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In Review On Mic: Outré Horror · In Review On Mic

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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Hi all, you're listening to In Review On Mic, the new podcast of film criticism
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: platform In Review Online.
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SPEAKER_02: I'm Hugo Emmerzael, and alongside our talented roster of
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
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SPEAKER_02: contributors, we will bring you in-depth conversations, discussions and interviews
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: about cinema, old and new.
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SPEAKER_02: With the spooky season in full swing, we unpacked two
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: films that we'd like to call outré horror, that will surely give you a different
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: cinematic thrill during Halloween night.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: I'm joined by filmmaker Connor Sen Warnick and horror writer, scholar and critic
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Mike Thorn to discuss two avant-garde horror gems from 1989 that both enjoyed a
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: recent 4K restoration.
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SPEAKER_02: I am talking about E.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
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SPEAKER_02: Elias Merhige's mystifying black-and-white opus Begotten, often seen as the ultimate
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
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SPEAKER_02: cursed text of obscure horror cinema, and Stephen Sayadian's gleefully sexualized
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: unofficial sequel to Das Cabinet des Dr.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Caligari, simply titled Dr. Caligari.
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SPEAKER_02: As always, before we dive into the chat, I
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: would like to thank you for listening.
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SPEAKER_02: Please subscribe to our channel wherever you
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: listen to your podcasts, drop a rating while you're at it, and enjoy the show.
1:28
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Welcome back, everybody.
1:29
SPEAKER_02: As it's the spooky season, we decided to have a discussion
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
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SPEAKER_02: about two of our favorite, as one might say, outré horror films, films that might
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: not be the most obvious to watch around the Halloween days, and yet ones that I
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: think can offer much more interesting reflection and discussion than your usual
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: suspects.
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SPEAKER_02: So we'll be diving into Begotten by E.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Elias Merhige
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: And Dr. Caligari by Stephen Sayadian.
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SPEAKER_02: And today I am joined by Mike Thorn.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Mike, how are you doing?
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SPEAKER_02: Super.
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SPEAKER_02: And we're also joined by Connor Sen Warnick.
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SPEAKER_02: Mike Thorn: Doing well, thanks.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: How are you, Connor?
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: I'm doing great.
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SPEAKER_01: Glad to be here.
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SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Hugo.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: So we have two films and I wanted to start with Begotten.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: And Connor, that's a film that you brought to the front.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
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SPEAKER_02: It's also a film that recently had, luckily, a 4K restoration has played at multiple
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: American film festivals and limited theatrical releases.
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[Trailer: Begotten (E. Elias Merhige, 1989)]
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: I am very curious before we get into the meat of this film, why did you want to
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
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SPEAKER_02: talk about this film in context of outré horror, as is the subject of our episode
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: today?
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: I mean, this film, for me, I feel like I've been on this very elliptical sort
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: of odyssey.
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SPEAKER_01: This long personal saga with this film since the time that I was in high
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: school.
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SPEAKER_01: So it's, you know, it's really been like 15 years of my life dating back to
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: a time when, you know, I would just be browsing like lists of most cursed films that
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: have ever been made.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Most cursed.
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SPEAKER_02: I love this description, yes.
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: Or just like, yeah, you just wander like when you're a teenager in their mid-2000s
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: into these dark corners of YouTube.
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SPEAKER_01: Sometimes if you like horror movies or, you
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: know, just in the related videos you'll see the thumbnail and it'll say like, do not
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: watch this film, like these are forbidden films, this is the most disturbing film
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: ever made.
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SPEAKER_01: And, you know, at the time I grew up just like devouring horror films,
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: but this was unlike anything I'd ever seen.
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it's something that feels really raw, but also really like ancient
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: and infinite in a way.
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SPEAKER_01: And you don't really know how to describe it even the first
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: time you see it.
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SPEAKER_01: And it's just kind of continued as to be like a sort of North star,
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: like an aspirational film for me as I've grown up and like kept developing, you know
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: my own work as a filmmaker.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
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SPEAKER_02: It's a film that's very hard to describe and indeed it is a film that seems to be
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
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SPEAKER_02: unlike any other especially in the in the more you know genre mode of horror cinema
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: you know that.
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SPEAKER_02: The aura of it it's cursed kind of like status but if you would have
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
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SPEAKER_02: to take a crack at it for our listeners that have never seen or maybe even heard of
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: this film.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: How would one begin to describe this sensation of seeing Begotten?
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: It really feels like you just discovered, you know, this like primordial sequence of
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: images that doesn't even necessarily look like a film.
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: I mean, it looks like it's been like unearthed from something buried deep below like
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: human civilization.
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SPEAKER_01: It's the texture of the image.
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: It's like the eerie nature of just how it moves.
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: It's like the rhythm.
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SPEAKER_01: Obviously, it's like the kind of sparse but like gruesome
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: production design that it has.
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SPEAKER_01: And it depicts that's like creation myth of sorts.
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: I mean we could try, you know, summarizing the narrative but it doesn't quite really
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: do it justice.
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SPEAKER_01: It really just is this totally singular black and white extremely
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: like tactile abstract experience that's like hypnotic and slow but like at the same
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: time just penetrates into your consciousness in a way that yeah I don't think horror
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: films are like you know narrative horror films even in the more like experimental
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: corner of horror films.
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SPEAKER_01: It's a total outlier.
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: But it has this kind of also super ambitious film school student quality too, which
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: is why I have such a soft spot for it.
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SPEAKER_01: It's basically just a film shot in upstate
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: New York by MFA students.
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SPEAKER_01: And as I've gone through that part of my life too, and met
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: people who went to and studied at or even taught at the school where Merhige made
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: this film, I've been on an ongoing investigation and witch hunt trying to learn
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: about this film for like 15 years because there's so little about it online until
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: basically a month ago.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Yeah, that's, that's absolutely insane.
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SPEAKER_02: I mean.
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SPEAKER_02: Connor Sen Warnick: information to surfacing.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: There's a very interesting overlap here, right?
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Because Connor, you yourself are a filmmaker, clearly also take some sense of
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: inspiration of this work.
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SPEAKER_02: And then Mike, you are a film scholar, besides all being
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: writers, you know, specialized, namely in horror cinema.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: I'm very curious how it was for you to watch this film.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Was this your first encounter with the film on the occasion of the podcast?
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Or do you also have a personal relationship with it, much like Connor has?
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SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: I would say maybe not as much as Connor.
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SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: I had seen the film, I think, in my early 20s.
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SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: I don't even remember if I watched a DVD or if I maybe obtained it through less
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SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: legit digital means.
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SPEAKER_03: But I had seen it once, and of course it's a film that sticks
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SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: with you once you've seen it.
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SPEAKER_03: It really imprints itself on your memory.
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SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: It had easily been over 15 years since I had seen it when I rewatched it for the
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SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: podcast.
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SPEAKER_03: And one of the things that strikes me immediately is as primarily a writer
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SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: of fiction that, well, both of today's films are very much cinematic experiences.
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SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: Like, this is not something that could be replicated in a literary sense, I don't
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SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: think.
