Latest / Citizen Frame / Halloween Month and a 1/2 episode 6: Weapons

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Halloween Month and a 1/2 episode 6: Weapons · Citizen Frame

0:11
This is a true story. It happened right here in my town two years ago.
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A lot of people die in a lot of really weird ways in this story,
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but you're not gonna find it in the news or anywhere like that,
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because the police and the top people in this town were like so embarrassed
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that they weren't able to solve it that they covered everything all up.
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But if you come here and ask anyone, they'll all tell you the same thing that I'm gonna tell you now.
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This story starts in my school. I see something that doesn't make any sense at all.
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Talking about 17 kids and one classroom.
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What happened in that classroom? Why just her classroom? Why only hers?
0:56
I'm picking up a lot of emotion and that's fine. So you'll forgive me if I'm
0:59
not particularly interested in hearing any more out of you.
1:02
Hey everybody, welcome back to another sweet, sweet, exciting episode of Sinister
1:05
Frame Halloween in a month and three quarters.
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That's a bit of a tongue twister that actually well we keep changing the fucking
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you know schedule the length of Halloween month it was the first Halloween month
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Halloween month and a half now it's Halloween month three quarters now it's Halloween month,
1:24
in a few years time it'll just be Halloween every day of the week Halloween all year easier,
1:32
alright we're hearing Taco Boy Zach Greger again You hit it out of the park with Barbarian.
1:37
Now we're here to talk the massive, massive horror hit.
1:41
And quite frankly, probably, and I might be misspeaking, but I don't think I
1:45
am, probably the best, probably, this is probably the number one film of the
1:51
year on most people's top 10 list.
1:53
It's the number one film of the year for me so far. And I can't see my mind
1:58
being changed, but you never know.
2:00
You haven't seen the new Teletubbies movie. I have, actually.
2:04
It's called 20 years later.
2:07
That was terrible. We'll get to those ones soon. All right. So, yeah, a boy's back.
2:14
I like this story where he had the script written and Netflix wanted it.
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And he decided he didn't
2:25
want to go to netflix because a he wanted to he
2:28
wanted a theoretical release but most
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importantly he decided to go off new line because they are the
2:35
guys who seem to get horror right his script caused a
2:39
bidding war within hollywood and jordan
2:42
peele had basically sacked his company
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or the ones you know his agency or whatever it is monkey bar yeah because they
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lost out i'm so happy he didn't go to netflix zack krieger because they're shit
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and i'm glad i got a theatrical release 100 you know because certainly deserves
3:03
it and more and yeah i love that zack
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Prager decided to go with New Line in the end because they had more horror sort of credo.
3:15
It's a host of Freddy, Bill. Yep.
3:18
Ben, you wouldn't watch this and researching it, and I couldn't believe I didn't catch this.
3:25
His inspiration for this film was this movie that came out a few years ago called Prisoners.
3:30
And this is shot, I mean, unreal when you think about it. But Archer's character
3:36
is pretty much Jake Gyllenhaal's and Hugh Jackman's character rolled into one.
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It's shot a lot like Prisoners in Small Town, USA.
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Magnolia is also a big influence on it. What? Magnolia is also a big influence
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on it. I can see that. I can see that.
3:55
And kind of a disturbing fact.
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We're all trying to wonder why everyone in this film who's under a trance is
4:02
running kind of like an airplane a little bit.
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And in looking it up, he got the idea.
4:08
It was a famous photograph. It's a very depressing and sad photograph.
4:12
Yes, I know the one you mean. And it's called Napalm Girl. It's the name of the famous photograph.
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And it's about a young girl. Well, it's a photograph of a young Vietnamese girl
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running from her village as it's being napalmed.
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And she's running out of there and it looks like her arms are holding two bags. Yes.
4:31
Is what it kind of looks like. And that's where he got the idea for how they run in this film.
4:37
Yeah, definitely something to think about because if you know that photo I'm
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talking about, it's definitely- It's a very famous photo. Yeah,
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I believe it's a wood one. Yeah, it's very- Yeah.
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Yeah, it's very- It's iconic. It's haunting. At the same time,
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just haunting is the perfect word. That's what I was looking for.
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Yeah, so we got $38 million budget. It's a much bigger budget than we got from Bomberian.
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But this little bad boy is taking in $267 million and it's going to keep going.
5:03
It just got released on 4K. I just ordered my copy.
5:07
Yes. And I'll definitely give it a rewatch, though I've watched like four times,
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so I'm pretty good to go anyway.
5:14
I've watched it three times, twice in the cinema, and then again on streaming for this podcast.
