Transcript

Abigail · Citizen Frame

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He just put a death mark on all of us, including himself. What if we just like,
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you know, like give her back and say sorry? Oh, yeah.
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Here's your daughter, Mr. fucking Antichrist. We're really sorry.
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Hope she's not too traumatized. Let's play a round of golf sometime.
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We leave her with some food, make an anonymous phone call, get the fuck out
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of Dodge. I like that. It's not like she's seen our faces. Uh,
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actually, she has, thanks to you.
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I was supposed to be the only one in and out of that room.
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And I wore my mask. Well, I didn't, so I walk in there to see Angelina Ballerina
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memorizing my fucking face.
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Music.
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I'm sorry about what's going to happen to you. All right, everybody,
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welcome back to another Sweet Sweets episode of Citizen Frame.
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We're taking a little breather from the Terminator franchise.
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Don't you all worry, we'll be diving into that in the next few days.
0:56
We'll have that released for you. But I want to talk about Radio Silence.
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Radio Silence is the new production team, the men behind Scream 5,
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Scream 6, and a wonderful film called Ready or Not.
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This is the new duo, Matt Bettinelli-Oplin and Tyler Gillette.
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They have established themselves as comedy horror gold, but more horror than
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comedy, as you can tell from the screen films that they've done.
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And they walked away and they decided to do their next project,
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which is an homage to Dracula, Dracula's daughter to be specific.
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And this is, we're here to talk, Abigail. Oh, have they walked away from the
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screen franchise? Yes. Yes.
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I think I might have heard that, but it wasn't... That must have been after,
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well, what do you call the girl? Who's in this? Who's in Abigail?
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Melissa Barrera. The stars in this.
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Yeah, we won't get diving deep, deep, deep into that. But yeah,
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I don't think they were coming back anyway.
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Right. I think this one... So there's going to be a new director for Scream
2:08
7? Oh, yeah, Kevin Williamson.
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Oh, Williamson's director. Yes, I did hear that. Yes, sorry.
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So he's back. So I'm good with that. I'm good with that.
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And Neve Campbell's back. Yeah. Yeah. All good.
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But yeah, these guys obviously wanted to do something different.
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And so they decided to do this little homage to the classic 1931 Dracula film.
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A lot of nods to it in this film.
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But this is kind of a loose remake of the 1936 Dracula's Daughter.
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Yeah, there's also a lot of other films here. It's clearly, let's just say,
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inspired by, I would say, The Usual Suspects, also The Beast Must Die,
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which is an old amicus horror film, British horror film, with Peter Cushing from 1974.
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And there's even a bit of From Dusk Till Dawn in there as well.
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Yeah, you get kind of, it's everything.
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You can say Fright Night, Lost Boys.
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So it's got a nice blend of everything, thing, but they do make it their own, which is nice.
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And see, we've got a little don't breathe in there, but yeah,
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you know, I was excited for this one. I saw it in the theater right away.
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Cause I'm a big fan of these guys.
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It made its money back, but it wasn't the big hit that they thought it would be.
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So we got released video on demand pretty quick. So we're able to do this podcast.
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So, cause I like to see the film
3:26
a couple times and I was teetering on it because I love these guys so far.
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They're batting a thousand for me. Even with Abigail, they're still batting a thousand.
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But the problem I had with Abigail when I first watched it was,
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is there too much comedy?
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And you need to blend it nicely so the comedy doesn't overshadow the intensity.
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Yeah, so I had to watch it again because A, was it too childlike?
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And B, was too much comedy?
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Because then the horror element gets taken away from it, I think, if it overshadows it.
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It so that's why i wanted to see it again and
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that's what we're going to kind of talk about with abigail so we'll
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just jump into it so there you go i like just
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before we jump into it what's um did you enjoy it
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better the second time yes okay yeah
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it's a pass yeah uh it's better it's better than in the films we've been getting
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it's better than renfield it's better than the last voyage of detmer i agree
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so it just got lost in the shuffle and i think that's why the movie We didn't
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really do as well as they thought it would because of the fact the other one's kind of,
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I think people are sick of it.
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And if they weren't going to put out anything good, they weren't going to spend their money on it.
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I do think it's going to find its footing on Video On Demand.
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So it might have a cult status to it. I don't know.
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But it's not their best work. It's definitely their lower tier work.
