‘Resident Evil’ Absolutely Rips!

quick reminder tickets go on sale tomorrow or today depending on when you're listening to this for the big picture live in san francisco we'll be at act's tony remby theater on wednesday october 21st and tickets will be available friday september 18th beginning at 11 a.m pacific time head to the ringer.com slash events for all the details we'll see you there i'm sean fennessey and this is the big picture a conversation show about evil resident evil on today's episode chris ryan joins me to discuss one of our most anticipated movies of the year and the official kickoff of horror movie season it's zach crager's new adaptation of the long running video game resident evil it's a gory goofy and glorious movie and we will break it all down as well as the history of horror comedy on the show but first some movie news right after this this episode is presented by state farm you know the feeling long day good meal you finally sit down and now you're just staring at your screen slasher rom-com period drama psychological thriller but some decisions don't have to be that hard state farm is here to help like when you choose to bundle and save with the personal price plan bundling just another way to save with the personal price plan like a good neighbor state farm is there prices are based on rating plans that vary by state coverage options are selected by the customer availability amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state every game day you show up for your team now it's your time ask your prescriber about we go v some maglutide injection 2.4 milligrams a glp1 call 1-833-4-we-go-v or visit wegovi.com to view the medication guide and to learn more about wegovi why wait okay cr what's up brother how are you i'm really good you're really feeling up for this i'm uh i'm still coming out on the like post resident evil screening vibe like i'm still vibrating off that i do want to tell the story of our screening together and apart but before we do that i have some news that i want to talk to you about absolutely some of which i would consider very consequential some of which feels minor i think what i consider major you might consider minor and vice versa oh okay so i want to start with noah bomback noah bomback who has been making movies for the netflix corporation for the last eight years four features in eight years on an exclusive deal it was announced this morning he's leaving netflix to go make a movie for clockwork which is the new indie shingle imprint at warner brothers i mean at least for now who knows what's going to happen with the merger yes but uh clockwork which is run by um christian parks who for years worked at neon and is a figure in the la movie scene um you know they made their mark initially by getting the restoration of ken russell's the devils back in the theaters which is coming in october and they've announced a bunch of new projects with a bunch of new filmmakers over the next 14 months bombax the next name on the list you say what uh i'm excited to see noah bomback tested by the box office um i think iron sharpens iron in a way and i have no way to care like whether his movies make two million dollars or 25 million dollars but there is a netflix cocoon around a group of directors and i'd like to see them out on like an even playing field and maybe singing for their supper a little bit more um does that seem cruel to say no it's interesting that it's coming in the aftermath of two of bombax more elevated productions i would say in white noise and in j kelly and two movies that were not received as well as a lot of his previous work i think his first two movies for netflix my road stories and especially marriage story are very interesting and i think it's going to be a lot of fun to see very well light celebrated um i'm a fan of all four of those movies and i'm really on a on a short list of people i think who were really at least interested in white noise and j kelly um but this is interesting to me for a variety of reasons because it feels like shifting ties at netflix when it comes to the movie stuff this comes at the same time that bombax partner greta gerwig there were some new announcements of the narnia film which i think amanda and i will talk about more on monday but it feels like yermo del toro and david fincher are the last two guys who in-house talent yes who are in that inner ring that inner circle of everything that they do comes out of netflix and that they have a blank check to make whatever kind of a movie that they want and they're they seem content with that and there's a new film administration there and then this comes on the heels of news that uh skydance animation which is owned by paramount of course uh is now severing its deal or netflix is severing its deal with skydance animation so david ellison is yes dragging that bit of property back after a couple of animated features that didn't totally work although they still have another one coming out this year called ray gun from brad bird and john lassiter who runs skydance animation and i don't totally i mean i feel like i've been saying this for seven years but i don't totally know what netflix film is right yeah so i think that there's probably like more chapters to be written in this story i i was sounding a similarly concerned alarm about their tv strategy and i think they've gotten some different folks in there and started to uh realize that they've left a lot on the table by ceding all of prestige to hbo and apple and and i think that they're starting to do more and more projects east of eden is coming out in october it was announced that zoe kazan's gonna do lonesome dove for netflix i think that they are looking at a lot of like literary projects to develop that seem like what would have traditionally been in hbo's ballywick what i want to know about clockwork is like how contingent is this on all of the things that are happening with warner mount um i don't know before we go before we get into that i feel like maybe netflix is doing the inversion of what you're pointing out on the film side yeah where a lot of the money and time that was spent on prestige on the film side is now being moved toward you know your programmer style movies you know your your whisper men the rip your your people we meet on vacation the rip the forthcoming animals from ben affleck which is more of just like a you know it's a programmer it's not a high prestige it's a movie they didn't play film festivals and and maybe you can put narnia in that basket as well i'm i'm not it's unclear to me like what that proposition actually represents for the future of netflix so we will talk about it a little bit but to your point about clockwork it's really interesting because they've got a bunch of movies now they've got the new mary bronson movie nasty which stars a reunion with rose burn um from if i had legs i'd kick you and jenna ortega's in it and it's produced by margot robbie's lucky chap then you've got tiamo which is sean baker's follow up to an aura yeah it's a pretty big movie then you've got the brigands of rattle creek which is some heavy me and you core holy shit dude which is park chanwook's first english language film since stoker written by s craig zahler starring this cast austin butler matthew mcconaughey pedro pascal adelex archopolis and tangway yeah and butler and adele play married couple in this so you know that's four really exciting movies when you when you tack on a new no bomb back movie onto it and it seems like all of these movies are coming probably in the next year and a half what does warner mount happening or not happening mean for it i have no idea i mean either i mean it seems like hbo on the tv side it rolls along unencumbered by nerves about whether or not they're going to be operating out of nashville in 2028 or whatever so i was asking you off off mike like oh how much of this is like saber rattling with like the announcement that ellison it was essentially looking at office space in nashville and was like seriously you know yeah like filing paperwork suggesting that they're going to move paramount to tennessee uh it's just hard for me to imagine a debt-laden company that is consolidating the hollywood business map being like what we also want to do is have an indie shingle that is like oh tour friendly yeah there was one other thing i wanted well i'll make a point about that though because if if david ellison is serious about 30 films a year he's got to get not all the not all those movies can be 100 million dollar event films some of them have to be five million dollar movies that are being run by a studio but that are getting relatively wide distribution so you could make the case that clockwork is actually a savvier business model heading into than trying to make four sonic the hedgehog spinoffs in two years to meet some sort of quota you can't wait around for matt reeves to make batman movies right so they've as they sort of are trying to decide like is the reward versus the risk with maybe some of the dc stuff after supergirl the only other interesting note with the bomb back thing is that if i read matt bellany correctly over the last couple of months bomb back and gerwig are currently mired in negotiations to get a really good payday to come back to barbie that's a warner brothers property correct uh now bomb back is back with a part of warner brothers but not doing barbie with warner brothers it's just interesting like does one hand know what the other is doing is it kind of like usually it does yeah of course uh i suspect that there's i i the same thought crossed my mind and i think there's a little bit to that and it's reasonable to assume and also no bomb back probably doesn't feel like he needs to make a 50 million dollar proper warner brothers feature film i mean most of his movies are relatively scaled down and they fit nicely in this model so i thought that that was fascinating and this is also somewhat related to the netflix film strategy long term but it was announced this week that quentin tarantino is publishing another novel a new novel another cliff booth novel that is coming out on december 8th which is between the netflix imax theatrical release and the netflix movie release and the of the further misadventures of Cliff Booth and the story release of the film, which is at the end of December. The logline of that book is, the swinging 60s are long gone, but Clifford Booth keeps on keeping on, war hero, stuntman, bartender, cinema projectionist, with the occasional clandestine services for his friends. Oh, you know, I was just talking with Chuck Klosterman on The Watch about his book Rock, which is coming out next week, and everybody listening should check that book out. It's awesome. I think it would actually really appeal to big picture listeners. And it's an alternative history of rock and roll if the Velvet Underground had basically usurped the Beatles in 1967 and become the biggest band. You know what I haven't really been thinking about with the further misadventures of Cliff Booth? Is the ripple effect of Manson stuff, like of like whether or not this movie is going to engage with the idea that that that happened at the end of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which is sort of a stupid lore question. Like, I don't really care one way or the other, but is this a different America that this movie is made in? It's a great question. I mean, I believe this new film is set in 1977, which is eight years after the events of the first film. And so is Star Wars coming out? You know, like, I don't know in this world. It's totally unclear what could be in play. And the same goes for the book, which we don't really know what it's going to be. But obviously, Quentin is content to fuck with history and how we understand it. And so I look forward to that. I really liked the novelization of the movie that he wrote a few years back. Yeah, we did that together. We did. And we spoke with him about it. And that was a lot of fun. And so I will say, though, that the Cliff Booth thing in general is just bizarre. There's still not a trailer. There's a 12 second teaser that's available on YouTube. Something went up and got pulled down over the weekend, right? Yes. I think something that was not meant to be published was published somewhere. And we are It's close. two months out from the movie. I mean, the movie's coming out in two. This is a David Fincher, Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt movie coming out in two months on IMAX screens over the Thanksgiving holiday. I don't know anybody who's seen it. I don't really know anything about it other than who's in it and what the logline is. It's fascinating. I'll just say that based on our experience with Resident Evil, which had a teaser and a trailer, the screenings happening just like 48 hours before the movie is released, that I have I've changed my tune about like how much lead time I need to get excited about a movie. It's Quentin Tarantino and David Fincher. Completely. If they want to film like water running into an L.A. sewer, I'll probably be like, good movie. No, it's smart. And I'm just addicted to knowing things. And I don't know what to do