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SPEAKER_03: Like, it is very much as Connor, I think, is nicely describing this kind of
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SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: experiential thing that is so intensely audiovisual, right?
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SPEAKER_03: Hugo Emmerzael:
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SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's so much about the manipulation of film stock as well as, you know, the
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
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SPEAKER_02: duration of the frame, what can be done in conveying the passage of time through the
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
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SPEAKER_02: frame, all of these ways to either deteriorate the textile quality of celluloids to
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: mess around with.
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is very much about the manipulation of film as this
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: durational experience.
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: That's what's also crazy about it though is like I've been orbiting this film and
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: its production history and like people who knew Ed like when he made it in like the
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: 80s you know people who are children of the people who knew him and this kind of
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: thing and I've still never seen it in a cinema.
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: I mean I've never actually experienced it I think the way that it was intended I've
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: just been watching like shitty like YouTube rips for 10 years and then I got it on a
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: tape for myself on VHS which which is probably the best quality version I've seen,
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: but it's like, I'm always returning to it.
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: It's never really.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: That's also how I watched it for the first time.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: I was 17 years old and I was living in this student housing with a lot of
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: cinephiles.
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SPEAKER_02: And we had a film projector in our communal living space and we would
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: watch very outré things.
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SPEAKER_02: Including also the film we'll talk about later, Dr.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Caligari by Sayadian.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
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SPEAKER_02: And all of these films just existed somewhere on the internet, on some torrent side
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: or whatnot, in the most shitty fucking digital scan you could imagine, right?
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
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SPEAKER_02: It was maybe even adding to the sense of mystique because you're almost feels like
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: you're doing some media archaeology where you are ahead of the...
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
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SPEAKER_02: Institutional restoration and rediscovery and you just catch whatever copy is around
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: and it already has this mystifying experience.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
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SPEAKER_02: Connor, I'm very curious in your sense since your relationship with this film goes
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
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SPEAKER_02: back so long already, what are some of the images or some of the moments that then
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: really stay, that really work as this kind of evocative, experiential thing to
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: behold almost.
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SPEAKER_02: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: All of it in a way, but I think when I just close my eyes and like think about as
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: the years have gone by, you know, like what my, what my inner, like my mind's eye
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: really attaches itself to with the film.
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: I'm always thinking about these just, it's just a few shots kind of near the
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: beginning where it almost looks like these like cellular structures or these kinds
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: of like vines connected to buds and like veins almost like it becomes really
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: abstract.
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: It turns into this much more abstract kind of expressionist composition after
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: leaving this opening scene where, you know, it's very graphic, you have the
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: character who is, you know, this ancient like mother god figure who essentially like
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: kills herself and then inseminates herself.
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: It does also pass this rule that a good friend of mine and I have have a sort of
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: ongoing theory, which is that any film with a hand job scene is a great film.
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: And actually, no film can truly be great if it doesn't have a hand job scene.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
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SPEAKER_02: Wait, wait, wait, now you have to help us which other films because I don't have one
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: that comes to mind.
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SPEAKER_02: Name me one other great film that has a handjob scene.
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: Je, tu, il, elle by Chantal Akerman has a really subtle one when she's in the
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SPEAKER_01: Hugo Emmerzael: Good, fair enough.
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: shotgun of the passenger seat of this car.
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: I mean, that would be a whole other podcast, I think, is the sort of hand job cinema
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: canon.
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SPEAKER_01: But Begotten really kind of sneaks its way in there.
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I think, you know, there there is this there's kind of two families of
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: images in Begotten.
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SPEAKER_01: There's these really abstract kind of images where the film
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: drifts into this more like subconscious and kind of like meditative space.
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: And then there's the images that are more figurative and more concrete.
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: I think there's a sequence later in the film as well, where it kind of sweeps across
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: these like, like mountains almost this kind of like natural landscape, but but quite
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: fast.
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SPEAKER_01: I mean, he must have used miniatures or something for it.
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: And then you see the child that's, you know, we've kind of been following through
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: the film as he's kind of like crawling through this kind of infinite desert.
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: Something about those images, I feel like, always stick out to me more than, you
11:27
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: know, I think some of them are like gory and kind of like, quote unquote, like
11:31
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: horror scenes of the film.
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SPEAKER_01: Those are mostly...
11:35
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: In the first like 10 to 15 minutes, you know, I think a lot of people also probably
11:38
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: watch the first 10 to 15 minutes and then just kind of skip the skim through the
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: rest of it, because I think it does enter this more slow and hypnotic, I don't know,
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: durational cinema space, but that's one of the things that I think is interesting
11:52
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: about it is like it on one hand is kind of one note in terms of it's like it's kind
11:56
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: of monotonous and rhythm because just formally the sound it stays consistent.
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: It's kind of like a metronome.
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SPEAKER_01: There's a couple of moments where this eerie tone,
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: this one musical tone kind of enters, but for the most part, it's just this very,
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: yeah, metronome kind of sound.
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SPEAKER_01: It sounds like you're just crawling around in the
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: dirt, but the pacing somehow does have movements.
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: It really feels more like a piece of music or something like that, or a symphony in
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: a sense where you're following this extremely loose myth mythic narrative where this
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: cult of druids, so to speak is like, they like exploit or like they take this child
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SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
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SPEAKER_01: of God and like, but I almost feel like it's reductive to even try to describe it in
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Yeah, I mean, the plot fairy.
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SPEAKER_02: No, I mean, because it's like, yeah, the plot.
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SPEAKER_02: Connor Sen Warnick: that way.
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SPEAKER_01: I never think about that.
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SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
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SPEAKER_02: Could be described, as she said, very primordial things as a son is being born from
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
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SPEAKER_02: a god and a mother earth and all that seems to be incredibly violent and then the
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: sun itself becomes the source of a violent act that reaches the soil.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Much to do with, indeed, crawling around the soil and the dirt.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
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SPEAKER_02: It seems almost reductive to try to put it into human language as the entire film
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: seems to be concerned with.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Things that ultimately are mythical and unhuman to some degree.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Mike, you said you watched it a long time ago and re-watched it.
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Are there any specific moments you want to add that also gave you particular
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: sensations?
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SPEAKER_02: And I'm also very curious how you look at the film, given the fact that
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SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: you have such an incredible academic repertoire around horror films as such.
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SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: I mean, I like the way Connor was describing the film in musical terms, and this
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SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: kind of durational cinema quality.
13:41
SPEAKER_03: To me, this would be a great example of drone
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SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: horror, like it gives me the sort of experiential quality of really slow doom metal
13:49
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: music or of drone music, like dark drone music.
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SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: It does have that kind of, I guess, sensorial quality.
13:59
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: And then in literary terms, it does, to me, kind of invoke the weird cosmic
14:05
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: horror tradition.
14:07
SPEAKER_03: But part of what is interesting about the film is that it is so
14:10
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: intensely embodied and so intensely physical, visceral, really.
14:16
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: I mean, in a literal sense, when we talk about the opening scene, which probably to
14:20
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: me is the most vivid set of images of God disemboweling.
14:24
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: Itself, I don't know if we know the gender of it.
14:27
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: Is it a mother God?
