Contemporary Horror

[Music] Hello, Ian. Thank you for joining us on another episode of Why Theory. As always, I am your host, Ryan Angley. I'm Mike joint, as always, by co-host Todd McGowan. Todd, I do nobody. I'm doing okay, Ryan. I'm spending the day at toning for skipping the day of atonement. So that's what I'm doing today. Very good. Well, you know what? And there's not a better way, I think, to atone for anything. To talk about horror films, so we have returned. Especially for me, because this is not my genre. No, no, you don't know. As we talked about in the first one of these, this isn't your bag. This is a lot more of my bag than it is your bag. And we were getting into an era that is very much my bag. So there was, I mentioned this in the last episode, that I previously had a podcast with somebody else. You knew about it, so I wasn't cheating. And so you just, I can't believe you. We said we were on a break. So, and we covered my friend Taylor and I, we covered horror sub-jongers. And every episode we do, like, you know, possession horror films, you know, like the exorcist or the omen, the slash or film, you know, and even getting into like more deep cut things, which like more popular recently, which is our films that are about rituals and cults. So you're not like a cult film, like Rocky Horror Picture Show, like a film that has acquired the cult status, but a film where cult is at the center of it. And, you know, hereditary, obviously, was a huge, right, was a huge thing there. And that was where I can't, you're going to have to remind me. If I told you this, or if I said this in the previous podcast, but it was the, was in that episode, we covered hereditary, where I said accidentally, I think the funniest thing that I've said as a podcaster, which was that in the film, I know you haven't seen it, but Tony Colette plays a miniatureist. That's her job, which makes miniatures, but I didn't call her that. I called her a miniature artist. And, and my friend Taylor just interrupted me. He said, now to be clear, in this film, Tony Colette is regular size. And then I, I, I laughed at myself and said, yeah, she's not tiny Colette in this movie. So that was I think that's pretty great. Yeah. Pretty good. I was from my feet, recovering from being embarrassed. I thought that was pretty good on my part. So anyway, there's a lot. There's a lot that works on, even though you know, when can get that podcast anymore. No one can get it. That's that is correct. Yeah, it's not a not out there anymore. But, but yeah, so just now it's out there and in summarized form. The live version is no longer in the ether of the internet. But I say I start this off by saying, we're going to try to cover a lot in this episode. There's a lot that we're not going to cover. And there's a lot that I personally would like to come back to with you, particularly. I don't know some things we might talk about. But, uh, parenthetically, this genre series, who knows how, uh, who knows how long it's going to run. We may need other other genres to cover once we finish up the classic Hollywood ones and then some of the other more contemporary, you know, genres such as like the disaster film, right, which we haven't done. So incredible. We haven't done that. Incredible. We haven't done that when yet. So, um, but yet today we're going to focus on these are the films. We're going to do we're doing 60s 70s 80s 60s to today. We're like one of those serious XM radio stations for pop music. And we're we're doing night of the living dead. Carrie shining. So it's a Stephen King double feature. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, Blair Witch Project and paranormal activity. We're going to talk about together, uh, because of the found footage genre. Yeah. Uh, that Blair Witch Project basically invents. I think a better phrase might be instantiates because a lot of people, um, what is it? Canable Holocaust, I think is the film that people point to as like the first, um, found footage, but it's like the kind of a frame story. Blair Witch Project is, you know, pure found footage everything we're going to talk. Yeah, we're going to talk about that. Um, later, uh, then it follows for the 2010s and then, uh, I think the film that we're most excited. Yeah, to get to, which is the substance, which just came out like three, four weeks ago. Um, and conform. It's really great. And it, um, it does a nice job with, uh, well, kind of interacting with something. I mean, we just had no, there's no way to have predicted this. But, uh, I think our end claim, which is where we're going to start, um, with psycho is that it marks this movement away from the monster and toward monstrosity. And the substance is really remarkable for, uh, twinning those goals in the movie. And it, uh, it's, I mean, I don't know how much of a spoiler, this is or not to say, but like it, I would say like begins monstrosity and moves toward the monster, but in a way that kind of flips what those terms mean. I think that's true. I also think it's impossible to spoil the substance because five minutes into that film, you know how it's going to end. I think that's a good point once the substance is introduced. There's no possible. One of my, one of my students said, well, I thought maybe you could all be a dream. So that's what you, if you think it might end some other way, that's what you're resorting to. So it all of the journey. So there's really, I think which, which makes it a hard film to watch, right? Like it's very hard to watch. And it's, it's not one you look forward to rewatching. I don't think which unlike. Say, Carrie or, or, I don't know what shining for shining for sure. I think a lot of people enjoy rewatching the shining. There's some great lines in it. It really, and substances remarkably free of dialogue, which we'll talk about later. Yeah, we're getting ahead of ourselves because we're going to talk about a film that I didn't see until this morning. So this just shows how long horror film centric I am as a subject. A little behind the curtain of the prep, the prep that we do for this. So where we're going to go with this is, so as we try to do in these genre series trying to find like a uniquely psychoanalytic way through through through line through this genres or even in this episode, maybe some of these sub genres. What's interesting about horror as opposed to the other genres that we have covered with the exception of the new R, I think that there have been psychoanalytic attempts notable ones to make like a totalizing theory of horror. And I'm the three ones that come to mind are, of course, that was OK. So we're going to go in. I'm going to go reverse order because I don't remember the first one. I don't and I'm going to hope that by the time I get to the first one, it'll seem slick. Like I totally remembered the entire time. OK. So it's so Carol Clover, my women chain saw this like 92 93 right. OK, and then Barbara Creed is the monstrous feminine. And that's in the, yeah. And that's 80. Is that 80? That's the 80s. Yeah. That's the 80s. And then Robin Wood, who has a for really brings Freud and the return of the repressed into a totalizing theory of horror. Right. Which is very, very influential. And he did that. I am right in saying that he offered this in the 70s. That correct. Yeah. OK. There we go. See, that was the one that I forgot and I did. I found it because I think Todd, this is total aside, we should give ourselves a chance to remember things more often and not just immediately look them up. We've forgotten. I agree. I assume that you have either the after effects of concussions or or free onset or what's it called Alzheimer's when it comes to early onset. Early onset. Yeah. Early onset. That's usually my immediate assumption when I can't remember something. So say, well, and we'll see. Well, maybe this maybe this podcast and the end will end up being evidence of that for right. Right. My early onset Alzheimer's. Let's correct. Maybe it will be. I have to tell you that I almost didn't watch. Night of living dead and was going to just talk about anyway because as I say to you, I think that if anybody could talk about a film intelligently that they've seen, but the real challenge is to talk about a film that you haven't seen at all. The problem is that Slavily has kind of perfected this. Yes. And so I would seem like I was copying. So I decided to actually watch it. And I'm very glad that I did. I have to say. Well, and relevantly. So his is the take that we're going to start with. And I think parenthetically we can talk about, you know, wood, Barbara Creed. If we come on to talk about alien, we'll certainly talk about her. And if we come on to talk about the slash of films in the 70s, we'll certainly talk about Carol Clover. Slavily has an influential take on the zombie sub genre. And this is the take. And I'm I think he's written this like a lot of things like he's written in multiple places. I don't remember the first time I came across this. But it's an influential. How should I say it? It's a render interpretation, right? The interpretation of the zombie film, which is that the figure of the zombie is drive the psychoanalyic idea of drive of death drive without desire. Right. That's. And again, he's written this in multiple places. And the idea, if you follow him on this, the idea is that the zombie, as we know, is just this like this motor. It is just this this pure movement. It's a machine. Yeah. Yeah. And it is. It has no to itself. It has no desire. Like in particular, it is just all it is purpose with to the extent that a zombie to again to itself has a purpose is just to persist. That's it. It is just it just it assists on persisting. That's all that it does. Or as you man and says human and I think wrote the definitive essay on night of living dead is our friend and your former colleague, I think it. My former colleague, the third episode of this show, we talked to him. That's right. We talked to him very early in our in our iteration. He origins. So he has an essay, a great great essay on night of living dead in which he says the zombie schleps. Right. So so that schlepping is I think for Slavoy is the embodiment of the drive, right, because it's not it's not schlepping toward it's not it's not slouching toward Bethlehem. It's just a long right and I think and to eat something in the end. But it doesn't have a phantasmatic attachment to a particular object. I think that's why he says it's drive without with desire subtracted from it. So and I think it's a you know it's a good take is influential take it was really helpful for me when I was starting to try to understand this stuff. What the what the drive was and also to understand the relationship between drive and desire. I'm going to depart and push against him here. I don't I don't think that's so here's where I'm at now. I don't think that's a very good way. Way of conceptualizing the drive and the zombie because the most important dimension of the drive is that you we all are undermining ourselves and a zombie just cannot do that right without without desire without without being without having this conscious aim. The zombie cannot in any way ever on undermine itself a zombie can't make a mistake you know a zombie can fall into a trap zombie can be killed you know whatever but like a zombie cannot make the mistake the way that the alive people who are trying to get away from the zombies can make a mistake and can undermine themselves and can do some you know like. I know that you haven't that you haven't seen it but the the remake of dawn of the dead has has a nice moment where there's one of the characters is just so insistent that his pregnant wife have their child that even after it's clear like she has been. A bit and like she's becoming a zombie and so she then gives birth to a zombie baby he like allows it to happen and it just endangers everybody in the mall in the movie like that you're like what are you doing right like I think that's and even in obviously in the first night of the living dead. That's your constant reaction is effect in