about that. It's something that has become a big part of the show and just talking about what we're hearing about what's happening in the world. And I hear a lot now. That's the thing is like, I hear way more now than I did 10 years ago. Yes, I'm Wynne Horstian. But I'm not a reporter. I'm just a person who is told things. Not been told much about this one. So very, very curious to see what it's like. And, you know, obviously, I'll be there opening day. Um, I was wondering about this because, the tracking for Digger has come out and it's pretty low. It is. And I'm starting to lose my ability to like, I can tell how I feel about a movie based on a trailer. I can tell whether I think it's got it or it doesn't have it. But I'm starting to not really understand, like, the Resident Evil box office predictions are like, crazy good. Yeah. Is that just, we'll get into that conversation. But like, I'm starting to lose my ability to sort of. The Digger one doesn't surprise me. No. I think one, you've got Tom Cruise unrecognizable. Two, you've got a very, um, ornate production style that looks very unusual with a, a tone that's really hard to pull off in a, like a strange lovey and satire. And I think people don't totally understand what the movie is about by watching the trailer. They were very circumspect about what the movie was for a very long period of time and confused people a little bit. Comedy in theaters these days is no sure thing and a little bit of a tough sell. They have that on the poster. And they put it on the poster. So I think there are a variety of factors that are technically working against it. I mean, Ina Ritu is not exactly the Revenant, notwithstanding a massive box office draw. So you put all that in a stew together and it's not stunning. To me, it's, this is actually a movie where word of mouth and reviews really matters. If critics like it and, and the first wave of people that see it dig it, then you could see it having some likes. If not, it's going to feel like an awards play. You know, our buddy Zach Barron sat down with TC. He did. This week. I mean, what an astonishing get by him. Fascinating conversation. Have no clue what the man was speaking about. Yeah. But kudos to Zach for doing his damnedest job. Do you have any thoughts about what TC was talking about with Taylor at the Chiefs game on Monday? Um, I mean, I have to assume it's Kenneth Walker's usage, right? Frontier Labs? Like, what did it pull back? Uh, I don't know. I, I, I, I personally worry about what can happen when those two put their powers together, but I'm not going to spend too much time thinking about it. Cruz, I think he's banking on a best actor nomination that might not be there. Yeah. We'll see. We shall see. It's a tough race this year. A couple of other quick things. TIFF is happening right now. Naaman will be on the show on Monday to give us his full report. However, we are at effectively the one-year anniversary of Obsession being acquired by Blumhouse Universal Focus out of TIFF last year for $15 million. Blumhouse has bought another movie for $10 million called River. Have you been following any of this? I have been from afar, so I, give me, give me the download. Uh, this is a new movie that apparently the independent film company already had and gave up on an auction. Yes. What was ready for? I think it was meant to be a Shudder film and they showed it and now because of some of the response to it, they brought it to the market. And it stars Jane Levy and Jessica Roth, two horror final girls of some note. And it follows three siblings who are stranded on a country boat who are stalked by a faceless killer. Oh, let's do it. Good idea. Yeah. You're stuck on a boat and there's a killer coming after you? Yeah. Interested. Apparently this movie isn't getting nearly as good reviews as Obsession was. Obsession was a good movie. It was a real sensation. And it seems like maybe the programming at the Midnight Madness section of TIFF this year is maybe not as strong as it was last year. But, um, I'm intrigued. You and I have been victims of a Midnight Madness delirium. It's a case that affects many men around our age. We all go a little mad sometimes. And you're there at 1.30 and you're like, that's the best movie I've seen in five years. Yeah. And then it winds up on Amazon. We'll never live down the long shot screening or Atomic Blonde or any number of movies we can recall from our South by Southwest days. Atomic Blonde. Uh, okay. Last bit of news. Very CR coded. John Leguizamo joins Miami Vice 85. Now, I am not really a Miami Vice expert. Um, I'm anticipating the film as a Joseph Kaczynski fan. What does this mean? Who is John Leguizamo playing? Is this good? I think the fact that it's called Miami Vice 85 is focused on the 85. So, Dan Gilroy wrote this script. It is set in the heyday of Coke Miami and also the peak of Miami Vice as a TV show. I, I am venturing a guess that John Leguizamo is playing Calderon, who is the legendary drug dealer cartel leader in the first season, I believe. Uh, second season maybe of, of Miami Vice. Got a two-part episode, Calderon's Return. I wonder whether or not they are pulling from that story. I am so excited for this movie, um, on a variety of levels. Is it a, is it a good idea to treat this? Yeah. Faithfully as IP? I think that they'll probably pull from it, but I don't think they're going to recreate the two-part episode. I think it might just be a drug dealer is targeting Miami Vice cops. Um, I have also heard one more casting rumor that I'm very excited about. And so much like you. And you won't be sharing it. People are coming to me. They're telling me things, but only about you two and Vice 85. Is it just Vice cops? Yeah. There are Vice cops calling you saying. Yeah, they pull me over. And they were like, "Hey, you know, you know, if you're going to be a part of Miami, you're going to be a part of Miami, you're going to be part of Miami, you're going to be a part of Miami." And I'm like, "No, I'm not going to be a part of Miami." And they were like, "Hey, you know, you were driving perfectly. I just wanted to let you know." I saw your visage through the window, through the windshield. And I thought. I share your enthusiasm about Alden Ehrenreich getting cast. You can go on with your day. Well, you were right that he's not playing the villain in the movie that obviously he's playing a different kind of part. Um, yeah, I'm looking forward to this movie too. I'm, I've seen Miami Vice episodes, but I, I don't have the facility with that world like that you do or that Bill does. So. Yeah. I, it's a week to week show. So. Well, it's not really a necessary experience to go through and be like, did, did something happen in episode three that affects Eleven? But there are some serialized storylines and Calderon is, is one of the big ones. As Bill likes to also point out, there is like evil Crockett for a year where he like, you know, like loses it. Yeah. Like Bizarro Superman? Kinda. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. It's good to know. Hopefully they don't pivot to that in the first film. I don't think so. That would be confusing. Did we get any confirmation on White Tub's Black Crockett? Like, is that implied? I don't see our theory. Okay. I threw that out. Okay. I hand out winners. Yeah. Uh, and I don't know if that's gonna come true. Okay. I think we may get, I think we're, these are the guys that are playing. Can you really put Michael B. Jordan's name behind Austin Butler's name on the poster? I just think Tubbs may have a more prominent role than Crockett. Oh. Or a 50/50 part. Wow. Yeah. Tubbs is revenge. Yeah. Tubbs is revenge. Okay. Let's talk about Resident Evil. Okay. Let me give you a little primer, primer for the, for the audience at home. So this is the new film from Zack Kreger. It's his third feature film as director. The movie is co-written by Shea Hatton. Um, it's based on the 1996 Capcom game for PlayStation called Resident Evil, which has had many sequels and spinoffs. Uh, this is the eighth film adaptation of this game series. The first six were Mila Jovovich, Paul W.S. Anderson joints. And I love her work. Uh, talented actress. Um, not a big fan of those films personally, but they were pretty successful. And over those six movies, they made over a billion dollars and And have a cult following. they have a following for sure. There was a film in 2021 One called Welcome to Raccoon City that Johannes Roberts made that did not lift off, especially because it was released during the pandemic and people didn't like it. So this is a reboot of a reboot. Stephen Amell is in that one? He is, yes. And that one is much more faithful to some of the core characters from the game than this one is. This one is sort of inspired by, not a strong adaptation featuring characters from the game. A couple of notes about it. One, the director of photography of this movie is 70-year-old Darius Wolski. Who is best known, I think, recently for his work with Ridley Scott. But who is really in his The Crow Dark City bag in this movie. Ryan and Hayes Holliday are back doing the score. I love the score of this movie. Austin Abrams is our star. He's one of the only people we really see in this film who's not a zombie. Callie Reese, Paul Walter Hauser, and a few surprises are also in the film. The logline is as follows. Brian, a medical courier, is in the process of making a delivery to Raccoon City General Hospital. When an outbreak forces him to fight for survival. Now, Zack Kreger was on the show last year for Weapons. And I took a little bit of an attitude with him. I have some regrets about the attitude I took. But I was like, dude, why are you making a franchise movie? Like, you just made Weapons. This is incredible to do an original story that is, we didn't know it at the time. But I knew it would be such a success because I saw the response to the movie the first few times I saw it. And what he said is, This is not going to be at all like Barbarian and Weapons. It's going to be a rock'em, sock'em, it's for me to play. And turn my brain off and just make an Evil Dead 2 style movie and get crazy with the camera. It's a weird, fun, wild story. I'm doing it because I think this movie is going to be fucking awesome. Now, you and I went to go see the movie at a screening at Century City earlier this week. And as they often do, they put us in two screening rooms. Room 1 and Room 2. And you texted me, you said, We're here, we're holding a seat for you. You're sitting in Room 1. And then they handed me my card and they said, You're in Room 2. And I tried to sneak into Room 1 and they said, No, you have to go into Room 2. Yeah, they were very strict about it. I thought that was strange. Nevertheless, I had a nice time, sat with Mallory and Joanna at the screening. But as soon as the movie ended, I walked out of the screening and we caught eyes. And we both were wide-eyed. And we knew we got one. Something had happened. It was a moment of great connection. Now, it's not surprising that you, you and I would like a movie like this. We've been thinking about seeing this movie for a while. But I ask you now, why were you so wide-eyed when I came out of that screening? Because I hadn't just experienced 90 minutes of feeling completely present with a work of art. If that's how you want to describe this, and maybe Zach Kragger wouldn't because he's talking about it as like a thrill ride. I completely lost myself in this movie. It's so fucking awesome. And it made me feel. It really did grab that feeling of, like, youthful, like, wonder at being inside of a movie. And I think I understand some of the mechanics of why that worked. Because I think rather than being IP, as in, like, we're going to adapt the lore and we're really about servicing, like, all the fans who are out there of this franchise. It's not that. But it's not a Trojan horse. It is not like. I kind of pulled a fast one where I went into Sony and talked them into letting me do this. But what it's. What it's really about is this. It's not about that either. It's about what would happen if a medical courier hit a zombie with his car and then had to fight for his life through the craziest fucking night ever. And it rules. And I want to be. Like, I have so many things to say about this movie and why I think it works. But, like, do you want to laugh? Do you want to almost puke? Do you want to go crazy with fear? Like, do you want to feel every emotion you can feel as a person? Like, this movie does it in 87 minutes. It's wonderful. I cannot remember the last time I was in a movie. And I see so many goddamn movies. But I cannot remember the last time I was in a movie and felt, God, this is moving too fast. I don't want this to end. Every movie feels too long in 2026. This movie is about 87 minutes. And it is a go, go, go machine. I am not a Resident Evil player. So I'm not somebody who is watching the movie looking for lore, looking for Easter eggs, hoping to spot things. But you have pointed this out to me. And this is something that I think Zach was attempting to accomplish. And for me, it feels like it works. It does give you the feeling of trying to play the game. And maybe trying to play the game