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We'll dissect it and see what your thoughts are, because I know you like that
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comedy horror, especially like Fright Night, which I mentioned.
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Yes. Stuff like that. So it should be technically up your alley.
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But let's just jump into it. Got a wonderful cast here. Melissa Barrera plays
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Joey. Dan Stevens, who I love, plays Frank.
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Alicia Weir plays Abigail.
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You got William Kesslet. Uslet? Aslet? Kesslet? Whatever. As Rickles.
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Catherine Newton. I like her as Sammy. me, and I love Kevin Durant as Peter, as the dumb ox.
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Yes. And they got Angus Cloud, who plays Dean, and they got Gino Carlo,
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Esposito, who's always nice to see, as Lambert, and a cameo by Matthew Goode.
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Oh, by the way, this is a twist. Matthew Goode's in this.
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Yeah. Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert. Sad note, Angus Cloud, who plays Dean,
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died right after filming this.
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So that's why the film is dedicated to him. So if you see a name at the end
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of the film, it's a pretty big dedication, which is nice Nice to see Sally died of a drug overdose.
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During the downtime. The music opens up with Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake,
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which is the exact, I didn't know this, which is exact same opening titles they
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used for Dracula, 1931. Yes, that's correct.
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Yeah. I did my research there, fucker. I watched the film, Dracula.
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Well, not, not lately, but yeah.
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Yes, that's correct. Yeah. We need to get some, we need to get some of the old
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classic horror, because I haven't seen Dracula in probably 40 years.
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I haven't DVD, but yeah, I haven't seen it in a while. I've had it.
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It's quite an old DVD, let's just say.
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They wanted, they didn't want to film in a studio a lot, which I like. I appreciate that.
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So they filmed, they wanted a house that was tall and big. You could put cameras in and so forth.
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So this was actually filmed in Ireland.
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I didn't know that. This was filmed at the Guinness Family Manor.
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Right. There you go. I didn't know that. Yeah. So, yeah, pretty cool. Yeah.
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I know a lot of films, you know, over the last 10 years or so have been getting
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filmed in Ireland, North and South, you know. So, yeah, no, it's good to see.
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Now, let's talk about when the film gets right, the opening sequence.
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The opening sequence, we'll say, is about 10 minutes, we'll say.
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In this 10 minutes, they kidnap the kid and they get to this house where they have to meet Lambert.
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Now, in that 10 minutes, you right away are pretty much introduced to all the
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key characters, and you know exactly who they're going to be.
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That's a good introduction to them. Yeah, exactly. You've got Frank,
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who you know right away is going to be the douche, because he just says,
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shut up and fucking drive.
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Because he's a douche. Yeah, because he's a douche.
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You've got the tech smartass, that's Sammy. You've got the dumbass, which is Dean.
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Yes. You've got Peter, who's pretty much the nice lovable goof.
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He's now the giant, lovable giant.
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Yeah. And then you got Joey, who's a little more reserved. Yeah.
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That's it. That's all you really need to know. That's your core audience.
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And again, I like that small group, and then you're quickly introduced to them,
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and so we can get the ball rolling.
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It is quite fast-paced when it comes to getting the story out there.
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And my main concern was it's a fucking kid.
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Yes. Yeah, we'll get to that. I hate kids. I don't like them in movies.
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However this young actress who plays abigail is
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very fucking good and the way
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she manipulates the team is quite fun i i would say she can act but she's still
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a bit annoying to me well she's yeah she is in in a way believe it or not of
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all the characters she's got the best arc
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yeah well talk about arcs yeah i
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don't know i just got the impression the whole sort of
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making her a ballerina and stuff was just to like
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have like teenagers and young people dress up as her for halloween in the real
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world and it just it was just too much of a gimmick for me no i don't think
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that was the point she says why
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she why she's a ballerina yes it's like centuries old as well Yeah, so No,
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I don't think they're going to go Hey, let's get ballerina outfits for Halloween
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Let's put that in Abigail But you will get people doing that?
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No, no Yeah, you would, you freak No, I fucking wouldn't Yeah, you would,
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I'm Abigail today I can see you fucking doing it That's just me on a normal day And work.
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You know yeah fucking freak but no no i did think it was about the whole character
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of her especially whenever she's like jumping about and stuff and doing the
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ballerina moves but also being a ninja at the same time i just thought it was a bit too gimmicky.