5:19
I would say, just to jump back a bit, something you said about, you know, 4K,
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that's something I am very much intentionally getting back into is,
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although I have a load of physical media,
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I need to be buying physical media more because streaming is too easy,
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but it's also well you don't own the film
5:38
you know it's not the same so well streaming streaming is never the quality
5:42
you get from a from a from actual software yeah there's a reason why you go
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to hmb now and it's starting to thrive a lot more thanks to people going in
5:50
and buying records or albums as you call them whatever and you go in and i'm
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waiting in line people are getting 4k movies,
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and so it's the reason why i'm not i'm not going to piss on netflix i won't
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because i think netflix has done some great stuff.
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But the reason I don't want movies to go to Netflix because Netflix wants to own them.
6:09
So that means we'll never get to see them on software.
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Yeah. Because they want people to go and see them on their site and not go buy
6:17
it and then not go to their site. So then they're not released then on physical media.
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So yes, support physical media people, physical books, physical films and music if you can.
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I mean, Amazon gets it right. Amazon's going to release their stuff on physical
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media because there's going to be money there.
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But I think it's one of the reasons why Mike Lennigan left Netflix and went to Amazon.
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Also, if you buy a film on a streaming site, you've paid your money.
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But at the same time, Amazon or Netflix or whatever can take it down off their
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streaming service. So you've lost your money, you've lost your film.
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Whereas if you have a DVD or a Blu-ray or whatever, you'll always have that.
6:56
Well, it's kind of not how it works. So how it works is, I probably was on a
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podcast some time ago, but how it works is you don't own the film,
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you're buying it, okay? You're leasing it. Yeah.
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So let's say Netflix owns, say, Stranger Things.
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Yes. And you decide you want to buy Stranger Things, the whole box set,
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through Netflix. We'll just say, I know you can't, but we're just making this up.
7:20
And you have the whole box set. Well, Netflix decides to go under,
7:23
and they're going to sell Stranger Things to Fox.
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Well, Fox now owns the rights. So that means you don't no longer hold that lease. Yeah.
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So they can remove that and you'll have to go buy a whole new box set at Fox.
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And the big thing is, and this is where I stopped buying on Apple TV,
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is I was watching The American Office. I bought the whole box set.
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I love The American Office. Funniest show I ever made.
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And they edited it. I was just about to say that.
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They cut. They actually edited scenes to appease the woke people out there.
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Not only that, they have removed entire episodes.
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I haven't seen that, but I do see, I'm sure it's going to come to that.
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Oh, a certain series. Yeah. It's basically treating adults like children.
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And that's, I mean, aside from it being censorship, but also it's basically
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saying we're a bunch of corporate suits and we know what's best for you.
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And, you know, in reality, they're sort of running afraid of the social media
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sort of witch hunts, you know, the mobs coming after them as well.
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But there's definitely that element of we
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know what's best for you and we'll tell you what we
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will decide what's offensive to you or not which
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is absolute talk about condescending so
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there's a lot of elements going on there but essentially by physical media people
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because they can't do that to you with physical media yeah so yeah so apple
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said that we don't own the films they can be taken away at any time and be edited
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whenever they want yes so yeah and sound quality is 300 times better on software,
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fix the quality is better.
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So start buying the stuff guys. It's worth it. It looks cool in the wall.
9:01
Exactly. It's collector's items, you know?
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All right. Went a little off-ramp there, but we're back here with weapons.
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Again, we got a small cast, which I like. We got Justine, played by Julie Gardner.
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Marcus, played by Patrick Wong.
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Archer, played by the guy I always like to see, Josh Brolin.
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We got Gary, very small cameo, Justine. Yeah.
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We got James, played by the scene stealer, Austin Abrams, who's going to be
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the lead of the new Resident Evil movie that Jack's doing right now.
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Yes. Looking forward to that.
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We got Paul, played by Alden Iterich. We know him as Young Han Solo.
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We got Gladys, scene stealer, Amy Madigan. Yep.
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And we got very good child actor. Very surprised here. Alex,
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played by Kerry Christopher.
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I mean, I'm a big critic of generally a lot of, you know, modern media and modern films and stuff.
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But I have to say, something has happened in the last few years where child
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actors have all of a sudden got better, you know, especially in horror films.
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We just talked about that with Black Phones. Yeah. So, you know, far play.
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All right. So, and even the opening, how we're kind of reintroduced to the trailer
10:16
that we saw, it gets us into the seats, and that's Scarlett Sher,
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who's the narrator of it, the young kid who's the narrator.
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She's very effective, actually, as a narrator. She's very creepy little tone
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there, but she kind of guides.
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Again, it's a nice data dump. Yes.
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We don't want to overstay its welcome we kind of got the idea from the trailer,
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she's just bringing it this is more of an extended version of that trailer that
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kind of let us know that these kids have disappeared 17 kids have disappeared
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at 2.17 in the morning and it sets it up perfectly the mystery and it sets it up,
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And Alex is the only one who hasn't. What's going on?