for the first time, where you don't really know what you're doing. You're not a trained operative. You're not someone who's ever held a gun before. You're certainly not somebody who's ever seen a zombie before. And you're terrified of the dark and what might be around the corner. And it's such a great evocation of that, while also having. a regular guy charm and sense of humor to it that is extremely difficult to pull off. Insane. Here's the thing, though. I think the reason why the central performance of the movie and the movie itself works is that what this guy experiences is so insanely traumatizing. Like, by any factor of the imagination. But the way he reacts to it is the way that you react to it if you were playing the video game. You're like, oh my god, did I just fucking shoot that thing? That's how Austin Abrams reacts to doing it. And it's like, you're alarmed. And you're like, that's weird, I just did that. But it's not like, now I need to go process what has happened to me and I can't believe that, like, I thought I was going to be a father and now I'm a killer. It has nothing to do with that. It's like that weird, I've had four coffees over the course of the day and now I've had three beers over the course of the night and I'm three cigarettes in. And I'm playing Max Payne and I'm unloading on dudes. But, like, I feel catharsis, but I also feel shame. And that's what's happening in this movie. Do you know what I mean? It's like the experience of playing a video game rather than the adaptation of the video game. I read it a little bit differently than that, but it's connected, which is that I found that Abrams' character is sort of a coping mechanism because of the absurdity of the circumstances. The way that you would think about, you were just a guy, as you are, a man who records 2.2 podcasts per day and goes home and then is confronted with a zombie apocalypse. Yeah. You wouldn't be like, you certainly wouldn't be thinking about your own trauma. No. And you probably, you being you, and you're Abramsian, I would say, in some ways. Oh, that's nice of you. Would probably be using your sense of humor to deflect from the horror of everything. And it feels like this is what this guy is doing a little bit. Yeah. Where every time something happens, and sometimes, like, wild shit happens in this movie, he witnesses some grotesque, bizarre, terrifying things and is subject to, like, crazy violence and all sorts of outlandish gore. But there's always, like, and it's not a Ryan Reynolds-style quip. It's not glib. It's not glib. But it is funny. And then there's the secondary thing, and some of this, I presume, is, you know, that Craigor, who was in The Whitest Kids You Know, and is a, you know, long-time, uh, comedy person, really understands comic timing for not just somebody having a funny line, but the sequencing of a moment or how gore can be comedic versus how it can be terrifying or the way that, um, a body should land and what's scary versus what makes you laugh. And then that thing, and I talk about this all the time when we do our horror episodes, that, you know, the union between those two feelings is so tight. And that whenever I see something that I, I find really scary and disgusting, I always laugh at it. I never close my eyes. I never look away. I'm never really even grossed out. It just, I have an involuntary chuckle when I see somebody really get that feeling out of me. And at this moment in time, he's the goat of that thing. I mean, he's the best doing that thing. He's also pushing that, that incredible horror tension of, like, no, no, please don't, please don't, but actually, please do. Yes, give it to me. Yes. You know, like. I believe we call that the, the DN Waiters. Yeah. But there is the, the moment where you're, like, there are several moments in this movie where you're like, well, that would be beyond the pale. He can't do that, right? Like, this can't happen. This can't happen. He's not going to go into that room. But I really want him to go in there. And he always goes in there. We'll start wading into spoiler territory by getting into this, but this is one of my absolute favorite things about this movie, is that it breaks every rule that you know that filmmakers are told when you're making a conventional studio movie. That there are certain things that are off-limits. Off-limits? Animal death. Child death. Babies. What happens to your hero and how? Yeah. The sense of resolution versus no resolution. All of these big ideas that are this kind of dogma of movie making. Yeah. This movie is like, fuck all that dogma. And fuck that dog. You know, like. I don't know that there's a selfless act in this movie. No. In fact, every time one of the characters attempts that, they pay for it. Yeah. They really pay for it. I mean, there are gestures towards it. I think that the character of Brian is a good dude. You know? Yes. And he does have an emotional arc in the movie that I think pays off really well, but is not. is not. none of that, like, psychobabble that you're talking about. It kind of reminded me. a lot of people have compared this character and this performance to Bruce Campbell in Evil Dead. And I think that's a wonderful. He's not as cool and he's not as. accomplished with a gun, but he kind of reminded me a little John McClane at times oh interesting where a lot of the humor was manufactured out of like this experience right now there's a lot more story to Die Hard and there's a lot more stuff for him to be reacting to and he's obviously like a selfless character even though he's just trying to save his wife but like he's also trying to save everybody else no it's true like in Die Hard 2 when he's like same shit happened to the same guy twice you know it's like it's got that same energy to me the actor that Abrams reminded me of most is Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future now Back to the Future is not a horror movie but that feeling of like whoa this little guy who's all so spirited and a little bit snarky but a little bit sweet and he keeps finding himself in these ridiculously outlandish situations but you know what he's kind of got the gumption to pull it off and that's that's rare air you know like to be in the Michael J. Fox conversation and then the other thing too is I don't know if Zack was thinking about this when he was making the movie but there's so much Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton to me and the design of the movie and the idea of the sort of like slip and fall ne'er do well silent film star who you're rooting for but you can't quite do it he's also got as a he is instantly one of my favorite runners in movie history and he spends most of the movie running he does and that's another thing about the movie that is so special is and you can see in the comments that Zack shared last year when he was making the movie he's just having a ball with what he can do with a camera in a way that I think a lot of these movies don't usually exploit in ways that I find exciting some of it is as you pointed out what's in the darkness and what's in the doorway and where like where shouldn't we go that we know we're gonna go and some of it is the camera not just being a perspective of a character's eye but how you what you fear for the character and the way that the camera moves around the character to make us the most scared we can be while waiting for something to happen and there are times when he uses very conventional jump scare tactics where you don't see something out of a corner and then it pops up in someone's face and you're like but then there are other times where it's different though I mean we could start talking about some of the actual sequences if you want because it's hard to describe this without getting too into spoilery territory but in one of the first set pieces Brian has hit a woman and this is in the trailer so he hits this woman on the icy mountain road and he's gotta try and help her and a cop comes along and the cop is like did you strike this woman with your car and he's just like yes but I also have to make a very important point very important medical delivery so like can I can we talk about this you know a little bit later and the cop is like follow me we're gonna go to the hospital she's gonna get help you're gonna make your delivery cop's car pretty soon flips over because the woman in the car is obviously a zombie the ensuing action sequence and shootout that happens I kind of want to say I've never seen something like this before even though I have seen so many car accidents and so many shootouts evolving out of car accidents no but the specific way he uses POV and the amount of times in that I'm like she's on the roof no she's not on the roof where is she did she go back around wait she's somewhere like you're just you're so wrong footed 15 times and also they do an amazing job of being like he's not like I've never seen a gun before but he's like I've never fired one he crucially plays video games so he knows the mechanics he's like where's the fucking safety he knows what his safety is that's right but he doesn't know he doesn't know everything about them he just knows like the the cliff notes of guns and it's a movie that nods at all of the notes you might feel while watching a horror movie no service on your cell phone trapped somewhere where a car won't start and you don't know why the safety on the gun which comes up multiple times these are all tropes that we sometimes ding horror movies for for being like oh come on but because Abrams' character has such a sense of humor about it it works so well one of the things that's really cool about playing Resident Evil lots of people love it for horror lots of people love it just because like you find some cheat code in the back of a gaming magazine and just get yourself unlimited ammo and just unload on dudes it's got a lot of puzzles and that was something I really responded to in this movie is how many times he goes into a house and needs to find the bullets so where does he look or he's trying to get out of a house but there's a lock and how does he get this lock off and sometimes it's played for laughs and sometimes it's actually like this inventive detective stuff but you know in terms of being an adaptation I thought it it did have some of the spirit of the feeling of playing the game it does you know we watched a playthrough yesterday of Resident Evil 2 just to get the vibe of the game not the whole thing I didn't sit for an hour quietly by myself I'm aware of that and you know there's some people online who are very mad this isn't Leon's movie or whatever I could care less about that but the thing is it did remind me of course I played a lot of games like Resident Evil which is a third person shooter sure you're in control but they're they're slow you know the pace is only as fast as you can make it by moving through each space in the appropriate amount of time shooting enough zombies discovering the right doorway to go in to acquire whatever talisman you need whether it be bullets or some sort of key that helps you go somewhere the great thing about movies and the reason why a movie can always elevate a video game is because it can go faster it can get you more involved more quickly in a different kind of way in a way that I think is more of a cortisol spike rather than that sort of like how would you describe the feeling of shooting up a million zombies while playing the game like it's a slight it's more of a muted experience it's like a dulled pleasure yeah whereas movies energy drinky you know you know like you know it's bad for you but you're kind of like I need this to sustain yeah kind of and the other thing of course in a movie is I want to see what happens next I can't wait to see where this goes I'm so curious about this and yet the movie also dispenses with that in a very interesting way so let's just put a big spoiler warning around the rest of this conversation for anybody who doesn't want to hear anything else about Resident Evil I think it has our highest recommendation fair to say one of my favorite films of the year you should see it as soon as possible so halfway through the well two things one the title credits don't appear until after the 20 minute mark after that sequence that you just saw you described of the car flipping the police cruiser flipping and most of the trailer is drawn from that first 20 minutes that's right we saw a tease of the movie at CinemaCon in April and they showed us about five minutes from that part of the movie and what I thought of with that scene was sort of like if they had shown us the crime that happens at the very beginning of Fargo that Marge Gunderson arrives at it almost is like he's recreating that and I wanted to ask you how you feel about this being a snowbound raccoon city story if that means anything to you if it matters because I guess it's not it's not similar to how the games yeah I think it I'm sure it had some storytelling value to Craig or beyond this but blood just looks awesome on the snow that's right snow horror is cool that's why we wet down streets you know like that's why sometimes we just do things because they look good yeah it seems like