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Yeah but that's exactly what the you had to shit all these characters in from dusk till dawn,
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no i know that but they were like actually sort of like well done comedy characters you know
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an over-the-top uh you know this this is this
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is over the top i know it this just didn't work for me you know her i mean don't
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get me wrong i think it's a decent enough film and it is you know an enjoyable
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possible couple of hours but you know if i had to pick holes which i'm here
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to pick holes because that's the whole point of you know being critical on a
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podcast that does movie reviews,
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i have to be honest as well she just i
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don't know there was just something a bit too gimmicky about it all for me
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with her character and the young actress
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can act but she yes it does
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come across as a little annoying to me at times a
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lot of the times actually you know now what doesn't work for the film is a couple
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things and there's a there's actually a handful of them i'm not going to give
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this a solid pass it's it's a weak one and the reason you have land you're a
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reduce the Lampert and played by Giancarlo,
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he's in it for like 30 seconds.
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I knew right away they were being set up. Oh yeah. Hands down. There was no twist here.
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I don't think they were trying to do a twist.
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There's a good twist coming up near the end, but the twist of Lampert is vampire.
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I saw it a mile away. Yeah. Most of the twists are very predictable.
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I actually said earlier on, you know, the way there's supposed to be this sort of
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like this revered sort of underworld character
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that they're all you know sort of afraid of it's lambert
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and it's supposed to be you know that's that's the name but that
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no no no lambert is no i
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know that there but what's the name of the i know i know he's the guy working
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for like the mythical sort of underground figure lazar lazar that's it yes well
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obviously that's a complete play on kaiser sushi from the the usual suspects
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but interestingly the guy who plays Lambert is in The Usual Suspects.
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Yeah. Yeah. Lambert is the hit man that they all keep talking about. For Lazar, yes. No.
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Christopher Lazar is the father.
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We meet him at the very end of the film. But Lambert's still working for him.
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Yes. But Lambert plays, he's the hit man, Valdez.
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Yes. His real name is Valdez. He's the one they kind of talk about.
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We heard this horror story as well.
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Valdez is hit man. He's Valdez.
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Wow, you weren't even paying attention No, so we did work for him You did not,
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you said Oh, it's Lazar, and then you're like Oh, it's Lambert I got the names mixed up.
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You always do that No, I fuck off I usually put on things as fuck Wow,
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somebody's got Tourette's,
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And just for a change It's not you Yeah, bad bastard,
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So, well, okay, what, I do like it's Joey, who's the one who goes in and takes
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care of her. The more patron.
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Yeah, and Abigail is very good at selling, you know, the distressed child.
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I think she's better at selling the distressed child than she is as a vampire, actually.
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And I like the fact when tensions are starting to boil, he kicks open the door
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to go talk to her, but he does, it plants the seed well.
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Like when Joey goes to see her, she goes, I can't see, I'm scared.
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She does the motherly thing and lets her see and takes off the blindfold.
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Which is correct. But she forgets to put it on, back on. So then when Frank
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kicks open the door to find out who her father is, she can see him.
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He's like, I love Dan Stevens.
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Yeah. He did a movie called The Guest and it's such a great film.
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You got to see it. Dan Stevens in The Guest. I haven't seen it.
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And so good. And Walk Among the Tombstones.
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Those are my go-to for Dan Stevens. Such good films.
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But yes, we, and then she finds out, he finds out this Lazar,
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he fucking just bolts. Yes.
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Because he's like, I'm done. I can't, I can't, we can't do this.
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Why? And then he ends up telling the story of Lazar.
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They all kind of know who he is. And we-
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The one thing that does work for it, and like I said, the Lampard twist is stupid,
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but what does work is the twist why they're there.
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Because they're there, we all think, just to be fed on. For the money?
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Is the money, yes. But they're there to be fed on. Yes, by her. They're bait.
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By the chad, yes. She likes to play with her food. Yeah.
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But there's a reason why they all were picked. It's because they have a history
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with Lazar in some form or another.
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Exactly, like the usual suspects. Suspects. Like the usual suspects.
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And I think that's very nice that they do do that because there's a scene where
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Joey's like, I can call out all of you in a heartbeat and what y'all do.
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I think that's even a scene in usual suspects.
