Cutting Deep into Horror | Tonight She Comes (2016): Blood Rituals & Body Horror

What are you doing out here? Oh? I, well, this here's private property. I'm sorry. I just got lost and how do I get back to the road? What road? The road? You know, like there was a road a way back, and like I got lost. You're talking about Ipsilanty Road. Yeah, Ipsilanti Roads, twenty five miles from here. Oh oh, I'm starting to think you're lying. No, I just got really lost. Are you sure about that? Sure? You don't want to reconsider your story one more time before we have to take it to the judge. Which judge fred out in the middle of nowhere.

The judge is what I call my shotgun. Oh god, that's also what I call the local magistrate. That's really confusing. His name is Anthony judge. Wow, why are you laughing? We're trying to figure out. I'm trying to figure out why you're on my property? Ah? What's that over there? A murderous naked woman? Why I she just like showed up. You're not concerned about. That, nah, because she doesn't think Ipsilanti Road is near here? Dummy, dummy, dummy. 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 straight razors, because this is cutting deep into horror. Hello, my spooky then, welcome back to Cutting Deep into Horror. I'm, of course, your host Henrique Couto here with my co host Rachel Dulphy. Rachel, how are you. I'm doing good. Yeah. Yeah, it stopped raining finally. So uh oh, I mean for a while. You slept through the huge storm last night? Yeah, I think it like was just getting started as I was nodding off to sleep. No, and I'll tell you why, because the lightning that did not stop started at about one o'clock.

Oh yeah. I went to bed at two thirty and I was watching lightning going off all night while I was watching a movie. Like all I had was the I had the covering on the main window, but the bath or the kitchen window was where I was seeing all these flashes constantly. I was very surprised by how aggressive that storm seemed to be. And then I got a text from my mother who's in Nashville, Indiana right now, at a cabin and they had no power from like three am until about noon today. Man, so it must have been real bad out there.

Yeah but uh yeah, so no, you have no idea just how bad the storm got. I tell you what, now, I was nervous the whole time that we're going to lose power for another couple of days. That's been a recurring trend. Well recurring strong. But it's been a minute since the big power outage. Yeah, that was a nightmare. But it's funny. I was working. I was doing my work today and I've been like on a really intense streak this week of just pounding out as much work as I can. And I noticed that, Uh, it really does serve me well to have a very short memory, because at one point, as I was like struggling to come up with the right schedule for something, I was like, oh, yeah, didn't I lost two days that one time because the power went out, and that was uh yeah, so that was I was like, man, I forgot that like that that was only like three weeks ago.

Yeah maybe yeah, yeah, about three weeks ago. So not ideal. I don't I don't enjoy it. I try. I looked into getting like a full house backup generator. Yeah, they're like they could be as much as five to ten thousand dollars. And the maintenance you have to maintain them, like they have to be turned on regularly to make sure they work. There's all kinds of stuff you got to do with them. Are So are you talking like the big like generak ones. I don't. I mean, I'm just talking the ones that literally are connected to your house.

Okay. Yeah, so literally when you switch over, your whole house is powered by that instead of being powered by the grid. Okay, so it's just a whole house power supply mm hmm. And yeah, I looked into it. I was like, that is way too expensive. I mean, it's it's annoying that like this year we had two major power well one major and one minor power outage. We lost like four days four and a half days of power. But I'm like, you know, that's not worth the amount of money. Yeah, And there'd be no guarantee the internet would work even.

With power yeah, because we could still like not get the internet provided you know, if the rest of the block is down. I mean I don't know if that's how I think When the power's out it. They just can't the ICP can't send the power the internet to us, yeah, I think. But yeah, so no, I tried to look into like how can I make this never happen again? And they just is not much of a way. Well, like you said, at least it's only been four days, you know, altogether the whole Yeah. Well, yeah, I guess you're right, Yeah, because it was like three days at one time.

And then it was just one day, yeah, one day. So I don't know, but yeah, no, So, I mean, I am I have had my fill of severe weather. We've had a lot of that in sunny Dayton, Ohio, the Paris of Ohio. So yeah, I don't know. I am a little tired of the bad weather. Yeah. But speaking of things that make about it much sense as the weather, our film Tonight is one that baffled me the well, the first time we saw it, we weren't even seeking it out. We went to a screening where were the only people there.

I'm pretty sure, Yeah, I'm pretty certain we were the only ones in that theater. Yeah. There was this thing called the I think it was called Asylum Night at the movies or Asylum Movie Night. Or something like, or Movies at the Asylum. That's Movies at the Asylum. That makes sense because it's a pun, but it was Movies at the Asylum, and it was from the company The Asylum, which became super famous for Sharknado. But they were a They've been a B movie studio since the early two thousands. They launched their company with the Stuart Gordon horror film King of the Ants, which I think is one of the finest films ever made.

And I'm not trying to be cute. I mean, Stuart Gordon's made a lot of incredible movies. You know. I often joke that, like, you don't want the Stuart Gordon curse, which is that your first film is Reanimator. Oh man. Yeah, when your first film, when your first film is something that like everybody thinks is a like excellent and maybe even a masterpiece, it can be tough. Yeah, it's like where do you go from there? Because like even even with like Sam Raimy, you know, Evil Dead was his first film, but it was very rough around the edges.

It did have moments that maybe didn't feel polished. But Reanimator is just so beloved and so yeah, it's it's it's a great film. You know, you'd be like if Wes Craven started with a Nightmare on Elm Street, right, it'd be like, damn, dude, where do you go from here? It's bad enough having ever made a movie that good and then having to try to live up to it again and again and again. But anyway, so that all being said, the Asylum became really well known for whatever what we're called mockbusters, and they they were films that were similar in title and concept to Hollywood film films of the era.

They did things like when rob Zombies, Halloween or Halloween two one of those came out. They did Halloween Night. I think I was gonna say that's the most probably infamous one is transmorphers that came out during Transformers. I Am Omega, I. Am Omega Yeah, which came out around the same time as the Omega Man. I Am Legend, I Am Legend right, yeah, which was also which was based on I Am Legend. This was based on yeah on the well, no, it's based on the book I Am Legend, which Omega Man the movie is also based on.

Exactly. Sorry, that's that's that's the way to put it, Yeah, it just gets it gets confusing for sure, I mean. And then it was also the same you know, Last Man on Earth was based on that too, on that same book by Mathieson. But yeah, so yeah, those were coming with some of the most notorious ones. They also did, like Paranormal Entity, which I showed you, which was a knock off of paramal activity. It really was. It was almost scarier in some way. In some ways it was much scareder than paranormal Activity because I had teeth.

It was much more aggressive. That's one that I think people should really give a watch is Paranormal Entity. And I've I've talked to people about it before, horror fans who will like nod and nod, and then they say something and then I realized they start talking about their opinions, and I realized, oh my god, this asshole thought that I misspoke paranormal activity when I'm talking about a totally different film. And then they don't have the The reason I'm calling an asshole is they don't have the courtesy to just politely you mean activity. They don't have the kindness because in their horror movie knowledge, they think there's only one movie that starts with paranormal Come on, Plus, why would I want to rave about even ten years ago?

Why would I want to rave about paranormal activity? To a random other horror fan, everybody saw it, it was a big deal, but I was bringing it up like, oh man, but have you seen paranormal entity? Like what they? Oh man, but have you seen you know, Jurassic Park? Like come on? But no. So that's all to say. The asylum that was their big thing. But then they got a pretty harsh cease and desist from I believe it was Universal Studios, and that ended the era of the mockbuster almost wholly. Yeah, it just did. And some of those mockbusters were really fun because a lot of times they would hand them to a director and be like, as long as you do it for this cheap, And their budgets weren't insanely low.

They were half a mill to a million million and a half for the most part. There were some that were really really cheap. A lot of their found footage movies were super cheap, and also their sex comedies. They actually did a ton of really hilarious sex comedies in the early two thousands that I thought were really funny. But you know, anyway, so the Asylum is making all these mockbusters, then they lose that market. They were always and this is something I always appreciate about them, they were always diversified. Like as I just mentioned, they had sex comedies they were putting out, and those were those would go to Blockbuster and Hollywood Video back in the day, but they would also go to Showtime and Cinemax sometimes and sometimes HBO.

You never know. But they'd make them for like one hundred grand apiece, which in the grand scheme of movie making, especially back then, that was extremely cheap because cameras were so expensive, and they're making them in Los Angeles. So they would make those. And then they were also slowly but surely dipping their toe into the sci fi original movies, which were at the time becoming giant sci fi original movies, like you know, like Mega Python and Python Versus Alligator. I mean, some of these might not be the actual titles, but there were so many of them.

