doesn't like that answer because that just sounds like voodoo to him. So he like explodes, saying, oh, well, we'll just make a potion and starts throwing stuff around the kitchen saying, well, well, well you know, well, you know, looking for alligatorator and pubes of a virgin and something else. Yeah, like so he makes a mess, and this is again, this is like we've seen him his anger escalate, but this is when we've the first time we've actually seen it boil over. And and once it boils over onto Anna, that's when it starts boiling over onto the kids, because she starts getting more and more short with Kim. So that night they say that it's really they shouldn't be fighting, and they go to bed kind of made up, and Stephen leaves in the middle of the night, just in the dead of night. And then the next morning when he comes back, Anna is like, why, you know, why didn't you wake me? Why didn't you, you know, turn on the alarms. He's like, well, it's eight ten. I've got something to show you. He takes her downstairs and Martin's in the basement tied to a chair, because why wouldn't he be.

1:55:27 I mean, I'm not gonna lie, I'm surprised it took so long. With all that's happened. Yeah, I mean, really, what that is is that's him admitting that he believes what's happening. He finally believes because he's. Willing to take out it, take it out on Martin. Yeah. Fully, So. Anna kind of goes up to do her own thing. It's it's revealed actually that she's cleaning out the car. Yes, which that's the kind of Rider Die relationship that we can all strive for. I don't know if you're going to feel that way in about eight minutes, but because that's kind of the that's kind of one of the she said, like, I'm with you through anything. In the moment that that she heard he fucked up, she was like, actually, actually not not really though, well it did till.

1:56:19 So that's when Martin and Stephen start talking about what is happening, and Stephen, by way of example, says, well, to explain it to you, here's what it's like, Andy, and he bites and he chomps down on Stephen's arm and like bites to draw blood, and he says, okay, well, the only way for me to make this right is to now do this and then Martin bites himself and doesn't just draw blood, but rips a chunk out of his own arm and says, that's what this is is symbolic. Yeah, so to make it right, you have to make it choice of who you're gonna kill. Stephen picks up a rifle and tries to shoot him, but Martin.

1:57:07 He doesn't try. He shoots him in the leg. But Martin. Martin tries to make the excuse like, even if you do kill me, like this is not going to go right for you, You're not going to be able to explain this, and then how are you going to explain it when the rest of your family dies. She had suggested that if he died, they would all die immediately. Yeah, he said that if I die, you'll be wondering how you shot one person. Four people died, which is pretty heavy because he says, like, I'll bury you in the yard on so he's like, you'll need to dig a really, So. That's when he does shoot him. He shoots him in the leg, and Anna comes back down and she kind of, you know, helps out with that. But that's when we go to Kim and Bob sitting in their their new room, that's set up in the house kind of like a hospital room. She's sitting in a wheelchair by the window, smoking a cigarette. So cool because Martin's that much of an influence on her, and you know, Bob's just kind of laying there in bed, and you know, Kim admits like, I think I think Martin's right. I think that if Dad doesn't make a decision soon on who to kill, that all of us are going to die. And and she's like, well, logically, you're going to be the first one to die because you're the first one that showed any symptoms. So Bob, can I have your MP three player when you die?

1:58:32 She she but but we can't do it justice. It's not it's it's matter of fact and awful, but also sounds it's actually it came off more selfish than it sounds when we say it. That yeah, easy, that's simply it's very well, just the. Whole lead up to it, and her just sitting there, you know, smoking a cigarette, not very well no, and then just yeah, I figure you're going to be the first one to die. And it's been such a tragedy. I've lost two MP three players in three. Weeks and how I've done that. Yeah, can I have your MP three player? Well, and I felt like she was kind of suggesting that they would choose her over Bob as well. Yeah, And that was one of the things that was just like God damn, I mean, because because she mentioned that that Martin had told her like if he died, they would all die. Yeah, because she says, like, I know he's alive because we're alive, which makes me think that he's explained some stuff to her.