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So I do like the blend of the, you know, some of the Wama Aziz two original
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Dracula, some of the camp that came with Fright Night and Lost Boys.
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You even got, you know, usual suspects, which would be, you know,
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kind of random in a vampire film.
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Yeah. Also, not just the sort of tone from Dusk Till Dawn as well,
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the fact that from Dusk Till Dawn, for the first half, it's basically a crime
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thriller, and then all of a sudden, vampires, and they sort of do that here too.
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Yeah, they kind of like the tension builds. I will say this,
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I do think that portion of the film, the first half, is kind of elongated.
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I know you want to get to know the characters and stuff, but we kind of already
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done that, and I do think sometimes Sometimes when the tension rises.
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It takes too long to get there sometimes. I also think her being a badass vampire
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chick, they can kind of, I don't know if she's, see, I don't know if she's playing with them.
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Well, she is. She mentioned, she says she is. She is, sir.
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Like we'll talk, when they go into the bedroom and they all go in the bedroom
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and they say, let's go in the bedroom. They are, they're funny because they're bumbling idiots.
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There's a couple of them that have a good head on their shoulders.
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You got Rickles, who's the military man, and And then you got Joey,
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who are the kind of, and Frank's is all over the place.
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But it's funny when they first, Abigail finally exposes herself,
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who she is, and how they have to fight her off.
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You're right, it's got a very, you know, Roddy McDowell feel from Fight Night
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to George Clooney and Harvey Keitel fighting vampires from Dusk Till Dawn. Oh, definitely.
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Even like the way in from Dusk Till Dawn where they're talking about like vampire
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film lore about Peter Cushing and stuff and, you know, all this here.
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And from dusk till dawn i mean the the sort of
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do that sort of thing here with the dialogue you know what we're
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talking about you know what it's the tech girl says well what are we talking here
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um with vampires we're talking on rice or twilight you
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know that sort of thing yeah yeah when when
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joey is talking to frank about lazar
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yep and she she
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makes she says a line i just don't scare
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easy but when i do i pay attention it's a
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great line yeah that's a good line it's generally
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a well written script and i think it's
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probably would read a lot better on paper than maybe some of it has been realized
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you know for example like instead of like a usual exposition dump and this one
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they actually play a game where it's like uh for like so many dollars i'll guess
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what you do you know you know at least and that's a way of sort of clever and sort of quirky way of
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sort of giving the audience the backstories to all the characters.
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Yeah, I mean, that's why I was kind of talking about how the first half kind
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of elongated a little bit because they kind of want to do all this diddy dump
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where the first 10 minutes we kind of knew right away who they are and then
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they kind of build on that again,
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which he kind of didn't need to because we already knew who they were the first
18:09
10 minutes. I think that. Which he did so well.
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Now, I know you got to elongate it for time reasons and stuff like that.
18:17
But I wish there was another threat in the house.
18:20
Yeah. Now we do find out Lamp are still in the house, but that's the very,
18:24
very end. That's a very minimal scene.
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It's a great scene, actually. But I would like to have had something where she
18:31
has, well, I guess we kind of do.
18:34
I like the fact they played on the vampire tropes, and none of them work besides
18:39
the wooden stake and sunlight, but the garlic.
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I love when he tells everyone, you get the garlic, you do this,
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you do this, you get the wooden stakes,
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you do this, all the cliches of you know fighting a vampire
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yeah and santa comes back with onions yeah that's
18:55
right don't forget about the onions yeah
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i mean yeah i mean there are some good sort
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of horror moments as well i must admit like you know
19:05
where the um you know where sammy ends
19:08
up like falling into a room and it's just like wall to
19:11
wall with corpses that's pretty sort of and that's when they realize you know
19:14
yeah they've been totally stitched up right from the start and you know there's
19:18
other you know good horror moments for exactly when dean gets his head cut off
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and sammy comes into the kitchen and it basically she like grabs him and his
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head rolls off so yeah i mean that again,
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you know you know what i think this film suffers from as well just to back up
19:33
what you were saying about there being too much with the
19:35
first half i think it's it's too long overall i think i think it's like an hour
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and 15 minutes i think an hour and a half would have been perfect for this and
19:43
it would have been just in and out pretty quirky you know what i mean just quick
19:46
jokes folks flying and you know don't let the audience catch their breath but
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have it more condensed i think i would have worked better.