14:28
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, to me, it really does fall in line with the kind of
14:31
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: cosmic weird horror tradition nesting that within visceral context, which is in
14:37
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: itself really destabilizing and unusual.
14:40
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: I was thinking very often when watching it about like old experimental cinema of
14:46
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Maya Deren in the sense that it is to some degree figurative.
14:51
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: You are watching actors portraying something that is much larger than resembling
14:56
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
14:56
SPEAKER_02: just a human, but it is about almost the mysticism of trying to comprehend why and
15:02
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: how these events are happening as they are.
15:05
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
15:06
SPEAKER_02: It's also in this kind of associative flow that the film then invites you into which
15:10
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: is
15:11
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: perpetually unsettling, which, I mean, Maya Deren is such an obvious reference,
15:15
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: right, as like one of the keystones of experimental cinema and yet a film like
15:21
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Meshes of the Afternoon, but many of her others stick maybe or resonate still
15:26
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: because they are unsettling and, to some degree, in their incomprehensibility,
15:32
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: things arise, right?
15:34
SPEAKER_02: There's just so much space to sit with these images that are
15:38
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: texturally very often also very jarring.
15:41
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: I love the drone horror description because it is in the stretching out of the
15:48
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
15:48
SPEAKER_02: thing that you are kind of forced to really sit with it because everything just kind
15:53
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: of gets so elongated to the point where that's the only thing you can really sit
15:58
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: with.
15:59
SPEAKER_02: It opens up so many strange pockets for discomfort, for wonder, for curiosity.
16:06
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: To some degree, also frustration in a very pleasant sense.
16:10
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
16:10
SPEAKER_02: He does something wholly unique, which raises a lot of questions as well as, like
16:15
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Connor said, as this is this kind of like mythical text, right?
16:19
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
16:20
SPEAKER_02: It's kind of the one that initiates you maybe in a different cult of horror adjacent
16:25
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: cinema lover or cinephile.
16:27
SPEAKER_02: Connor, as you have done maybe more forensic research on
16:31
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: the topic and also Merhige.
16:34
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Like can you can you try to explain where does this come from like do we have
16:40
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
16:41
SPEAKER_02: explanations on the side of the maker like how do we to some degree contextualize
16:46
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: why this film even exists.
16:48
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: Yeah, I mean, I'll do my best.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: Because a little of it existed online, and
16:55
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
16:55
SPEAKER_01: I feel like I was, year after year, as I was studying film and learning more about
16:59
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: film, this was the one I always wanted to learn more about its origins.
17:02
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
17:03
SPEAKER_01: And through what I've investigated, I think this recent interview with In Review
17:08
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
17:09
SPEAKER_01: Online was the most revelatory interview to exist about this film in the last 30
17:15
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: years.
17:15
SPEAKER_01: Before that, the most insightful knowledge I gained about it was actually
17:20
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
17:20
SPEAKER_01: through someone I just happened to meet over the summer who I became kind of close
17:24
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: with.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: Her father actually went to school with Ed at the time that he made Begotten
17:29
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
17:30
SPEAKER_01: and was like I think either his roommate or roommates with the person who played the
17:33
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: child in the film.
17:35
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
17:35
SPEAKER_01: And like he remembered like when they were all students at SUNY Purchase, like how
17:39
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
17:39
SPEAKER_01: crazy it was and how much everyone was kind of talking about this like insane
17:42
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
17:43
SPEAKER_01: project that that Ed was attempting and like even just putting on like the makeup,
17:48
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
17:48
SPEAKER_01: you know, the kind of practical just as I said earlier, like the kind of film
17:51
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: schooliness of it all.
17:53
SPEAKER_01: I think like the veil was kind of lifted for me hearing about
17:55
SPEAKER_01: Hugo Emmerzael:
17:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah because I mean ultimately this film was literally shot around on like a dump
17:57
SPEAKER_02: Connor Sen Warnick: the.
18:00
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: between New York and New Jersey right.
18:04
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: I mean, it's crazy, too.
18:05
SPEAKER_01: And it was his MFA project.
18:08
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: It was a student film.
18:09
SPEAKER_01: That's why I always come back to it, because I'm always just
18:11
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
18:11
SPEAKER_01: trying to think about how to make filmmaking feel possible, especially feature
18:14
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
18:15
SPEAKER_01: films, especially horror films, especially experimental films that kind of push the
18:18
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
18:19
SPEAKER_01: form of all of those things into something that's not derivative at all, that's
18:22
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: completely original.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: And I think over the years, this film just keeps standing out
18:26
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: for me in that way.
18:27
SPEAKER_01: And I think reading his new interview with Zach Lewis, it takes
18:30
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
18:31
SPEAKER_01: you through a full journey, I feel like, in terms of how attempting a film like
18:34
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: this.
18:35
SPEAKER_01: I know he was influenced by movements of theater like Artaud and Butoh
18:39
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: traditions.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: I think it was originally conceived as maybe being more for that, even
18:43
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: though he was studying film.
18:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm almost just as interested in the legacy and the
18:48
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
18:49
SPEAKER_01: path that the film took after it was made, leading all the way to the present.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
18:52
SPEAKER_01: And I think it has a really fascinating and kind of unique distribution history.
18:56
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: Essentially what Ed did was he just brought it to like the doorstep of every
19:00
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: arthouse film distributor in New York for over a year.
19:05
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
19:05
SPEAKER_01: There's a different era back then, so I think it provides really interesting insight
19:08
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: into like how these things used to circulate.
19:10
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
19:11
SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, like the way this film circulated, even after its quote
19:15
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
19:15
SPEAKER_01: unquote distribution cycle, which I think kind of ended at some point, you know,
19:19
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
19:19
SPEAKER_01: after not so long in the 90s, I feel like it resurfaced in a lot of ways is because
19:23
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: of these internet forums, these kind of dark web.
19:26
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: I mean yeah it's perfect fodder right for the ex-4chan board creepypasta kind of
19:26
SPEAKER_02: Connor Sen Warnick: forms and stuff like that.
19:32
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
19:32
SPEAKER_02: generation where media has to be ephemeral to some degree to be bestowed a kind of
19:37
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
19:39
SPEAKER_02: horror-ish quality right i'm very curious how you can kinda trace the Lineage or the
19:44
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
19:44
SPEAKER_02: legacy of this film in the in the media landscape where are in now especially given
19:48
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
19:49
SPEAKER_02: the fact that the film is restored and resurfaced it's out there in its best version
19:54
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: we can ever see it.
19:56
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
19:56
SPEAKER_02: So I'm kind of very curious in what kind of media landscape this film now slots and
20:00
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
20:00
SPEAKER_02: to what degree a film like this also informed the horror landscape that we live in
20:05
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: now.
20:05
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: Interesting question.
20:06
SPEAKER_03: So I guess there is like the way in which this like cursed
20:10
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: text horror or this found horror does manifest differently in the online world.
20:16
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: And I guess this film is uniquely positioned in the sense that as you're both
20:20
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: pointing out, it arrives really shortly before the advent of the internet, which is
20:26
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: 1994 really is the year of the web, which I wrote about in an In Review Online
20:30
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: article.