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So the film is so fun. The film is told through different eyes.
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You got Justine's version. Not Justine's version. Justine's story.
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You got Marcus's story. You'll get Archer's story. You'll get James' story.
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You'll get Paul's story. And then it all comes together with Alex's story.
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That's pretty much how this film works. Told a lot like the golden boy of this kind of grab mix,
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grab bag genre, which would be Pulp Fiction yes it does but you know even going
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back even further there's likes of Rosham and you know it's not a new thing
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that Tarantino invented but certainly he sort of put it on the map in the 90s
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this type of storytelling chapter type storytelling,
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or the ending of Clue I haven't seen Clue in years so it was a fucking classic
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you guys want to see a classic?
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Tim Curry Clue Yeah. Fucking hilarious. I watched it on TV years ago, I think.
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If you see the, if you own the Blu-ray.
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The physical media? You get all four endings. You get all four endings.
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Well. They filmed four. They were very smart.
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They filmed four endings. So you went to the theater to see it.
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You might have got one different ending. So you wanted to go see a different
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ending. You had to go to another show. Well.
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And you might still got the same ending. It's very fun.
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Clever market idea. But when you buy the physical media, it intertwines the
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four innings together and it kind of wraps everything up.
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It's kind of where I was going. There's an old amicus horror film from the 70s
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called The Beast Must Die, which would really be called The Elsays and Dog Must Die.
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But it has a werewolf break where, again, something similar where you have to
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decide, you know, who's the werewolf, you know. And there's all these different characters.
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I think Michael Gambon's one. It stars Peter Cousin. It's actually a really fun amicus film.
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So there's something similar going on there too.
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Like we mentioned, his choice in music is quite, the movie kind of opens up
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with George Harrison's Beware of Darkness.
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Nice little setup. Yeah. We quickly get the idea that Alex's family is the core
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here. Yeah. But then we just cut to Justine.
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Yes. You know, it's funny.
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In watching this, for the first time when I watched it, I hated Justine's character.
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She's having an affair with a married man or someone who's engaged.
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She's an alcoholic and a boozer and she
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feels no pity she seems to
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have no remorse for what was going on very emotionalist is
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a perfect word and but when you see it again
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like you mentioned in the last podcast barbarian this film has replayability
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and when you re-watch it again you kind of understood where the justine character
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was going yes and these little side stories because there's so much going on,
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you will miss little things.
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So my initial watch, Paul and Justine are vile characters. I did not like them.
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But when you see the ending of the film, and if you haven't,
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spoiler alert, Paul gets it. And...
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The ones who get it kind of deserve to get it. This is the thing with Justine.
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Justine's an alcoholic, and it's beautifully written and beautifully played,
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or very realistically played.
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I think, at her core, she's a good person, but due to her alcoholic mindset,
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she is making some terrible life choices.
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For example, the affairs and stuff. She's also an enabler, where Paul,
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the cop, is also an alcoholic.
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He gets him off the wagon which is really like
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bad bad bad shit to do just for
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her own selfish reasons but alcoholics are
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selfish that is part of the condition you become
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completely selfish where the alcohol and
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getting the alcohol is the number one priority you would
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work over you would walk over burning coals
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to get it and you will lie and cheat and all
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sorts so at her core she is a good person so is paul
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but they are just alcoholics in that alcoholic mindset
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i'd say paul's more sympathetic though but by the
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end you're sort of sympathetic towards justine as well this film
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is about alcoholism through and
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through i know yeah it's it's written by zach and he's he's 10 years sober yeah
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that's right yeah so it's one of those things that he wrote probably a passion
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project a little bit here oh yeah but i don't care i i don't because i think
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the Paul character's vile. Don't like him at all. Why not?
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And he just, we'll get it, we'll get into it.
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And I don't care about that they're using the alcohol as an excuse to be what they become.
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Now, Justine, I'll give you, because we talk about Oxalot here. She has one.
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But the whole, the whole, we're not, it's kind of tough. We can't really,
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we're not going to dig into each story. Yes. We're just going to talk about each character. Okay.
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If you want to see how the stories play out and how they intertwine,
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go see the film. We can't really explain it. We won't be doing it justice.
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We'll just talk about the characters themselves and each, as we're talking about
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their side story. It would be like a five hour podcast, I had to go into every single detail.
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So, yeah, we find out, it kind of opens up what she's, people are questioning
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that why is, it's kind of silly because, come on, what's she going to steal,
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how is she going to steal 17 kids?
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But it's a sort of obvious sort of thing you would jump to in terms of,
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you know, she's a new teacher to this school and all of a sudden 17 members
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of her class go missing. So I can understand it.
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It mightn't be the most logical when you really think about it,
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but she is sort of being scapegoated.