Pirana Konda, which I loved, Parana Conda, there were so many of them, and they started making some of them as well, like two headed Shark Attack things like that. But then they hit the stratosphere with Sharknado, not literally because they didn't go into space until part three, but I wish I was joking, joke. But those movies are so much fun. They're super fun. So and then that was when they started to really have this other life as the big crazy movie people. But at the same time, so at the same time they were making all the mockbusters, they were also making sexy comedies and some more traditional horror films.

And by traditional I mean like, you know, just a poster and a title, not like not aping on something else right or knocking something off in a way that's relatively shameless. That was like their big their their bread and butter was being diversified. So when Sharknado happened, they never stopped making those sexy comedies, and they never stopped making the kind of traditional horror films either. They just had much lower budgets and they'd put them out just the same. And then they actually advanced in oh in twenty fifteen, sixteen seventeen, somewhere in the neighborhood they started they started making lifetime movies occasionally and making made for TV movies for mostly lifetime.

I think they did maybe a Hallmark movie or two too. So well, I mean they're smart, they know how to stay alive in the business. And that was a very long way to say. Our film Tonight, Tonight is Tonight. She comes from twenty and sixteen, and it is a whack a Do movie. And you know, I don't quote Mojo Nixon lightly, so why do not when I say a whacka do movie. It came out in twenty sixteen. It's available to rent anywhere you rent movies like Amazon, Prime Video, Apple TV, Google, And if you want to watch it for free, it's streaming free with ads on Fandango at home.

And we're gonna take a quick break and then we'll dive in more to how we saw this film and why we're even talking about it, because this thing is so far out I won't believe it right after this. So Tonight She comes directed by a guy named Matt Stewarts, who, as far as I could tell, has not directed another feature. Not that I could tell either. It looks like he mostly worked in camera and electric is that it mostly as an AC and a camera opay on other movies, But it doesn't look like he's had a ton of directing work, at least not in features.

It says Wake not the Dead is a film he's filming right now, but that could be not true. There's a movie called Human on IMDb. It says it's feature length, but there's no way to watch it. Oh so, I mean it could exist, but it could not be done or it could not be released or whatever. But this film definitely he impressed me with it. Yeah, it had a lot of interesting stuff going on beyond the bizarreness even and we saw this film as we were mentioning it. Movies at the Asylum and which was just at our local cinemak.

They had I think it was eight weeks of Asylum. Movies, yeah, because it was like one summer. Yeah yeah, it was like every week. There was one playing on Thursday night, yeah, and it was one night only, and they opened by doing like a Sharknado, one of the newer Sharknado movies was like the start and there were a lot of people there, and some of them had a decent amount of people, like they did this one, that one zombie movie. The Zombies on a Yacht or whatever, the one. That was like British, Yeah, that was it wasn't very good.

No, I remember like keeping hoping and then like towards the end, I was like, this isn't very good. But there were a lot of people there for that one, so that not all of them were dead empty. But that's the thing is they would have like Sharknado four or whatever and then zoom bees. I saw zombies. That one was fucking hilarious. But then but then you'd also get Tonight She Comes or Bad Girl. Bad Girl was so good. Bad Girl was super good. And that was Samara Weaving's first movie feature film to be released in America.

She was like four years later going to be one of the biggest names in movies. Yeah, and she was in some little B movie from Australia. And that one was interesting because, uh, I noticed because I would look up some of the movies afterward, and it seemed like Asylum was actually having trouble filling the slots because at least one or two of the movies never got released by Asylum on home video, so they must have licensed them just for a theatrical screening for whatever reason. But that's not necessarily that important or interesting, but it's something I thought about.

Its interesting. That's nice of you to lie. It's always appreciated when people lie. But so this movie, it's a what is it. About, you know, well, how to be gross? That's not fair. I mean, it's it's a gross movie, but like it's I mean, the plot is basically like it's set up like a slasher movie, but this like unstoppable killing thing is a naked woman covered in blood coming after these increasingly fascinatingly weird and stupid characters. Yeah, but incredibly incompetent. Well, but it's definitely on purpose. Yeah, we'll get into that more. It's not that this movie was written lazily at all.

Actually, I think it was actually pretty a pretty clever movie. Yeah. Well, and when you look at the economics of this film, it's very clever. As wacky and crazy as this movie is, a huge portion of it is them in the living room talking. Yeah, And that's kind of like something I try to point out to people, Like the first Shark Nato movie. A large amount of that movie is them sitting in a car while the rain is coming down and talking to each other, which is smart, I mean, because it's relatively easy thing to do.

Mm hm. So but yeah, so, I mean that's basically as like they have to figure out how to stop this thing that may or may not be a demonic entity. And as the story progresses, it it's very good at answering questions by making you ask immensely more questions. Yes, so, were you gargling with glass before the show? Yeah? Just for fun? I get it, I get it. But no, police, we're saying. Well, I was gonna say, like, the more I think about it, the more I guess I could say like the point of the movie is kind of like either a mirror or a love letter to just the horror genre in general, but like exploitation and grindhouse movies in particular.

Yeah, how so, Well, just. Like the whole tone of the film, the self awareness of it, the fact that it does have so many nods to other exploitation films or just horror films in general. I'm with you on the horror, but I never really picked up on it referencing exploitation movies very much. Maybe it doesn't, and maybe I'm just like generalizing more than I should. I don't know. Well, I mean, do you have an example. I wasn't trying to put you no, just legitally, when you said, I was waiting for you to say one so I could I could understand where you're coming from.

Yeah, that's that's why I'm saying, like maybe it maybe I'm just generalizing horror and grindhouse together too much. Well, but but you were also saying exploitation. Movies or exploitation is what I meant, exploitation and horror together too much, okay, because I was thinking like, as far as exploitation I can think about, so, like, uh, cannibal Holocaust is that? Would you consider that? Yeah? I think I think so, Yeah, probably, I mean usually exploitation movies aren't horror movies, but I suppose yeah, that would probably be a exploitation movie. Yeah. So like there's some similarity in tonality, but not enough to say like, yeah that it's totally drawing from exploit exploitation.

Okay, yeah, because I mean I thought that it was just drawing from slasher movies. It was just kind of having fun with them. M M. It was just kind of being like, hey, you know how slasher movies will hand you some dumb characters, Well, these are really dumb, Like they're going to frustrate you with how dumb they are. Yeah, and I but it works pretty well because there's an odd, earnest element to the movie that I think works really well. Yeah, so that's that's why it kind of holds up. But I mean, we sat down to watch this in the theater and we had zero clue what it was at all.

I mean, the title was Tonight she Comes and there's like a creepy looking woman on the poster. That's all we knew, yeah, at all. And every step it gets more wild and out there and way way way out. Yeah. So I remember when we were watching it, I was kind of on the fence about how I felt about it, because the problem with things being really wacky and out there is it can let you be lazy. That's a big complaint I have with a lot of like horror comedy type stuff, is that is that it's like, oh, well, if you're winking, oh it's supposed to be bad, it's like cool, then you don't have to try to be good.

But it became very clear the longer I watched the movie the intense amount of effort that went into all of the weird choices that were in the movie. They were all thought out very much to make some degree of sense, and the ending is what made me love it. If it hadn't had that ending, I probably would have thought it was okay, I probably forgot about it, but that ending was so far out there. Oh yeah, that's well, that's the thing, like when I think of the movie, I always think of the ending first. Yeah, of course, and then and then the rest of the movie kind of like comes back to me.

Oh yeah, but it's it's got such a special place in my heart because I was so new to the world of horror films when we went to see it. Yeah, so it kind of, you know, it in a way set me up to have expectations of what the rest of my horror viewing career would be like, because it introduced me to the concepts in a very tongue in cheek kind of way. Yeah, yeah, I get that. Well, we're going to take a quick break and when we get back, we'll talk even more about tonight she comes and the very interesting choices at the beginning of the film right after this.

So, since I had not seen very many horror films, yeah, when we first saw this, I went in especially blind, and so there were moments going back and rewatching it now where I could be like, oh wow, that's like a nod to you know, Friday the thirteenth, or oh wow, that's you know, that's kind of a nod to you know, other films that I've watched with you. But at the time, I was like, what is like why would someone be coming out of the lake or why would you kill someone with a with a sleeping bag, like wrapping them up in a sleeping bag.

And I didn't realize like, oh no, that's because they're kind of like tipping their hat. I mean that's a straight homage. Yeah, I would say to John Carl b Clear's death scene, well he didn't he wasn't killed in it. He was the director of that film and the special effects artist that did Friday Thirteenth Part seven. Yeah, and the famous sleeping bag kill scene was notoriously cut for content. It was cut for the R rating, So it's kind of it became kind of legendary with horror fans that like, that scene would have been so much cooler if the NPAA hadn't ruined it.