20:31
SPEAKER_03: And then the way that as a cursed text, it's disseminated probably does
20:35
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: rely a lot on that.
20:36
SPEAKER_03: I'm trying to think like in that brief window of time between
20:39
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: 1989 and 1994, what position this would inhabit.
20:43
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: I think Connor's describing that nicely.
20:45
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: But yeah, when I think about like the way kind of cursed audio visual texts work
20:50
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: into literary horror, I think of writers like Gemma Files plays with this tradition
20:56
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: really interestingly.
20:59
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: In a cinematic context, I mean, I guess I would go to someone like Kiyoshi Kurosawa,
21:04
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: of course, films like Pulse, even maybe like a more recent film like Chime.
21:10
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: I'm just thinking up the top of my head here, but something like that feels like
21:14
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: it's in an abstract indirect way, maybe in conversation with something like
21:19
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: Begotten.
21:20
SPEAKER_03: Specifically, I guess I'm thinking through this concept of drone horror.
21:23
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: I think it's great, because I'm now suddenly also thinking, even if it's quite a
21:27
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
21:28
SPEAKER_02: pedestrian reference-wide, but the tape in the ring, in Ringu and also in the Gore
21:33
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
21:33
SPEAKER_02: Verbinski American remake, the tape itself is like a fast-cut, TikTok-ed version,
21:40
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: almost, of the sensorial quality of watching Begotten, right?
21:45
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: They all have that creepy black-and-white 16mm inverted stock textural density
21:50
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: with...
21:52
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
21:52
SPEAKER_02: semi-abstract images that are already unsettling in themselves but bestowed again
21:57
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: with this mythical, dangerous quality almost.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: So there are, I think, touching points where people have also seen this film and
22:06
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: sourced it for some of its specific kind of enduring qualities.
22:10
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: I'm glad you brought up The Ring and connecting it to Kiyoshi Kurosawa as well.
22:15
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: This film has me thinking a lot about, strangely, specifically Japanese avant-garde
22:20
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: cinema.
22:21
SPEAKER_03: I think about the expressionist or quasi-expressionist, I don't even know
22:25
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: how you would define it, the film A Page of Madness from 1926.
22:27
SPEAKER_02: Mike Thorn: But yeah, that's a good point of comparison.
22:28
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Yeah or like women in the dunes yeah.
22:32
SPEAKER_01: Mike Thorn: Yes, me too.
22:32
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: I was also thinking of Takashi Ito.
22:35
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
22:36
SPEAKER_01: And these kinds of very handmade experimental, like nightmarish horror films in a
22:40
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: sense.
22:41
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think also the interesting thing to go back to the kind of origins
22:44
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: of Begotten, I don't know necessarily that when Merhige made it that he even
22:48
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: necessarily thought of it as a horror film.
22:50
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
22:50
SPEAKER_01: I think it's in a lineage of that and we can connect dots from there to things that
22:54
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: exist now.
22:55
SPEAKER_01: But I think at the time it was my sense is that he really just viewed it
22:58
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
22:58
SPEAKER_01: more as this exercise in creating something more ancient, almost prehistoric as far
23:03
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: as cinema can go.
23:05
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's this anecdote he talked about in the interview
23:07
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
23:08
SPEAKER_01: where this guy, Dennis Jakob, the editor and ghostwriter, actually, and Francis Ford
23:11
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
23:12
SPEAKER_01: Coppola in San Francisco had his hands on a copy of the film and described it as the
23:16
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
23:17
SPEAKER_01: first hermetic film, like the first hermetic work of cinema and connected to this
23:21
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: new science kind of thread of history, like Giambattista Vico, and this
23:28
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
23:29
SPEAKER_01: idea that the birth of civilization is a product of chaos and murder and kind of
23:34
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: like divine guilt, in a sense.
23:36
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think some of those ideas were probably
23:38
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
23:39
SPEAKER_01: beyond what a, you know, like a SUNY Purchase student was thinking at the time.
23:42
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
23:42
SPEAKER_01: But I do think when you just view it now, like in the context and knowledge that we
23:47
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
23:48
SPEAKER_01: have, like, I think that's one of the reasons it stands out so much is like, there
23:51
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
23:51
SPEAKER_01: aren't many films that I think even aspire to that horror films can tap into,
23:56
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: especially this kind of cosmic horror that like Mike was riffing on earlier.
24:01
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
24:01
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was also thinking of like more recent examples like a filmmaker like Scott
24:04
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
24:05
SPEAKER_01: Barley whose film like Sleep Has Her House is similarly experienced as like a purely
24:10
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
24:11
SPEAKER_01: auto-visual and kind of like a drone film as well, but features extremely lush and
24:16
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
24:17
SPEAKER_01: dark abstract landscape compositions, but also is made in an extremely economic way.
24:22
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
24:23
SPEAKER_01: You know, he basically makes these films just with his own means and shoots them on
24:26
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
24:27
SPEAKER_01: iPhone and like they completely stand apart I feel like visually and textually and
24:31
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
24:32
SPEAKER_01: they function almost as like a séance or something where it's like they're conjuring
24:36
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
24:36
SPEAKER_01: something that like a narrative film or horror, like a traditional horror film isn't
24:40
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: quite as concerned with, you know?
24:42
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
24:43
SPEAKER_02: I love the, you know, pinpoint also, this exact kind of tension, you know, in this
24:48
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
24:48
SPEAKER_02: film for Merhige, and how that maybe can be related to films he made later, because
24:53
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: you can kind of see that there are like two paths that his career has taken.
24:58
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
24:59
SPEAKER_02: To some degree, there was a continuation of this more abstract, cosmic, cinematic
25:04
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: reflections in a
25:06
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
25:07
SPEAKER_02: similarly black and white experimental film, Din of Celestial Birds, which is, to
25:12
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
25:13
SPEAKER_02: some degree, strips even more narrative out of film itself, yet raises all of these
25:17
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
25:18
SPEAKER_02: big feelings as well about very mystical, druid-like, cosmic reflections on nature.
25:24
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Yet, this is also the director that had a brief stint in.
25:30
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Hollywood and as a video clip director, you know, he also made the Willem Dafoe,
25:36
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Nicolas Cage, starring in Shadow of the Vampire, which is about the
25:40
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: behind-the-scenes horror of Murnau making his Nosferatu film.
25:44
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: He has made video clips for Marilyn Manson, who obviously has lent some of his
25:51
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: iconography, you might say, to add some textural weight to his creepy nu metal
25:56
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: aesthetics.
25:58
SPEAKER_02: So you can kind of see him operating a bit on both of these aspects of
26:02
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: this work that are in dialogue with each other, right?
26:05
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
26:06
SPEAKER_02: I'm very curious how you both kind of like process what Merhige has done afterwards
26:10
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: and how that also looks back on Begotten.
26:13
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: Yeah, I think the only other post-Begotten film that I have seen, and I want to do
26:18
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: more digging, but I've seen Shadow of the Vampire, and I found it very curious.
26:22
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: I didn't actually quite know how to locate it.
26:25
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: I don't know.