like what why are you running out of the house what it's usually unfortunately it's usually the women who are the stupidest characters the ones in night living den at least driven by their drive so the film is interesting because in terms of the racial politics it's very good I think and correct like the main star is a is a black character who's who's this clearly the only one that has any sense about and then all. Yeah and he survived he's sort of that he's about to survive oh we will give totally white that we'll we're not there yet it seems like he does is going to survive and and the white characters are all just totally and then you're constantly reacting them like why are you doing that so stupid and I think one of the things that's interesting and I think just to support your idea of that the the the where this is a turn away from the drive in terms of the figure of monstrosity and that's going to be a very important thing for me. So I think that's it's just this radical switch about where self destructiveness resides in the in the films and psychos this is the incredible turning point and then it really starts to flower in I think night of the living dead which is why it's such a good starting point for discussion right because it really get this sense of and that the zombies are not they they have just like you're saying they're incapable of self destructiveness but what's the night what isn't what that was nice is that they they lose their singularity and if you think that our death drive is the is the index of our singularity is the that's perfect right there they're just these figures that have lost their drive like that's what they they're like this is what if you you know the drive is the is the index of our singularity then that's perfect right there they're just these figures that have lost their drive like that's what they they're like this is what if you if you sat the drive out of a human subject then this is what you're left with I think that I think that's the the idea I think so too I think so too it's for me it's it's better to understand the figure of the zombie as a without drive rather than being this like perfect embodiment of of the drive as such which is how she's like has written about it and different places so let's talk about the film and then I want to talk about like the figure of the zombie because it is it's one of the like again if we're like kind of ticking off sub genres as we go it is I think one of the more theoretically rich sub genres for or or maybe I'll I'll do this in reverse so like don't don't the dead like people talk about a lot as like having this it's it's obvious but a consumer capitalist like critique but just because it is is evident I would say doesn't mean that there's there's nothing that that Romero and in the film has to say on that I think that like it's that is the film that really concretizes the zombie genre as as having some kind of political import it's not like like animated corpses are as old as the Bible I mean it's older than that I mean like I mean Gilgamesh I don't know like it's just it's an animated corpse is it like that's in like is in literature that is just in the history of literary production that's just there but the zombie is like is is is a movie that is starting with named the film it white zombie starring Paul go see but that is not that is a like a it's it's a very it's a tough watch it's very racist film it's this voodoo guy like has has these people under his thrall and that's that's how they're zombies is that but it's it's a it's again there's a like a puppet master basically figure so that's where we get the word zombie night of living dead you just watch it they don't use the word zombie do you remember what word they used to describe them no yeah so the zombie thing doesn't get start to get defined until a little bit later but but it is night of living dead that kicks it off and it kicks it off as I think the having a kind of a social commentary and then I think dawn of the dead makes it move toward having like a kind of a capitalist commentary I think the walking dead has a very nice take on this which is that everyone is always already sick like you if you just die in the dispensation of the world of the walking dead you become a zombie oh and I think and you don't have to be be bit or anything you if you die and I just think that like that that always already being sick is like what are we what are we always already sick with it's not too terrible it's not too much of a leap to say like you know the the idea that the idea of of capital being a fact of the world right we talk like in an episode long long ago like like this this is Marx's idea of a reification right that like that this the way that capital moves becomes to be seen as just like this is the way things are sure and and I think you can look at you can look at that show and the graphic novel and does that and it's it's in it's in it's implicit I think in what they're trying to do and in what they're trying when they try to build a town in that and what they try to avoid as the way that the town works I think it starts to make the like Alexandria is what the town is called I think they're trying to to avoid the ills of capital and so that's where that that idea becomes a concrete in that in that particular series and in the the last of us and more recently influential zombie film which ends up being more more re the second game and eventually the second series will be end end up being about revenge so it's more about what humans do in that world and it's like endless cycle of revenge that is definitely something to maybe maybe come back to talk about but the the where people become zombies it's in food and it's in the global food supply the global food supply chain this like invisibility of how we you know access things like that's that's how that's how the thing that turned people into zombies got into the got into the world it was in just these like distribution centers in like you know in in the global south in southeast Asia like just in places that like you know when you're here you don't even think about it when you get your food at the grocery store and so in it this trajectory of using this figure to as a as a means of social commentary not just like again an animated corpse Jesus Christ for example animation works like it's not just that like it's so it begins here with night of living dead so let's talk about night of living dead properly and what does it do yeah I think that it is trying to show this you know this way that the inability of well it's it's showing how the inability of these people to just get along well enough to defend themselves against against the threat of the of the zombie right like I think that's to me that the thing that really steps out sticks out in the film that you could that there there's and I think that's again this idea that the their own drive is ultimately the thing that under they undermine themselves and their well-being like that's I think there's an interesting relation between the zombies are all they want to do is eat right like they just are their beings that just want to eat and they what's interesting is how little they do attack themselves right like the zombies are drawn to the dead as food right like that that's so but they never and they that you see a point where they some two people get blown up in a car truck and and the zombies go and feast on their corpses and it's a very graphic scene of them eating flesh and and but what's interesting is the zombies never eat themselves or each other right like there's a there's a dead they're interested in is that yeah it's and so if that's really fascinating right that there's not this ability of them to I mean self destructiveness ends up destroying the humans but it doesn't it doesn't affect the zombies so the zombies are just purely focused on an external target for their almost it's almost instinct right to survive like there so I think that that you could do an interesting thing about the difference between instinct and and drive and the way drive is a self-destructive force whereas instinct is is ends up to destroy it's only focused on eating and destroying things that are external to it right and I think that's really what characterizes that film and makes it so compelling and it I mean it's very it's made on an extremely low budget it was a very local film I mean this is a huge way of talking about it he says it's a film about those zombies as the local and I think that's a really interesting way to to phrase it but I think that's really to phrase it but I again I think it's just it's just it's it's it's about the way that you you attempt to defend ourselves from this threat is ends up the threat reveals that we can't do it and the reveals the our own internal the way our internal destructiveness ends up undermining any kind of sociable or social response right sociopolitical response I think I made me think of this line from Kant where he says our our uns sociable sociability right like that's in a way what what drive is and and that's what gets exposed in night of living dead that's really really nice I just want to take a step back on that because I think it's a really nice point when when Freud writes about so instinct and Freud and this is a problem in the stretchy translation correct which is that he translates treab which is drive and instinct as the same thing right so instinct being it's instinct the way you would spell in English but instead of a C with a K in German which is same word right it's just the same word and instinct is biological necessity and drive is what exceeds yeah biological necessity like what and again as we've been harping on like what undermines something what undermines the human as a homeostatic organism as a and I like this thing that you're you're you're hitting as a as a social as a as a being that can arrange social harmony in a time of great peril I mean this is something that the like the horror film really puts front and center because you're you're right it's just nice this nice shift from the you know the universal monster movies where like you have sympathy for Frankenstein and you're like oh no but just don't do that don't do it think that makes you a villain that's going to you're going to die or people are going to attack you for it but in this it's like oh you stupid people why can't you just get always get one right it's never the monstrous figure I mean I think that's really really fascinating right like yeah you can't think of a you can't think and that's the the twist I mean the turn not the twist the turn that happens with psycho in these in these modern ones like you can no one thinks just to move a little bit forward like no one thinks about Jack Torrance and says oh just don't don't don't do that little thing just don't like but about Wendy yeah you're constantly thinking that you're like oh my god just leave him clearly leave a user go leave him yeah yeah yeah absolutely yeah yeah no that'll be good to talk about this and then there's another podcast that I did with Taylor on the shining that I'll reference when we get to that thing because I love that movie so I think this is a great point like the the zombie like I love Hughes take on on the the zombie as like the local like the threat of the local like and it is partaking a little bit in what would eventually come to be called hillbilly horror and that is associated with most prominently with two films in the 70s deliverance and Texas Chainsaw massacre where I mean it's like Texas Chainsaw is really great you have these like like these nameless you have you know urban liberals encountering this Nixon silent majority and it is like it is just like utterly and absolutely murderous it's like like like every it's it's a kind of a literalizing of everything that like the city folk would think which is that like it's dangerous to be in a rural area it's like yeah it is it's like what it's so something might come on to talk a little bit more about so but I like this idea in the zombie here in and I living dead of