So but yeah, I mean there's definitely a good amount of homages in there, and that's kind of where with this movie, you do want to kind of make an open differentiation between homage and cliche. Okay, so at least in my opinion, Yeah, because like you have homages, which would be like the Death with a Sleeping Bag or I'm not thinking of another homage off the top of my head immediately, but cliche would be more like a group of kids go camping in a cabin by the water. It's clear stuff is wrong, but they don't seem to care no matter how you know, bad things get They're just too busy being horny or whatever thing it might be.

That's more the cliche than an homage, because I guess, I guess when it's an homage you can point generally to one movie, Yeah, and when it's a cliche, you could point to like a genre of films, ouvra of movies. I would agree that's a very good differentiator. And I think they play more with cliches than they do with homages. I agree overall. I agree, But they but it's thick with them, and it's and and it's not done in a lazy way. I know I've said that before, but it's worth saying again. They they don't just cheap out everything you think is lazy ends up being really really nuts.

Yeah, there's there's kind of a payoff for most things in this movie. Yeah, I mean they do play with the idea of there being no payoff being a payoff sometimes, yeah, which is one of the reasons I was kind of like, oh my god, this movie, like, you know, is it just going to keep throwing curves? And yes, it throws every single ball it throws as a curveball. That's actually kind of one of my favorite things about this film is it starts out being so painfully cliche and simplistic and you know almost like yeah, yeah, yeah, trits an a right word, I guess, jeez no, but but yeah it comes up.

It's like here's here's you know, two dudes who liked smoke weed and one has a male job. You know, he delivers mail, but he doesn't have a mail truck yet because he's part time. And then you know, here's these two hot girls. They they're gonna go to her for their friend's cabin, even though they haven't heard from their friend in a while, but they're gonna you know, topless sunbathe and you're like, wow, I could follow this without an act, without a brain or eyes. I could follow this story, and then by the time the second act hits, the rug has not has not been pulled out from under you.

It's been like vaporized into non existence. The rug never existed. You simply believed in the rug. Therefore your feet didn't feel like you know, they didn't feel the cold tile of the ground. But in reality, there was never a rug. There was never a rug. There may not never have been. A floory, you may have never had feet. Yeah, no, because because that's the thing is like, once the story starts happening, yeah it it Nothing is as it seems, nothing goes exactly the way you're expecting, but it does keep this weird mentality of everybody's pretty stupid.

Yeah, because like even even on the second watch through, the only character that really comes across as competent would be Felicity. No, you mean Felicity, Felicitie, Felicitie Felicity. That's how that said it. Yeah. Well, and we're getting way ahead of ourselves because she doesn't even get introduced till the second act, just to give or take. So, I mean, what you have here is a movie that feels like it's going to be a camp cabin in the woods slasher movie, which again, that's a very very well known cliche. Yeah, and that's I mean, so many movies start that way, and not only movies start that way, but pitches for movies even now, because it is fun.

It is, it is, and when it comes to filming the movies, it's fun to go to a rental cabin and film because they're in beautiful places. So I get it. Yeah, you know, I do get it. But yeah, it's such a cliche. And here we're getting that cliche but a little different, I mean a little bit. And all the characters are while they are caricatures, they're like really broad caricatures. And. It makes you, yeah, it makes you both love them and hate them like more and more. Yeah, if they were, if they were predictable, you would hate them.

Yeah. I think that might be it because I'm actually, as I'm describing how the characters are and how the progresses, I'm finding myself having a harder and harder time ending the sentences with And I like this movie because none of it sounds like it'd be good, right, That's probably the thing I think is most interesting about the movie is that none of it really sounds good. Well, it's kind of the embodiment of the phrase the whole is larger than the sum of its parts, and so like, when you break it down to its individual constituent pieces, it sounds like, wow, that would be like a really dumb kind of experience.

But when you put it all together, it's like, wow, this is actually a pretty engaging wild ride of a movie. Well engaging, it definitely is. And after this break, well we'll start talking about some actual story points from it. But believe you me, it's the weirdest movie because there's not a lot to it and there's a lot to it. Yeah, and we'll get to that right after this. The movie opens with a naked, pregnant woman running through the woods and she stabs herself and it's bloody. You're leaving out the most important thing, like you're you're you're not giving this any uh subtlety, okay, or or a nuance.

Nuance is the better way to put it. She's not. She starts stabbing herself with a broken shard of glass, which I just think is more is worth mentioning because that's very unpleasant to just imagine doing at all. When most stabbing yourself is unpleasant to imagine doing, so I just wanted to clarify that it's so, And and it does reappear. The broken piece of shard of glass appears more times, but yeah, she's stabbing herself. It appears in the stomach with. It yea in her abdomen, and then isn't that the same place? I guess I'm just being more technical about it.

Okay, fair enough. Then we immediately cut to two girls about her age. They're in a car and talking about their periods and one of them is grossing out the other with like a used tampon or used pad or something. So that immediately kind of sets the tone of what kind of movie, this is, what kind of characters we're dealing with, And by way of introduction, we learn that their friend, Christy is probably the girl that was running through the woods because they can't get a hold of her, and they've both been trying to reach her cell phone right and neither one of them can get through to her.

But regardless, they're gonna go to the cabin that she's at because they want to all, you know, spend time and have have fun. You know, this last summer fling and then we meet kind of I mean he's kind of the main character, James, the male carrier, and he's delivering mail in just like his beat up pickup truck because he doesn't have an actual mail. Truck, because he's part time, because he's part. Time, and we immediately get the sense that he's part time and also probably not aspiring to be full time at any at any point.

Well, he just comes off as kind of a slacker, and it doesn't help like us like and I don't mean like a slacker, I mean like the cliche. Yeah, of like a slacker guy who's just kind of like whatever, man, I'm just making money and I'm gonna smoke my bud. You know. It's not like there's not a lot to it now. But he's with his buddy Pete Pete, and Pete is all is the same kind of deal. He's just a very archetypal slacker type guy. And they're out looking for an address and he's like, the address doesn't he exist?

The GPS took them to a dead end, which I thought was pretty funny that they literally pull up to like a road just ends, and he's like, look, I told you and then he looks at the letter and he goes, oh, we have the numbers backwards. It's like, oh, it does it does exist. It's over this way. But his buddy and this is where the kind of like I don't know, the kind of brilliant use of like dumb cliche kind of begins because his buddy tells him like, because one of the first things you have to do in a horror movie is you have to separate characters so that bad things can happen to them, and his buddy is just like, all of a sudden, I mean, these guys they're literally just like busting each other's balls figuratively, and then later literally they're just like making making fun of each other and making jokes and smoking weed and and all this stuff.

And then his buddy is just like, right when they're about to leave, he's like, oh, uh, I have to go to the bathroom. And he's like, actually, you might have said I had to piss I. I really it's gonna be a while. So he's like, just come back and get me when you're done, and I'm all I'm thinking, is like, oh, well, I mean obviously he needs to. When you gotta go, you gotta go. My point is like, why would your buddy need to leave, like, I mean, you know, just he could wait five minutes for you, for God's sake, you know.

But so his buddy like leaves and leaves him there to go deliver this mail and he that's where it kind of like I said, where it's doesn't sound like it would work. And so far this at this point, when I was first watching the movie, I didn't think this was very I mean, I thought the guys were kind of funny, yeah, just like I thought the girls were kind of funny. Yeah, But everybody's got this kind of like really loud, boisterous, stupid humor to them, and it's kind of strange that they have that going for him.

Yeah, So his buddy goes to like do his business and he goes to deliver his mail or the mail, and he gets the house. There's nobody there. It kind of wanders around, still nobody there. So then he does what like makes so much sense. He sees a hammock. So he takes a nap yeah, on the hammock, just because Yeah. And this whole time while he's kind of like looking around and yelling like, hey, is there anyone here by the name, you know, Christy whatever, you know, I got this letter and looking at the hammock and all that we see, you know, the point of view of other people watching him from the house or from the woods.

What is traditionally referred to as a killer POV. Killer POV. Yeah, where you know, where somebody's watching off on the side. Now, oftentimes in horror movies, the killer POV, because it was it was a very early established cliche. It's usually a misdirection like you know, oh, somebody's watching them, and then it cuts and it's like crazy Ralph in Friday the Thirteenth, or it's you know, the sheriff, or it's yeah, somebody else, not who you're thinking it'll be, or whatever it might be. But yeah, so we're teased with this idea of like a kind of killer slasher type killer watching him, and then he ends up getting like attacked and we cut away.