it would have been a motherfucker to make this movie it sounds like this was for as much as he's like a rock'em sock'em good time he's like it sounds like he was awake for seven months in a fog yeah yeah it seems really challenging he pointed out in an interview with THR that um you know once you step in snow how do you erase those steps so you can redo a take yeah I don't know how you do that because you can clean it up in digital but um yeah I mean the movie also gives you a confrontation with a character and Abrams' character does get bit about halfway through the movie and when he gets bit I was like okay this is a nihilist paradise yes like this is not going to be a happy movie and I felt a great sense of relief about that I find it quite annoying when horror movies are like but everything's okay at the end I don't think that that's actually what the genre is really about it doesn't mean that you know Laurie Strode can't overcome Michael Myers but at the end of it she's usually pretty destroyed I mean he can't be the final girl if there's only one guy you know what I mean like it made sense to me that there's the body count can only come from one place as far as we know you know there's like a great when he gets bit he gets bit by a little girl and there is like a brief second when Craig shows us that this person is human and it's like there was a quick second where I was like is this going to be fucking Little Wolf and Cub again is she going to get on the journey with him is he going to spend the entire movie like taking care of a seven year old in a zombie apocalypse like that's not what I was told you know and he does the exact opposite he blows that fucking girl's head off I wanted to stand and applaud as the father of a daughter I salute that choice because whatever these sacred cows are it's a fucking Resident Evil movie like if you're going to do it do it well also the reveal of the girl so she's like hiding in a RV's bathroom stall and he's just like oh yes like you can even tell like he's like another human being this is amazing and then the camera pans down and she has a genetically mutated lizard foot that is basically tentacles swirling around that eventually leap out at Austin Abrams as does this girl who turns into the dog from the thing and you're just like fuck yes brother like you did it like you you you completely tricked me on that like I thought that that was like probably where the movie is like jumps up even into the it elevates I agree it's the first thing that happens in the movie that is Isn't indicated in the trailer that you're like, oh, so that's what you had in your bag? Yeah. In the previous sequence, after he evades the zombie woman who he hits with his car and the police officer has been killed, he goes to a farmhouse and there he looks for, he finds a shotgun. He finds an old man who's been infected who attacks him. There's a very violent, explosive moment with the shotgun. Then the woman who he's hit comes back to life. We see this incredible, what I'll call a Gregor-esque shot of her racing down a hill with no shoes on and a dress, ferociously coming toward the house as fast as she can while he is scurrying to find shotgun shells. We hear her coming up the stairs, yeah. Sound design in this movie is excellent. The sense of, again, the sense of pace, the sense of like the ticking clock is always going against Brian. That whole sequence is really, really exciting and I like it a lot. However, it is not really anything new. It's not really anything you haven't seen. You can see the homage to Carpenter's The Thing and all this part. The same goes for the dog that he encounters at the barn. All of that stuff is really fun and really well executed, but it's just like, it's just table setting. And I think because that's the only stuff we had seen through the first 25 minutes or so, I was like, okay, cool, what else you got? And you're right, when we get into Abrams' character who thinks he's going to be able to drive through a gate that is padlocked, the car hilariously gets caught in the gate, the giant truck. The first of many padlocks that stymie him throughout this movie. And then he has to walk through the tunnel and into that RV that you described. The movie, you know, at about the halfway mark, it goes to another place. And it like, it really takes off. It takes its safety off and it gets really fucking crazy. And yet the whole time I was laughing and I feel like people were starting to feel like they could laugh at this point. Because there's a little bit, because the movie is. It's not just that scary horror laugh. It is actually funny as well. In the screening room that I was in, full theater mixture of like, you know, people, critics, and probably like fans and folks who had gotten invitations. When he comes across the little girl in the RV, and she's adorable, she's like scared kid. Someone shouted out, kill it! And that like broke the seal in the theater. And I think everybody was just like, ah, that's what we're doing today. And it just was like people laughing. And I think that the thing that makes this movie so good, I can't wait to see it again. I also can't wait to watch it alone. Because I want to see how it plays when I'm not being encouraged to laugh at certain things. Like for instance, Abrams, a couple of times this movie lets out like basically a scared squeal. Yes, he screams like a girl. Yeah, kind of purposefully. It got laughs, but I was like, I'd probably scream like that too. You know what I mean? If I had to shoot an old man in the head, and then his body went into the body of another woman I had killed, and they formed a giant snowball of monster, I'd probably be pretty nervous and screaming and squealing. Of course. So it's interesting to watch it in that group format and kind of be like, what are we laughing at versus what's just fucking terrifying. Well, I had this really funny experience of watching it because I watched it with. Sitting right next to Mallory. It was like four movies deep on her horror experience. She just started watching horror movies. And she's only really been watching movies that have been made in the last few years. And there's something so funny because this movie, you know, you've already mentioned Bruce Campbell. Craigercite's Evil Dead 2. It's very obvious the way that Carpenter looms over a movie like this. And there are a lot of other strands that you could pull. You could pull the Romero zombie movies. You could pull 28 Days Later. You could pull. You know, certainly Alien. Alien. The tentacle stuff has some possession in it. Like there's a. A lot of Cronenberg bodies. Body horror. It's extremely disgusting at times. And that's a fun way to watch the movie. Like to me, and it didn't feel like it was homage for homage's sake. It wasn't blenderized. It wasn't a synthesis of stuff. But it was acknowledging that it's part of a lineage of something. But Mallory doesn't know about any of that stuff. And so, like, I'm kind of cracking up at. At the dog. Yeah, she's like, isn't the dog hungry? And she was just devastated. Yeah. But at the same time, that dog kill at the beginning of the movie, it gives you license to accept what kind of movie it is. If you're not on board with it, I would say if you didn't like that scene, maybe walk out of the movie. It's not going to be for you. Yeah, I mean, I think. There's definitely a couple of scenes. Look, if you're scared of something, he's going to find it in this movie. Like, I don't like rats. And there's about. One of the more gross rat scenes I've seen in a really long time in this movie. The whole sequence is absolutely disgusting. Yeah. I don't know how much in. You know, when we talked about Barbarian on the pod, we very famously. Just recapped it for Amanda. Recapped the whole movie for Amanda. And one of the magical things about an 87-minute movie is that you can really remember everything that's happened. And you texted me immediately after the movie and you just sent me 12 beats. They're just the 12 scenes from the movie. And I was thinking about the exact same act on the way home to prepare for our conversation. And I wouldn't say it's the most sophisticated movie analysis to say, and then this happened and then this happened. But he makes movies that make you want to think about the movie that way. And I really feel like that's a compliment to his work because Weapons operated very similarly and it was harder to do because of the way that he chopped the story into different perspectives. And he told it through different characters' eyes across the timeline. This movie is as linear as they come. It's just through this guy's eyes the entire time. Honestly, I started by just trying to write down my favorite sequences and then I realized I think I can write down the whole movie from here. It reminded me of trying to prep for the Boogie Nights rewatchables where I was like, most rewatchable scene is every scene. You know, like there's just no fat here. But there's like, you know, suicide jumpers, maternity ward, barf man, rat guy. You know, like rat guy. It's like the things you're writing down are not. And this is when Brian realizes that the only way for him to survive is for him to help others. Like there's no, there's no story. Yes. There's one expository scene with Paul Walter Hauser. There, or I guess two, because if you count the end. And there are two scenes of Brian trying to communicate with his girlfriend who he's having an argument with at the beginning of the movie over the course of the, over the course of the film. Other than that, you're asked to draw as much or as little out of this film about what it's about as you want. And honestly, why are more movies not like this? Especially genre movies. Why are we so worried about psychologizing our characters and having them reckon with what's happened to them or what they've done? There can be a little bit of it in this movie. And there was one sequence near the very end of the film before waiting outside of an elevator where he literally records a voice note and reflects on the one thing he did that he regrets. And he's done some heinous stuff in this movie to stay alive. But the one thing that he regrets, which is, is personal and sincere and specific and feels rooted in some real life experience. But the rest of the movie is just incident. Also, that confessional moment is immediately played as a joke because the intercom starts and is like, Hey, dude. Yeah. Someone's been watching him. Yeah, crying guy. Can you, can you use the intercom? I'm curious how you feel as somebody who is more familiar with the games when the movie starts to sort of acknowledge its resident evilness when Paul, Walter Hauser and Callie Reese's characters show up, when it becomes clear that the Umbrella Corporation is responsible for this outbreak, when it becomes clear that the package is in fact not, say, a child's heart or an older woman's liver, but is part of a potential antidote. Yeah. Did you like that stuff? Yeah. I thought I did not go back through and play any of the games. So I don't want to call myself any kind of scholar. I have played Resident Evil over the course of my life a couple of times. I just happened to really like the one that's set in Spain where the guy is trying to rescue the president's daughter from a cult. That one's cool. Right. I was reading about this last night. Four. Yeah. But. You're always about special ops. Yeah. Well, I just. That's your space. And I love travel. You know. I love Spain. I like Spain too. You know. Yeah. You've been to Spain? I have, yeah. Yeah. But I was. La Liga. There was like a cool cutaway when he's going through the house. And he looks in one room. And I think there's a typewriter on the table. And it feels very much like when you're looking at a screen in Resident Evil or in any of these kinds of third-person shooters, like the light will be a little bit different over an object that you're supposed to go over towards. Yes. And so there are like little visual keys. And I thought that this movie played with that a lot. I thought that when Paul Walter Hauser says, we're going to Raccoon City, the crowd cheered. They did not. No recognition. Maybe I was just with RE heads. You might have been in the RE room. I thought his scene was very funny. His character is hilarious. His character is, it's just like he is like, we did this. Like I am responsible for this. And we need your help. So it was kind of like a funny, like almost like, it was sort of exposition and sort of IP service, but also kind of like taking the piss out of that. And I think that's the whole movie, right? The whole movie is, I really enjoyed that aspect. of it and this is true of of the finale of the movie as well when you get into that space where everything is just a little bit and sometimes a lot bit tonally comic yeah and so you're not worried about revelation about whether they're going to get something right or they're going to teach you something about this story that you didn't already understand there's some acknowledgement of the ridiculousness of the premise of the game and the kind of person who would be responsible for an outbreak of this sort uh also just helps that