19:54
I just don't know what to take away from it, what to remove from it,
19:57
I guess. Because each scene, there's always something good in each scene.
20:02
It's kind of like, you know, like we said in the story, you get A to C, you got to have a B.
20:09
Sometimes, you know, there's got to be a quicker path to C. Yeah, yeah.
20:13
No, no, and I think there was, you know, it's, like I say, I think on paper,
20:18
I think it probably reads a lot better than it actually, you know, is played out.
20:22
I mean, again, it is good, but it's just I think films like Fright Night and
20:28
From Dusk Till Dawn are much more memorable and much better at balancing that
20:32
very delicate balance of comedy and horror.
20:37
Well, yes and no. I mean, Fright Night's not scary at all. It's funny.
20:42
No, but there's still horror moments. So is From Dusk Till Dawn.
20:44
I think this has pretty high horror up there with Fright Night.
20:49
And with, now with the remake of Fright Night is 300 times better than this.
20:54
I like the remake of Fright Night.
20:56
I'd have to watch it again. I actually think it's a superior film than the original.
20:59
Right. Well, generally that's sacrilege to me, but I would have to watch the remake again.
21:03
I love Fright Night. It's one of my favorite films. Yeah. A huge amount of fun.
21:07
And it really balances the horror and comedy to near perfection,
21:12
as did An American War Wolf in London, John Landis.
21:15
But Dog Soldiers as well, which we're talking about on this podcast.
21:19
But yeah just it's just i don't i
21:21
found it hard to sort of define who was the target audience for this film you
21:25
know especially the way it was marketed as well but you think heard it i didn't
21:29
think it was really clearly defined but it appears to be going for like the
21:33
sort of young adult teenage market i don't know you know it was just but just
21:38
i think it was a bit unclear.
21:40
When they were gearing up to go after her and we know Sammy gets bitten.
21:47
Yes. And nothing really happens to her. I do like the fact they play different
21:51
on the whole Dracula theory and what happens when you're a bit.
21:56
Yeah. And I do like the fact that she uses her as a conduit.
22:01
Yes. And so there's a, there's a nice, there's a couple of nice scenes here
22:05
when you separate them, when it's, when they're two on two.
22:08
There's a good one with Joey and Rickles Well Rickles goes I have your back Do you have mine?
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And she goes yeah no problem And then with half a second he's
22:16
walking Down the corridor and from behind Her shoulder we see him just stop
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And we don't see Anything just something just attack him And then she walks
22:25
toward him and his whole Neck has been bitten out Which is nice And then you
22:32
have Another scene with Peter,
22:35
And Sammy are walking down Um, this, uh, it looks like a, some kind of botanic garden or whatever.
22:41
And she's, she opens up to her, up to him and he makes a really nice comment
22:46
about something about, you know, I can't remember, but it was something actually quite pointed.
22:53
Yeah. No, I remember, I remember the scene. I just can't remember the exact words. It was the. Yeah.
22:58
It was the two of us getting, going to see our son again and stuff, you know?
23:03
And no, that was Peter is the doofus.
23:07
Peter? Oh, yes, I know, but was it... No, no, this is somebody you're talking
23:12
about, but it's actually, it doesn't matter what he says, but he says something,
23:18
and it's a nice moment between them two. Yes, yeah. It humanizes these two.
23:22
Okay, let's put it that way. Yeah. And the minute he...
23:27
He's walking away and he's got a smile on
23:30
his face and she's got a smile on his face abigail takes over
23:33
and obviously kills oh sorry
23:36
yes this is down at the dungeon whenever they have our like behind bars
23:39
no wow you have
23:42
really i think you sure you don't want to re-watch this
23:45
here because i've watched it once to be honest
23:48
um before just you know a couple of days before doing this
23:51
podcast but you know what you know what they throw me a bit because there's a
23:54
lot of name changing more because they've got their real names and they've
23:57
got their code names and you know all this so that was a
24:00
bit that's that's why i'm sort of getting a bit confused when you're talking about people
24:03
which one you're actually talking about i can yeah i'm
24:06
going by head i'm just going by their their the names that was given to them
24:10
by lambert right yeah you do find out sammy's jesse you find out peter's actually
24:15
terence he's the muscle the bernard family in montreal he's talking with his
24:19
crew who's a subsidiary of the lazar barf was of our family you've got You've
24:24
got Sam, who's actually Jesse.
