Latest / Syllabus / Backrooms & Obsession: Horror Movie Summer
Transcript
- Coco: the real horror in Hereditary is, spoiler alert, little D the head come off and Ashby: Yeah. Coco: Welcome to Syllabus, the podcast hosted by two recovering straight-A millennials, Ashby and Coco, who live to overanalyze the media and culture we encounter while shedding the gold star culture that made us, Ashby: and occasionally getting lost in a tangent. If you too can't help but think a little too deeply about books movies and more you come across you're in the right place. Coco: We are so glad you're here. Ashby: Let's get into it. Coco: All right. Hello, Ashby. I am super excited. We are diving back into some movies today. We are talking about backrooms and obsession. And I just wanna start us off by saying, you can go into your podcast app of choice and search backrooms and obsessions, filter for podcasts, and you're gonna see a whole bunch of options available. And I have not done a comprehensive audit of those episodes that exist out there, but I have listened to a couple of conversations and, you know, very, very like film podcast talk, lots of talk about the industry, lots of talk about what do these horror films mean for the future of independent IP and creators coming from YouTube. so, We're gonna touch on some of those like themes today, but I'm hoping we can like do something slightly different, offer a different like angle on talking about these movies. So very syllabus style. I think we're gonna try to bring in, you know, some cultural themes, things that we're seeing. We're gonna talk about misogyny, of course. And, you know, just as you were saying before we hopped on the mic, you know, come to these as viewers, you know, a little bit less from an inside baseball perspective and a little bit more as consumers of the films. How are you feeling going into a chat about these fucked up horror films? Ashby: They're so fucked up, They're crazy fucked. I gotta say, I these back to back. So I watched back rooms Coco: Yeah. Ashby: and then the next night watched Obsession and Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: haven't slept good since. I have Coco: no! Ashby: found them very, I find that like as soon as the sun goes down, I start feeling kind of itchy. Like I start feeling kind Coco: Cool. Ashby: of like, like I need to turn all the lights on in the house. Like I feel like I might turn and see something. You know what I mean? So they have really given me the hair on the back of the neck. Yeah, I've definitely Coco: He be jeebies? Ashby: had a case of the heebie-jeebies. Now I know people that like horror movies that's a genre they enjoy. and they consider that a win, you know? they're looking for that experience of like a movie that really sits with them and makes them feel kind of creeped out. I think creeped out is the best way to describe it. I feel just kind of. generally creeped out like the last few days. I don't know if I call that a win, but yeah, but I'm really curious about that. I'm really curious about the kind of person that seeks out horror Coco: Now. Ashby: movies, especially women that seek out horror movies. I shouldn't, yeah. Coco: Which is a big segment, I think, of the horror fandom is women who enjoy horror films and people who have like anxiety. This is what I've heard, Ashby: Yes, yeah. Coco: you know, anxiety because in the horror films, it's like this playground where the bad thing does happen. It Ashby: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Coco: satisfies something that's like you're longing for. Ashby: Yeah, I was literally Googling that what is it that like draws people to this stuff? Because I have anxiety, but I don't find. Coco: What? Ashby: But I don't find it's like helped by doing practice runs. don't. a couple of things I read is that, for some people, it's like a release of the tension for them or it's so contained in that world that it. almost lets them think that bad things only happen in this version of things. almost like exposure therapy, retraining their anxiety to be associated with Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: music cues and aesthetic elements in a horror movie versus generalized anxiety, which is just hanging out with you in the waiting room and that's no fun. And so, yeah, it's very back rooms coded. Yes. Yeah. Coco: Well, the waiting room feels very back rooms to me. Liminal spaces. Ashby: I do enjoy like a thriller. I enjoy Coco: Yeah. Ashby: like a psychological thriller or a mystery. I very much love the kind of 90s, 2000s where it would be like, almost always Ashley Judd. always be like Ashley Coco: I know. Ashby: and like Tommy Lee Curtis. faces in. Sorry, you're right. Tommy Lee Jones. Not yes. Coco: Tommy Lee Jones. Sorry to this man. Jamie Lee Curtis is also a scream queen. Ashby: Yes, no, Tony Curtis is Jamie Lee Curtis's famous dad, I think. Coco: You Ashby: And I don't know why I got it confused, but yes, Tommy Lee Jones, and it's like their Coco: You Ashby: face is in half shadow there's going to be, you know, a mystery Coco: Yeah. Ashby: thriller situation. I've always been a little creeped out by supernatural horror. saw paranormal activity It may have been college. Coco: Yeah, it Ashby: it really messed me up, like really. some people feel like, okay, you're in the magical world of film and ghosts aren't real or supernatural witch things are not real. And so that allows them to have fun there, because they're not actually worried that a ghost is gonna pull them out of bed at night. Coco: I don't know that people are sitting and thinking it's not real. Ashby: No, no, no, but like, but like, okay. So you go into watching paranormal activity in a different frame of mind than like watching a true crime documentary. Do you know what I mean? Coco: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ashby: It's like, obviously no one's really being pulled down the stairs by a poltergeist, okay? Versus Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: it's not, it's not, like a popcorn fun time to just watch the latest, you know, white girl that goes missing in a national park. documentary. Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: That's a real bad thing that really does happen. Do you know what I'm saying? Coco: mean, and there's a whole, that's a whole genre that women also love historically. Ashby: Yeah, that's a whole genre. Coco: Yes. Ashby: I always feel like it's the opposite, which is once you introduce a supernatural element, it's all all bets are off. Anything could happen. There's no limits. it's not like the poltergeist is like, I can't go in this room, you know. Coco: Right. if I'm thinking about what types of horror films do I like, I actually do love like the ghost story, the heart Ashby: Yeah, yeah. Coco: thing, that part of it. I really enjoy. even going back to something like The Others with Nicole Kidman. Ashby: I was about to say that. I was about to say that others had a really big impact on me I don't want to like imagine that the main character is me. And I like the tension of a mystery. But just like two hours of people suffering is not my jam. That's what I would say. Yes. Yeah. Coco: Yeah, I don't like body horror. That's like kind of what I can't handle is the more graphic, physical violence. I did not feel like either of these films crossed that line for me, even though Obsession does have some pretty... Yeah, yeah. It was Ashby: disagree, big time, way past it. Coco: like a little too absurd for me that I didn't like, it didn't like clock Ashby: Gotcha. Coco: as like, it wasn't... It wasn't like masochistic. Like it was not somebody Ashby: Yeah, that's it. Coco: cutting someone's arm off for fun. Yeah. It Ashby: Gotcha. Gotcha. Yes. Coco: wasn't Texas Chainsaw Massacre, even though I do like that film. Ashby: Okay. Coco: Yeah. I think that's sometimes the ghosty ones often are dealing with like historical trauma or trauma for women and that there's usually like a narrative like satisfaction in addition to something being spooky. But yes, the spookiness does like make me like look at the corners of my bedroom at night Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: for sure. Ashby: I think you're right that as I've gotten older and you know, even something like Hereditary, which or the Babadook, Coco: Or like the Babadook. Ashby: Hereditary is like I think a lot of people think it's the scariest movie. It's just the scariest movie. Yes, it's scary, but good. It's very good. Coco: And it's like scary excellence, like two, like. Yeah. Ashby: And so you want to watch it for the good part, not because I like want to be stressed the fuck out all. for the rest of my life. yeah, Hereditary messed me up and I didn't even like technically finish it. I got to a part where like the very last couple scenes and was Coco: Yeah. Ashby: like, I must check out. And then I later like read about it on Wikipedia. Coco: It's kind of funny because I think a lot of times the ends of the horror films is what makes me not scared because you get to the explanation and Ashby: Yes, yeah, because it resolves, yeah. Coco: then you're like, okay, because the real horror in Hereditary is, spoiler alert, little D the head come off and it's a real Ashby: Yeah. Title of it. Coco: thing that could happen. Ashby: Yes. Coco: And then the decimation of this family in the wake of the death of a child. Ashby: Yeah, I think what happened was he got to the part where the Coco: And then when it's like, like it's witchcraft and ghosts, I don't really totally remember what, and then I was kind of like, cool, Ashby: Yeah, yeah, Coco: like there's no one living in my tree house. Ashby: The thing that's weird is that looking back on it, it's so goofy that Coco: Yeah! Ashby: it's like, can't really be scared of that. But like, it really does such a good job of like immersing you in the world and like ratcheting the tension up so much. Yeah, Coco: The dread. Ashby: that by the time you get, so I remember we got to the part where the husband gets immolated. Sorry, spoiler for a super old movie. And I was like, I need a break. And then I wasn't able to come back. And I'm glad I didn't because from what I, saw clips, stills and stuff Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: of the rest of the movie wasn't for me. And then Babadook is scary. but it's these movies that are about something very real and human. And Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: ultimately what Hereditary is about is like the bottomlessness of grief. Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: I think that's why I wanted to watch Obsession it is supposed to be very excellent, but it is talking about real phenomenon. so anytime there's something that actually can be a metaphor for something else, as an Coco: Yeah! Ashby: adult, I can really appreciate horror as a kind of artistic exploration of deep themes of human existence. But like you, I'm not there to like watch hot girls get stabbed. There's just not, Coco: Yep. Ashby: I will never find that very fun. I'm sure that there are people that, I know that there are people that are into the technical aspects of like how they make the gore and like hearkening it back to other movies. Coco: There's probably a million wonderful YouTubes out there that you can watch. Ashby: And it ain't us. And it ain't us. Coco: For someone who really enjoys movies, I am not that interested in the how did they do it type Ashby: Okay, done. Coco: of stuff. I am much more like, let's treat these like English class. But you're kind teeing me up purposely for what I wanted to talk about. Of course, horror film has been... and from the beginning, you know, an exploration of like cultural social anxieties. And so sometimes that is going back to something like Godzilla fears around, you know, radiation and like the monstrous that's produced by atomic weapons. Yeah, Ashby: wow. I didn't know that, but that makes so much sense. Coco: and things like the War of the Worlds, like things that were fears around the space race, but also like communism. And so Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: Horror can be really right-wing coded, like to some extent, and like left. Like it is what are these cultural anxieties that can be brought to the surface that are, know, whatever, you know, is common. So there's a lot of things where in horror films, women get stabbed, women get killed, women get punished, especially for their sexuality, right? So that's Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: enacting like a social anxiety in this very negative way. That's very kind of like. I don't know, conservative kind of coded way. And I think what's interesting if we're thinking about like the popular like horror films of the last couple of years, we were just talking about hereditary, but we can also think about something like Midsommar or, Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: you know, kind of exploring fears around co-dependence and trust and mental health or something like get out or, and us, us very feeling very relevant Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: for something like both of these films, I mean, Get Out and Us are very relevant for both of the films Ashby: Yeah. Coco: we're gonna talk about today, know, exploring things like race and, you know, racial tensions, as well as class, even in something like Us. And I was also thinking, you know, another one I'd maybe put in the category that's not a horror film, but I think left me feeling horrified in the super effective way is Parasite. Ashby: Same, I would agree with that. Parasite is something, I don't know what to call that either, but it is like a, Coco: It's like comedy thrillers, like if you look it up, which is weird. Ashby: is weird. It is a tense drama that culminates in violence. Yeah. Coco: Yeah, and this underworld that is related Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: to what we're talking about today and made by Bong Ashby: definitely. Coco: Joon-ho, who, you know, is very famous for the horror film, The Host, too. So having, you know, a director with a horror background making Parasite. Ashby: Did that makes sense because zombie movies obviously in a kind of tangent have to do with like fears of outbreak and contagion as well as xenophobia. Coco: huh. Yeah. Ashby: So yeah, this is helpful framework is like a lot of these things emerge as commentary on real underlying themes in culture. And when Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: I can view them from that lens, It's a lot more enjoyable as an Coco: Mmm. Ashby: exploration of ideas rather than just wanting to watch someone be tormented by ghosts or an unwell partner. Coco: I'll just put this out here. I think for both backrooms and obsession, we're going to spoil them. We're going to talk about the Ashby: Yeah. Coco: whole thing. And at the same time, I was thinking about this and thinking, you know, they're not like super spoilable movies. Yeah, we'll talk about specific things that happen. But the premise for both films Ashby: But still. Coco: is what the movie is. It's not like, you know, he was a ghost the whole time. Like, it's not a spoiler. Yeah. Ashby: Yeah, yeah, there's no twist. I saw one review that was like, this is an Night Shyamalan and it's really true. Coco: No, and thank God. Ashby: There's no gimmicks. It's straightforwardly what you think it's going to be about, but they Coco: Uh-huh. Ashby: are, they are so, each of them are so aesthetically immersing that even Coco: Yeah. Ashby: if you know the plot points, you could still watch it and it will still hit you in its own way. hearing someone describe it, it won't actually really come across. I think you should probably go sit in there. Coco: Is it like describing a dog to someone who's never seen a dog and then Ashby: Peace. Coco: drawing it and see? Ashby: Honestly, that could apply to so many things. Podcasting, for example. Yeah. Coco: something I've been thinking about in this like moment in time is, and why I wanted to talk about these movies was, know, movie media has gotten kind of weird. Like I don't have like a good like handle on it by any means, but I feel like I've seen so much more about these two films. They're making a lot of money when compared Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: to, you know, other, you know, mainstream, like heavy IP, like stories, even something like Toy Story 5, for example, like, you know, kind of these, these, you know, what you think will be a heavy hitter as opposed to the ones that are succeeding. And I have been thinking a lot about this moment in time as it like mirrors the seventies. So in Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: the seventies, you have this reaction to, you know, civil rights unrest, Vietnam War. Nixon, political corruption, all of this stuff. And then you see this backlash, not backlash, but you see this playing out of the psychological feelings in film, in yes, in the late 60s and into the 70s. So a lot of times we're thinking about very political films, like All the President's Men, or Network, which is more about the media, as well as things like Clute. And there's a whole genre of psychological, the conversation films. But there's also, so kind of more directly about politics and paranoia, but there is also like horror films that are coming out then. So Texas Chainsaw Massacre, where there's like this senseless killing, this bleakness, this sort of lack of meaning. You see something like Halloween, where it's like this fear that like your neighbor, like people in your neighborhood are. violent, you have to be protecting yourself. There's like the exorcist Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: and fear of the occult and just kind of these like graphic violence, bleakness, know, just like why do those films hit when, you know, as a culture we're going through these weird moments and I'm not trying to make like a big grandiose thesis, but like, I'm not so surprised that like horror films are kind of striking a chord right now in this moment where we have feelings about being disaffected, you know, a lack of trust in our own, you know, government and institutions more broadly, anxieties about the future, anxieties about AI. Like I do think that these films kind of tap into a lot of the like weird cultural super- that we're in right now. And I think that's kind of the interesting entry point. Ashby: I'm gonna talk about this a lot because I couldn't quite put my finger on what was like kind of bugging me about obsession. And the thing that I kept coming back to is like, I just have a general feeling of queasiness around this film. I just feel Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: queasy about it. And Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: I also think that it's like very good, like very technically good in the same way I think like Backrooms is like technically good. Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: And the same time like, If someone asked me like, did you enjoy it? I wouldn't say yes. I would not say I like enjoyed watching them and yet I can appreciate them. But Coco: sure. Ashby: I found this interview on a New York Times podcast called Cannonball that interviews a cultural critic named Angelica Jade Bastion. And Coco: Yeah. Ashby: she really like absolutely sums up what my overall weirdness was, like she's coming at it from a bit of a feminist lens. But she points to it invoking a couple of different genres. And one of the ones she calls is the the bitch from hell genre of horror. Coco: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ashby: And she talks about the way it very directly references those. And I was thinking Coco: Yeah. Ashby: when you said that about the 70s, the like women in the workplace anxieties really come out in movies Coco: Mhm. Ashby: like hand that rocks the cradle and stuff like that. mean, some of these are like from the 80s or later, Coco: Yeah, no, I mean... Ashby: but fatal attraction is one obviously, Coco: Right. Ashby: you know, single white female. are something about like an, a very extreme woman with autonomy as like a whole form of cultural anxiety. You know, Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: but this really intense woman vibe has something to say about women entering political spaces. I can definitely see that too when you mentioned mirroring the seventies or times past. Coco: Yeah, I mean, and I think that maybe we could do like a, if you haven't seen these films and you're not going to, Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: and if you are going to, don't think again, I don't think we're going to spoil anything that would, I think you'd still just get a lot out of the viewing experience, whether you know what happens or not. But if you're not going to see these, Ashby, would you maybe mind giving a little overview of what these films are? Ashby: Sure, okay, so Backrooms is a film about a guy who kind of stumbles upon this creepy extra dimension, we'll say. played by Chibotel Ejiofor and this is like a period piece set in 1990. It's very explicit about that. He is a kind of misanthrope guy who's running a furniture store, but that's not his dream. His dream was to be an architect. he's recently going through a rough patch with his wife where she's thrown him out. And so now he's like sleeping in the furniture store and he is Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: going to therapy and his therapist is named Mary Klein, who is played by Renata Rensva. And, he wanted to be an architect. So one of the things you see is him sketching out rooms and designs on like a yellow legal pad. And then this dimension that he finds in the bottom of his furniture store is this creepy liminal space that kind of mirrors that. It's like rooms that don't make sense and they're like endlessly expansive and they're the kind of same like yellow as the legal pad. They're very in invocative of like what office office space is kind of making fun of like the dead corporate 80s. Coco: Yep, like kind of 90s corporate office building. Yeah. Ashby: IBM hell. Yeah. he finds the space, he tells his therapist about it and it turns out there's a monster in this, kind of. Yeah. Coco: least one. Ashby: A kind of Minotaur's maze situation. Obsession is a film about a kind of group of in their early 20s, like maybe right after high school. So it's two girls and two guys. The main character point of view is a guy named Bear, who's kind of your classic shy, artistic, loner, nice Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: guy in the friend group. And he has a crush on one of the cool girls in their group, they all work together at a music store. named Nikki and he wants to tell her his feelings, but he can't quite get up the courage. And then he learns that she is going to be quitting the job and maybe moving away. So he's trying to confess his feelings to her. It doesn't come out right. he gets a little gimmicky gift that's like, you can make a wish on this one wish willow. And he uses that, you know, wish on, I wish you loved me more than anyone in the world. And then it's the fallout of the wish coming true. So it's very Coco: careful what you wish for. Ashby: much everything I've seen refers to it's a classic monkey paws story. Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: And then it turns horror movie because of what it would mean for a person to actually love you more than anyone in the world. Coco: right. Ashby: So yeah, so those are the kind of broad outlines. Coco: I love it. love it. And just because I thought we could keep our theme going from before. Here are some letterbox Ashby: letterbox reviews? Coco: reviews. not? Right. So, okay. Yes. Is this your own independent? Yeah. Ashby: Yeah, can I give you mine? I thought of one. Yes, yes, from my own brain, I would say that backrooms is about how even men that go to therapy won't do therapy. Coco: That's good. You should write these. Ashby: It's like they will literally do anything except go to therapy, except the ones that go to therapy even then won't do it. Coco: You Ashby: And then I don't have one for obsession other than just makes me feel sick. Okay, so for back rooms, Coco: Yeah, so the here's the two for back rooms. Yep. Ashby: we've got three and a half stars from Lucy and she says, or they say a film that begs the question, what? And then we have another three and a half stars from Theo that says, I've never been so excited to see a movie that's entirely piss yellow. And Coco: You Ashby: I got to say the backrooms marketing is really good. Cause I remember seeing trailers Coco: Yeah. Ashby: for it and it really intrigued me. it's evocative. It really captures something. like nostalgia or a feeling of unease, So what do we got for obsession? Coco: Okay, for obsession. Okay, so for obsession, we have four and a half stars from Benedict Townsend. Wow, what a proper name. As a film lover, I was thrilled. As a cat lover, things were harder. Ashby: Must agree, hard agree. I did tell everyone at Salami's vet office, I Coco: Yeah. Ashby: was like, because I've been going with Salami to the vet every other week because she keeps getting weird stuff. She's fine, everyone. She's fine. She does not have a chronic illness or anything. She's just. She's Coco: it's more she's punking you. Ashby: punking me. She's just orange. we've been going for checkups for this little foot allergy she's developed Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: every week so they can look at it and I had to be like, guys, I feel like, I don't know if this is weird, but I feel like I'm here with you every week. And I just want to say, if anyone tries to get you to watch the movie Obsession, there's cat stuff in it that's really disturbing. And I feel like I need to warn other cat lovers. And they said to me, you're not the first client to tell us that. Coco: Good. Ashby: So I felt like, okay, these are my people. They understand. Coco: What I appreciate about the cat stuff that happens in Obsession is that you never meet the cat as alive. The cat, it opens with the cat is dead in the first Ashby: Yes, I appreciate that too. Coco: couple of scenes. so, fake. Yeah. Ashby: And it also, must say, it does look egregiously fake, like egregiously fake. So it is not, you know, but yes, and then take it away from you. However, Coco: They don't make you fall in love with this animal and then, yeah. Ashby: it's still upsetting and I think Coco: of course. Ashby: it's upsetting partly because the actors are so good. So they're Coco: I know. Ashby: really selling the like, what this feels like. anyway. Coco: I would like to say just for both of these films, the acting is fantastic. And so Ashby: really top notch. Coco: that helps a lot. Ashby: Mm-hmm. Okay. Coco: This other one is again, just really on the nose, Four and a Half Stars by Moe. One man has Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: a crush and makes it everyone's problem. Maybe Ashby: Perfect. So good. Coco: just before we die, Ashby: and then let's include our, this will make sense as we go along, let's include our friend, our mutual friend who watched it with us, let's include her take, which was, Coco: yeah. Ashby: he had just not gone to trivia night, everyone would still be alive. Coco: Which is shocking. And she had another, she even had Ashby: So true! Coco: a second one. What was the second one? Ashby: yeah, it was basically like a homebody's cautionary tale. It's like, if you if Coco: Yeah, yeah, don't go out. Ashby: you're if it's not a hell yes, it's a hell no, everyone stay home. Coco: I know. So the way the cat, the way the cat dies is like this. our mate, wait, I don't want to get to it. I'm sorry. I'm too excited. I'm too zesty. My coffee's kicked in. I'm really feeling a little zesty. But we will get into the plot points. But I think going back to just the like, how are these movies being spoken about? I did enjoy this BBC article about it, kind of about how two low budget horror films Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: caused a Hollywood earthquake. So the way that they speak about these things. But they're talking about how they have outperformed and truly what they were made for and what they have earned is crazy. So, backrooms was made for a budget of 10 million, has earned about 368 million globally. And then obsession, budget of under a million, around 750,000, earning 429 million. Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: So really huge returns there. Their movies are also being spoken about in the same way because both of the directors are incredibly young. What's his name? Kane Parsons is only 21 and Curry Barker who directed Obsession is only 26. They're very young. They have backgrounds in like YouTube filmmaking. And what I liked about, you know, the coverage here was talking about if you are putting your stuff out on YouTube. you have like an engagement with your audience and you get feedback. So there is an element of like sharpening your craft through like actual practicing by making film, but also like getting feedback and like a dialogue with your audience. So you have kind of a built-in fan base a little bit. And there's again, many more podcasts that get into the origins of Backrooms, but Backrooms is a part of like... official creepypasta lore. I don't know Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: how to explain it. Where it was like community driven lore around Ashby: Yeah. Coco: some of this like creepypasta content that then Cain Parsons like made into a short film called Backrooms Found Footage and kind of like evolved from there. So it is interesting to think of that there is a something from Backrooms that I think connects really well that is not just from like one guy's brain. Ashby: Yeah, and I also found it, and I'll include this from the NYT, from the New York Times. have a bunch of stuff on both of these movies. But Coco: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Ashby: this one called Backrooms and Obsession, the Lessons Behind These Horror Hits Between Alyssa Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: Wilkinson and Jason Siniman. And there's a section where they say two main takeaways include obsession is particular, is a hit because people are talking about it. But for a movie like this to make this much money, it requires time. And that means keeping the movie in theaters longer. So don't Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: send movies straight to streaming and don't go there too fast. Back in our day, movies stayed in theaters for months. And then here we go, Sinners Podcast. Note that Sinners became one of last year's biggest success stories because people wanted to keep seeing it in a theater even after it was playing on their TV. so Coco: Yeah Ashby: yeah. And so they talk a little bit about this too, about the like, just God. if I have to hear something else called a disruption disruption to the the like movie industry and they also compare it to like get out and some of those and the um this is the one I was thinking of when we were talking about this but um but earlier this year there was another youtuber who got famous for doing an action film so um iron lung did really well this year from this article based on a video game directed by the YouTuber known as Markiplier because he had previously played the game for his viewers. And Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: then another one that you've mentioned, Talk To Me, is Coco: Mm-hmm. Love talk to me. Ashby: a 2022 A24 hit by these two brothers who were also known for their YouTube horror shorts. Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: And then our other fan, Bo Burnham, who has a Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: similar kind of background. But like... Coco: Yeah, with eighth grade. Ashby: But a couple of things I want to just note here, which is like, I listened to the Milly DeCherico chat Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: about these and she makes a good point, which is like, you can almost hear the like icky palms being rubbed together in Hollywood of like, how do we just replicate this fucking YouTube to success story? Cause essentially you're getting a movie made for dirt cheap with a built-in audience. And then that you get to make a massive profit by just distributing it. So you can kind of feel. how this feels similar to how Uber isn't really your employer, okay? Coco: OOF Ashby: All they do is facilitate you making and doing all of the work yourself. And all they Coco: Yeah. Ashby: have to do is jump in and collect some of those profits off the top. So I understand, and I'm in the sense that like centers, I like the idea of certain artists having a kind of built-in audience that... loves them and supports them and then that getting like a true grassroots like you know word of Coco: Like word of mouth, uh-huh. Ashby: my i like to see those individual things come up and one of the things they compare it to in here is freaking chris nolan's upcoming odyssey which is like Coco: which is like, of them like, we should do that, and I'm also like, so exhausted. Ashby: Yes. But it's like, it's like people are going to go see that on the other the other way. He's going Coco: I Ashby: to get an audience because he's already so big versus. Yes. So Coco: And the budget, the film is gonna be huge. And yes, well, yes. Ashby: so like I'm for the IPs like centers, I'm for the like smaller people having more of an audience. I don't love the way that it's getting reframed as like this is now going to become the new blueprint. Coco: Yeah. Ashby: for you have to have an audience and a following before your shit can get made. then I a little bit worry about the problem of the, I know we're not there yet, but the industry plant, which is, I had recently listened to a couple of podcasts about the phenomenon of clip farming and this really messed me up. Like Coco: Yeah. Ashby: apparently the whole thing around Justin Bieber is a paid for gorilla about him at Coachella is just like, Coco: I know they're architected. Yeah. Ashby: Yeah, it's a completely architected fake grassroots movement on the internet. And so not to, not to highlight one of the themes we're talking about, people not trusting institutions. Coco: Well, no, mean, it's the same in like in a political sense, you would call it like astroturfing. Yeah. Ashby: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. But or in music, the industry plant, the like, this person, Coco: Thank you. Ashby: they definitely came up playing in all the the small town dive bars. But no, they didn't know they fucking didn't. You can tell by their dentistry. And yeah. Coco: Yeah. Well, I don't have any, I don't feel like this is all like super new. Like this is, to some extent, Ashby: Yeah, it's not. Coco: how film works. make, people make small films, they go to festivals, they get purchased by Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: large distributors. Like, so it is like partially like how it happens. I do think it's interesting in the ways that Cain Parsons and Curry Bark are specifically being talked about. I don't want to take anything away from these guys. Like they've made Ashby: Yeah. Coco: incredible films. They're super young. I do think they're very talented. I do like that in that Dear Movies, I Love You episode where Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: Millie DeCherico was talking about it, you they kind of talk about the fact that Cain Parsons was paired with a more senior screenwriter to bring back Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: rooms to life because there is like the visuals and the lore that he's tapping into and really understands, but like to turn it into like a... a