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Well i think my favorite character archer
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yeah is he gets up in the town hall and
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he goes what do you know he doesn't say what did you
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do he didn't say you took him all he doesn't he's he's
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you know he's got he's little it's a little sense up there he just wants to
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know what have you been teaching them what you know that makes more sense to
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question that rather than her actual actions because there's no way she kidnapped 17 kids.
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They just want to know what she's teaching them for them to go off on their own like this.
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I actually love the joint arc of Archer and Justine where they start off as
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basically sworn enemies, you know.
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But by the end they.
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Reach that understanding and actually become sort of buddies.
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Yeah, that's near the end there. But yeah. so i do like i that's why i kind
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of like the archer's character he just wants rhyme and reason,
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and but he's also an obsessive in his
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own way he's not an alcoholic but he has his own obsessions yeah but this is
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a this is a reasonable obsession this guy is is is is is is a meltdown now he
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has this construction business he's fucking up orders and so forth he's more
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invested in finding his kid and rightfully so,
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where to me, the Justine and Paul excuse to me isn't an excuse.
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And same thing with James, because he's a druggie. We're all supposed to be,
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oh, no, I don't. Maybe that's me just being sympathetic.
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But they're coming off as unsympathetic. They come off. And that's the problem
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I have. They're selfish.
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James, you see it quite a bit that they're selfish.
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Now, they do a little humorous with the James character because he's kind of,
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when he's talking to his brother and he needs to borrow some money and he's
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trying to, as he's stealing people's bags and stealing little kids' tablets
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and trying to sell them and so forth.
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They try to put a little humor in there to kind of make it a little sympathetic for him. I don't.
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Especially the Paul character with how he treats Donna and how you see Donna's
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dad treats him very nicely.
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He's Ed. I believe it's Ed, the sheriff. Yes. Of the chief.
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He treats him, played by Huss, who I like to see.
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That's a good character. And Paul just mistreats all of them.
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And it's not his alcoholism that does that. Because quite frankly,
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he's sober until he sees the enabler, as you call her, Justine again,
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who gets him off the wagon.
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But at the same time, I don't want to get too heavy in the whole alcoholic mindset.
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And I'm not justifying bad behavior.
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At the same time, it is so realistically played and so very well-rounded.
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Because obviously, Krieger is writing from his own personal experiences.
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So while the Paul character is sober for most of the film, he still is within
19:36
the, he's a dry, drunk, alcoholic mindset.
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So he's making these totally selfish decisions and life choices.
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So at the same time, I'm not defending it, but I'm sort of understanding it, if you know what I mean.
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And I think it is brilliantly, it is bang on with the writing.
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In terms, they are rounded human characters.
19:58
Oh, yeah. I mean, and that's where I can see where he got the idea from Prisoners.
20:04
Yeah. I haven't seen Prisoners, by the way.
20:06
Jesus. This is Paul Dano, Jake Gyllenhaal, Hugh Jackman. I mean- I like Paul Dano a lot.
20:14
Yeah. It's just great cast. I'll have to check it out. But I meant when you, in each one, each story-
20:23
As they get each care, and I've noticed this myself, Justine's.
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Justine ends up, she has this obsession with finding Alex and to talk to him
20:33
to find out what's going on because she wants to find out what's going on,
20:37
of course. Yeah. Rightfully so.
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So when she finally gets to Alex's house and she sees the newspapers on the
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windows and she sees the parents as comatose on the chair there,
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boom, she begins to have nightmares.
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And in that nightmare, she has a Gladys jump scare when Gladys is on the ceiling.
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And she panics and gets scared.
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Then when we see Archer's story, Archer is now investigating at the same time
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Justine is. And this is how their story is kind of intertwined.
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But once he starts getting closer to how he figures out when the kid runs,
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they're going to point A to point B. They're going somewhere.
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Then he starts dreaming. And then he's introduced to Gladys.
21:20
From a jump scare. This guy with these jump scares. In the bed,
21:23
yeah. It's the same thing with James.
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James is getting closer because he found the kids in the basement when he was
21:32
trying to rob their house.
21:33
Yes. So now he's closer to figuring out what's going on.
21:36
He's introduced to Gladys in the woods when he wants to shoot up.
21:39
Yeah. Really creepy visual scene when she's in the woods waving over at him.
21:45
I would say as well, just going back to what we talked about in the Barbarian
21:48
podcast, the jumpskirts here with Gladys in the beds and stuff,
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they make total sense for the story, they're not cheap and they're not just done for the sake of it,
21:59
they actually make total sense within the story and they have a point and they
22:04
work very well as jumpskirts at the same time.
22:08
You've got, yeah, so each segment, you've got to kind of watch a couple times.
22:13
You'll catch the parallels, the similarities that even though they're at each
22:21
other's throats or opposite sides of the spectrum, they're kind of living the same.