24:25
She stole money from the family.
24:27
Then you've got, you know, you've got all these different, Dean.
24:32
I know Dean, no, it was Frank, was deep undercover agent. Yes.
24:37
Who tried to infiltrate the family.
24:40
And then you've got Joey, who her name was Anna.
24:43
She's an underground doctor for the underworld. And she accidentally knocked
24:48
off by somebody because she was a druggie.
24:51
That's right. So she actually cut the artery. She was off her head when she
24:56
was treating this person, killed them.
24:58
Yeah. So, so they all have, this is the reason why they've been targeted because
25:02
they've affected or hurt the Lazar family in some way. Yeah.
25:08
And, but you got the jail scene, which I'm not a fan of.
25:13
And the only reason I say I'm not, it's way too long, too silly.
25:18
The only thing I like about the jail scene is how she's put in there is where
25:22
in the beginning of the film, Joey juices her when they're kidnapping her and
25:27
knocks her out and they're saying she's a fucking vampire. That's not going
25:30
to bother her. She goes, no, it will.
25:32
I felt her pulse. Yeah, she was properly out.
25:35
She was properly out. So that's how they get her behind the bars.
25:39
I felt. Only problem I have with it.
25:41
Was it? I felt that scene was silly as well. You know, just the whole sort of
25:45
back and forward, you know, with the dialogue between them and.
25:47
Yeah. this scene could have been cut this scene could have been cut or just had it but much shorter.
25:56
Yeah when we get to,
26:00
the final where I do like when Sammy explodes,
26:06
yeah I like the look of the vampires in this by the way with the whole ugly
26:10
teeth and you can hear the sort of teeth grinding in their mouths and I have
26:17
to say I will always welcome vampires being evil,
26:21
cold-blooded, murderous bastards in a film because for quite a few years there
26:25
it was more like the lovesick thing.
26:27
Vampires you know. Oh yeah yeah. You know. They got day glow on.
26:32
Yeah exactly. So give me you know sort of badass.
26:35
Vampires being proper vampires you know that's always a big thumbs up for me.
26:40
Now we talked about we knew the Lampert twist was crap but I do like the Frank twist.
26:44
I do like the fact that Lampert tells Frank, I need you to upgrade yourself.
26:52
So I'm going to bite you and then together, whatever, blah, blah, blah.
26:56
And he, cause Lampert wants to take over the Lazar dynasty.
27:01
Yes. So he needs a, and Frank's the douche.
27:05
So he knows when Frank's bitten, he's going to become more of a douche.
27:09
So he's perfect for it. Yeah. But I like when he bites him and right away,
27:15
Hey, Frank does what Frank does best.
27:18
He kills Lambert. Yeah, he double crosses him. Double crosses him.
27:23
It's nice. And I do like the fact that Frank takes a shot at Abigail.
27:30
And when he does, he becomes more powerful because he bit a vampire.
27:35
Yes, he has her blood. Yeah, and it makes her much weaker as well. Yes.
27:41
So that whole concept, that whole execution, I liked. I liked the whole double cross.
27:48
I do like the fact that Abigail is becoming a little more human,
27:52
I guess you can say. Oh, yeah, yeah.
27:54
Because of the fact that she's vulnerable now. So I do like seeing that.
28:00
And that's why, when I watch the film again, it's where the film kind of wins me over.
28:05
It's his whole last let's say about 20-25 minutes it does it does the progression
28:11
of you know who the villain is it goes from Abigail to basically Frank so it does.
28:18
Yeah, and Frank is brutal. He becomes the main villain. Yeah, exactly.
28:24
And when he takes that spear, whatever it is, and he pins Joey to that shield. Yes.
28:32
You know, it's pretty brutal. There's a lot of blood going on here.
28:35
And there's a nice shot where he's sucking her dry, Abigail,
28:41
and she does that pinky swear to her.
28:44
Oh, I thought that was cheesy. I didn't like that. I like that. No, that was cheesy.
28:48
No, no, no, no, no, no. I would agree with you on, was it a kiddies film?
28:54
What Joey's going through, this whole thing is to get her kid back.
28:58
And you can ask, she sells it well, Melissa Barrera. She does sell it well.
29:01
So she can act? She's wounded.
29:03
Yeah, because she can act. We saw it from the screens.