full length film, Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: like kind of required, you know, another partner there at least. but I do think it's interesting to think about these, like, again, not taking anything away from the specific men, it's just the way that they're spoken about. They are these very young white men and they get spoken about as auteurs immediately. They have made one feature, well, maybe Curb Barker maybe has made a second feature length film, but like they're so young in their career. They did do stuff independently that was then like successful, but it is different than the way someone like Ryan Coogler was spoken about in like the lead up Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: in Sinners, where you almost felt an anxiety coming from the industry to say, because Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: that's a higher budget film, you know, and he had like built in rights to the film to own a lot Ashby: Yes. Coco: of the the back end, you know, kind of success of it as being very threatening. And he is like definitely an auteur, like, Ashby: Yeah. Coco: has built the credentials there and as a black man telling a story that's explicitly about race in America. And it's like, I do think there's something like interesting in the way that these young guys are talked about and listening to a couple of them, like speaking in interviews, I'm like, these are some young ass guys. Ashby: They, yeah, yeah, some of the media training is not there. But I also think the way that, yeah, every single article is just absolutely fucking breathless about, the industry, the industry is so, Coco: They are drooling over money. Ashby: and I think it has to do with like, yeah, they want to see content people show up with a fully fleshed out idea and a built in audience. Sure. So you're right. Some of that has already been there, but I think it's the it's partly the content too. They're exploring themes Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: that appeal to very online white dudes. So Coco: Yeah. Ashby: if you're a Redditor, this is like very safe content, both of these movies versus Ryan Coogler or like you mentioned earlier, Lena Dunham. Coco: Bye bye. Ashby: It has to do with who is that audience though. Yeah, I think that's what it has to do. Coco: On the Lena Dunham side of things, it was interesting. I'm listening to her memoir, which Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: is such a good audiobook. definitely listen to it with the heaviest trigger warning. There's like some really terrible things that happened to her and we were so horrible to her. But she talks about being in it for, I think it's, she made a short before Tiny Furniture that was in competition at the same like screening room as the Safdie Brothers. Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: And like the Safdie brothers are talked about as geniuses kind of from the jump. And we're currently still talking about them, you know, we're thinking about something like Marty Supreme or like Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: Uncut Gems. And I'm not, again, not taking anything away from the Safdie brothers, but it's interesting to like think about the ways that they're spoken about. Whereas Lena Dunham, a person who came, who was 24, 23, like came in with such a strong point of view. clear artistic vision that was so relevant culturally to what was happening amongst like that generation and was just like, we culturally lost our fucking minds about Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: a woman whose body and personality just didn't fit quite exactly what we thought was okay. Ashby: Well, I saw one article where someone was sort of trying to imply that Cain Parsons had more help than he did with Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: the film. then other people were saying, so Mark Duplass is in the movie, one of the Duplass brothers. And some suggestion is made that he has also helped nurture like young filmmakers. And there was some suggestion Coco: was good! Ashby: that it's like they paired him and this script writer and this, there's another role that I don't totally understand. It's like, yeah, that something Coco: like DP or something. Ashby: like that with him to sort of help him do the like nitty gritty. And then Mark Duplass is interviewed and been like, no, he didn't actually need it. Like we were there to help, but he had a really, he was really very involved. He had a very formed idea of how he wanted things to go. And so I, I buy that, but then the comparison there was in this article, I have to go find it, I'm so bad at remembering where I got stuff. But the guy was like, the best actual analogy is to Lena Dunham, who came up first on YouTube and that Coco: Okay, right. Ashby: no person who seriously engages with her work would ever say that girls wasn't hers or that it wasn't her Coco: It's hurt. It is. Ashby: fully formed ideas and that she needed help from. the industry's kind of writers and people in that position. Coco: even in her memoir, she talks openly about getting help from Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: Chad Apatow and being like, he's so good at giving feedback on what will succeed or not. Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: But it doesn't take anything away from her. She describes when she pitched girls, and she's like, it just came out of my mouth. She was like, didn't Ashby: Mm. Coco: even, it was like there right from the beginning, sex in the city is this, that does not look like what my friend's life was, like, Ashby: Right, right, right. Yeah, so look, again, I'm here for it, but I do think that part of the reason why their disruption is not seen as negative but positive Coco: Yeah. Ashby: is because there's a very clear cash grab proposition and because the audience that they are writing toward is Coco: Mm-hmm. Right. You're right. The audience. Mm-hmm. Ashby: white negbeards. I, sorry, I said it. I said it, we watched it too, but I still think the Coco: Well, I know. Ashby: point of view is very much like, is that the point of view is from that type of person. Coco: Yeah, and I think that both of the films are touching explicitly on masculinity and two different degrees, like from the Ashby: Yeah. Coco: man's point of view. Like even if we are ultimately critiquing masculinity, I do think it is like a man can comfortably watch it. It is not, you know, I don't know. Ashby: I kind of think that yes, okay, this goes back to like what I was talking about, the criticism that Sam Sanders and Tracey McMillan Cottam had for Coco: Uh-huh. Ashby: Beyonce of without her words next to it, people can map what they want to onto it. Coco: Yeah, yeah, Ashby: And sure, you and I watching it can see a Coco: in a room full of ladies. Ashby: critique of masculinity. Coco: Ha. Yep. Ashby: But I also think if you don't want to see that, if you do want to watch this from a point of view of these crazy bitches just don't understand how genius Coco: You can. Ashby: and important these men are, I think you can see that too. And I haven't seen anything from the filmmakers to really, I haven't seen anything Coco: No. Ashby: to dispel that notion. Coco: And I would say, like, I think that obsession is the one that is the bigger asterisk next to it in terms Ashby: Yeah. Coco: of representations Ashby: that. Coco: of men. And I listened to Curry Barker describe, like, what is your vision for Nikki's character? He Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: talked openly about it and it gave me the ick. Like, he was like, I just wanted her, I didn't want her to be, like, scary or, like, play possessed. I wanted her to be, like, He kept being like, whiny. You know, Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: that like, where did he use? That like super jealous girlfriend. And it was like, I was like, it sounds like you're kind of like describing women this way. We'll get into it. So Ashby: Yeah, we'll get to that. Yeah, we'll get into that a little bit more. Coco: I do think we should talk about each of them, kind of take them one by one. Of course they share certain themes. Like there's big picture. there's like something suppressed in both of them or something underneath that's kind of in both of them. And then both of them are about like, they're to a degree like dangers around masculinity, but in like different ways. And I do think I really appreciated, maybe we can get into back rooms specifically. And Ashby: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Coco: that was the bulk of the conversation that I heard on that Dear Movies, I Love You, Milita Cherko discussing it. And what I loved is they were getting into like the generations of it all. Like, Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: what does it mean? What is, I feel so bad. What is her cohost name? He is lovely. Ashby: K.C. O. Brian. Coco: Casey O'Brien, yes, love Casey O'Brien. So Millie DeCherico is Gen X or like identifies as Gen X and Casey O'Brien is like squarely millennial. And then they're talking about Backrooms is a film that takes place in 1990 made by a director who's only 21, not alive in 1990 by a long shot. And this mixing of like, not even quite like nostalgia, but like something nostalgic in it, really creating like. the furniture, the environments that are very recognizable to me, myself, a person who was alive in 1990, or the early 90s. And what does it mean when you have these different generational layers? I'm curious how you feel about it. Ashby: Yeah, I do think that when you're dealing with a person from a different generation telling a story that's set in another time period, think Coco: huh. Ashby: you'll always, especially if it's like a more retro, not so much far past, you are Coco: Huh? Ashby: going to deal a little bit with like how that person perceives the aesthetics of that time period. Coco: Yeah. Ashby: And so I think there's some of that there. I think the criticism I've seen is like, Basically he has no business telling this story because he's never Coco: What's? Ashby: lived in this time. And I'm not, I don't see that like, and that isn't what he's trying to tell. I don't Coco: like you, Ashby: think he's trying to give you a freaking Downton Abbey level period piece about the nineties. He's, that's not what this is. He's yeah. Coco: people are walking through walls here, guys. Ashby: I think it really is more about a, like a strain of like internet aesthetic. Coco: Hmm. Ashby: and how that hits the modern viewer, like Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: what that feels like. And if you have lived in a time period where that source material comes from, that Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: will definitely hit you in a different way. So sure, he may have never actually been into in a disgusting, you know, IBM like setting, but I don't Coco: Very, yeah, IBM. Ashby: think that that doesn't mean that he can't convey it or he can't convey the way it comes through. the screen now, like that's Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: enough, you know? Like I don't think most people watching something from, you know, that's like, that's like set in a further back time period is like looking at the cars to be like, is that a car that would have been made at that time? Like, I don't think that's the level of detail someone needs to watch a movie at. But on the other hand, what I have seen is that they, the set directors and the prop people were incredibly meticulous. about sourcing Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: everything. I actually think there's a problem where if you did grow up in those time periods, you think you're more of an expert than you are. And that there's a lot of things that we misremember. Part of the themes of the movie, part of the themes of the movie is that Coco: Creepypasta? Oh, just memory, uh-huh. Ashby: memory isn't that high fidelity. And also things are very different regionally. Like what you're gonna see in like... you know, this movie set in the Santa Clarita Valley, like what you're going to see there in terms of like fashion and cars and choices for interior decorating is going to be way different from like a different part of the country or the world at that same time. So I'm not taken out of it by the fact that it's in the nineties. I always think that's cool. I like a very recent look at something like, gosh, what was the, gosh, I told you I had watched the AMC horror anthology where they adapted another Victor Laval story. Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: called The Devil in Silver. And it is about a mental institution in the 90s that was originally founded in the 60s. And so they do back and forth shots between the two. But what's, sorry, not the 90s, the 2000s. What's crazy is that listening to one of my podcasts talk about that is they're like, this is a period piece about the 2000s, which is very upsetting to us now as millennials doing podcasts, watching it because Everyone's using that shitty kind of, it's shitty to us now, but it was so cool then, first generation iPhone from like 2008 or so or 2009. Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: And it's like, it's amazing seeing those little details. They sort of like jolt something. They remind you of something from that, that time. So, you know, the time period part doesn't bother me. I do think that it has its own like lore and vibe of a kind of corporate culture that we now think of as very dead. I think office space kind of plays into that. Some of those, some of those things. Coco: interesting in a good way, not in a bad way Ashby: Yeah. Coco: that someone who is like, quote unquote, Gen Z made this film in the sense that we know that like, there is a fascination with like, quote unquote, analog things that like, there Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: is a fascination that Gen Z can look around and see these like artifacts from a different time, and feel like a strange curiosity about them that they Ashby: Yeah. Coco: don't represent their lives. It is like, And it is fascinating to think about because, you know, when we were growing up, we grew up in this, the 90s, early 2000s, and, you know, the furniture of your grandparents' house or whoever else's house might have been the same for like 40, 50 years, whereas Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: the artifacts of like the 90s were these like things that were relatively disposable. It was not this like permanent couches that you're meant to have forever or whatever. So I get that, I think that there is something that is spooky about like Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: there's these remnants of a different society that are around us that like feel Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: very alien. And I kind of understand that like that would play out in this like creepy pasta internet lore that like this stuff origin originated from. I also was thinking about like, why does this feel like Severance? And it's because Severance Ashby: Yeah. Coco: got inspiration from the back rooms. internet lore memes before the movie. Ashby: Yes. Coco: So there's like this loop of these source materials. And of course, Severance is very directly about like the emptiness of corporate life, the Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: like, just endless hallways. Ashby: The way it hollows you out, yeah. Coco: Theft of your life. Ashby: Yeah, yeah. No, I definitely see the similarities with Severance, aesthetically. I, you know, they talk about, yeah, they talk about Coco: And it is kind of a horror. Yeah. Ashby: the, in the Millie DiCerico podcast too, of like the eeriness of the empty office space is something that is nostalgic to us from having a very, like a life that was very, you know, current before the pandemic. Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: And then for Gen Z though, up and Zoomers coming up after that, like this will always be a little bit of a myth because they've just not seen it. And Coco: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ashby: so for us, it probably feels a certain way because we remember when these spaces are like alive, you know, more or less. And, Coco: right. Ashby: but to them, it's like a dead mall, you know, it has that same eerie quality where it's like, wow, can you believe people used to be here? And I always think that that has like a funny, that funny analog with like, you know, like when you watch like the History Channel or whatever, and they're like, they're digging up like the Roman Square, and they're like, people would have lived here and traded here and you're like, no fucking way. Coco: That's such a good point about the empty mall, because I feel like we see this in all of our zombie media. These spaces Ashby: Yes, exactly. Coco: that have been abandoned, and they've been abandoned because of the economic model and technological advances that people shop from home, that people are isolated in their homes. Ashby: Yes. Coco: They're not in these public spaces. And it's depressing. If you want to go to a mall to try on a bunch of jeans, you basically can't, because they don't have the inventory. Ashby: Yeah, they don't have it. you'll ask and they'll be like, we have to order it. And you're just like, why could I stay at home then? Yeah, it makes no sense. Okay, wait, there Coco: Yeah, why would I order it to store as opposed to my house? Yeah. Yeah. Ashby: was It's called Kino phobia, Coco: Mmm. Ashby: which is a fear of large open spaces. So I was noticing that the movie gave me like the opposite feeling of claustrophobia of like, Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: I don't like that you feel so exposed. Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: And I think people have talked about that feeling in like the ocean, but that's called the loss of phobia. That's a different Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: thing. Or fear of space is another word for that. Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: But Kino phobia is just that, that feeling of there's nowhere to hide, you know, and Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: feeling really exposed there. And I think that plays into it too. Like people are, everything is more virtual now. And so, you know, the idea of being in this empty space, all alone, feeling very exposed, you know, I think you're seeing like obviously the remnants of it in back rooms. And I think that's a lot of where the lore comes from is the idea of it being abandoned. I also think that going into an actual office space is jarring for a Gen Z person in general. I think it has things in common with it, whether or not Coco: Well, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Ashby: there's people or not. It's like a feeling of exposure Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: and probably for the Zoomer Alpha generation too. Coco: Maybe now is when I want to just say like my overall feelings about the movie Backrooms, which was Ashby: Yes. Coco: that I thought it was so, I really liked it. For the very nature of I felt like it was novel. Like I was like, Ashby: Mmm. Coco: I don't know that I've really felt this feeling or like seen this quite before. I thought it was tapping into like. type of fear and dread that's a little different Ashby: Yeah. Coco: than what you're used to. There are moments where you're like, is the monster gonna get ya in back rooms? But that's not really like the under, that's not like the main feeling that you have watching it. And I think it's like a very like subconscious film. Like it feels Ashby: Yes. Coco: like a movie that like you love to call things of Rorschach test. And I don't know if Ashby: Mm-hmm Coco: it's quite that, but it's like, it does. it will resonate with different people depending on Ashby: Yeah. Coco: your subconscious. I have had nightmares so many times that there's down in a part of my house, there's an extra room and that room leads to other rooms. I think this is one of those common nightmares that's teeth falling out, but not as popular. And so that's a recurring nightmare I've had throughout my adult life. So I'm like... And like it does happen to something that I think people, some people feel. What if this Ashby: Thank Coco: just went on for forever? What if there's something like underneath your ordinary daily life that is unknown and ungovernable that's like freaky. Ashby: Yeah. Coco: And then secondarily, what you see in the back rooms, you know, in this actual Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: liminal space is that There are memories of objects and people that are like, their faces are distorted, that they're distorted in some way, because memory is imperfect and the space is remembering them and making these creations. And one of my also recurring nightmares is that whether it's my husband now or past partners in the past, that there's an alternate version of the person laying Ashby: Yeah. Coco: next to me or my dog's face is different. That kind of fear that the things that are close to you are suddenly altered or different is... a recurring nightmare. so I do, like, I love that it just tapped into some of that subconscious fears and anxieties. The thing I would say is to me the weakness is that I wasn't quite sure what the story meant or if it fully clicked. I Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: thought the characters were interesting and I think that there's some interesting discourse about maybe why we were with these specific characters on this journey. To me, even like the moments where it dips into like exposition, I was almost like, I didn't quite need it. I kind of liked the mystery part of it a little bit more. Do Ashby: Mm. Coco: you have like a, you're like, here are my, here's my feelings about the film. Ashby: I thought that, like I said, I told you this, I didn't think that back rooms was scary as much as I thought it was grueling. It Coco: Mm-mm. Ashby: wasn't the feeling of being afraid so much as it was the feeling of being on the back foot, being unprepared, being unsure and unsteady in a kind of world you're unfamiliar with. And also the stakes being very high, which is... Coco: You Ashby: essentially like the feeling of imposter syndrome, you know, or anytime you go to do some monumental task that you are responsible for that has high stakes, but where you are not an expert, that's the feeling of exploring like the back rooms where you're like, I was saying it's like doing taxes or having dental work done where you're just like, they're explaining it to you you're like, I guess I hope that this goes okay. But around Coco: Thank you. Ashby: any corner could be a monster that could seriously. take you down, you know, because you're Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: unfamiliar with the space and because the space is not intuitive to you. I think that's the part that it's like a Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: feeling of your competence is what can guide you, you know, like if you're, if you have the basic outline of something, you can feel more secure about it. But when you see a room that doesn't look like any room you've ever seen and the things don't match up, like the feeling of not being able to trust your perception. is the thing that's so scary, you know, and that not knowing what to do about it. It's slippery, yeah. There's no rules, yeah. Coco: Yeah, and it's slippery. It's not, there's no rules. It's changing. Things are shifting. Yeah. Even like there's an implication that there's a loop of time. Yeah. We don't know what's present. Ashby: Yeah, we don't understand how that works. Yeah, and I think that that's the anxiety that people have. Coco: Thank you. Ashby: But I think, you know, on the Millie de Cherico podcast, they talk about how the back rooms and the internet and the sunken place, they all feel like places that you go, but they're actually not, if you think about it, they're actually not real physical spaces, but they feel like they're spaces. But I think the kind of dread of why does this room not make sense? What's around this corner? Where did that sound come from? How can time move this way? That like untrustworthiness that comes from dreams or your subconscious Coco: Yeah. Ashby: and the way that things don't make sense. I think that's the anxiety people feel now about like technology. Like that that's what you're feeling is the feeling of navigating the internet. And when you see creepy pasta, Coco: Mm-hmm. And maybe just Ashby: or that that Coco: explain creepypasta again. We covered it in our first Ashby: Yeah. Coco: episode, which is only for the brave. We did not have microphones. Ashby: Yeah, we hadn't figured it out yet. But okay, the Gianto Latino article is great for this and I will, we can re-share it. But Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: Creepypasta is this like kind of internet thing, kind of strain of the internet that came up in the 2000s. That's like, it comes from the term copypasta, which is itself like a messed Coco: Like a joke. Ashby: up joke for copy paste. So there was that time where people would send around these lurid email chains that would be like, if you don't forward this to 20 people, copy paste this, then like, you know, a monster is gonna eat your entire family. And people got really superstitious about this stuff. But when you copy paste things, the inherent thing about it is things get lost or things get misdistorted Coco: distorted. Ashby: or mistranscribed. And so then you got people saying, clearly this is a copypasta, know, when they would comment on Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: don't engage with this newsletter, it's just a copypasta, like a copy paste problem. And Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: then when people would create these, yeah, Coco: People are clever. Ashby: people would add to those lore or Coco: Yeah. Ashby: those lurid things would get more and more outlandish and those would be called creepypasta. So a big version of that is like Slender Man is the main one that people think of. But when I think of creepypasta, I think of these intentionally disturbing images that I think the Gia Tolentino piece will bring up, which is like a hot dog in a handbag where you're like, what the fuck is this? Or Coco: huh. huh. Ashby: a shoe filled with beans. You're like, that doesn't go there. And so it's this thing that happens in your mind when there are things that are juxtaposed that don't belong. so that's that same feeling of like, I can't trust my reality. Coco: Yeah. Ashby: that gives people such anxiety. So Creepypasta comes up around this image of a furniture store online Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: where people online in Reddit and 4chan are like adding to the lore where they're like, don't go in the back rooms that I hear they go on forever. I hear there's a time loop and that's fun. I like the idea of like a fun group of people kind of, you know. Coco: Me too! Not that I ever want to spe- I've never been to a 4chan. I don't know what a 4chan is. I know there's lots of terrible stuff there, but I think a lot of this came. Ashby: Yeah, but like the pure part of the internet, like it can actually be incredibly creative when you essentially have Coco: Yeah! Yeah. Ashby: a lot of people having fun spitballing Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: and essentially improving on a story. And Coco: you Ashby: so that's where the like concept of the backrooms came from and creepy pasta. But one of the things that is a feature of this is the idea of glitching or that you could copy paste wrong and get stuck in the in-between of the frames. So when you see the images in back rooms of like the sign going through or the furniture being stretched out, that's that strange feeling when you're manipulating images online. And so the idea is like, if you were actually physically in this weird juxtaposing absurdist space, you yourself could become a like distorted, pixelated, weird copy paste error. Coco: And that happens. Ashby: And that's kind of, and that is kind of what happens, but it very similarly mirrors the way that we think our dreams and our subconscious is a separate place, but where Coco: Okay... Mm-hmm. Ashby: things are inherently lost, like the detail, the fidelity is lost, Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: and some of the things get changed around. So I think it's a nice like mashup of those two things. Coco: Yeah, and I do think it's interesting to think about this as like, as it relates to technology and the internet and like that this movie almost to like, not think about this movie as being about the 90s, but being about Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: the internet and memory and like all of this other stuff. Because you now have something like AI slop that Ashby: Yeah. Coco: is being produced sometimes intentionally, but often not intentionally by AI that is like doing this exercise. I don't know. Ashby: Yeah, well, I should say there's a good American hysteria that I found on this that Coco: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ashby: is about AI slop and some of the weirder, like viral ones. And Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: she makes the connection between she makes the connection between that and creepypasta that they are intentionally meant to be absurd and upsetting. And Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: I think a big one that she that she uses is I think we can all relate to this. those really fucking weird iPhone game ads that you get that are like Coco: I don't know. Ashby: a woman shivering. That's like a cartoon woman shivering. Have you not seen these? Coco: No, thank you. No. Ashby: Okay, or they're like for games, but the games are these strange not games. Coco: Yeah. As a person who doesn't play games, I think I have just not been targeted. Yeah. Yeah. Ashby: Well, I don't even think I saw them for that. think I see them in like, I think I saw them. Yeah, yeah, like YouTube and stuff. It's like little things that kind of stick in your brain where you're like, Coco: just like news article. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get you. get you. Ashby: that doesn't make sense. And it's like grotesque and creepy. And so your brain is trying to make sense of why this obvious Teemu looking Elsa figure is like shivering and... you know, eating SpaghettiOs out of a shoe. Like that's the kind of imagery that they're intentionally doing that's AI slop, but it reels you in because of how confusing it is. And Coco: Yeah. Ashby: one thing about the internet is nobody likes to not know what's going on. So I know I myself have fallen into a K-pop hole only because I couldn't stand not knowing what the lingo was. And like the more you click to try to understand the thing, the more... Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: the more and more you get into it. And so nobody wants to not know what the new slang is. Nobody wants to not understand the new meme. And so there's a little shimmering mirage there of like, Coco: Yeah. Ashby: I need to go deeper to try to figure out what the logic is behind this thing so I can be in the know. And if not, then you feel like a person who is in a space that you're not meant to be. Coco: Yeah, and I think that's part of where it's this also like this, and that's in the Gia Tolentino article. It's like this slipperiness of meaning, that meaning Ashby: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Coco: is becoming more elusive. She's also connecting this back to like how that serves fascism, like people Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: who want to exploit that feeling, a lack of trust in anything that you're seeing. Yeah, Ashby: Legibility, yeah. Coco: I mean, currently we had this whole conspiracy theory that Mitch McConnell was dead and then they release a photo of him and we are like, there's still a debate online where you're like, what am I looking at here? Is it real or not Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: real? Like, I personally think it's real, but like, there's, I understand people who don't. But also I think that that's like, that backrooms the film is a horror film. I think it does tap into like, this is horrifying that there is no meaning, that things are just slippery. Ashby: that I don't actually understand how the world works. That's a really stressful feeling, especially when you're being put in the POV of a person, this person, Clark, who clearly Coco: Mmm. Ashby: has their own traumas and issues that they need to deal with. They know they're an imperfect person. And then Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: when you're an imperfect person thrown into a scenario that is slippery and confusing to you, but you know that you're supposed to understand it. Like there's a gap there between like what you can... effectuate and like how competent you actually are. And that is a very human frustrating, if it's a feeling of horror, you know, there's probably nothing scarier to people than feeling like they're in an unfamiliar place and they're completely unequipped to deal with what happens there. Coco: Well, so in the character of Clark, I do think that there's, again, it feels like a more relevant, like, theme to today, Ashby: Yeah. Coco: where it's really about a middle-aged man who has had almost this, like, promise of a successful career Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: of being an architect and finds himself the owner, manager of a failing, not even, it's Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: like a discount furniture store. And so there is, like, the undercurrent of like male rage at not Ashby: Yeah. Coco: getting, you know, the trappings of a normal middle-class life that he was expecting. You also, of course, see that he is an alcoholic. He has rage Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: issues. has, you know, when they do an exercise of like acting out their marriage, Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: you expect one thing and what you get is like an emotionally abusive person kind Ashby: Yes. Coco: of under the surface there. And so he ultimately like I think enjoys initial outset, like exploring these back rooms because it allows him to like map out, you Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: know, from his architectures, architecture skills, like map out this space. But he ultimately like chooses to go live there outside of the regular world that has failed him. And Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: within a world that is not demanding any growth from him. Ashby: Yeah. Coco: Now, I will say both Clark and Mary, our character that Renata plays, they choose to go in the back rooms. Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: could have just walked out and said, I'm not fucking with that space anymore. Not to blame the victim, Ashby: Yeah. Coco: but girl, you walked in, you yelled Clark, you could have left, you're looking Ashby: Hmm Coco: for your patient, you didn't need to keep going. Ashby: Yeah, but then there's no story, you know? And so that's, they have to keep going. But Coco: I know, in a horror film they always have to like go upstairs instead of go outside. Ashby: I think that's, I think that's part of it is the feeling of you're trying to move forward when you know that what's behind you is more familiar and safer, but you're trying to like be brave, even though each step is scary because it's unfamiliar and because anything could happen to you. That's like the, that's a core tension of horror movies when she's exploring the haunted house. It's a haunted house essentially. Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: But I think it does such a interesting job of combining the two things, the feeling of a little bit being unequipped to deal with this strange new world and bringing in that, that has kind of like, I feel like workplace, new frontier, new generation, new technology. I feel like that has implications for that. And the 90s is a genuinely great place to start this feeling of internet dread. Coco: Yeah. Ashby: And if you think of the internet as starting out as this little IBM box, which it was, and then it evolved into this fucking hellscape that it is now. Like that's how it starts is you go through a little portal and then you just keep walking and trying to understand it and trying to understand it Coco: Yeah. Ashby: until it becomes more, you know, more legible to you. But then combining this like new world type of anxiety with the very primal anxiety of being chased by a bear, like Coco: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Ashby: because there's also a monster in this space. And so Coco: Yeah. Ashby: how interesting to combine like what your instinctual human animal body knows how to do, which is Coco: I know. Ashby: run and hide from something chasing you, but run and hide not in a forest or the jungle or the savanna, but like in a creepy, like a creepy weird office building that has like rooms and shit that doesn't make any sense. I think that's really interesting as a metaphor for like generalized anxiety in the time of having to be like a capitalist internet. Wage slave. Coco: Well, yeah, and I mean, it is like a good metaphor for the internet originating from this time period Ashby: Mm-hmm. Yes. Coco: where Mark Duplass's character, I believe it is, who says like, well, the space showed up because of Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: MRI machines, which is very funny. kind Ashby: Yeah. Coco: of off. Again, I didn't need them to explain it. I almost like didn't Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: like this, but then he's like, and it just keeps the portals keep opening. And it is Ashby: Yeah. Coco: like a metaphor for the internet that does contain, the portals keep opening. Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: as people just keep exploring things and... It contains the trauma and the anxieties of humans. Like that is what is contained within the internet at the same time. So we see like the Renata character escapes, but there's a version of her still in the back rooms that's distorted. Ashby: that's so great because all of us, I think all of us think of our online personas that way as Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: as a different version of us, but that lives on the Internet that is distorted. I mean, think about your freaking your Gmail from high school. Do you even want to know how corrupted that thing is by now? No, you don't. But there's a there is a lingering element that was assigned to you that has now just been totally overrun by. the excesses and the detritus of the modern internet. And Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: this, it will be this way. Like there's almost no way to have a clean internet version of yourself because it's so cavernous and messy and confusing. Like you try to unsubscribe from some of this shit and you can't, you can't. It's like. Coco: thinking about like, yes, like your representation online, but it's also like all the things people search for that are like deep Ashby: yeah. Coco: personal things. And now people are turning to AI to be like, what is my mental health diagnosis? Like, you know, like it's interesting. Ashby: Mm-hmm. Going. And I feel like that's a metaphor for like, look, in the 90s, you would have gone to talk therapy. But Coco: Hmm Ashby: in the now, he could just stay in the internet and find that distorted version of her there and have a weird Coco: now. Ashby: therapy conversation inside of the internet back rooms kind of thing instead of like an actual in-person one. And in a way, you're getting a distorted version of therapy and Coco: Yeah. Ashby: you're not actually being asked to leave or challenge yourself or interact with a real human being. So his ultimate choice to stay there, I think it makes a ton of sense and I think. Coco: Yeah. And it's like fucked up kitchen scene where he has essentially kidnapped his therapist Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: and tied her to a chair and is kind of demanding of her to absolve him of the need to grow. Then there are like these other like distorted back rooms people that have been like, Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: they're the memories of people in this room. I will find it and put it in the sub stack, but I watched like a breakdown of the film by... a woman who is just like kind of going through it and she points out that his wife had red hair and that maybe, yeah, so that's, that's. Ashby: That was his wife. I understood that immediately. That was his kitchen and that was his wife because she's wearing the blazer, the very 90s blazer dress. Yeah. Yeah. Coco: Yeah, and that he like puts her hair on his on Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: the therapist in this really fucked up way and it's interesting because this like memory person of his wife like Is not obedient to the the Clark that's the human Clark that's there But she and allows her about things to happen to her but when they're like distorted anger only Clark comes in Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: she runs in this for Ifred and it's like this representation of him is also in the the back rooms with them. Ashby: that was so interesting because, so spoiler alert, the monster is Clark's id. Clark's id... Coco: It's at least one monster. Ashby: Yeah, one of the monsters there is this oversized kind of caricature, very ridiculous and kind of funny, almost like a mascot version of Clark as his store mascot, Captain Clark, where he was trying to film a video earlier of him in this costume, like they did in the 90s to... Coco: a pirate costume. Ashby: Yeah, to be his like commercial that would come on your TV, you know, like in Texas they have mattress Mac and yeah, that type of thing. And Coco: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. A lot of this in like Better Call Saul type stuff, yes. Ashby: so the monster is that distorted version of him, but it's also very much the part of him that is angry and destructive, violent and alcoholic. And so this like scare, you hear the scary monster coming for them in this recreation of the this fight that he has with his wife in this kind of glitched out version of their home. And you hear the monster coming and that is when the glitched out version of his wife takes off running into a wall, like trying, scrambling to get out. And I think that's so interesting because like from people in alcoholic relationships or a few people raised by alcoholic parents or a person with like anger issues, everybody knows that feeling of like walking on eggshells. Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: and you can feel when the tide has turned and that makes you react. You don't react to, in the same way, to like a regular sober person talking to you, but the animal part of you responds to feeling the shift of, uh-oh, now a person who is unhinged is coming at me violently. So I thought it was such a, it really was dark. Coco: And that part kills Human Clark. Ashby: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but he that he actually chooses it like he chooses Coco: Yeah. Ashby: to embrace that side of him and it does kill him, which is a great metaphor in and of itself, you know? Coco: I know, I know. my gosh. Ashby: I just want to say that I thought of the backrooms as a metaphor for the subconscious. And it's not really because he does kind of lay that out in this kind of scene at the table. He says like, this place is mapped out by all your memories and your experiences. The longer you're in here, the more it's taking that and mapping it, which is an interesting parallel to like 3D printing or the way that internet AI and algorithms will like scrape everything about a person and try to then rebuild. like a profile of a consumer. So I think there's something there about like how the internet tries to copy a version of you, but it gets weird. Coco: Yeah, for all the tech bros that want to like upload their consciousness, go watch this Ashby: Yeah. Coco: film and be like, maybe think twice. But that's a bunch of Clarks. Ashby: Maybe think about it. It's a bunch of Clarks. Yeah. And so he kind of says that in the longer she's there, you see things from her subconscious and her memory and her trauma start to materialize in this world, which I Coco: Right. Ashby: think is really interesting of the subconscious or the internet is going to absorb all kinds of things about you. Maybe not necessarily the way you want to present yourself. It could be absorbing things about you that you didn't intend for it to. Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: But it also is a nice metaphor for the way that when you've got people dealing with their trauma and she plays a therapist, but it's also giving you backstory that she has her own trauma she's working through with her agoraphobic mom, Coco: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ashby: that every person's trying to work through their trauma is just your two subconsciouses talking to each other. And you do your best, but it's gonna be filtered through this kind of distorted reality. that is full of the furniture and the detritus from your past. And you're not actually getting a full fidelity version of what's the conversation with you in this person. It's filtered through your experiences. Coco: Yeah. Ashby: And you see that for her too. she has her own. I think what you see from her is like a version of claustrophobia. She has her own anxiety about following a person into a space because we see her mom is a agoraphobic and shut in and has piled furniture and clothes up and blocked out the windows in her childhood and that that is very triggering for her. And then as she enters the space, it starts to take on those qualities. The rooms get more confining. The furniture stacks up in a blocking way. You see piles of laundry. It's darker for her. you can see like the feeling of being trapped with someone who is very unwell. It's interesting she chose to then be a therapist when that is also her core childhood experience that she's trying to heal from. Coco: Yeah. Ashby: Yeah, and I liked that they had a version of her listening to her books on tape because that's very 90s coded. A lot of people Coco: my God, I know. Ashby: obviously couldn't access therapy, but we didn't have better help. Instead, they had books on tape. And so she's doing her meditations and therapy and you hear it. And it's so interesting that the language that she uses for overcoming your traumas is about navigating spaces. She's like, there's a window in you that you open, you can leave this Coco: that it was never locked. Ashby: space. And you see like that actual reality for her as a child in flashbacks that she learns that she could actually open the window in this space that she's trapped in with her mom. So I Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: was really feeling that shit, but it's also because Renata is such a good actress, but. You could just really see that she was absolutely being like immersed in her greatest fear when she's trapped in this world. Coco: Yeah, I hope I hope Renata gets to play a lighthearted role because Ashby: I do too. Coco: she these are heavy. From sentimental value to this Ashby: heavy themes. Mm-hmm. Coco: one, she's carrying the this this trauma burden and both of them and. Ashby: I also think it was interesting that early on in his therapy session, he says something like, I'm alone, not lonely, but I'm alone because I hurt people and maybe it's better that way. And you see as he, the handful of people he knows, his therapist and like some young employees from his store, when they follow him into his subconscious, they do get eaten up by his, by the monster. You know, they do get attacked by the monster. Coco: Mm-hmm. Yes. Sorry to Jason Siegel's daughter from the, what is that called? I watched that show with Harrison Ford, Jessica Williams. Shrinking, yes. Not Severance, but shrinking. Ashby: shrinking. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they they get attacked by the monster. But the real bridge between these two movies has to do with male entitlement expectation that that the Coco: Yes. Ashby: woman across from them is supposed to fulfill their fantasies about themselves, that her job is to make them Coco: Yep. Ashby: feel like the big man. And Coco: and a true lack of care for all the other Ashby: Yes. Coco: beings in their vicinity. So, you Ashby: Yes. Coco: know, if we are transitioning to obsession, you know, what we could say is like, Clark does not really care that his employee and her boyfriend get got. Like, he keeps her head in a fridge. It's like, Ashby: Mm-mm. Mm-hmm. Coco: he tries to save her and then it's like, oopsies, well. And he leads these young people into this very dangerous environment. And then, you know, this was from some of the commentary about obsession. you know, they wanted to open the film, the director originally wanted to open the film with the dead cat. And Ashby: Mm. Coco: so the cat has gotten into this medication that's been left behind by the grandma. And what I appreciated from the commentary about it was that they were trying to say that this, it's a tragedy. It's a tragedy if a pet gets into something that they shouldn't get into. And I don't wanna blame any human that Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: has had that happen. That's horrible. But it's also like, they're trying to... they were in the film kind of trying to allude that this character of Bear was careless with the things that were out and about. Ashby: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Coco: I mean, I you know that cats can get into stuff as best as you try, they were, Ashby: I swear, never assume. Coco: the filmmakers were saying this was like to allude to the fact that he was careless. Like this is something that could have been avoided if he wasn't so self-centered. He doesn't really mourn Ashby: But it's the shifting of the blame. Coco: his cat. Ashby: Yeah, well, not in a way that we see, but yeah, it's a real shifting of blame in both films. Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: And so at the end of Backrooms, Renata has this moment where she busts through the sort of therapist facade. And she's like, you wanna know why your wife left you? It's because you don't take responsibility for anything. Everything is someone else's fault. And Coco: Yeah. Uh huh. Ashby: I just gotta say, this conversation between the two of them where they do a role play exercise about his wife leaving him and what that argument was like, and you Coco: Yeah. Ashby: see how much rage the male character has. Coco: Hmm? Mm-hmm. Ashby: This is gonna be the monologue people start using for their tapes now. This is the monologue Coco: Yeah. Ashby: and like it is gonna be like a career defining thing I think. I think that those performances were just the way that Chiwilto would like turn up. the simmering resentment and anger. Absolutely phenomenal. But Coco: mean, he's incredible. He's always incredible. Ashby: he's so good at, and this is another parallel between the two movies, he's so good at being disarming in every other context. That kind of initial, Coco: huh. Ashby: the initial feeling you have when you meet this character, the way they carry themselves, the way they act when they're meeting you is very like aw shucks. But, Coco: But you have empathy for him. Ashby: well, empathy and also pity, like pathetic empathy, that Coco: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Ashby: type of empathy. Yeah, like they both come across as quite pathetic and like the women could really hurt them with their words or their characterization of them. So yeah, it's the lack of responsibility and taking responsibility and expecting women to reflect back to them a version of themselves that's like the core thing between the two of them. And yeah, the carelessness, but... I was going to say that, back to my letterbox review. This man does go to therapy, but he's not taking on board anything she's saying. So yeah. No, he's not. Coco: He's not really open to it, no, no. And she's also not capable, I think, as part of it. Ashby: And that's also okay. I think that's also, Coco: She is, she's like, I can't help you. Ashby: know, yeah. But both movies and some reviews I've seen about them, both kind of are playing on the ideas that have entered the culture more recently about codependency. And Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: like, how much can someone really help someone? What's your responsibility and what's theirs? And like, the ways that we've conflated elements of codependency with love and care. And I think that's true also for things like getting therapy. Like the therapist comes with their own baggage. The therapist comes with their own background and subconscious. They may not be the right fit for you. And it's okay to admit that. Coco: Absolutely. Ashby: One more thing. I did put in my notes that there is a really fascinating review of backrooms in psychology today. Coco: my God, of course. Ashby: I love, they've got a section where it compared to being John Malkovich, which lots do, but it's an Coco: Uh-huh. Ashby: exploration of the unconscious. They bring in concepts like subjective destitution. And then the big component here that the therapist mentions to him is unrealized