paul walter hauser is very if they had made that scene the two of them talking in the car when cali reese goes to go look for whatever she's looking for 45 minutes i i would watch yes because they're both so funny load a machine gun while like the nozzle is pointed at paul walter hauser's face the entire time and he'd be like no turn it no flip it flip it now it's the other one like it's a it's really really good um the other thing too is the calories character getting out of the car is one of those classic like what the fuck are you doing moments in a movie where you're just like don't there's like 14 zombies there where are you going like man she's really lighting them up like she's great yeah it's so unusual for um i think this is what she would have wanted it's so unusual for a movie to have so much confidence to be able to lean into the cliches of the genre and like evil dead 2 doesn't really do that that's not exactly what it's it's comedy is about fusing comedy history not about upending yeah horror history it does have some nods towards horror history but it's working in a different register and so making comparisons to the movie i think is fairly difficult because making fun of horror usually leads you down the road to scary movie it doesn't lead you down the road to an actually funny movie that is also actually scary and i mean we could talk about this after we get done talking about resident evil but i'm kind of amazed by the tonal miracle of the movie that's the thing that i think is the my major takeaway from it if he had missed five degrees to the left or right it just would have been maybe not a disaster i think it's like a really funny watch but you would have been like oh that was cool but he played it and the the thing that threw me off was going into this one of the few things i had read about the film in interviews with him uh was that he was like i took a lot of jokes out so i was like oh i wonder if this is going to be he tested the movie with and he felt that it was played too much like a comedy but the movie is a con i mean it is a comedy it is a gross scary comedy but it's a comedy yeah and it's not being sold that way too i do wonder a bit about the general audience reaction to it with that in mind i don't think that people are gonna be mad that it's funny but it is there there is some wrong footing going on in that way the comedy is like essential to the movie because it is the release valve for the blood it's a release valve for the gore it's a release valve for the terror you have to have this balance because otherwise it's like it's not going to be a good movie it's not going to be a good movie it's not going to be a you're watching green room you're watching you know texas chainsaw massacre you're just like i'm terrified yes get me out and it's just so upsetting every single incident i wanted to ask you a little bit about what i thought was some i don't know if it's pacing or structure or dynamics but i found it really delightfully unconventional in that i more or less found each set piece and each scare or each level of the movie and i think it's a really good movie and i think it's a really good game pretty equally terrifying and and involving it wasn't like we were building up to something the skybridge at the end the kind of like massive thing that happens at the end is certainly like it feels more chaotic and crazy yes and i think he ups the gore but there was something kind of fascinating about the the boss at every level kind of feeling and you're gonna have your favorite depending on maybe what you like snow you like sewers you like heights what are you scared of yeah but what did you think of like the construction of the film as a series of of tasks that he had well it almost feels like he's checking more boxes very knowingly about these spaces that we find to be scary in horror movies you know that the the lonely road where you have no service and you might get into an accident um you know get out very famously more or less opens with an accident like that on a lonely road on the way to it that sets an tone so that's one a haunted farmhouse is another one a terrifying tunnel amidst a zombie apocalypse you know all the way up to scaling a die-hard style haunted building that has like you know all kinds of you know sort of like the more elevated later romero movies where it feels like an entire city has been taken over it gives you that sensation so i it felt like he's kind of going through this various stages of expectation through those movies but never kind of gives up on his tone i do think that the sewer one is particularly accomplished because him going into the sewer is just so stupid and he keeps doing things that are just so stupid and it's not just that he he doesn't find himself trapped with a hundred other zombies he finds himself trapped with the most disgusting zombie of all time that can't move yeah but then explodes into hundreds of rats the only thing saved that saved me in that scene was that the rats did not become a king rat but they were going to yeah and then he he mercifully if they had formed a king rat i honestly you would have fell out i think i might have needed to like take a quick sec let's talk about your rat fear yeah where does it come from um two unfortunate mouse infest not infestations but apartment buildings like you're you're really at the mercy of what you're at you know in new york and i just just just gross mice you know and like not being able to stop them is it the disease that they carry i just don't like the idea of them being everywhere i don't like the idea of like it just being like this unseen force you know do you think there's ever been a time in your life when you've been asleep in your bed and a mouse has crawled across your face uh not me it did happen to my wife back in new york and one time in boston i woke up and now it sounds like i'm just like a tribe of mice have been following me up and down the eastern seaboard but one time in boston i what are their names i think i was pretty high i woke up or was trying to fall asleep and a mouse was on my turntable just like i got it out of boston what was it enter the wu-tang what was it what was he getting into yeah drums ring very emergency it was an emotional mouse yeah uh he was wearing a cardigan what did you think of the suicide jumper scene um oh god it brings a tear to my eye pretty cool about it pretty cool i thought that the my favorite element of it this might actually be the part of a movie where i'm like oh my god i'm where people are like this is too cgi for me or it was like it was almost like a painting rather than a visceral experience i thought it was incredible he turns around when he's sort of run through this canyon of people leaping off of these tall buildings and exploding near him i think they're trying to hit him obviously and he goes oh so you can die like and you think that that's going to be this important piece of information um there's a couple of uh illustrations or or or discoveries that this character makes that serve him no purpose whatsoever they really don't like it it's it's a really interesting storytelling style there is not a lot of checkoffs anything in this movie it's more like there's runner jokes like the padlock there are um frustrations that he has that are recurring but like when it's like who's the rat king guy in the sewer i don't know why is that guy just like a giant white fat guy who's like sitting on his ass i have no idea why do those people have to be like jump off the buildings and seemingly to their deaths rather than reconstructing into a giant zombie running after him i have no idea so i thought it was just completely operatic and amazing i kind of wish it hadn't been in the trailer the the suicide jumpers specifically yeah it's an interesting point you're making though about the accrual of information that doesn't matter yeah maybe we can use this as a way to talk about the kind of final set piece where after he escapes those suicide bombers he eventually arrives at the raccoon city hospital laboratory space that what paul walter hauser's character is attempting to get him back to and this is my favorite part of the movie the elevators don't work and so he has a moment of reflection we know that his girlfriend is pregnant although it's not super explicit it's clear what's happening in their relationship and there he sends her a voice note to apologize for the way that he talked to her about what they should do about this pregnancy and then a voice note to apologize for the way that he talked to her about what they should do the voice comes over the intercom it is in fact someone who's all the way up at the top of the building and he's like hey dude you have the package yeah come on up don't take the elevator though please take the stairs takes four flights of stairs he's like it's fucking exhausted as somebody who recently climbed four flights of stairs can relate uh so he decides to get on the elevator and a movie that is extremely gross gets that much more gross and this is really where a movie starts to come in because we have a giant barfing zombie zombie who keeps vomiting down the elevator shaft acid vomiting acid acid that is melting the elevator all around him coming up in the other direction is this snowball zombie yes a zombie that is comprised of what looks like a dozen or more bodies that have all been strung together all these people yeah yeah the surviving non-survivors and so it's it's just like a classic rube goldberg machine where you have a where he's like got to try to find a way to get to the top, evade the barf, not. not get caught by the giant snowball zombie and find his way to the top of the lab. It's all, now this is, I'm usually pretty hard on CGI heavy sequences like this. And I thought it was pretty effective and well done. Because every single thing matters because he's got, it's very video gamey, but it's like he can only, he's got the floor of the elevator. He's got the corners of the elevator. And once that stuff goes, he can't be on the elevator anymore. So he's got a certain amount of time to do that. Then he has to use the barfing guy to kill the other zombie. Then he has to throw the barfing guy off. The entire ascent up to the top of the skyscraper is as laid out for him. Like you have to go up to floor 24, then go to a sky bridge, then cross the sky bridge. It's exactly like it is in video games. And his reactions to these obstacles is exactly what happens when you're playing a game the first time where you're like, I did it. I fucking did it. And then you're like, wait, what? The lights are off now? Like what happened? It's so invigorating to kind of experience it cinematically rather than like my controller isn't really responding the way I want it to. But the. You have that wonderful diehard nod where his shoes are starting to melt and he has to take his shoes off. I held my fist aloft. I loved it. I was just like, if he walks on broken glass, we've achieved it. Not only that, but he enters a maternity ward. Yeah, I wanted to talk about this. And what I will call one of the most audacious things I've seen in a horror movie. It is a maternity ward that is strewn with red blood. Every single baby bay is full of clearly a zombie baby of some kind or some sort of birth, like birthing. Yeah. Bubble that also recalls alien and the sort of the pods. And Austin Abrams character, of course, has to move through the maternity ward. To get to the sky bridge, to get to the lab, to deliver the package so that they can develop the antidote and finally stop this. And save him. That's the thing, is that as he's going, his arm is getting more and more infected. And honestly, as someone who loves gross stuff, I was like, this is so fucking gross. The maternity ward. It is gnarly. And the giant bubble, which you compared to a sourdough rising sourdough loaf. Yeah. Which is a very funny visual, is foul. That explodes. This is the most sacred and beautiful place in human life. A room full of newly born babies. And his girlfriend's pregnant. And the movie has a series of motifs like this. Obviously, him being confronted by an eight-year-old girl is a manifestation of his girlfriend being pregnant. Him being confronted by all of these babies in the maternity ward is a manifestation of this fear. It's also got like lots of Kregger tropes that are quickly becoming like kind of signatures for him. The terror, the love of a doorway, the weird anxiety of why is this person running at me? Uh-huh. There's somebody once ran at Zack Kregger and he's never forgotten it. Or that's a dream. It's a nightmare he has. And it's the same thing with the don't, don't, don't, don't, don't do that. Don't stop. Go the other. Stop. Wait, don't do that. Like he goes towards the, why is he walking towards the bubble? Is he an idiot? Like what? Part of it, though, is like, because he's like, I think it's kind of like that video game thing of like, but the bubble's glowing. Yeah, what's in it? Yeah, I want to see what's inside. When this bubble bursts, though, the entire room turns basically into a log flume of blood. And yes, although it did remind me quite a bit of all of the xenomorphs coming out