our our unsocial social ability like like come like it it comes to it comes to roost where like it like again if the people in the house and the people under stairs and night living dead which I love so much is that like you think that the two main characters because you think it's this woman and then you think it's the guy that they've got to figure it out they fortified the that the castle that that this house that they found that they're like that that they're that it's like an hour into the movie almost yeah like I understand what's happening I understand the stakes they look pretty good they seem to have a good beat on the situation so like they've got out and then these people just emerge from underneath the stairs and that becomes the you know the problem the problem for the entire film is like how are these people going to get along in this moment where like and all of the social bonds have completely fallen apart and so it's a nice unfurling of like yeah they're going to further the come apart until there's one person standing and then he gets killed by what looks like a lynch mob right I mean that's really fast sending that so so Romero cast the film in a colorblind way like he didn't necessarily and and there's no reference to race throughout the main character is black and and there's no reference to race in the in the film but it's clear at the end that he is making it because these the sheriff looks like he's leading a clan yeah lynching party right like he really he doesn't look like a sheriff at all actually he's not dressed like a sheriff so there's that and I think that that really adds to the power of the ending of the film right. Absolutely I mean I think it's it's something that's like you know more enduring about it yeah for sure for sure for sure so okay so I told you before we started I had a little game yeah I think at this is the moment we're moving on to talk about carry is that correct yeah okay every time we're going to move on we're going to jump decades and I am going to stop so that's what I told you you're going to find this a little charming at first and then the more that I do this you're going to be really annoyed you're just going to want to move on okay so I'm just so I'm telling you already and maybe listeners will feel the same way every time I have a little list next to me and I'll say some of what's on the list so that you can know what's what I'm what I'm doing I have I have two dice next to me I've got a D8 and a D6 and I've gotten things attached to numbers and so I'm going to roll this can be like Dungeons and Dragons you're going to have to trust me as the dungeon master and what I'm going to do is I'm going to roll to talk about a topic that we didn't get to okay for what I'm calling a mega minute and a mega minute Todd is between two and four minutes okay okay so we're leaving the 60s and so I've got my D6 here and I've got two options okay if the role is one to three we're going to talk about Rosemary's baby for a little bit okay if the role is four to six we're going to talk about the birds okay and so in because this is a our role thing and not a visual thing you're like again just like Dungeons and Dragons you're going to have to trust okay the the dungeon master okay all right so ready for this okay all right oh it fell off the thing so that doesn't count okay there we go okay it's a it's a six so we're going to talk about the birds okay for two to four minutes okay and I'll start off with this the birds obviously so we talked about psycho so that we're doubling up on Hitchcock which unfortunately not to mention Rosemary's baby which is another which is a possession film and I think hugely influential into the especially into the 70s but the birds is often remarked upon by people who love horror or or horror directors I've noticed this thing this is like completely anecdotal but a lot of people I've noticed who who really like horror have sometimes they've seen the birds but they haven't seen psycho and I think that because the birds isn't color I don't know if that's the answer here's the thing that I want to just in this mega minute talk about is Jessica Tandy in the silent screen there's a great moment in the movie where she goes to find to see her friend who is on a farm because I know he owes her like like some like wheat or whatever I forget what it is and he hasn't made the delivery so she drives out to go see him and this is the moment where the idea that there are these murderous birds like comes to roost for the characters into the film like they like they are confronted by it and Jessica Tandy goes to try to see her friend and his eyes have plucked out yeah picked out that's it yeah and she opens her mouth to scream but she can't and doesn't and then runs to her truck and the truck it backfires a little bit and it you just have this wide shot of the truck just screaming across the the landscape and Hitchcock even had this in the shooting script that the truck screams for her and that's a nice little I think a little twist on the idea of the silent scream which comes from silent movies where it makes it an inter passive idea like like it's just it's too much it's too too hard to scream in this moment in the moment of this idea Jesus so something else has to scream yeah it's great for her yeah do you have anything I don't have anything on the birds no I mean I I think birds is amazing and I but I think I do have a good I have a good Hitchcock joke from the birds so all right what is what I'm going to I'm bringing to the conversation to the mega minute it's a little it's a little it's a little offensive so we'll just let me know it's not my joke so I'm completely I'm just relating it so Hitchcock tells Jessica Tandy's like make sure to watch out and don't let any birds come up your skirt because you know what they say a bird in the hand so that's pretty funny but it's a little pretty good yeah there you go it's blue it's blue it's a little blue yeah it's a little blue yeah that's pretty good so we're moving on talk about Carrie I'm going to mention again this is I think the third time we're going to mention this one on the listener's story show he and I were total pen pals we've been talking for a long time Joe Eisenberg that's a I S E N B E R G okay Eisenberg he's the carry guy okay he wrote a book on carry and I watching carry for a show on the 4k version of the film he's got a commentary track on it they contacted him for Wow and so I didn't get to listen to all of it Joe so sorry about this but I listened a little bit and I thought it's it it even the scales a little bit because you've been listening to my voice for a long time so I finally got to hear yours so that's pretty cool so Carrie and I want to talk so we're doing the Stephen King back to back and you know I've got a little thing on Stephen King I haven't told I told you I was going to say this but I didn't tell you what I was going to say okay you ready for this yeah ready for my thing okay Stephen King becomes obviously starting with Carrie which is his first book he becomes just a just a huge figure in the into the 70s and 80s and I think he's he's always getting new readers it seems and he's you know quite prolific and I think this is going to sound like a criticism of him or like a reason to not take him seriously but I mean this is an absolute compliment his appeal this is my claim his appeal is on taking things that we all implicitly like understand or feel and it just he just twists it a little bit to make it literal in a in a horrifying way so so Carrie is this everyone knows man high school is hell okay what if high school was hell all right that's what he does there right okay Todd clowns are scary okay what if a clown tried to really scary yeah all right and that's and that's it you know everyone knows cars kill people what if a car killed people and that's Christine and you could go I can hold things is like this you can the cell cell phones turn people into zombies what if a cell phone turn people into is that you know like he did he he twist on and I think that's why it works and why it's so effective is that the like the underlying the underlying horror of the premise is something we already believe we already think and he's we already think it and so like the and you know Carol Clover I mean she starts a man women in chainsaws off I believe even though it's not a slasher film she talks about Carrie and one of the things that she she does with this is by saying that like the way that Carrie is is is is teased and bullied by by her peers is more this is her argument is more like what boys do to boys than what girls do to girls yeah that's really again yeah and it's a it's which there's a little bit of a I think there's a there's a line in the sign fall episode where the Jerry asks Elaine what are what are girls do to to bully each other and she says oh we know nothing bad we just tease someone until they develop a needing disorder so that's that which which I think and I think Carol Clover would would agree that's the like that's that's more the the the feminine bullying right that that could end up in something like this but it's it's kind of extra horrible I mean this sort of her point that you see Carrie get bullied the way that that boys do and also it's it's women in like you want to be sympathetic and especially like you know a film coming out in the 70s centered on on women like this is after the sexual revolution you know this is after this is a second wave feminism like so you you you you kind of you want to be like you want to be on the side of of of women and then of ultimately you also want to be on the side of Carrie but like she her her horrible mother like not unlike psycho ends up having the truth of her subjectivity which kind of sucks which is that she is she is the avatar of hell she is she is Satan's but I think play things as she says a pair of phrasing some she says in a movie so that's my that's my start my my kickoff for for Carrie what where do you want to take us yeah I think I think that's I mean I think that I think that really gets to the heart of the film and I think what's interesting I mean I think it does show expose right like the the pressure that the other kids put on and her mother of course to oh yeah but also I mean it's really it's really a landmark and it's what's interesting to me is that it's before these high the classic high school films of the 80s that are really about yes like I mean they're really films about peer pressure right like that's what their breakfast club all these the heathers of course nightmare and M Street right but that's what's interesting is that there's that that already gets developed in the in the horror film right like that that that pressure and in in in in Carrie and I think it's what's what's interesting is the way to it's tied to like sexuality and bodily reproduction right like her and then she draw ends up dropping the blood on her they get the blood dropped is dropped on her actually so yeah and it's yeah right right because I mean it's what happens in the I mean I think I don't know everyone everyone knows this is that before I saw the film I didn't like it's it's what I don't know it's one I don't know it's one of those things that like you do have to I don't think this part has filtered into culture everyone knows that Carrie gets her period for the first time in the showers in the locker room in the in the women's room in high school but what hasn't exactly filtered into culture is that because of her religious mother played amazingly by Piper Laurie who thought the film was a comedy which is why that her performance oh wow yeah yeah I mean that like a like a dark comedy that's what yeah yeah so she so it's the the line that her teacher says about her is that before she menstruated for the first time she said I don't think she knew it was possible for that to happen to woman you know and and that so that I don't think has filtered into no it's more like like that would be horribly embarrassing for you know any any any women anywhere the and then it's the like