1:59:30 Yeah, And again I think it's just to get into her head and move that chess piece. And she even thinks that once once the decision has been made and the you know, the curse or whatever has been lifted, she says that she's going to run off with Martin like he's he's already promised her, Oh, yeah, you can come live with me and my mom. So like she's got this whole fantasy in her mind of what is happening and what will happen, and Bob doesn't really say anything about that. But this is when we learn a little bit more about Bob and what his whole motive has been this whole time, because he pulls himself out of the bed, he crawls across the house. Army crawls, grabs a pair of scissors and cuts his own hair, and then crawls himself into the kitchen where his dad is and says, Dad, I cut my hair like you, like you wanted. I don't know why I put it off so long. It's so much better now. And he's just dying for his father's approval, just absolutely dying for it.

2:00:38 And that's when you know, Stephen takes him back to bed and they start talking about the friends that he has. When we see that Steven's kind of recognizing that he had been preferring Martin and he had been devoting so much time to Martin that he didn't realize could have been going to Bob, and that that had that relationship with Martin had kind of put a wedge between him and his his son. Yeah, so I thought, I thought that was very interesting and kind of pulls at your heart strengths for the rest of the movie. And Stephen, after having that moment with his son, breaks down that night.

2:01:24 Yeah, it's the one time he like really cries, and it's a very very. Powerful and very painful. And the next morning he goes to the kid's school, and it's yeah, it's such an absurd scene. It's so absurd. He goes to his kid's school and sits down to talk with the principal and starts asking who gets better grades in school? Yeah, and the principle's like, oh, well, it's really hard to say, Like one kid is doing better in like geography and math and the other kid is doing better in you know, English and science, but they both get like straight a's. He's like, okay, well, which one do you feel is more talented? And the and the increasingly confused principle is like, well, this one is doing better in like arts and crafts, and this one's doing better like in drama in choir.

2:02:18 Like well, then he finally just says, if you had to pick between the two, which would you pick? And the Principle's just like I don't know that I can do that, which is so great, Like it's just so oh man, but that. Is yeah, and any other movie it would be kind of hilarious because it's like, well, who else would you go to ask about. It's still funny, but it's funny in a really dark, dark way. But it is funny because it's like really you go to the freaking principal of the school. Who do you like? Because but that's like, but it's funny, but it's also thematically an act of massive desperation. Mm hmmm, and like almost pathetic. No, no, is pathetic desperation if taken at face value, but it only gets worse. And we'll talk about that after this. So the principle was no.

2:03:22 Help, no none whatsoever. Uh So. Yeah, so now we get a little bit more into the head of Anna. She takes the kids down to visit Martin in the basement, and she treats his wounds, and it was really weird because she also kissed his feet. Yes, and I have an opinion about that. Give me your opinion. Hot so sexy? No, no, uh I that was simply her attempting to garner favor exactly, like trying to offer penance or something, you know. I mean, I mean, and we're talking like old world, I mean, kissing feet is like, you know, it's freaking what.

2:04:09 Ultimate Testament as you can get. Yeah, I mean the only way it would have been more literally like straight biblical, would be if she'd washed his feet. Yeah, which, honestly, I'm shocked it didn't just have her drop a basin on the floor and clean his feet. But they didn't. But she did clean his wounds like clean and treat his wounds, which is for sure very close. But what she did was she put her family suffering family directly in his eyesight and basically, without literally fully saying it, said, please spare my family. I submit to you in every way. You are basically God if you can save my family from this situation. And his response is not really anything no to it.

2:04:52 It's just indifference. Yeah, And the only thing he can say is that Bob's gonna die soon, so they need to make a decision soon. Yeah, And that's where it gets tricky. I don't know. By theory about his involvement in this curse. I don't know. I know, I know because they never tell you outright. No, I love that. I love that they don't tell you. But my question, my thought is does the curse originate with Martin? Or is Martin simply a witness to the curse?

2:05:33 Woh Perhaps for a bigger sense of vengeance, Martin could suggest that he is in control of it, or that he has some kind of special insight, or that he can have any effect on it. That could be a bluff. M hm. He could have simply been made aware by whatever forces are be that like this is going to happen, and this is going to rectify your family lost and that's all he has. He could be playing it up that he knows anything more than that. You know. The reason he was always hanging around might because he's just desperately waiting to see when it starts. Her walking to that window because he said she could. That could have been a total fluke. She had just started being sick.