Yeah. Now the girls arrive at the cabin and uh, and they immediately since they can't find Christy, they decide that they need to lay out by the lake. It's on this huge lake, like a very nice it's gorgeous. So they decide that they're going to like hang out there and wait for Christy. And so they're they're they're if I remember correctly, the peat character sees them from across the lake, yes, and they are like chasing each other around. They're like trying to pull each other's tops off. There because of course they why. But he starts just furiously masturbating.

He starts furiously like immediately. After pulling out a comically large spy spy glass. Oh yeah, he had a spy glass, which was just great, so you could see them, like we're talking like a like a pie. What happened with a telescope? Which was a hilarious touch that he just has that. But he's watching them and eventually they kind of like see him and he runs off and they're mad for a second, and that leads them to discover oh, what's his name, the James, Yeah, to discover James sleeping. Well, he's laying the hammock. We think he's dead, but then they go and get a gun from her glovebox.

They poke him with it. He wakes up and then they act like they're gonna shoot him, and it turns out it's a water pistol, which makes a lot more sense than her having a German luger just hanging out in her glovebox. But so now he's like, what the hell, you know, and they're laughing about it, Yeah, about it. It's it's really strange, but. They're not disturbed by being watched or by him being there. They were mad about being watched, but they just kind of brush it off almost instantly when there's a new shiny thing to look at, you know, And and that's again like it doesn't sound like it's it's gonna work.

And at this point I still wasn't sure if the movie worked. But we're getting these characters all together, and there's this consistency of like, he has a bloody wound on his arm that he notices, but nobody seems to care. Yeah, they just kind of move along. And then things start to pick up after Pete goes to take a leak, and we'll get to that right after this. So Pete, wandering through the woods, stops to pee, and while he's peeing, he notices like a cell phone ringing, and he goes to like reach down and pick it up, and then realizes there's a dead body and he's been peeing on the dead body, and being the genius that he is, he goes to wipe pee off the body and like goes and moves it around and everything.

Yeah, yeah, it's it's so it's a naked woman who appears to be dead, just laying there, and it looks a lot like the woman from the beginning of the film, except she doesn't have any of the markings on her stomach and stuff. Yeah she had at the beginning, And no stab marks, no weird runes, nothing. Yeah, she's just dead there, Yeah, just laying there. So, yeah, his instinct is to try and get wipe the pee off of her. I'm guessing I assumed it was because of DNA. But then he throws the hat to the side and it's like, oh, well the hat's full of your hair.

Yeah, like it's right by there, Like what the hell? So then he takes pictures. Yeah, and it would it would appear that that the gag is because she's naked. Yeah, And that's another element that plays out a few times that's really bizarre. But it doesn't even I don't even find it offensive because it's so stupid. It is because. In a minute, yeah, well we'll get to it because i'll remember. But so he finds a cell phone which turns out to be Christie's cell phone, and then as he's like getting really close to her, like he might be getting on top of her, we don't know, she wakes up, and the moment he realizes she's alive, he's like, oh my god, you know, and then he calls the number that's been texting Christy and leaves this voicemail about, you know, I found your friend.

It's gonna sound weird because it's not her, but she's not moving or anything. And while he's saying that, of course she's gotten up and. Now kind of like looming behind him. Yeah, but she is just a tiny naked woman, which is just kind of funny. Yes, that's the thing. But also while they're doing that, we see another killer POV that isnt either of them, which helps kind of mislead you into thinking maybe she's not the killer or something. But yeah, so that's kind of. Yeah, well it definitely keeps you guessing, and obviously that's clearly on purpose why they're trying to like constantly mislead mislead us and keep us from you know, really picking up what's going on.

But it's kind of hard to say what's going on because sometimes it seems like the movie like doesn't even want you to figure it out at all. I mean, I don't think at this point. I think that the movie so it's so straightforward, it kind of lulls you into a false sense of security, like you think it's going to be very simple and dumb, and then it gets very weird, complicated and dumb and dumb is a little bit harsh, but it is. It is kind of characters. Well, the characters go from like really stupid to later on to being almost more quirky.

Mm hmm, because what they're doing kind of makes sense and matters, I guess. But so I but did you want to keep going on? Oh yeah, yeah. So so the other characters back at the farmhouse or you know, in the lake house, they're all sitting around and drinking now and kind of like partying. Yeah, this dude who was just there who At first they thought maybe he had done something to Christy, but then they decided. He hadn't, and so now he's all cool. They were just yelling at him about a bunch of stuff, and now they're just like whatever, hanging out it's yeah, and uh yeah, it's bizarre.

And and like, uh see, Ashley's like puking her guts out, and Lindsey and James are kind of flirting a little bit. But of course then once Lindsay starts getting too drunk and Ashley's not puking as much, then James starts flirting with Ashley a little bit more, because you. Know, that's a little bit later, a little bit later. Oh yeah it is, yeah, it's way later actually, So he's he's like flirting with Lindsey hardcore, and of course they're not getting the phone call at all. Nobody notices, uh, And then they're trying to Lindsay and James are trying to get into the house because they want to, you know, do the deed, but they don't want to do it outside, but they can't get the door open.

So he she's like, go go get me, like, go get me a sleeping bag and we can just like do it on the front porch. He runs to get a sleeping bag and as she's as she's like, no, that one's mine. Yeah, they're both. They're both mine. So it's it's very clear that his priorities are all in his pants. Well yeah, I mean but they but even when they weren't, they made no sense. Yeah, I mean, he just goes to sleep in a hammock. Why why why does he do that? Like, why would you do that?

Strange place? So but when, if I'm remember correctly, I mean you left out one of the best parts part, which when Ashley tells him that her friend it's a virgin and it like freaks him out. Yes, I do remember that part. Now, I say, you remember the sleeping bag gag, but not the virgin part. The virgin part's way funnier. So now he's all weirded out. Because he doesn't because he doesn't want to be. Her first time or whatever. So it's it's very very uh bizarre, And and the build the lead up is really kind of the like I said, the most misleading part of the film.

Yeah, well, because again you feel like it's going to be a normal slasher and to an extent, yeah sure, because you're like, Okay, well, obviously this person's gonna die, and this person's gonna die and then and then we'll get the final girl and something will happen and then she gets to survive and everything, you know, everything's fine and sets up for the sequel. So we get that a little bit because we kind of get get back to Pete and he's not doing well. He's dead now in the woods, and that kind of, you know, that sets up like, Okay, the killer's coming for them.

And we go back to the lake house and they all notice a figure out on the other like across from the lake, and as they're looking they realize it's one a naked woman covered in blood, and two it's just walking toward them and just like gets into the water and just keeps walking and walking, and like, yeah, head goes underwater and they lose sight of her, and being the genius as they are, they kind of are a little off put, but they don't panic the way a I feel like a normal person would necessarily panic when you see a strange naked woman covered in blood walking out of the woods.

I mean, I think the way you should panic when you see somebody just walk into the water apparently drowning. That would be the thing that would have gotten me. Yeah, and yeah, that's and that's where now things are getting ready to pick up and the you know, if it were a slasher movie, which in a way it is, but it isn't. It would be the slashing would be getting ready to start, and the choices continue to be very strange. But like I said, everything really changes in the second act and we're almost there and we'll keep heading that way, like Christy marching from the underwater right after this.

So James reacts kind of rationally seeing this naked, bloody woman walking toward the lake and he's like, who is that? And you know, Ashley is a little concerned, but you know, Lindsey, she's so she doesn't care at all. But then that's when Ashley realizes like, oh, she's got a voicemail, and that's when we get the you know, kind of bone chilling realization that she's just now getting the message from Pete and kind of putting it together that her friend may be the one who's coming to get them across the lake. So when she gets out of the lake and like kind of I wouldn't say she rushes at them.

She's never really that quick. No, No, she's tragic a little, but. It's kind of like the old fashioned like Night of the Living Dead, zombies are scary because they're lumbering and they never give up. And that's kind of the same thing. Is Christy is scary because she just does not relent. So they run to the car, but like any self respecting slasher movie, the car will not start. Well, I I'm shocked you forgot the moment where when they when she starts walking up the guy, James just starts going like, is that a naked chick? Somebody take a picture for me?

I don't have my phone. I didn't forget and which which is another like great example, like what like what is what like that's beyond like a frat boy mentality, that's just like a bizarre brain dead kind of mindset, like somebody took a picture for me, Like Okay, So I just thought that was worth mentioning because we were talking about how kind of out there they get. Yeah, no, thank you for reminding me of that, because I forgot about that. So yeah, like any self respecting slasherom movie, they can't get away in the car. Uh. So as there as their trying to like figure out what to do, of course James is now going to flirt with Ashley.