this like this this double this double shock by your own body right yeah exactly exactly and I'm and you know this like again another like a pretty good moment for like for the Chris Devon yeah argument about about why my of power the object the object right right okay when the when that which is which which should just be inside becomes out yeah okay and that I mean so again a perfect example and the so the film so we're going to track the drive which is what you know you and I are trying to do in this yeah there's this moment so Carrie is I just mentioned this for like historical interest it Stephen King thinks is better than the book he wrote whereas the shining which will come on the next he he hates it he hates it so much the one of the things that is different in the the film from the book which I again I think I read somewhere King commenting on he thought this was quite good is that so okay the the these girls conspired to get revenge on Carrie because the teacher punished them because they were so awful to her and so this one lead girl conspires to get pigs blood from a farm which is crazy because like John Travolta has to kill a pig like you have to go like it's it's kind of wild yeah that the links that they went to to embarrass this poor girl yeah and so there's two storylines happening at the same time one of the girls feels really guilty and so she asks her boyfriend who is like a total honk of the month kind of guy to take her to the prom and it's totally legitimate like it's it's it's totally totally legitimate and they having a nice time and then there's this plot to absolutely ruin her life from this other girl right and with the pig with the pigs blood dropping pigs blood on her when she gets crowned like queen like king and queen of them yeah whatever yeah right so when the blood comes down on her which is a really nice moment from the palma of of the gaze because he you the the one like honest girl like who wants to try to stop it gets thrown out by the teacher because she remembers her from before teasing carry so she thinks she's up to no good yeah but she's the only one who sees what's about to happen and can could possibly stop it yeah and and she doesn't and so there's just this this thread not this thread this like cable wire whatever that the girl underneath the the stage where carries on is is trying to pull and it's it like it takes so long takes so long right it takes so long and that's where this is a great example of the gaze because you you are the viewer is absolutely on the side of of carry because of how mistreated she's been right and you want her to you want her to have a nice time and not get blood dumped on her right for yeah exactly and but also you need you want that to fall because you want to see what happens and that's like a very basic basic understanding of how the gaze works in and I think it's I think what's fascinating about we're saying is it's the contrast between your conscious wish and your unconscious desire right that that's what the film mobilizes and that's when you really see the gaze at work in the film right like you're you you're like wait a minute I don't want it to fall but I want to fall right like there's this yeah I think that's the that's the thing like the the thing we talked about in psycho to the when the car is going down into the into the swamp like obviously you don't want the crime you know when Mary and murdered but you want him to get away with it too so that so I think that I think this is another great example of that it's interesting how often in horror films you get this instance of the gaze like not so much one of humanity points about that the local is the gaze and in night of living dead and here in carry I feel like it's really evident too I agree totally and so then there's this so there's this is the moment that that king I think really liked and that is different from the book in the book carries is everyone laugh at her including the teacher who was her defender and in the book the teacher was secretly really annoyed with carry and having to defend her and so she did laugh at her misfortune at in this moment with the with the pigs blood raining down on her in the film she doesn't really actually laugh at carry but carry imagines it to have happened yeah and that like like it like that would like of course of course my one defender would also be against me and there's really no reason for her not to think that like that like it's a perfectly reasonable take from her and so one of the first people she kills and like quite a brutal way like with because her like telekinetic powers are unleashed from this like horrible embarrassment and she she does kill the teacher and so it's more it's more like a it's it's a very like ironic and dark kind of death that you as a viewer like you feel bad about and then like again you know you you you support carry you support carry against the kids you support carry against her mother and her mother this is one of my favorite horror tropes when people can play it off when someone is crazy and also right yeah like like I like it's it's really really hard to do that well I think 10 Cloverfield Lane does really good job with it with a young goodman character like he's right about the world being and ended because of aliens invading but he was also a crazy guy who kidnapped two kids right is basically you know and and I and I and carry I thought about this I was trying to define I was not able to find something that was like really prominent like that was like a like an indelible lesson indelible mark in culture before this that also employed that idea but I just think it so effects a great mother yeah great mother is horrible but also it turns up she's right yeah and so you you kind of got a you got to sit with that yeah which which which I which I like a lot so final word on carry no I think that I feel good about that yeah okay I ready for our 70s mega minute got a lot of options this time I'm rolling the D8 this time okay so here's what we got we got we've got slasher films we've got anthology horror which kind of starts in this decade and that like with the VHS okay films and then a little bit into 80s with Halloween three season of the witch which has come back into being re-evaluated okay I think a more positive light then I've got the extra system the Omen alien hillbilly horror and I then Susperia and phantasm I think I have twin together I think that's a reason I haven't written down this way so I'm going to roll the D8 okay and you okay I ready for this okay all right it's an eight you know what that was no that was alien okay so the one full of I could talk about oh is that right yeah yeah I have no idea what any of those other things are so none of them oh come on all right whatever that's fine so let's all right so then you start then a I guess I guess about alien I would say what's true obviously this is a film that Barbara Creed talks a lot about in monstrous feminine because the alien is as a feminine figure but I I think it's interesting too that just to tie this idea about about drive and the figures like there's a way in which that they everyone else other than the the alien is is driven this is a figure of drive inclusive of the of the artificial intelligence figure nice nice synthetic being that he he is actually the the main figure of his own self-destruction in the guise of working for capital so I think that that's I mean that's I mean this is famous for its critique of capital in the way capital will employ anything to to profit from even this this horrible self-destructed or this horrible destructive thing which ends up when it gets employed by humans being self-destructive but I think I like that about it also really quickly remember also the company that employs them I don't forget it's it's they're just called the company the company yeah yeah like the capital T capital C and I also like that this is this this is one of the most feminist horror films because this is almost always the case because it was just act it was a part not necessarily written for a woman and it was cast was a Gourney Weaver and the other thing I would like to say about it I'd like about it is that it's a it's a reverse psycho that you start in psycho you you're with the here the main star and then the main star dies and in this film you have no idea who the main the main star seems to be the captain or it seems to be so and then it ends up being Ripley the Sigourney Weaver figure so it's a reverse trajectory of psycho and I think that's pretty cool very very nice okay I'm I'm gonna only offer this I think it's a really it's a this is a great it's a great film school film you can learn a lot about how to how to really how to watch a movie from watching alien the first thing I'll say that that starts off a theme for the film and it's before you even realize what's happening is that the first shot reverse shot in the film is the computer getting the message that they have to go investigate I mean you don't know this at the time but everyone is is a is a sleep the camera goes through the the ship and everyone is kind of in it you know it's very influenced from 2001 and their the camera eventually gets because there's a message coming into the like ships on board computer and as the message is like you getting scrolling out on the screen the camera is not just on the computer getting the message it also does a reverse shot to like a helmet that's on the back of a chair like that would be in front of it so you have this like I put it this way this like non human shot reverse shot shower version always used to for for dialogue right and here like this this really nice thing where it maybe isn't the human that is the most important it's a nice like de-centering I I would argue of of the the human in that film which is what is gonna happen in that movie right you know there's you don't there's an android on board you didn't know reason for anyone to know that at the beginning of the film and then of course the the perfect life form there's this nice alien is famous has a famous pitch before it was made which was jaws and space and there's this really nice when Ash the android is explaining that he admires the creature he says some things about it that mirror things that Richard dry for this character says yeah in jaws about the shark which is that it's like a perfect organism yeah and for like in dry for this he says it just swims and eats yeah and then I in alien ash says it's it's just like a marvel of evolution I think right which is again which avoids it avoids the drive right it avoids being self-destructed yes and I very what's interesting just to yeah to transition to shining like I think what's interesting is that actually Jack torrents is a lot like that in in the shining right like he's this like his and I think he the thing that he lacks as a subject is any he's he lacks like any singularity that would define him so all he can do is just repeat the same this this nonsensical all your work and no play makes Jack a dull boy like that's his novel just that sentence repeated it God only knows how many times right so that I think that what's interesting is there's a link between the alien and jack torrents and I and again I think that that's it's it's almost this this idea of the monstrous is not the drive is ubiquitous I think in this post psycho horror universe and I think that's really cool by the way I should say that I teach with the foremost Stephen King expert and he you just from his name is Tony Magistral he's he's he's he's he teaches the English department University of Vermont and he's had King here before as a guest and and his friend I think he thinks of him as his friend and and it is what you said is true that that King really likes Carrie and he really really doesn't like the shining and I guess I can see it that he that what he didn't like about it is that that that that that jack torrents doesn't really change and he thinks in it starts with the casting of Nicholson like once you look at Nicholson you know he's a psychotic and and that that it