2:06:19 Even Bob walked a little bit after he first lost feeling in his legs, but eventually he lost it completely. So all he's done is watch them gravel. And that moment when he doesn't have sex with the daughter, what if that wasn't because of my first thought of like, oh, I'm not here for me. What if that was because he was like, I know what's gonna happen and there ain't no stopping it. A So so part of me wonders if he is actually a bystander, because this is beyond people. This is something deeper, you know, you know, this is from God's that we can't even say the names of you know, what if that's what's going on and it's not that it was generated from his massive sense of loss and pain, or it could be that.

2:07:12 I get the argument for that as well, that he is the source of this because he is the only person who knows what's going on. He's the only person who knows the rules. It could go either way. Yeah, but part of me is like, what if this is just the weather. What if this is just a hurricane and all he did was read the Doppler radar. I don't know, but that's my thought on it. I don't know what you think of it. You're allowed to call me stupid only twice per episode, so get your film. Oh man, No, I mean, I'm just trying to find any under any other indicator in the story that it is outside of him. And the problem is like, there is no other source that is addressed in the story.

2:07:53 While there are themes that are mildly religious, there is I feel like any other movie I've seen where does originate from a greater power that is addressed either thematically or in some other way throughout the rest of the film. I get that, but here's my counter to that. There's no example of him actually commanding any of this. He doesn't even say what's going to happen until it's already happening. You could make the argument that he's observing and not participating. That's kind of my thought, Like there's never a moment where he like touched somebody and yeah's sick, or there's never a moment where he said, Okay, I'll stop it for a second and then they were fine. That walking scene, while telling and I could be wrong, was so brief and so early in her illness. I just don't know' that's my thought. But I mean I don't I don't disagree with the idea that it originates from him. That seems to be what everything's pushing towards. But some of the time, it just like I didn't think he seemed indifferent to their plight. I think he seemed powerless. I I because he didn't even really placate the idea or even say like, oh, I just don't feel like it.

2:09:07 He just kind of shuts down once they're begging. Because part of me was like, maybe it's because he literally can't do anything about it. Well, and and to a degree, he does have a sense of now that this is all in motion. There's nothing he could do to stop it. I see that too, because because he you know, again, that goes back into well you could kill him, but then everyone's gonna die, and. Which could aff which could have been. So yeah, I don't know, that's that's very interesting. I just I don't. I don't see it in the film. But if you do, then well no, it's it's more what I don't see, which is him having any actual effect on the situation beyond observing what's already happening. Mm hmm, like he I mean, predicting the eyes we're gonna bleed is the closest thing. But again, it was all in motion already by the time he told us that that was going to happen. That's why it just makes me wonder, because he doesn't come off as omniscient or omnipotent to the plight except when he wants to, which is really just to torment, to torment Stephen, which is the whole goal.

2:10:18 So I don't know, it's just it's I mean, it's just that's the part where I'm not sure, because they never show him incanting in any way, you know, they never show him moving anything into motion. He's kind of there as well, So I don't know. Yeah, because like him being around all the time also makes me wonder, Like it makes me wonder if all he knew was that it would happen someday. He never had any idea when or how or whatever. All he knew was that one day they would start having these things happen. That's why he was always hanging around, why he was sneaking around while he was constantly bugging him, because he's like, it's got to happen. It's gonna happen, and I want to know when it's happening. And then maybe maybe that's why things got messy with the daughter, because maybe he thought he was never even going to meet the family that it was just because it was already, it was already in motion. And maybe he's maybe maybe it's a split the difference. Maybe he is the catalyst, but he is not literally the commander. You know. Maybe he, you know, somehow put into the universe that this needs to happen, but he's not like able to sit there and be like, and it needs to happen on Wednesday, and then she needs to walk again, and then this, and that's that's kind of my other thought.

2:11:40 Well, and the thing about the thing about like old the old concept of curses is even if you do enact the curse, you do not have control over the curse. The curse is its own thing. So that plays into what you are saying. I just don't see there's like a bigger power that's enacting this in the universe. I didn't say that at all. I actually was actually to me him being behind it is a power. I'm saying that it's literally the weather mm hmm. That it's just like it's like a hurricane. Yeah, there's something behind it. It's just happening, and he's been forewarned about it because for some reason, and that's why he's able to know it. Yeah, that was kind of my point is that there is no I don't know where you got this abrahamic aside to it, because I wasn't thinking that at all. My point was that there's even less thought behind this, that it's even less of a of a of a reality of thought, of a person of attention. That's kind of what my point was.