potential. what's at the core of Clark's Coco: Isn't it? Ashby: distress. And I did think that that was interesting this psychology today review is like, hell is where your unrealized version of yourself like meets the version of you that could have been, you know? So I thought that was a really a fascinating construction. Coco: That is fascinating. And just as you brought up being John Malkovich, it also made me think of like, there is something to this film and like the endless sunshine of the spotless mind, where Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: it is this like slippery dream world, where it is done very intentionally to be about like your psychology, but. Ashby: But yeah. Coco: So obsession, I think, know, we're Ashby: Obsession. Coco: talking about how Renata is so incredible. We also have to talk about, new to us, but I think not new to Gen Z, having learned a Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: little bit about her, is Indy Navaredi. I looked up how to say her last name. Indy Navaredi, who's the star of Obsession playing Nikki Freeman, alongside Michael Johnston as Bear, and then the two other characters are Megan Lawless and Cooper Tomlinson. But, you know, kind of our main pair, main couple is, you know, Nikki and Bear. but we were watching this with a couple of other, you know, female friends. And I think all of us were like watching what she does with her face in the movie Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: is incredible. And I did appreciate listening to like some of those little casts, like promo. They were like, we were genuinely afraid of you. Ashby: Yeah. How could you not be? Coco: Cause she wouldn't do it until like the, they were actually filming. Ashby: I've actually wondered... So, okay, we've watched many movies and I'm very happy to see the way that the film industry, when it's the capital letter film industry, has really normalized the use of intimacy coordinators. But one thing Coco: Hmm? Ashby: I'm a little concerned about is this rise of like the YouTube guy makes me wonder if these sets had those kind of resources, because these scenes are... tense and tough and I actually have wondered if that actress is okay. And I hope she's getting plenty of millions because I do think that playing this role and doing these experiences and having so many people Coco: sure. Ashby: comment on it, I have to imagine that that's rough on the psyche, you know? And so when I'm watching it, I was less worried because I'm in my mind thinking, well, they will have certainly had an intimacy coordinator, but then learning more about how this is kind of this. you know, smaller budget film, I'm like, ugh, I hope that this actual person hasn't felt exploited by this experience of playing this role. Coco: I hear you. I don't know that we know enough to be worried, but yeah. Ashby: I know, and that's another thing. When I've searched my podcast feed, looking for it, I haven't seen many interviews with her. I've seen interviews with Megan Lawless, but I haven't seen Coco: Mm. Ashby: many interviews with Indy Navarretti. So, or I've seen a lot with the filmmaker, obviously. So I don't Coco: Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Ashby: know. I hope she's good wherever you are. I know she's a big listener. Yeah, she's probably fine, but oh God. Coco: She has like three million followers on Instagram. Yeah, not that that makes you, you're right though. mean, famously the actress who played the child in the exorcist did have trauma from Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: that experience that these things can be traumatic to play. And I think it is like a good call out to think about, even when we talking about Hamlet, Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: Hamnet and the way that Hamnet was made, like that Chloe Zhao really took care of her cast and said, we're having these emotionally devastating scenes, then we're going to like dance that energy out so that it doesn't like stay in your body after when you go home at night. And like, I think that going beyond just intimacy between two people Ashby: Yeah. Coco: is like the care for someone engaging in something really like scary or like tapping into a scary part of just themselves. Ashby: And I'm with you. I'm sure, I don't know this whole person, just my foray into trying to understand where this filmmaker is inspired by, I wasn't getting strong treatment of women as top of his list of concerns. I wasn't Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: getting that necessarily. I'm not saying that it wasn't there, but. But yeah, if Hollywood is gonna be leaning into this model more, then there needs to be a structure to protect people because not, yeah. Yeah. Let's generalize about men. Mm-hmm. Coco: speak generally. I'm going to generalize about men as they said in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, worth a watch if you haven't seen it. But like I went to college with a lot of film bro types. They thought Ashby: Mm-hmm. Auteurs, would you say? Coco: so. And there is something in like a 21 year old, 26 year old man that is often Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: like, let's do it because it's cool. Like and that's sometimes the end of the thought process. Ashby: Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. Coco: No, I mean, like the film is explicitly about like men and women. Like there's thought that's mixed in this film that like does give you a sense that like they are aware. how their behavior affects women. Ashby: Well, in some ways makes it worse. Coco: I'm not upset, but I hear you. hear you. I hear you. Okay, I did want to bring up when I was, when we're watching the film, I think something that we were responding to was like, the style of the dialogue. Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: Feeling, like at first it almost feels a little off, especially in our main character, Bear, because it doesn't feel like what happens in movies, but it does kind of sometimes feel like what happens in real life. And so a sort of stilting awkwardness occasionally that comes across as like, more true to life of a man that is like uncomfortable being vulnerable by asking for what he wants. You know, he has this crush. The woman is giving him the opportunity to tell him he has a crush. She explicitly asks him. We see him wanting to tell her and then like when given the chance backs away, shies away, even like beyond like a degree that's normal. I get feeling afraid you have a- to tell someone that you have a crush, but like he's explicitly given the opportunity many times. And it did make me think of, there has been all, I did watch all of Love Island the most recent season, and there, Ashby: Wow. Coco: which is a true feat. But there was all this discourse around like the red pill effect of Love Island. And it is interesting watching it as a millennial, you're watching these younger people in their twenties. And the way that the men, speak about the women and the way what the men expect from the women, it feels different than like being a millennial who has like experienced like fuck boys and like men being bad or like men treating women as disposable. But it made me long for a simpler time where I was like a straightforward Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: fuck boy would go a long way right now because there's this nice guy energy. There's this like real reticence to express how you feel unless you're 100 % certain that that woman would die for you. Like it is this feeling of like, am owed sex, but also if women engage in sexual activity with other men that they are totally disposable. That feels very like a manosphere. And you also see there's like one character in Love Island who to his like, quote unquote, like girlfriend type partner, like comes across one way, but you see how he talks to the other men about the other women. that you really get a sense of like, he's almost like leading these men against women. Like, it's like he is trying to like kind of influence them. And it just felt like fascinating, like as a generation removed from Gen Z to like see some of this play out within this film of obsession that like was like, yeah, like this kind of just happened like on Love Island and people, the commentary online at least for women who are Gen Z who are dating is like, this stuff feels real. Like this does seem like accurate to like how dating is. That's my low island speech. Ashby: Yeah, I haven't watched Love Island, mostly because it would require me to upgrade my peacock and I just simply can't be bothered. Just won't do it. But yeah, I have also heard that people have been pretty disheartened to see how legible that is to them now. Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: I don't know, I guess. I, my strong feeling is I've watched a lot of shitty, and hot people making out shows Coco: Yeah. Ashby: and I feel like they've always been there. They just haven't all been using the same vocabulary. It's just that you can see it now. You know, you can act, there are buzzwords and things that trigger people to notice it, but that ideology I think has always been like an undercurrent. It's just getting more formalized, I think. And, but I am glad that people are noticing it and feeling uncomfortable by it because Coco: And the two people who, like the winners and like the second Ashby: Yeah. Yeah. Coco: runner up, were like the good guys. Like Ashby: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Coco: in terms of the, all the women were wonderful. All of the women were really amazed. I loved the women. Yeah. Ashby: Well, that's always how it is. Coco: Yeah. But, but yeah, it definitely felt like it was coming through. Ashby: And I agree, like a straightforward fuck boy. think this is, it is one thing that this movie does like really well is Coco: Yeah. Ashby: show you a person and maybe in back rooms too, a person that is, you can feel some empathy for, show you a person that you feel pity for a little bit because you see that they don't feel super confident, that they do have things. They do have insecurities. They're upfront with the fact that this person has insecurities. Coco: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ashby: I think that it does a good job of showing that it actually doesn't matter what your intentions are or what your frame of mind is. It has to do with what the effects your actions have on other people. That's where I think some of these red pill bros are getting lost in the sauce. When you watch older movies, it's very quickly telegraphed to you who is the bully because a bully is very mean and confident and they're trying to hurt you for the explicit reason of just trying to hurt you for fun. Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: And that's been like the language of cinema. And so now I think people think there's some squishy gray area where a person that is trying to hurt you because they feel insecure. and not from a place of superiority, but from a place of inferiority, like, that's different. It's not different. The effect is still the same. You're still Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: hurting someone for your own psychological needs. And it's the same with Clark. It's like he thinks that because he feels insecure, that that is itself a problem that justifies any action. And... And that's how he comes across to you as like sort of disarming and like all shucks because he doesn't come across as someone who's super confident. But yeah, I agree. Like a sort of an obvious fuck boy, like a guy who was talking shit about women in this really loud way, kind of a back to the future BIF coded figure. Coco: even like an obvious fuckboy in the sense of like, I'll tell you what you need to, I'll love bomb you, have sex with you, then Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: like act like you're crazy. Like the Timothy Chalamet character from Lady Bird is what's coming up in my mind where you're like, fuck Ashby: Yeah, or... Coco: yeah, we've encountered that fight. But this, don't, it's really hard for me to like speak to seeing both in this movie and in Love Island. It's this like quiet demeanor. Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: It's this like, but it's like, it's the refusal to be vulnerable. It lacks Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: confidence entirely and it's insidious. It's so insidious. And it's a feeling of being owed sex from women too. That is very like incel Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: related. Like we see a moment in obsession where, and this is truly, this is more spoiler. yeah. Yeah. Ashby: It's, can we just say a big trigger trigger warning here? Yeah. Yeah. We'll put one up front. Coco: Where it's what you learn is that, you know, he has cast. cast the spell or this curse or whatever on Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: this woman to love him more than anyone in the whole world. That obviously includes herself. But what you learn is it's really like kind of a get out situation where there is she, her real self is within her body. And there's Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: this like thing that has taken over her that is the obsession with Bear, with the character. And so there's a moment, we understand that when she sleeps, sometimes the possessed part of her is asleep and the real version of her is coming alive. So Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: at one point, the real version of her has a conversation with Bear and she's asking to be killed because she's like, this person is, I'm being possessed. And he, in this moment, we really feel confident that we're okay with Bear's ultimate demise because he's like, would it be so bad to be with me? Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: He cannot accept that she, the real version of her didn't want him. Ashby: Right. And it's also an insistence on things having a logic, which is a little bit like the feeling of the back rooms, is needing there to be a reason or justification other than that's just what she wants. And Coco: Yeah. Ashby: you get this little montage where they're a quote unquote happy couple. And you're like, sure, I guess maybe the material experience for her, they're cooking together and they go on a date and they're laughing and all. I guess in his mind, he's like, yeah, but if we're having like 90 % of that experience that she might've chosen, I'm not like hitting her, I'm not abusing her, like Coco: huh. Ashby: I'm a nice guy, what's wrong with being with me? Like an insistence that she justify her choice to not be with him. And Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: so in his mind, he's thinking like, I'll do like a pay it forward thing, like I'll show her. like what a great relationship we can have. And it'll sort of like convince her on a deeper level in some way, as if he could have this conversation with the real version of her in there and just be like, you know, well, you're a 90 day trial. What have you thought of me Coco: Yeah. Ashby: as a boyfriend? Like, hasn't it been so nice? Justify why it would be so bad to be with me. And the reason... Coco: Yeah, the only reason he wants it to stop is because it's turning horrific, but like Ashby: Yeah. Coco: he still wanted the... She's my rom-com dream girl. Ashby: And no, still did. And it's still true because actually there's a part where he realizes things are out of control. He calls the 1-800 number to try to undo the wish, but he doesn't try to cancel the wish. He tries to alter the wish. He still wants her to be obsessed with him. He just wants her to turn it down to a level that isn't inconvenient for him. And there is something so dismissive. Coco: Yeah. He wishes he had worded the word wish differently. Ashby: Yeah, he's actually not worried about her autonomy because the 1-800 number person is like, do you want to talk to her? And you hear her psyche screaming in the background. So Coco: It's awful. Ashby: terrifying. And like, that's not enough for him. He's not thinking, oh my God, the real person that I care about is trapped somewhere. And it's my responsibility to figure out how to fix this. He doesn't think of it in this like empathetic way. He's like, no, no, I actually want the real her. to love me and he has this conversation with her a couple times where he's like, you're not being Nikki enough. I need you to like Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: tone it down. I need you to act better because that's what he's after is the feeling of the real Nikki wanting him and the validation that that gives him not like an actual care and appreciation for this person or else he would have made a lot of different choices and a lot of different. It's the fact that he tries to alter the wish to me that he's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, I still wanted to love me. I just like, and even if it's not really her, I think he could live with that. He wished I didn't tell him. So very depressing. Coco: Okay, as someone who, I heard the director, Barker, say that this was originally a thought. He wanted to make a movie about co-dependence. As someone Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: who has hyped co-dependence no more many times on this podcast, how Ashby: Yes. Coco: are your feelings about co-dependence related to the film? Ashby: I understand, I can understand this as maybe starting from a seed of co-dependence. No. Coco: It doesn't feel like code. I was not connecting to it. So I was like, that's an interesting thing. Ashby: But it, okay, the thing that's about co-dependence is usually, mean, co-dependence no more is coming from a tradition of like alcoholics anonymous. And it's coming from a tradition of the spouse of the alcoholic. And in the past that had been very traditionally coded as the