goes and then and then so that it's the point that it's the hotel that renders him this that's completely lost I kind of like that because I think it's it's that he's a like all the hotel does is exacerbate what's already there in Kubrick's in Kubrick's reading I think which I I kind of like that dimension of it and I so I think King is not right so much the other change is not important I don't think but he changes the so the the hedge which is a maze in the film is are animals this animal shapes in the in the in the novel so that's the other other change got it yeah yeah um it's I understand also too that like the the book for King was very personal like he yeah he wrote it um as he was trying to because he had a dance with alcoholism and I think he would he either was or felt he was I don't know to what extent abusive toward his his spouse at the time so it was like like that was that book was was a was him working through something and Kubrick's like great I'm in a foreground all that and it's not going to not going to be what you want it to be yeah um the like that because for him the the the point laid like much much elsewhere right and there's a there's a uh so okay there's a there's a lot in that movie there's a there's a pretty good documentary of like conspiracy theories related to the film uh called room uh 237 30 yeah which is which is which is pretty which is named after the room like don't go in room 237 this is something that uh that the that the that the kid uh gets uh he's got that shine he gets the uh from uh from scam and crothers um or no he tells him that directly I think actually he tells him directly yeah he tells him directly because uh Danny sees into his mind and asks him about room 237 he says don't go in that yeah yeah um and anyway so there's a there's a lot a lot of that film though a lot of of room 237 the the the documentary are people um making conspiracy theories but they're actually just like I think reading uh thoughtful filmmaking and what's there like there's this conspiracy about the film uh having to do with the uh the Holocaust of the Native Americans in this country and that's not so much a conspiracy theory as it is something that Kubrick was thinking about and right put in into the movie um and there's another thing where there's another one in that movie where it's uh one of the there's this line from someone who the the film has to be watched uh forwards and backwards and so the filmmakers of room 237 get uh I think two copies of the film uh like on on film reels and they lay it on top of each other and there are just these uh like incredible coincidences you might say where like I think when scat me and cruders is introduced uh in in the in the film it lines up like oh pretty proximately to when he dies uh later in the movie and again it's just like you know Kubrick was was just so uh was so precise yeah yeah so but um I so I love this movie the first time that I had seen it in pieces before I saw it fully for the first time um but the first time I saw it was as an adult and was that um my friends were the in keepers at the shell in the shelburn farms and so wow yeah down the road for a place to see yeah yeah so they lived there off season and they got a my my friend Taylor who I did the podcast with got a um a projector screen and a projector and that's how we that's how I watched shining for the shining for the first time fully was in a hotel out of season which was it was a pretty terrifying yeah it's terrifying it's uh but it that's like that's a seeing scene horror film in an environment like that is like uh hidden it was like hidden homeruns in chorus field Todd yeah and it's just it's just a lot easier it's really nice that's aligned from Bobby Wagner by the way former NFL player yeah about his letterbox yeah that if he sees a movie in the in the theater with a coke and popcorn it's like hitting at chorus field and I love really like that take yeah anyway um I love that move the love this movie and Taylor and I did a podcast that was called every five minutes of the shining and we did a podcast about every five minutes of the film and we made it like I don't know like five or six episodes so what is that like 30 minutes into the film because I think like there's something to talk about to focus in on like every five minutes every yeah it's true it's true here's what here's what I want to talk about formally speaking is Kubrick throughout the film makes extensive use of the dissolve as the main transition between scenes right as opposed to like a cut or fade to black or or or or anything and what he does in the use of the dissolve like this is he helps to make the argument about about the the overlook hotel which is that the space of it is impossible so like people have done like when Danny goes around on the big wheel he makes like what is it like two two or three left turns yeah or three left turns which would make him have done a circle effectively but he ends up in a new area yeah there there's all kinds of things like this in the film where Kubrick tries to make the the space of the of the overlook hotel impossible from a geometric standpoint aided by the way this is one of the first major films to have where the steady cam was used yeah that especially the big wheel shot is a very famous steady cam shot absolutely and so you think about the the argument of the dissolve that Kubrick makes is that it's it's I think novel I don't I don't know that that filmmakers necessarily understood it like like this the way that he he puts it in this movie is that like it's when you dissolve from one location to another there's implicitly a continuity of space that you're that you're doing and he he does this so like there's um there's a dissolve from like when they finally get to the hotel and there's the like what do you call it when like the the eaves of a house right we're like yeah the okay there's a dissolve from the eaves of the house to the a ladder that's inside the someone's doing work but the ladder is pointless it's like it's like to to know where no one could use it for anything right there's just a person working there and it's just to make this uh this again this this continuity of space that contributes this notion of an impossibility and that's the kind of that thing that's going to go on can they happen in this uh in this film is that the reach of the overlook hotel the reach of this haunted place is is impossible it goes well beyond any kind of reasonable or rational boundary and uh no one explains that no one says that i mean this is also the idea of the shining how the how you could communicate across great spaces directly to someone and no no one has to say that about the overlook hotel that it has it's like it's tendrils like all like once you get in here you're like you become sick with it like no one ever has to say that because in the way just that the transitions are handled in the film that idea is already communicated and i want is like that's just one of things i find remarkable yeah that's great like it's great yeah yeah i agree i agree like it's about the this place that's that's i mean it's about like the way that the lack of touch with the public like this the like i mean in a way that's Kubrick's critique of cap it'll write like you're sort of in sconst in this private universe and you got of that that's the thing that's oppressive and it's not like the private is respite from the public it's that we're missing the public is respite from the private at least Wendy is right and so i think that's yeah yeah you know she can't she doesn't have a public and the shining is this attempt to get out to the public but it ends up being ineffectual because when the scatman and brother's character comes he's almost immediately killed right like he can the only thing that can and i think it's interesting that the only thing that saves Wendy and Danny is the is the maze right like the maze ends up and i think that's why Kubrick clearly he had to change the the outside to make that to make that work and and i think he the maze is precisely this and it's like a pub it's an outdoor public space it's outside the hotel and i think are the resort and i think that's really crucial to what's going on very nice i like that a lot and yeah we mentioned that a couple films ago but like the Wendy is the figure of drive and in the film like absolutely and i it's it's a shame i don't know it's a shame that Kubrick actually drove her crazy yeah i mean she she ended up not she doesn't resentful about it she thought he ended up got he got a good performance out of her so yeah but it was it's a toll on well there you go good good to good to know uh the yeah so let's uh so we're going to move on okay but as you know this is the game and now you're starting to get annoyed with it because you want to move on um here here's our options for 80s okay okay you ready all right uh we got uh john carbender okay cronenberg okay west Craven okay uh fried in the 13th by itself just specifically night marinel street by itself and then the evil dead okay okay um so i'm going to roll and we see what we got and that is going to be uh two and that's going to be david cronenberg okay talk let's talk about cronenberg in the in the 80s for a mega minute okay uh what's a good 80s video drone probably is an 80s video drone is my uh think that might be my favorite of his i mean there's also fly i mean like and he's so influential uh also for the substance uh right for the film we're going to talk about the main film we want to get to uh yeah i think that he just i mean one of the things he tries to and this gets i think the this gets the scanners i think does this but like this shows like the that there's an excess attached to the body and then in exostance which is after the 80s but i think that that gets maybe that's the best articulation of it but in video drone for sure like the and then and it leaves it's fascinating because it this this external thing is itself destructive but it leads to our self-destruction so if you're like that's this thing it's like the way it's a little bit like night of the living dead right like this external force is not itself self-destructive but it leaves it like occasions the self-destruction of the of the James Woods that the main character in the film yeah oh i love it yeah no that's great i um i also love i love a film that's kind of about tv and it's about tv being um but dangerous but not like for sure for nice and sure and like condescending way but a way that like understands how it like tv tv gets inside you i think is a is a nice way of like again like that if you wanted to to do my like steven king thing on that like it's it's it's a center of everyone's home it's like that line from it's like the king thing yeah that you're talking about yeah yeah for sure yeah yeah yeah Joey Trubiani episode of friends as he he goes out uh to uh on a day with someone she says she doesn't have a television and he says then what is all the furniture in your living room point toward you know and yeah it's it's a so just uh like a it's a nice way of taking that like that idea like the like TV like TV is the center of culture TV is inside TV is already inside the house and just like just twisting that yeah knife a little bit and i think that's that's at bottom what is so effective about about that film so um nice that's a nice mega minute so we're moving on to uh a double feature we're talking about these two films together um Blair Witch Project and paranormal activity so and because there's something important i think that uh we can extract from this that i think is general for horror um as such which is that for it to work i think you have to think it's real yeah and Blair Witch Project is the maybe the best case for this because it it's it's uh it's uh it's much more important and much more of a phenomenon than it is i think uh it's a bad film yeah uh i why i wouldn't go that far but it's it's much well they're both bad i think both i'd see i disagree on that also but i i see i know i understand why you're saying that like it's