2:12:44 Yeah, Okay, I see what you're saying. Okay, fine, looking at me like I'm so stupid. Well, we're going to take a break and when we get back, Rachel's going to learn to respect me. Just kidding, all right. So we're back and heading into the conclusion of the killing of a sacred deer and things are getting really messy now. So to make things even messier, that night, Anna tries to seduce Stephen and at first we don't quite get why, because I get like, yeah, it could be fun, but there's a lot of heavy stuff going on in the family, so this seems like an odd time to choose sexy time.

2:13:38 And you know, he kind of declines, and she finally just lays it out to him. She says, I think we should kill one of the children because there's still two of us and I'm still able to have children, and you're still able to have children, so we can just make another one. And this is why I have my feelings about her, because that's where she lands because to be frank, and maybe this is because my mom was very vocal about how myself and my sister were more important than anything on the earth. The way I was taught, my mom would have volunteered to die for her children. That's that's the way. That's I'm not saying my mom would, but that's my mother taught me. That's the way the world should work in that that's that's compassion. That's moral to die for your children, if that, if that were a choice. Yeah, my mom taught me that. So that's so that became my instinct because that's how I was I was raised.

2:14:37 Her laying naked with him is two things to me. Number one, an act, the final act of desperation. She literally threw herself at the feet of who she believed was trying to kill them, before throwing herself at the feet of her own friggin' husband because she's realized, now, you're my only hope, which granted, you know, she did hope that no one would have to die on the other version, or maybe only he would have to die, you know, I'm sure she would have traded his life, no problem. Yeah, But so that's number one. She's trying to gain his garner his favor in the most shallow way.

2:15:18 And that's the part that really blows my mind. She thinks so little of him at this point in the story that she's like, oh, well, he'll still want to bang and he likes that, right, because he's a heartless, dumb man brute. The last thing on his mind is sex. The last thing on his mind is anything not literally related to the people living in his home. He is like that blew my mind. That, like she's so desperate that she's just kind of like, well, he's a caveman, right, Like this will make him like me, very sad in every direction. Oh yeah, yeah no, And I think it's supposed to play on that.

2:15:59 I think so too. Oh. Absolutely, desperation is the key element. Yeah, you know, she's just desperate and clueless. Clueless is harsh. What I mean is like there's like she is completely and utterly out of ideas. Yeah, there's nothing else left to do. Yeah, she's got nothing. Yeah. Yeah's it's like absolutely and that that plays into this next sequence because in the next sequence, it's kind of all jumbled up. At first, we see Kim going downstairs to talk to Martin by herself and kind of dragging herself along the floor, and then we see her being held by her dad in the living room on the couch and her knees are all scraped up and she's saying, you know, I would die for you. You need to make this decision and you should kill me because I love you so much, basically, And we keep getting bits and pieces of this scene and we realize that Kim's gone downstairs to talk to Martin to kind of plead with him in her own way, and that's when she finally realizes, like he does not have any feelings for her whatsoever, you know, kind of like what you said, this is all just the weather to him, this is just happening.

2:17:12 Well. And after being tied in the basement and tortured, I have a feeling that if he did have some actual, soft, squeaky human feelings about much, you can get access right now no more. Yah. Yeah. So after, you know, after he's kind of denied her, is when Kim just tried to take off on her own and ended up scraping up her knees, and that's when she's pleading with her dad, like please choose me and and for me. I kind of got the feeling that was kind of also the teenage angst and desperation of being like, I just can't take it anymore because this one person I like doesn't like me. It's kind of her acting out, but she does clearly love her family, it's just this insistent that she loves her family so much that that's why this decision needs to be made.