22:29
They're all heading in the same direction. Yeah. Ultimately, yes. Yeah.
22:36
And that's really what I like about it. And it's smooth.
22:40
It's not like, what? Wait a minute, what? Huh? What? What? What? Wait a minute, what?
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It's just smooth. And it puts a smile on your face, like when Justine's story
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ends and it cuts to Archer.
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And he's now, his scene's being retold, but from his point of view,
22:55
at the town hall, where we're introduced to Justine.
22:57
And then we take place, and instead of leaving the town hall with Justine,
23:00
we're leaving the town hall with Archer.
23:02
And there are very subtle tweaks as well to certain
23:05
scenes again like tarantino did with
23:08
the diner scene in pulp fiction because we're
23:11
seeing it from a different person's perspective there's a
23:14
couple of wee slight changes but it's all totally they're not
23:17
mistakes they're not continuity errors it's intentional and
23:20
it's basically relating to how
23:24
people like say me and you're having a conversation or we are out somewhere
23:29
it's about how people will see things and remember things more importantly in
23:34
a slightly different way even though they're the exact same events so they are
23:38
again very very clever and I didn't notice them really until the rewatches.
23:44
I like a lot of the different, like a little different shots in the film.
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Like when Justine, before her story ends, she's falling asleep in her car and
23:55
she's looking at, obviously, Alex's house.
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When Justine is falling asleep, well, has fallen asleep and she's looking over
24:02
Alex's house and the mother, who's still in Trance State, comes out.
24:07
You see blackness as the door opens and then she comes out and she's waving
24:10
something as if to come over to attack her.
24:14
And you just see a body approach the side of the car and she's still sleeping.
24:18
The camera still stays on the passenger side of the car. But then we hear the
24:21
car open and in the back, you know she's in the car now.
24:24
Very creepy and misleading. And then you see these scissors.
24:27
All they need was cut her hair because we know she's going to be probably tranced
24:31
or get voodooed or whatever Gladys' MO is. Yeah.
24:35
It's just creepy the whole, that whole shot. Absolutely. There's a lot of that.
24:39
And you know what's very, very creepy and it's quite subtle?
24:43
The way the front door opens, it's a shot that's repeated several times.
24:47
But it's something very unsettling about the slow way that front door opens
24:53
and then with the blackness inside, it's just really effectively done.
24:57
Which, again, is what he used in Barbarian. Yes.
25:02
With the hallway door at the very end of the hall.
25:04
It's opening, then it's not. He's got to sing for doors. It works well, very well. So, yeah.
25:11
I like the little things when we cut to the Paul story.
25:15
And Paul and James are kind of the two, Paul and James are kind of like the
25:21
same thing with Justine and Archer and a little rivalry there.
25:25
And so, but I do like the, when Paul gets pretty much busted for cheating on Donna.
25:33
Yeah. And I like the character of Donna and I do really like the character of Toby Huss.
25:38
Like I said, he's the chief, but Toby Huss is Donna's father.
25:43
And but he's always there's some scenes where Paul punches James won't go into
25:48
details but he punches him and it's on camera so he goes he confides to the
25:53
chief because you know it's soon to be his son-in-law pretty much,
25:57
and he says listen don't say anything the tape
26:00
narrates itself eventually just be good don't blah
26:03
blah it kind of has his back yeah he does yeah but when
26:06
Donna pretty much throws him out cheating on him
26:09
there's a scene where because there's a couple scenes where Paul is
26:12
walking past the chiefs and you know gizmo
26:15
nod hey boy what's up nod nod but when donna
26:18
kick kicks him out it's the one time he walks past the chief's
26:21
door and the chief just looks at him like he's gonna kick his ass
26:24
the tension yeah and it's very well played it's just a look yes just a look
26:28
yeah that's all there needs to be yeah yeah because they had such great chemistry
26:32
for that all it took was one little look that chemistry is gone yep yeah uh
26:39
paul is having the absolute worst day of his life.
26:43
In fact you know, again once he falls off the wagon with Justine his life goes
26:49
to absolute shit and hell.
26:51
A lot of it's his own fault obviously but yeah, a lot of it isn't his fault.
26:56
It's actually Aunt Gladys' but we'll get to that soon enough.
27:00
What about Marcus? I like Marcus.
27:02
Yeah, this one sucked because Marcus, I think his partner was Terry they are,
27:09
Marcus was the peacemaker of the whole group and.
27:13
You see his story, and again, because he's the principal, Gladys shows up.
27:19
She's taking over the family.
27:21
Again, we won't go into details, but what's nice about it is anybody who gets
27:26
close to Gladys in some way,
27:28
as I just mentioned with Archer finding out the direction of the kids and with
27:33
Justine finding the house and seeing the parents and trans from James robbing
27:38
them, seeing the kids in the basement,
27:40
Gladys is there to fix things. For ourselves?