Well yeah, because because not so as as they're sitting there flirting, Katie shows back up again or Chrissy shows back up again and kind of heads them off from Lindsey, so they've got to get back to her. She Chrissy grabs James and lifts him up, lifts him up and starts to choke him, and Ashley bites her. Yeah, and then the other girl hits her with a boat or yeah, like they just like whoop her. But then they just kind of walk away and go back to like, let's try to get in the cabin again. Yeah, like, yeah, again, they don't make logical decisions, but because of how entertaining the consequences are, I can kind of forgive them.

Yeah. No, And like I said, I don't think the movie really kind of shines until later. Right now, it's just pretty stupid. And I do think that that is in a way to kind of lull us into that full sense of security that we know kind of what we're getting, Yeah, and then we get something way further out exactly, which I appreciate. I mean, that's really why we're talking about it exactly. So, So now they're trying to break the glass to get into the cabin to escape Christy and yeah, they're. Sitting there like banging on the door and banging on the glass with an oar, and then the door swings open and there's just this crotchety old man in the door and he's like ah and then slams the door back in their faces.

Yeah, and they're like, no, let us in, like we need we need to get in away from that where you know it's not safe. And then, uh, the two figures that had kind of been trailing them, they finally come out from the woods and it's you know, this hillbilly looking kind of guy and this hick hillbilly looking kind of girl in like tattered old clothes. She's wearing like an old timey dress that's all like muddied and mucked up, and they kind of like shepherd everyone into the house, and you immediately get the sense like, Okay, they know and are prepared for what's happening more than anyone else obviously, and they immediately start like trying to get everyone to cooperate with them while they're in the house, without really explaining exactly what's going on, just explaining like they need them, they need sacrifices, and they need compliance basically.

So I I'm guessing it didn't confuse you. The part where the older son of this of this guy cut his hand and then drew a roun on the glass and then all of a sudden, it created a force field that Christy couldn't walk through. He's kind of left that out. Well, that's what I mean, like there, that's what I meant by like compliance. They want compliance, and they the sacrifice is like the blood. Okay, I'm I'm talking about when he drew on the glass and it made like a glowing force field. Mm hmm. I thought that was really cool.

It was very but well because it comes out of nowhere. I don't know, no, I uh so that's when the kill. The Friday the thirteenth, Part seven kill happened is Christie grabbed Lindsay and while she's like trying to huddle in a sleeping gap, sleeping bag grabs her, drags her back out of the cabin, hoists it up, and just whack, whack, whack into a tree. Pretty gory is pretty effective kill. You're sure it's part seven, right. I'm really hoping it's part seven. No, it is, but I see I want to make you suffer as a horror fan.

Oh no, so I'm guessing you could never in a million years. Guess what Part seven subtitle was? Seven? Eight nine? No, I don't remember. Do you remember any of them? It starts with part four because you have Frida at thirteenth, Friday Thirteenth Part two and Friday the Thirteenth Part three three? D Okay, I. Start having subtitles. Wow, none, no, no, I just not a one. I just well, is it Jason in Manhattan? You even got that wrong? Yeah, it takes manhat takes Manhattan. Which one is that? Seven? Or no? Eight? Eight? Because it's after seven?

Yeah? Yes, after Well you said seven first, which is funny because. I was thinking of seven. No, it's Friday the Thirteenth, Part four, the Final Chapter, Part five, a New Beginning, Part six Jason Lives, Part seven the New Blood. Then Part eight is Jason takes Manhattan, and then part nine is Jason Goes to Hell and ten is Jason X. But those are easy, those are easy. Those are the easy ones. Oh so I did remember it well, kind of vaguely remembered Jayson takes Manhattan in Manhattan. Yeah, but considering the whole point is Jason's in it, which you no doubt knew, and you remembered Manhattan was a major point, even though the film is really Jason takes Vancouver but spends half the movie on a boat, which I actually love the boat stuff in that, so it is kind of funny.

I was very disappointed the first timements in New York City and found out that the sewers do not flood with toxic waste every night at midnight. Smells like it would, but it doesn't. They lied to us. But we're going to take a quick break and then we'll get back into the insanity that happens in this cabin right after this. So they make their getaway back into the cabin right and that's when we get the blood runs on the door and it creates a force field. A glowing force field. This is where the movie starts to really get you because this big you know, we used to call him Bubba's or Jeads.

He cuts his arm and just starts drawing like these ruins on it, like some kind of a symbol on the door, in his blood. And when he's done, the blood glows like a pink, like a bright pink thing. Wow. Wow. And then Christy can't get through it. She just stands there staring through it. Can't pass it, so he somehow sealed the door. Yeah, and but prior to this, the most supernatural thing you'd seen is that the Christy character appears to have died, but now she's alive again. Everything else was at least arguably in the realm of reality.

Yeah. So to me, that is the moment. That's why I harped on it so much. That's the moment when you go whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wha what yea? You know, it would be like if if you know, they they burst into like a room with a metal door and one of the people is like, hold on and use laser eyes to seal the edges. You'd be like, what was that part come from? What was that part? Hold on? Back up, back up, you know, And meanwhile they're like, who lets you in here? Like hold on, but what about the laser eyes.

I want to ask about the laser eyes. Excuse me please, Harry Kakuto New York Times, what about the laser eyes? You know? And they're like so anyway. Yeah. So that's why it's like hyper memorable to me because I just remember the first time up be going what the hell? Yeah, like it's so normal. When it happens to him, he just does it. Yeah, that it almost feels like part of me would be like, did I just like fall asleep for a second? Imagine that? Like, what the hell am I having an aneurysm? So yeah, and that's that's what I love about, you know, Felicity and her brother and uh, the old guy Francis is this is so normal to them, to an you know, to an extent, they there's clearly something has gone wrong, but they all seem to know like, oh, well, if this goes wrong, this is how we fix it.

I don't know if I would say normal might not quite be what I would call it, but it's certainly expected there you go. I mean like it's it's definitely not new. Yeah, you know, I feel like normal would be they would have been even more nonchalant, because they weren't exactly you know what I mean there was they were. They were not chalant. They were not Yeah yeah, but no, I mean but you're right though, like they do seem to have an understanding of what's going on, which gives them a degree of calmness. Yeah, and that also adds to the ridiculousness because these characters, the family, which, Uh, oh gosh, what's the dad's name.

It's it's a Francis. What was the boy's name, Philip? Philip? You sure, yeah, Philip, You're right, and then felsa tie tie, Melissa tie. I think that's how he said it. It's really silly. They are another B movie cliche or slasher movie cliche, which is the scary rednecks. Yeah, And one of my favorite things about that cliche in horror is that it's come very full circle. Early on, when these horror movies were being made, often by young kids, kids fresh out of college, stuff like that, they had this fear, this deep fear of rednecks and hillbillies and country folk and rural folk, and a lot of that probably came from Deliverance and stuff like that, but they did so they'd always make them the scary ones.

And then as time went on into the eighties and stuff, then it became a trope to have them not be The trope went from scary hillbilly's to the scary hillbilly who's actually really helpful or really nice or whatever. And I always thought that was a hilarious kind of turn that it was, like it became so common people were like, what if they were nice? Why not? Yeah, so we have we were being presented with these caricaturesque hillbilly characters. I mean, I mean literally, Felicitae and Philip are filthy. Yeah, for no apparent reason. They're just dirty, and Felicity has like her lips barely have any color to them.

I'm not sure if that's supposed to be hinting at like bad brief or bad nutrition. Or what, but it is like someone just off Yeah, not a good sign. And that makes them intimidating to our two foolish characters. Yeah, and that's kind of the point, you know, is that they're being off put by them. But these are not your average scary rednecks from a horror movie, because it becomes very clear as they're trying to ask what the hell is going on that they know what's going on, but they frustratingly And this is where the movie, like I keep saying, like, this is where the movie becomes paydirt.

This is where the movie is. What I really love about it. They frustrate you so much by not telling you, like they're asking straightforward questions like what I need from you is this? And this and it's like, okay, but what is that. It's like, all in due time, if we have the sacrifice we need and the blah blah blah, you know, felicite, grab the bab ba la. Philip, go get your mama. Yeah, it's just and and and it's almost sometimes it's almost like there, which is another like favorite comedy weapon, uh in parody, it's almost like they're reacting to different questions that are being asked, which is one of my favorite like ways to do satire or or farces is to just have people reacting like you're saying what they are like, they're just reacting like you said something totally different.