not they're not like these other films you know they're not it doesn't you don't have the character work of carry you don't you know you don't have what's you know you we don't have what's clearly like uh we we don't have the uh technical sophistication with the dissolve and like the shining so i understand why why are you saying that but but it is uh Blair Witch Project it's hard to maybe remember this but people thought all these teenagers were dead right when like a lot of people did and um and i m db which was in its infancy at the time listed all the actor for a full year i don't know if you know this it listed all the actors as um missing presumed dead on their bio for a year so they were in on it too that's funny yeah i i i i i have a funny so i took pillar and i took my mom to this not long after my dad had died and she's like what did you do today why did you take it to film and she she was absolutely convinced they were dead uh i mean it's i think it's an interesting film because it you know they say you know how they say um that that not show like jaws is it infinitely better until they show the shark right like that showing the the villain showing the monster is like that is it negative but i think the problem with Blair Witches it takes that to the end degree yeah it basically never shows the witch and so it just it really i think there's something about that that just it's like it reminds me of a film like Lady in the Lake the film noir like you okay yeah there's like you need an identification with the main character uh okay so let's just show only everything from his point of view well that doesn't work so it's like the film has taken this precept of horror filmmaking or even the thriller that don't show the terror the terrible thing until later right and then and it's taken it to the end degree and then it's and then it doesn't it doesn't seem something's missing like you can't really you can't really fear it properly because you never see it and i think and yeah and that's i think that's a negative about this film but i i do think it's interesting to link with paranormal activity i've one little funny story so paranormal activity i was drugged to by so we have so ken rinehard my art art now you don't hold on you just you weren't roofied right that's not i was out of roof you know drug like carried you're right exactly i'm sorry yes that's good not drugged to i was a drug it too um that that some people say dragged but but what do they do man but i i whatever i'm i'm a little illiterate um so so ken rinehard my dear friend was here visiting giving a talk on st. Paul and we go we're like let's go out to the movies because is what we do when someone visits so we don't they don't have to talk to us it's not for us that's like they don't talk to us for two hours and we're like hello there like oh there's a nice little geniferanison romaine comedy i don't forget what it was uh or something with Catherine highgold something he's like i can't he's just i can't go to see that but i he goes i i'm excited about this paranormal activity and how do i like it each other like well we we can't but we don't we don't want to say we can't see that because he's the guest and so we go to see it and we both we both had a watch on and we looked at our watch every 30 seconds like okay it's almost over it's on with only there's 30 seconds are gone it's only and it was the was the most terrifying that and the ring it's too most terrifying moments of my it's just shows i haven't had a terrifying enough life i guess because it was more in cinema than in real life but uh yeah so i just i hated it but i feel like in in both cases like isn't it that there's something controlling us that can't be explained right like that's something in this woods that's controlling the woods that can't be explained right and that's what i think that's what ends up being the thing that really that that that and that that that takes away i i i do think that it kills you obviously but that it also strips away your singularity right like that's what's and that's where i think there's a link between a film we've already talked about and i'm living dead and a film we're going to talk about it follows right like there's this threat of like losing one singularity as of whatever you become in those films um that's pretty good the i think there's the scene where uh maybe the most famous scene from uh Blair Witch Project uh which is when the heather it like has the camera in front of her face and she says it's all her fault yeah she did she did everything like she she they when they were lost she didn't say that she she was like and and and she's like vowing the uh the like the drive like it's it's it's it's kind of a it's a nice moment of like if it was a tragedy you'd you'd say that's the moment of an agnoresis right yeah the the central figure like recognizes has this tragic recognition that everything they're not the they're not a victim of circumstance that everything that has happened to them is it's it's their fault yeah you know um and i think that's it so that's a nice that's a really nice moment in that film uh and and maybe the one i think in all of these films where where someone uh has a has a moment where they they recognize that they have been like a figure of like of drive in a way that this is what i've been trying to position as not like the zombie but like it's like Heather Donnie who in Blair Witch project yeah yeah that's a that's a figure of the drive yeah um paranormal activity so the the reason why we we we twin these is that um uh Blair Witch Project as I said earlier like instantiates the found footage uh subgenre of of horror film and paranormal activity picks that up the clover field the first one uh does that as well there are some other films um i can't remember if this one starts this decade or it's then it's the next one hellhouse is really is a really great uh found footage film that then has a lot of sequels um that uh that are successful in different ways i think um there was something you said and i i wanted to this is what i wanted to talk about so a number of episodes ago you had a comment about the digital and i think this does go back we talked about Hugh a lot in this uh episode but this is sort of what we're we're saying in the last Jedi episode like the third or fourth episode of this podcast where it's like the he was making this point about the digital failing to fail and it's like another way of saying this is that like um it with when you look at when we talk about uh digital filmmaking um we have access to to everything i think this was your this was your point yeah when you were talking about um digital cameras and CGI like that was a kind of more more the thing so these are our films that are only made possible with uh digital cameras and have like a grittier um in a more like an unvarnished uh aesthetic almost to the point i mean especially a bear which project that it doesn't look like it was even produced even though the cuts in the movie are across the cameras are not possible like it had to be a movie to get the cuts but it's it it's it's a it is a nice index of people not understanding how a film is made that they could have thought it was an actual documentation of these teens disappearing uh in the woods yeah you know somewhere um but anyway i wanted to ask you about this because uh i think the digital is up to something uh different in these films than it is in Miami vice or um or the first two like the the the prequel star wars movies and i want to i was i'm genuinely interested so there's maybe a bit of a selfish question and uh not helpful for the podcast but i was genuinely interested what you had uh what you would say about this in contradiction to the heavily produced digital films yeah i think it i mean it does you think you're right like the digital here is showing how it's leading us to a failure right like it's showing us there's a limit and the limitation is just that it it continues to exist beyond us right like so so in a way like the digital can expose like the people are i we assume dead in these cases right and and and but but something lives on and so it's like i i do think this is true like i think that the digital ends up taking this drive from us right and then so it like in the lives in the digital i think that's one thing that we kind of see in these in these films so uh okay so other thing before we move on to before the mega minute and it and it follows is the big thing that happens in this decade though in this country and in europe is uh torture porn or what in europe is sometimes referred to as the new extremity or the new french extremity and this is from films like saw and hostile and choristas in this country and then um a lot of different like martyrs is in is a film that people often point to uh europe i mean there's then there's like a serbian film uh as well so like that's a big thing i i i can't really handle that stuff that's really just to that's the little to it's too hard for me to watch because it it intersects with this thing i think for these to work you do have to think it's real and the only way that i can make it through those movies is i have to remind myself that it's not right and so that's just and that's just me i'm not saying they're failures for for that reason but like that's the only way i can go i can go through it and i do think you made this point to me before the show that like um the horror film might be the genre that encourages the most ironic viewing right i think that's true and i think that i yeah i mean i i think that that is probably true and i think it's a reaction to this which is it's a reaction to the injunction to submit yourself to the logic of the of the film which is oftentimes uh just too horrible uh and and and upsetting to to fully like integrate into your like totally great your your your train of consciousness you know it's and so anyway so that's where the where where that breaks down for me is the is the is the torture porn thing which i know that um Hilary has written about she has um and uh in in relation to oh what is her term it's not the dream work she takes she uses that oh no this is a different this a new book so that's it's not it's okay i don't want to talk about that okay all right separate gotcha um okay uh yeah fear work that was it yeah that's that's not the torture stuff i collapse those two things together because i'm afraid of the torture torture torture porn film okay um okay so here's our here's our last mega minute because i figure you don't you're done with me on this uh in in a in a very loving way so here's our options okay you ready yeah uh which is teen horror this is from the 90s uh the legacy of masks which i is a little thing you know that's a big that's a big thing in horror films we haven't really talked about that um science of lambs candy man uh funny games and then i've got audition those are my those are our our options okay okay so let's see what we got here and that is a critical one which is teen horror so uh what do we uh what do we what do we got what we want to say about the teen horror film because um i'll i'll start off with this okay i think that that's a huge deal in the 90s you know especially two films that become franchises the idea of franchises was another thing i had on my little mega minute thing uh that that starts to develop as horror i mean really in the late toward the late 70s into the 80s the idea of these things being franchises with multiple sequels that starts to happen with more regularity um but scream and the the ghost face mask right like uh that's that's an important very important uh teen horror film and then i know you did last summer and then there are other films as well then uh you get into other things that like take place in in schools or around high schools uh like the um or or just people of that age like the i'm thinking of like the craft and like the faculty right um even something like i mean this isn't horror film but even something like uh i don't know cruel intentions has the like so there's like a