wife of the alcoholic. But we know now that there's a lot of partners or children or caretakers, there's a lot of other people that that can be. And so Coco: Yeah, Family, community. Ashby: in this way, like, it's a little bit flipped because a more analogous thing would be that the alcoholic person is like a person who is possessed and you become like Bear who is trying to constantly fix it and manage it, but you can't, like you cannot. This person has their own curse and affliction and you're trying to like tone it down in public. You're trying to make it work for you. You're trying to like meet their needs. but they're constantly unpredictable and you're just living in a constant. So it's a lot more like the monster Clark is smashing through the back rooms and you're just trying to react to it in a way that's, that can make everybody happy, smooth everything over, right? So I can see it starting from that like germination of an idea, but it's flipped in a weird way. And so... So yeah, that's the part that it's a little bit confusing. It stays with the bear as the main POV. yeah, like you said, the discussion of what he envisioned the Nikki character to be, what I really liked in this, what I really liked, yeah. Coco: Yeah. I've definitely heard critiques online that they were like, it's... is it feminist? Ashby: Definitely not, no. Coco: in a gray area, like I'm okay, but definitely like a... it was a woman who makes horror films was like, wouldn't this be cool if we saw this from Nikki's perspective? okay, okay. Ashby: yeah, and maybe this is her, because she does talk about that in this discussion. But yeah, a pop culture critic for New York magazine, Angelica Jade Bastion. But she says like the real horror would be seeing it from Nikki's perspective. Coco: Hmm. Ashby: And I think about that a lot, that that is the opposite of back rooms, a feeling absolutely trapped and claustrophobic in your body Coco: Yeah. Ashby: with that's like the two mirror feelings of Coco: Yes. Ashby: something happening to you that's outside your control and seeing yourself do things that you don't recognize, that is a really scary horror thing in and of itself, you know? Coco: Yeah, and that's very related to the movie companion, I would say. Ashby: Yeah, yeah. So that feeling very much terrifying. But instead, this movie focuses on how inconvenient this all is for the guy. And that really takes me to a different place. I understand it starts as a monkey's paw thing of like, well, be careful what you wish for. It could come true. And one thing that really got me was seeing that this guy comes from a sketch comedy background. Coco: Uh-huh. Ashby: And I think there's actually a tradition there of mixing horror and comedy. Coco: Sure. Ashby: So the guy that made Weapons, another horror film, also Coco: huh. Ashby: from a sketch comedy background. And Coco: Got it. Ashby: so I very much could see a brain that is a 23-year-old man who does sketch comedy also making a horror film being like, I can see the through line of someone gives them the prompt in the audience of, co-dependence, go. Coco: Mmm, hmm. Ashby: this is how that looks. Because what you try to do in improv comedy or sketch comedy is you're always trying to heighten things to the most extreme. things, when you take them all the way to the logical extreme, they're either very funny or very scary, you know? And so I can really see this as a, if we took the clingy girlfriend idea all the way out to the logical extreme? They could have played it for laughs, you know? It could have been like a goofy Saturday Night Live sketch or... like Tall Plain Boyfriend, for example, of like, you know, what if you take this archetype of a person to the extreme? They could have played a lot of this for laughs, but instead it goes to like a very dark and scary place. And there's, I think there's like some undercurrent of dark comedy here that some people could, could read into. Yeah. Coco: smiling because the the it is yes like how much this inconveniences him but the ways in Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: which it inconveniences him are funny like he Ashby: Yeah. Coco: duct tapes the door shuts we can't leave and then he just slowly pulls it open like it's Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: or Ashby: or where she's made a really big scene at the party and she's reading out loud some really graphic, violent fanfic that she's written on her phone and totally Coco: yeah! Ashby: changes the vibe of the party completely and embarrasses him. Coco: It's amazing. I liked someone, this was again, someone like YouTube commenting on the film, which was, I'll try to find these, it's hard to find them in the infinite portals of the internet that we were just talking about. But someone was saying that it is interesting that it's a Hansel and Gretel story because she did view him as a brother. Like it was a friend Ashby: Right, I saw this too. Yes. Coco: who's been forced into this sexual relationship with this man. Like there's like a blending between the two. the possessed Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: woman and the aspirational writer of the true Nikki that's kind of deep within. Ashby: Yeah, I thought that was such a good, when I read that too, it made a ton more sense because at first Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: I wasn't totally getting it. But then later we learned that she does think of him like a brother. And that would also explain there's these moments where real Nikki comes kind of back into the frame and she catches herself like kissing him or sitting with him. And she has a visceral reaction to it, like a rejection of it. She goes, she's like, what the fuck? And that is that is like a Coco: She's like, it's not me. Yeah. yeah, the earlier time. Ashby: that is a more Yeah, that's a more relatable thing, I think. So there's the part where she's like, what would be so wrong with dating me with the implication being like, well, if you date other men, are they going to treat you better? Like, what's so different? You know, am I not deserving of it by virtue of not being aggressively violent? Like they think they need a cookie for just being a regular person instead of like adopting the persona of a bully as if you can't also wreak havoc on people. Coco: the movie is like almost this parable. It's like, if you're nice Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: to a guy, he thinks you love him. Like, it's very weird. Like, she's just a friend to him. You know, he lost his grandmother that we are, it's implicated that maybe he was really close to his grandmother. He inherited, yeah, like maybe he was her caretaker to some extent through Ashby: think he lived with her. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Coco: the end stage of her life. And so maybe this friend was really nice to him while he was suffering, but that doesn't mean that she's in love with him. It's like this transference of stuff. That's, it's freaky. Ashby: Well, and it's also clear that she's like, she's beautiful and popular. And his Coco: Yeah. Ashby: thing is like, don't I deserve that? So it isn't actually about her as a person is the Coco: Mm-mm. Ashby: thing. It's about what she confers to him. And you see even in the little, after the little montage where they get together, his kind of glow up that I think is so disgusting that always happens to these fucking, these fucking guys. Coco: Well, and we, to the point of him not really, like him wanting, him wanting her affection is what he wants Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: because he's upset that she's like quitting their shared job to go pursue her art. Like if you really, if Ashby: Mm-hmm. He's not happy for her. Coco: you really love someone, you'd be like, I, I want you to succeed. I mean, all the great like Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: romance things that women do connect with is when the man like, just kind of yearns for the woman and respects her, like, holds Ashby: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Coco: her up and would sacrifice for her. Like, it is not this version of this guy. But like, this is where I say like, how feminist or not feminist the film is, I do respect what it has portrayed kind of sharply. Ashby: I couldn't figure out what was like sitting with me weird. One of the reasons that I have not really enjoyed horror movies is that I've always felt that they were just a weird way for men to just hurt women on screen and call it art. And so I find I avoid anything super violent. Coco: Well, directors have done that. Ashby: Yeah, because I struggle to not over empathize with the woman and even the actor in that situation where Coco: Yeah, that's what I'm picking up. Ashby: I have a hard time watching that happening and like finding it enjoyable. I just what motivation someone has to like want to see a hot girl bleed on screen is something that really disturbs me. And she is a very beautiful girl and like very obviously played as the cool dream girl. the women, are two female characters and they get absolutely brutalized on screen. The men characters, yeah, they suffer, but it's more inconvenient for them. don't... Yes, the women are gratuitous, Coco: No, and it's kind of quick. Like they both die in these very quick ways. Ashby: a little bit gratuitously, I want to say like tortured a little bit on screen. And that is the thing that I struggle with. so there was enough here that was already creepy and scary that it didn't, it kind of didn't need the addition of the violence other than I, I can't help but feel like there's a little of that juxtaposition that you'll, that I think Sarah Marshall's actually talked about when she talked about in the nineties, the war on pornographic CD covers. It would often be like a woman in chains with her face bloody. Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: And this is seen as so metal and subversive, right? I just think there were some things there that were unnecessary except that they felt like gratuitous choices from the director. And that like lingers with me in a weird way, you know? And then, Coco: Sure, yeah. Ashby: so what this reviewer says is like, I think it's so interesting that this this movie basically plays with women's bodies as the site of horror and Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: that it's mostly about either the woman's body is like pleasing the man or it's gross and inconvenient. Like Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: there's the scene where she waits for him all day because the person that she loves the most in the world is him and not herself and she soils herself and the rug and she throws up and like she murders their friend in front of him and it makes a horrible disgusting mess. then later there's a shot quite after that where she has stripped that character's clothes that she was jealous of, the female character she's murdered, and she's wearing them. And also they linger on a shot of the naked, brutalized dead friend in an extremely pornographic looking pose. Coco: the Ashby: And so there's just something about as the movie continues to escalate, that feels like the women have to be punished in a physical sexual way that has a lot more in common with the kind of horror movies that I struggle with. Like I don't like a scream or the slasher type films. I remember going to see... I think it's called Grindhouse. Coco: sure, I've never- but yeah, very sexualized. huh. Ashby: some boy And then I also remember the Rob Zombie remake of Halloween came out and I went to see that in theaters to try to be cool, knowing I couldn't handle it and I had to leave because it made me feel quite nauseous and bad. Coco: Yeah. Yeah. Ashby: So I don't know. I think the movie kind of doubles down but you have to really give it a charitable read to say it's criticizing misogyny. If the in- it's doing- yeah, yeah. Coco: It's like doing both. There's always the text and then there's the subtext of what did the filmmaker reveal about themselves through the actual film as opposed to what was said in the Ashby: Because maybe later they can be like, it was meant to show the depths of depravity of even this all shucks guy that misogyny doesn't always have to be boisterous. But the end result is also that you brutalize two women on screen and stripped them multiple times and put them in sexual scenarios without their consent. Like that's Coco: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Ashby: the end result. So I don't know how critical it feels to me because if I'm a... If you're a freaking pervert, might just enjoy watching it for the straightforward read. Anyway, so I don't love that. Coco: Yeah, it's like it's like people who are Sopranos fans you can have you could just be like this guy's really this guy Tony's really cool. Or it's a Ashby: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Coco: critique of masculinity in America, whatever. Ashby: But the best insight that she gave is this is a deeply incurious movie because there is no exploration here after Nikki loses her autonomy. There's no exploration of her character at all. There's not really much that we see about how she's feeling other than absolute agony. So it's Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: two-ish hours of just her being a non-entity who's suffering. And that also there's no additional exploration of the other. people in these people's lives to the point that she's like the dialogue might seem realistic at first but they are not actually friends because no one comes looking for Nikki like who does she live with no like she has such a massive change of personality that at one point you see them try Coco: they call it. They do talk about her change of personality, but from a self-interested Ashby: They do, but... Coco: point of view, though, the friends do not really out of concern. Ashby: Exactly. like, exactly. Of a place of like, she's being weird and inconvenient to us at parties. And I think also it's implied that one of the other guys was having sex with her and then now that's been cut off from him. Coco: That's where, at one point there's an earlier comment where you kind of think he's coming from like a good guy place and Ashby: Yeah. Coco: you realize no, he's like where's my where's my fuck buddy or whatever, yeah. Ashby: where's mine? And basically the film is not actually interested in really exploring the full ramifications of this. It's just what would it be like if we punished this kind of beta guy with a shrieking banshee? Coco: Yeah, I would say like, I don't it's not quite like an inverse of it. But a movie that's coming to my mind is like, it's imperfect, but I think it does. It makes its point really well is promising young woman, where Ashby: Hmm. Coco: they are exploring like how these like, again, I'm not using using the word beta guys just in internet like, yeah. To continuously Ashby: I know, I'm using it in the parlance of the red pill terminology. Coco: show and I loved that it's it's my favorite of what's what's her name? Emerald Fennell's movies. Ashby: Mm. Coco: I'm not a big fan of the other ones, but casting likable men in the roles that then are just ultimately super selfish and do not care about violations against women in a really effective way. And it's told through the perspective of a woman who has suffered the trauma of her friend experiencing that. Like care Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: for another friend and then kind of going on this very weird journey. So not, just to say, If we're saying this is told through the perspective of a man, what is an option that's like an inverse is a little bit that. Ashby: Yeah, and so we do see a scene where they try to like take her to the hospital because she's self-harmed in such a public Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: way. But then you would think someone would like call her dad or, you know, they talk about her dad multiple times. Coco: I know. Ashby: there should be more. This person's basically missing and had a brain transplant for over a week. I don't know. It's like it's so it's just sort of being like it's only interested in the effect that this has on Bear and that that in and of itself is a tale. if you're really exploring co-dependence, you're looking at how two people's focus on each other or on one of the people's issues has ramifications for both of their lives. Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: But no, it just really is only interested in how like this whole thing blows up in his face. Like, bet you're wondering how I got here. Coco: Yeah, if I'm thinking about these two directors, right? I'm having Ashby: Yeah, yeah. Coco: a lot less concerns about what Cain Parsons does next than I am maybe Curry Barker. Ashby: Well, we know. So I read an interview where he said one of the ways he got into horror is that he loved the 2003 Tex Chainsaw Massacre. And the thing that he particularly liked about it is exploring the fascinating motivations behind how characters could find it fun to do horrific things. So there's apparently a scene where two... Coco: I've not seen that one. I've only seen the 70s one. Yeah. Ashby: Yeah, where two members are like encouraging their old father to like visit harm on one of their victims as a like family bonding activity. And he's like, that is intriguing to me. And so the next thing he's going to do, and he already has a ton of money signed on in a studio, is a remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And Texas Chainsaw Massacre is another of those gory films that I can't watch because the Coco: Yeah. Ashby: amounts of them that I have seen have disturbed me so greatly because I'm not interested in how people can visit Coco: Yeah. Ashby: violence on others. Coco: Well, it's also Ashby: on other folks. Coco: like, it's been a really long time since I've seen the original one, but the original one is much more nuanced than like the Ashby: Mm. Coco: 2003, like it is much more like these, I believe, like kind of hippies, but kind of more urban have entered a rural space. They Ashby: Yeah. Coco: have entered this space voluntarily and then they're getting like hacked up, but it Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: is like. And it's like senseless in this way. it's, I don't know. It's not the like, man, 2003, what a traumatic time. The glossy Ashby: Yeah. Coco: MTV era and the way that they treated women is definitely embedded in that film is maybe the way I can put it. Ashby: But I really appreciate all the different threads that this critic ties together, because she also Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: ties it to what she calls boy makes a wish film, like big or Coco: Yeah. sure! Ashby: like ex-mock, not ex-mock, the other one, weird science. And how the creepy thing about that is immature boys making a wish that almost certainly will involve the involuntary sexual consent of Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: some unsuspecting woman. And like, so there's that element to it. There's also what she talks about is like a blue beard element, which is man controls woman. So you've got gaslight or I don't know, like Jane Eyre, like, or Coco: Bye! Ashby: women, women who are sort of trapped in this man's world. And in order to stay alive, they have to figure out how to please him. And so I appreciated that she had those, those other things and how you can see that these themes can be explored through these other genres in different ways. Especially she points to like female filmmakers who've done stuff in the Bluebeards Castle version of events. That's like much more, much more like, much more curious about the interiority of the woman's life, right? But this is what she says is this critic has actually been diagnosed with by borderline personality disorder. And she's like, Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: what I see here is a caricature of what men think borderline personality disorder is. Coco: That's right. That's almost like when he's describing what he thinks she's going to act Ashby: Yes. Coco: like and it has no empathy. And I was even talking about Ashby: Right. Coco: that in our like summer house episodes where KJ Dillard has come out by saying that's what his diagnosis and like, I'm like, there is a real empathy that we should have for Ashby: That's a stereotype about that. Coco: these people because like they are being tortured by their own minds and not that like they're an inconvenience to you. Yeah. Yeah, agreed. Ashby: But that's the message. I mean, the point of view of the film is not about what she's feeling. It's about how inconvenient Coco: Agreed. Ashby: her shrieking is to him. But he does want her to be obsessed with him. He just doesn't want the shrieking part of it. Like he doesn't want it to Coco: Yeah. Ashby: have any effect on her or whatever. Coco: like a Stepford wife desire too, like to some extent. Ashby: Another thing she points out is that we actually don't know anything from Nikki's mouth about how she feels. It's something that they communicate through other characters. And is there something fascinating that we just like don't actually have like a full read on that? And that he could have just asked her, but he's so afraid that it resorts to these, you know, back alley methods, back room style methods. but, and that there was no, that from the outset, Nikki and Sarah are painted as adversaries rather than Coco: Yeah. Ashby: there should have probably been more of a care and friendship there where she would have been much more concerned about her friend disappearing into Coco: because the female friend Ashby: his house. Yeah. Coco: is only kind of like the way when we get this scene with her and him in this car, the other friend, like it's kind of like she's coming from a very like, but I want to do like, it's a weird, Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: which is not really I think how female friends would be with each other in a crisis situation. There can be competition, but Ashby: But you're seeing the world through Bear's point of view. And the only Coco: Yeah. Ashby: way that he knows these women is in whether or not they're paying attention to him romantically. So Coco: I know. Ashby: his only conception of even Sarah is like, she's into me. Like that's really problematic. And then the other ones that she points to that really clicked for me were ex machina and passengers of Coco: you Ashby: this like need to have a fantasy woman that you control kind of thing. Coco: Yeah, Ex Machina, very good film. Ashby: So there were ways to explore this, but it stayed so centered on like, what if we took this to a maximum extreme and how it would punish this guy for essentially not being confident Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: enough that ultimately can be a very red pill message if you want to see it that way. Coco: Yeah, yeah. Ashby: And I just want to say another thing about the cat scene. The cat stuff was very like upsetting, but again, it looked very fake. So, Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: you know, I think you can pass it, but. It is implied that he was careless, that the cat got into medication. There's even written on the bottom of the medication, do not eat. So it's like they'd had a problem with this before, I guess. But either with him or with his grandmother. And the other thing is that when he is crying about the cat, what he's doing is he's sitting on his bed and he's screaming, why can't she? Why can't she? So in a way he's like, I don't, I didn't understand like if he was blaming the cat. At this point, we didn't know that he lived alone. So I thought that maybe he lived with an unwell woman who had Coco: sure. Ashby: left her medication out, but he's not even taking on board that he, know, again, you don't want to self blame, but in his own grief, he's putting it, he's externalizing it is the thing. Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: anyway, it it made me feel kind of queasy and uneasy. Coco: Yeah. Ashby: and I couldn't quite put my finger on it. And it's the images themselves can be disturbing, like this beautiful girl punching herself in the face and Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: like the blood coming down from her face and stuff like that. then I part of that is that it's one thing to see, it's one thing to see these images from a different point of view of like, if it was say a metaphor for, if it was a much more richly explored metaphor for co-dependence of like, look at how you hurt yourself when you try to control. Coco: Sure, wasn't, and it wasn't that. That's why, yeah. Ashby: your relationship with others. But, but it was framed as let's, the shot, the whole framing of the shot is look how hot and beautiful she is. Look at all this blood running down her face. It feels like a punishment of hot girls. Coco: I know. Ashby: It's just, so, so there's just something with it. They just sat with me weird and, certainly a movie that has an early scene with like pet, a pet death will for a lot of people kind of just set the tone in their mind, but But then yeah, I think ultimately I felt that it could be read as a critique of guys who and how like actually monstrous they can be even if they are not presenting themselves as monstrous, but they can have monstrous actions. But I also think that it didn't do enough to convince me that it wasn't just another gratuitous, let's punish the hot girls on screen movie. But I understand why people are talking about it. It certainly sits with you. It's an effective movie, yeah. Coco: think it's an effective movie. Like, it's funny, it's surprising. acting is incredible. Like, even, yeah. Ashby: The dialogue is, honestly, what it comes down to is the acting. And if you like scary movies, it has genuinely very scary moments. And there's scary things to contemplate, like what if your body was taken over? Coco: Yes, it's a very effective movie. I'm just thinking about like one of like my favorite of these like kind of it's I think in the 60s, but kind of fucked up movies Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: from like the 60s and 70s is Rosemary's Baby, which is made by Roman Polanski. And it really is Ashby: Ugh. Coco: about the horror of a man's ego being and people collaborating with each other to like destroy not destroy, use this woman. Ashby: Another Bluebeard's Castle type film, yeah. Coco: Sure, but I am like, it's a weird one because I'm like, I actually think it's like the director. There's a lot in there that is so effective Ashby: Yeah, yeah, you're seeing a lot. Coco: because it's like from that point of view. And the film ultimately to me really does read as feminist Rosemary's baby. But not because I'm giving Polanski credit. It's the honesty of what Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: is happening that reads that allows you to be like, wow, this is what men are capable of doing to their wives. Yeah. Which is Ashby: This is super fucked up. Yeah. Coco: weird, a weird one. And I didn't think of it while we were talking about back rooms, but just because we talked about Ex Machina and made me think of the film Annihilation, which I really love. Also Alex Garland who made, I really like Alex Garland's films. Don't always know where he's like lands, but I do really enjoy his films. But because he made Ex Machina and Annihilation. And do know what Annihilation is? Ashby: Mm-mm. Coco: So it is stars you know, some of my favorites of, let me see, I'm trying to see, where are we? Natalie Portman and Oscar Isaac, but also it's these, it's like there's this dome that is a sci-fi dome that is like Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: off the coast of Florida or something. Like it's like in a swampy sort of area and they keep trying to send people in like spacesuits like into this dome to figure out what Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: it is and they keep becoming distorted. And so it's Ashby: Mmm. Coco: like this weird, space where they and I think it's Natalie Portman's characters going in to find her husband Oscar Isaac. And it's like this weird exploration of like, in this space, are you still yourself when you emerge from it or Ashby: torture. Coco: not. So it kind of definitely has like a backroomsy feeling and more on like the sci fi category of things. But horrific because Ashby: I would s- Coco: people are becoming one with the nature that's around them Ashby: Mmm. Coco: and becoming one with like the plants like it's really fucked up. Ashby: Wow. Okay, what this also all made me think of was an Apple TV show, Dark Matter. made me think about, Coco: Yes, I gotta talk about it, yeah. Ashby: yeah, it made me think about Dark Matter starring a friend of the pod, Joel Edgerton and Coco: Jennifer Connelly. Ashby: First of all, stunning. Just every frame, Anyways, Hot Couple. we love a hot couple. Coco: Hot couple Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany. in real life. Ashby: Okay. So it made me think of Dark Matter, which is based on like, you know, some sci-fi. novel and it's basically that Joel Edgerton is this like researcher and he builds this huge black box with this, you know, defense contractor money. And because the box it's the, it's the Schrodinger's cat situation. It's like, once you actually have something that you can observe, any possibility is possible within the box. So Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: he goes into it and it's essentially a portal for different worlds, different dimensions. And Coco: Mm. Ashby: so he's trying. to go to a dimension where he, the version that we meet of him anyway, is a version wants to go back to where he let Jennifer Connelly go. And Coco: Hmm. Ashby: so he's trying to go back and muck with the timeline a little bit, because he wanted to end up with her. And there's also a sense of, there's a part where he like is impersonating the Joel Edgerton in her timeline. And is that consent? I don't think so. And it's really just like, again, men will do anything besides go to therapy and take the lessons from therapy and learn how to have a productive conversation with a woman. Instead, Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: they will use defense contractor money to change the timeline or boy makes wish on a magical novelty store item or create back rooms of their subconscious to visit. revisit conversations with their therapist slash ex-wife. So they'll literally do anything. But it really made me think of that too, because it was, as the show goes on, you start to wonder, are you actually following the same version? Or is it different? And then does it matter? So I also, I was also getting shades of that. Coco: thought you were going to say, Apple TV show, I thought you were going to say Widows Bay, which I Ashby: I saw that, yeah. Coco: Widows Bay made by a female showrunner, Katie Dibbold. Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: And we have these incredible final girl scenes that feels so empowering and funny and hilarious. Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: Like it does not feel like it's tapping into any of these like tropes of like gratuitous violence against women. There's like so much humor. There's so much community while also being like genuinely scary. So, love, Wynne Fe. Ashby: Again, I have to say I am the most squeamish person but I do like a scary spooky supernatural thing that makes you think Coco: huh. huh. Ashby: and I have been shocked. Widows Bay is the best show on television right now because it is equal parts funny and scary and sometimes in the same scene and it's always been to Coco: Mm-hmm. Ashby: me that that would take you out of either one. I've never seen it done so well before and so often that's how I would get through a scary movie is like finding the humor or the absurdity in it. But this show walks the line absolutely perfectly. It invokes all those other genres. Each episode has a kind of vibe. Like there's definitely a Jaws one. Coco: Yeah. Ashby: There's definitely one that's more Carrie-esque. It's invoking and paying homage to all of those types of movies, which this film critic says, like, it's very clear the influence of Get Out or of, you know, some of these are Halloween on this film. But... It does it in a way that is fun for the viewer. It's like you're seeing something new that you haven't seen before, but it's got the hallmarks of something older. Yeah. It's winking. Yeah. Coco: It's got like this new tone and it's like winking at you while still staring you and like you do find the characters very like lovable like even in Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: all their like goofy flaws. And yes, so Kato Flynn, she's our Patricia, final boss, we love Ashby: Mm-hmm. Coco: her so much. Betty Gilpin's character, who's dropped in to play this mother role, just her, but what we see on her face. She's a good example of being really funny, but also in a horrific situation as a woman. Ashby: Mm-hmm. And they got Jeff Hiller. Like, they know how to cast. Coco: an underutilized Jeff Hiller, in my opinion, my only complaint, but he gets his moment for sure. Ashby: And I think it does also have like real themes that it explores. But yeah, I really enjoyed that one quite a lot. Coco: Yeah, yeah, So we will end this episode with a recommendation for Widows, Bay and Sinners. Ashby: An absolutely unequivocal recommendation for Widows Bay. No caveats whatsoever. It's so good. Coco: yeah. No, no, no. My only criticism really of Widows Bay is that I wanted more. That's all. All right. Ashby: I wanted more. Yeah. Yeah. Coco: Thank you so much for, this was really fun. I really enjoyed watching these movies. Like I wouldn't, I don't know if I'd like have the balls to quite do it without having a reason. Ashby: Mm. Coco: So continuing the reason for this podcast is to force my friends to watch things that I want to talk about. Ashby: Well, yeah, mean, fucked up horror movie summer. I think had Coco: Yeah. Ashby: to have a place to talk about that and what that's like. yeah, I always like to capture like what are the things people are talking about in the capital D discourse and Coco: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ashby: how does that make us feel and what other things does that bring up for us? So even though horror movies are hard for me, I'm definitely game in the service of like I was saying about backrooms, not wanting to be left out. Coco: You will get on board with a heated rivalry even though you are opposed to sex on screen Ashby: I'll do it! Coco: and horror films. But I just, look, even, okay, to make a weird summer house comparison, right? Like in summer house, Ciara Miller gets fucked over by people being just really weak and shitty and bad friends and dishonest. Okay, that's terrible. But who fucking wins? It's Ciara Miller. So who's going to come out of this with the fucking amazing career? It's gotta be Ashby: Who's the final girl? Coco: Indy Navarrete because she is a fucking amazing actress. So Ashby: So freaking good, yeah. Coco: compelling, so captivating, able to convey so many different things so loved seeing her for the first time myself. Ashby: And you know, also for Ciara Miller, she was clear that people were not engaging with her humanity. What they wanted Coco: Yeah. Ashby: was to experience her. They wanted the validation that being with her would give them. They wanted the hot girl glow up. They didn't Coco: mmhmmmm Ashby: actually want to care and love for her as a person, but I just know that when her and Shibuzy eventually get married, this is all... Coco: No! Ashby: It's all gonna be okay. That's Coco: my god. Okay, Roger says that's it. Ashby: it. right. Okay. Bye. Coco: Bye, dude!