2:18:07 Let me tell you my cynical viewpoint of this, based on being a relative, a somewhat only child. Not really, my sister was not around very much because she was much older than me. But I read it as now that he's not going to save me, I need to beg Daddy to save me, and saying you should kill me is the best way to not be the one who gets killed. That was the way I read it. I read it as as if I am the most pious. I love that word. If I am the most pious, then I will be fine because you know, there's that whole joke though, where it's like, well, what was it? What was that cartoon? There was some cartoon where it was like where it was like, well, I don't even need anything for Christmas. I'll be fine. See, I'm gonna get twice as much now because I said the good thing, you know.

2:18:55 Yeah, yeah, I gave the good response, So now I'm going to get what I want. Said the thing that's morally right, so I'll get way more reward. And that was kind of what I got from her because she was very like, all of a sudden, she's not a burgeoning young woman who needs to make choices for herself like smoking cigarettes and riding on motorcycles. Now, all of a sudden, she's Daddy's little girl again. And Daddy, I love you all so much that if you want to kill me, I would never be mad at you for it. Yeah, no, I get that, but I'm not. Saying I'm completely right, But that was the way I read it. No, I could see so because I am a bad person and I don't trust anybody. Apparently both hands wearing see them. Thank you.

2:19:38 So we have that little sequence, and then we're starting to get toward the final moments of the film, because then we go and we see Bob it's just sitting there listening to his MP three player for now, for Now, and start to bleed pretty profusely and it's not subtle. So Stephen goes and is like wiping off his eyes, and they have kind of this heart felt moment where he's trying to promise that nobody in the family is going to die, but he can't really make that promise because he doesn't even know what's going on. Anymore, and he's out of options. So he runs and he asks Anna where Martin is because he's not in the basement anymore, and she just admits, I let him go, like there was no reason for us to do this, and we need to all just get over this, and we need to make a decision fast, because holding him captive wasn't doing anything well.

2:20:50 But she doesn't even know yet that Bob is going to die in a matter of hours now, because then he tells her Bob's eyes are bleeding. That moment when he's cleaning Bob's eyes, I believe was when he entered acceptance, and when it dawned on me that the entire family is going through literally the stages of grief, the traditional stages of grief, because they bargained, they got angry, and in that moment, he reached acceptance. I don't feel like the family reached it with Stephen, but that's because, unfortunately, I think one of the big elements of this movie is that it really doesn't matter what any of them think, because it's up to him, and that is the cruelty for all of them, especially Stephen. Not even I would say he's suffering more than all of them. Yeah, because he's the one who has to make the impossible choice.

2:21:45 The impossible choice so impossible that it's literally the cliche like example you give when you're trying to explain what an impossible choice is, like, like a father having to choose what family member has to die so that the rest of you live. That's so oddly specific. It's the hypothetical we all go for when we want to describe something being impossible to choose. So that moment, I think that's he not only accepts that this is going to happen, but he accepts that this is entirely up to him, that this will always level on him, and that if something isn't done, worse things will happen. And in that way, he does the ultimate dad thing. He's going to sacrifice it of himself for them now by sacrificing one of them, which is messy, it's a very messy concept. But he's the one who have to live for the rest of his life knowing that he did that. They'll have to live knowing he did that.

2:22:38 But that's way less of a pain than doing it. Bah. I mean, it's so so sad and painful. So at that moment. Shortly thereafter, he goes to his wife. He says, I meet me down in the living room. We need to talk right now. And she says, okay, well, I'm going to put on that dress you like. And he's like, I don't care what you wear, just make it quick. And she's where are the kids. He's like, they're already down there. And what we see next shocked me. And that's why I'm putting a commercial here, hah. So here we go. We now see that the whole family are tied up and their mouths are duct taped shut. On the couch. There's Bob on two chairs across from each other.

2:23:40 You have the daughter and the mother. I thought the mouths being taped shut was a really brilliant decision artistically, I mean because and literally I mean for the character, because at this point he's put it off so long that it's almost over for Bob, which you know which, And because it's important to remember that in this curse, it doesn't count if Bob dies from the. Curse, yeah, because it's still just gonna keep going. Then it'll keep going. So if he doesn't decide soon, he's gonna lose two family members. In order to stop this. So I feel like that's why there they're gag too.