26:25
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: It's a very it's a very strange film that doesn't seem to work in a Hollywood
26:30
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: context and yet it kinda is there, right?
26:32
SPEAKER_02: Mike Thorn: Yeah, certainly.
26:33
SPEAKER_02: And then he did Suspect Zero as well, right?
26:35
SPEAKER_01: Mike Thorn: Have either of you guys seen that one?
26:38
SPEAKER_02: How is it?
26:36
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: Yeah, I have seen that one.
26:38
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: How is that?
26:39
SPEAKER_02: I haven't seen it.
26:41
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: It's interesting.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: I mean...
26:43
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
26:43
SPEAKER_01: I do feel like he does approach narrative in this interesting way where it's kind of
26:47
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
26:47
SPEAKER_01: like, you know, it is like the sort of like negative form of a narrative in a sense
26:51
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
26:51
SPEAKER_01: where it's like, this is a story that we know about but like the story of the film
26:55
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: is basically the story we don't know about.
26:57
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
26:58
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like the shadow of a narrative and I think that's something he is
27:01
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
27:02
SPEAKER_01: interested in but you know of course the body of work is limited so you know like in
27:05
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
27:06
SPEAKER_01: terms of just interviews and press like I haven't found much from him talking about
27:10
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: those films.
27:12
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: I love this phrasing of the shadow of the film, right?
27:16
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
27:16
SPEAKER_02: It is like a platonic almost projection of what these films can be, but then because
27:21
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
27:21
SPEAKER_02: there are so many elliptical notions, even in a more mainstream fare like Shadow of
27:26
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
27:26
SPEAKER_02: the Vampire, it leaves one wondering how and when and why all of these things were
27:31
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: conceived.
27:32
SPEAKER_02: I think even though we did a pretty good job It is kind of the film that
27:36
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
27:36
SPEAKER_02: will never like it's a riddle that never entirely will be solved Which is maybe why
27:41
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
27:41
SPEAKER_02: it has such a unique lasting power However, I think it is also time to transition to
27:47
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
27:47
SPEAKER_02: the second film which by any means is much more Easily to read much more legible in
27:53
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: many degrees offers everything in one could say very explicit way on purpose
28:01
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: yet there are very interesting touching points between Begotten and Dr.
28:06
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Caligari, the quasi hardcore porn film that is a quasi remake or
28:13
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: kind of tongue-in-cheek sequel of Das Cabinet des Dr.
28:16
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Caligari by Robert Wiene.
28:18
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: This is also a film from 1989.
28:21
SPEAKER_02: This is a film by an American experimental filmmaker,
28:25
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Stephen Sayadian.
28:28
SPEAKER_02: Interestingly, both of these films have recently had a restored
28:31
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
28:32
SPEAKER_02: copy, both of which we can attribute to film historian and and a restorator, Daniel
28:38
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Bird, who has worked with both directors very carefully and personally, very
28:43
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
28:43
SPEAKER_02: closely, to resurface these gems that were both overlooked for different reasons.
28:49
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
28:50
SPEAKER_02: Because Dr. Caligari is a film that could easily be slotted in a more vulgar, outré,
28:56
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: midnight movie circuit in America in the late 80s, yet it is a film
29:02
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: that has so much going on for it as well which really as a communal experience
29:08
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: indeed watching it on the big screen thankfully I had the pleasure to watch this
29:12
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: film on numerous occasions on the on the big screen with an audience
29:17
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: works insanely well is incredibly artistic very dense very strange as well
29:22
SPEAKER_00: [Trailer: Dr. Caligari (Stephen Sayadian, 1989)]
31:22
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
31:23
SPEAKER_02: i am very curious because this is a film that i brought to the for today how both of
31:27
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
31:28
SPEAKER_02: you enjoyed watching this film and how it kinda struck you and maybe what somebody
31:33
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: want to take a crack at the first impression and even what is this film about.
31:38
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: The first thing that struck me is that these films do pair together strikingly well.
31:43
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: Oh, like there's almost a dyad.
31:43
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: It's kinda uncanny.
31:45
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: Isn't it?
31:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like there's a dialectic quality to them almost like there's color
31:50
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: versus stark black and white.
31:52
SPEAKER_03: Like the use of color in this film is so prominent and
31:55
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: so bold and so deliberate that it's it's serving almost as a diametric opposite to
32:00
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: Begotten.
32:01
SPEAKER_03: But they're also, and I think as you were pointing out when we were
32:03
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: preparing for this, like there's a way that both films are using sound or a kind of
32:08
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: abstract approach to the audio visual quality, like the dialogue in this is almost
32:12
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: Dada is even though it is nominally, a narrative movie, there's almost like a
32:17
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: Beckett theater quality to some of the dialogue, and also just like the kind of
32:22
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: stark approach to bodies and environments as being like the primary concern, and
32:29
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: also music, you know, it's interesting, think about the connection of Merhige to
32:34
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: music videos, videos, this really does have a quality of a lot of like 80s new wave
32:39
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: music videos like Devo and stuff like that.
32:41
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: So that was the first thing that struck me was, oh, there's this interesting pairing
32:45
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: in terms of like approaches to sex, death and order and pure audio visual
32:49
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: expression.
32:50
SPEAKER_03: Hugo Emmerzael:
32:51
SPEAKER_02: I will do the duty of briefly explaining what the hell this film is even offering
32:55
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: for viewers that are still to look out for it so.
32:59
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: The director of this film, Stephen Sayadian, he used to work doing the
33:04
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: advertisements for Larry Flynt's Hustler magazine which were always kind of like
33:09
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: spoofing on very famous iconograph but always in this kind of cheeky satirical
33:15
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: perverted eroticized ways.
33:19
SPEAKER_02: And he turned towards filmmaking and
33:22
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: made a couple of incredible porn films that were much more hard.
33:26
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
33:26
SPEAKER_02: This film is very close to being a hardcore porn film and yet it is not one in which
33:32
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: you will really see full penetration.
33:35
SPEAKER_02: Earlier films like his most famous masterpiece
33:38
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Café Flesh from 1983 has a hardcore cut and before that he had a film called
33:43
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Nightdreams which has some tremendous porn scenes in it.
33:47
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: But all of them are from this counter cultural 1980s underground music aesthetic
33:53
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: with saturated colors with very industrial-informed music on the score, most of
34:00
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: them done by Mitchell Froom, an incredible composer.
34:04
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: They essentially are anti-arousing porn films that deal with the subject of
34:10
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: desire and arousal in this kind of almost Cronenbergian commentary about our
34:17
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: relationship with media and the levels of projection that we have on them.
34:21
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Why, ultimately, are we watching porn, right?
34:24
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Are we aroused by the performers that we see?
34:27
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
34:27
SPEAKER_02: Or are we aroused to some degree by the cinematic apparatus in which these porns are
34:32
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: being shot and depicted?
34:34
SPEAKER_02: So all of these kind of notions come together in this film,
34:37
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: which plays with the idea of Dr. Caligari.
34:40
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: But here, Caligari from the German expressionist film, here she is a
34:46
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: dominatrix-type, psychiatrist of a specialized ward for people that have a high
34:52
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: intensity sexual frustrations or other sexual pathologies.