of the wall and aliens where it's like everything is kind of descending upon him and he has to race full speed out of the maternity ward across the sky bridge. However, there are some issues there. The sky bridge is falling apart and the giant snowball human conglomeration. Somehow he has returned. Yeah, he's climbing up the side of the building in epic fashion and he eventually gets his ass all the way over there after landing one of the more epic video game scores against the giant snowball. And he gets into the lab and it turns out that there's a bunch of scientists in the lab and one of them is Zach, Cherry. Very funny actor from Severance. And the movie again kind of shifts back into a kind of clear comic register and then one of them is Griffin Newman, our friend. Yeah. To go with the blank check. And unfortunately for me I knew Griffin was in this movie and so I didn't get that. You were waiting for him to show up. I was waiting for him to show up. And I knew a little bit about what he was doing in the movie and I really wish I hadn't but for for those of us who were in the movie podcasting world and enjoy movie podcasts there's a little bit of extra pixie dust on this sequence watching him get involved in this final scene. What did you think of the big finale? What did you think of the big finale in the movie? It's the most surprising gear shift in the movie. Of course like the entire lighting scheme changes. It's in this completely antiseptic white lab. Bright white lights. It's for scientists. Like for bookish nerdy not not like wanting to get down and fight people. But what they really need is this antidote and Austin Abrams has now crossed over into a mutating territory and I think he's holding out hope that they can make this cure and he can be the first test subject and he gets so close and it's right around here that I was pretty certain I understood why Zack Kreger was like I'm never making another one of these because I was like because you're going to shut the fucking door. You're going to fucking burn it down behind you. Somebody wants to make another Raccoon City movie if you guys want to have Claire show up and look for something go for it. Leon can show up but he, he was like I'm done and we're going to make we're going out in an absolute blaze of glory. It's such a good choice. It's such a relief. It's the final like broken rule of like there's no redemption. There's no safety. It does set up some obvious opportunities to retell the story and to bring in a lot of the canonical characters to enter Raccoon City and kind of fight their way through. It feels like the story is mostly taking place simultaneous to the events that are transpiring in the first few games where like the outbreak is starting. Doesn't the first game start with like a cop is late to work one day and he's got a he wanders into the station and there's a bunch of fucking zombies there. You could probably make Resident Evil 1.5 off of this. I have a question for you about that based on what it looks like to be a huge box office success for this film. Yeah. I love the ending. I thought it was a tremendous amount of fun. It slips in to like science lab horror and you get a little bit of like reanimator. You get a little bit of a freaked like actually when he becomes the monster near the end it looks like Alex Winters' monster from Freaked and there's just some great creature design. Again, Abrams giving a really good monster performance. I thought he was he was so good. It is heartbreaking. You really feel for him. There's like a little bit of even as he turns in there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And some of the great the choreography of the antidote kind of slipping away just out of grasp. Just not connecting like all that stuff is so great and that also is that feeling of a video game where you just like can't quite jump through the loop or cross over the bridge or that being consistently stymied in a moment when you're trying to achieve something is a great note there. I immediately thought of oh, how many movies have I watched in my life that sold out their third acts because they weren't sure if they were going to make another one or like what they were worried about what people would feel about the what they had done if they ended it in a certain kind of way. And you've seen so many movies where a guy gets blown off the top of a building or has a massive car crash or, you know, blows up the bomb so that everybody else is saved but then walks out of the rubble and is just like, well, it looks like another one for us, partner. Like, so many films are just like in the last 10 minutes you're allowed to completely suspend your disbelief. We just want a happy ending. And the happy ending in the movie is that like, no, like this is a fucking horror movie. Like, there is no escape for this guy. Like, even if he had gotten the cure, how the fuck are they getting out of Raccoon City? Absolutely right. And it's like, what, like, do you think they would have let this guy out if he knew the truth anyway? Like, there's something What is even the science corner on you have six other human bodies attached to your body and you've taken the antidote? All the, they just get expelled? It completely dispenses with that, which is wonderful. I thought it was a great choice. I completely agree. It is, it's one of the greatest get in and get out IP jobs in the history of movies and to have the goal to just be like, I'm done. One of the great cut to black last shots of a horror movie in recent memory of like this guy waving his tentacles in the air screaming as the National Guard helicopter is bearing down on him. Bang, out. That's great. That's so awesome. It's great. It's fantastic. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. Now, this is a player in the food space that has championed winning food standards and quality since 1980. That means no added growth hormones or antibiotics in their meat and no synthetic nitrates or nitrites in their deli meats, hot dogs or sausages. Plus all their seafood is responsibly farmed or wild caught. They've even banned some ingredients store wide to make sure there's nothing to mess with the flavors you want. Shop Whole Foods Market in store or online. This episode is brought to you by Panda Express. Telling someone you love them, it isn't always easy, but showing them through food, sometimes that's That's better than words, especially when that foods wok cooked at Panda Express, a Joe House favorite. Pick from delicious classics like orange chicken, honey walnut shrimp, Kung Pao chicken, and black pepper sirloin steak. Perfect for when you're watching the team you love or eating with the person you love. Have you eaten yet? Click or tap the banner to order or visit a Panda Express near you. This episode is brought to you by Paramount Plus. Let chaos reign. Mobland, the hit crime series from the underworld of Guy Ritchie, is now streaming on Paramount Plus. The Harrigans are on the brink of uncivil war as power plays, fractured loyalties, and reckless decisions collide. Their fixer, Harry, is left to clean up the fallout. Don't miss Mobland starring Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, and Helen Mirren, now streaming on Paramount Plus. This movie is a huge success. I'm curious to see how huge of a success a movie like this can and will be. Yeah. It is, I guess, tracking for an $80 million worldwide. It is a huge weekend for any horror movie. It is also a video game adaptation, and it's a well-known video game. It's one of the very few video games that has been adapted multiple times over the years. I feel like they're kind of undershooting how well it's going to do over the weekend. I also think just the word of mouth is going to be extraordinary because it's not only is it going to be, you really got to go see this. I feel like it's going to be like a really, you got to go see this now. You got to go see this before. You don't want anything spoiled. Yeah. You want to listen to a big picture episode. I can't tell you anything about it because I don't want to spoil anything for you. There's not much more they can really advertise about this movie. I know. Its length is such a benefit, too. It's so easy to get in and get out. Yes. And most movies where you're like, oh, God, I've got to carve out four and a half hours, and I got to get a sitter and all that shit. None of that. The question is, one, Mallory aside, can you in good conscience recommend this to people who don't like horror movies? Would you tell Amanda to go see this? She is seeing it, which is going to be interesting, and we will talk about it on Monday. Okay. I think it's a real test of her new open-mindedness because it is so gory. I think she'll think it's funny, but I think that there are parts that she might not like. Because it is breaking some of those rules, you know, and it is disgusting in a way that many movies are not. And it's different from your typical slasher where someone's throat is slit or they're stabbed in the heart. It's not even the maternity ward stuff as much as it's just really fucking gross. It is really gross. As far as like, can you recommend it to just like moms on the playground, I think is maybe like a good comp for me at this stage of my life. And I don't really think you can. I think you need to be an avowed fan of this genre, but here's the thing. That doesn't matter. Everyone's a fan of this genre. Yeah. I mean, look at Obsession. You know, Obsession is also disgusting at times, and it is a huge sensation. So I don't really think that that limits its ceiling. And then when you start thinking about the movie and you're like, okay, can this movie like realistically make $300 million in America? I think it can. And if something like that can happen, we're in extremely rare. territory for Kreger. I mean, this is not, this has only happened four or five times in movie history where somebody who's making material this intense and raw and gross and fun is at the absolute center of the business. I had been thinking about his career in terms of PTA's early career. I don't know how useful that is anymore because this would be his punch drunk love. And I don't really know, like punch drunk love was like a complicated movie that I don't, did it do well? It was Sandler, but did it, were people like, what is this? Yeah. I think it was a bit of a curio to people. Did well for me. I think that's a movie that he made maybe similarly to why Kreger made this, which is like. Just a strip down. I did Magnolia and now I want to try something a little bit more direct or a little bit more. And, and, you know, you can, you can hear him talking about weapons, that there's so much personal feeling in weapons and so much that he brought to that movie about his own experiences and loss that he experienced. And, you know, I think a lot of the stuff about addiction is really fascinating in that movie. And, um. Is Kreger a dad? I think so. Okay. Um, but I don't know that for sure. I do think it's fascinating though, that there are still He does not have any children. No children. Okay. This film explores that. If you're like, what's, what's Resident Evil about? It's a, it might be like parental anxiety. You know? For sure. Um, there are still ideas in the movie. That's to your point, but they're not, it's not weighed down by anything. Yeah. And I, punch drunk love. It still feels a little weighed down by some feelings, you know? I'm trying to think of the comp for, is it, is it, what's Tarantino's third movie? Is it? It's Jackie Brown. Jackie Brown. It is kind of like Jackie Brown. Can I get out of my own head? It's more stripped down. Yeah. I'm just going to go do a, do a Elmer Leonard book. More tightly focused. Yeah. Yeah. There's source material. I think that's a good comp. But, you know, I, this, this dude now is like his own business. Like what I'll be really interesting in discerning the, the success of this film is. How much of it, first of all, he's already done what Nolan did, which is apparently just like smash through the like fake concern troll online. Like they don't, they don't respect Raccoon City. Absolutely love how he's handled that. Yeah. Where he's like, if you're trying to please everyone, you're pleasing no one. That's absolutely the right attitude. It's like, this is the movie I made. You guys should come see it. But if you don't want to, just don't see it. Uh, like to what extent is a film by Zach Kreger now like the business card? It's the call. It's, it's the, it's the sell it in and of itself. It's so interesting because obviously, Weapons is now going to be a franchise because they're making the Gladys prequel, which he is not making. And this movie, you know, there was an interesting interview with the guy who runs Constantine Films, the German film production company that owns the rights to Resident Evil on the town last week talking about, you know, I mean, they hit the jackpot. Zach Kreger came to them. It was like, I have an idea for a Resident Evil movie. And they were like, oh, word. That's amazing that that happened for them. And, and we can talk about video games and what their viability is as movie properties, um, in a