27:44
Yes. And then Gladys goes to see the principal, but the principal's guy, I can't talk to you.
27:48
I have to talk to the parents because Justine has called me in regards to some
27:53
neglects going on and the parents need to come in.
27:57
And obviously, so Gladys kind of needs to fix this. And so she shows up at his house.
28:04
And let me tell you about Amy Madigan. I love Amy Madigan and I love her husband, Ed Harris.
28:10
They've been together for years and years and years and they're always scene
28:14
stealers for me, especially Ed Harris, I think Ed Harris is one of the most
28:17
underrated actors ever and he,
28:21
but her performance, she did a movie called Feel the Dreams.
28:24
I remember it. It was Kevin Costner.
28:26
I love her in that movie. And she kind of veered off.
28:29
She's still there, but didn't hold up a success as Ed Harris still has.
28:36
And that take away from her at all, because I like Amy Madigan.
28:40
But I tell you what, I've not seen her for a while. I've seen her in this film.
28:43
I love the fact she can play fucking batshit crazy, fucking funny as hell,
28:49
to creepy to downright diabolical and disturbing within a matter of a minute.
28:56
If she isn't nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor or Actress.
29:02
Well, she will be. If she's not, then, yeah, I mean, I don't take the Oscars
29:06
serious anyway, but, you know, it'll just confirm their bias against horror, you know?
29:11
Yeah. I mean, she is absolutely a scene stealer here. And like you say,
29:17
she can go from funny to disturbing to something out of the Coen Brothers film, you know, quirky.
29:23
All in the same scene. She is fantastic here. And the character is just unforgettable.
29:30
I would say there's so many sort of illusions here.
29:33
I got vibed whenever she isn't wearing the wig of the witches,
29:38
you know, the version of the Roald Dahl book from 1990. Yes.
29:43
Yeah, you know the way the witches, they take their wigs off and stuff and that.
29:47
Angelica Houston, actually.
29:49
So, you know, I get that, but there is, you know, so much going on here in terms
29:52
of references and stuff and homages and Pied Piper, you know,
29:57
Hansel and Gretel, you know, you're going back, way back.
30:01
Yeah, but no, she deserves to be nominated for all sorts of awards.
30:07
I like, we'll piggyback on that. We can't go through all of them because this movie's briefly shot.
30:13
There's a scene where Alex is never introduced to Gladys, but she comes when he's in bed. Yes.
30:18
And she's coming because she says to the family, I have cancer,
30:20
and he's somebody, you know, pretty much take care of me.
30:25
And so his first introduction is that scene you were talking about where you,
30:30
you know, don't bother her. She's sleeping.
30:31
As a kid, as you do, you're curious.
30:34
And he opens the door a bit and you see the wig on the dresser.
30:40
You're about to get crazy wig.
30:42
And then from the point of view of Alex, you turn and there's the bed and there
30:48
she is, bald and looks very witchery, actually, like he said.
30:53
And then she's just staring at him. Oh, it's a great creepy shot. Yeah.
30:58
The Alex sequence is very, is nice. And I don't, you can't stand kids.
31:03
But I really fell for this kid, Alex. I really felt sorry for him.
31:08
He's bullied as a kid. His parents.
31:12
He's bullied and screwed by Archer's son. Oh, yeah, yeah.
31:16
Which you can kind of see because Archer, you can see him being a bully.
31:21
The aggression that he gets from Archer, yeah. But. Yeah.
31:26
But yeah, but so things like that, I wouldn't have caught. I didn't know that.
31:28
I didn't catch that. So that's what I'm saying. Replay ability value of his work.
31:34
And so, but there's a, when you finally get to see Alex's story,
31:38
you meet the parents. Because we only know the parents as being tranced. Yes.
31:42
And at this point, but then you meet them. They're so lovely.
31:44
They're so nice to the kid. He's like, I love you, dad. I love you too.
31:47
And then he's going to school. He's being picked on.
31:51
And then he leaves the school and nobody's there to pick him up.
31:55
It's hard i felt really hard i felt
31:58
so sorry for this kid because you know what's what's coming
32:01
because you get to his story kind of late in the film so you know what
32:05
he's about to go through plus he's being harassed by justine you
32:09
know who has her own reasons yeah oh
32:13
yeah yeah and then when he gets home gladys pretty
32:18
much you know tells him how this is going to work and little thing
32:21
she does she does where she she
32:24
tells him you don't do what i say if you don't you don't keep
32:27
this quiet you don't you don't tell anybody about your parents this is
32:30
what i'll do and she puts a little spell and they start stabbing themselves
32:33
in the faces in front of them and but the kid is so smart because the his reflexes
32:40
his reflex are really good as gladys is coming up to him and just to touch him
32:46
he he swoops her hand away almost like she's a bully Yes.