34:56
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
34:57
SPEAKER_02: And a very normie suburban man sends his wife there who is essentially too horny for
35:03
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
35:04
SPEAKER_02: him and she comes into a place that could be very disciplinary, but actually it is
35:09
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: the key to unlocking all of her fetishes that she didn't know she had.
35:13
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
35:14
SPEAKER_02: Hence our normie suburban men will just completely get cucked, essentially, by this
35:19
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
35:20
SPEAKER_02: very strange psychic ward in which we have very monstrous sex acts being done, but
35:26
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: everybody seems to enjoy them except for the normies out there.
35:31
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
35:31
SPEAKER_02: That's essentially the kind of trip that the film brings you on, and the story is
35:36
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
35:36
SPEAKER_02: incredibly secondary to these reflections, as you said, Mike, to our relation to the
35:41
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
35:41
SPEAKER_02: body and the ways in which to depict it and the ways to explore how extreme it can
35:47
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: be while still being pleasing or how pleasing it can be while still being
35:51
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: off-putting.
35:53
SPEAKER_02: It's always about the tension between the two, a tension that also is
35:56
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: explored in the sound and image.
35:59
SPEAKER_02: Connor, given the fact that you had such an
36:01
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: intimate relationship with Begotten, I'm very curious...
36:04
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: How did the experience of watching this film feel like for you?
36:08
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: It.
36:09
SPEAKER_01: Was definitely totally new and, you know, very different from, uh, from
36:12
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: Begotten.
36:13
SPEAKER_01: And I, I, I agree with Mike that thematically in, in some quite surprising
36:17
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
36:18
SPEAKER_01: ways, I do feel like they were in conversation with each other in these kinds of
36:22
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
36:23
SPEAKER_01: like, they both, I mean, they both kind of have these stories of someone trying to
36:25
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
36:26
SPEAKER_01: play God in a way or trying to like, you know, manipulate human nature or something
36:30
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: like that.
36:30
SPEAKER_01: Like they have a relationship to, yeah, to our bodies and to our kind of
36:34
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: organic, you know, forms, uh, in a more raw way.
36:38
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
36:38
SPEAKER_01: But I also was really thinking about like, you know, how they're both examples of
36:41
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: films that really are not really don't exist anymore.
36:45
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: We really like don't, can't get made.
36:47
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of the exact, I think actually more
36:49
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: so.
36:50
SPEAKER_01: That's true of Caligari in a way.
36:51
SPEAKER_02: I think there's, yeah.
36:51
SPEAKER_01: Hugo Emmerzael:
36:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, the film is so gleefully punky and underground, and it incorporates so
36:58
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
36:59
SPEAKER_02: many of these outré aesthetic sensibilities of that time that were cutting edge and
37:04
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: avant-garde.
37:05
SPEAKER_02: That is actually the easiest way to describe this entire cinematic
37:08
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: project of Sayadian, which is just, what if...
37:13
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: One of the most, let's say, intoxicating forms of media porn can be a very
37:20
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: jarring avant-garde audio-visual experience as well.
37:23
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
37:24
SPEAKER_02: Which makes a lot of sense because ultimately, what is avant-garde cinema about, if
37:29
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: not a sensorial, haptic, experiential work of art?
37:35
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Which, in a strange way, comes incredibly close to the penetrating enticement or
37:40
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: arousal that porn can offer.
37:43
SPEAKER_02: But the problem with porn is that it always answers to
37:46
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: what is the immediate desire.
37:48
SPEAKER_02: And here that is always kind of like either withheld
37:50
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: or confronted or dialectically reversed.
37:54
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Back to you.
37:55
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Yeah, I think I think you're very right.
37:58
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: This is really from a heyday in which porn was also, of course, seen in cinemas
38:04
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
38:04
SPEAKER_02: still in these either, you know, midnight theaters or these kind of like more seedy
38:10
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: backstreet theaters.
38:13
SPEAKER_02: There was an audience that was willing to pay to just see
38:15
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: something interesting that has tits and ass.
38:19
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: So there's not really a industrial model that could even accommodate a filmmaker
38:24
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: like this anymore, it seems.
38:26
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
38:26
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's funny to think that there probably was a person back then who, you know,
38:29
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
38:30
SPEAKER_01: it's a very small Venn diagram, but I bet there was a person who wanted to see
38:33
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: Caligari and wanted to see Begotten.
38:36
SPEAKER_01: Just as there kind of is now.
38:38
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: It's just like evolved.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: In a really strange way.
38:41
SPEAKER_01: It also makes me think about horror as like a set of rules
38:45
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: in a way.
38:45
SPEAKER_01: Or like what are the rules for?
38:47
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
38:48
SPEAKER_01: And why does the avant-garde lend itself and kind of open its door to horror as like
38:53
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: a genre?
38:54
SPEAKER_01: Horror has all these tropes.
38:55
SPEAKER_01: It has all these kind of unwritten rules about
38:57
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: how it should look, how it should feel.
39:00
SPEAKER_01: What are the signs and symbols of a horror
39:02
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: movie?
39:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I feel like both of these films are good examples of ways in which
39:07
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: those rules
39:08
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
39:09
SPEAKER_01: can be broken, but also don't even need to be like fully understood for the film to
39:13
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
39:14
SPEAKER_01: work, you know, like they can be consciously, you know, transgressed against, but it
39:18
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
39:19
SPEAKER_01: does operate, you know, on a different set of like assumptions and different set of
39:22
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
39:23
SPEAKER_01: like psychological gaze, you know, like depending on when you're viewing it and
39:26
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: who's viewing it.
39:26
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: I know in the case of Sayadian that his first films were financed literally by
39:33
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
39:34
SPEAKER_02: the sack of coins that would come out of peepshow theatres that Larry Flynt owned.
39:40
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
39:40
SPEAKER_02: And he would just get a sack of money, he was like, you can now make a film which
39:43
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: should play in these porn cinemas, right?
39:46
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: And his first film, Nightdreams, which is an incredible piece of art as well, I
39:51
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
39:52
SPEAKER_02: would say, immediately got pulled out of these porn theatres because it was jarring
39:56
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: and off-putting and strange and experimental.
39:58
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Actually, some of the scenes are quite horny, but that's something else.
40:03
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
40:04
SPEAKER_02: It didn't strike a chord with the pervs back in the day that just wanted to bust a
40:09
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: nut, essentially.
40:10
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
40:10
SPEAKER_02: So it got pulled, and then it did incredibly well, just like, for instance, David
40:14
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Lynch's Eraserhead on the midnight circuit.
40:17
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
40:19
SPEAKER_02: And there then it found a new lease on life, and he found also, let's say, a more
40:23
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: robust artistic community that could rally behind it, allowing him to make
40:28
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: subsequent films like Café Flesh and the film we saw today.
40:33
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: That's fascinating.
40:35
SPEAKER_03: And what you're both describing has me thinking through like
40:38
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: what is then center between the avant-garde and horror.
40:41
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: And I think like several of the words you've both used really are sitting at the
40:47
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: center of that like transgression perversion.