2:24:22 Is He's like, I can't hear any more arguments, I can't hear any more questions any more begging anything. It happens, right, very very Dad on vacation. No no, no, no, no, no, no, no more sodas, No more this. We're in the car, we're on our way seven point thirty. Except it's about murdering somebody. So but I'm laughing, you know, it's gonna be so sad. So we see that he has a rifle, the rifle that he had almost killed Martin with, and he takes his his knitted hat, pulls it over, pulls it over his eyes, and starts spinning in a circle and then firing the gun. This is a great example of the kind of dark humor you get from your ghost because while this is a very heavy, painful, awful, truly heinous scene, that's silly.

2:25:15 It is it is. It's a childish solution, and it's not. Played up as silly. But there are silly moments as he's sitting there, you know, like spinning around any almost trips. Yeah, Well that's the point is it doesn't matter. It doesn't have to be it is. The concept is silly in and of itself. Yes, the context is not, but the concept is if that makes I think that's the way that does make. So, like, contextually, this is what you have to do, but conceptually this is ridiculous. Also, you know, they're all spaced out like eight or nine feet apart, so like the likelihood of getting a hit is really slip. Well, but he's decided that the only way that he can do this in the time This is the way I interpreted it. The only way he could do this in the time allotted was this way. Oh yeah, because there was no way in an hour he was going to make a decision probably never would ever at all.

2:26:07 So he's like, I'm gonna make it random and then just live with it. That's the sense I got. No, I absolutely agree, because he had done all the deliberating and he's done all the consideration, and he is a very logical person. So it's not like, you know, this can be for him just a flippant decision. It had to be fully considered. But the problem is he is so paralyzed by that that the only way to do it is random chance and the only thing he can think of is basically the rifle version of Duc duck Goose.

2:26:48 I feel like there's actually a game that's exactly what they're doing, and I can't think of it, like where somebody's blindfolded and has to like but yeah, right, but duck nut Goose is not a bad example. So yeah, he's spins fires the gun, just barely misses. His daughter, takes up the hood, sees what happened, cocks the gun, pulls it back down, tries again, just barely misses. His wife, takes off the hood, sees what's happening again, spins fires, and oh and I forget to mention he covers their faces, which is another kindness of him, even though him missing twice mat didn't, you know, negates a lot of the the suffering from fear. He was trying to spare them.

2:27:34 Yeah, he really was. And I think and I think that when he conceptualized it, he thought it would work smoothly. Yeah, because that's what you hope. When you're in an absolute mortal panic. Yeah. Yeah, so, uh So on the third shot, we reveal Bob has been shot in the chest and he's bleeding, but the curse will as far as we know, be over. And goddamn, what a harsh, sad moment. This is one of the movies that gets so sad you have to kind of laugh about it. So then, if I'm remembering correctly, we go to some time later.

2:28:22 Yeah, it's not really revealed, but it's shortly in the future. And we're at the diner that Stephen and Martin had met at. His family is sitting eating and Martin walks in, and as he walks in, they all ignore him, try to at least they notice him, and then are like, I'm not gonna look at him. I'm not gonna whatever, No way. Even the daughter tries to ignore him, but eventually she starts sneaking a glance, you know. But then she looks at her food and it's trying to hear food. But then finally and she's still glancing at him a bit, they get up and leave, and it's played in slow motion basically mm hmm, it's all you know, as Martin's sitting there drinking his water at the counter. They get up and leave, and Martin watches and the film ends, and I have a thought about that. But unless you want to run first.

2:29:21 No well, my only comment was I thought it was very interesting because there is not much expression in Martin's eyes, correct, And you would expect that if he was doing it for the lulls, and if it wasn't his idea of this is what justice should be, there would be some kind of like joy or something knowing that he's so deeply affected this family. But no, it was just this passive recognition that these are people out in the world that he knows, Yeah, that he knows someone. I agree with that, And what I got from that final moment is the only way after all that. Oh and it's important that the daughter to get up and walk away, which was a nice way of letting us know that like everything went back to normal. Yeah, you know, to give a final taste of like it worked the way he said as they walk away, and he's sitting in that diner, a place he's been too many many times, and all this stuff. I took note of the fact that after all of this, after the vengeance, the balance, the retribution, the DA da da, the symbols, all that, you know, the only difference Martin's alone, That's the only difference.