I think that's always funny. And it's they're not doing it like super outrageously. That's the other thing is it's always a little there's like they have one foot in like a more sane space and the other foot is just like knee deep in the mud of crazy. Yeah. So we have this, yeah, this apparently hyper redneck family, and we start to get hints that they were doing a kind of ritual exactly, some kind of a resurrection ritual. Yeah, because they want to bring back Mama, well or at least well, they all do. But Dad says that they have and that that's mama is Christie out there, I guess suggesting that that the like maybe because the ritual wasn't completed, she's this revenant that just wants to kill everybody.

I mean, but we're really postulating here because they. They don't give you a thing. Well, the thing is, they give you stuff that just makes you go because the ending makes when the ending happens, and we'll get there. When the ending happens, you just go what yeah, and it really makes you go okay, okay oki doki oki doki. So and we're heading straight toward there because rapetition, yes, because apparently the next step in the ritual might be a bit less uh what's that word? A little less benign? Yeah. Then some people are hoping we'll talk all about that right after this.

Things are escalating and the family is pretty adamant that they need samples, and they say, it's all right. They already got a sample from James. And that's when we realize, ohio from his arm. So there's our answer. So they go to take a sample of Ashley's blood and uh, that's when James kind of notices this may be kind of sinister because he sees what could be like a dead body in another adjoining room, and like candles set up everywhere, and uh, Francis the dad raises a gun to James's head and says, all right, this is how we finished this.

And Felicity like she's been helpful, but she's also been asking, like do we really have to do this or at least do it this way, or like we weren't told. You told me it wasn't gonna be like that. Yeah, you told me it wasn't going to be like this, and it wasn't supposed to be this way. And so when Francis is gonna kill James, Felicity says, that person out there is not my mom, and she, uh, she's the one who does she take another gun? No, Philip Phillips grabs a gun. It's Philip. Philip grabs a gun and he shoots his dad because dad had told him go get go get mama, and Philip snuck off, got a gun, came back.

Well Philip had a gun. Oh that's yeah, yeah, yeah, it turned on dad. Yeah, Dad had a gun and Philip had a gun. Yeah, and Philip had up until this point been just kind of doing whatever his dad said, grabbing people, cutting himself, you know, all this stuff and h And where you really start to realize the movie's bonkers is now they've killed the dad and after he's been shot, Philip just walks up and blows his head off, like shoots him again and just like his head's gone, super Cory and now they're like, all right, we got we gotta do something to get this thing to stop coming after us.

And they're like uh, and she's just like, you gotta do what I say, because like I'm trying to save all of our lives. And this really is where the movie peaks, and but it holds the peak a wild just keeps getting weirder, and I mean, like it stopped me if at this juncture, we're not really going to be able to run down like it's so much happens. Well, it happens, and it happens in a way that it's hard to know the remember the order because it's so bizarre, and it leads into the next thing. But basically they're like, we gotta do this ritual and we understand it might be some kind of a resurrectional Yeah, so she tells Philip to go freshen up the pentagram.

So he goes to the other room and cuts his arm open, which she had already cut his other arm open. Yeah, so he's now bleeding out of both arms, well the other one. I think he like wrapped it up, but it bled a lot before he did that. So now he's literally going around this blood pentagram on the floor and just filling it in and he's bleeding a lot. Yeah, And I remember the first time watching it, I was like, he is bleeding a lot. So, so he's bleeding and she pulls out the. Pop if Felicity pulls out like this big giant like tome and like all these papers, then hands it to the other two.

She's like can you read? And she asks it so sincerely, can you read? And they're like yeah, it's good. Start good, yeah, start reading. But then as she's looking at it, like what are we looking for? And she doesn't answer them until they say, what are we looking for? I don't even know. She just looks the oh gosh, I can't. Ashley goes a glow. Yeah, like gets all demonic. It's crazy. But they never reference it. No, one like says like why she could do that. Yeah, but I will say, if you want to give the benefit of the doubt, it could be a way of saying, like the fastest way of letting her know this is beyond like regular comprehension, like yeah, you see how you couldn't comprehend that, Well, you're not going to comprehend this.

Or My other theory was that doing that made her able to read the pages, because she shortly after that, she goes, I found something. No, you're right, that's interesting. Maybe she shared sight with her so she could read the Yeah, the whatever you know, uh, demonic pages or condarian or whatever. Yeah, there you go. But of course Philip is now sitting in the corner. I think I need a band aid, and they just. Throw him duct tape. Yeah, which is great because like I mean, yeah, kinda yeah, I. Need to show you Decampitated. That's a horror comedy where duct tape is like the only thing keeping one of the characters alive.

That movie's so funny. I should buy the Blu ray, but it's expensive and I probably would only watch it once anyway. Anyway, So they just toss Philip duct tape and he's like trying to bandage up his arm, but he does not do very well. And that's when Felicity asks the question we all have been wondering, and I know you've been wondering when do we eat? Oh? Oh that too. Are either of these two virgins? Oh? Yeah, yeah, I definitely was wondering that. Uh. And it turns out, while uh, while what's her face? The other friend had said that Ashley was a virgin.

No she's not. But no, she's not a virgin. So and then we hear it's three and three. She mentions this a couple of times, three and three, three and three. And she like she stops and starts sniffing. She drops to the floor and starts smelling Ashley's crotch and then goes, she is something. She I forget what she says exactly. It's something about she says like she's she'll she'll she'll do she'll do so, so what we basically start to figure out and in all this then she realizes that Philip's dead. She's like, god, damn it. Uh.

We figure out that what they need in the chalice is the blood of three virgins and three non versions virgins. So she this is why the movie is so great. She's like, I guess I'll have to improvise, but I have an idea. So she cuts Philip's throat he's dead already has a throat to fill the chalice with some of it blood, cuts herself to fill some of her blood in there, then has Ashley put some of her blood in. Gets the blood used Tampa blood. Yeah, the Tampa blood came as Yeah. So so now we've established that her menstrual blood is like separate from.

Her Okay, I mean that it makes as much sense as anything else in the movie. So that counts as virgin's blood. Yeah, So they they do this, so but the part that that like makes it go way over the top. You know, I'm gonna wait, we'll talk about this when we get back, because because they realize that they're actually not short a virgin, there's short a non version and we'll get to that right after right after this. All right, So three and three, and we've established that for some reason, Ashley's menstrual blood counts as virgin blood, right, And so we've got Philip and Felicity's blood being virgins.

We've got James's and Ashley's blood blood that means they need one more non virgin. And I got to give it to Felicita Tae when she says like, you know, I think we can I think I can make this work. I think we guess got to improvise. So she gets on top of James. Yeah. She tells James drop her pants. Yeah, which she had just said to Uh, I can never remember release actually Ashley, she just said to her when she had to do her whole tampon thing, which they really drew that out to make sure the audience was bothered, which I loved.

So she hops on top of James and just humps at him and he like six seconds, boom, it's over, and it's just funny because he's so still confused. After that, she just says, I just thought I just didn't imagine my first time and being like that, and he's. Like what, yeah, actually, it's like wow, six it's nice. Then she cuts herself again and bleeds into the chalice. So now I guess she has her virgin blood and her own non virgin blood. That's why this movie is memorable. Guys. It's been ten years since it came out and we're still talking about it.

There's a reason, because it's got a lot to really enjoy it. That hasn't even gotten into the wildest part. I mean it's up there, yeah, up there already. But so now they've got this chalice of just heinous blood and they're supposed to drink from it. Yeah, that's like to complete the banishing. And here's a good example of them jumping into tropes in a fun way. Blood drinking is a very common trope in you know, rituals and horror movies. Another trope I hate, by the way, about blood letting is people always cut the palm of their hand.

Why would you cut the palm in your hand? That'll hurt for months, the bandage you'll come off because you're using you I would I would cut like the back of my arm, really because like then you just slap a band in on it. Donzo, you barely ever move that skin. But people cut that, you know, I never understood that, Like, why would you do that? Anyway? But yeah, so they have to drink the blood. Very common cliche. But they decide to not turn away from the fact that this is really disgusting. Yeah, it would be disgusting if the blood wasn't chunky, style, but it is yeah with pulp, yes, yes, but uh, much like your blood was before you got your water bottle to make you drink enough water.

Yeah, I don't want to talk about. How dehydrated the Hydrachel, Rachel the hyd Yeah, there we go. But but so like Felicity drinks drink sum and she just kind of powers through it, you know whatever, because she's fucking weird as shit already we've established that, yeah. Uh, but then she gives it to Ashley, and Ashley they really depict how much of a struggle it is for her to. Sweeah, because she's just like plugging her nose and like all like look, well and Felicity, I don't think that it's necessary. She's like pouring giant amountains in the mouths too.