moment. But, he's now making a giant sci-fi action movie with the flood for Warner Brothers. That's his next film. And then he says, he's like doing a reset. Yeah. Right. Where it's like after that movie, these are all the things I had been thinking about for a really long time. And then I'm thinking about what's next. The thing that it reminds me of the most is Jordan Peele. I mean, what he's doing now reminds me a lot of the first three Jordan Peele movies. Yeah. Which came in a pretty short window of time is about five years. He made three movies, all of which were increasingly more ambitious than the next. Accomplishing different things, kind of gliding between horror genre with huge carpenter influence, but also a lot of social and personal emotional ideas inside of them. And then I just remarked this to you last night. Craigers released three movies since Peele's last movies come out. It's been four years, more than four years since Peele put a movie out. And so. And their two careers are, are somewhat intertwined. I mean. Comedy and horror. But also Peele wanted to produce, was it weapons or barbarian? I think it was weapons that he wanted weapons. And he changed his management company because he did not get that opportunity. And. Two guys who come from sketch comedy. Yeah. Who bring those tools to making horror movies. We're not falsely like linking them in some sort of competition. Oh, but just in the arc of horror, they're totally connected to each other. I mean, they feel almost inextricable right now. And they're, they're kind of both jockeying for, you know, I think because in the aftermath of the slasher movies in the seventies and eighties movies, we, we, we started to identify Craven. And Carpenter and Hooper and, you know, a handful of other filmmakers. And you're like, well, these are the masters of horror. And then there's the masters of horror anthology series. And then you're like, well, there are these like 10 guys. And so you start to think of horror in a way, the same way you think of baseball trading cards. And so I, and my brain just naturally ends up doing that. But Craig is in such a unique position here where there's a part of me that wants him to like elevate and take on a big movie like the flood. But there's, there's another part of me that's like, cause you're not going to be able to do that. And so I'm like, well, I'm going to like, cause you make 12, 87 minute movies. I think in a perfect world, he would be what we imagine it was like to be like our age when Carpenter was putting out a movie every 18 months and that you would just be like, I just, I just can't believe I get to see another fucking haunted house with this guy. I think that's what I'm, I'm thinking about is sort of like the consistency over 12, 15 years. I respond very strongly to his films. Like weapons is one of my favorites of, of, of that year. And I, I, I know. And I found for, for all the, what is weapons is not about anything. I was like, you're completely wrong. I couldn't understand that criticism at all. A ton of stuff. And it's not explicit, but it's there. And it's very, I think clear what it's about. Um, I support his right to like do four movies and take a beat. And you know, that would be probably like for, Quentin, that would have been like the kill bill and then the stop down after that. Right. Um, that's right. Good comparison. But I am fascinated to know what he wants to do outside of this genre because he is tiger when it comes to fucking shooting some of this stuff. Yeah. You know, you're like, if you can hit a six iron like that, would you ever stop? Like, it's the other reason why I really link he and peel together is I just think they both have such strong visual imaginations of what they want to show us that I really, really enjoy. And that's something that I don't always have the right vocabulary to communicate what it is that they're doing, but I know how it makes me feel. Well, that's one of the reasons why I'm so happy he made this is because I could imagine after weapons, a guy torturing himself to be like, how can I top that? What can I do that feels like a bigger tapestry or a more important movie or saying something? And instead he was like, what if I blew up a baby? It's great shit. This is a great movie. Uh, video games. Yeah. I wrote about this today in the, in the newsletter. Thanks. Um, great newsletter. I'm trying to, yeah, I'm just, I'm trying to figure it out. you know, because I'm a little bit behind the eight ball on this one where I don't know really any of these games well at all. So I don't know what is and is not viable. It was funny. I know what you mean when you were writing about this and in projections where you're like, I kind of can't do it because I can either be a completionist or I can be a passive like observer, but I can't have three games. Well, I made a joke on House of R like a year ago about how like I will play Elden Ring and I will and everybody was like, good fucking luck, buddy. How dare you think you could ever try to do anything? You fool man. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I would like to try, but I genuinely don't really feel like I usually had a console so that I can play FIFA historically like so I've for most of my adult life have had a PlayStation where we were we friends when I was still playing PS2 at my apartment. Where was the apartment? I mean, no, because you were coming to the place uptown and I had a PlayStation at that time for sure because I played Madden every day in college, but I don't remember if like when did I really kick the habit? Was it just like adult life started and I'm stopping? Yeah, I don't remember ever playing PS anything at your Brooklyn place. So it was probably sometime earlier early issue in New York for you. So then when I had one and you might have given it to Zach, I can't remember. Yeah, and then a man who was not happy about you would talk about playing PlayStation. Yeah, I had it. That was like early on in my relationship with the woman who I would go on to marry. We would just like sit around and I would play Max Payne and then she would be like, can I play Crazy Taxi? Right. I remember this very well. And you know, I've heard you speak of Red Dead Redemption, you know, a game that many people talk about should be adapted and is so cinematic in the first place and that's a real challenge with a lot of these properties and it's like, you know, Bioshock or Mass Effect or all these games, you know, we've got Fallout as a TV show. You've got a lot of TV shows that are coming out of this work right now. We can talk about some of those things. Noah Hawley's making Far Cry. Right. So there's going to be plenty of that stuff going around. I've talked about it a few times over the years on the show. Talked about it with Ben Lindbergh a couple times. Just what a sordid history of video game adaptations there are. And it feels like Hollywood has kind of figured it out or at least one component of it, which is that Sonic and Super Mario and Minecraft is video games for kids that have a little bit of that nostalgic feeling for parents. If done well, it can be a home run. Sure. Everything else creatively and for the most part commercially is kind of a coin flip and I see this movie as a huge breakthrough. I see this movie as it is the last of us four movies where it's like, this is going to be a huge movie that's going to have like whatever, a 92 on Metacritic. Which is just crazy. I mean, it's just like never happened. And you know, it's not going to win awards probably, despite Kreger, you know, getting nearer to the awards race with Weapons last year. But it does a similar thing to Weapons where like, that's a movie where at the end a bunch of kids tear the flesh off of a witch. Yeah. And made it respectable. And this is like, gonna kind of make movies like this respectable. And I'm, it's just an interesting turning point. So what's what do you think the lesson is going to be? What's going to happen to also is I think, I don't think it's going to come out until 28, but Garland directed, Alex Garland directed Elden Ring. So on one hand, a lesson could be give great filmmakers creative license to adapt these things the way they see fit. And you might get a baseline of very interested people like to prop this movie up commercially. And then also like this, you know, who knows what the artistic and critical ceiling of these things can be. So that's one way. Another is make these things hard fucking ours because people want to see their imaginations fulfilled when they watch them. So especially for stuff in the more of the horror genre, like Resident Evil is a lot of the bigger games over the last decade. This is like a very, very general statement. So please don't hold me to this feel to me like part of the popularity is based on their explorability. So GTA, the Red Dead movies games, I play Red Dead to ride my horse around. There is a story, but I like riding my horse and I like getting off the horse and being like, do you need water? You know, like you can play that for hours without engaging in a gunfight. I think this is a huge part of the success of Backrooms and the idea that Kane Parsons was hugely inspired by Portal, which is another game that is like that where you are moving through space kind of at your own pace and you're not bound by the conventions of at least movie narrative storytelling. Resident Evil again, kind of by breaking movie orthodoxy, it also nods to but it also ignores video game orthodoxy. And so I that first thing that you suggested I think would be a great outcome. And it's the thing that I always hope for. And you know when what's the example that you and Andy have always cited for I guess Andor is sort of like that's the potential upside of exploring valuable IP is a strong creative goes down an unusual path and gets to build something that is, you know, defined by genre and a little bit outside of the expectations of the commercial sphere in which it operates. Krieger did both. You know, he was like, I'm making a mainstream down the middle genre movie that also has lots of craft and art in it. And I think that this movie only exists because he wanted to make it because he pitched it to them. Sure. So there has to be creatives. And we're going to see. You mentioned Garland. Garland loved Elden Ring and that's why he's doing the movie. Michael Sarnoski is adapting Death Stranding. That's a thing. You know, Peter Berg, say what you will about him, is doing Call of Duty. Taylor Sheridan's writing the screenplay. There's never been a Call of Duty movie. And, you know, I'm not above enjoying a Call of Duty movie directed by Peter Berg. Like, he made Lone Survivor. I like that movie. Like, that totally seems credible to me and he does have a strong artistic vision, no matter what you think of its politics or whatever. So, I think that there's a world where it can be that, but it's more likely going to be trusted studio hand comes in on a $200 million movie. I think we'll have five Assassin's Creed's for every one Resident Evil. Yeah. And maybe the ratio will be even worse than that, but I don't think. I thought what you wrote about today with the sort of calcification of the process of DC and Marvel, where they're like, we're 10 years out. We know what we're doing. It seems to take Matt Reeves five years to make a movie. We've got the Gunverse. We're ramping up to X-Men. There's not a lot of room for surprises and experiments right now. So, maybe the video game adaptations. This is, like, it dwarfs comics in terms of its. the relationship it has with an audience already. So, if the idea with comic book stories was like, well, people already know. They know Superman. They love Batman. That was the point that I made. People fucking love Red Dead Redemption. Right. You know, like, they love. Well, think about the amount of hours that you've poured into that experience. That's the thing that makes this such a unique gambit. And in a way, I mean, video games for the last 20 years, this has been true. Maybe even for the last 30 or 40 years. But, I mean, it's just been putting movies to shame in terms of the cultural import that it has, the value it has financially to the entertainment industry. I mean, it's just operating in a totally different plane. So, you can't compare the two. But, I genuinely think that this is so helpful to the Resident Evil brand. And it makes it feel so special. I want to go play Resident Evil games now. And you can play remakes for different consoles, or you can play kind of like the old school versions of them, the more Capcom-y versions of them. But, you know, I think the fascinating thing with video games is that like a lot of the fun for me of playing them are not narrative-based. And they're not lore-based. Like, it's kind of interesting. I think Last of Us was a real revelation because it has so much story. I'm not too proud to admit it. I'm a big skip-the-cut-scene guy. You know? Yeah, sure. I was too when I played games. Let's go. Like, I want to get back to killing people. Yeah, I didn't care either. I think most gamers now are the opposite. Maybe it's generational. So, it's kind of funny to me to be like, did we honor