2:30:43 M All Martin did was get less than he had before. Yeah, and maybe that's my very soft hearted Namby Pamby sense of like just saying that maybe in reality he's just doing great. But to me, I was like, all I see is a family still a family, and Martin still Martin. Yeah, but now he doesn't even have a friend. M hm. That's that's what I got. I think that's very good. And I'm also I've always loved that saying, you know, the he who seeks vengeance to dig two graves. Yeah, you know, like, yeah, so that was that's my personal opinion on it. I'm not about to cry. I was about to cough.

2:31:32 How dare how daring? But I think, yeah, I think that's I think that's very spot on, because yeah, that's that's the one thing that Martin did kind of have going for him at the beginning of the film is at least there was somebody who cared. That's actually the saddest thing now that we're talking about it, I'm just done. It's just you're the way you said that when he said, like, the one thing he had going for him was that he had a friend who cared about him before this all started. He he had so much coming his way he'd made friends with the whole family. The wife found him charming overall liked him.

2:32:13 The daughter was falling in love with him. That could have been something really important and special and pivotal in his life. And the son got along with him too. They liked being around him. They were even being kids together, like secretly smoking cigarettes and stuff. They were like, those are things that are like real kid bonding. It never felt like they were with their extended family because they had to be in those little enjoyed being I think that Bob even enjoyed like having kind of an older brother figure. M hm. He kind of had everything, considering the tragedy that he'd been through. All things considered, he had a lot more than many people do after losing so much. Yeah, and instead he has none of it.

2:33:01 But I guess you know what can pick you up from the airport is your sense of retribution. Your sense of cosmic justice can do that. Yeah, that'll that'll keep you warm at night. That'll run to the CVS and get you niquel when you've been sneezing all night but you're too dizzy to drive, you know, Like that's yeah, yeah, maybe and and and like I said, it was just the thought, the idea that he had no control. Maybe he did have total control, and he learned that he lost everything by holding on to an anger mm hmm, because of this sense of justice that doesn't accomplish anything. And that's that's the first time I had watched the film.

2:33:42 That was what I had leaned toward, because again, the families still together, and they still love each other. You know, they're going to have a lot to work through, but at least, you know, the three of them still have each other. Yeah, but you know, just the fact that the last shot that we see is Martin by himself, and and we kind of, you know, throughout the whole film, the only time we really get a clear view of him is when he's interacting or creeping upon the family. But you know, it's kind of laid out to us that the biggest again, the biggest thing he's got going for him is his friendship with this family. But to him, the retribution was more important.

2:34:29 And that is a very classic story. It is it is, And I know this is based upon a Greek tragedy, so from what I. Read it, they borrowed the title of one. But I don't know if I'd like to look into that. Yeah, for sure, I'm curious because I know that is a very Greek tragedy thing where I tragedies well Italians, but yeah, that's a very Greek thing. Is you finally you finally get what you want and then you realize you had to give up everything that you had to get what you want? So was it even worth it? Yeah? So final review of the Killing of a Sacred Deer. It's all Greek to me. I am so funny and charming.

2:35:11 I love me so anything else you want to say about the film before we wrap up our very special family holiday episode. You know, you could make a drinking game of how many times a ceiling fan was featured in this. Film prominently featured? Hey, those ceiling fans were on fleek so well. Thank you Rachel for sitting down with me and talking at length about the Killing of a Sacred Deer, And thank you everybody who's been listening. I really am glad you guys are enjoying cutting deep into horror. So happy that we could start doing the show again a little bit more regularly, And I hope you guys are having a great holiday season, enjoying all the extra content we've been publishing over at Weekly Spooky. It has been a wild ride since October that never stops. But we are going to be back next week with another episode because we wanted to do something actually Christmas y. Yeah, so we'll be talking about a film. I'm gonna leave it to be a surprise act.

2:36:08 I think it should be a surprise. Yeah, you guys are gonna dig it. It's not a classic, it's a newer one that I really dig So until next time, remember, if you like what we're doing here, you can go to Weeklyspooky dot com slash join become a patron for as little as one dollar a month. We really do appreciate it, and send us an email at Weekly Spooky at gmail dot com. We'll see you next time. Kids,