40:50
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: I also think maybe just fundamentally excess is the stuff of horror.
40:54
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: Excessive experience, excessive imagery, and a kind of like excessive of meaning,
40:59
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: like often what horrifies us is something that we can't contain, that we can't
41:04
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: really locate within our day-to-day customary ways of seeing the world.
41:08
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: I think that's what the avant-garde is all about.
41:10
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: It's interesting to see these two films that, even if they're not actively thinking
41:14
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: about horror, and I don't know if either of these filmmakers necessarily were
41:18
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: thinking in terms of horror, they really do end up playing in that neighborhood.
41:23
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: I think that's an incredible point also related to the story of Dr.
41:27
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
41:28
SPEAKER_02: Caligari, because when we watch the film, to describe it as a horror indeed would
41:32
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: maybe be too limiting, right?
41:35
SPEAKER_02: However, what is the essence of where the horror
41:38
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: resides in the film?
41:39
SPEAKER_02: It is from the perspective of the husband that has put his wife
41:43
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: in the psych ward, who experiences an excess of sexual encounters and a
41:50
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: libidinal pleasure that is forbidden.
41:53
SPEAKER_02: And it is horrific for him.
41:55
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: He basically comes into a haunted house, right?
41:58
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Because every door that he steps into, every new room, offers something
42:03
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: transgressive to him.
42:06
SPEAKER_02: But when we are watching, very often it's oddly pleasing and
42:10
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: almost comforting and endearing.
42:12
SPEAKER_02: Like, there is a moment where his wife is just
42:16
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: like, almost like in Videodrome, right?
42:18
SPEAKER_02: Where the James Woods character is kissing
42:20
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: the lips of Deborah Harry through the television screen.
42:23
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
42:24
SPEAKER_02: There's this moment where she just makes love with this fleshy bit of tongue coming
42:29
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: out of a door.
42:31
SPEAKER_02: And it is super grotesque and it's very big and fleshy and moist and
42:35
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: strange and the sound is very disgusting.
42:37
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: But the way I process it is kind of endearing.
42:41
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: It is kind of cute.
42:43
SPEAKER_02: It is kind of nice.
42:44
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: But for him, all of these things are an absolute fucking nightmare.
42:47
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: He is playing very much with the notion of spectatorship.
42:51
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: That is kind of like his favorite thing to bring it back to.
42:55
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Because that is essentially where power resides in porn, right?
42:59
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Who is the spectator of what?
43:02
SPEAKER_02: And how is the spectator being pleased?
43:04
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: And that is always the thing that he addresses and confronts essentially.
43:08
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
43:09
SPEAKER_02: The desire that you have when you watch a porn film is to be a spectator who will be
43:13
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: served, which is exactly what he opposes to some degree, if that makes sense.
43:19
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: Exactly.
43:20
SPEAKER_03: And maybe that also, that slipperiness, that kind of like porousness of
43:25
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: boundaries is central to the avant-garde and to horror as well.
43:29
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: And again, I'm thinking through, and I haven't fully thought through this idea, but
43:34
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: the way both Begotten and Dr. Caligari are interested in this kind of porosity
43:39
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: between body and space.
43:42
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: No, for sure.
43:43
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was also thinking about like the origins of like avant-garde
43:46
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: horror films like Kenneth Anger and like George Kuchar, where, you know,
43:51
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
43:51
SPEAKER_02: I know, for instance, that Sayadian, one of his main cinematic inspirations, was, of
43:56
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: course, Kenneth Anger.
43:58
SPEAKER_02: How can it not be almost?
43:58
SPEAKER_02: Mike Thorn: You can see it.
43:59
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Yeah
43:59
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: You can see it for sure.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I mean, I think that they aren't so, so distant,
44:03
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: even if the experience of watching them is so different.
44:07
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
44:07
SPEAKER_01: Like, I think there's also a sense of, I mean, you were talking about excess, but I
44:10
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
44:10
SPEAKER_01: also was thinking about like, obscurity, in a way, I think there's, there's an
44:14
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
44:14
SPEAKER_01: aspect where the obscurity of these films, as well as like, the sensibility with
44:19
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
44:19
SPEAKER_01: which they're approaching, like, their own making, that in itself, I think makes it
44:23
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
44:24
SPEAKER_01: pretty good, like, as an example of avant-garde horror, and also like, what, what,
44:28
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
44:28
SPEAKER_01: what about, like, Like that, which is so obscure, can make it so unsettling, you
44:32
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: know, to certain people.
44:33
SPEAKER_01: I think that's a big part of it as well.
44:35
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: These are also two directors in almost the same era that are
44:41
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
44:42
SPEAKER_02: taking in so many of these obscure, counter-cultural, artistic movements happening
44:47
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: in the US at that time.
44:51
SPEAKER_02: There are so many of these interesting, punky...
44:54
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: niches and subscenes of music, of aesthetics, of textural treatment,
45:00
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: of cinema.
45:02
SPEAKER_02: Yet, it is also a time in which many of the, let's say, masters of
45:07
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: the classics are still alive and were also still reachable and, to some degree,
45:14
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: answerable, because Sayadian wanted to, to some degree, combine...
45:19
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
45:19
SPEAKER_02: avant-garde, underground music, punk culture, with his love for classic Hollywood
45:25
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: cinema in a porn context.
45:30
SPEAKER_02: Which is an insane ambition, to
45:32
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
45:32
SPEAKER_02: be brutally honest, and, again, it can only happen because it was a time in which
45:36
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: that, to some degree, could generate...
45:38
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: money, and yet it is also taking in all of these other influences.
45:43
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: It feels very organic and alive in a way that, I don't know.
45:48
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: I mean, Connor, you're a filmmaker as well.
45:50
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
45:50
SPEAKER_02: I don't know how people now manage to synthesize all of these interesting subscenes
45:55
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: that are still out there.
45:57
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: But make them coherent and organic and unforced and alive.
46:02
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: It seems very hard to replicate, yeah?
46:04
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: Definitely.
46:05
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think you always have to approach it from your own personal
46:08
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: viewpoint if you're trying to make things.
46:10
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: I mean, I think, Mike, I'm curious how you feel too as a horror writer.
46:13
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
46:13
SPEAKER_01: There is this unstoppable kind of like relentless wave always of horror culture.
46:19
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
46:19
SPEAKER_01: I mean, even beyond cinema and literature, like even in like video games, you know,
46:23
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: it's like, it's, it's expanded so much.
46:26
SPEAKER_01: You know, I guess it depends a bit on like
46:27
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
46:28
SPEAKER_01: what your, yeah, what your medium is and what your approach is and what your own
46:31
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: preoccupations are as an artist.
46:34
SPEAKER_01: But I think like for me, you know, I don't think my
46:36
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: work today necessarily like reflects how much I love Begotten yet.
46:42
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: I think it's always been there.
46:45
SPEAKER_01: And I'm hoping, you know, with my next film at
46:48
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: least, it's going to be a more experimental horror project.
46:53
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: I think that's all I can really say about it right now.
46:55
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
46:56
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it's interesting when you spend so much time like absorbing and trying to
46:59
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
47:00
SPEAKER_01: understand these works that I think at their core are not meant to be understood.