big teen thing yeah for sure for sure um like to stir big films about the teen years yeah definitely so um to me that my my favorite one though is from the there's more recent is Jennifer's body like i think that oh yeah okay really does a great job of of doing a little bit like like what the substance does with the like art all right well then we won't we won't uh yeah but i'll leave that i guess i'll i guess i'll say this the thing and i'll just talk about scream is that there is this moment in the 90s where i think everyone starts to figure out like this is what horror films do and this is what scream two um makes the actual plot of the movie where one of the characters who was killed in the first one has left a tape for them about what happens in horror sequels and that it's you know it's more more gory the deaths are are more violent more people die that kind of that kind of thing like you got to kick everything up a notch um and i think this is uh this is the the decade where the whole thing where like there's a uh there's a a car insurance commercial that's about uh teens making bad decisions in horror films yeah like that just plays all the time during football games and it's from this decade i don't think that that was the assumption that was the idea of the horror film in the 80s it's really the 90s that that does this which is like it's teen teens making stupid decisions and then there's uh you know a film in the 2010s that also like a more meta horror film like cabin in the woods which is makes the argument that the appeal of these films is about the teens being like a sacrifice right uh to to some authority and i think again that i don't i don't see that so much and and like i mean certainly not in the films that we covered but i i really only see that being turning to be overwhelmingly the case in the 90s so that's just a turn i don't have a um a a develop take because this was a mega minute uh but that's something to just sort of flag maybe like uh for another time so okay we're moving on to it follows which is the scariest film about about empty space yeah that from that's for me like the what most horror films do to make you afraid of being claustrophobic or or in in like tight talked away spaces this film does with being in the park or at the beach or being you know being being anywhere and i think that's uh something very very much to uh to its credit and something that uh not really something i had seen in uh in in in a horror film before this time uh before before i saw this movie like i it's always like the the spaces where you think the characters get relief in other horror films this film makes you uh it gives you the same it gives you the same paranoia that the characters have in the movie because it can take the form of anybody whatever it needs this is what the character says in the film whatever it needs to get close to you yeah once you have it you can't get rid of it you can only give it to another person and giving it to another person maybe helps it get away from you and it is transmitted through uh through sex which is another thing in uh like in scream the the idea that like uh uh if you have sex in the movie you die because it's like this idea of like the horror film right right the horror film is is is after is kind of pure tannical morality to the horror film. eggs exactly right so that uh when when the teen has sex the the the virgin lives basically the other way of raising it yeah yeah um and so this this film again in a in a meta and uh way puts that on uh on on the stage and and uh is what enables the film to be um i think as effective as it as it is because it's it's like you're you're um you're not used to the you're not used to the horror film where where sex becomes the solution to a problem right but it also just furthers the problem uh exactly exactly it's so that that aspect of the film is interesting but um i but again yeah so my my two my two big takeaways are the way that in contradiction to the pure tannical 90s but again it's not judgmental i don't think this this film right like um and then what this does with space yeah i think that's really good i think that's really good yeah i feel like that the you know it's take on the zombie like it's i mean the figure that follows them that ends up when you sex when they turn to a zombie so i think it it is a kind of new version of the zombie film but what's interesting to me is that the zombies are are are really not sexual beings they're just trying to yeah and maybe the eating is sexual eating but not really and and here i feel like um it's really you really get a sense that the that it's a because of that sex is introduced into the problematic and and and and again like i feel like the the character the other characters engage in self-destructive like what we would call death drive activity but the once you become a monster yourself you don't you just are trying to yeah just trying to kill the person that you're pursuing right so i feel like that's a that's a that's a real difference between between the between this again between this kind of horror film and what came much earlier um the final uh the final boss so to speak uh being their their father yeah that being that it is a is a nice is a nice little as a nice little little twist it's um it's the also i think that there's there's uh there's rumors that or i think there might be a sequel which i kind of hope that there's not i i just yeah one of those films where the final the final shot is so great because it's the like the two characters who like it's the this usually what happens in or i would say like if this was a premise in like a screen movie there's the guy who's the best friend of of the the girl and she has a boyfriend and so she's with some other guy and like maybe that i don't know makes him crazy or something and he tries to kill the guy or the or the girlfriend or whatever but anyway that guy turns out he was the guy who had it and he gave it to the girl right and he tell tells her what the rules are um and i think this is another important thing in in a horror film like this and we'll get to this in the substance you have to like the rules have to be simple but have like multi-fairy is complicate uh conversations and consequences right and so the rules for this film uh or that it never stops coming for you it can take the shape of anyone and it can take a long time too that's what's different than than uh nine to living dead i think that it that it can take weeks before it can because it can only walk right that's another rule yeah yes it walks like it can it'll lock like if you move it to a different town it'll walk miles to get it'll walk to yeah yeah if you go up the stairs it'll be you know it'll be difficult it's like uh you know that's that's how to defeat a dollic in the old uh doctor who is you get sure you go up gotta go up the stairs but but that is not um uh not available because it's just going to keep keep coming for you right um and anyway so the uh what happens with the with that like in the friendship is that the guy and the girl they have sex so that they can have the same problem together which is a take that i i kind of like so like they're like they're in it they're genuinely in the same uh like implication and problem yeah uh at the same time i think it's pretty good that's pretty um yeah it's a pretty it's a pretty cool idea and i think that um that's something uh that is this that's where i don't know like like if i was a again trying to trace this this drive thing is like that is like it's obviously a mistake why would if you don't have it why would you want to have it right right yeah but but you have to but you have to engage in the the drive of self destruction to like have to like to to help your friend yeah i think it's a little i think that's really good Ryan because i think it's one of the one of the films that really shows how the death drive is the key to our ethical behavior and i i don't think that's a common that's not it doesn't appear that commonly to be evident but i think that is true and i think this film really nicely nicely tries to show that so um totally totally totally agree there's no mega minute here we're going straight to the substance uh let's let a great film both of us uh highest recommendation i think highest recommendation yeah yeah um so we've tried it previously talked about um uh corley how do you say her last name uh farja i think it's hard it sounds like it's not a French name because there's no accent on the e at the end so so farja so farja it's like it's it's hard to it's not it doesn't seem like it's that but her name is corley farja yeah okay um and you really like revenge her i love revenge this is her first film yeah that's her yeah um this film um it's really interesting she had a short film i'm forgetting the name of it i just like did a little uh you know into her her background kind of thing and her um her background her her her short film is was about this like a a technological development where you can get something like i think either like installed in your in your brain where you would uh live for for 12 hours as your um like as an image of your most perfect self yeah and everybody else could see that and then you would have to go back and she kind of takes that idea from her from an earlier short film and and really just whips it uh and into into body horror in in this movie so like um i yeah so i want let's let's let's talk about it this is obviously a spoiler town if you really want if you want to see a sharnoff this podcast right now Probably. Although I want to say this. I said this to you. I feel like it's a. No, it's not spoilable because literally 10 minutes into watching it. There's no question how it's gonna end. Like there's just no. You can't. You can't. You I had a student. I told you this. I just do the K about to be instant. Well, I was kind of hoping it was all going to be a dream. When you know you're stuck with that, you know, it's pretty. It's like a, it's a little like postman always rings twice, right? Like he starts narrating. He's on. He's ready to go to the death house. And so you know, he's on. There's a reprieve coming. So I think so. Okay, I think that's true. But I do. I would do would want to knock it into as much specifics as possible. Yeah. Because I do think that it is the route that it takes to get to where I agree. I agree. I think it's going to go. I just I just think what's important is the way in which it's both an incredible feminist film, right? And at the same time, it's this incredible exploration of the divide. And maybe these are the same thing, right? The divide between subjectivity and identity, right? Like it's it's and it's showing the more we invest ourselves in our symbolic identity, the more we we steal from our subjectivity. Right? Like that's the yeah. I find that to be one of the greatest kind of that's what I love about it. But but I think it's articulating that specifically in feminist terms, right? Like that that if you're a woman, you're you're the symbolic identity of certain idealized femininity is much more powerful for you. And then you have to that you have to deal with that, right? So I feel like that's or much more of a lure for you. And that's what the film is trying to combat. But I really feel like it's it's just really one of the what for it has these both these things going on at the same time, but it's just incredible. I what I what I found so affecting is that in the in the film is that like it it is a very difficult body horror very inspired by by Croninburg. There's a lot of there's a lot of Kubrick to it. We didn't talk about the bathroom scene, the 180 degree rule breaking in the shining. But the bathrooms and then the carpet in this like in this movie are just absolute references to the shining. And I think what they contribute is like a like this the sense for the character of just like a world, you know, a world gone wrong. And it begins with Demi Moore's character who referencing the Amy Schumer sketch of of an actress on her last fuckable day. That's the