29:06
But it was a nice little moment in the beginning of the film,
29:09
which was, I think you swear nothing's going to happen to you.
29:11
That was it. It was just what you say to a little child.
29:15
And that's when, you know. And so when Abigail uses that to her,
29:19
it was just a subtle reminder of who Abigail kind of really is.
29:24
She's just a child, especially the way, you know, I like that moment.
29:29
And yes, you're right, it would come off as cheesy.
29:32
I would agree with that, like the thumbs up by the Terminator.
29:35
But this worked for me. There's something about the shot I actually really enjoyed.
29:41
I mean, for each of their own, it does work in terms of a callback to the earlier scene.
29:45
But it was just a bit too you know like the
29:48
terminator 2 where it's basically you know
29:51
the thumbs up or even something like i don't know my girl or something
29:54
with macaulay culkin it was just a bit too cheesy for me but i i'm a bit of
29:58
a you know what i mean i'm i'm hard to please with stuff like that you know
30:01
i don't like schmaltz i do like the fact when frank is so cocky he's gonna turn and Joey. Yes.
30:13
So now he thinks he can control her and be the ultimate vampire.
30:17
Mm-hmm. And you think this big badass battle is about to happen and it turns out no.
30:26
Yeah. And he ends up just, you know, obviously exploding. Yeah.
30:30
Basically. How does he. Joey and Abigail get them together.
30:34
So the three and then, yeah, that's the end of him. When they take down Frank.
30:41
No, he says something before, Frank, yeah. He goes, yeah, before you can do all the cool shit.
30:47
Yes, that's right. You have to be doing this for a long time before you can
30:51
do the real shit. The Lord of the cool shit.
30:52
The cruel shit. He says, she says cruel shit. Right.
30:56
Which I really like that line.
31:00
And then you think you're all out of it. She's just covered in fucking blood.
31:05
Abigail's going to let her go, which I liked again. and
31:09
she goes go see your kid
31:12
i do think abigail the actress
31:15
plays it well because she plays the new
31:17
child but she's also very adult because he's
31:21
obviously a lot older than she looks centuries old as she says um
31:24
you know i think the young actress can act but i
31:27
think at times it is a bit inconsistent maybe maybe
31:30
it's not inconsistent maybe it's just annoying to me
31:33
to me personally so you know maybe i'm being
31:35
a bit too harsh on the actress but there is times
31:38
the character it's just a bit sort of too
31:41
too sort of quirky and sort of
31:44
trying to be kept in a quirky vampire for me and but you know as i say the young
31:50
actress she can't act i'll give her that well here's i think the problem with
31:56
abigail's execution is the direction and what they should have done was.
32:03
Baby step her change.
32:05
So you have the young child, Abigail, who's kind of playing them all,
32:10
playing against each other, but she's just a kid.
32:12
You don't really know what's happening.
32:16
Yeah. Then you've got the vampire, Abigail.
32:19
Then you've got the fucking cruel, Abigail.
32:22
And then you've got the more grounded, but she's being vulnerable as she's being
32:27
attacked. the problem is he went from the kitty to the vampire back to the kitty
32:32
to the vampire there's no point doing the kitty anymore.
32:36
It's the cutesy stuff that does bug me I must admit but I'm like that whenever
32:40
I'm seeing an evil child on the screen I want Children of the Corn I want Isaac
32:46
and Malachi or Damien from The Omen, I want a proper evil wee bastard,
32:51
I don't like whenever they jump back and forward from cute,
32:54
I get that that can him work you know in terms of
32:57
you know the layers of their character but i
33:00
just want an evil weak bastard so well you do
33:04
i think you do the waste the way she took care of peter
33:07
and sammy and didn't care about dean he was an idiot but there was some manipulation
33:12
there and i thought that was played well yes but yeah i wanted more of that
33:17
so it had and you could have had the odd glimpse of our vulnerability as a child
33:21
instead of it's a bit too full-on with the sort of you know,
33:25
oh, I'm just a little child, you know what I mean?
33:26
You sort of ram it down your throat a bit too much, whereas you could have had
33:30
more, it could have been more subtle.
33:32
Yeah, I just think it should have been handled in stages rather than bits and
33:37
parts between different scenes.
33:40
Then we got the father who shows up, Lazard, who's actually played by Matthew Goode.
33:45
I love that scene. And I think they really missed the trick.