47:04
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
47:05
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think that's kind of the beauty of horror is that the experience of it is
47:08
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
47:09
SPEAKER_01: the understanding, like intrinsically, you know, it's not so much about being able
47:13
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: to analyze it even or interpret it.
47:15
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we've done that for an hour now, but I
47:17
SPEAKER_01: Hugo Emmerzael:
47:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think that the through line, the best thing I think we have said is that
47:17
SPEAKER_02: Connor Sen Warnick: think like it goes beyond that.
47:22
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: both of these works can just be incredibly disarming, right?
47:25
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: And ultimately that's maybe where the real pleasure resides, is also just to
47:29
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: surrender to it in all of its mysticism and ungraspability, right?
47:34
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: Absolutely, yeah.
47:35
SPEAKER_03: And maybe that could be part of the issue too, that maybe we're
47:38
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: confronting in a lot of contemporary horror and maybe contemporary narrative art
47:44
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: generally.
47:44
SPEAKER_03: I don't know if I want to speak too broadly here, but there's this kind
47:47
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: of like emphasis on legibility and on marketability and on categorization.
47:53
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: There's probably a way we can speak to algorithmic meaning-making and stuff like
47:57
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: that, but both of these films speak to something before that.
48:01
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: I'm speaking in kind of abstract terms here, but I don't know if that makes sense to
48:05
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: you both, but
48:06
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: I think it does, and I think it's fair, because if we would, you know, get into
48:10
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
48:11
SPEAKER_02: weirdness of that, then we sound like these old unks that say they don't did it like
48:15
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: they used to, you know?
48:16
SPEAKER_02: But it is about, to some degree, the mystique.
48:16
SPEAKER_02: Mike Thorn: Let's do it.
48:18
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: I mean, for In Review Online, I wrote the review of Backrooms.
48:22
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
48:23
SPEAKER_02: Which is a film that I would be, I was excited about, because sadly, or luckily, I
48:28
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: was one of those idiotic teenage kids that would be on 4chan and see the
48:33
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: creepypasta.
48:35
SPEAKER_02: And it was exciting to be on the internet in that time and to see many
48:34
SPEAKER_02: Connor Sen Warnick: Oh yeah, me too.
48:39
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: of these ideas formulating real time.
48:42
SPEAKER_02: Including, by the way, but that's the real
48:44
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: horror, just to see this entire alt-right happen before your eyes.
48:48
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
48:48
SPEAKER_02: I was just interested in being a witness of it, and I thought the film did such a
48:52
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: bad job at acknowledging how mystifying it was to take in these internet
48:58
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
48:58
SPEAKER_02: creepypastas by reducing it as many of these quote-unquote elevated horror films to,
49:03
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: oh, it's about trauma, right?
49:05
SPEAKER_02: It's a therapeutic metaphor.
49:08
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: I thought it was so fucking boring.
49:10
SPEAKER_02: So now I sound like an old hat, but I think,
49:12
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Mike, that is what you are getting at.
49:14
SPEAKER_02: It is like the need to explain yourself
49:17
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: already kind of negates the lasting power of the work in itself.
49:22
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: Yeah, I remember somewhere, someone online said something to me about, oh, this is
49:27
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: just another horror film about trauma.
49:30
SPEAKER_03: And I said to them, every horror narrative
49:32
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: ever created is about trauma.
49:35
SPEAKER_03: Like, it's always already about trauma.
49:38
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: We don't need to make that legible.
49:40
SPEAKER_03: It's just, it's embedded in the texture of the
49:42
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: medium.
49:43
SPEAKER_03: So to...
49:43
SPEAKER_03: Hugo Emmerzael: There you have it.
49:44
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: Yeah, it's just like, it's so bizarre to, to, that this impulse to make that, like,
49:49
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: implicit, innate subtext, text at all times is so baffling to me.
49:55
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards.
49:59
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: There you go.
50:01
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Well, on that silly note, I think we can wrap it up.
50:05
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Mike and Connor, thank you so much for joining me.
50:07
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
50:08
SPEAKER_02: I hope we'll do this many, many more times with many other films, because this was a
50:11
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: very exciting chat.
50:12
SPEAKER_02: Before we go, Mike, is there anything you would like to plug
50:16
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: through our listeners?
50:17
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: Yeah, I guess I'm always writing new fiction and criticism.
50:21
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: My website is mikethornwrites.com.
50:24
SPEAKER_03: If you enjoy my books, reviewing them is always a
50:26
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: big help to small press writers.
50:28
SPEAKER_03: So that would be my plug, I guess.
50:29
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: Thank you.
50:30
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: There you have it.
50:31
SPEAKER_02: How about you, Connor?
50:32
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
50:33
SPEAKER_01: My first feature film, Characters Disappearing, had a theatrical run earlier this
50:37
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
50:38
SPEAKER_01: summer, and I think we're hoping it'll have some more screenings in the winter,
50:42
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: mostly in the U.S. and maybe a bit in the U.K.
50:44
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: and Europe.
50:45
SPEAKER_01: So, if it's playing somewhere near you, definitely check it out, and if
50:48
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick:
50:48
SPEAKER_01: not, feel free to look it up and read a bit more about it if you're interested.
50:51
SPEAKER_01: Hugo Emmerzael:
50:51
SPEAKER_02: As for me, I will just always plug the podcast because I'm very happy that we have
50:56
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: it at In Review Online now.
50:58
SPEAKER_02: The next episode will be on a completely different
51:01
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: topic.
51:02
SPEAKER_02: It is a deep dive retrospective discussion on the cinema of Lee Chang-dong,
51:08
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
51:09
SPEAKER_02: considering his latest work, Possible Love, is now hitting theaters before its VOD
51:13
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: release on Netflix.
51:16
SPEAKER_02: So as always, keep a look out for that and brilliant coverage
51:19
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: that is still always appearing on In Review Online.
51:24
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
51:24
SPEAKER_02: Mike, Connor, thank you so much for joining me today what an incredible pleasure to
51:28
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
51:29
SPEAKER_02: talk about these absolute gems that it would be very hard with some other people to
51:32
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: talk about but with you it was brilliant thank you so much.
51:35
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: Thank you.
51:36
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate the opportunity.
51:37
SPEAKER_01: Connor Sen Warnick: It was great.
51:37
SPEAKER_03: Mike Thorn: Yeah, thanks, guys.
51:38
SPEAKER_03: Lots of fun.
51:39
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Cheers.
51:41
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: In Review On Mic is brought to you by the team of In Review Online.
51:46
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael:
51:46
SPEAKER_02: Produced by Chris Cassingham, Emily DuGranrut, Luke Gorham and me, Hugo Emmerzael.
51:50
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: The gorgeous music is by Dutch musician and composer Beau Zwart, with episode
51:54
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: contributions of Connor Sen Warnick and Mike Thorn.
51:57
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Want to be in the loop for our next episodes?
52:00
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: Subscribe to our channel wherever you find your podcasts.
52:03
SPEAKER_02: Hugo Emmerzael: And in the meantime, thank you for listening, and see you soon!