I don't know if that's actually necessary, but you're drowning it. Yeah, but apparently it might be. So it's it's so we get to watch her like gagging and struggling, but she is really trying to swallow this. Yeah, because clearly something crazy is going on. Oh and I think that we forgot the stomach room on their stomach and on their stomach and it glows. It makes their stomachs like move it. It freaks them out a little bit. So, like I said, a lot happened. But then when they get to h to James. He's like, cannot do it, but I can't.

He just can't do it. And the worst part, she's like forcing him to, like she like makes it grosser too. It's yeah, like Ashley has to hold it his head open, yeah, like. Hold his nose and stuff. So eventually, and this is where the wheels, the wheels don't leave the car, they leave the state. He ends up puking back up the blood and the way they depicted his legs because like oh no, no, no, no, no, no, you know, like he pukes it back up, which would cancel out the ritual they'd done. But not only does it cancel out the ritual, it splashes Ashley in the face and burns her face off.

Yeah, like a like acid Yeah, which, yeah, why did it do that, mad chick? I mean it's it's it's perfect. Yeah, so ridiculous. And now Felissa Tie is super pissed. Yeah, that ruined that killed the the ritual they were going to do. So now it just kind of becomes every man for themselves and do you want to you want to talk about like because because we're now we're barreling toward the conclusion, which is the best friggin part of this movie. Yeah. Really, So. They run off, they scatter, it's just Felicity and James. Felicity runs towards the lake and she's trying to get a boat off the more and James like finally comes up and he comes up to her and he's just standing around while she's trying to get the boat like undone.

That's one of my favorite parts. She keeps trying to lift the boat up and he's just standing there. He never won, but she never asks him to help. You. Yeah, it's really funny. It's it's great because you're right, she could have asked, but also like you'd feel like, if you want to get away, you'd help. I think she didn't ask because the audience, they knew the audience are sitting there going like, why is any helping, like help, so like by not even having her ask it like keeps the eyes going. What the hell, like come on, damn it man.

Well, so she sees that shard of glass that was there at the beginning, so she grabs it. She stabs him in the shoulder and then punches him in the gut and says, this is for Ashley. And in the distance, we can hear an ambulance because they did call nine one one earlier, right before. They got in the cabin, because they even made a joke they said they'll be twenty five minutes, like so an hour, yeah, like at least. At least so she can she can hear the sirens in the distance. There's a slim bit of hope that maybe she can she can get it out.

She runs, uh and gets away in the boat and James flees to the woods. But as he's out in the woods, there's a nice reunion with his friend Pete. Oh yeah, yeah, he finds old Pete. Finds finds old Pete and uh Felicity sneaks up on him and she grabs the spyglass from Pete, knocks James to the ground and shoves it in his mouth and like curb stomps it through his through his throat. So, like I said at the beginning, everything like almost everything has some sort of payoff. Well, yeah, and the Christie character is now just like really, I mean, we got a hint of her bizarre strength when she slammed the sleeping bag into the tree.

But she's just I mean, she can just French things right through you, getting really Yeah, it's like shocking how like strong she is. She has like this impossible demonic strength that makes her very formidable. But like, but all the while she is just a naked woman covered in blood. Like that's the literally the creature the whole time, which is which is just a brilliant audacity. And I guess that's kind of when I was talking about cliche that they're commenting on, I kind of felt like that was an extra comment because of the because in twenty sixteen, this is a very controversial opinion I have.

In twenty sixteen, the nudity and horror movies kind of concept was dying. Yeah, and I would know I was making horror movies in that time period, and I at one point I did one without nudity and the movie did great, and it slowly became a little bit more of a hindrance than a help sometimes because of streaming and da da da da. So part of me thought, as somebody who once did a movie with a topless ghost that was actually evil in Haunted House, AND's already row. I thought that having the kill the monster be a just a naked woman was kind of a middle finger to that, well, not a middle finger, but you know, kind of a laughing at that cliche by go, yeah, well then the killer will just be a naked woman.

Yeah. I don't know, that's just my take. No, No, I have to agree because in horror movies, like you said, it is a cliche. You just have like gratuitous nudity and monsters and killers. But this one says, okay, so what if they were the same thing? Yeah, which is kind of fun. It's a fun concept to play with. I mean, if you're like fun, I guess it's fine. Yeah. Well, we're gonna take a break because a showdown is about to begin as we head into the big finale of the film right after this. So we're down to just Felicity, Felicity and Christy.

Sirens are approaching in the distance. Felicita is kind of like trying to make her way to the road and she still got that shard of glass. She finally makes it to one of the ambulances, but as she gets there, she realizes, oh no, Christie got there first. Yeah, once she gets close to the ambulance, it's just covered in blood, not even not a little bit, like it's completely the least shield is nothing but blood. Yeah, which I also felt was kind of a joke about, you know, the lack of subtlety. Yeah. So there's a showdown between like a nice cat fight between these two, and like Felicity's holding her own, she does like manage to slash and stab.

Yeah, and that Christy I totally forgot when sorry, when when she first runs off, Felicitae first runs off, she does draw a different rune on her stomach than the one she had in there, which I'm guessing has something to do with the WTF that we're getting that we're gonna Yeah, I just want to mention that because like she drew the one that I think was what was on the guy's stomach initially or something. I can't remember now, but I remember it wasn't the one that was originally on her stomach. She she drew a new one.

Yeah, Yeah, so she drew no one. They get into a fight there and Felicity stabs Christy and it seems like she may get the upper hand, but then Christy just like beats her in the head mercilessly. It's it's a fine the final example of that. Christy has like unlimited strength. Yeah, you know that. This is just beyond it. And at this point Felicity has kind of become the character. Well she's only one alive, but she's kind of become the character. And it doesn't last very long. No, because well, Christy, with her supernatural strength, manages to knock Felicity down, grabs her by her head and lifts her up and rips her head in half.

I don't think she lifts her up. I think you're confusing that with earlier when he lifted that guy up. She gets on the top of herle she's on the ground, but her head off straight and half No, no, no, no, I don't not try to cheapen it. She like pulls on either side and just there's half a head in each hand. Yeah, it's ridiculous, and it does work very well as like a punctuation of this horrific violent thing that's going on. Yeah, but lord, where this is going. So but Felicity, Okay, she's dead, she's dead on the ground and Christie's lumbering off.

But that roune, that Felicity had just put on her stomach. It glows and its lights up. Yeah. Okay. So then we see Christy like wandering and lumbering into a neighbor's yard. And it was actually a house we had seen the first house we saw at the beginning when the guys were delivering mail. Yeah, they went by that house first when they were looking for the Christie house. So that was just a cool like, yeah, everything comes full circle and it has a payoff, and she. Starts slowly lumbering toward them like she's going to, you know, continue this massacre.

Yeah, and then I'll let you start because this I'm not kidding guys. When we saw this in the theater, I thought like, yeah, this is all right. Oh that's kind of dumb. Oh this is all right, that's kind of dumb. And then when that ending happened, I was like, Okay, holy crap. I kind of loved that because that was so nuts. But it but it fits, it fitits none of it's lazy. That's the part that is so great. They're establishing a reality that is truly bonkers or cuckoo bananas, depending on what part of the country you're from.

Calm down, hold wait, oh, I didn't have my I didn't have my bleep ready to stop you from from ruining the show. You know, I swear at the start there we go, I'm not gonna but but no. So but they established this crazy world with these crazy rules, and they do follow it to some extent. They just don't reveal everything all at once. Yes, so when things feel random, they kind of aren't. Yeah, that's just my take on it. But so so Yeah. So she's lumbering covered in blood and there is kind of a little sense of dread because we understand what she's capable of.

Now I assume this is just the this is set up. Yeah, how it goes? Yeah, the downbeat ending. Yeah, but she kind of like moans and clutches her stomach and hunches over and then falls to the ground, lays on her back, and then a hand reaches out of her vagina. Well it's built up. She seems to be going into labor. Yeah, it's not. It's not like it's built there's build in it. But yeah, yeah, but I mean, so what I'm saying, guys, is not that Rachel is wrong about the hand coming out of this woman's Vahma, what I'm saying is she falls on the and starts like going into labor and then a hand And I don't beat a baby's hand.

That's why Rachel said that like a hand. It's because it's a grown up hand, like a grown ass adult hand. Yes, well not an ass, but yes, a hand comes out all bloody. Christie's labored in pain, and then a head, a human head, starts coming out and it's a woman. Yeah, and she's like. Screaming and naked, naked and just like being born. I mean, she's literally ripping out of Christie's body entirely. At this point, she's clearly killing killing Christie. Yeah, yeah, kills Christy as she's coming out, and then it just cuts. There's but you well, the thing that made this stick wasn't just that that happens.