the umbrella? Did we honor the umbrella corporation properly? It's like, that had never occurred to me while playing Resident Evil, you know? And the tension between games that have a lot of story and a lot of lore and how that translates and what liberties you allow people like Alex Garland to take versus somebody who might be a little bit more of a lunch pail director who's like, I don't have the pull to take over and make Assassin's Creed, you know, a weird black comedy. You just made me realize, though, I think why it was so easy for me to shed video games. Which is that my entire life, I'm always worried about control. That's a hang-up of mine, as you well know. And I think about it in everything that I do. Except when I'm at the movies. In the movies, somebody else is in control. Hey, you want to get dominated. I do. And that's what this movie does. It does. And I wouldn't want to spend my free time, my free leisure time being in of a character the way that I am when I play a video game. - Yeah. intellectualizing it but i think it's probably the truth and a movie takes you away and it frees you from that concern in a way that is very special now there are some most video game fans i imagine they want to be in control they want they like that feeling because maybe they feel powerless in in parts of their life is your point about how they watch the cut scenes i think maybe it's a hybrid i think it is it it's like i get to control what feels like cinema i mean it's almost going back to putting a dollar 75 into dragon slayer and being like i'm playing a cartoon right like a real real cartoon for a second for sure and then die you know like yes but you know you think about like why didn't halo work why didn't assassin's creed work why didn't some of these bigger efforts persia yeah uncharted and maybe it is just they weren't good and maybe it is that there's this tension between i don't want to watch him be master chief i want to be master chief like i don't know like the the cool thing about the movie is that it's like it's like the movie is like it's like it's like execution for some of this stuff would be to your point back back rooms esque explorations of the old west or you know gta like vice city and and just being like what if this character just like walked around for a while yes that's the giant white polar bear looming is the gta 6 comes out in two months yeah and when it comes out it has to be like it has to be like it has to be like it has a chance to kind of blot out what you and i spend a lot of time podcasting about for a huge segment of the audience sure for a while yeah because there's only so many hours in the day and it this seems like the most anticipated movie of all or excuse me most anticipated game of all time and there's never been talk of a movie a gta movie and playing gta i have played gta so i certainly was playing various iterations of that game over time into the 2000s and i i similarly was like not super interested in the cut scenes but that felt like a more novel execution of control because you could just fuck around so much yeah but there's a part of me that deep down thinks within the next 10 years we will have a gta movie i don't know what you think about that i i don't know why we don't already uh i mean i think probably people who really play games and you know if you if you were if you like playing fortnite you're probably like fortnite's bigger than the movies you know gta is bigger than the finally deigned to like make a movie out of this that thing is rock star say final okay we're gonna see if this will work and we'll let you know does ryan coogler want to make gta let's make it you know would be interesting yeah um can you just tell me a little bit about horror comedy since we talked so much about it just just very briefly um because this is something i have always loved and it's a big part of my gateway into horror and i think when you're when you're a kid of our generation you get a bunch of movies like gremlins and monster squad and ghostbusters that hold your hand into the world of horror i was the kind of kid who would go to the library and like look at books about like monsters and myths and just read about them all the time but i think i got those ideas from seeing these movies and there's two versions of it there's movies like that that are for kids to make them laugh that adults might like too if they like dr venkman and then there's like this movie is for adults but it's funny sure the latter i think is impossible i think it's like what resident evil is yeah yeah there's like five movies like it that are like actually great although i will say one of the things that made me so elated while watching this movie is that i have been feeling the same thing that i know you have been feeling which is horror movies are becoming a drag and i still will go watch almost anything that is a horror movie but i am more often than not sitting through 45 minutes of ponderous like self-examination and sadness rather than is this scary and fun like we can we have like a like a fun genre experience i agree and the pendulum is fully swung like when i started watching horror movies i didn't really like watching joe dante movies i didn't really like watching like goofier kind of horror right i wanted to be scandalized and terrified and then the sort of however you want to describe uh elevated horror i think that the long tale of that being this is like a haunted house movie or a possession movie or a scary guy in the woods movie but we're like talking about like why is he scary though why is this guy in the woods the sad and darkened tone and why were you in the woods in the first place did your mom die like you're probably pretty sad about that let's talk a lot about that family history intent all of those things that i'm just tired i'm just tired of it and it's it's nothing against any individual film it's just like we have now hit like a breaking point where i think they're just filling out movies with like lots of really rude kind of uh introspection so to have this and to have this maybe be like is a changer come in you know are we gonna get back to like spraying blood everywhere and just you know maybe having like a an amazing mindless time at a movie that would be kind of cool if that swung because i think it would only make the elevated stuff that much more powerful if it was less dominant well there's just so few examples of that i think it would only make the elevated stuff that much more powerful if it was less dominant well there's just so few examples though of combining the gore with the comedy in a way that is effective yeah like to me it's an extremely short list like it's like fright night an american werewolf in london shauna the dead do you think evil dead is too far in the other direction no i think evil dead 2 is a masterpiece i think army of darkness is awesome and i like the original evil dead of course landmark movie um i think those movies have been like ripped off so many times that it's almost it's like casablanca at this point you know it's so foundational that franchise is really illustrative of what i'm talking about and they fuck completely fucked it by making it so serious but you know i liked rise enough i liked rise as well but burn is a real drag sucks and it has like some good shit in it but it is like individual kills are good but yeah the tone of the movie is way off and it is exactly what you're describing um there are like a lot of examples of horror movies to me that i think are fun and funny but are not great horror comedies you know what i mean like texas chainsaw massacre 2 is like a super funny movie and very effective and a great zag away from the original you know 20 years later um same for like the return of the living dead or creep show um or i mean barbarian is kind of like this you know barbarian is like the hard cut to justin long singing along in the convertible after one of the like the biggest like what the fuck is about to happen scares in a movie in some time is brilliant yeah but sustaining that feeling for the long time is really tough like i find cabin in the woods very clever and amusing but i don't know if i laughed while watching it you know what i mean i think when i think i laughed at the twists and i think i laughed at especially on rewatch when you know what you're seeing there's stuff that's funnier because you know it's like playing a trope kind of uh and that they're not really in control uh yeah i mean like i rewatched lake placid recently i wouldn't necessarily call that like a horror movie but it is something that is like every scene is based basically written comically yeah but it is a there's a lot of gore and i mean like people get eaten by a giant gator you know yeah i never know how to put my arms around the the genre because there's obvious stuff like i've been trying to figure out if alice can watch abed and costello meet frankenstein and whether she would enjoy that or like get it and i'll follow up with you about that soon when another movie comes out okay it is related to that but you know frankenstein is no longer like really scary to little kids the original frankenstein but i don't know if young frankenstein is funny to people either now um and so kind of that's the other thing is that obviously comic sensibilities really change over time and i could imagine a 20 year old hearing us say the words fright night and watching the original and being like this junky old thing you know like i really don't know it evolves on yelch and colin farrell remake of fright night is actually if you if you're like maybe that earlier comic sensibility is not for you like that one but it's still it's still got some some funny parts yeah i mean you know like look i think i think it's a balance i think weaving it together is the hard part in scream trying to think scream two probably is the among the funnier ones i suppose i think it's more jokey but not as funny as one like one jamie kennedy and matthew lillard in one actually make me laugh right two you can feel williamson leaning into the kind of clever right like laugh lines two is oliphant yeah and right okay um so you know it's a really i mean little shop of horrors is maybe another movie that like is like kind of funny is kind of horror certainly was scary to me when i was in third grade and saw it um but it's a it's a very unusual territory and so it's so funny for a huge video game adaptation from one of the most talked about directors of the last five years that also happens to be horror is also a very unusual one of the funniest movies of the year yeah very unusual any any closing thoughts um i was wondering what you think the backlash against this movie would be or not even the backlash but what's the what's the i mean for everything we do it'll be you guys oversold this but what's the first real like the problem that's not even like the problem i don't even want to do this i was gonna say like let's like let's let's i mean there was a sharp backlash to weapons that seemed like very online and not very real world to me um and i think it's a really funny movie And I think some Some of it will just be about, like, I thought it was too gross, or I didn't think there was anything to really hold on to. Yeah, I've seen people be like, there's no characters. Again, I think it asks an interesting question about that very concern, which is, who cares? Yeah, can you name a single person in, like, these 10 horror movies? Like, what do they want? It's not really the point. You know, it's a ride. This has been a ride. You feel good? Yeah. I feel like this is going to be in, like, my top five. Probably, I mean, that's not surprising because it's, like, it's Tic-Tac-Toe. It's the most Tic-Tac-Toe movie of the year for me, where I'm like, you made a laugh-out-loud funny movie that is utterly disgusting with incredible craft. I say it just because I don't remember the last time a director has had one of my favorite movies of the year, year after year, in successive years. I mean, it's just as bad as TV, where you have to wait 24 months between seasons. You know, most of these people are not working that fast. But that's the other upside of moving quickly and making your movies not two hours and 42 minutes. CR, thank you. Thank you for having me. You're the goat. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on today's episode. Thanks to Lucas Cavanaugh for his production support. Next week, Adam Naiman returns to the show to break down everything that he saw at the Toronto International Film Festival. That, of course, augurs the start of the Best Picture Power Rankings here on this show, which Amanda and I will do. Adam, you better like Resident Evil. No promises there. You know what? Maybe Zack Kreger will stop by on Monday, too. We'll see. You'll have to just tune in and find out. See you then. Tammy regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college. That's why she shops at BJ's Wholesale Club, saving up to 25% off grocery store prices. Beef jerky, microwave meals, laundry pods, even they can't screw up. Have you met my kids? And with BJ's gas, she gets there for less. 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