32:50
You know what I mean? Like he just came from school and he knew right away he'd
32:53
take water and throw it on his dad's face to kind of wake him up.
32:56
Alex becomes the hero here. Alex seems the day. Yeah, he's a very smart kid. Yeah.
33:04
Let's piggyback on the smartness. When everything goes to shit,
33:09
And the kids are in the basement, right? Yeah. And he...
33:13
How does he know to cast... I know he knows kind of the casting of a spell because
33:17
he saw her do it, have Gladys do it.
33:19
But how does he know to have the kids go after her? Simply by watching her spells.
33:25
He's been watching her. There are other scenes where...
33:29
You see him watching her doing the spells so it's
33:32
basically he is turning her spell upon her
33:35
so it's basically through watching her because don't forget that he's
33:38
been he's spent a month in the house with her so he
33:41
has you know and again it gets back to the whole alcoholism parable thing because
33:46
he then becomes like the caregiver as many children tragically do to alcoholic
33:52
parents although obviously it's just a metaphor here where he's like the caregiver
33:56
to his own parents Oh, it's kind of alcohol. It's soup.
33:59
Yes. No, no. But yes. But what happens is, sadly, with alcoholic parents,
34:05
the children end up being the
34:07
caregivers and looking after the parents instead of the other way about.
34:10
So that's what that's sort of playing into.
34:13
Yes. So he spent a month, basically, with Gladys. So he's been watching her
34:18
and watching her spells.
34:19
And he knows, basically, what to do.
34:22
Yeah. I mean, what is he? Seven or something? That is a bit.
34:26
I think this is an absolutely fantastic film but like I said he knew through
34:31
the water on the dad's face it seemed okay.
34:34
He's more protective of himself just because of the way he's bullying school
34:38
and he's not going to take it at home so this one he's kind of playing his car
34:42
closely and he's protective of his parents as well I would say see the scene
34:45
where they're stabbing themselves with the forks,
34:48
through her spell what is even creepier than
34:51
that actual physical action is whenever she turns around
34:54
to alex and says i can make your parents eat each other
34:57
if i want and again playing into the
35:00
whole hansel and gretel thing again it's just just brilliantly handled all around
35:07
if i really wanted to nitpick there there are a couple of things overall that
35:13
i could nitpick but generally it's a very tightly scripted and well told story.
35:20
You have the, when Marcus is, I mean, they're so lovely, Marcus and Terry.
35:26
And I got to admit, their fucking dinner is brilliant. All hot dogs.
35:31
What the fuck? Apparently, I looked, I didn't know this, but I looked,
35:34
whenever I was doing my research, I seen something that says,
35:37
apparently that's a reference to a comedy,
35:40
a recurring comedy sketch that Zach Krieger was a part of with his comedy,
35:45
Troop Comedy TV series, where there was like a hot dog guy character who all he had was hot dogs.
35:51
So apparently that is a reference to that.
35:54
Okay. I was wondering, where the fuck do these guys, where do they put it?
35:58
They're all pretty skinny.
35:59
Yeah, it's a reference to hot dog, which I haven't seen, a comedy character
36:04
that Zach Krieger was involved in.
36:07
So when she shows up in Marcus and Terry's, and you know Terry just for a moment,
36:13
you still, they're so likable and caring. And you know, you know,
36:17
Marcus says from just the film itself, but Terry's just introduced.
36:21
And when Marcus goes off on him and bangs and smashes his head,
36:24
pretty much head butts in the death. Brutal.
36:26
It's brutal. Yeah. It is the most brutal death period to me.
36:31
Like Barbarian, you know, it's not a gore fest, but whenever the violence does
36:36
happen, it's hardcore, which gives it even more power.
36:41
When the bond happens, when Justine and Archer finally bond,
36:46
and it's where after Marcus loses the plot and pretty much Archer saves her,
36:53
and he comes out of the hospital because he's been cut,
36:56
Justine goes, thank you.
36:58
And this is where these guys decide we got figured. Now, there's a scene where
37:02
in Archer's sequence when he's kind of dreaming, he's trying to follow the trail
37:09
of the kids and the trail leads him back to his house.
37:12
But on top of this house, it says weapon. The gun. And there's like an M16 on
37:17
the top floating on top of the house.
37:19
Now, is that to say that your child has become a weapon?
37:23
Well, basically, again, I know
37:25
you don't like this, where it's left to the audience's own interpretation.
37:29
But my interpretation of that, it has been discussed a lot, but my personal
37:33
interpretation of it is that, yes, basically, Aunt Gladys, not Justine,
37:39
but Aunt Gladys has weaponized the kids and turned them into weapons.
37:42
It's dream logic where our dreams speak to us in symbols.
37:46
So it's basically his subconscious trying to tell him that.