It's that when she finally like gets out and kind of falls over on Christie's dead body, you realize it's melicit tag yeah, like and she's literally like it's it's felicity. So she literally goes like ah. And when she makes that last sound, you really you hear her like southern he like ah. And then it cuts and then tonight she comes comes up on the screen in in a in a cursive font and they play like a love song, which I love that they did that. That's such a great touch. But yes, that and that is the moment that I went, holy crap, this, this is this is so brilliant.

So she had apparently we can only assume, had used the half committed curse to make herself be reborn out of Christy. That's that, yeah, I guess. And it and it totally makes sense because like, oh doesn't it well as much as the rest of it made sense. I mean, but no, because the whole when they're when they're all stuck together with the family in the ritual scene, it does feel like you get enough pieces of the logic and the rules of the magic that when this grand finale happens, you're just like, Okay, yeah, of course this is Why would I assume it would play out any other way?

Well, and again, it's like nothing is cheap about it. Something bursting out of her and then it being Felicity is also kind of nice because by the time she dies, you kind of are rooting for her finally, and rooting for anybody finally. Yeh. So it's kind of cool that she's back. But it also just makes you go like, wow, I really still don't have a clue how this whole world works that they've built. Well. Yeah, so I loved it. It made me happy because it wasn't like there have been a lot of movies I don't want to name them, kaudn't want to be negative, but like a couple of more recently a twenty four ish movies where they did some big twist at the end that like just came from nothing.

Like I was like, oh, okay, I mean yeah, but like I didn't really feel like it was that earned. Yeah, Like I was just kind of like, oh, yeah, that is unexpected the end. And that's the worst thing you can do is have a big mystery and then be so worried about it being a surprise that you don't. It's not satisfying. It's just the least expected. Yeah, is the only goal you have there with this. When that happened, I was like, No, that adds up to everything I've seen in the movie, all of the psychotic like satanic stuff, all the rebirth conversation, all the references to virgins and non virgins and rebirth and and blood, and the whole like drawing on your womb and stuff like that's all in that.

I bet if we really sat and tried to pull it apart, we could probably figure out more. I'm sure we could, because I was curious, like she changed your stomach to I think the drawing that she had on it from the guy. Yeah, So I'm wondering if maybe her if like she hadn't told them, which honestly would have been perfect if she hadn't told him, Like, oh, well, what's gonna happen is like, once this ritual starts, you're gonna die. But then she'll give birth to you and that'll kill her and then we'll be That wouldn't even surprise me.

That would be like he'd be like, what did she be like, just don't worry about it, just we're gonna die, and then she'll give birth to you. Well I'm gonna be a baby, and she's like, just do what. I would tell you. Yeah, Like that would work though, That would make sense. Yeah, in the movie, the sense of the movie exactly. I have a feeling we have a bit more to say about this. So we're gonna take a quick break and when we get back, we're gonna we're gonna peel back some more layers of tonight.

She comes right. After this, so you'd mentioned that. Toward the end, especially when we get to like the final act, we start rooting for Felicity. To some extent because yeah, because when you had said earlier, I feel like you said something about her earlier that I wanted to comment on. You said something like she's the only reasonable, she's like the most comp and yes, but she's also crazier than hell, oh my god. Yeah, and in part because she's literally like a weird caricature of like a redneck, and in part because she understands all this crazy shit that's crazy.

Yeah. Well, what's what's the old quote, like in an insane world, only the sane or insane or something. Something something like that. Right, So, yeah, like she's the most well adjusted person in an absolutely batshit world, which means she is herself by extension batshit. Oh I mean, she's maybe beyond that shit, but yeah, yeah, no, I'm with you. But yeah, so you do start to kind of cheer for her because everything she says seems to work like it doesn't like, it doesn't appear she's a crank. No, you know, and like that moment when her eyes glowed all craziestuff kind of makes you go, Okay, so like this magic is a real thing and she clearly knows something about it.

Yeah, you know, and she's clearly got like a sense of morals because she's the one who was like standing up for James and Ashley. Yeah, she's also the one who got upset on Ashley's behalf that James kind of like accidentally led to her death. Yeah, so she you know, she's a very interesting character that way for sure. But it did make me wonder this second watch. Is there a traditional protagonist in this movie? Oh? No, not at all. I actually think that that's part of their cliche game. Yeah, is they keep handing you obvious protagonists that don't be the protagonist?

Yes, because initially, like you meet the girls, so then you think maybe the blonde girl will be the protagonist, because if we want to go really deep into horror tropes, if there's a white girl and a black girl, traditionally in horror tropes, the black girl is going to die. So so we have the two girls, but then we meet the buddies and we have one guy who seems somewhat serious, although he gets weirder as time goes on. And one guy who is clearly comic relief. I mean, he's just everything he does is smoke weed and tap people in the balls and take shits and like masturba.

So he's the comic relief. So you're getting handed these archetypes that seem pretty obvious, and then they kind of run with them. So I mean, in a way, once we get Felsa Taie, she does become like the main character kind of, but she also shows up pretty late to be the main character, and she does die right at about the end. So I mean I would say that, you know, she's the cist thing. Yeah, to a protagonist, you've got so an import in a storm, I guess. And then that also begs the question like is there an actual antagonist?

Because Christy the Christie Monster in and of itself, it's not necessarily a villain because you get the sense that it's just it's kind of like a construct or a golam. It's just doing what it was made to do. But that doesn't make it not the villain. Oh okay, I mean well, I mean, well not the villain. Sorry, Sorry, that doesn't make it not the antagonist. I see what you're saying. Yeah, because if if you want to go with like that, Francis was the villain, Yeah, but he can't be the antagonist because he dies like before the halfway mark and nothing stops.

So that's kind of my point, Like, you can have a villain, but he may not be the pure antagonist because even he was working to stop the antagonist. Ah, that's fair, that's a fair so, but that's the thing. A protagonist. Ant Antagonists can be very neutral. Yes, that's something that's really important to keep in mind because they're not heroes and villains. That's a totally different thing. Because an antagonist could be the police trying to arrest the serial killer if the serial killer is the is the character that the audience is supposed to be identifying with exactly so, and that's something that can't but it's easy to confuse them because generally those archetypes fit very very neatly together.

So, but Christy is clearly the antagonist. I mean, she just has to be. But the biggest, the biggest way to know who or what the antagonist is is usually how soon after they die or are defeated or what have you. Does the film end, because generally, once an antagonist is gone, there's no movie left because there's nothing to drive the story. It's not always the case. I mean, sometimes you have a resolution that may but oftentimes, especially in horror movies, when there's a resolution sequence, it ends with a tease that the antagonist is not gone.

Yeah. So generally speaking, I think that's the main reason I could be extra confidence because the movie basically ends the moment we know Christie's dead. Yeah. No, I think you're absolutely right. And I hadn't thought about when the movie ending was a good you know, you're. Too busy thinking about how crazy the ending was. Yeah. Yeah, like like you had to actually think to go, oh yeah, Christy dies because you're too busy thinking about how crazy it is that forging Felicity crawls out. Of her right. And I think that's fair. That's why this movie works and why we enjoyed this movie so much is because it's so bonkers.

And I really can't say enough. If you guys haven't watched it and you've listened to us talk about it this whole way, you can still watch it on fandango at home with ads and get plenty out of it. Yeah, yeah, because we can't even do some of the craziest just But also I think it's extra funny that the movie has a totally cut and dry, most obvious antagonist ever and then a completely murky concept of protagonist. Yeah, that's kind of funny. Yeah, it is funny. And that's why this movie is not lazy at all. Is it was very well written, it was very well acted.

All of the effects were really well done. We're pretty solid, and it does like as much as you are sitting there going what the fuck, what the fuck? What the fuck, it's still like obviously makes you think. Like we're sitting here talking about it, and it's one of those movies that I've thought about consistently for the past ten years. It really leaves an impression. It is definitely a hoot. So well, with that all being said, before we get out of here, Rachel want to tell them what we're watching and talking about. Next time, we will be watching The Ritual from twenty seventeen.

That's right available on Netflix with your subscription, so you can check that one out. This is one I remember a modest amount about, but you really it stuck with you. It really stuck with me. Yeah, I'm excited to visit again because I was. I was really like freaked out by it. Okay, well, there you have it. So on that note, my friends, we're gonna get out of here, but we we do appreciate you all spending a little time with us here at cutting deep into horror as we get ready for the very busy Halloween season that's coming right up.

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Help other spookies know they're in the right place. But until next time, my friends, stay safe and don't do any rituals that are resurrecte. Yeah, please don't Yeah, see you next time.