that's where the movie starts. Yeah. And it's it's it's a Demi Moore's last TV show of this like workout kind of like Richard's it's like a Richard Simmons thing or like Jane Fonda thing. Yeah. Jane Fonda thing and or like more contemporary. It's like the what you watch on the TV screen on your peloton but like that was a TV show was on daytime TV. And so it's on her last day and she has to go she has to go to the wrong bathroom. So that's like I like out on maybe it's like an implicit 180 degree rule. There's just the women's room and there's just the men's room. Yeah. And she has to she can't go in. And so she is in in the restroom listening to Dennis Quaid who plays a cartoon version of a horrible Hollywood executive. Yeah. And he does it really well. And she just he doesn't name her but she can tell he's talking about about her. Right. And about how they're going to replace her with someone young and hot and he's like done with this you know with her being old and like he's so glad that she's done her whatever. And it's this nice it's this moment where you know she sees the the the mask that everyone that everyone has. It kind of falls off. And so as she's driving home from having been confronted with like people were just nice to her to her face. And she only found out about this because you know she is in the men's room. This like like this is where the like this is where the truth is. As you know like I think it's kind of like a nice commentary being there too. Then she's driving home and she sees a billboard with her face on it and the face is being taken off. Yeah. And that is like just literalizing you know how she's feeling like you know being replaced and being like being eradicated you know from the from public view just just absolutely being taken away. She gets into car accident the car flips a bunch ends up in the hospital. She's fine. And the not the doctor but the the male nurse. Yeah yeah the nurse. Yeah he gives her he says something to her he touches her spine in a really weird and off-putting way. Right he says you're a good candidate. Yeah. And then when she puts on her her jacket there's something in her pocket and it's a USB stick wrapped up in paper. And it's that the note says it changed my life and what the USB stick it just says the substance and then there's a phone number to call. So that's and I'm gonna stop doing plot summary here but what ends up what ends up happening is she gets this she watches the video and it's this promise of getting a more perfect self. Okay and so there's three there's three rules with the substance that again I think are really important which is that you are the matrix everything comes from you you are one you get to it says you get to live as this other self for seven days and then you have to switch back no exceptions. That's how it works. And so there's simple rules and it's just so she takes his bullshit then she goes out to to to lunch with the Dennis Quaid guy and he's just disgusting and horrible and eating shrimp and the most off-putting I don't think I want to have shrimp again. Probably pretty good because of economic not economically both it's pretty horrible. Yeah it's pretty bad see see through to eat so might be a shadow point in that particular scene. And so she so she decides to go in and then it's just like I mean this is the big spoiler town from from plot but I think this is important is that like she she takes it she she goes to to get the substance which is in like a back alley. Yeah really back alley in Hollywood and and and what it causes to happen is it causes a Margaret Qualey just another being to emerge out of her back like it just like and then and then she's just on the ground passed out and then Margaret Qualey has to do all these things to keep the matrix her original body alive. And I thought and I wonder if I wonder if Demi Moore's character Elizabeth had the same thought. I thought your consciousness was also in was in the was in the other self but it doesn't and that's a really important point in the film. So and I want to get to this but also say there's kind of a Stephen King twist on here which is that when you live out here you see you you have the and I mean I think people know this like from seeing actors and actually on TV in films that like boy people go to actresses go to extreme links to try to try to seem young. Yeah if someone went to extreme links to be young again is like is kind of what's underlying this film I think part of why it's so horrifying so effective but the this other self thing this like absolute this division between and this is it's called the other self in the in the film she becomes soon she becomes a huge mega star Margaret Qualey does and they share dreams it seems like and so I think this is what you want to talk about was that there seems to be like if there is this absolute split there's no way that you can split from the unconscious which is maybe what when both of the characters find the entire substance experiment dissatisfying and they just want things to go back to the way they were or they just want to be autonomous when Sue the other self just wants to be an autonomous being they call the number and the number is the guy's voice from the from the the instruction video just saying like you are one you are one like you are one like and and I think it's really it's just a nice argument that like you can only be one with like like having a shared with a division I mean that's that's what's happening like you think that's a very ideological message like you are one right right the point is like what is one is this division within you and I think what's interesting is your point that they don't share a conscience but they share an unconscious right and I think that's the one of the key things to the film that you can't you can't renew your unconscious right like that ends up ends up being the thing that's that's ultimately determinative for Elizabeth Sparkle that's the Demi Moore character right like so I feel like that's it's really great on that but it also like she so feels like she needs this symbolic identity of the younger version of herself that she can't you're the only lovable part of me right she's exactly and then the way in which the film ends up showing us monstrosity emerging out of that I think is incredible and unforgettable I think as well yeah so but I but I do think that with a reference with an incredible reference to vertigo right incredible that that I that it's it's easy to miss it's it's a musical right you this is your musical yeah it's and there's a shot that is angled exactly the way when Jimmy Stewart um uh what is what's her name when she's not now Judy it's she's she played Madeline and then she becomes Judy yeah she is so it's when she is Judy when there there's just these great angles of like how he's putting like how he's dressing up Judy to look like Madeline and when this monstrous like a version of uh of of Sue and I guess a Elizabeth by extension the merges at the at the end of the film which is a nice like there's total like if there's Kronenberg in here there's like Stuart Gordon there's just castle freak and reanimator like there's like that's like like totally there so anyway there's those references to those films as well but the what I wanted to to to underline is that like as this uh this monster version of both characters uh has to host the New Year's Eve uh uh uh uh uh tell like television broadcast like the big big broadcast for any any network um and she's putting the the dress on she's she's like putting earrings on and then what she's just looking at herself in the in the mirror and what comes over and the soundtrack is the the the it's the precise sound from vertigo when Madeline is the recreation of Madeline as a reintegrating her so it's in this gaze moment in vertigo right yes and it's and it's also like uh I I would say it's a it's a it's a drive moment in the substance where like this so there's the like on the on the less complicated but I think profound side of things is like she becomes outwardly the way that she saw herself yeah yeah you know like that's that is the like kind of the destiny of the of the film and then I think because she's just so undermined like completely like who she was she's lost everything on on like this monster is um uh Elizabeth's face perfectly but she can't speak it's like it's a demi-moor's face on the back just just horrified but like emerge the way that she looked at the beginning of the film and not as part of the transformation that she went through during during the movie right um and as the monster she just like tries like Frankenstein to to be accepted or or or you know like uh and right and I I think it's like when it's I don't to me I'll just put it in the sentence it's like her her drive brought her to become a monster and then I think the for me this is where the film kind of becomes a little bit uh like horror comedy and like gore but it but has like a real affecting moment where she just tries to present her drive to everyone right on stage and and I found and I after and it's just it's really it's like it's very funny but it's up to this moment where she tries to get her drive accepted by by people and I like I like I almost started to cry like in the end it's very moving I agree it it's very moving in this moment and it's surprising for the way that the the film ends but that that's kind of my my big big takeaways from the film yeah I think that's pretty great yeah I've already kind of said what I think I feel like it's I feel like it's one of the best well it's the best film I've seen so far this year for one thing yeah it's already it's October so that's pretty far and into the year that's that's a word season babe so um okay I don't think this did a good in a category I don't think so either but it deserves one as far as I'm concerned yeah um there's also oh last thing there's a great double reference to uh 2001 when she reveals herself that is also because of the Barbie movie I think a reference to the yeah to the way the the Barbie movie begins and it's it's a very I think it's a nice commentary on on on on the film it's kind of like if I know uh so there's a lot a lot of a lot of people had like a lot of there were a lot of detractors um from the Barbie movie on like it's like uh the it's a surface level yeah right right right and I do think you you could say like this this movie does have everything that's not core for feminism is not not at all but I will also say like so last year I I was one of the panelists and an event on campus where there were like hundreds of students came out they want to talk about Barbie movie like all kinds of takes and um I just don't think that's going to happen about the substance I just I know that it's a less uh it's going to be like a less distributed film but there's not not going to be uh the thing that somebody else said was that the that movie like that movies uh feminism was not for like it was not exactly for people who were at like an elite uh private college or have like a masters or PhD that it was like for people on another side of the spectrum it was kind of a mic drop from this particular person I was surprised that someone actually like said this because I think some it like it shut down some conversation in the room and maybe in a way that wasn't ultimately productive but but I do think that uh this is this is the if you were wanting something else from Barbie I think this is the movie for you um and I just I don't I would love to be asked to have a discussion about this and yeah for sure on campus but I don't think it's I don't think it's gonna happen yeah uh it's not gonna have that kind of impact although I do hope that it does so um what's the lesson time again I think the lesson is the film that that we barely touched on but that is really great I think video watch video drum oh yeah I think it may be the the Kronenberg masterpiece and it's really it has a lot going on so so watch video drum watch video drum love it Todd all right over now Ryan over now Todd (upbeat music) (upbeat music)