37:52
Your kid and all the rest of the kids have been weaponized by Gladys.
37:56
Yeah, it was a threat. It's like, come near me, I'll set your kid on.
38:01
A lot of people, like professional critics and all, have said,
38:03
oh no, this is obviously an allusion to real-life school shootings.
38:08
But Zach Krieger has said this film is not about school shootings at all.
38:13
Oh, no. It's about alcoholism. No. Yeah?
38:16
No, it's about, I weaponized your kid, don't fuck with me. Yes,
38:20
that particular scene. That's exactly what it is. Yeah.
38:23
Yeah. I mean, we're coming. The ending's just so fucking fun.
38:26
I mean, you got all these great stories, and it's, you know.
38:30
It's absolutely fine. You follow these characters to the duration of this film,
38:33
and it's just so fun to watch.
38:38
And then the ending just goes back to crazy, especially the fight with Paul and Justine.
38:42
She's using a potato peeler to kill his face.
38:45
It takes pretty much two gun blasts to kill him.
38:48
You've got the James and Archer fighter hilarious he won't stop jumping around
38:53
and fucking it finally takes and then the kids just to shoot him.
38:58
Geez and then the kids going batshit crazy that's fucking brilliant yeah it's
39:03
just I mean I mean this is like the perfect film for me in so many ways I mean
39:08
it's clever it's funny it goes batshit crazy over the top of times,
39:13
you know it's genuinely creepy and horrific It takes all the boxes for me I fucking loved it,
39:21
I love how they don't really give you the outcome. They kind of say that Alex's
39:25
parents are permanently institutionalized.
39:28
Yeah. Alex is pretty much in foster care with a good mother.
39:32
And the little kid, the kid's narrating again. And she says,
39:37
well, some of the kids are starting to talk. Yeah.
39:40
And that's it. Again, the brilliant narration. But she also says about Alex's
39:44
parents, that they are still getting fed soup, but not by Alex anymore.
39:49
So, you know, again, it's a dark humor.
39:51
Yeah, they don't say institutionalized, but by just that comment,
39:56
you know that's what it means. Exactly.
39:58
And it's darkly humorous as well. And yeah, I mean, for me, on a personal level,
40:03
this has everything it has.
40:05
Horror, it's creepy, funny, you know, goes completely over the top,
40:10
but it's a brilliant story at the same time.
40:12
And there's those sort of references to sort of, you know, the past films and
40:18
all that there. but again putting his own stamp on it it's oh yeah absolutely fantastic.
40:25
Yeah, this is a good one. Looking forward to his next work. He's doing a grounded
40:28
version of Resident Evil. That could be interesting.
40:31
It should be. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it because you can take a little
40:36
bit of Resident, you can take a little bit of barbarian in the tunnels there.
40:39
You can kind of see where Zach Craig can do with it.
40:42
He's not doing a massive budget with it. Good. It's going to be like the original
40:46
Resident Evil where it's more haunted house based.
40:48
Yeah. Where the original- The game?
40:51
The pandemic took place. Yeah. I hope it's like that.
40:55
I don't know. I can't speak for what he's written or if it's for another script,
41:00
another company who wrote it, but if it's anything like the game,
41:03
it's a haunted house with ghouls and ghosts. Zombies, yeah.
41:10
And you have to, you know, behind the mirror, is that really a mirror?
41:14
You know, it's a house of horrors. I think it's in very safe hands.
41:18
And I mean, I'm not a gamer. I've never played the game. I know the films,
41:21
but not that well, but I do know them.
41:23
To a certain extent, but I think it's in safe hands and I'm looking forward
41:27
to his take on it and I think it'll be quite unique.
41:31
Yeah, we'll see. See if we can do it three for three. It should be interesting. Yep.
41:35
Should be interesting, but we'll see. All right, we're going to wrap this one
41:40
up. Definitely go check it out. I'm sure you've already seen it.
41:43
Next up, we are going to be doing The Long Walk, Stephen King's little independent hit.
41:49
We'll be checking that one out. And then Suspiria, maybe Frankenstein.
41:53
We're working it out, trust us.
41:55
And then a Christmas Hallmark movie for Kieran.
41:59
Again, you're the one who picks him, not him. That is a complete lie.
42:04
You sent me four pictures and you said, oh my God, I think I have it.
42:09
The complete opposite is true, people.
42:11
Whatever. You want the pumpkin harvest, whatever it's fucking called or something.
42:15
And you said, I love pumpkins and I love romance. And this is a perfect fit
42:19
for me. That's what you said.
42:20
I'm looking forward to the remake of Silent Night Day, early night.
42:24
All right, guys, we're going to wrap this one up. Give us a shout to Citizen
42:26
Frame underscore podcast and of course, Facebook.
42:29
That's all we have. we're going to end this one. You take care of yourselves. Let's talk soon.