33:48
As far as I'm aware, Dracula is out of copyright.
33:52
And I think they really missed the trick by not making him Dracula.
33:56
Or at least having a really big reference or suggestion that he was Dracula.
34:00
I mean, they sort of do anyway, anyway but maybe you know have
34:03
them speak in a romanian accent or something you know
34:06
i i would love that you know and it would have been a proper tip
34:09
of the hat to dracula well the whole film is
34:12
a tip of the hat yeah but that would have been just you see dracula's
34:16
crest that's in the movie the original one's all
34:19
over the place in the house bet you didn't catch that did
34:22
you i didn't actually no yeah it's a it's
34:25
a big it's the big crest yeah dracula's family crest in the
34:28
middle of the library floor the shield that she's
34:31
pinned to has the crest on there right yeah there's
34:34
a lot of wow i thought you would have caught that well i mean maybe i'll re-watch
34:39
as i say i've just watched this at once for the podcast but yeah i mean for
34:43
me for me i very much got along with the usual suspects the one that was that
34:49
was a big sort of other film on my mind was a beast must Must Die,
34:53
which is about a bunch of people who are summoned to a house,
34:56
a remote mansion, an estate,
34:59
and one of them is a werewolf, and you have to guess which one is,
35:02
and there is literally a werewolf break in it, where the audience,
35:05
it stops for like a while,
35:08
and the audience has time to guess who the werewolf is, although the film,
35:12
as fun as it is, and as good as it is, it should really have been titled The Alsatian Dog Must Die,
35:18
because it's basically an Alsatian dog, Whenever it's supposed to be a werewolf running about.
35:24
Okay I don't know that film The Beast Must Die, it's an old amicus I'm following
35:29
Michael Gambon's and Peter Cushing And stuff, yeah, check it out It's good fun.
35:34
Yeah, so I re-watched it a second time Yeah, I'm okay with it I'm okay with
35:39
it, some things I would have tweaked But it's not, a little concerned when I
35:42
first saw it But the second time, maybe that's what you need to do Yes, possibly Yeah,
35:47
you won't, you're just an asshole No, I might, but I'm just that fucking busy
35:50
doing other stuff for the podcast.
35:52
Oh, here we go, here we go. No, we're working for the podcast and stuff.
35:56
By the way, listeners, Cain is a slave driver. He never gives me a moment,
35:59
so he doesn't. Oh, really?
36:01
He literally, before this podcast, threatened me.
36:05
He's like, when am I getting the fucking reviews, you promised me,
36:08
you fuck. That's what he said to me. Cain, Cain.
36:11
I said, I apologize, Trevor. I just got to edit all these podcasts we're doing,
36:16
and I'm just trying to make count getting set up and I have to see these movies
36:20
twice so I'm a proper host he told me to go fuck myself,
36:25
Phantasm Gloria's first and I had to get something written,
36:28
It's, yeah, more like the other way about it. Karen threatens me on a daily
36:31
basis. Yeah. We work together, by the way. So we do.
36:35
That's a lot of fun. That's a fucking nightmare right there.
36:37
I was fucking fighting to have a nail.
36:42
But guys, listen, I'm sorry if you're listening to this podcast,
36:45
you've seen it, but it's available on Beyond Demand. Check it out.
36:48
I like these directors. They've got such a huge future.
36:51
We talk about losing our directors we grew up with and stuff,
36:54
but there's some really good talent out there, and these guys are definitely going to be one of them.
36:58
So hopefully, I like to see him do something different. I like to see him get
37:02
out of horror now and do, you know, an action film or a good thriller.
37:07
So we'll see. I know they're gearing up for Ready or Not 2, rumor has it.
37:11
If you guys haven't seen the film, watch Ready or Not. It's fucking awesome.
37:16
I haven't actually watched that yet, but I am going to. In fact,
37:19
I would watch Ready or Not before I would watch Abigail again,
37:22
to be honest, because I have heard a lot of good reports about Ready or Not.
37:25
I don't think you're ready for it. Oh, boom, boom.
37:29
All right, guys, we're going to wrap this one up. Thanks for giving us a listen.
37:34
You can check out Instagram at citizenframe underscore podcast,
37:37
and of course on Facebook.
37:39
We're going to jump right back into the Terminator franchise with Terminator 3.
37:43
Music.